It's been many years since he's felt hesitation within himself, a curious affliction that the cult had rid him of a decade ago, more most likely. When he stays his hand it is never out of hesitation. Control is something entirely different, and a measure he exercises more often than not.

But hesitant is what he feels now, hurtling him back to a time far before the cult. Before they had found him and inducted him after what he did to his adoptive parents. He feels a different kind of heat in his blood at that memory, one that has nothing to do with the fire or his desire for the smaller man. He's yet to even put his gaze remotely near where the man is indicating, taking a moment to get that spiked urge under control again. Bhaal fuels his need and it feels uncomfortable in this particular moment with Enver, and that feels even more uncomfortable.

So when he eventually does drop his gaze, for a moment he looks almost expressionless. As though his entire head full of thoughts has ground to a halt before starting back up again. The bruises look so fresh against the pink of newly bathed skin, a curved row of marks each side that would have corresponded with his own hands. His murderous hands.

"I..." didn't think he gripped that hard, usually able to control how hard he's squeezing with the precision of a killer with an interest in strangulation when he feels like a change from the blade.

He's acutely aware that this entire situation would be comical against the backdrop of cultists regularly dishing out and taking injures far more permanent. And yet he can't help but feel a squirm of something that feels deeply unsettling, something unfamiliar and itching beneath his skin.

Guilt.

Unadulterated, unbridled guilt, like a boulder in his stomach.

It throws his entire sense of this moment on its side, knocked off balance and not sure how to right himself.