His expression is impossibly, wondrously soft in that moment when their eyes meet: his mouth a soft line and his emerald eyes endlessly gentle, his flinty mask melted away to reveal something so much more vulnerable than he ever usually allows. His heart thunders like a drum, and though Astarion hasn't made a move to take the blade just yet, Fenris keeps it held out all the same. He'll hold it there for hours if need be.
And it isn't pity that fuels that softness. It isn't the patronizing sympathy that plagues this world, human nobles cooing about how sad it is to see an elven child in threadbare clothing or begging for food. It certainly isn't the condescending attitude of an elder towards a youth, rueful amusement at their expense for the sake of bittersweet memories.
It's so much more than that. A cacophony of emotions twisting within him and boiling in the pit of his stomach, so foreign and strange that he can't possibly identify them. Grief and sorrow, joy and keen-edged pleasure, and yet all he knows is that they're overlaid with the fiercest urge to stay close.
Don't leave me behind.
Like a drowning man finally surfacing for air: he wants to stay near this elf as long as he's able, Fenris realizes. It's such a swelling desire that it takes him by surprise, no matter that he agreed to run away with him not an hour ago. That had been more about leaving Kirkwall than anything, but now . . . Maker, he wants to be near. Not because Astarion needs protecting (though oh, he feels that urge too, baring his teeth in a snarl at the entire world for what it might wrought). Not because Astarion cannot handle things on his own, newly freed and stumbling into this world on coltish legs.
It's because he wants to.
The past few days have been a misery for more reasons than one. Lonely thing, he's grown so used to isolation that he'd forgotten what it was to want someone. And there's a connection here. A spark, a thread that ties them together, and it makes no sense. For the life of him, he couldn't articulate it if he tried, but it's there all the same. Something that makes Astarion different from others he's freed before, the pale elf distinguishing himself in Fenris' eyes by way of vulnerability and independence both. He plans to cross countries and trek it to another country by way of celebrating his freedom, and yet he looks up at Fenris as though he's the world, and Fenris—
Maker, he wants to be that. He wants to be everything to Astarion in this moment.]
It's yours.
[He doesn't know how long he took before he replied. Hours, maybe, or mere seconds; it's so hard to tell.]
I . . . the gloves were practical. But this . . .
[This is something more, and they both know it. His tongue feels thick and clumsy; what had Hawke said to him all those years ago? He can't remember. He doesn't know what to say nor how to say it, and in the end, he manages:]
no subject
His expression is impossibly, wondrously soft in that moment when their eyes meet: his mouth a soft line and his emerald eyes endlessly gentle, his flinty mask melted away to reveal something so much more vulnerable than he ever usually allows. His heart thunders like a drum, and though Astarion hasn't made a move to take the blade just yet, Fenris keeps it held out all the same. He'll hold it there for hours if need be.
And it isn't pity that fuels that softness. It isn't the patronizing sympathy that plagues this world, human nobles cooing about how sad it is to see an elven child in threadbare clothing or begging for food. It certainly isn't the condescending attitude of an elder towards a youth, rueful amusement at their expense for the sake of bittersweet memories.
It's so much more than that. A cacophony of emotions twisting within him and boiling in the pit of his stomach, so foreign and strange that he can't possibly identify them. Grief and sorrow, joy and keen-edged pleasure, and yet all he knows is that they're overlaid with the fiercest urge to stay close.
Don't leave me behind.
Like a drowning man finally surfacing for air: he wants to stay near this elf as long as he's able, Fenris realizes. It's such a swelling desire that it takes him by surprise, no matter that he agreed to run away with him not an hour ago. That had been more about leaving Kirkwall than anything, but now . . . Maker, he wants to be near. Not because Astarion needs protecting (though oh, he feels that urge too, baring his teeth in a snarl at the entire world for what it might wrought). Not because Astarion cannot handle things on his own, newly freed and stumbling into this world on coltish legs.
It's because he wants to.
The past few days have been a misery for more reasons than one. Lonely thing, he's grown so used to isolation that he'd forgotten what it was to want someone. And there's a connection here. A spark, a thread that ties them together, and it makes no sense. For the life of him, he couldn't articulate it if he tried, but it's there all the same. Something that makes Astarion different from others he's freed before, the pale elf distinguishing himself in Fenris' eyes by way of vulnerability and independence both. He plans to cross countries and trek it to another country by way of celebrating his freedom, and yet he looks up at Fenris as though he's the world, and Fenris—
Maker, he wants to be that. He wants to be everything to Astarion in this moment.]
It's yours.
[He doesn't know how long he took before he replied. Hours, maybe, or mere seconds; it's so hard to tell.]
I . . . the gloves were practical. But this . . .
[This is something more, and they both know it. His tongue feels thick and clumsy; what had Hawke said to him all those years ago? He can't remember. He doesn't know what to say nor how to say it, and in the end, he manages:]
Welcome to your new life.