[The evening goes in sections, like the chapters of a book:
‘You were right, you know.’ He adds, somewhere before they depart. ‘If you were trapped like that, it wasn’t her fault. Being used doesn't make anyone into a monster.’
A flash of glinting canines before he amends:
‘Not that it matters what I think.’
Snap forward in time, and it’s the same self-assured flash of teeth Astarion gives in the tentative seconds after they’re surrounded, like an unassuming beast suddenly flaring venomous barbs. Atmospheric tenor gone blissfully wrong under the combined crack of both it and the pervasive scent of fresh ozone. How Astarion lives for moments like these, adrenaline soaring as sweetly in his veins as his own untamed malice.
The wine-rich vibrancy of spilled blood dots the lines of their split clothes, colder now. Coin clinks against their palms. They laugh somewhere along the way, and the reason for it doesn't quite stick in the back of Astarion's mind when he shoves open the heavy door to his home with a buckled shoulder fit tight against its span, only that it happens. That they have the luxury of sharing it.
There’s a bowl-sized basin by the hearth meant for washing, and he lends it to Fenris first. And when he fits himself by the fire he does try not to stare—
Maybe, depending on Fenris’ mood or sight or sense of wearied awareness at that point in time, he succeeds.
It doesn’t much matter.
What matters is that Fenris agrees to stay. Safe in shallow numbers. Door locked and stony walls secure, Astarion left awake for a little while longer in the simple ensemble he always slumbers in (loose shirt, thin slacks; the illusion of resting nude in gleaming finery is only ever just that: something worked up only when he’s entertaining here or in the Gallows, as much a fantasy as anything else so eagerly offered) trading glances out the window— and towards Fenris’ dozing form where it's heaped beneath thick covers, a lone sentry for a threat that never comes.
Danger, though, finds him regardless.
He never sleeps well. And tonight, with the wick of all prior inebriation run low, the satchet Cole had gifted him fails in its task. His fingers curl under the weight of his subconscious, clawing fitfully at his own chest, the process illuminated sickly green from the shard tucked against his palm. His breathing stutters, spit-flecked and wild. His teeth snap in pitifully warding patterns, as if there were anything to be done to stop what assails him in sleep—
Red eyes. Hectoring commands still stitched into his bones, impossible to defy.
A hand pressed against his shoulder—
And he reels from it. Not in dreams, but reality: choking out a startled bark as he snaps upright and twists to fit his back against the wall just beside his bed, hollow eyes wide and wet and flickering with fear. His palms brace across stone, numb from the knuckles down. There’s blood on his lips.
It’s only his, he realizes, sluggish and uprooted.
He’d bitten his own tongue somewhere along the way, a narrow sting tucked across its leftmost edge.
But the sight that comes belatedly into focus isn’t the one he’d dreamed of. And it takes him longer than it should to map the difference between reality and its hazy antithesis. Fenris can’t be here? —no, Fenris is here. They’d spent the evening together. He chose to stay.
Someone he trusts, yes. But not someone he’d want seeing him like this, fragile as cracked glass, cut entirely from the tattered cloth of his own horrific past.
Hells.
The sheets are tangled tight around his ankles thanks to his own thrashing retreat. It aches, aside from making the matter of trying to shift away from where he’s curled against the wall all the more difficult. And bloody awkward. Swallowing thick in his throat only to taste the bitter tang of bile as it mingles with iron.]
...shit, I...
[Breathless. Nauseated. His heart panging painfully in his chest. His fingers tremble.
He masks it by tucking them against his shirt, already drawing away from dusty stone by narrow degrees.
no subject
‘You were right, you know.’ He adds, somewhere before they depart. ‘If you were trapped like that, it wasn’t her fault. Being used doesn't make anyone into a monster.’
A flash of glinting canines before he amends:
‘Not that it matters what I think.’
Snap forward in time, and it’s the same self-assured flash of teeth Astarion gives in the tentative seconds after they’re surrounded, like an unassuming beast suddenly flaring venomous barbs. Atmospheric tenor gone blissfully wrong under the combined crack of both it and the pervasive scent of fresh ozone. How Astarion lives for moments like these, adrenaline soaring as sweetly in his veins as his own untamed malice.
The wine-rich vibrancy of spilled blood dots the lines of their split clothes, colder now. Coin clinks against their palms. They laugh somewhere along the way, and the reason for it doesn't quite stick in the back of Astarion's mind when he shoves open the heavy door to his home with a buckled shoulder fit tight against its span, only that it happens. That they have the luxury of sharing it.
There’s a bowl-sized basin by the hearth meant for washing, and he lends it to Fenris first. And when he fits himself by the fire he does try not to stare—
Maybe, depending on Fenris’ mood or sight or sense of wearied awareness at that point in time, he succeeds.
It doesn’t much matter.
What matters is that Fenris agrees to stay. Safe in shallow numbers. Door locked and stony walls secure, Astarion left awake for a little while longer in the simple ensemble he always slumbers in (loose shirt, thin slacks; the illusion of resting nude in gleaming finery is only ever just that: something worked up only when he’s entertaining here or in the Gallows, as much a fantasy as anything else so eagerly offered) trading glances out the window— and towards Fenris’ dozing form where it's heaped beneath thick covers, a lone sentry for a threat that never comes.
Danger, though, finds him regardless.
He never sleeps well. And tonight, with the wick of all prior inebriation run low, the satchet Cole had gifted him fails in its task. His fingers curl under the weight of his subconscious, clawing fitfully at his own chest, the process illuminated sickly green from the shard tucked against his palm. His breathing stutters, spit-flecked and wild. His teeth snap in pitifully warding patterns, as if there were anything to be done to stop what assails him in sleep—
Red eyes. Hectoring commands still stitched into his bones, impossible to defy.
A hand pressed against his shoulder—
And he reels from it. Not in dreams, but reality: choking out a startled bark as he snaps upright and twists to fit his back against the wall just beside his bed, hollow eyes wide and wet and flickering with fear. His palms brace across stone, numb from the knuckles down. There’s blood on his lips.
It’s only his, he realizes, sluggish and uprooted.
He’d bitten his own tongue somewhere along the way, a narrow sting tucked across its leftmost edge.
But the sight that comes belatedly into focus isn’t the one he’d dreamed of. And it takes him longer than it should to map the difference between reality and its hazy antithesis. Fenris can’t be here? —no, Fenris is here. They’d spent the evening together. He chose to stay.
Someone he trusts, yes. But not someone he’d want seeing him like this, fragile as cracked glass, cut entirely from the tattered cloth of his own horrific past.
Hells.
The sheets are tangled tight around his ankles thanks to his own thrashing retreat. It aches, aside from making the matter of trying to shift away from where he’s curled against the wall all the more difficult. And bloody awkward. Swallowing thick in his throat only to taste the bitter tang of bile as it mingles with iron.]
...shit, I...
[Breathless. Nauseated. His heart panging painfully in his chest. His fingers tremble.
He masks it by tucking them against his shirt, already drawing away from dusty stone by narrow degrees.
What a wretched sanctuary he's provided.]