"Mm... you're insufferably intellectual, there is that. I find it cute." His voice had slipped back into its usual flippantly sardonic tone, but there was a lightness to it that seemed new, a relief that had somehow shaken something at his foundation and knocked away some of the roughest of his walls.

Astarion's eyes fluttered mostly shut as those fingers ran along his back, ever the cat who had discovered he actually did enjoy attention and affection when he chose to allow it. For Gale, mm, for Gale it would be allowed quite often. He hadn't even considered that Gale's housemates might be around. Gods knew what they'd think stumbling across this scene, but the vampire didn't particularly care. He had no plans on moving, not yet.

He let the silence linger a moment before he murmured, quietly. "It came with a cost, you know. Returning from the dead, I mean. It's gone now. All of it."