Fenris stares at the thatch-and-timber roof above them and he realizes that he is not in pain. Not the kind that singes across his nerves, raw lasting. A heavy hand lifts to wipe saliva and possibly come away from his mouth before he lolls his head to look at the man beside him. He thinks Astarion looks pleased.
He accepts the bottle when it's offered to him and pushes himself up enough that he's able to drink from it without choking on its contents. Before tonight, Fenris might have been keen to point out their many differences. Whether he likes it or not, Astarion isn't wrong. Perhaps their experiences are not identical, but they have both been scarred and marked by others against their will, there are men out there who did their damnedest to break them.
"No," he agrees quietly, voice a bit raw from his effort earlier. "I guess we aren't."
Another swig from the bottle, thinking that the taste is familiar and unable to tell if he hates that or if that is the appeal. He offers it back to Astarion before dropping down beside him again. His gaze returns to the roof, but the hand between them moves slightly, brushing whatever part of Astarion is nearest him.
Fenris shifts slightly, more aware now of feeling empty since the withdrawal of urgent and precise fingers. With a little noise - not discomfort and not annoyance, but something else - Fenris turns onto his stomach, arms folded beneath his head as his body stretches out alongside the pale elf.
Casual, his middling response. Mostly throat, mouth tugging upwards just at the corner— before it subsequently drops. The acclimation and agreement make sense, given the lack of context. All the roughened shape of their scars, all the ways they’ve railed against the figurative threads of fate, opting to tear themselves loose at the seams.
Huddled up now in the safe harbor of tireless determination. And it smells like warm woods and wet wood.
“Yes. But what I also mean is that in terms of— shall we say— doing the deed entirely of my own volition, with someone that I choose is— ” his lips purse when he stops, attention flicking back towards Fenris and then upwards again, long fingers gesturing idly in midair. “Well it’s.”
Sharp green eyes cut back to the man beside him, immediately trying to discern if Astarion is fucking with him. Immediately prepared to get his hackles up. But there is no derision there, no mocking.
And it makes Fenris very aware that Astarion is his first in that, too. He doesn't want to think of this as momentous even if he should. For the first time in a very long time, being touched felt good. Too much at points, but not in a way that made him scream or beg for it to end. He's glad now that he rolled over, feeling less exposed this way.
Never mind that the way elegant fingers gesture in the air makes his face feel warm again.
"Why me?" he asks, because it seems like an obvious question even if it has an obvious answer. He's here, Astarion wanted to. But surely he's run into more agreeable people before running into Fenris bleeding out all over the grass. Surely it would be understandable if he waited until after whatever this is to do the same.
There are things Astarion has experience with in terms of charm and grace: petty flattery one of them, fawning adoration another. Vulgar overtures regarding late nights and hurried mornings. Whispered promises that whatever transpires, he'll make it uniquely divine.
Here, though, he doesn’t know what to expect. But what he finds isn’t rejection— and it settles something jagged in him by a few quiet degrees. Something knotted up and unnoticed, and it shows by way of the calm settling into the edges of his own expression, voice matching suit not long after.
Perhaps too imposingly, he reaches across that nonexistent space between them— to the point where Fenris had brushed against his hand just so— and weaves his little finger in around Fenris’ own, lifting it to his own lips while he thinks. Not so much a kiss, but equally as fond.
“At first? It was only about your strength. You’d clearly fought something vicious off on your own. You also clearly needed help just as much as I did.” The way Fenris had fought to bare his teeth even as blood rattled in his throat, defiant to the last.
“I thought if I rescued you, dragged you away to relative safety, you’d return the favor eventually.” His voice trails lightly, chin resting light against those knuckles. “But...”
Two weeks isn’t long. And yet it’d been long enough, maybe. Hours spent watching Fenris for days on end as he fought in his sleep for his life alone. As his breathing rose and fell, and Astarion there at his side all the while, wondering just how long it would last.
Thinking it’d be a shame if he didn’t survive.
“I don’t know. Somewhere along the way, something changed. I found myself enjoying it, having you nearby— even if you were in such a perpetually miserable state.”
There is something so achingly sentimental in the way their little fingers catch, in the way Astarion brings them to his lips. Fenris can feel heat creeping into his face, more startled by the gesture than anything else.
For two weeks, Fenris has been waiting for something to go wrong. He has struggled in his recovery only because it hasn't gone as fast as he wants it to. Being weak, feeling like he couldn't run even if he wanted to, is terrifying on a deep level. But Astarion had tended him faithfully in all that time, spending time and energy on him to see him mend. When he was coherent enough to do so, Fenris started wondering why.
This isn't the answer he expects, not entirely. The first part he understands, and there is a sense of obligation tugging at the back of his mind even now as he thinks about where he'd be if Astarion had left him to his fate.
More than anything, he's quietly distracted by the way the pale elf's chin brushes against his knuckles. That miniscule hold tightens a bit as his fingers curl.
"Get used to it," he says dryly. "Perpetually miserable is my natural state."
According to some, anyway. There's quiet amusement in his voice, though, a gleam in green eyes that suggests he might be capable of teasing. Perhaps not entirely miserable. Fenris looks down at the blanket beneath them.
"I will return the favor, if I can," he says after a moment. Astarion deserves that, doesn't he? He could have left him for dead or turned him over to any passing person of quick coin. But he hasn't. And now... this. Fenris isn't nearly ready to process this beyond something unexpected that he actually enjoyed.
"I... have appreciated your companionship." Not just Astarion's dedication to tending his injuries, but hearing him talk, having someone else close by to soothe the loneliness he so rarely acknowledges. "Even if you talk too much."
Astarion breathes in a narrow exhale, chasing the start of Fenris' promise that this hasn't been unenjoyable, and it sounds maybe a little like the very same blindsided shock that had Fenris asking why him. Caught unawares, lingering somewhere on the edge of disbelief, and it's not at all unpleasant.
"Oh." He adds again, flatter this time, when Fenris finishes.
(But his smile's wider, and that might be more telling in the grand scheme of things.)
Still, biting the unmarked edge of Fenris' thumb with sharp teeth in retribution, he lands right on his conversational feet only a moment later. "Don't pretend like that isn't part of it, too."
Here, listless and comfortable, bolstered by the subtler glint in green eyes, this feels almost...natural. Easy. Friendly, even, if he'd ever known what that was before now. Some nebulous concept lurking just beyond his reach.
"Come to think of it, I'm willing to bet you're starting to get addicted to the subtle sound of my notoriously soothing voice. Something to lull you back to sleep when those wounds of yours agitate."
Despite himself, Fenris feels a smile flicker to life as teeth catch his thumb. He can't remember having something like this, an unexpectedly casual intimacy. Maybe on Seheron, briefly. The smile fades as he thinks of what happened there. How long before he brings ruin here, too? One way or another.
"Yes," he deadpans. "I am infatuated with your flowery eloquence." He rolls his eyes but being able to tease brings that smile back, small as it is. He moves his thumb, brushing against Astarion's lip or his chin, whatever he can touch.
"Speaking of, I think I'm bleeding," he says almost absently as he lifts his other arm to look down at the bandaged wound on his side. This whole exercise raised his blood pressure and had him moving more than he has in days, maybe it was inevitable that they'd agitate some of his wounds.
His preening is instinctive. He fits his mouth along the side of Fenris' thumb, giving chase as it trails the way animals fixate on minute little focal points, though it doesn't detract from the honeyed hang of his own words.
"I knew it. Deadly and dashing and— wait, what?"
He presses past Fenris' hand, blinking as he moves to peer at the still-wound bandaging which—
"Shit."
All breath. All frustration as he sits up, already reaching for the kit tucked away within the nightstand, shoulders hunched sharply forward. It's a sidelong motion that beckons Fenris nearer, made with his fingers wrapped around a pot of ointment, gauze tucked between his teeth— already moving to pull the soiled bandage away from Fenris' side.
"Let's hope I didn't just set you back two weeks for the benefit of a blowjob."
Fenris can't help a quiet huff of amusement as Astarion curses and grabs for the kit he's been using all this time. He obediently moves closer, more careful than he has been since he was goaded into sitting up earlier.
"Mm, if you did, it might have been worth it," he says mildly, watching as the bloodied bandages are pulled away. The wound hasn't opened badly, at least. Seeping rather than freely bleeding. His gaze flicks up to Astarion's face.
"Does this mean you don't want to do it again?"
Might as well establish that, and if one didn't know better, they might accuse Fenris of being coy.
Or at least as far as Astarion can tell, it’s Fenris’ own dry-edged brand of cleverness peeking through. And really, it’s charming in its own way.
Which is to say it would be if not for the fact that he’s so cavalierly mocking his own seeping injury.
Deft, pale hands already beginning the careful task of cleaning away patches of welling crimson (slow and light, his touches: only ever just enough pressure as needed from the saturated gauze he’s using to wash) Astarion openly snorts.
He also doesn’t look up to give Fenris the satisfaction of seeing his own grin.
Incorrigible pup.
“Well I never said that.” Astarion snorts wryly, “Just because I’ve had your cock in my mouth doesn’t mean you can start putting anything else you like in there, too.”
Chin tucked low, curls slung in front of his eyes, he tosses the ruined gauze aside with a faint softening of his own intact smile.
“But I think if we rush back into exploring the thrill of the so-called little death too soon, we might run the risk of giving you the far bigger version.”
At least Fenris doesn't make Astarion's job difficult. He stays still, keeps his arm out of the way as the pale elf tends the seeping wound with deft touches and care. It doesn't trouble him and he does not flinch, used to enduring discomfort for less savory reasons than his own survival.
Astarion's grumbling earns a smile, small as it is, and some amusement in the keen eyes watching him.
"I'm not on death's doorstep anymore," he says with a roll of his eyes. "It might do me well to be more active."
He probably shouldn't push his luck, but Fenris isn't sure he needs to be bedridden any longer. The only way to decide one way or another, he feels, is more activity. And though he has been sleeping more than his usual rest, he's still been awake often enough to be getting bored, even with Astarion's stellar conversation skills.
“Well we certainly got it moving tonight— right out of your body, in fact.”
Spoken slyly as his own lips curl upwards by a narrow difference of degrees— the fault of Fenris’ own amusement, and it lingers still as he turns back to tending to the bandaging before him: salve applied once cleaned, packed with fresher gauze, another stretch of bandaging smoothed down with careful hands that purposefully avoid streaks of glowing silver.
And when it’s done, he scoots in closer to Fenris’ side, hovering over him fully this time, curls slung low from gravity, looming little more than a few inches from that unspeakably pretty face.
“Next time you can actually manage to sit up without toppling over, I’ll take you outside for a spin.”
What’s a spin qualify as, exactly? Who knows. Astarion opts to stoop low, catching Fenris’ mouth in a senselessly hungering kiss (one that still tastes of himself as much as lilac, he finds— and not at all unpleasant for it).
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albinomilksnake2021-11-06 01:03 am
no subject
He accepts the bottle when it's offered to him and pushes himself up enough that he's able to drink from it without choking on its contents. Before tonight, Fenris might have been keen to point out their many differences. Whether he likes it or not, Astarion isn't wrong. Perhaps their experiences are not identical, but they have both been scarred and marked by others against their will, there are men out there who did their damnedest to break them.
"No," he agrees quietly, voice a bit raw from his effort earlier. "I guess we aren't."
Another swig from the bottle, thinking that the taste is familiar and unable to tell if he hates that or if that is the appeal. He offers it back to Astarion before dropping down beside him again. His gaze returns to the roof, but the hand between them moves slightly, brushing whatever part of Astarion is nearest him.
Fenris shifts slightly, more aware now of feeling empty since the withdrawal of urgent and precise fingers. With a little noise - not discomfort and not annoyance, but something else - Fenris turns onto his stomach, arms folded beneath his head as his body stretches out alongside the pale elf.
no subject
Casual, his middling response. Mostly throat, mouth tugging upwards just at the corner— before it subsequently drops. The acclimation and agreement make sense, given the lack of context. All the roughened shape of their scars, all the ways they’ve railed against the figurative threads of fate, opting to tear themselves loose at the seams.
Huddled up now in the safe harbor of tireless determination. And it smells like warm woods and wet wood.
“Yes. But what I also mean is that in terms of— shall we say— doing the deed entirely of my own volition, with someone that I choose is— ” his lips purse when he stops, attention flicking back towards Fenris and then upwards again, long fingers gesturing idly in midair. “Well it’s.”
Tongue clicking, he all but spits it out:
“You were my first.”
Technically.
no subject
And it makes Fenris very aware that Astarion is his first in that, too. He doesn't want to think of this as momentous even if he should. For the first time in a very long time, being touched felt good. Too much at points, but not in a way that made him scream or beg for it to end. He's glad now that he rolled over, feeling less exposed this way.
Never mind that the way elegant fingers gesture in the air makes his face feel warm again.
"Why me?" he asks, because it seems like an obvious question even if it has an obvious answer. He's here, Astarion wanted to. But surely he's run into more agreeable people before running into Fenris bleeding out all over the grass. Surely it would be understandable if he waited until after whatever this is to do the same.
no subject
Here, though, he doesn’t know what to expect. But what he finds isn’t rejection— and it settles something jagged in him by a few quiet degrees. Something knotted up and unnoticed, and it shows by way of the calm settling into the edges of his own expression, voice matching suit not long after.
Perhaps too imposingly, he reaches across that nonexistent space between them— to the point where Fenris had brushed against his hand just so— and weaves his little finger in around Fenris’ own, lifting it to his own lips while he thinks. Not so much a kiss, but equally as fond.
“At first? It was only about your strength. You’d clearly fought something vicious off on your own. You also clearly needed help just as much as I did.” The way Fenris had fought to bare his teeth even as blood rattled in his throat, defiant to the last.
“I thought if I rescued you, dragged you away to relative safety, you’d return the favor eventually.” His voice trails lightly, chin resting light against those knuckles. “But...”
Two weeks isn’t long. And yet it’d been long enough, maybe. Hours spent watching Fenris for days on end as he fought in his sleep for his life alone. As his breathing rose and fell, and Astarion there at his side all the while, wondering just how long it would last.
Thinking it’d be a shame if he didn’t survive.
“I don’t know. Somewhere along the way, something changed. I found myself enjoying it, having you nearby— even if you were in such a perpetually miserable state.”
no subject
For two weeks, Fenris has been waiting for something to go wrong. He has struggled in his recovery only because it hasn't gone as fast as he wants it to. Being weak, feeling like he couldn't run even if he wanted to, is terrifying on a deep level. But Astarion had tended him faithfully in all that time, spending time and energy on him to see him mend. When he was coherent enough to do so, Fenris started wondering why.
This isn't the answer he expects, not entirely. The first part he understands, and there is a sense of obligation tugging at the back of his mind even now as he thinks about where he'd be if Astarion had left him to his fate.
More than anything, he's quietly distracted by the way the pale elf's chin brushes against his knuckles. That miniscule hold tightens a bit as his fingers curl.
"Get used to it," he says dryly. "Perpetually miserable is my natural state."
According to some, anyway. There's quiet amusement in his voice, though, a gleam in green eyes that suggests he might be capable of teasing. Perhaps not entirely miserable. Fenris looks down at the blanket beneath them.
"I will return the favor, if I can," he says after a moment. Astarion deserves that, doesn't he? He could have left him for dead or turned him over to any passing person of quick coin. But he hasn't. And now... this. Fenris isn't nearly ready to process this beyond something unexpected that he actually enjoyed.
"I... have appreciated your companionship." Not just Astarion's dedication to tending his injuries, but hearing him talk, having someone else close by to soothe the loneliness he so rarely acknowledges. "Even if you talk too much."
no subject
Astarion breathes in a narrow exhale, chasing the start of Fenris' promise that this hasn't been unenjoyable, and it sounds maybe a little like the very same blindsided shock that had Fenris asking why him. Caught unawares, lingering somewhere on the edge of disbelief, and it's not at all unpleasant.
"Oh." He adds again, flatter this time, when Fenris finishes.
(But his smile's wider, and that might be more telling in the grand scheme of things.)
Still, biting the unmarked edge of Fenris' thumb with sharp teeth in retribution, he lands right on his conversational feet only a moment later. "Don't pretend like that isn't part of it, too."
Here, listless and comfortable, bolstered by the subtler glint in green eyes, this feels almost...natural. Easy. Friendly, even, if he'd ever known what that was before now. Some nebulous concept lurking just beyond his reach.
"Come to think of it, I'm willing to bet you're starting to get addicted to the subtle sound of my notoriously soothing voice. Something to lull you back to sleep when those wounds of yours agitate."
no subject
"Yes," he deadpans. "I am infatuated with your flowery eloquence." He rolls his eyes but being able to tease brings that smile back, small as it is. He moves his thumb, brushing against Astarion's lip or his chin, whatever he can touch.
"Speaking of, I think I'm bleeding," he says almost absently as he lifts his other arm to look down at the bandaged wound on his side. This whole exercise raised his blood pressure and had him moving more than he has in days, maybe it was inevitable that they'd agitate some of his wounds.
no subject
"I knew it. Deadly and dashing and— wait, what?"
He presses past Fenris' hand, blinking as he moves to peer at the still-wound bandaging which—
"Shit."
All breath. All frustration as he sits up, already reaching for the kit tucked away within the nightstand, shoulders hunched sharply forward. It's a sidelong motion that beckons Fenris nearer, made with his fingers wrapped around a pot of ointment, gauze tucked between his teeth— already moving to pull the soiled bandage away from Fenris' side.
"Let's hope I didn't just set you back two weeks for the benefit of a blowjob."
no subject
"Mm, if you did, it might have been worth it," he says mildly, watching as the bloodied bandages are pulled away. The wound hasn't opened badly, at least. Seeping rather than freely bleeding. His gaze flicks up to Astarion's face.
"Does this mean you don't want to do it again?"
Might as well establish that, and if one didn't know better, they might accuse Fenris of being coy.
no subject
Or at least as far as Astarion can tell, it’s Fenris’ own dry-edged brand of cleverness peeking through. And really, it’s charming in its own way.
Which is to say it would be if not for the fact that he’s so cavalierly mocking his own seeping injury.
Deft, pale hands already beginning the careful task of cleaning away patches of welling crimson (slow and light, his touches: only ever just enough pressure as needed from the saturated gauze he’s using to wash) Astarion openly snorts.
He also doesn’t look up to give Fenris the satisfaction of seeing his own grin.
Incorrigible pup.
“Well I never said that.” Astarion snorts wryly, “Just because I’ve had your cock in my mouth doesn’t mean you can start putting anything else you like in there, too.”
Chin tucked low, curls slung in front of his eyes, he tosses the ruined gauze aside with a faint softening of his own intact smile.
“But I think if we rush back into exploring the thrill of the so-called little death too soon, we might run the risk of giving you the far bigger version.”
no subject
Astarion's grumbling earns a smile, small as it is, and some amusement in the keen eyes watching him.
"I'm not on death's doorstep anymore," he says with a roll of his eyes. "It might do me well to be more active."
He probably shouldn't push his luck, but Fenris isn't sure he needs to be bedridden any longer. The only way to decide one way or another, he feels, is more activity. And though he has been sleeping more than his usual rest, he's still been awake often enough to be getting bored, even with Astarion's stellar conversation skills.
He looks at Astarion again.
"Get the blood moving."
no subject
Spoken slyly as his own lips curl upwards by a narrow difference of degrees— the fault of Fenris’ own amusement, and it lingers still as he turns back to tending to the bandaging before him: salve applied once cleaned, packed with fresher gauze, another stretch of bandaging smoothed down with careful hands that purposefully avoid streaks of glowing silver.
And when it’s done, he scoots in closer to Fenris’ side, hovering over him fully this time, curls slung low from gravity, looming little more than a few inches from that unspeakably pretty face.
“Next time you can actually manage to sit up without toppling over, I’ll take you outside for a spin.”
What’s a spin qualify as, exactly? Who knows. Astarion opts to stoop low, catching Fenris’ mouth in a senselessly hungering kiss (one that still tastes of himself as much as lilac, he finds— and not at all unpleasant for it).
Broken only when he adds:
“And after that, we’ll spar.”