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"Come now, my love," says Cazador, voice honey-smooth. "You know the routine."
His smile is serene, like some devotional saint, incongruous with the white oblong pill in his palm. Astarion knows it by sight, shape, its chalky smell—the way it melts apart on the tongue. And yet he finds himself staring at it like he's never seen one before, his body reacting with recoil before his mind quite knows why.
How many has he taken? Hundreds? Thousands, now? They make everything soft, make him float, hollow him out. Leaving just a doll posed on starched sheets.
"No," he says, and the word comes out hoarse; he scarcely recognizes the sound of his own voice. His mouth has gone dry, his pulse pounds in his head, loud enough to drown out everything else.
Cazador's smile only deepens in response. It's indulgent, far from faltering, but patient, and kind, the expression of a man who has all the time in the world.
"Darling. You're not feeling well. You're confused. You know how you get when you don't take care of yourself."
"I don't—" Astarion forces, around a thick tongue. "I don't want it." When did words become so hard?
"Of course you don't." Cazador sets the pill down, on the nightstand, with an exaggeration of care. He sits on the bed, reaches out to cup Astarion's face. "No one wants to take medicine, my sweet silly thing. But you need it. You know that."
No, Astarion doesn't think he does. He doesn't know what he knows. But then again, he doesn't know what he doesn't know.
"You've been so good lately," Cazador continues, and there's pride and real warmth in his voice. "So sweet, so obedient. You haven't given me a moment's trouble in—what's it been? Months?"
It's been months, then, months of fog. Months of this endless, indescribable, suffocating fog.
"I take care of everything, don't I?" Cazador's other hand finds his, Astarion's skeletal fingers disappearing into his larger palm. He lifts Astarion's hand to his lips, presses a kiss to the knuckles. "Don't worry. I'm here. I take care of you."
"I want—" Astarion's voice cracks. His throat is so dry it hurts. "I want to talk to someone. A doctor. My doctor."
"I am your doctor, darling." Cazador's smile doesn't shift. "You don't have anyone else."
"No, I—" The room swims. "I—there was someone—"
"Shh, shh." Cazador releases his hand to stroke his hair, fingers weaving through the limp and thinning curls. "You're confused. That's the illness talking. You've been so sick, my love. Do you know how worried I've been? How many nights I've stayed awake watching over you?"
Astarion's chest tightens. Is that true? He couldn't say. On the nightstand, there's water, condensation beading on the glass.
"You couldn't even tell me our address if I asked, could you?" Cazador's voice is soft, carrying a note of, indisputably, pity. "You can't remember the days of the week. Half the time, not even your own name. And you think you're well enough to have any say over your care?" He laughs, a quiet, affectionate sound. "Sweet fool. Oh, darling. This is exactly why you need me."
"I'm not—" Astarion tries to pull away. "I'm not sick. You're—it's you, you're doing this to me—"
"Doing what?" Cazador's expression is all open concern now, his brows pulled together in a perfect portrait of worry. "Loving you? Caring for you? Keeping you safe when you can't? Yes, that's all me. Consider me guilty as charged." Picking up the pill again, he holds it out, between thumb and forefinger, reaches for the water.
"Don't touch that." The words come out sharper than intended. Astarion's eyes lock on the glass. "Don't— I'm not drinking that."
Cazador pauses, glass halfway to Astarion's lips. "Darling—"
"It's in the water too, isn't it?" Astarion's breath comes faster. "You put it in everything. The food. The drinks. That's why I can't, why I never—"
"You're being paranoid." But Cazador's voice has grown decidedly chilly. "This is exactly what I'm talking about. The illness, it makes you think terrible things—"
"I want to leave."
The words hang in the air between them. Cazador goes very still. "What was that?"
His voice hasn't changed: terribly soft, horribly kind. But there's something in his eyes, something vast, dark, and cold. Astarion feels suddenly overcome with the sensation of standing on a frozen lake; of realizing, too late, that the ice is cracking beneath his feet.
"I want to leave," Astarion says again, louder this time. "I want to go. Want to call someone, I want—"
"You want. You want. How interesting."
"You can't keep me here against my will. I'm a person, I have rights—"
He tries to turn his head but Cazador's other hand snaps up, catching his jaw.
"Oh, precious thing. You can't even walk down the stairs. When was the last time you fed yourself?" Cazador laughs, and it's not a pretty sound. "And you want to preach to me about rights?"
"Let go of me—"
"You're mine." The mask is cracking now, ugly fissures spreading across that patrician face. Fingers dig deeper into Astarion's jaw. "You're mine for life. You gave yourself to me—said vows, promised yourself. In sickness and in health, remember? For better or worse?" His smile is sharp, and terrible, now. "This is the worse. This is me keeping my promises even when you don't keep yours."
"I didn't—" Astarion's voice breaks. "Didn't know you were— going to—"
"Going to what? Love you? Cherish you? Keep you safe? The world would chew you up and spit you out." Cazador sets the glass down with a crack, with such force that water sloshes over the rim. "You were nothing when I found you. A pretty face. Delusions of importance, nothing more. And I took you in. Made you mine."
He picks up the pill again, holding it between Astarion's eyes. A priest offering absolution. A lover handing his spouse their morning tea: routine and expected, impossible to refuse.
"Take your medicine, darling. Be good for me. You can be so good for me when you just stop fighting."
His thumb presses harder against Astarion's jaw, and something in that touch—the possessive pressure, the casual cruelty, disguised as tenderness—snaps what fragile thread has been holding Astarion together.
He doesn't think on it. It isn't planned. His muscles just act—some base part of his brain screaming that if he doesn't move now, right now, he will never move again. Lunging sideways, he tries to roll off the bed, away from Cazador, toward the door that seems impossibly far away.
His legs tangle in the sheets. His arms have no strength. He makes it maybe two feet before Cazador's hand closes around his bicep and wrenches him back.
"Don't be stupid—"
"Help!" Astarion screams, shrill. "Someone—please—SOMEBODY HELP ME—"
Cazador's palm slams over his mouth, cutting off the sound. Astarion doesn't hesitate: bites down hard, engaging his jaw, sinking his teeth into the meat of Cazador's palm. Skin tears. Blood wells. With a snarl, Cazador rips his hand away.
"You animal—"
Astarion tries to scream again, but Cazador's fist cracks across his face, and the world explodes. Stars burst behind Astarion's eyes, his head snapping to the side. It keeps going, his neck wrenching, and then he's flat on the mattress, on his back, with entirely no memory of the fall.
His ears are ringing, a high and awful whine. He can't see the ceiling—and what he can see is a spinning, dizzy carousel. His cheek is on fire, throbbing in time with his pulse, and Cazador is looming over him, breathing hard. There's bright blood on his hand, and his expression is ice.
"You're making this so much harder than it needs to be."
Astarion tries to roll away, his head full of cotton and broken glass and that sickening ringing sound.
That's when he sees it: Cazador's jacket pocket. The phone. The outline of it, right there, before his eyes. He shoots a hand out—fumbling, desperate—only for Cazador to catch his wrist and twist. Pain lancing up his arm, Astarion drops the snatched phone with a strangled cry.
Cazador picks it up. Looks at it. And then slams it against the nightstand. Slams it again. A third time, for good measure.
The screen spiderwebs, goes dark. Plastic cracks. Glass raining across the floor. Dropping the remains, Cazador grinds his heel into them, crushing circuit boards and battery into twisted metal, chemical smell.
"There," he says, almost pleasant. "That better?"
Astarion rises—or tries to. He gets halfway to his stomach before Cazador's weight crashes down, knocking what little air he has left from his lungs.
"Stop fighting—"
Bucking upward, Astarion arches his back, trying to throw the larger man off—but it's as futile as trying to move a mountain. He's a sparrow trying to shake off a hawk; his emaciated frame has no leverage, no power at all.
So he goes for the eyes. Hand reaching back, snapping up, fingers hooking into claws, he aims blindly for Cazador's face. Makes contact: he feels the give of an eyelid, the curve of a cheek, and rakes down as hard as he can. When he turns, Cazador jerking back with a roar, he sees three red welts down Cazador's face, one dangerously close to his eye, all beading blood.
"You bastard—"
A fistful of Astarion's hair is grabbed, his face slammed several times into the bed. The impact jars far more than his teeth, and then his head is torqued up and back, forced into a bend so grotesque he's certain his neck will break. He cries out: the position makes it impossible to breathe. Tries with all his might to twist away, but there's no negotiating with Cazador's iron grip.
"You want to fight?" Cazador hisses into his ear. "Fine. Let's fight."
Releasing Astarion's hair, he drives his forearm across the back of Astarion's head, forcing him down, down toward the edge of the bed. Astarion tries to brace, resist, but his arms give out, and he pitches forward, straight off the mattress, to the floor. The impact drives the breath from his body, and before he can recover Cazador is on him again.
"No—" Astarion tries to crawl. "Get off—" His fingers scrabble against the smooth wood.
It doesn't help: Cazador grabs him, flips him like he weighs nothing—which he does, all wasted muscle and bone. Straddling Astarion's chest, Cazador's knees pin his arms to the floor, and—trapped beneath him, staring up at that calm, expressionless mask—Astarion can only scream again.
"HELP ME—somebody—PLEASE—"
"No one is coming." Cazador doesn't even bother to raise his voice. "No one can hear you. We've been over this."
Astarion thrashes. His legs kick out, heels scraping against the floorboards, trying to find purchase, trying to buck off Cazador's bulk. He's never been more aware how little of him there is left; how easily Cazador subdues him with just his weight, just his knees. Fighting upward is impossible. So he changes tack. Twisting to free a hip, raise a knee, coming up as fast and hard as he can, he aims for Cazador's balls with every desperate ounce of strength left. But Cazador shifts, just an inch, and Astarion's knee glances off his inner thigh instead.
Still, it's close. Beneath the blood, Cazador's scratched face goes very dark. "Enough."
No. Astarion doesn't wait. He twists, tries to slip down, make himself slippery and small. If he can just squeeze out from under Cazador's weight, slide down toward his legs, and get loose—
But the shirt.
Cazador's hand closes on cloth, and he rips. The fabric tears like tissue, buttons scattering, and the collar gives way and suddenly Astarion is fully bare from the waist up. Skin pale, bruise-mottled, each rib standing out in sharp relief. Now there's nowhere to hide. No fabric to slip through sweating fingers, no barrier between Cazador's grip and his bare flesh. Before he can try to squirm away again, Cazador drives his fist into Astarion's solar plexus. All the air leaves Astarion's body in a single wheeze of agony. His mouth opens and closes like a fish, drowning on land.
"I said. Enough."
He hauls Astarion around—Astarion is dimly aware of being dragged, maneuvered, manhandled—wrenches him onto his stomach, on the floor. Cheek pressed against the hardwood, he can feel every grain of it as Cazador plants a knee between his shoulder blades and shoves down. Flattening him, pressing the air from his lungs until his ribs ache against the uncompromising surface.
"Stop moving." The command is clear.
But Astarion doesn't stop—can't stop. His legs scissor uselessly behind him, heels kicking at nothing, fingers scrabbling at the floor. He tries to crawl forward, to drag himself even an inch despite Cazador's weight, but the knee just grinds deeper, pressing him flatter, pressing him into the wood like he's something to be crushed.
And then the sheet. Fabric is tearing, Cazador pulling the sheet from the bed, and Astarion sees with sudden clarity what's about to happen.
"No, no please no—" The words tumble out in a breathless rush. He tries to pull his arms in, tries to tuck them under his body, but Cazador is faster.
One hand. Then the other. Cazador wrenches them behind his back—not gently—and ties the sheet around them in quick loops, and if the injured hand hurts him at all he gives no sign of it. Astarion tries to wriggle free but the wrap is far too tight, and within seconds his wrists are completely bound.
"Fuck you—" Astarion twists, and writhes, but he gets hardly halfway to his side before Cazador grabs his shoulder and flips him back.
"I'm trying—" Cazador says, eerily calm— "to help you. And this is how you repay me, wretch?"
Astarion's legs are still free. He could still run. He pulls his knee up, tries to get his feet under him—and then Cazador sits fully down on his legs.
His weight, entirely onto the backs of Astarion's thighs—two hundred pounds of solid muscle pressing down on limbs that have atrophied to nothing.
Astarion screams, frustration and rage and terror all mixed. He can't move his arms, or his legs. Can't do anything but lie there, pinned like a butterfly to a board, while Cazador's weight crushes him into the floor. He tries a headbutt, twisting his neck, jerking his skull back and up, aiming for Cazador's nose, teeth, anything. It's stupid, and desperate, and his head connects—with Cazador's chin, and it's like slamming into the sharp edge of concrete.
Pain explodes through Astarion's skull—white-hot. His vision goes bright, then black, and never quite refocuses afterwards. The ringing in his ears doubles. Triples. He's definitely going to throw up, any minute now. Cazador's hand fists in his hair—what's left of it, brittle and thin—and slams his whole face into the floor. His nose crunches and blood explodes across the wood.
"Are you done?" demands Cazador.
Astarion isn't done. Will never be done. He writhes like an eel, like a snake, every muscle in his body straining against the bindings and the weight.
But he's getting tired. So tired. Weak. The world won't stop pitching, the floor tilting and swaying like a ship in a storm. Blood pools under his face, and his broken nose throbs, each beat sending fresh waves of nausea through his gut. The ringing in his ears has become a constant whine, making it hard to think, hard to focus on anything except the pain. Fight is draining out of him like water through a sieve.
Shifting above him, Cazador retrieves a syringe. Terror spikes in response through the fog in Astarion's mind. He knows what that means. Knows what's coming.
"This is your own fault," Cazador says, and his voice is smooth and calm once more. "You're forcing my hand."
He holds the syringe up to the light, checking it: no needle, just a barrel half-full of clear liquid. As he lowers it toward Astarion's face, the movement makes the dried blood on his palm crack, a thin seam of red reopening across the bite.
"Open your mouth," he instructs.
Astarion's jaw locks shut. His teeth shove together so hard his molars ache. He won't.
"Open. Your mouth."
"Nnh-nh—" A nasal sound, coming out through his clenched teeth. His body stiffens where it's pinned, every muscle tensing in resistance.
Sighing in drawn-out disappointment, Cazador's other hand tangles in Astarion's hair—then he pulls. Wrenching Astarion's head back, straining his neck and compressing his spine, bending him until his whole throat is exposed.
His face tilts toward the ceiling, then further still. He tries to keep his teeth together—but soon finds what geometry won't allow. The more Cazador pulls his head back, the more his jaw has to give—just from the angle alone, the muscles unable to maintain tension in that position. His mouth slowly cracks open, entirely against his will.
Just a sliver—a tiny gap between his lips, his teeth—but it's enough. At once, Cazador is there, syringe secured in his free hand.
"Nnnngh—" Astarion makes a sound of pure formless panic, straining to press his tongue up. Try as he might to block the opening, the tip of the syringe slides between his teeth. Cazador angles it sideways, working it in like a lever, and suddenly it's in, plastic barrel pressing down against Astarion's tongue, forcing it flat against the floor of his mouth.
The syringe pushes deeper, back past his teeth, past the point where he could usefully bite down. Thumb finding the plunger, Cazador presses down, and liquid floods Astarion's mouth—bitter, horrible. Pooling in the back of his throat, tasting like poison, like death. He can't immediately expel it: it's too far back, and there's too much of it, and he's choking, gagging, drowning—
Cazador releases his hair. Astarion's head drops forward and he tries to spit, lurching to the side, trying to push the liquid out anywhere but down his throat. He won't swallow it. Won't—
But Cazador's hand comes to clamp around his throat, palm pressed against the underside of his chin, fingers wrapped around the sides of his neck. Holding Astarion's jaw sealed, keeping his mouth shut, liquid in.
"No," Cazador says quietly, forcefully. "You're going to swallow that."
Astarion writhes, makes a muffled sound of resolute denial. The liquid, swirling in his mouth, burns his tongue. He can feel Cazador's free hand working at the sheet binding his wrists. The fabric loosens just enough to free his right arm—but before he can even think of using it, Cazador's hand locks around his wrist and pins it against the small of his back.
"Swallow," Cazador says again.
No. He shakes his head—as much as he can with Cazador's hand controlling his jaw. The liquid weighs on his tongue, threatening his airway: but he won't swallow. He won't. If he can just hold it in his mouth long enough, if he can outlast Cazador—
Cazador begins to pull his arm up.
The shoulder joint whines immediately: socket straining, tendons stretching, the angle wrong and getting steadily wronger with every single second. A whimper escapes, muffled by his clenched-shut jaw.
"Swallow," Cazador says, voice perfectly even, "swallow, or I keep going."
Astarion's eyes go wide, wide, white and wild. The liquid is still in his mouth, pooling against his soft palate, and he's trying to regulate his breath, to keep his throat closed, but the pain in his shoulder only builds, as Cazador bends the arm higher and more horrifically still.
Bone grinds against bone. The shoulder socket sears, agony radiating down his arm and up into his neck. His body spasms, and with nowhere else to go, some of the liquid slides toward his throat.
He gags. Chokes. Doesn't swallow. He won't swallow.
"Stubborn," Cazador murmurs, and there's something almost admiring in his voice. "But stupid." He lifts the arm another inch.
And something in Astarion's shoulder tears. A tendon, maybe; a ligament. He feels it give way with a sensation like ripping fabric, and the pain escalates, multiplies, becomes something beyond pain. Beyond anything he has words for. Desperate for air, his nostrils flare wide; struggles, and fails, to hold back a high keening sound.
His throat convulses.
The liquid goes down.
Not all of it, but enough. Bitter and burning, sliding in a thick and awful rush. Some of it dribbles back out of his nose.
"Good," says Cazador. "See? You can be reasonable."
He loosens Astarion's jaw just long enough for Astarion to gasp, to heave, and then his hand is back, keeping Astarion's mouth closed again. There's still liquid in there. Still more to swallow.
"The rest," says Cazador. "Now."
Please, Astarion begs, or tries to beg. It comes out muffled, unintelligible through the hand clamped over his mouth. His shoulder is screaming; the torn tissue feels like fire. Stop, please stop, I don't want to, please—
Too late. Cazador's torquing the arm higher again. This time Astarion feels the joint separate—the ball pulling against the rim of the socket, threatening to pop free entirely. The pain is catastrophic. All-consuming. He can't think past it, can't do anything but live, die, drown in it.
His throat works. Once. Twice. The remaining liquid slides down in convulsive gulps, and he's sobbing now, tears streaming down his face, mixing with the blood from his broken nose.
"There we go," Cazador says. "All of it. Good boy."
He lifts the arm one more inch—and the shoulder dislocates.
Astarion doesn't scream this time, although he could: his mouth is empty now. But the pain is too big for sound, too complete. The ball of his shoulder joint pops free from the socket, and then it's just hanging there, displaced, unresponsive. Cazador releases his throat.
Releases his arm, too, and Astarion flops to the floor like dead meat. Body limp, muscles surrendering, his consciousness flickers like a candle in the wind.
"Hurts." His lips form the shape around an exhaled breath. The room is spinning. It's all he can say. The only word his brain can form. "Hurts... hurts..."
"I know," Cazador says. Stands, brushes off his pants. "But you swallowed it all. That's all I wanted."
He turns, and the light catches the marks on his face: three lines down his cheek, dark and crusted now, the one near his eye gone to a bruised purple-red.
Astarion lies on the floor, and doesn't stir. His left wrist is still bound. His right arm is dislocated, useless. His nose is shattered, dripping blood. He's starting to shake, shaking so hard his teeth knock, click, and chatter. But the drug is slowly exerting its effect. He can feel numbness creeping through his limbs. The pain is still there but it's starting to go distant, unreal.
Cazador crouches beside him. Strokes his hair.
"I'll fix it," he says, soft. "I'll set the shoulder. Clean you up. Put you back together. I always do."
Astarion knows what that entails; he's had it done before. The positioning, the slow traction, the moment of resistance before the joint surrenders and slides home. It will hurt even through the drug. There's a part of his brain, still running underneath the fog, that wants to be afraid of it. But the drug is patient and the drug is thorough, and that part is getting very small.
His eyes are closing. He can't keep them open anymore. The darkness is pulling, insisting, at him.
"Sleep now," Cazador murmurs, and Astarion feels himself being lifted, feels Cazador's arms sliding under him, cradling him. It jostles the shoulder even through the drugged haze, and he whimpers, a sound so small it's barely sound at all.
The bed is down, when Cazador lays him there. The sheets are cool against his skin.
"There," Cazador says. "Home."
And then the darkness swallows him whole.