Chapter Text
Kyne woke to the bizarre sensation of someone scrubbing his nails with a warm, soapy brush.
He also woke to the realization that, for the first time in tendays, his bloodstream was clear; there was no paralytic halting his movements. Jerking to attention, he snapped his hand back and kicked himself up and into the headboard of the bed in one stilted motion. His breath came fast and hard. They were in Stelmane’s room, he noted, the closed door offering a greater amount of privacy than he’d known for as long as they’d been on the road. As long as he could remember, really.
Astarion sat on a stool at the edge of the bed. The shallow washbowl in his lap had been tipped by Kyne’s motion and its contents now darkened the elf’s suede pants. He seemed to pay it no mind, ruby eyes focused on studying Kyne’s face. He held both hands high about his head in mock surrender, the right one still brandishing a boar bristle brush. A cautious smile was starting at the corner of his mouth.
“Hello, darling. Sleep well?”
It took a moment for Kyne to find words. “Sorry. I—ah... Yes, actually, I think I did.” He pressed his palms into his eyes. Was that true?
No nightmares. No red haze. No sick rising in his throat. No pulse pounding in his head.
His thoughts were his own. His mind was his.
Shit. He thought he might cry.
He laughed instead, a manic, short thing that scraped out of him like sandpaper.
“Oh, darling.”
And just like that, his eyes were stinging.
Astarion started to advance toward him, seemed to think better of it, and instead hovered sort of half-on the bed in a pose that shouldn’t have looked nearly as elegant as it did.
“I’m not sure what you...” He began, frowning. “How can I help?”
“Just... Come here? Please?”
Astarion closed the distance and wrapped Kyne in his arms. The half-drow collapsed into his cool, solid frame as shakes began to wrack through his own body.
“Sorry,” Kyne sniffled. “I’m fine, I just—”
“—Stop saying that.” Astarion’s sharp tone startled him. “Please,” he added, more softly. He pressed a kiss to Kyne’s brow.
“I should be fine, though. Orin’s gone, he’s gone, Lae’zel is here and I’m—fuck, Astarion, I’m free, and instead of helping you all do the same I’m here just—”
“—Resting after nearly bleeding out, stealing back a githyanki and a Netherstone from a doomsday cult, and telling your dear old dad to go fuck himself? Hmm? I think you’ve earned a little lay-about, don’t you?”
Kyne couldn’t manage a rebuttal, so he let Astarion stroke his hair while he shook and buried his face in the pale elf’s collar. His hands clawed into Astarion’s tunic; where Astarion might ordinarily protest about stretching the fabric, he merely sat in amenable silence. Whenever Kyne hiccupped or sobbed, the outburst was met with a peppering of kisses to the top of his head. Every attempted apology was promptly hushed. They remained like this for longer than Kyne could adequately track. Long enough for him to lift his head, dry his tears, and find a spot of worn paneling on the wall to focus on while his mind bled empty. Astarion sat in silent vigil of it all.
A mortal lover’s leg would surely be asleep by now, with how Kyne was leaning on his hip. A mortal lover would need to shift, to breathe, to move and—oh, shit. Right.
“Your pants,” Kyne said, rather stupidly. He made to get off of Astarion’s lap. The vampire made a gentle effort at tugging him back into place, but gave up at the slightest resistance. “I’m sorry, you must be terribly uncomfortable.”
“I’ve been worse off.”
“That’s not—you’re not supposed to make yourself uncomfortable on my account.”
That tripped Astarion up. He glanced down at his hands, then back at Kyne, sporting an expression of concerted focus and sincerity that made Kyne blush.
He crawled forward and cupped Kyne’s chin, eyes lingering on his mouth. Then, he kissed Kyne senseless.
“I owe you,” Astarion eventually gasped into his mouth, “an apology.”
“I think you have that backwards,” Kyne replied. “I’m the one who nearly died on you today.”
“Oh no, you were certainly dead, darling. You died alright.”
Kyne winced; Astarion cursed.
“This is—ugh, this is what I mean,” Astarion said, drawing back to run a hand through his hair. “I’m not good at this. At—at caring for someone. You scared me, back at the temple, you know. I thought I’d lost you.”
“I’m sor—”
“Please stop apologizing,” Astarion forced through his teeth. He sighed; smoothed a loose curl from where it’d fallen on his forehead back into its proper place. “You did the right thing, faced with an impossible choice. It took strength. I’m not sure I could’ve done the same, in your position.”
“Sure you could’ve.”
Red eyes pinned Kyne in place once more. “Would you have wanted me to?” His voice, low and smooth as silk, sent Kyne’s heart ratcheting to his throat.
“I... I mean, I... Gods, Astarion...”
“This isn’t a test, dear.”
“I know.” Kyne’s hands twisted in his lap. He took a shuddering breath, searching Astarion’s face. “I would want you to do the right thing. But I wouldn’t be happy about it.”
Astarion nodded, jaw resolute and hard. Like it was the answer he’d expected all along.
“I didn’t want you to,” he murmured. “For all my talk of resisting, of getting free, when the time came... I wanted you to say yes, if it meant you’d stay here with me. If it meant I wouldn’t be facing this—” he gestured all around them— “alone.”
“You aren’t alone,” Kyne whispered, tracing Astarion’s jaw with trembling fingers. “And you wouldn’t have been. Our friends—”
“—Our friends are not you.” Astarion jutted his chin away, eyes dark. Kyne let his hand fall to the bed between them. “Ugh. This isn’t meant to be a lecture. It’s a bloody apology.” He spat the word like it was acid on his tongue. “For how I acted in the temple. I was... needlessly harsh.”
“You were afraid.”
“I was cruel.”
“You made me laugh!”
Astarion wrinkled his nose. “I don’t recall anyone finding the situation amusing — yourself included.”
“I was laughing on the inside.”
Astarion shot him a withering look.
“I don’t even remember what you said, really,” Kyne continued, suppressing a giggle. Whatever his blood volume was after Halsin’s healing ministrations, it clearly wasn’t enough. “Something about finding the whole affair rather ‘twee?’”
Astarion scrubbed his face and groaned.
“I do remember you being ready to gut Jaheira, though. That would’ve made me angry, I’ll admit.”
“She was going to kill you, Kyne. She brought a whole pack of her little minions and everything.”
Kyne shrugged.
Jaheira could’ve tried. He knew well enough — just as he suspected she did, too — that the weakened remains of the Harpers would pose little threat to a fully-realized Slayer. No, she’d followed them because she’d chosen her fate: honour-bound to the last, sworn to guide him or die trying. The cult of Bhaal was almost as personal to her as it was to him.
He picked at his fingernails. His right hand looked disconcerting beside his left, which had been freshly scrubbed clean of debris even underneath his short fingernails. The right bore marks of his ordeal in the form of chipping rust-coloured blotches, well embedded in his cuticles and knuckles. Beyond his forearm, though, he noticed how clean his skin felt under the pristine white linens he’d been dressed in.
“Wait, did you bathe me while I was asleep?” How in the hells had the slight elf managed that? Had he any help? That would be unlike him. Kyne briefly conjured an image of Astarion trying to lever him into the washtub in his mind — it was adorable, even if a sponge bath was the more practical, and therefore more likely, possibility.
“Prestidigitation, my sweet,” Astarion replied with a flourish. “Gale was kind enough to teach me the useful little cantrip. But the damn spell has no eye for detail.” He cast a disparaging eye at Kyne’s cuticles before springing to his feet. “Here, you relax, and I’ll be back with some fresh water and something for you to eat, my little morsel.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“And you’re on bedrest. Halsin’s orders. So, sit back and — yes, there you go.”
Kyne had to admit the Elfsong’s pillows were a great deal more luxe than his threadbare bedroll. And they were made all the more alluring by the promise of an uninterrupted night’s rest. Kyne’s eyelids grew heavy with shocking speed.
The world promptly went soft around the edges, such that he wasn’t even sure if he’d heard the door close to mark Astarion’s departure. When he finally forced the words from his lips into the empty room, it felt like speaking into sand.
“I’m not going anywhere, love.”