[There are other things worth being at for an hour.
Which is why it's funny, obviously. That's the literal joke— but Astarion's mind's as good as brinesoaked parchment right about now with exhaustion gnawing at his throat, and he's more focused on the thought that his tutor might've laughed for just a second. Or something like it, anyway.
Slack through his shoulders without thinking. Melting into Fenris' instead, it's not a ploy to say that the formalities are drawn aside along with dourness itself.]
With you?
[It's a drawl because he's weary, not because he's trying to be cute. That, at any rate, comes entirely on its own:]
I'd do a lot more than linger.
[Still, it makes the unsubtle glance he next casts Fenris' way feel more akin to wandering fingers against cloth— even though his own are holding that rough pistol (its oily grit under his fingerbeds; a hundred little cuts and grooves from communal use scraping whenever his grip shifts), shrugging down to hang loosely by their hips. Numbness crawls in afterwards. Uncomfortable and spiny and sharp where it stabs along the corners of his awareness.
He doesn't mind.
He also doesn't want to go home.]
We're all alone. Don't tell me you're not tempted.
[Is there something that tempts Fenris....? When he isn't drugged or worked up into a frenzy, that is. It's hard not to remember the sight of him huddled and resentful. Slickened from the inside out. Harder not to wonder if the reasoning for that was more acute than broad.
But Astarion isn't reaching. Isn't shifting. This isn't like the party, and it's no substitute for an apology (one he's never felt inclined to give, and might never, knowing him), but there's a kind of ancillary proof involved in proving where the boundaries lie.
That, or he just can't move his arms. Or his legs. Or his head.]
no subject
Which is why it's funny, obviously. That's the literal joke— but Astarion's mind's as good as brinesoaked parchment right about now with exhaustion gnawing at his throat, and he's more focused on the thought that his tutor might've laughed for just a second. Or something like it, anyway.
Slack through his shoulders without thinking. Melting into Fenris' instead, it's not a ploy to say that the formalities are drawn aside along with dourness itself.]
With you?
[It's a drawl because he's weary, not because he's trying to be cute. That, at any rate, comes entirely on its own:]
I'd do a lot more than linger.
[Still, it makes the unsubtle glance he next casts Fenris' way feel more akin to wandering fingers against cloth— even though his own are holding that rough pistol (its oily grit under his fingerbeds; a hundred little cuts and grooves from communal use scraping whenever his grip shifts), shrugging down to hang loosely by their hips. Numbness crawls in afterwards. Uncomfortable and spiny and sharp where it stabs along the corners of his awareness.
He doesn't mind.
He also doesn't want to go home.]
We're all alone. Don't tell me you're not tempted.
[Is there something that tempts Fenris....? When he isn't drugged or worked up into a frenzy, that is. It's hard not to remember the sight of him huddled and resentful. Slickened from the inside out. Harder not to wonder if the reasoning for that was more acute than broad.
But Astarion isn't reaching. Isn't shifting. This isn't like the party, and it's no substitute for an apology (one he's never felt inclined to give, and might never, knowing him), but there's a kind of ancillary proof involved in proving where the boundaries lie.
That, or he just can't move his arms. Or his legs. Or his head.]