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[corporeity]

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[corporeity]

[ there it is again, the flirtation that couldn’t possibly be specific to him, but seems that way sometimes. a ripple in the shallows, just as easily the work of the wind as an elegant hand. ]

Your winning smile? Your scathing literary critiques? Your impeccable timing?

[ when gale begins closing the chapel for the night and hears his featherlight gait. ]

[thirsted]

you must be thinking of someone else. 🤭

[ But then, as if reading his mind — as if in tune, one note laid on top of another in tenuous harmony, ]

i was thinking more along the lines of "asking nicely."
i make everyone else beg.

[corporeity]

[ an immediate, traitorous thought that he should be so lucky — to beg for astarion’s attention until his tongue ached and knees gave out. that if there were anyone worthy of holy service in the manor, in the world, it would be this celestial creature, with his sunlit eyes and moonspun curls.

the correct answer: please don’t take this the wrong way, but i shouldn’t ask you for anything. and you shouldn’t come to the church any longer, or i’ll kiss you in front of the stained glass and, paradoxically, beg for the pleasure of being made to beg, by you. nothing personal! ]

What an honour.
I’ll strive to be deserving of it.

[thirsted]

[ An honor. As though men of his calling could give themselves to anything but their God or the greater good. As if he wouldn't say the same thing to anyone else, accommodating as he is. Then again, isn't that why the priest had caught his eye to begin with? The sense that he'd make time for him no matter who he was, how lowly or undeserving he might be, making it a cardinal sin — greed, hand in hand with hypocrisy — to want all of that attention for himself.

So, not for the first time, Astarion wonders if he ought to stop, to give it up, to abandon his apparent pursuit of dashing himself to pieces against the holy rock. Please don't take this the wrong way, but we ought to be strangers again, or I'll have to come to terms with the fact that I want something that I can't have and don't deserve. It's very personal. But maybe it's better to feel a little pain than to feel nothing at all. ]

you wouldn't have it if you weren't.
dinner, then.
wear something nice.

[corporeity]

[ That Astarion believes him deserving is — too pleasing, his mouth curving lopsided and high.

He thinks to wear a shirt he packed at the last minute, cornflower blue, because Astarion complimented the cut when he donned it the prior summer. This presents two issues: 1. That Astarion might remember. 2. That he won’t. Both mortify, and so he resolves never to wear it again.

Instead, he cycles through the rest of his modest belongings, for something appropriate. A lavender button-down. A short-sleeved, silken shirt in off-white.

(In the end, he wears the blue with grey trousers and ponders his death drive the entire walk to their meal.) ]

I’ll admit I packed with the hope you’d find time for me.

[ because he doesn’t see many people outside of his duties while visiting — or, indeed, much at all anymore. ]

See you then, ⭐️.