[What lingers there is— oh, brittle isn't the right word. Fragile might be, albeit trite in its mundanity from rampant overuse. Like an alarm rung and subsequently silenced, there's a ringing persistence to Fenris' shift back into conversation, and for a creature stitched together from the very core essences of comfort, Astarion finds it easy not to balk.

They are new to this. Friendship and proximity alike, and perhaps—

Mm. Perhaps nothing.

There's liquor swimming between pale ears and it'd be folly by any measure to try and reach up for the sake of pinning oily logic down; the better option is obvious, and when it slips in like the knife that he tugs free of the innermost confines of his blouse, it's only with a quirk along the border of his lips. High, and sharp, and confident.

It gleams in twinned moonlight.]

Is that so? You should’ve told me it was your first time too.

I’d have been gentler.

[Acts as a smooth deflection (and acknowledgement in one: yes, I heard you. Yes, I understand, and more importantly— ) I don't mind. Turns the knife over in his fingertips a few times, crimson eyes never leaving Fenris' own.]

But if you prefer admonishment for your slights, I could hold something else against you instead. [And no, that's not an innuendo, before you take his intonation as intent— lifting the dagger from its sheathe, solely to admire its crafted seal:] A knife, perhaps?