Shame, Astarion thinks in the midst of his own strained tension, he liked that view.

But they can’t go on like this— no, correction: he can’t go on like this, feeling his wicked heart beat again without knowing whether or not he’ll be chased off once the truth comes into full focus. Caring, without—

“I’m sure you’ve noticed it by now, given that you’re not blind,” he lifts a pale hand and— oh, no. That one has come on it, he realizes, chuckling only briefly as he wipes it along the edge of his shirt.

And then the smile fades.

This time he motions again, towards his face. His own pale visage. “My eyes. My fangs. Abnormal traits all, even amongst albinic creatures. The curse my master infected me with— alongside a nasty little caveat, too.”

His hand, the one that’d been scuffing along Fenris’ scalp, withdraws at last; he isn’t quite certain Fenris will want his touch with what comes next in play.

“The night he changed me, Cazador bound me to him, both body and soul, so that I could never flee his side. So that I’d become a monster, cursed to feed on blood alone, never aging. Never dying. Leashed to his every whim for two hundred years.” Endlessly. Always.

And then not.

“I escaped only because something here broke his puppeting control over me. I don’t know what, and I won’t ever stop to fret over why. But...”

But.

“Now, for the first time in all those years, I’ve finally found myself not wanting to leave someone else’s side.”