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Taran tried to take it slow with Astarion. Not just in terms of sex, as he'd requested, but with any kind of physical affection. She'd noticed very early on that he tended to tense up when she touched him without warning or asking, and had curbed her own habits in response. Now that they were actively working together on the issue, she was introducing little gestures of affection over time, seeing what he was and wasn't comfortable with.
Neither of them liked holding hands in public, on the off-chance they needed to go for their weapons. Astarion seemed to enjoy it at camp, however. And he liked using Taran as a pillow after he'd fed. He didn't care for the way Taran would brush their fingers across his back or shoulders as they walked past, which had been a hard habit for her to break. According to Astarion, it had to be spontaneous, or else he started thinking about it too much and became uncomfortable by default. So she tried to balance spontaneous and respectful, and as long as she remembered his default response to everything was irritation first and reflection later, they did okay together.
They'd scavenged a mostly-intact armchair from a ruined house, initially meant to be Taran's but Astarion was the one most likely to be found in it. And in it he was when Taran and Halsin returned from checking in on the tieflings at the Last Light. Taran briefly considered booting him out of it and letting her collapse like she wanted, but after a moment had a better plan.
Setting their staff aside, they rearranged Astarion's hands so his book was out of the way, then curled herself into his lap like a cat, resting their head on his shoulder, mindful of her horns. He'd gone rigid at her intrusion, and she gave him a moment to process.
"Really?" He sounded more incredulous than upset, and she tilted her face up towards him.
"Well if you're gonna keep stealing my chair - "
"I carried it back here, I should get to sit in it." He was relaxing now, and she nestled further into his shoulder in response.
"You are. And so am I." They hesitated. "That's okay, right?"
Astarion shifted his hips so that more of Taran's weight was on the arm of the chair than on him. "If you insist on sharing, I suppose."
Taran leaned back, looking fully at Astarion. "But it's okay, right?"
Astarion responded by pulling them back down, letting them resettle their head against his shoulder and folding his arms around them so he could read his book with one hand, the other landing in their hair. "It's okay." He was relaxing, easing back into the plush of the chair, so Taran let their eyes drift shut as his fingers started carding through her hair.
Their eyelids flickered open a little later, looking up at Astarion's face, but he was simply reading his book. Maybe it was how close she was to his face, or she'd simply finally learned to read his expressions, but she didn't think she'd ever seen him look content before. The tightness around his eyes was gone, and his fingers continued on a simple, soothing pattern across her scalp.
Knowing that mentioning it would ruin it, they simply closed their eyes and let herself drift slowly towards sleep.