[ Gale is being kind to him, tender with him. Astarion only knows one way for tenderness to end: his body at the end of a lure, dragging the sweetest morsels back to his master. He feels the unending march of that even now, even when there's nothing for him to obey. Impossible to imagine a different ending when you've never experienced one.
Astarion wasn't a good man in life. He's certainly not a good man now. Perhaps both of them deserve whatever consequences live inside them, and neither deserve sympathy. But he leans into this, anyway. Curls his free hand at Gale's hip as he rests his head against his shoulder, so close to the closed wound at his throat. He's still full from last night, but he listens to Gale's pulse all the same, perhaps to distract from the knowledge that his eyelashes are leaving Gale's robes a little damp. ]
Ha. [ It's all he manages for a moment, fingers flexing in Gale's hand. ]
It's strange to see myself, you know. In someone else's memory. [ Closest he'll ever get to a mirror, though Gale didn't show him much. ]
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Astarion wasn't a good man in life. He's certainly not a good man now. Perhaps both of them deserve whatever consequences live inside them, and neither deserve sympathy. But he leans into this, anyway. Curls his free hand at Gale's hip as he rests his head against his shoulder, so close to the closed wound at his throat. He's still full from last night, but he listens to Gale's pulse all the same, perhaps to distract from the knowledge that his eyelashes are leaving Gale's robes a little damp. ]
Ha. [ It's all he manages for a moment, fingers flexing in Gale's hand. ]
It's strange to see myself, you know. In someone else's memory. [ Closest he'll ever get to a mirror, though Gale didn't show him much. ]