These Cursed Hands (Touch Me With)

Part 14

 I told him I loved him. It'd been in the heat of the moment, thrown in amongst the barrage of words that left my lips when he confronted me. I told him I loved him, and he told me he hated himself. He'd looked me straight in the eyes when he said it, weaving his fingers between mine and holding me closer. His words echoed over and over in my mind. I hated myself. Hated myself. Hated. Hated. Hated.

"Darling," he started, brushing his lips across my knuckles. "None of what I did was ever meant to hurt you."

"Then what was your intention? To win me over? To seek my protection? I've done nothing but stand by you, stand up for you, even without you sleep-" I gagged as the image of me atop him resurfaced, face twisted in a Cazadorian smile. Swallowing bile, I spoke again, "You have to do nothing, Astarion. Nothing is required of you to earn my protection. My feelings for you do not come with conditions, with clauses, with rules to follow. Yet everything you have done, everything you have said, proves to me that I did not make you realize that. It proves to me that I failed you. I made you doubt me, when you are the only person in the world that I would do anything for. Anything." My conviction burned so fiercely my words were but a heated whisper, breath tickling his face as I tried to drill my sincerity into his brain. I knew what conditional love was. I knew what it felt like to walk on eggshells around the people who were supposed to take care of you. And I knew I'd rather die than become a person like that.

"Anything from you is more than I deserve, darling."

"You don't get to decide that. No one else gets to decide what I'm willing to do for you, what I'm willing to give to you."

"Darling-"

"No, Astarion. You cannot argue with me on this. The way I feel about you, the way I love you, only I have control over those emotions." And I didn't know when I fell in love with Astarion. I really didn't. And I also didn't know which part of him I fell in love with first. Was it his looks? His humor? His competence? All of it called to me now. Every snarky comment, every witty remark. Every fluttering of his snowflake lashes and simmering glance from his crimson eyes. He plagued my mind in a way nothing else had, and part of that terrified me. I'd gotten used to freedom, used to the endless expanse of nature and the ever-changing patterns of the weave. Now my world had become small again. Narrowed down to the pinprick of a singular person within the vastness of the universe. Except this time I had chosen that path. And I was determined to stick to it.

"You... love me? How can you possibly love me?" His question turned angry, indignant. But I knew it was not me that his scornful attitude berated. I shook our clasped hands, knocking them together before I too kissed his knuckles.

"I don't know, Astarion." I managed to keep the misery out of my voice. I was realizing how hard it would be, loving a man like him. Convincing a man like him that he could even be loved. That he deserved it. "I don't know what to say to justify these feelings, to help you understand them. I just need you to trust me. I need you to believe me." I met his gaze, lips trembling as I offered him a weak smile. "Do you want to do that? Do you think you can try?"

He rested his forehead against mine, brushing our noses together. "For you, I will try anything." Then the weave crashed around us, the din of a battle making us both tense and reach for our weapons. It was soon over, the last of the enemies falling as Karlach brought her axe down and Halsin stepped through the portal. I reached out blindly to grab Astarion's arm as the portal closed behind the archdruid.

"He's holding a child," I whispered. Astarion kept a hold on me as I stood, supporting my lower back as I climbed to the top of the boulder. As I neared the archdruid, I could hardly fathom the number of threads stemming from the child in his arms. Most people created one thread, and connected to others by forming relationships, but the tiefling boy in Halsin's arms was the source of every living thing in the shadow cursed lands. Astarion hovered behind me as I reached out to brush dark hair from the boy's closed eyes. "This is Thaniel?" I asked Halsin, unable to peel my gaze away from the child.