[He’s been around Cazador too long, and his world— any world— is all the more dark for it. Shadows longer. Threats larger. The possibility for betrayal from within all the more fearsome.
It’s one thing to think Venatori might be skittering down side streets. It’s another to think the person at your back might bite.
And it’s been a while since he last felt that paranoid itch threading along his spine.]
Come over.
[A straightforward answer isn’t in the cards, apparently.]
Fair enough. Astarion assumes Fenris has had his fill of conversation for the night, particularly when he’d been keen to assert that it’s no business of theirs; the man isn’t fickle, per se, but he doesn’t weather anything he doesn’t want to.
So when the knock at the door comes not long after, it’s met by a clatter from inside. Metal rattling, wood jostled, something skittering across the floor from where it's been knocked over. His chalkstone hovel of a Lowtown home isn’t pristine on the best of days, but apparently tonight comes with the added bonus of assuming he'd be spending the rest of his evening alone— and having already hunkered in with a bit of wine for the sake of brooding, he practically has to wade his way to the door from the worst of it.
It cracks open a beat later, dagger perched nimbly between his fingertips before his eyebrows lift themselves reflexively.
First the middle of the wastes under dire circumstances. Now here for virtually nothing. He still isn’t used to this, truth be told. Having someone at his back without asking for anything in return.
He could get used to it.
“I sound like myself, thank you very much. And I have it on good authority that I make an excellent lover, scorn and all.”
With his heel he kicks one particularly heavy bolt of stolen fabric aside, clearing a narrow path from the doorway for Fenris to tread, lined with trinkets and trash of just about every shape and size. Nothing he hasn’t seen before, given the nights they spend playing cards, just out in full force this evening, apparently. The pair of rickety chairs usually reserved for card games are laden with junk, a bottle of open wine on the table surrounded by half-used cups.
Astarion imagines Fenris will make himself comfortable however he cares to. Wherever he cares to. He himself, setting aside the dagger he’d been clutching, turns away to shut the door.
“Besides, you clearly think I’m being foolish about all this. Paranoid, to say the least.”
"If you have to say it..." Fenris intones, repeating something about lovers Varric once said to Hawke when she felt particularly boastful. He sits on a pile of blankets, careful not to skewer any with his armor.
"I considered dismissing you... sense of urgency." He won't call it paranoia. Everyone here knows their worth, but especially elves. "But I cannot judge your experiences. Tell me what you brought me here for."
It’s only when Fenris asks that Astarion finds himself at a loss. What did he bring him here for?
Or— no, that’s not true. He knows exactly why. The problem rears its head when it comes to saying it. Admitting it out loud.
Something about having Fenris around puts Astarion at ease.
His knuckles hang against the rusted doorframe, faintly digging as he thinks. As he tries in earnest to come up with some sort of deflection or lie that might make this easier without sending Fenris walking right back out the damned door, thinking his tail’s been pulled for no reason whatsoever.
Instead, he turns on his heel, pacing over towards that crooked little table (passing Fenris as he goes) and snatching up one of the half-full cups. Into the ashy firepit its stale contents go, and a fresh amount is poured— held out to Fenris not a beat later.
“Can’t a man simply want a little company on a miserable night like this?”
Brightened instantly, Astarion spins on his own heel to start the laborious process of knocking clutter off tables and chairs alike. The wine and cards he leaves, settling down with his elbows across brittle wood, subsequently kicking off both shuffling— and dealing.
And winning.
He’s particularly vicious tonight. Call it a home turf advantage. Luckily for Fenris, they’re not betting.
“And so I said to him, his blade right under my chin, that’s not a sword, you poor drunken bastard— that’s the innkeep's mop. Turns out even a mercenary can get so damned drunk he’ll believe anything you say: threw his own sword on the ground right then and there, and tripped face first into the wall for losing his own balance. Knocked him out cold on the tavern floor.”
He taps his cards against the table, drunk as a fish in a keg, and proud as ever.
“I kept all the winnings, that night. Spent them all the next day, too.”
Fenris watches Astarion settle into comfort, and that's its own sort of comfort. He's had enough drink to make himself tired, though he knows he'd have lost anyway. It's just nice to... exist.
He remembers Wicked Grace in the Hanged Man.
This isn't like that, but nothing will ever be like that again. This is good. This is earned.
“My empire, of course.” He says, sweeping one arm wide with an uninhibited chuckle— swaying only a little for the effort, one spare trick card falling out of his sleeve and fluttering to the floor. He doesn't notice. “Can’t you tell?”
Red eyes fall on something. Offhandedly he adds:
“Oh and that hideous painting over in the corner there. The one with the Ferelden Lord whose face looks like it's been put on backwards. I hate that thing.”
“Because it’s expensive, my darling. Apparently it was painted by some tragic up-and-coming someone or other. Set to take all of Thedas by storm...before he was eaten by a bear.” The most captivating tale Astarion’s heard yet since tumbling through the veil.
His cheek sinks heavy against the palm of his own hand; he’s forgotten they’re still meant to be playing.
Or who was winning, this time around.
“That was the cheapest of his works, probably because it’s so undeniably hideous. I paid off one of the elven Hightown servants to have it pulled from a noble’s attic: spoiled bastard never wanted to look at it. Even now there’s just an empty frame sitting up there with a sheet over it.”
His own laugh is dark, the kind that only sparks when maliciousness is on the table. Or at the very least, mischief.
“I bet it’ll take three entire generations before they realize something’s off.”
Fenris does like the sound of that. The game apparently over with, he slides quietly off his chair (not silently, thanks to the armor) and finds a patch of the ground to curl up on, not unlike an unfriendly dog finally revealing its belly. "Who will you sell it to?"
Well. All of it, really. But that’s par for the course: no one would deny the elf’s possessed of so much more than what any one creature should have. It’s almost unfair.
Astarion exhales from his own perch, transfixed for a beat by it. He’s felt so much since he’s come to this strange world: the memory of shared warmth huddled beneath a single coat beside a man that smelled of fresh linen and faint solvent, Derrica pulling him to her chest, her heart beating rapidly, her hands soft as she caressed him, as though they’d known each other for an eternity— Tiffany’s whispers, the way she’d called him lovely without thinking, Adrasteia’s fingers at his throat, heat against cold, and gloved hands smoothing across his bare chest in the dark, ancient gold eyes ever so bright. All beautiful. All rare, fleeting fragments to be coveted, just like the rest of his own scattered collection now strewn about their feet.
All but one.
“The first person I find willing to do fair business with an elf.” He says, red eyes utterly transfixed in their drowsy, hooded stare.
Eventually he pushes his cup away, rising for a single step, and sinking down across the mattress beside the open floor where Fenris is drawn up like a wolf in its den.
His arms fold, he sets his chin atop them, watching.
“I suspect I’ll be stuck with our dear Lord Misshapen Inbred for quite some time.” Only a half-breath lives there before Astarion adds, lightly.
Fenris, oblivious of thoughts as deep as these, continues to prepare himself for sleep. No, Astarion did not invite him, but he doesn't consider his presence may be unwanted for a short time, both of them tired.
"I've no taste for art," he says with a laugh. His eyes slip closed.
Ever a step too late. Or— well, maybe not. Because it’s no small truth that Astarion wants as much as he can possibly get. That he could, admittedly, nudge the poor creature awake in those first few seconds: the pivotal ones where sleep starts to settle heavy as a wine-drunk shroud, visible in the eased contours of his face.
He never does.
Instead, when his own slender fingers dangle over the side of the bed— meandering between selfishness and greed— it’s only to brush his own knuckles, light as a breeze, against the tip of a metal feather. The very edge of his mouth twitching with faint warmth.
Selflessness was never his forte. It certainly isn’t now. Two hundred years of isolation have left him starved for more than what he's met with in this moment.
So why he, of all people, finds contentment in the sight of what’s perpetually out of his own reach is anyone’s guess.
And maybe that’s just it. For the first time, he simply doesn’t care about something slipping through his fingers.
His exhale is low. Easy. His thoughts are a blank slate beyond the simplest contentment, wine still buzzing in his ears. He lifts himself with no terribly taxing effort, and collapses against the pillows on the opposite side of the bed, slumped in a perfectly useless heap.
And that night, all the usual nightmares never seem to find him.
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no subject
It’s one thing to think Venatori might be skittering down side streets. It’s another to think the person at your back might bite.
And it’s been a while since he last felt that paranoid itch threading along his spine.]
Come over.
[A straightforward answer isn’t in the cards, apparently.]
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no subject
Fair enough. Astarion assumes Fenris has had his fill of conversation for the night, particularly when he’d been keen to assert that it’s no business of theirs; the man isn’t fickle, per se, but he doesn’t weather anything he doesn’t want to.
So when the knock at the door comes not long after, it’s met by a clatter from inside. Metal rattling, wood jostled, something skittering across the floor from where it's been knocked over. His chalkstone hovel of a Lowtown home isn’t pristine on the best of days, but apparently tonight comes with the added bonus of assuming he'd be spending the rest of his evening alone— and having already hunkered in with a bit of wine for the sake of brooding, he practically has to wade his way to the door from the worst of it.
It cracks open a beat later, dagger perched nimbly between his fingertips before his eyebrows lift themselves reflexively.
“—you actually came.”
Start of the night, and there he is.
“I didn’t think you would.”
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He could get used to it.
“I sound like myself, thank you very much. And I have it on good authority that I make an excellent lover, scorn and all.”
With his heel he kicks one particularly heavy bolt of stolen fabric aside, clearing a narrow path from the doorway for Fenris to tread, lined with trinkets and trash of just about every shape and size. Nothing he hasn’t seen before, given the nights they spend playing cards, just out in full force this evening, apparently. The pair of rickety chairs usually reserved for card games are laden with junk, a bottle of open wine on the table surrounded by half-used cups.
Astarion imagines Fenris will make himself comfortable however he cares to. Wherever he cares to. He himself, setting aside the dagger he’d been clutching, turns away to shut the door.
“Besides, you clearly think I’m being foolish about all this. Paranoid, to say the least.”
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"I considered dismissing you... sense of urgency." He won't call it paranoia. Everyone here knows their worth, but especially elves. "But I cannot judge your experiences. Tell me what you brought me here for."
no subject
Or— no, that’s not true. He knows exactly why. The problem rears its head when it comes to saying it. Admitting it out loud.
Something about having Fenris around puts Astarion at ease.
His knuckles hang against the rusted doorframe, faintly digging as he thinks. As he tries in earnest to come up with some sort of deflection or lie that might make this easier without sending Fenris walking right back out the damned door, thinking his tail’s been pulled for no reason whatsoever.
Instead, he turns on his heel, pacing over towards that crooked little table (passing Fenris as he goes) and snatching up one of the half-full cups. Into the ashy firepit its stale contents go, and a fresh amount is poured— held out to Fenris not a beat later.
“Can’t a man simply want a little company on a miserable night like this?”
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And he drinks.
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And winning.
He’s particularly vicious tonight. Call it a home turf advantage. Luckily for Fenris, they’re not betting.
“And so I said to him, his blade right under my chin, that’s not a sword, you poor drunken bastard— that’s the innkeep's mop. Turns out even a mercenary can get so damned drunk he’ll believe anything you say: threw his own sword on the ground right then and there, and tripped face first into the wall for losing his own balance. Knocked him out cold on the tavern floor.”
He taps his cards against the table, drunk as a fish in a keg, and proud as ever.
“I kept all the winnings, that night. Spent them all the next day, too.”
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He remembers Wicked Grace in the Hanged Man.
This isn't like that, but nothing will ever be like that again. This is good. This is earned.
"What did you spend it on?"
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Red eyes fall on something. Offhandedly he adds:
“Oh and that hideous painting over in the corner there. The one with the Ferelden Lord whose face looks like it's been put on backwards. I hate that thing.”
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His cheek sinks heavy against the palm of his own hand; he’s forgotten they’re still meant to be playing.
Or who was winning, this time around.
“That was the cheapest of his works, probably because it’s so undeniably hideous. I paid off one of the elven Hightown servants to have it pulled from a noble’s attic: spoiled bastard never wanted to look at it. Even now there’s just an empty frame sitting up there with a sheet over it.”
His own laugh is dark, the kind that only sparks when maliciousness is on the table. Or at the very least, mischief.
“I bet it’ll take three entire generations before they realize something’s off.”
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no subject
Well. All of it, really. But that’s par for the course: no one would deny the elf’s possessed of so much more than what any one creature should have. It’s almost unfair.
Astarion exhales from his own perch, transfixed for a beat by it. He’s felt so much since he’s come to this strange world: the memory of shared warmth huddled beneath a single coat beside a man that smelled of fresh linen and faint solvent, Derrica pulling him to her chest, her heart beating rapidly, her hands soft as she caressed him, as though they’d known each other for an eternity— Tiffany’s whispers, the way she’d called him lovely without thinking, Adrasteia’s fingers at his throat, heat against cold, and gloved hands smoothing across his bare chest in the dark, ancient gold eyes ever so bright. All beautiful. All rare, fleeting fragments to be coveted, just like the rest of his own scattered collection now strewn about their feet.
All but one.
“The first person I find willing to do fair business with an elf.” He says, red eyes utterly transfixed in their drowsy, hooded stare.
Eventually he pushes his cup away, rising for a single step, and sinking down across the mattress beside the open floor where Fenris is drawn up like a wolf in its den.
His arms fold, he sets his chin atop them, watching.
“I suspect I’ll be stuck with our dear Lord Misshapen Inbred for quite some time.” Only a half-breath lives there before Astarion adds, lightly.
“—unless, of course, you want him.”
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"I've no taste for art," he says with a laugh. His eyes slip closed.
no subject
Ever a step too late. Or— well, maybe not. Because it’s no small truth that Astarion wants as much as he can possibly get. That he could, admittedly, nudge the poor creature awake in those first few seconds: the pivotal ones where sleep starts to settle heavy as a wine-drunk shroud, visible in the eased contours of his face.
He never does.
Instead, when his own slender fingers dangle over the side of the bed— meandering between selfishness and greed— it’s only to brush his own knuckles, light as a breeze, against the tip of a metal feather. The very edge of his mouth twitching with faint warmth.
Selflessness was never his forte. It certainly isn’t now. Two hundred years of isolation have left him starved for more than what he's met with in this moment.
So why he, of all people, finds contentment in the sight of what’s perpetually out of his own reach is anyone’s guess.
And maybe that’s just it. For the first time, he simply doesn’t care about something slipping through his fingers.
His exhale is low. Easy. His thoughts are a blank slate beyond the simplest contentment, wine still buzzing in his ears. He lifts himself with no terribly taxing effort, and collapses against the pillows on the opposite side of the bed, slumped in a perfectly useless heap.
And that night, all the usual nightmares never seem to find him.