[Older than most living creatures in Thedas, there are moments where Astarion flexes his age and experience with thoughtless ease. There are, in the opposite sense, times when he is so carelessly naïve in a world that's boundlessly larger than Cazador's tethered yard, suddenly as lost and unmoored as a blinded yearling.
Right now, technically, he's a bit of both.
Because yes, he knows the art of flirting so impossibly well— but only as a wicked means to a far more wicked end: if not hunting for his master, then for the mindless bliss of satisfaction.
He doesn't know this.
He isn't used to the way his heart leaps beneath his ribs as he reads, and reads and reads again one section of what's been scrawled across the page: I would take you out to dinner one of these nights. flatter you with wine. treat you as something to be worshipped, and in turn, have you treat me the same.
I love you. and I wish to romance you, not just rut you.
The rest still sets his blood instantly alight— a pang of hunger rolling through him so potently that for a moment he considers tracking Fenris down and pinning him against the nearest open window or rooftop ledge— but it doesn't stay, that urge; the rest of it sticks in the forefront of his mind.
...in the interest of betterment, then:]
I love to look at you.
I love to count the degrees in which your features soften into sleep when it takes you, hour after passing hour. The way every bit of you rucks up over itself when you wake: your hair a mess of tangled tendrils, your eyes so heavily lidded you can barely lift them— drifting lazily in and out of wakefulness in ways I know past shadows never would've let you.
I've told strangers they have pretty eyes thousands of times. I've told them I can't help but keep my stare trained only on them, even at a distance. And beautiful as they undoubtedly were, I never once meant it.
I never felt it.
But when I hear your footsteps pace throughout these halls, something in me demands that I rise and follow you. That I find excuses to be near, even if it's only to catch a passing glimpse of your slouched shoulders slipping around the edge of an open doorway. A few wisps of white hair in the dark. The flash of your eyes as you glance up from oiling your sword, more handsome than any living creature has the right to be.
I long for the smell of split ozone now. I find your laughter more precious than what jewels I've stolen, or the gold locked away beneath my mattress. I would bleed for you if you asked.
I would kill for you without question.
I know I'm an insatiable creature. That I am beastly in my nature— in temper and love and lust and spite. I can't pretend you've suddenly broken the spell of my curse and cured me of all the wickedness I house in my endlessly avaricious heart.
But I can tell you that you have my heart. And that it worships you exactly as you wish to be worshipped. And that if I cannot stop myself from leering or licking my lips or making light of the way you looked drawn hungrily around me, it's only because I want you with every fiber of my reckless being. It seethes in me in ways I don't know how to stamp out, gods know I suffered terribly in trying these last few months.
It always ended with me one room over, breathing into the back of my hand.
I'll buy you flowers, my darling. I'll bring you wine. I'll write you crude sonnets and press your name to stray leaves and bent grass with a kiss, if it'll make you happy.
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Right now, technically, he's a bit of both.
Because yes, he knows the art of flirting so impossibly well— but only as a wicked means to a far more wicked end: if not hunting for his master, then for the mindless bliss of satisfaction.
He doesn't know this.
He isn't used to the way his heart leaps beneath his ribs as he reads, and reads and reads again one section of what's been scrawled across the page: I would take you out to dinner one of these nights. flatter you with wine. treat you as something to be worshipped, and in turn, have you treat me the same.
I love you. and I wish to romance you, not just rut you.
The rest still sets his blood instantly alight— a pang of hunger rolling through him so potently that for a moment he considers tracking Fenris down and pinning him against the nearest open window or rooftop ledge— but it doesn't stay, that urge; the rest of it sticks in the forefront of his mind.
...in the interest of betterment, then:]
I love to look at you.
I love to count the degrees in which your features soften into sleep when it takes you, hour after passing hour. The way every bit of you rucks up over itself when you wake: your hair a mess of tangled tendrils, your eyes so heavily lidded you can barely lift them— drifting lazily in and out of wakefulness in ways I know past shadows never would've let you.
I've told strangers they have pretty eyes thousands of times. I've told them I can't help but keep my stare trained only on them, even at a distance. And beautiful as they undoubtedly were, I never once meant it.
I never felt it.
But when I hear your footsteps pace throughout these halls, something in me demands that I rise and follow you. That I find excuses to be near, even if it's only to catch a passing glimpse of your slouched shoulders slipping around the edge of an open doorway. A few wisps of white hair in the dark. The flash of your eyes as you glance up from oiling your sword, more handsome than any living creature has the right to be.
I long for the smell of split ozone now. I find your laughter more precious than what jewels I've stolen, or the gold locked away beneath my mattress. I would bleed for you if you asked.
I would kill for you without question.
I know I'm an insatiable creature. That I am beastly in my nature— in temper and love and lust and spite. I can't pretend you've suddenly broken the spell of my curse and cured me of all the wickedness I house in my endlessly avaricious heart.
But I can tell you that you have my heart. And that it worships you exactly as you wish to be worshipped. And that if I cannot stop myself from leering or licking my lips or making light of the way you looked drawn hungrily around me, it's only because I want you with every fiber of my reckless being. It seethes in me in ways I don't know how to stamp out, gods know I suffered terribly in trying these last few months.
It always ended with me one room over, breathing into the back of my hand.
I'll buy you flowers, my darling. I'll bring you wine. I'll write you crude sonnets and press your name to stray leaves and bent grass with a kiss, if it'll make you happy.