#devilandminion

That it's Amadeo's fucking fault Astarion was put in that tomb, that he was naive and stupid and he made Astarion naive and stupid, and if they'd never made those naive and stupid plans together then-- Then-- He's not sure what then, exactly. But maybe it all would have been different.

That he's sorry. For a lot of things. For not killing Amadeo when he had the chance (not that he could have, but Gods, he wished he'd at least tried) so that he'd never be turned. For not trying harder to help him somehow when there was still a chance to. For not indulging him more often; for making fun of him now and then; for rolling his eyes; for snarking and snapping when Amadeo was trying to be sweet to him sometimes; for not being half as good a friend as Amadeo deserved, because if he had been, he'd have stayed away.

That the man he sees in front of him now is not Amadeo. That he doesn't recognise him any more than he would recognise his own reflection if he saw it, now. That he allows their reconnection out of convenience and self-preservation first and foremost, and actively abhors much of the memories being around Armand stirs up in him.

"You said you wouldn't fit," it huffs at him, like it's read his mind (it has not). The nightmare tips its head back slightly to dissuade him from touching the shades any more, then grips him by both wrists when that doesn't quite work. This guy is always so handsy. It's thrilling except for when it pisses him off.

(He has a memory, not his own, of grabbing someone else like this once. Tall, slim boy--dark brown hair? who wanted--what? Right. To take the shades off. Another round. And the Corinthian had been repulsed by him suddenly, the allure of him worn abruptly thin, and he had pushed the boy away and left to do... something else. Probably nothing good, but he doesn't remember now.)

The rim of his cocktail glass pauses at his lips.

“I get that a lot,” he says.

Sip, swallow. Turn, just slightly, to look at the guy whose bearing and clothes say normal patron but whose eyes tell the nightmare exactly who and what he’s really here for.

No way for whoever they’re working for to know that he’s technically younger than he looks. Only two years, maybe three since he was shaped to life by Morpheus’ hands, even if his memories sometimes claim otherwise. Still a dead-ringer for the late, great original, he has mostly made peace with the fact that there will always be times where someone or something comes after him for it. The Waking is dangerous for dreams, but the Corinthian has always been made fearless. He isn’t worried.

He is annoyed, though.

He looks hard at Rashid now, staring into his eyes, not quite bristling at him outright but still giving off that particular antimagnetic sense of please fuck off. Someone on the bar stool nearest him—an older woman with a crew-cut and heavy chains hanging from her belt loops, tattoos up both wrists—shifts uncomfortably like someone’s walked over her grave, and quietly slips from her stool to move elsewhere. He doubts she even realises why she’s doing it; only that she feels suddenly unsafe, and isn’t trained to ignore that feeling the way Rashid probably is. The Corinthian licks his teeth, thoughtfully.

like this:

"Oh, don't be--" Naive, Astarion starts to say, but the words catch in his throat and he scoffs and looks away from him. Because Armand is--or rather, Amadeo was--naive, and Astarion had been too, and wasn't that why they'd gotten all tangled up in one another to begin with? Stupidly believing that somehow, things would turn out all right?

He searches his memory, trying to unearth the man he'd been two hundred years ago--but whoever he was, Astarion can't find him. He is dead. Buried. He knows he's different now, just as Armand is different, but he doesn't know how exactly--and he is too afraid to ask what Armand remembers of him. Of who he was and might have still been, if they'd actually managed to escape together.

Ha. He almost laughs aloud. Right. He remembers that, now, very vaguely: a sense of getting caught up in something, making silly plans to go... somewhere, and being terrified not for himself (for once!) but for Amadeo's safety. Then... nothing. He doesn't remember how it ended or where they were caught or if they ever even made it out of the city together. Only the tomb after.

Blurry as it all is, he is certain he never entertained the idea of escape or friendship again, after that. No-one could survive that and make the same mistake twice.

The Corinthian smiles. There is nothing to read in the black reflection of his sunglasses, but the lines around his eyes deepen; the corners of his mouth curl up; his teeth, flat and uncommonly white, flash indulgently.

“I contemplate it after.”

panting, its mouths open, it nods three times and lets itself collapse against the stairway leading up to the grimy apartments above. the metal doesn’t creak under him but flakes of paint come off wherever he touches. it sits there, chest heaving, but it isn’t catching its breath: that’s not what the panting is for. no - the creature is self-regulating. calming itself down after a chase cut painfully short; taking in the smell of the city instead of focusing on what he so desperately wants from daniel. waiting to feel like himself and not his predecessor, for his eyes to stop dripping like faulty twin faucets.

when he’s calm enough that he thinks he can lift his hands without reaching for his knives, he wipes his face clean with a soft, red handkerchief and puts his shades back on. regards the old man guardedly: daniel has seen a side of him now that he does his best not to think about too hard. the calm, persistent predator that turned to feral wolf as soon as its prey was alone with it.

it’s a good thing they stopped. he knows it’s a good thing they stopped. that daniel fought him hard as hell when he was caught and the corinthian retained enough sense to know not to take out its knives. but the little broken-glass whisper in the back of his skull—

he’s not human anymore, technically.

he wouldn’t even die.

no one would really be hurt.

but that is how it starts. he knows better.

“did you? did you get what you wanted?” it holds its hand out for a cigarette. it’s never smoked one before, not in this life. but it feels right. “what did you want?”

his steps are the heavy thud of fresh dirt on a small coffin, his breath the rain and wind against thin windows, water leaking through the cracks. the bench creaks like the belly of an old ship when he sits down beside armand in the harbour.

"paris." he had not come for armand then, but louis, whose grief screamed across the city while his mouth and lungs filled with little white stones. it was matched only by his despair; the gravedigger had seen her there, his old master's sibling, huddled against louis' tomb and whispering to the metal as she stroked it lovingly, tenderly. he had known then that she was doing what he himself would have done: making it worse.

the gravedigger had left then, or started to. a familiar mind had brushed what passed for his own and he had followed the thread to find armand, freshly damned armand, who had learned nothing in the centuries since the original griefbringer had walked his dreams. he was enslaved only to himself, now, but in some ways more trapped than ever.

nothing, it seems, has changed since then.

the gravedigger swivels one hollow eye to fix it on armand's face, the pupil contracted, the violet light unnerving.