![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
"This would have to be exceptionally strong wine to get me more than tipsy on one bottle," he says thoughtfully. "But we'll see how close I get, mm?"
He has no idea what vampirism has done for his alcohol tolerance.
"The last time I got intoxicated it was from drinking a bear."
"That so? So ya can get drunk off a victim's blood, can ya? Wouldn't have expected that." Nor the bear part. "Have ta ask: why were ya drinkin' from a bear, lad?"
"Ah, well - I hadn't disclosed certain details about myself to those I was travelling with," he says. "I wasn't yet in a position to trust them not to start sharpening their stakes, and we were travelling through the wilderness with few other people around. So - animals were my best bet."
A pause.
"I don't usually go after anything that large, but the bear started it."
He raised his glass in toast and then drank from it.
"Why were ya travelin' with those folks? Sounds like it was more trouble fer ya ta travel with others."
"It wasn't easy," Astarion agrees. "But we were brought together by a....common problem. And the forces causing that problem were much larger than I could have ever hoped to deal with alone. Safety in numbers," he concludes, with a slight shrug.
"I see," he said with one last nod. "Whatever it takes ta get tha job done. Must have been somethin' major ta force ya ta do what wasn't usual, I take it."
"Oh - gods of death, a threatened mass invasion of brain-eating monsters, mad cultists. World-ending matters." He sighs. "Really needed the attention of heroic types with experience of such apocalyptic situations, but I got thrown into the mess as well."
Astarion barks a quick laugh.
"Well, I died," he points out. "So, suffice to say that I have some reservations as to our progress."
"Maybe? I honestly don't care." He takes a long sip from the wine glass, relishing it. "The place had very little to offer me even before people started growing tentacles and eating their friends."
"No, no. But my options aren't merely the Barge and the Sword Coast. If one graduates, they can go wherever they please."
"I'd happily pick one at random," Astarion says, shrugging. "As long as it's not on fire, it'll be an improvement."
He seemed to consider it for a little while longer as he sipped his drink for a moment. Then he waved his hand dismissively in the air as if to scatter the thoughts like flies.
"To tha future not bein' on fire," he said in toast and took one more drink before needing to refill his glass. "Fer now, let's have a bit of relaxation and fun. Leave tha serious thoughts behind fer a while at least."
"Of course, darling," he says, then lifts his glass in kind and takes a sip. "This music you found, is there anything here from your home?"
Upon inspection, the assortment of pieces that Collins brought to the forefront ranged from old classical Greek music to traditional Irish folk songs, transcriptions of songs from Collins's time of the late 1800s and early 1900s era that Collins would easily recognize, and even a few more modern songs that even Collins didn't really know but had checked they did, in fact, come from Earth. He pointed out the ones that he knew and favored and if Astarion already knew how to read them he might pick up on the fact that some seemed like they very much were shanties and bar drinking songs.
Oddly enough, Astarion has already learned that Earth and Toril share similar musical notation - enough that using the former's sheet music hasn't really presented a challenge. He picks up the sheet Collins has brought to the top of the pile and hums through the first few bars - a sailors' shanty or folk song, he thinks, something easy to play, with a clear rhythm.
"Let me try this before I get any deeper into this bottle," he decides, and picks up his lyre.
"Probably because I'm a vindictive son of a bitch," he admits, "and he knows... I don't want to fuck this up."
I don't want to fuck this up.
This.
Astarion's first instinct is to ask what exactly he means by this, but his second is to realise how stupid that is. He doesn't want them to have a this, a thing with a name that might come with rules and expectations and might even identify the odd tangle of emotions he feels in his company.
And yet he quite likes the idea that John values whatever nameless thing they've stumbled into, as well.
"I'll be honest," he says. "I don't think you could. Or at least, you'd have to try much harder than you think."
It's all he wants to say on the matter, and kissing him feels as good a way as any to underline that.
The Irishman was quiet as Astarion started the piece, content to listen and appreciate. But the song was familiar and the tune easy, and before too long he was humming along and then picked up the lyrics when the song entered a new stanza. He sang softly so as not to overpower the lyre but it was more fun than he'd had in a long while to sing along to beautiful music.
There's no protest on Astarion's part. The music is clearly intended to be sung to, after all - and although he's growing more confident with practice, his playing smoother overall, his mouth still twitches unhappily at every misplucked string or drop out of tempo. Having Collins distract himself from those mistakes with his own singing is a relief.
He ends with a light flourish and smiles. He's never going to make it as a bard, but then again, he never particularly wants to.
"I hope I didn't butcher that too bloodily, darling."
A man capable of immeasurable fucking up, and a man who hates himself so much he'd accept almost any degree of mistreatment because it'd still be an improvement on what he's used to. Ideal. Excellent.
Astarion draws away by just a hair's breadth.
"'Making out' and biting, you said? An excellent agenda."
Page 18 of 132
- «
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
- 25
- 26
- 27
- 28
- 29
- 30
- 31
- 32
- 33
- 34
- 35
- 36
- 37
- 38
- 39
- 40
- 41
- 42
- 43
- 44
- 45
- 46
- 47
- 48
- 49
- 50
- 51
- 52
- 53
- 54
- 55
- 56
- 57
- 58
- 59
- 60
- 61
- 62
- 63
- 64
- 65
- 66
- 67
- 68
- 69
- 70
- 71
- 72
- 73
- 74
- 75
- 76
- 77
- 78
- 79
- 80
- 81
- 82
- 83
- 84
- 85
- 86
- 87
- 88
- 89
- 90
- 91
- 92
- 93
- 94
- 95
- 96
- 97
- 98
- 99
- 100
- 101
- 102
- 103
- 104
- 105
- 106
- 107
- 108
- 109
- 110
- 111
- 112
- 113
- 114
- 115
- 116
- 117
- 118
- 119
- 120
- 121
- 122
- 123
- 124
- 125
- 126
- 127
- 128
- 129
- 130
- 131
- 132
- »
Page 18 of 132