A close cut along the side and back of my head. But leave the front long.
[His fingers gesture, drawing lines against his scalp in indication. It's a distracted motion (he really should take the state of his hair more seriously), for his thoughts linger on what Astarion. It is not a revelation, exactly; he had known there were countless other spawn, and it makes sense that Astarion was occasionally called to tend to them. But still . . . it's odd to think of him doing something so intimate to someone he despised.]
Danarius would have me do that for him at times. When he would leave Castellum Tenebris— his fortress— on business, he trusted only me to hold a blade to his throat.
[How many times had Leto thought about killing him? How many times had his hand trembled, his eyes wide as he fantasized about what it would be to tip the blade just so, sinking into soft flesh? Ah, but of course the answer is simple. Never. Not once. He was still obedient (still stupid) in those days, his thoughts only ever filled with how best to please his master and avoid his wrath.
It's an idle fact, offered up as a sort of exchange, and Leto falls silent after he says it. Eyes closing, he allows himself the quiet pleasure of focusing on those touches. They're brief things, minute little brushes of Astarion's fingers against the back of his neck, nudging his head to tip this way and that, but oh, he savors them. Behind closed lids, he watches the firelight from the hearth dance and flicker; feels the warmth seeping into his skin, chasing away the last of the spring chill. Slowly the perpetual tension eases out of his shoulders, his guard lowering even as Astarion slides that razor near his scalp.
There's something to be said, he thinks sleepily, for trusting someone so much. Would he allow anyone else this close? Not likely. Certainly not with his back turned; he'd be on high alert the entire time, just in case. But it's always so different with Astarion, and he's beginning to notice that more and more.]
Do you call everyone that?
[It's low. Not upset, nor indeed overly pleased. Just curious, a quiet question to break the silence.]
[He plans on asking for more. More details. More facets of Leto’s life— he’s become insatiable over the last few months in a way he never was before: what once was endlessly respected privacy, now is everything that fascinates him. Leto whittles. Leto hates fish. Leto likes dogs. Leto has a sister. Leto knows how to hold a raz—
Ah.
Ah, stop that train of thought there.
(Some things, so much like rats and their glittering eyes, he still dislikes for memory alone.)
But his smile stays regardless, and he leans back once more: heels planted on the floor at the edge of his bed facing the fire, bracketing Leto’s body. Short along the sides, long on top. Easy. So very— ]
Hm?
[His hands stop, fingers stilling.
Do you call everyone that?
Yes. And no. Yes and not at all, and the complexity of it is....well, it’s complex, obviously.]
...no. Not exactly. [Light, his voice. Not quite cagey per se, but laced with the sort of caution that comes from anything that’s relatively fragile as far as truths go. A sign of honesty, if Astarion has any tells at all (and he does).]
I lean on pet names regularly out of habit, it’s true, but….
You are mine, you know. [He says almost absently, combing his way through that confession.] I’d never strangle you with a chokehold, of course, but there’s a difference between the companionship I’m obligated to keep...
[It's an odd relief that Astarion does not dance around the question, nor pretend that he does not single Leto out in some way. That above all else disarms him, so that when the actual answer comes about, he isn't going in with his hackles raised. You are mine, Astarion says, and Leto—
He expects a rush of anger. Repulsion, perhaps. Mine is such a shackling word, after all, and he has heard it plenty of times before. How often had Danarius asserted the same thing? My dear little wolf, jealously hoarding him like a jewel, wrapping a collar around his throat and unleashing him only ever to bring glory to his master.
He expects the same now. The feeling of iron wrapped thick around his throat, panic rising within him, screaming at him to squirm free of whatever expectations Astarion holds, but— no.
No. Nothing of the sort. Instead: a quiet shiver of pleasure running up his spine, a swell of satisfaction as his heart beats a little faster. For mine is what Astarion says, but . . . yours is what Leto hears.
His to protect. His to cherish. His to spoil and serve and love. To be a former slave is to know exactly what it is to give all of yourself to another, and perhaps it breaks something irreparably in them, for Leto knows that feeling so well. Devotion and adoration, a desire to hoard and keep and protect that which you have found on your own. It isn't possessiveness, and then again it isn't selflessness, either. They cling to each other with white knuckles, so desperate not to lose the only thing in their lives that has ever made sense.
Leto knows. He does, truly.]
It goes both ways.
[He does not mean to say that. He means to offer something better— some wise reflection about possessiveness, perhaps, or a quiet assertion that he understands what Astarion means. But the words slip out of him nonetheless, and he does not take them back, for they are true.]
[Later on, he’ll be glad he didn’t start by shaving the sides of Leto’s head. Later on, he’ll smile a little each time he catches sight of the spot just at the back of what he's styled, where longer sections of hair have a single, offset counterpart: a few wispy strands cut at an odd angle, so much shorter than the rest that it sticks out. Just a bit.
For now, though, the moment Leto’s words catch—
Those scissors slip.
He sucks in the sharpest breath imaginable in the very second that the blades of those shears snap closed, clipping the strands he’d been holding far too high (and far too soon), leaving Astarion utterly frozen when he subsequently gasps out:]
[Of course, given that Fenris can't actually see what Astarion's done, it probably only sounds like disbelief. Like the shaken, unanticipated impact of being claimed in return by someone so utterly vital to his world, narrow as it’s become in these last few months. Broad and wondrous as it seems, too, now that he knows he’s not alone.
And if it sounds that way, that’s because it is.
He has a room. He has a home. Not just in the spires of Hightown, for all that Astarion had outright dreamed of dwelling within its gilded streets, but in the gaps between Leto’s ribs. In the space beside his heart and the nest of his thoughts— there, Astarion has a home. Gods help him for being weak to it.
For wanting nothing else.]
....I do now.
[And like a flood, he feels the words rise high to meet the back of his tongue, welling too quickly to be stopped.
He’s beyond the point of holding back now, anyway.]
Phasing right through the fireplace, tongue lolling from her great maw as she foists herself eagerly into Leto’s lap, tail swishing in the beats before she settles down to drape across him once more, having finished her adventure throughout the mansion itself.]
Hmph. [Astarion scoffs lightly, the softest smile etched across his face as he returns to combing and cutting away once more.
The gentle care shown to a thing so dearly loved.]
What a pack we make, long lost creatures that we are.
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no subject
[His fingers gesture, drawing lines against his scalp in indication. It's a distracted motion (he really should take the state of his hair more seriously), for his thoughts linger on what Astarion. It is not a revelation, exactly; he had known there were countless other spawn, and it makes sense that Astarion was occasionally called to tend to them. But still . . . it's odd to think of him doing something so intimate to someone he despised.]
Danarius would have me do that for him at times. When he would leave Castellum Tenebris— his fortress— on business, he trusted only me to hold a blade to his throat.
[How many times had Leto thought about killing him? How many times had his hand trembled, his eyes wide as he fantasized about what it would be to tip the blade just so, sinking into soft flesh? Ah, but of course the answer is simple. Never. Not once. He was still obedient (still stupid) in those days, his thoughts only ever filled with how best to please his master and avoid his wrath.
It's an idle fact, offered up as a sort of exchange, and Leto falls silent after he says it. Eyes closing, he allows himself the quiet pleasure of focusing on those touches. They're brief things, minute little brushes of Astarion's fingers against the back of his neck, nudging his head to tip this way and that, but oh, he savors them. Behind closed lids, he watches the firelight from the hearth dance and flicker; feels the warmth seeping into his skin, chasing away the last of the spring chill. Slowly the perpetual tension eases out of his shoulders, his guard lowering even as Astarion slides that razor near his scalp.
There's something to be said, he thinks sleepily, for trusting someone so much. Would he allow anyone else this close? Not likely. Certainly not with his back turned; he'd be on high alert the entire time, just in case. But it's always so different with Astarion, and he's beginning to notice that more and more.]
Do you call everyone that?
[It's low. Not upset, nor indeed overly pleased. Just curious, a quiet question to break the silence.]
My darling.
no subject
Ah.
Ah, stop that train of thought there.
(Some things, so much like rats and their glittering eyes, he still dislikes for memory alone.)
But his smile stays regardless, and he leans back once more: heels planted on the floor at the edge of his bed facing the fire, bracketing Leto’s body. Short along the sides, long on top. Easy. So very— ]
Hm?
[His hands stop, fingers stilling.
Do you call everyone that?
Yes. And no. Yes and not at all, and the complexity of it is....well, it’s complex, obviously.]
...no. Not exactly. [Light, his voice. Not quite cagey per se, but laced with the sort of caution that comes from anything that’s relatively fragile as far as truths go. A sign of honesty, if Astarion has any tells at all (and he does).]
I lean on pet names regularly out of habit, it’s true, but….
You are mine, you know. [He says almost absently, combing his way through that confession.] I’d never strangle you with a chokehold, of course, but there’s a difference between the companionship I’m obligated to keep...
And the sort I take for myself.
[Mine.]
no subject
He expects a rush of anger. Repulsion, perhaps. Mine is such a shackling word, after all, and he has heard it plenty of times before. How often had Danarius asserted the same thing? My dear little wolf, jealously hoarding him like a jewel, wrapping a collar around his throat and unleashing him only ever to bring glory to his master.
He expects the same now. The feeling of iron wrapped thick around his throat, panic rising within him, screaming at him to squirm free of whatever expectations Astarion holds, but— no.
No. Nothing of the sort. Instead: a quiet shiver of pleasure running up his spine, a swell of satisfaction as his heart beats a little faster. For mine is what Astarion says, but . . . yours is what Leto hears.
His to protect. His to cherish. His to spoil and serve and love. To be a former slave is to know exactly what it is to give all of yourself to another, and perhaps it breaks something irreparably in them, for Leto knows that feeling so well. Devotion and adoration, a desire to hoard and keep and protect that which you have found on your own. It isn't possessiveness, and then again it isn't selflessness, either. They cling to each other with white knuckles, so desperate not to lose the only thing in their lives that has ever made sense.
Leto knows. He does, truly.]
It goes both ways.
[He does not mean to say that. He means to offer something better— some wise reflection about possessiveness, perhaps, or a quiet assertion that he understands what Astarion means. But the words slip out of him nonetheless, and he does not take them back, for they are true.]
Do you know that?
1/3
For now, though, the moment Leto’s words catch—
Those scissors slip.
He sucks in the sharpest breath imaginable in the very second that the blades of those shears snap closed, clipping the strands he’d been holding far too high (and far too soon), leaving Astarion utterly frozen when he subsequently gasps out:]
—strewth.
2/3
And if it sounds that way, that’s because it is.
He has a room. He has a home. Not just in the spires of Hightown, for all that Astarion had outright dreamed of dwelling within its gilded streets, but in the gaps between Leto’s ribs. In the space beside his heart and the nest of his thoughts— there, Astarion has a home. Gods help him for being weak to it.
For wanting nothing else.]
....I do now.
[And like a flood, he feels the words rise high to meet the back of his tongue, welling too quickly to be stopped.
He’s beyond the point of holding back now, anyway.]
3/3
Phasing right through the fireplace, tongue lolling from her great maw as she foists herself eagerly into Leto’s lap, tail swishing in the beats before she settles down to drape across him once more, having finished her adventure throughout the mansion itself.]
Hmph. [Astarion scoffs lightly, the softest smile etched across his face as he returns to combing and cutting away once more.
The gentle care shown to a thing so dearly loved.]
What a pack we make, long lost creatures that we are.