albinomilksnake | RP: OPEN POST

“Well there’s...not much to tell, actually. You see I’ve never had the luxury of feeding on anything but animals for sustenance.”

Strange, how it feels like a lifetime ago after spending so much time in Thedas. He thins his lips into a narrow frown, finally feeling yet another tether to this world solidify as reality, rather than a dream.

But it’s fine. It’s fine.

“It’s weakening. I can’t draw power from beasts, but it keeps me alive, so...”

His palms splay as he offers a little half shrug. Better than draining people, yes? Better than killing?

Fenris speaks with the sort of indulgent annoyance one does a with a close friend, which he considers the very least of what they are. "Yes, that, I'd gathered."

More seriously, "how often will you need to feed on me? And can you eat... normal food? Or does it disgust you?"

“None. Infrequently. Don’t be daft, darling, I can’t go sipping on you like— ” the cutoff is quick, like dropping under a river current, his voice raising without warning. “well I don’t know, do I? How much I can take, how much would hurt you. Kill you.”

He’s frustrated enough to bare sharp teeth in his enunciations, fitting them them together in jagged little patterns, hand rising to swat dismissively in emptied space.

“I can choose to eat if I want to, but it’s nothing. Paper. Ash. Whatever you want to call it, all vampires need is blood: the stronger the better.”

And then it ebbs as quickly as it’d come on, neck stretched long, expression low and sullen. It’s not unusual, he sulks often, the show of it cathartic in a way.

“At least your world was kinder to me in that regard. Never had to worry about killing a bloody apple in order to stay alive.”

Fenris is not, he thinks, a physical presence except in a fight. When he speaks, he focuses on words, and his hands move without his bidding, trying to make the world take shape between his lips. Whatever instinct has him putting a calming hand on Astarian's arm is something innate, learned before memory, before whatever self he had and then lost and then found again was formed.

"I meant no insult. Only to consider strategy."

Fenris finds the urge to kiss him very strong. How idiotic.

"I lost blood regularly for most of my remembered life, either in fights or... ritual. I know my limits."

He’s normally averse to comfort like that, being calmed in tension by touch. Yet those fingers find him as surely as the words they carry, and he withdraws from neither, all rounded at the edges as the pale curls tucked round his ears.

He sighs then, forearm turning to let his own hand brush light against Fenris’ elbow, dancing across the edge of that armor.

“Then you...” a bridging segue, tentative as steps along a ledge. “You must tell me everything. Don’t let me go too far, I’d never want that for you.”

He’d stop himself. He knows he would, but that doesn’t mean he might not inherently weaken the man, and that’s a danger Astarion desperately wishes to avoid in a world as cruel as this.

“I don’t need power half as much as I need you.”

Fenris ducks his head at those words, so honest coming from a man who loathes the frank truths Fenris trades in. He doesn't yet deserve them, but he reassures himself: he will in time.

"We will protect each other," he says, not a suggestion so much as a commitment. "You protected me last night. Now, I, you."

He means the boar. He's still absurdly proud of that.

"Not tonight again, but the same amount after, and with a good night's sleep I will be fine. Perhaps better meals than what a creek can offer, but I've survived worse places on far less."

“Trust me, I will see you fed and rested in no time. It’s the least I can do.”

And true to his word, it’s a half-day’s travel north along narrow roads before they reach a cozy little tavern tucked along the shores of a crystal clear riverbank. It isn’t bustling per se, but enough bodies are milling about that a pair of high elves checking themselves in for a hot meal in waning light hardly makes for a noticeable affair.

Astarion’s own portion he carts to their room. Something for Fenris to ferret away later: he’ll need his strength.

“Aha, how I’ve missed this.” Doublet already cast off, leaving the airy frills of his blouse untucked, he lances his arms out to either side of him as he tips dramatically backwards onto his own mattress— sinking into what surely must be handmade patch quilting, plush with wear and age alike. “Gods, no petty coin was ever spent better.”

His head turns, curls rucked up high around sharp cheekbones, those catlike teeth glinting in warm candlelight as he grins.

“A bed I’ve promised, and a bed I’ve delivered.” Two beds, in fact, which is clearly a show of prowess on Astarion’s own part. “Feel free to shower me in gratitude, I’ve more than earned it.”

Fenris lounges on one of the beds, having removed his gauntlets and pauldrons again. It's more comfortable, and Fenris feels safe enough to to be comfortable. A novelty in and of itself.

"I am utterly thankful you are a better pickpocket than I." Fenris didn't see it, but how else did he manage to get the coin for a private room? Unless such things are cheaper here. He doesn't know. "Have you missed it so in only two and a half days?"

"I've always been good with my hands." He sounds proud in that moment— not of himself (oh, all right, not just of himself) but Fenris as well: he'd guessed correctly exactly what transpired without needing to see it, without needing to ask.

The man's cleverer than he lets on, sometimes.

"Two and a half days in the dirt might well be yet another lifetime. I'm not meant for it, not even with the benefit of good company."

Fenris's voice is warmed, to see Astarion so restored. He watches him placidly, trying to save this moment in his memory, frame it against the harder times that will no doubt face them.

"I would call you an almost indestructibly hardy creature," Fenris says lightly, "if I did not know you would pretend to be offended. Who did you pickpocket; need I keen an eye out for them?"

"They never even knew I was there." Said with no modest grin as he rises, arms braced just against the edge of his own chosen bed, shoulders high. Fenris might be bracing for harsher days, but all Astarion thinks of is balmy sunlight and fair, fair weather. The world's never looked so bright, in fact, nor all its hells.

Still, it grants him a view, that brief little indulgence: ignoring markings crawling up sharp features in favor of said features and— once realizing he isn't alone in admiration— Astarion stands with prowling fluidity, stepping just once across the gap between before fitting a knee to the mattress framing Fenris' own figure. Then the other.

His own half-bare arms slung high across unarmored shoulders, laced just behind his neck, close enough that exhaled breath would make for pooling warmth...if Astarion had much of it to spare.

"Do you want to know the best thing about returning from your world?"

Fenris watches him, of course he's been watching. Astarion moving closer, such unflinching forwardness, is always appreciated. Fenris is open with his appreciation, though it is not hunger that crosses his expression. He simply likes what he sees, and makes no secret of that.

"The company?"

He's joking, in his own somber way.

That grin widens by degrees, flashing teeth, though only just. Yet it softens a half-beat later, wicked angles sinking slowly into sweetness where he scuffs the span of his profile across Fenris' own. Something fragile dwells here, in the narrow gaps between their bodies. Emotions or memories or—

"I can’t feel him. Nothing at all, not his voice, not his— incessant desire. Only you. And me."

Dark lashes lower as his eyes lid. An exhale, before he steals the press of their lips, decadent, reverent: he keeps his own beastliness at bay for at least a little while longer.

"And that’s all I want."

So yes, Fenris. The company...and so much more than that.

"And we will keep-" his promise is cut short by the kiss, and Fenris sputters, smiling despite himself. He does not handle a kiss stolen with half as much grace as Astarion. Another point to him, not that he needs any more.

A few moments, as Fenris removes breastplate and bevor. He's stalling, and it's not hard to see.

"And all I want is your comfort and safety, as well." He says while he unbuckles the armor from the thin black leather worn underneath. He unbuckles his belt, and throws that aside as well. "Though I may ask a favor...?"

"Not to worry," Coy when he settles back across Fenris' lap to allow him further opportunity to undress. It isn't courtesy, mind: there's no masking the selfish glint in those vivid red eyes even as he sets long fingers ever so delicately across his heart— the loose-slung front of his blouse meaning they rest against bare skin, rather than gauzy cloth.

"I'll keep my fangs to myself. You have my word."

Fenris shakes his head. "I have said I trust you in that regard. I don't say such things idly."

No, this is significantly more awkward, and Fenris becomes a bit stiff backed just thinking about it. His shoulders sit at an uneven angle, and his face turns from Astarion.

He wishes he hadn't taken his armor off, before this conversation became a necessity.

"My former master, Danarius, he-" No, no, start again, "there were certain acts... I did not- there were no choices..."

This is all nonsense. Fenris gathers himself with a sour frown, and swears quietly in Tevene. His voice is dark with poison hate. "I only ask you are patient with me."

It isn’t a pout, the way he frowns. There’s no practiced grace, no pull to his features in ways that define his own animated expressions. Whatever joke he’d otherwise use to deflect— for both their sakes— never comes.

This, for however long it lasts, is Astarion without sleight of hand in place to distract.

He almost wishes he weren’t already poised across Fenris’ lap, invading the man’s space as surely as any thief. It makes all contact in the wake of it seem crueler, but all he can hope for is that intent might make up the difference.

“Two hundred years is a long time, darling.” From the moment his own last living breath left him until now, the span of all his hell and his eventual triumph in accidental freedom. He’d not spoken deeply of it, there were boundaries between he and Fenris that required no definition— but he likes to imagine that with context, with the way his own stare sinks low and his fingertips carefully reach to catch the set of Fenris’ jaw, that the reiteration of just how long he’d been tethered to Cazador might offer insight into just how much he understands.

“You need explain none of it to me.”

Those fingers turn, knuckles coaxing as they lead back into a careful, bridging kiss. More contact than romantic gesture: an anchor point, an lynchpin, a brace.

There is a difference, after all. Between being robbed, and sparing freely.

Fenris relaxes just slightly to find himself understood-- he should have never doubted Astarion-- but the kiss breaks what remains of his resolve. He deepens it of his own accord, until it occurs to him the mixed message he must be sending. Abruptly, unsubtly, he moves away, embarrassed and awkward.

"Know that my hesitance is not for lack of desire," he says. He stares at Astarion's chest, the open window that his blouse makes, and imagines the bright and beautiful soul Astarion surely believes he lacks. "Tonight, if I have not disgusted you, but... slowly."

“You could never disgust me. Not in a thousand years of unlife, have a little trust in that.”

He’s seen true ugliness, and it doesn’t come from pain or lasting scars, but in the eyes of those gone mad with power over the souls they’ve ensnared.

“Now then.” Bright spark, songbird lilt, as though nothing at all is amiss, the gleam in his eyes rekindled as he rolls off of Fenris’ lap to tumble down across the mattress instead. Between the two of them, Astarion is suited to this— and he’s more than content to embrace that if it means offering a little relief.

The hem of his shirt rumples high, exposing the lines of his stomach, slender fingertips stretching down to unfasten his trousers. He lengthens the arch of his spine, sighing between sharp teeth. The leg nearest to Fenris drawn up and bent between them like a bar: keeping him from thinking this is something he needs to join in on.

Tonight means now— but not for Fenris. Not until he’s well and undeniably ready.

“Dinner and a show, perhaps? And since you’ve already eaten...well, that just leaves the show.”

His touch is featherlight as he frees himself, letting his fingers splay and catch across still-relaxed contours, breathing far more slowly— far more visibly— than he needs to, his gaze never leaving Fenris’ own.

"I- I,,," It's not eloquent, the sudden resurgence of a need that has been with him all day, and much of last night. He can ignore his needs well, his wants, but not when they are dangled in front of him. His hand grips one of Astarion's legs, hand wrapping round under the knee. His gaze, large eyes open, lingers hungrily on Astarion's chest.

"You- ah, hmm." He coughs unsubtly. "You wish me to... watch?"

“Why not?” He asks, the corner of his mouth gone vivid as it rises to curl, still laboring to sound as though he still needs air.

“I assume you’re unused to being catered to, of course, but believe me when I say that I think you’re...” he turns his leg a little more into Fenris’ grip, just a difference in degrees to grant him better view before one emphasized gasp draws his spine higher, running his grip tight right from base to crest. “...long overdue?”

If there was ever any doubt whether or not a vampire could...perform, that particular question seems solved, now. He’s certainly not listless on the job.

Fenris presses his mouth to Astarion's knee, a kiss with no end, while his other hand clenches into a fist. The lines of his markings, white from elbow to each fingertip, become momentarily lost in the bloodlessness of his knuckles.

"You wish to test me."

There’s a scoff for that, not unfond in its nature. A little half-step away from a laugh as his fingers still themselves briefly in their work, looking almost modest for the trouble.

“Only you would think of this as a test.” But oh, the sight of that face staring down at him, lips buried. It’s enough to make a man go mad. “Most people simply enjoy whetting their appetite on a view like this.”

Of course Fenris isn’t most people, and since he’d intended this to be a scant gift to a man that’d been forced to serve others for so long, he can’t help but feel a touch guilty that it seems to be...difficult. His smile flexes, his eyes dark when he allows his leg to relax, drawing it away from Fenris' mouth like a blockade removed from between them.

“But if you can’t wait...”

That permission is all it takes for Fenris to practically crawl atop Astarion, peppering his face with hungry kisses, both hands bunched in the fabric of his shirt. His words are Tevene, soft and sweet and completely incomprehensible to one who doesn't know the tongue. Yet his tone is unmistakable, adoration and lust.

One hand slides down to stroke him, before getting distracted with pulling off his leathers, and he's trying to do too many things at once: kiss and pull off his vest and touch and worm out of trousers.

The problem, Fenris hadn't explained, isn't that he hasn't had partners since his escape from slavery. It isn't that (the majority of them) moved too fast for Fenris' needs. It's that Fenris feels emotions deeply, crucially, and has trouble slowing himself down to his needs. Of course, he's yet to notice the discrepancy; why mention it?

Awash in him— the heat of that vivid breath, the weight of his body, all those scuffing kisses, that grip— it isn’t performative this time, the heady sigh of wanting that slides sweetly between sharp teeth. He’d expected... not this. Something more akin to coaxing a stray indoors. Promising warmth and comfort by way of his own lurid embrace.

Instead he’s the one taken under, made a fool of for thinking he’d need to be the one steering their oars, as it were.

Well, watching Fenris claw at his leathers while struggling to lose no momentum, he thinks he might still need to. Just a little.

“I won’t burn to ash come daylight. Promise.”

His head is tilted, his sharp teeth playful when they sink into the edge of Fenris’ jaw— refusing to break skin, as though only demanding his focus by sensation alone. Chasing it with a single press of soft lips.

“There’s all the time in the world for us now...savor it, won’t you?” He presses up onto his own elbows, working to rise to undress himself in turn in the gaps between Fenris’ own rabbiting needs. “Or don’t. But at least let me undress first.”

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