PSL — EXSANGUE

[corporeity]

— TEXTS, PROMPTS, STARTERS

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[exsangue]

[ It's tempting to just follow the tease, a thousand practiced lines ready to roll off of Astarion's tongue. Instead, he watches Gale wet his beard before gently stilling his wrist, then taking his chin in hand, thumb pressed just beneath the bow of his lower lip. ]

You are a sweet man, Gale Dekarios. [ His voice soft, earnest. Private, as well, for all that water on stone echoes around them. ] Perhaps unexpectedly so.

[corporeity]

[ Gale stills for a long moment, whirring thoughts and ever-shifting limbs frozen by Astarion’s words as much as his hands. Even more unexpected than Astarion paying him a sincere compliment — sweet, has anyone ever thought him sweet, with his damnable ego — is the use of his name. His actual one. A tender feeling blossoms low in his chest.

If not for Astarion’s hand at his chin, he’d duck his head. As it stands, he casts his eyes downward. ]

Perhaps. [ slowly, ] No one calls me by that name anymore, you know. [ Only Tara insists upon it. ] I’ve been Gale of Waterdeep for some time now. As long as I’ve been Mystra’s chosen. [ a faint wince, as he corrects himself. ] Longer, now. Cuts a finer figure, doesn’t it?

[ An archmage of considerable renown, the youngest graduate in Blackstaff’s hallowed history, Gale of Waterdeep. ]

[exsangue]

[ In some ways, Gale is delightfully easy to fluster, and that might be a part of why Astarion likes him. But Astarion doesn't anticipate this reaction to his name, the way he goes a little shy. ]

Hm. [ Astarion lifts Gale's chin, as if appraising him. He knows - perhaps too intimately - what a name means to a powerful wizard, feels a twin magnetism and revulsion toward the trappings of it. Astarion has been spawn and pup and vermin more than his own name, these past two hundred years. ]

You can be whomever you like with me. [ Releasing Gale's chin, twining their fingers instead. ] We can even play pretend, if you're into that sort of thing.