So cavernously empty that he can feel thin muscle sinking at the corners of his mouth, and all for what, exactly? Retrospect's a shovel: it only digs, it doesn't categorize; it doesn't wash the cluttered muck from what it finds. If he looks beneath the formerly ballooning expansion of something akin to yearning that pops at the retreat of that hand—
It has to be the retreat of that hand. The closeness. The weight. Those fingers and how comforting they felt, as if they'd always belonged there. He misses them already, what small drops of hydration they'd been in such a drought. So it's that, and only that, the reason why he startles. And aches.]
I—
[It's not that.
The figurative needle's spinning, but even Astarion can puzzle out that if it was, he'd have an answer. Or he'd be able to laugh. Say thank you like it doesn't matter. Acknowledge whatever this new promise is.
He tries to bristle, for a moment. His frown tightens, then pitches, then slants. A useless band of worn responses like the scrabbling of wet palms, and just the same: none of them stick.]
I don't—
[I don't need your protection? I dont need your help? I don't deserve better. I don't care. I don't mind. I can handle it. I've always—
The fingers wrapped around that wrist turn. They tighten. Daft thing, he thinks, and it's so fond he doesn't know if he really means it at all the way he used to.
He can't focus on himself right now; his tongue won't let him, what with how it keeps on locking. But he can focus on old facts. Obvious, patented, never-changing facts. The same ones he'd have talked about a week ago— or weeks ago, the roughstuck night they both first met, if he'd been asked back then.]
no subject
....oh.
He suddenly feels— empty.
So cavernously empty that he can feel thin muscle sinking at the corners of his mouth, and all for what, exactly? Retrospect's a shovel: it only digs, it doesn't categorize; it doesn't wash the cluttered muck from what it finds. If he looks beneath the formerly ballooning expansion of something akin to yearning that pops at the retreat of that hand—
It has to be the retreat of that hand. The closeness. The weight. Those fingers and how comforting they felt, as if they'd always belonged there. He misses them already, what small drops of hydration they'd been in such a drought. So it's that, and only that, the reason why he startles. And aches.]
I—
[It's not that.
The figurative needle's spinning, but even Astarion can puzzle out that if it was, he'd have an answer. Or he'd be able to laugh. Say thank you like it doesn't matter. Acknowledge whatever this new promise is.
He tries to bristle, for a moment. His frown tightens, then pitches, then slants. A useless band of worn responses like the scrabbling of wet palms, and just the same: none of them stick.]
I don't—
[I don't need your protection? I dont need your help? I don't deserve better. I don't care. I don't mind. I can handle it. I've always—
The fingers wrapped around that wrist turn. They tighten. Daft thing, he thinks, and it's so fond he doesn't know if he really means it at all the way he used to.
He can't focus on himself right now; his tongue won't let him, what with how it keeps on locking. But he can focus on old facts. Obvious, patented, never-changing facts. The same ones he'd have talked about a week ago— or weeks ago, the roughstuck night they both first met, if he'd been asked back then.]
That's not what you were hired for.
[Put it all together, Fenris.]
You know that, right?