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“Darling, I’m back.” Astarion closed the front door and set down a paper bag on the table in the hallway, then took off his boots. He cut a fine figure in his long black coat, and Mara watched as he took off the sunglasses which protected his light-sensitive eyes, slid them into a leather glasses case, and slipped the case into a pocket of the coat.
He took off the coat and hung it up in the cupboard by the front door, revealing a dark red silk shirt and a black waistcoat.
Astarion rolled up his sleeves, baring his forearms, and Mara caught him snatching a disapproving glance at himself in the hallway mirror.
There had been no mirrors in the section of Cazador Szarr’s home where Astarion had been kept, so after he was free, he had the shock of the vague, long-faded memories of what he thought he’d once looked like in his twenties, contrasted with his own face at an age approaching forty.
Though he still insisted he was beautiful, he had not been pleased with the lines around his mouth from years of forced smiles. The faint lines of pain on his forehead.
Mara nodded at the bag on the table. “You went shopping? What did you buy?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Astarion said, too quickly. Defensively.
“Is there something wrong?” asked Mara, their voice softening as they came closer.
“I’m still sober, if that’s what you’re asking, darling.”
“That’s not what I was suggesting,” Mara replied firmly. Astarion still had days when he thought everyone around him was only looking for inadequacies.
“Of course you weren’t,” said Astarion, softening. “I – I just feel a bit foolish about it, in hindsight.”
“You’re not usually foolish. What is it?”
Astarion’s face fell in shuttered embarrassment. “Textbooks.”
“Textbooks?”
“Law textbooks, to be precise.” He straightened up. “You can call me foolish now, if you like. I’ll never set foot in a courtroom again. Not as a lawyer, at least. My accreditation ran out years ago, and I have nothing savoury to fill in the twenty-year gap in my CV. I just… felt rusty. I wanted to brush up on things.”
Mara had never asked for the exact details of how Astarion Ancunín, the up-and-coming young lawyer, became Astarion Ancunín, the slave who downed red wine to cope, but Astarion had given vague hints of how he had been captured by Cazador.
From that point on, his world had been the boudoir of Cazador’s mansion when he was ‘working’, and a tiny room in the basement when he was not.
His albinism labelled him as exotic, but aside from that, he was at the bottom of the pack compared to the other escorts. He’d been one of the first taken by Cazador, so while he’d always been ridiculed for his low pain threshold when punishment was doled out, later on he was also criticised for starting to show his age. The flush of youth drained away by two decades of abject misery on his back.
“It’s not foolish at all,” said Mara gently. “You were interested in the subject; you bought the books. People do things like that every day. You’ve made far more decadent purchases – there’s no need to chastise yourself over this one.”
Not that money would ever be an issue for Astarion. After he killed Cazador, he’d had the presence of mind to drain the man’s bank accounts. After he’d sat on the floor and sobbed while Mara helped wipe the blood off his face.
Mara took the bag of books and brought it to the living room, where they slid the books into place on the bookshelf. They glanced at a photo frame on one of the shelves – the two of them, at Gale’s Halloween party. Astarion grinning in plastic vampire fangs, his arm slung across Mara’s shoulders; Mara with a ridiculous amount of fake blood smeared across their throat. The flash had gone off too close to their faces, so they both looked pale and washed out, but very happy.
Mara was in two minds about a possibility for future celebration – whether Astarion would enjoy a party for his fortieth, or if he would want to avoid any mention of the fact that he’d reached middle age.
They already knew who they’d invite, if they did – Halsin and Gale and Wyll, Shadowheart and Lae’zel. Karlach would be delighted.
It was just as well that Mara had met most of their friends about the same time they’d met Astarion, because how would they have explained him to an older friend?
“So, this man you’re seeing, how did you meet?”
He put a knife to my throat.
“And what does he do?”
He was forced into prostitution until he murdered his pimp. He doesn’t work, now.
“Does he have any hobbies?”
Embroidery. And he makes his own perfume. Oh, and lock picking.
“Anything else I should know?”
He’s a recovering alcoholic. But it’s not his fault. Anyone would drink after living through that. In the evenings, I rub salve onto the scars on his back and sometimes that’s enough for him to cry. He’s not used to kindness. The salve is meant to help with any back pain from the scarring, but to be honest, the scars are too deep to ever truly fade.
Mara was drawn from their thoughts by the sound of Astarion stepping up beside them.
He looked down at the photograph. “I don’t know why you like that picture so much. The light makes me look positively ancient.”
“I don’t think you realise how beautiful you are when you’re happy.”
“Oh, sweet. Flattery will get you everywhere.”
Mara took his hand. “I mean it. These last few weeks, you’ve sort of… relaxed into the idea of being safe. It’s lovely to watch.”
“You’re right,” he admitted. “I have been… feeling safer lately. Less worried about – about things I needn’t concern myself with anymore. I – I don’t have much of a heart left. But it’s all yours.” He gave a small smile. “If you can bring yourself to remain with a decrepit old man.”
“I am barely younger than you. Quite frankly, I’m surprised you haven’t yet seized hold of the term ‘silver fox’ and bled it for all it’s worth.”
Astarion wrapped his arms around Mara, and pressed a soft kiss to their lips. “Mmm, yes. I could definitely use that. Maybe in a few years.”
Mara kissed him again, deeper this time and a little dirtier, and Astarion shot them a wicked grin.
Smiling made the lines on his face stand out more. Mara adored it.