[It is a little off admittedly. At least by someone else's standards. Somewhat like looking at a tiger and calling it a kitten after having seen it tear someone limb from limb once or twice.
....or more.
But these aren't someone else's standards. They're Astarion's. Vampire, at his core; dead nobility stubbornly drawing breath. With eyes the color of fresh blood, with teeth fit to tear through skin and bone alike. Beneath the scent of lilac and leather oil— when it wanes or washes away in the odd torrential downpour— he smells of what he truly is: a predator amongst the herd.
Even if that weren't true, though, Leto would be precious regardless. The first breath of mercifully compassionate air felt after two centuries of corroding despair (he remembers learned traits like thumbprints; how countless hands fit themselves to him: each digging press darkening old bruises— always the same). When he'd been convinced there was no such thing as a heart worth beating, that every soul was as sickeningly corrupt and despotic and selfish as the ones he'd suffocated under, there Leto was. A contradiction against natural order itself. Invaluable, priceless, wanted.
Precious, yes.
He's halfway through turning the bridge of his nose red from scuffing when Leto draws back— forcing the world back into focus.]
Of course it did.
But if I— [Ah, he can't bring himself to say it out loud. Superstitious. Paranoid. How is it that after hundreds of years whispering unanswered pleas, just one uttered hypothetical (if I slipped back through the rifts tomorrow....) feels like muttering a spell into fruition: he'll say it, and tomorrow Leto will wake up alone.
And Astarion....]
Mm. Come here. I refuse to talk about this like two ill-fated lovers on a terrace balcony, poised to run at any second. [He means that in so many ways; figurative. Literal. Metaphorical, too.
The fire isn't low, only scant. Everything is meager for an elf right now, even one as resourceful (read: thieving) as a roguish charmer with coin in his pocket and wholly sharpened assets to spare. In a way, it works out, though: the nights are getting warmer, and the drafts that occasionally waft in play well with tempered heat. He pulls Leto towards the foot of his bed, and when he sits, winds the man down between his legs into resting comfortably there— either facing him or away, so long as his cheek's fit to one comfortably clothed thigh (he's still half-dressed from the soirée: a dark shirt and collar, matching trousers and high-laced boots— the image of a dangerous stranger, albeit one that's now in his own home with little mystique left to spare), fingers combing over the marked elf's scalp in slower and slower patterns. Doting on him to the damning marrow.
Easier to just exist, like this.]
You're right.
You did leave, and for a while I shattered like a dropped glass. A bloody mess [and oh, his lips twist for a beat, wry in adding:] even got a man killed all for my own bitter spite— which was my choice, I'll emphasize. Not yours. [It drops away, that flicker of short-lived humor.] It'd be infinitely worse, now. You and I were only friends back then, after all.
[Now you're more. Oh, now you're everything, darling.]
Somehow, despite the bleakness of my wicked heart, you've grown as dear to me as life itself. More than even my freshly-acquired freedom, I suspect....though I'd prefer never to have to test that theory.
But I also know you.
The stubborn little cub that thought he could protect me from yet another gauntlet of restless nightmares if he simply stayed silent. The one who would gladly run himself ragged to make sure I never knew another second of suffering like the ones sealed away behind the Fade. [The same creature who sat up with Astarion in the middle of the night, having lost himself yet again, and still— still— he never once hesitated: I am here, with my sword and my lyrium, if that should change. He has not come to drag you back, Astarion. Not tonight.]
You wouldn't have walked out that door if you didn't intend to come back.
[Memories or not, Leto is still Leto: he doesn't need to sleuth out what happened the night he disappeared in order to know it was never really a choice. And if he didn't make that decision for himself— ] You're not to blame.
We'll find you your answers. [Understand, he hates the shape of those words, and it shows. But for Leto....] Just— no more omission.
I realize you're used to safeguarding what's yours.
no subject
....or more.
But these aren't someone else's standards. They're Astarion's. Vampire, at his core; dead nobility stubbornly drawing breath. With eyes the color of fresh blood, with teeth fit to tear through skin and bone alike. Beneath the scent of lilac and leather oil— when it wanes or washes away in the odd torrential downpour— he smells of what he truly is: a predator amongst the herd.
Even if that weren't true, though, Leto would be precious regardless. The first breath of mercifully compassionate air felt after two centuries of corroding despair (he remembers learned traits like thumbprints; how countless hands fit themselves to him: each digging press darkening old bruises— always the same). When he'd been convinced there was no such thing as a heart worth beating, that every soul was as sickeningly corrupt and despotic and selfish as the ones he'd suffocated under, there Leto was. A contradiction against natural order itself. Invaluable, priceless, wanted.
Precious, yes.
He's halfway through turning the bridge of his nose red from scuffing when Leto draws back— forcing the world back into focus.]
Of course it did.
But if I— [Ah, he can't bring himself to say it out loud. Superstitious. Paranoid. How is it that after hundreds of years whispering unanswered pleas, just one uttered hypothetical (if I slipped back through the rifts tomorrow....) feels like muttering a spell into fruition: he'll say it, and tomorrow Leto will wake up alone.
And Astarion....]
Mm. Come here. I refuse to talk about this like two ill-fated lovers on a terrace balcony, poised to run at any second. [He means that in so many ways; figurative. Literal. Metaphorical, too.
The fire isn't low, only scant. Everything is meager for an elf right now, even one as resourceful (read: thieving) as a roguish charmer with coin in his pocket and wholly sharpened assets to spare. In a way, it works out, though: the nights are getting warmer, and the drafts that occasionally waft in play well with tempered heat. He pulls Leto towards the foot of his bed, and when he sits, winds the man down between his legs into resting comfortably there— either facing him or away, so long as his cheek's fit to one comfortably clothed thigh (he's still half-dressed from the soirée: a dark shirt and collar, matching trousers and high-laced boots— the image of a dangerous stranger, albeit one that's now in his own home with little mystique left to spare), fingers combing over the marked elf's scalp in slower and slower patterns. Doting on him to the damning marrow.
Easier to just exist, like this.]
You're right.
You did leave, and for a while I shattered like a dropped glass. A bloody mess [and oh, his lips twist for a beat, wry in adding:] even got a man killed all for my own bitter spite— which was my choice, I'll emphasize. Not yours. [It drops away, that flicker of short-lived humor.] It'd be infinitely worse, now. You and I were only friends back then, after all.
[Now you're more. Oh, now you're everything, darling.]
Somehow, despite the bleakness of my wicked heart, you've grown as dear to me as life itself. More than even my freshly-acquired freedom, I suspect....though I'd prefer never to have to test that theory.
But I also know you.
The stubborn little cub that thought he could protect me from yet another gauntlet of restless nightmares if he simply stayed silent. The one who would gladly run himself ragged to make sure I never knew another second of suffering like the ones sealed away behind the Fade. [The same creature who sat up with Astarion in the middle of the night, having lost himself yet again, and still— still— he never once hesitated: I am here, with my sword and my lyrium, if that should change. He has not come to drag you back, Astarion. Not tonight.]
You wouldn't have walked out that door if you didn't intend to come back.
[Memories or not, Leto is still Leto: he doesn't need to sleuth out what happened the night he disappeared in order to know it was never really a choice. And if he didn't make that decision for himself— ] You're not to blame.
We'll find you your answers. [Understand, he hates the shape of those words, and it shows. But for Leto....] Just— no more omission.
I realize you're used to safeguarding what's yours.
Let someone else guard you for a change.