[Oh, embarrassed, yes (disgusted, no), but all of it melts away into the background— something he’ll shutter away and force himself to forget about later, in the wretched depths of the night between fitful dreams— as Fenris goes on. As the wolf uproots herself with a shuffling of paws and paces over to the hearth with a lowing huff, leaving the two standing across from one another with no distractions.

And that’s fine.

Really it’s—

Warm. Thoughtful. Kind.

Everything Astarion’s never been capable of touching without breaking.

(How very much like Fenris, he thinks.)]

Does that mean I’ll get everything I ask for? [Lips curling into a slyer grin, one that never reaches his eyes as he moves to drop his emptied glass somewhere along the edge of that withered, miserable little table.]

What a sweetheart you are.

[Oh, Astarion, don’t be mean out of fear.

And maybe he realizes that, just this once. Just this one time, that that’s precisely what he’s doing— dreading kindness still. Because it falls away only a moment later, fingers stilled along the lip of that glass. Hanging just so.]

...I....

Thank you. For doing that.

[A breath. A held beat. Expression lowered and soft, backed purely by fading firelight. And he’s looking at Fenris peripherally now, when he adds in a lower tone:]

You know you didn’t have to.