[It's the hesitation that catches Leto's ear the most.
The rest he listens to diligently. None of it is a total shock, for of course they both of them have danced around such topics before. The little traumas (little such a relative term), the horrors that do not immediately spring to mind, but that haunt them both nonetheless. Some of them have already slipped out, snuck gently between moments of idle conversation (the two of them in the kitchen making dinner, Cazador once had a spawn slice her fingers to the knuckle after she served one of his guests a sloppily made dish, always delivered wryly, always dropped off at Leto's feet and then danced away from before they could linger. And he never minded, for he would do the same: little humiliations that still hurt him on dark nights; horrors so nauseating and so pointless he had long since tried to forget them.
But the rage still rises in him. The useless grief and protective anger that always, always flares at times like these; the sort he has to bite back nowadays for fear of terrifying Astarion further. I'll kill him, I'll torture him, I'll hurt him for every grief, every indignity, every trauma . . . And he would. Oh, he would. Leto will not go back on his promise, but trust that someday, he will see Cazador dead.
For it's different than it was with Danarius. His former master was no paragon of virtue, but gods, he was never so cruelly volatile. Slaves were property, and just as you don't smash a lamp for the crime of burning down to the wick, so too would Danarius keep his temper (to a point). His wealth was finite, after all, and there was no sense in wasting thousands of gold pieces on a corpse when you could torture them into correctness. But Cazador . . .
They weren't even property, Leto realizes. He had been Danarius' prized hound, but Astarion wasn't even a dog. Just a living, breathing object, ready to be indulged or toyed with or tortured as his master saw fit. It made the lows worse than Leto can imagine (and he knows, he knows he can't, in the same way Isabela could never truly imagine the hells of his own enslavement), but the highs . . .
Oh, it must have been bliss.
But that hesitation. That half-formed sentence and the silence that follows speak volumes, for it has been so long since they've hesitated like this. And when the question comes . . .
Ah.]
Sometimes.
[It comes after a long pause. There is not another soul in any world he would admit this to.]
Parts of it . . . yes. I miss it. The simplicity of it . . . to know my purpose and my function, to have orders and fulfill them, and earn praise for it . . .
Or when he was pleased with me. When he would spoil me for it, or confide in me, or plan with me for some event within the magisterium, and I felt as though it was the two of us against the world . . .
[He hates himself a little for saying it. No: he hates himself so much for saying it. So much so that nausea roils in his belly; the blunt edge of that rock digs against his palm, leaving a marked indent where it presses.]
Yes.
[He stares out at the jagged outline of Baldur's Gate. And then, softly:]
But I miss it less now than I did when I was first freed.
I do not know if it ever goes away. Perhaps not. But the first few years it was strongest.
When I lived with the Fog Warriors . . . I told you I begged them for orders. It was not just because I did not know how to function. And later, when I was on the run . . . on the hardest days, I would miss it. The, the simplicity. The ease of having one road to walk.
[Another pause. A hesitation, for he has never thought about this when it comes to himself— but oh, Astarion is so different.]
. . . and it— it is different than missing him. Or being beneath his heel.
no subject
The rest he listens to diligently. None of it is a total shock, for of course they both of them have danced around such topics before. The little traumas (little such a relative term), the horrors that do not immediately spring to mind, but that haunt them both nonetheless. Some of them have already slipped out, snuck gently between moments of idle conversation (the two of them in the kitchen making dinner, Cazador once had a spawn slice her fingers to the knuckle after she served one of his guests a sloppily made dish, always delivered wryly, always dropped off at Leto's feet and then danced away from before they could linger. And he never minded, for he would do the same: little humiliations that still hurt him on dark nights; horrors so nauseating and so pointless he had long since tried to forget them.
But the rage still rises in him. The useless grief and protective anger that always, always flares at times like these; the sort he has to bite back nowadays for fear of terrifying Astarion further. I'll kill him, I'll torture him, I'll hurt him for every grief, every indignity, every trauma . . . And he would. Oh, he would. Leto will not go back on his promise, but trust that someday, he will see Cazador dead.
For it's different than it was with Danarius. His former master was no paragon of virtue, but gods, he was never so cruelly volatile. Slaves were property, and just as you don't smash a lamp for the crime of burning down to the wick, so too would Danarius keep his temper (to a point). His wealth was finite, after all, and there was no sense in wasting thousands of gold pieces on a corpse when you could torture them into correctness. But Cazador . . .
They weren't even property, Leto realizes. He had been Danarius' prized hound, but Astarion wasn't even a dog. Just a living, breathing object, ready to be indulged or toyed with or tortured as his master saw fit. It made the lows worse than Leto can imagine (and he knows, he knows he can't, in the same way Isabela could never truly imagine the hells of his own enslavement), but the highs . . .
Oh, it must have been bliss.
But that hesitation. That half-formed sentence and the silence that follows speak volumes, for it has been so long since they've hesitated like this. And when the question comes . . .
Ah.]
Sometimes.
[It comes after a long pause. There is not another soul in any world he would admit this to.]
Parts of it . . . yes. I miss it. The simplicity of it . . . to know my purpose and my function, to have orders and fulfill them, and earn praise for it . . .
Or when he was pleased with me. When he would spoil me for it, or confide in me, or plan with me for some event within the magisterium, and I felt as though it was the two of us against the world . . .
[He hates himself a little for saying it. No: he hates himself so much for saying it. So much so that nausea roils in his belly; the blunt edge of that rock digs against his palm, leaving a marked indent where it presses.]
Yes.
[He stares out at the jagged outline of Baldur's Gate. And then, softly:]
But I miss it less now than I did when I was first freed.
I do not know if it ever goes away. Perhaps not. But the first few years it was strongest.
When I lived with the Fog Warriors . . . I told you I begged them for orders. It was not just because I did not know how to function. And later, when I was on the run . . . on the hardest days, I would miss it. The, the simplicity. The ease of having one road to walk.
[Another pause. A hesitation, for he has never thought about this when it comes to himself— but oh, Astarion is so different.]
. . . and it— it is different than missing him. Or being beneath his heel.