Astarion doesn’t judge. Fenris, after all, has spent days seeing him flinch, seeing him cower at nothing, fretting and sinking deeper into the apprehensive certainty of despair. They wear their scars differently, true, but he knows what it is he spots lurking in that tightened grimace.

He won’t force it away.

“They say when you can’t see, all your other senses heighten to compensate.” He reaches out for Fenris’ hands, his own soft, uncalloused, pressing them slowly across the span of his own chest— his ribs, the vulnerability of guarding bone beneath corded muscle.

“I want you to feel me.”

Slow press, easy contact. The rise and fall of his chest as he breaths, the hum of when he speaks.

“I want you to commit it all to memory. Tell me everything you sense.”