sixfeetofdirt | TLV: IC Contact

"Well, we've established that I'm terrible at solving problems," Astarion says. "Is there - anything I can do?"

"You're great at being you, though."

It sounds saccharine and useless, but in a place where sometimes people aren't themselves, she means it at its most basic. And she is someone who values her time to just be with her people.

"Would you mind if I stayed a while? If you're still tired, we don't have to do anything. I can carve or something."

Edited 2025-02-05 22:26 (UTC)

"Of course you can stay," Astarion says. "I'm not going to be available for anything strenuous, but we could watch a film, perhaps?"

A distraction might be useful? He's not sure.

She pulls a face, but there's mischief under it.

"Are you going to make me watch a fishing documentary?"

"Just as soon as I've grown a beard, darling," Astarion laughs. "No, a real film with actors and few if any fish, I promise."

"I actually like them, but don't tell Jacob," she chuckles, dropping the napkin onto the tray.

"I learn things." And as she's just explained a bit more to him, she's in a position back home where she needs to know things like how to fish. "You'd look good with a beard, though."

"Alas, I couldn't grow one if I wanted to," Astarion sighs, and carefully displaces Aylin so he can get up and grab the Criterion Collection DVDs John gave him. "Body hair in general. That's an elven thing, not an undead thing."

Halsin is an exception, but Astarion suspects there's something broad and hairy in his ancestry.

"Undead things grow plenty of hair."

But that's all she's going to say about that, pushing up to follow him.

"Pick anything that's not horror."

Astarion just hums a concession and rummages through the discs, eventually holding up two.

"I haven't watched either of these yet, they don't...look horrifying."

'These' are The Breakfast Club and Thelma and Louise.

She chuffs a laugh, but decides not to ruin the one for him.

"Breakfast Club, every time. Although it's high school stereotypes, so I suspect I'll be doing a lot of explaining."

"I'll do my best to keep up," Astarion says, setting the other DVD case back onto the shelf. He goes to retrieve the tablet he plays them on. "Shall we share the bed?"

He's still sore, honestly, and lying down has appeal.

"If you're up for it."

Jacob did tell her that he hadn't wanted to be touched last night, after all.

"Could I interest you in another massage?"

"I-"

It sounds nice, he won't deny that. But.

"Something, ah - something happened. During the breach. I'm still...digesting it, so to speak."

She frowns, wondering how she missed that but then, she hadn't asked directly.

She sits down on the edge of the bed anyway, reaching down to untie her boots, to remove her knife.

"D'you need a sounding board?"

"I don't think so. It's, ah-"

He swallows the lump in his throat.

"There are certain things I didn't think any version of myself would care to do, and - I was wrong."

She is, down to her core, a practical and suspicious woman now. A survivor, who trusts only her own people in the entire world, because the entire rest of the world is out to take what she needs to survive at best, to kill her or worse at worst.

But Astarion is her people, and something in her eyes softens.

"Astarion," she says, softly, and offers a gloveless hand to him. "D'you remember what I said? That I'd hear anything you could say to me?"

"I do. And I'm sure that if you were to guess what I did, you'd be correct very quickly."

He reaches for her hand with his own, then twitches it away, fingers curling in.

"I would just...prefer not to talk about it."

She'd advised to give himself some grace, to take some time before expecting himself to function again, so she holds steady and then accepts his retraction.

She drops her hand to her lap, still watching.

"Alright - so what's that leave you, then?" she asks. "Sitting on it, letting it rot you from the inside out? Or is it just me you can't talk about it with?"

Edited 2025-02-06 15:07 (UTC)

"Neither. It's...a splinter," he says, figuring that if she can use physical injury as an analogy then it's fair game. "I want to allow some time for it to work its own way out before I go digging around with tweezers."

"Those rot, too," she points out, but she nods.

"Alright. I'll keep my hands to myself."

"...Thank you," Astarion says, and then exhales slowly. His fist loosens; his fingertips touch hers.

She's been setting the majority of her own feelings aside, which she's good at when there's a need in front of her, be it her own or someone else's; she'd resolved to keep doing so for as long as she could, or as long as Astarion needed, whichever ran out first.

But even that small contact feels good to something she's not looking at, something that'll be easier to deal with later for having it; she keeps her promise, doesn't try to take his hand, but she does brush the tip of her thumb over the backs of his fingers lightly before tipping her head to invite him to the bed beside her.

"There's nothing to thank me for," she assures him, nonetheless.

"There is," he says, and stretches out alongside her. "You've long since been decent and patient with me in a way you might see as nothing, but - I. I don't."

"Well, I am a decent and patient person." She is not. She is markedly not either of these things, and her wry tone advertises that she does in fact know this.

She lets him get settled and then flops back herself, shifting onto one hip so she can see the tablet too.

"You're one of my people, cariño. You have my heart for as long as you want it."

Astarion smiles, faintly, while something sour and bitter writhes in the pit of his stomach. Everything feels...

He doesn't want to think about it. The fight is out of him. Easier to touch and be touched. To concede. If he's choosing that instead of having it thrust on him, then it's...fine.

"...I feel the same."

That, at least, is true.

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