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“Can I ask you a question?”
Auri’s head is in Astarion’s lap, shifting against him as she speaks, her hair fanned out across his slacks. She’d arrived at his doorstep with it down, the first indication something wasn’t right, strands of red tangling around her shoulders. The second was the redness in her eyes, and the third the fact that she was there at all.
You just did is on the tip of his tongue, but Auri’s eyes are still red rimmed as she looks up at him and Astarion recognizes it’s not the time to tease. When he’d opened the door an hour earlier, Auri had stood there in the doorway with her arms wrapped tightly around herself, eyes wide as she asked to come in and apologized for the lateness in the same breath, as though Astarion hadn’t been awake and working at the late hour.
“Go ahead,” he says instead, meeting her eyes with an encouraging smile. Elle sprawls across Auri’s stomach, weighing her down, Auri’s hands gently trembling as they stroke a repetitive pattern. Astarion’s hands twitch at his sides in the meantime; he wishes nothing more than to bury them in the thickness of Auri’s waves, so rarely loose like they are now. In the past he would massage her scalp gently while she made tiny noises of contentment at the feeling. But that wasn’t his place now. Astarion had waited a very long time to touch her again; he’d been surprised when she’d settled on the sofa next to him, and even more surprised when she’d collapsed into his lap with a sigh, wiggling around until she’d found this position, Elle jumping up to comfort her the moment she’d settled.
He’s fine waiting a little longer as long as even a glimpse of her smile is on view.
“What’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to you?”
The question startles him. This version of Auri hasn’t known him long; there’s a million questions you could ask a person that are far more lighthearted, but none as revealing as this. “Oh love. I don’t want to answer that.”
“Why?”
“You’re already sad.” Auri wrinkles her nose, unhappy with his accurate assessment. That won’t do. “Ask me something else. Anything, and If I can’t answer truthfully I won’t.”
Auri’s silent for a long minute, her hands running through Elle’s fur over and over as she ponders. Astarion watches them move, counting the even beats of her heart. “What’s a deep secret you’ve never told anyone else?”
It’s another question he’d prefer not to answer, all his truly deepest secrets wrapped up in the memory of Auri. Auri didn’t know all the skeletons in Astarion’s closet by any means, but he’d told her so many over their short time together. He had many secrets he’d kept in the time since, but all of them were simple, a lie he told or someone else’s crime he’d covered up. The man he’d killed once when he’d let himself go too long between feedings, lost in the pain of the past. The fog of the first decade after he’d lost Auri the first time, a time so long ago and yet uncomfortably vivid if he allows his thoughts to linger. That time he overcharged Chancellor Vancourt because he’d poked fun at the way Astarion styled his hair one morning. He has a rolodex of secrets but none seem appropriate to tell.
“Can I tell you a story instead? I have quite a few.”
Auri nods. “I’ll accept a story. I reserve the right to a rating at the end if it’s not good, though.”
“I would expect nothing less.” Astarion pauses. “I’ve lived a rather long life, I think I’ve mentioned that before.”
Auri nods again, the bobbing of her head pressing hard against his thighs; he suppresses a hiss at the discomfort it causes him, focusing instead on the story at hand.
“There may have been a time when I was. Not the businessman you see in front of you now. I’m very good with my hands, you see-” At this he allows himself a gentle tap to her cheek, against the spot where a dimple sometimes appears if she smiles wide enough. “And many people are very bad at locking their valuables away.”
The slightest imitation of that very smile appears underneath his touch. “Astarion, are you confessing a crime to me?”
“No, darling, I’m simply telling you a tale.” He taps once more before pulling his hand back.
“You said you’d be truthful.”
“And so I did. Will you listen?”
Auri listens. Astarion weaves a tale of simple thievery from a time long after Auri had gone from his life, when he had simply become once again The Pale Elf, an ambiguous fella folks mostly saw once the sun set, frequenting bars and lounges and moving on once their clientele learned his name. Readymade targets, those eight fingers deep in their drinks, but Astarion had ten and he made such good use of them rifling through belongings: trinkets, jewelry and vault keys far more readily available to him, for a time.
However as he aged so did the world, and frankly he grew bored of that life, relying on the loophole of his nature to keep his face out of photographs on the rare occasion he was caught, not even bothering with stealth once the mugshot became popular; he found great amusement watching officers fumble over their newfangled camera when it wouldn’t show his face before slipping away in the confusion. It was a nearly perfect plan for so long, but as paintings had once lead to photography, photography brought about security cameras and digital locks, and one day his face did in fact appear in the camera footage and the police station camera could capture his image, and just like that he retired his lockpicking set and found another way of living.
“...and that’s how I became an honest man.”
Astarion laughs at himself, the recollection of buying the very building they’re in now with the last of ill-gotten funds still a small amusement. His gaze settles on the bookshelf, whole rows of books about the history of Faerun a perpetual reminder of just how far his life has come. He waits a beat for commentary from Auri about how lame his story was or whatever. He doesn’t truly expect her judgment, knows she’s not that type, but there are so many better stories he could have chosen, more interesting truths he could have shared, and at the top of her game Auri would know that, he’s certain. When nothing comes, though, he dares look down at his lap.
Auri’s asleep, truly still for the first time that evening, her head canted slightly to the left and a little line of drool slipping out of the side of her open mouth. Astarion huffs a silent laugh at the familiar sight, and he looks forward to seeing her blush embarrassingly in the morning as she stumbles for an explanation. Her hands have slid from Elle, one of them dangling into the empty air beside the sofa, and Astarion knows if it remains that way by the time she awakens her fingertips and probably her whole arm will be numb and painful, so he shifts ever so slightly to guide her arm back against her chest. Touching Auri has always felt like a privilege to him. He intertwines his fingers with hers for the briefest of moments before placing them directly in front of Elle.
“I guess that means I get a terrible rating,” he chuckles to himself, settling in to try and claim some rest of his own until Auri awakens. Disturbing her sleep isn’t even an option that occurs to him.