[Not lingering doesn't mean forgetting. Laughing doesn't mean it doesn't ache. He's smiling, but it's disjointed: partially in the clockwork tick of half a minute ago, rolling the marbled concept of 'I would stand to the side more often than not' between tangled fingertips, imagining what it would've looked like— if Astarion had ever even seen him.

(Passing through a crowd with laughter in his throat, paying less than any heed to those ungilded accompaniments while his knuckles curl in silk. The same creature he huddles into now like sunlight rendered as invisible as music to silver eyes, and far less valued in that falsely conjured mind. Just a blot at the corner of his mirthful vision, and behind its blurred out shadow: sad eyes. Hollow cheeks. Laced with placidity and misery in equal doses, unable to even hope for more.)

Rough fingerprints begin to drawl along bare skin, and before he knows it, he's wide awake again.]

I'll teach you here first, daring wolf.

Spare you the public ridicule until you're actually worth the sport.

['I won't touch you', Astarion gritted little over half an hour ago when beckoning his companion into bed. He's breaking that rule in overdrive by jabbing his chin into the thickset muscle over Fenris' shoulder (amongst every other bit of intertwining between fingers and toes and feet), grinning hard enough to cut.]

Your reputation's mine now, too, you know.