#and suddenly charoum's in this immediate physical moment and there's blood and there's a body on him and his heart is pounding

[clowndensation]

trying to explain charoum cries during sex like okay so it's not that charoum has never felt an honest emotion, it's that he's just inherently disinterested in contextualizing his emotions in an authentic way, and so the single time he genuinely feels something and is unable to sublimate it into a performance to further an agenda, he immediately gets so overwhelmed by the experience he collapses in on himself and it all ends up leaking out of him.

and it just so happens that this happens while astarion is attempting to seduce him.

so by the time charoum settles back into himself again, and is better able to channel his emotions into something productive, he now has one single core memory of feeling something, genuinely, as himself, with absolutely no ulterior motive behind it. and he links that experience with astarion. which does (un)fortunately link them together tighter than charoum has ever been bound to anyone else in his life. which should be fine for them.

#it's like. the thing with alfira happens. charoum is shaken up by it (and his lack of control over himself) but otherwise feels fine. #good even. he lied his way through something and feels good about it - even though he doesn't necessarily like that he killed her. #it wakes up a part of him that was otherwise lying dormant and helps orient how he feels. #and then a couple days later astarion propositions him. #because astarion literally doesn't give a shit about alfira and doesn't even consider for a second that someone dying in camp is a reason #to stop his plan to seduce charoum into keeping growing attached to him. #and it goes fine! it's all going fine! but then charoum lets astarion bite him (because he genuinely finds that hot. they both know this.) #and suddenly charoum's in this immediate physical moment and there's blood and there's a body on him and his heart is pounding #and he's flooded with completely uncontrollable emotion - the same way he was filled with a completely uncontrollable compulsion to kill #and he panics. and he cries. #which freaks astarion out (though he won't admit it) which makes charoum panic (which is a reaction he doesn't understand) #and he tries to play it off and say they can just keep going through it. which. astarion obviously handles. not well. #and so he responds the way he always responds when he's uncomfortable - which is to say extremely biting and callously #and it's just. genuinely an entire mess. at some point i'm just gonna write a fic about it i think #anyways charoum cries during sex real and true and important. #charoum