[ HUG ] + " it's okay. i've got you. you're safe now. " // ichyre, halsin, I am envisioning post-Cazador fight . . .
@ichyre has offered to caretake for astarion.
CAZADOR IS DEAD.
By all rights it should've felt like a weight lifted from around his throat. Centuries he was held in this dank crypt of a palace in chains both real and terrible magic, tortured in every way imaginable thrice over or more, and always at Cazador's bidding. Two hundred years of doing what he was told. Having who he was and what he was meant to be defined for him by a man who could just as easily snuff out his entire existence and replace him as he could tear the flesh from his bones and force feed it to him.
Freedom should've felt good. So why did it feel like it was carving a hollow space up through his chest and throat as he screamed? Why, then, if it should feel like relief, did it feel like his entire being were still being strangled out of the light by thorns?
Astaron had given up ascension for this. For the knowledge that he would lose the sun when this was over - if they even survived, that was. He'd lose the sun and he had no idea who he was without this. Without this hate and anger, without a thirst for power and vengeance, he felt like a dying star collapsing inward on itself. It was a sobering realization to have while seated on his knees in a pool of his former master's blood, Rhapsody still dangling from his fingertips by his hip.
He'd been so caught up in the hope before all of this, and it wasn't as if stabbing the bastard fifteen or more times could have somehow pummeled a new purpose and reason for being into Astarion by proxy.
There was nothing left, and that nothingness had left him a broken and sobbing thing on its knees for all to see.
Ascension would've afforded him a purpose. He could taste the bitterness of that realization in the icy tears streaking down his face and feel it making a home in the empty space inside him. How dare these people, these so-called friends, convince him to give up the one thing that might've given him any meaning. He could've taken on the world. Tasted everything. Food, joy, sunlight, dancing, sex. Hells, he could've had everything. Instead he was left with this. Because as malleable as he thought the people he'd been traveling with were, their damned morals rubbed off on him.
(He could still hear Halsin telling him that to trade seven thousand souls for his own would be an abomination. He hated how the very idea of being seen that way by him turned his stomach. He wanted to hate him for it.)
The quiet padding of bare feet on stone drew him from his crying. He'd very nearly forgotten he'd taken the staff and freed them before promptly dropping back to his knees to break down again. Two hundred years of swallowing his emotions the moment Cazador drew near kicked in and the choking sobs stopped as if sucked into a deep and unreachable void. Astarion schooled his features with a sniffle that felt as disgusting as his blood-clotted fingers at his sides when he released Rhapsody, kicked aside Cazador's staff, and pushed himself to stand again. His siblings needed him after what he'd done to them. This he could do. This was a purpose, and it could push down the anguish he felt for the person he never was or would be if only for a moment.
His very being felt blurry and far away as he explained what their new freedom would mean for them. To the Underdark with them. They'd never have to worry about sunrise, but they would have to worry about food - and there were a lot of mouths to feed. It would be their problem. Astarion's problem was the tadpole and everything that went with that.
As their bodies filtered past him to gather the masses and begin their descent, Astarion stood frozen. Staring after them but not truly seeing. He was so disconnected from his body that when bumped into or jostled by a hand of thanks on his shoulder, he merely blinked at the passing faces vacantly. When they were gone, that hideous bitterness resurfaced like bile burning at the back of his throat.
Astarion didn't know who or what he was anymore, but he felt very confident about exactly two things:
He wanted to cry some more, preferably very privately.
And he wanted to leave this fucking place and never lay eyes on it again.
When he turned on his heel to do just that, he was slammed back into the screaming static of his own body as he walked face first into Halsin's chest. Some part of him had hoped that he and the others had left him to deal with this. Knowing they'd watched... that he'd been seen in such a vulnerable state by three living, breathing souls? Astarion wanted to vomit. Instead he was swept tightly into Halsin's arms and held against his chest with a too gentle hand petting through his hair.
Astarion felt like he was on fire. As if he'd stepped outside while the sun was still up and the tadpole was nowhere to be found. Something enormous was swallowing him up and simultaneously tearing him to shreds from the inside. Safety. All at once he was being carved hollow once again. Sobbing into Halsin's chest and being held.
How stupid was he to think he had nothing after all of this? This big, stupid, too kind, beautiful man was still here. The others had seen him at his worst and likely tomorrow they'd be getting up to keep going because they had each other and this journey had to end one way or another. It certainly didn't end down here.
For Astarion, maybe it started here: crying as if his very soul were being wrenched from his body and being held through it like something cherished. Being told, "It's okay. I've got you. You're safe now."
Being told that and knowing it was true. Yes, everything was uncertain. His purpose after dealing with this Absolute business was an absolutely massive question. But hadn't uncertainty been a comfort before? Is uncertainty not a part of living? Truly living?
So Astarion wrapped his arms around Halsin in return and squeezed his face against his breastbone to muffle his sobbing. He let himself be held as he fell apart because tonight... tonight he'd finally live again. He'd redefine himself and there was nothing, not even Halsin, that Cazador could ever take away from him again.
"I think we're done here. Let's go?"
