nibbling | open post pt. 2.

Bull chose a store that's basically opposite the Counting House, so they don't have far to go before they're entering the upper level of the bank. A bored employee asks their business with a curled lip and a cursory glance, and directs them to the correct line.

It's much shorter than the one for people depositing and withdrawing small pouches from the upper section, but they still have to wait a while for an employee with the clearance to take them all the way down to the high security vaults. Slightly torturous for two criminals who are all stricken with anticipation.

The halfling clerk introduces himself as Meadhoney and asks for their bank pass — the paper Bull produces before Astarion can shit himself is a much better forgery than that gilt key, and handed back without issue.

"Right this way, sirs," Meadhoney says, coming around to lift the heavy barred gate so they can enter past the heavily armoured cashguards, and head down the stairs, past rooms full of wine racks and polished armor and heavy looking chests — and more guards, of course. "Just down these stairs," he instructs, "And wait at the sign for one of our friendly bankers to show you to your vault." A pause, and then he repeats slower, for emphasis, "For your own safety, please do not continue beyond the sign without a staff member to assist."

Astarion only grows more nervous as they enter the Counting House, and yes, when they're asked for a bank pass, he almost does shit himself. The relief he feels when Bull pulls one out of thin air is palpable, although he's still obviously jumping out of his skin: his face is carefully placid, but it's clear in the way he shifts his weight from foot to foot, how his hand keeps coming to rest on the sheath of his dagger.

When they're left alone, he whispers, "Gods, I didn't know we'd need a pass." He hasn't been to the bank in 200 years, give or take. He glances past the sign, then, antsy.

"Perhaps we should just— get a move on."

The banker will recognize Cazador and Dufay. They won't recognize him, and certainly not Bull. It'll be instantly suspicious, and maybe they'll even contact Cazador about it—

"Come on," he says, impulsively stepping past the sign.

Bull reaches out and just grabs a hold of the back of his shirt like a toddler leash, and holds on, unmoving.

"One wrong step down here, you're gonna have a dozen of those armoured guys on your ass," Bull says, measured. "You wanna leave me the key and go back up?" He's pretty sure he already knows the answer to that one, but it's the only other option he's offering. "You got this. Treat anyone who questions you like shit on your shoe, you're good at that."

It's not trust, exactly, but Bull is the only one here who seems confident in what they're doing, so Astarion really has no choice but to defer to him. Also, the fact that he's been scruffed like a misbehaving cat doesn't help.

The 'friendly banker' makes his way down the stairs, a sharply dressed human with a pointy, upturned nose. Astarion instantly slaps Bull's hand away from his shirt, smoothing down the fabric so as to look his most presentable.

"Oh," the banker says, a little surprised. "I was expecting Mr. Szarr, or Antwun." Antwun. He's on a first name basis with Dufay—great. "You are...?"

Treat anyone who questions him like shit on his shoe. Okay. Astarion hikes his chin up, answering, "Having my time wasted already. Mr. Szarr has a very important gala coming up, and if he doesn't get this coin today, he'll be very unhappy—" A glance at the gold-plated nametag pinned to the banker's crisp shirt. "Edgar."

Edgar looks a little taken aback. "It's just that only Mr. Szarr and his chamberlain are authorized to open the vault—"

"And as I've already said," Astarion huffs, the lies coming easily, "they're very busy planning a prestigious event." He casts a sidelong glance at Bull. "Ugh. It's so difficult to find good help these days."

"A disappointment," Bull agrees, shaking his head and tutting.

A glance to Edgar. "If you'd prefer... well, Mr. Dufay went out delivering invitations, but I could go back on my own, try and fetch you Mr. Szarr." He glances up at nothing, horns tipped, doing calculations. "Take me about twenty minutes to get all the way to the estate, then I'd have to interrupt him and the guests, explain why the key wasn't good enough and Edgar wants to see him in person. Then another twenty to get back— maybe fifteen, he'll be pretty mad."

Edgar blanches, apparently familiar enough with Cazador that he does not want that particular series of events to occur. "I'm not going to stand around for an hour," he snipes at Bull, and then to Astarion. "My apologies, sir. Do you have the key? Come along."

But he's watching them closely now, even as he takes them down a hallway to a room with a series of runes etched on the floor. Inputs a complex code that lights up the runes and slides open a heavy round door silently, a gust of still air emerging. The high security vaults are also where the bank keeps years and years of records, so there's a library smell to it as they're walked down more stairs past rows and rows of shelves. The banker's heels click along the vast, reflective marble floors.

Bull is a good liar, he thinks delightedly. And then— Bull is a good liar, he thinks suspiciously. Astarion can't help but note that Bull's 'tell' is conspicuously absent during this lie. Something to keep in mind. In this moment, at least, the lies are in his favor, so he allows the delight to overtake him again. This really might work.

This time tomorrow, he might be in... what was it again? Skygold? Whatever. He won't be here, and that's all that matters.

Astarion follows Edgar down into the vaults with a newfound pep in his step, reaching into his pocket to produce the key once they've made it down to the rows of engraved vault doors. "Right here," he says, and the room is so large that his voice echoes. "Do you have a cart? We'll be taking everything."

Edgar, poised to slot the key into its hole, pauses. Looks back, frowning. "Everything? That's a bit... unconventional."

"It's a very expensive party."

Bull searches for another lie, but gives up and just hopes his intimidating glare carries them through.

"Now look here," Edgar says, faltering only briefly and then plowing forward, "I'm afraid I'll have to take you to have a word with our Head Banker — I'm sure a Zone of Truth will sort this all out and allow you to get on with your transaction—"

Bull judges the guy's stature and physique as he talks at them, then punches Edgar in the temple with just the right amount of force and catches him as he crumples.

"Ah, shit." There doesn't appear to be anybody else in here, at least for now; no point stationing guards behind an arcane lock. This whole place is a concrete and marble box under the ocean, there's no other way in — or out. "You were right. It's fine, change of plans, that's all." Calm because he needs Astarion calm. He's already turning the whole Counting House in his head like a puzzle box, retracing their steps to think about when they might need to fight, if someone sets off an alarm.

But first things first. Edgar had just pressed the key into the lock and it sits there; Bull gestures with his chin. "You want to do the honours?"

Calm. He almost had been calm, actually, and then Bull punched a man out. Astarion sputters, eyes going wide as saucers. "You— I—!" He can feel his neck heating with anxiety, no matter how many times Bull says 'it's fine'. Vault—and doing any sort of honors—momentarily forgotten, Astarion runs his fingers through his hair, pulling slightly at the root.

"Fuck," he hisses, staring down at Edgar's limp body before turning his attention back to Bull's face, every bit of the apprehension he'd had before walking in here returning to him in a flood. "He knows what we look like, you numbskull!"

Which maybe doesn't matter for Bull, but it fucking matters for Astarion. Astarion has to go back home to the very person they're swindling out of a fortune. Fuck, Cazador is going to kill him. No, that would be a mercy; he's going to make Astarion wish he had been killed.

Gesturing wildly: "Well, you have to kill him now!"

Bull closes his eye a moment — not because Astarion's pissed off, but because he knows that's true. He'll come around, and report the theft, well before they've left the city. And then he'll have to fight, and kill, a whole lot more people.

He looks down at Edgar cradled in the crook of his arm. "Crap. Tough when you know their name," he admits. It used to be easier, to stop thinking of them as people, to move someone to the place where their death can't really touch him. Astarion looks like a warhorse that's about to bolt, though, and that's kinda how he looked the last time Bull just started a fight right in front of his salad, and that went. Badly.

But he's not killing a man over an unknown amount of gold, so he just hoists the dead weight and does it himself, no ceremony, swinging the door wide and hoping the gold will distract Astarion — because there is gold, and even better, jewellery and gems, unobtrusive valuables. A heavy crossbow, for some reason. "We can leave his body inside," he decides, though he still sounds reluctant.

Oh, gods. He's accidentally teamed up with someone who believes some ridiculous thing like 'indiscriminate killing is bad' and 'maybe people's lives have worth'.

"Think of it this way," he says as he drops his pack off of his shoulder and begins shoveling coin and valuables into it. They're not getting that cart he asked for now, so he might as well utilize what he has. "You know my name, and leaving him alive is as good as killing me."

Astarion is long past feeling bad for sacrificing others to keep himself safe. Now, he doesn't feel anything at all about it. Blissful, empty numbness.

"And I'm much better looking than he was." So, obviously, Bull would be more sad about his death. A pause, and then he adds, with the closest thing to sympathy he can muster, "I'll slit his throat for you if you can't bear it."

"Too much blood," says Bull, shaking his head, "But thanks, though. I got it." He leans up against the wall alongside the vault, rearranging his burden so he can get his head in a good position, body weight hanging. A soft hup, and he does a lunge, the cracking of the neck loud and wet, echoing off the marble floors. The face twitches spasmodically in the wake of this paralysis, as cerebral hypoxia sets in.

He's too big to really fit properly into the vault, so he just hoists the body in there like it's a sack of potatoes and leaves the guy to die like that, starts helping collect up what he can. Pulls out the heavy crossbow once he runs out of room in his pockets for coin, and studies it, staring down the sights. Might be useful if they have to fight their way out, since he obviously didn't bring one of his huge two-handed weapons down into the fancy bank. "Recoil's gonna suck without my brace," he mutters, lowering it and glancing to Astarion filling a pack, already expecting that he, like his namesake, is gonna be the one shouldering the weight of all that gold.

"Way you were on the beach, I thought you were squeamish," he admits.

Squeamish! Ha. "Hardly." When my master's really mad at us, he doesn't say, he makes us torture each other. I'm really good at it. He thinks it, though, as he watches Bull stuff a previously-living man into the vault.

Once his pack is as full as it can be, bursting at the seams with gold and jewels, he tests its weight— and then immediately tosses it to Bull. While he hates giving up his spoils to someone else, he's not carrying all of that with these delicate arms.

"Pragmatic," he corrects. "I didn't want to die over 200 gold pieces." Hands on his hips, stretching out a crick in his neck after having bent down uncomfortably to procure the valuables from the vault: "And I don't have time to get injured and have to recuperate."

There would have been hell to pay; a spawn's body doesn't belong to them, so damaging it is like damaging someone else's merchandise. Of course, when you're the owner of that merchandise, you get to do whatever you want to it.

A couple more connections in the thousand piece puzzle that is Astarion. He loosens the straps on the backpack and slips it on.

"No amount of gold worth dying for," he agrees, and closes the vault on the body that used to be Edgar.

The adrenaline is really kicking in now, and he's having to lean on his training to keep a level head. They see nobody as they go back up the stairs, out the door and into the puzzle room. No idea how to reset it and no time to try, Bull ignores the whole thing and keeps going, down the corridor and past the signs where clients are expected to wait for access to some of the smaller vaults. Pauses at the bottom of the stairs, catching his breath.

"Bored," he says. "Bored and a little annoyed we're running financial errands, I think that's the best attitude to dissuade questions. Straught up and out the front door."

Astarion is still halfway to pissing himself over this whole thing, but Bull projects confidence, so he follows his lead. It's easier that way, when he doesn't have to make any scary decisions for himself—he hasn't made any decisions of his own in so long that he no longer knows how to do it. At least this way the responsibility lies on someone else's shoulders.

So, he does as Bull suggests. Looks as bored as he can, breezes right past the first guard.

"—Gentlemen?" he hears behind him. "You're not supposed to be leaving the vaults without an escort."

Bored. Bored and annoyed. "Can't you see we're busy with more important things?" he snaps, turning over his shoulder with a withering glare. "You've all wasted enough of our valuable time already!"

Oh, they're fucked. Bull had kinda hoped that since the banker had met them down there, it wouldn't be weird to show up without him. There's already a cashguard heading down the steps they just came up, another splitting off to follow them up the stairs: "If you could just wait here a moment—"

Nope, nope, nope. Bull keeps walking — just another flight of stairs, they're almost there. Nobody will see the body unless they open the vault, and they have to figure out which vault it was, first. Nobody's drawn a weapon yet, and they're unlikely to cause a commotion once they're on the top floor with all those people. He flashes their pass to a clerk, who steps out of their way with a little bow, has second thoughts only after he sees the bulging backpack over Bull's shoulder. "Ah, excuse me..."

"Apologies," Bull says, "We're in a hurry." Increasingly true, it's difficult not to just break into a run. Fortunately the staff seem mostly put out, discussing amongst themselves, not yet certain they weren't supposed to be down here — where's Meadhoney, didn't he escort them to the lower vaults?

The thick metal grate over the entrance to the vaults is still open, and they're through, into the crowd, out of the wide doors and past the stone-faced guards that stand either side. Walking fast but still just walking. There's an abandoned house just near here, all rubble and mildew, a common Guild drop-off point, and Bull heads there just to give them a chance to take a breath.

Astarion doesn't say a fucking word on the way, like he's terrified even speaking one syllable into existence will somehow ruin this. Once they're finally at the drop-off point, he slams the door behind them, the dilapidated wood creaking with the force of it, and presses himself against it like he's worried someone might burst in behind them and take all of the gold away.

(They won't, the small part of his mind that's rational thinks. None of those employees had the guts to abandon their post and follow them.)

He's committed a lot of crimes, and none of them have ever made him feel such an adrenaline rush. Most of the time, he'd felt bored—they'd mostly been just another task to complete for someone else's benefit, nothing he actually cared about beyond avoiding retribution for not achieving whatever needed achieving. This time, though, he's sweating a little, entire body tingling, head swimming. He laughs, a little hysteric, inexorable grin spreading across his face.

"We actually did it." Unbelievable. "Gods! I'm getting out of this hellhole."

"Fuck yeah," Bull agrees. It's not just that Astarion's hysteria is contageous, Bull can feel it too, the rush like watching an axe slam a killing blow into the space you just were. Adrenaline only bolstered by the deep rightness he feels at cloaking himself in deception, a certainty of purpose that was trained into him too young to ever be rid of it.

He lights a burnt down candle in the wall sconce so he can calm his own twitchy paranoia that they're about to get jumped — qunari can't really see in the dark. Then slips the pack off and leans against the wall, horns thunking back against it.

"Haagh. Okay. Mage is staying at the Helm and Cloak," Bull says, naming the fancy inn of the Upper City. He can tell Astarion is still kinda in fight or flight, is talking half to himself, trying to stay on task. Keeps moving the bag from hand to hand — maybe it's the ancient draconic ancestor, but he likes the jingling weight of it. Will it be enough? He wishes he'd had time to count it. "There's more gold at the Mermaid, plus whatever's left of your little beach stash. And we gotta pick up the fork from the diabolist." Always with the fucking fork, but there's a reason people don't just plane shift around amd it's because the tuning fork component is a bitch. Bull has had half a dozen plates in the air for the past forty-eight hours straight, and they're starting to feel precarious, but if they can get the last pieces assembled in one place then yeah. They're getting out of this hellhole.

Bull talks, and Astarion barely hears it, ears ringing, blood rushing. High on hope that he hasn't felt in two centuries. He isn't really the type to say so, but— yes, fuck yeah indeed.

"Huh?" he says after a conspicuous pause, then— "Right, yes, of course. All of that."

Gods, he's still trembling, but this time it's from an almost deranged amount of happiness. Is this what it feels like? Being happy? He bounces back and forth on the balls of his feet, nowhere to put all of this energy.

"We should go right now. Get rid of this awful place before the sun rises again." Which is an insane thing to say, and even he recognizes so after a moment. He hadn't been fully listening to Bull's list of tasks left to complete, but it had been pretty long. "—Tomorrow. Not a minute after sundown."

Insane, but Bull wants to get on board so badly. If they wait another day it's all gonna come crashing down. "We can do it. We split up. Pick up the stuff we need — I'll give you my room key. Get you into the Helm and Cloak before dawn." Because of Astarion's drow heritage sun allergy — it's never gonna twig that it's anything else, Bull doesn't know what a vampire is. "Keep the curtains shut tight while whatever magic shit needs to happen happens."

Though that means there's no time to waste. Bull pushes off the wall and fishes through the coin in his pockets with agitation until he finds the key to his room. "Purse in the rafters." Astarion might have to climb something. "And my pack, if you're feeling real generous."

His face actually hurts from smiling; the muscles he's currently using are withered and atrophied, unused to such strange and foreign contortions. He snatches up the room key in an instant, cradling it to his chest like it's something precious. By dawn, he'll be unreachable by anyone that ever hurt him. Starting over, somewhere new. One thing he knows for sure: he's never going to go hungry ever again.

"I underestimated you, Bronco," he says, genuinely complimentary, and this time he's only calling him that as a tease and not because he doesn't know Bull's real name. "You've proven yourself to be quite the advantageous ally."

Slipping the key into his pocket: "Where shall we rendezvous, then?"

Bull rolls his single eye, but he's smiling. "And hey, you're not as much of an asshole as I first thought." That or he's just acclimatising to it. "Meet you in the Helm and Cloak. Ask for Gale of Waterdeep." Who will probably be sleeping at this late hour, but for the amount of gold they're paying him Bull truly doesn't care.

He pauses, and then messes up Astarion's curls a little with one big hand. "Don't fuck it up."

Unfortunately Astarion comes with a built-in fuck it up fish-hook lodged in his brain and it will occur to him, with unnatural thought like a cold whisper through his secret places, that Cazador wants him home. Not a command, not yet, just a little tug of the leash to remind him it's still around his neck. Ignorable.

When he unlocks Bull's room at the Mermaid, it's Leon and Violet, always so competitive, who are waiting for him. Well, they're waiting for the tiefling he's been seen going shopping in the Upper City with. It's a public room, they don't need an invitation.

"Astarion!" Violet says, jumping up out of her waiting crouch, clearly not expecting him to be the one coming in through the door. Leon already has a blade out. "We've been wondering where you went, and I suppose here's our answer. Our master wants to see you." Presumably not about the empty vault, otherwise the tugging in his head would be... louder.

"That tiefling with you?" Leon asks, already coming forward to get Astarion in grabbing distance.

"Gods, you— idiots," Astarion snaps as he jumps back in shock, every cell in his body suddenly painfully alert. Gods, of course his so-called siblings are here to ruin everything, just when he's finally on top of the world. Don't they always?

He steps back, keeping his distance. Where had Bull said his things were? Up in the rafters? Astarion glances up, then quickly back down to the roadblocks in front of him. He wonders if maybe he should just run out, lead them on a wild chase around Baldur's Gate before ducking into the Helm and Cloak and having this Gale of Waterdeep poof him into another dimension— but Cazador might actually command him back if he's not quick enough about it, and then he'd be up shit creek without a paddle.

"The tiefling," he spits, "isn't here right now. But he's obviously... a surprise sacrifice, for the master. If you two don't fuck it up."

"Not a surprise any more," Violet says, circling him with a smirk.

"We were to bring him back," Leon explains. "He came to the house, apparently — talking about the Counting House. Do you know anything about this, brother?"

"No no," Violet says, linking her arm with Astarion's. "Don't tell us. Come tell Master. Leon can wait here—"

"I swear, Violet, if you think you can worm into his good graces just by bringing back Astarion," Leon sighs, brushing hair behind his shoulder disdainfully. He lifts his sword to whisper along Astarion's jaw. "Why don't you hunt the big tiefling and I'll take him home."

This is so fucking stupid. Neither Leon nor Violet will actually dare harm him without Cazador's say so, so the attempted menacing is more irritating than anything else; besides, he's heard the sounds Leon makes when the pliers come out, the way he begs for his daughter—there's no universe in which that intimidates him. What does intimidate him is the thought of having to answer to Cazador, though, and he swallows.

"He has a very generic face. Honestly, that could have been anyone at the palace."

Astarion does a quick run-through of every possible scenario here, looking for one where he somehow still comes out a winner. It's not looking so good. Jaw tight: "He's my prey—why don't we all go tell the master about my wonderful surprise and see who he wants to do the hunting, hm?" A pause, and then he adds, "Unless you'd like me to tell him that you made the decision for him. I'm sure he won't mind!"

Leon sheathes his sword hard. "Fine," he says snippily; clearly still plotting, Leon is always obsessing over keeping the favoured spawn privileges, and it occupies most of his thoughts.

"Let's go," Violet says, taking the chance to switch sides and pretend to be Astarion's friend instead, the same thing she's done about a thousand times since they met. Her demeanour switches from attempted threat to friendly gossip. "Tell me what makes him so special — Petras did say he was very big."

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