Our maker— [He starts slickly, bile sharpening the blade of a sentiment he— just can't finish. It's like a pill stuck in his throat, you know. The same feeling. There, meant to go somewhere— meant to hammer home with his typical acidic bite that there's a lot more intent than truth on the table— but no amount of pressure or flexing can keep it on its course.
Their master sleeps. He isn't here, gifts or fucking not.
And Astarion doesn't want to think about it.]
—imagined a lot of things.
[Like a sigh, it slips through his teeth alongside a slackening expression. Footfalls far from slowing even as Fenris creeps ever closer. Meaning that it's a simple thing to reach out with one hand in (sort-of) passing, palm pressed against a pair of slender hips crosswise— dragging as he continues on his way (again, like slithering coils before moving behind his companion), still getting a lay of the room for now.]
We both know reality wasn't his strong suit. Not any more than it fits in with all those highborne fangs.
[A beat, his eyes fixed on high glass:] An admirable effort, though.
[Our sire, and for just a moment, there's a moment of camaraderie. For just a moment Astarion's voice sticks and Fenris' heart pangs, and he wonders if they will join together. If the vulnerability will last. If he, himself, can reach out, though in truth he has no real idea how he might do that. And before he can even begin to figure it out—
Ah.
Heat ripples through him at that sliding touch. The ghost of Astarion's fingers lingers on his skin. And what a thing it is to be a vampire, that his teeth ache to bite even as a pulse of arousal courses through him. The lyrium embedded in his palms pulses, his fingers curling as the phantom urge to sink his talons into soft flesh and rip courses through his mind. He knows what's going to happen next. No matter that he refuses to be the one to strike first, there's no way this won't end in blows.
And truth be told, he won't be sorry for it.
It's been a century of enduring Astarion's jealousy. A century of snide remarks and petty revenge; a century of cruelties great and small, humiliations tangling together with rage and grief. Decades of hands yanking at him during parties, shoving him down to his knees and fucking his mouth until he was drooling come; of vicious cruelty that always had the vague excuse of accidental, Fenris writhing in agony as Astarion watched his blood pool on the stone floor.
Years on end of the two of them barking at one another helplessly, impotent dogs collared and leashed by their master, but not anymore.
Fenris' eyes darken as he turns, and oh, but his smile has taken on a mean edge.]
A bold proclamation from a vampire who was taken in front of a thousand witnesses. Do you imagine your posturing will erase that from their minds?
[His head tips.]
Their first impression of our union was you submitting to me . . . and what will you do to remedy that? Tie me to the bed and fuck me? And yet that won't change what happened.
[The smirk fades.]
Try and make me yours, Astarion. You do not have Vakares to hide behind, not anymore— and older you may be, but I am trained for this. And I will not hesitate to finally put you in your place like the rabid dog you are.
A playful snippet of mockery suddenly pushed too far.
It takes so little, is the point. Hairpin triggers set up on eggshells over glass compared to their maker's inexhaustible control, and it never starts out as wanting violence (or the marrow-deep satisfying sound of whimperering cries)— they don't begin their nights by waking and rubbing sleep from crimson eyes only to crow about what sort of cruelty they'll force upon their mate— it just grows in after one of them laughs a little too loudly. Gets flattered with a different word. Drinks too much. Speaks too bluntly. Bites down too hard, too fast.
Now this.
Innocuous discussion won't stay that way if it's flanked by less-than-innocuous stares. Grins that don't quite meet their eyes, and touching that's tantamount to smoking tinder.
Maybe that's the point.
The leash is gone. The collar loose. Unhappiness hardly solidifies a truth that's lasted the better part of one hundred— two hundred years— promising that whenever they showed teeth, he'd be there. (And this room still smells like him, and it's his writing on that desk, and even if it's only the smallest fragment of their minds that hopes this might all just be a test while the rest of their thoughts prepare themselves for war— ) how could they not intrinsically tug just to see if it might give?
One way or another, something will make it real. Something else will grieve for them. Take the blame for them. Be angry or hurt or resentful for them.
(Or afraid for them. That, too.)]
Word to the wise, little one.
Unlike you: a rabid dog doesn't know to submit.
[His back still to Fenris. His arms still loosely at his hips. Little one, not little wolf, for he'd reduce the creature just behind him to a timeline of fresh-abandoned masters just to soothe his paper skin. An artful twist of his neck angled just around his shoulder punctuating one seemingly smug stare.]
But I can't say it's a surprise a formerly kenneled broodbitch still can't tell what acting is even when it's dangled right in front of his stunted little snout. [Half-turning on his heel in that next breath, it's his chin that leads the way. His reddened eyes narrowed into lightless slits. His lips twisted high around long teeth. Sharp teeth. Mean teeth.
Suffer for him, Fenris, and maybe he'll call it even.]
I don't have Vakares to hide behind anymore?
[Oh, catulus.]
I've been waiting centuries for this.
I'm glad he's gone.
[Throw the first stone. Twist the knife. Snap bone. Lap blood. Scrape salt— make it hurt. Make it hurt, even if you're the one bleeding from it, too.
His mouth to Fenris' ear after a handful of silent strides, voice a pitchbound hum.]
It hurts, it hurts, and worse still: Fenris cannot tell why it hurts. He is not so emotionally aware that he knows that some part of him longs for his sire so badly that it aches— oh, young thing. Young, stunted thing, and that's the thing about vampires, isn't it? A century old, but that does not mean he has all the maturity of an elder. Vampires are frozen in time, and in some ways, he is still the same bloody slave he'd been when Vakares had found him. And Fenris had learned to lean on him, to look to him for guidance, to mold himself to him—
Oh, young thing floundering without a master . . . he does not know just why he longs for his sire. He does not realize that perhaps he picks a fight so that Vakares, indeed, might return. He does not know why anger sparks so easily; why his blood boils when it usually takes far longer to rouse him into defensive snappishness. He knows only that his heart hurts— and that in these moments of newfound freedom, his collar cut and his tether released, when they both of them are charting the new way their dynamic might go, he is desperate not to come out the lesser.
I'll be glad when you are, too—
Turn, grab, shove— his forearm braced against Astarion's chest, striding forward until Astarion's back hits the wall with a dull thunk. His fangs are bared in a snarl, though he doesn't realize it; his talons slice through thin silk, his crimson eyes narrowed as he glares at his counterpart.]
Then try it.
[He leans forward, pressing his weight against the vampire's throat. They don't need to breathe, but that won't stop his voice from sounding strained from the pressure he puts on it.]
Go on. Do it. Kill me if you can— or is it that you intend only to gossip and whine until I slink away in shame? But you will have to try harder than that.
[Ah, so it does work well, that pinning pressure: trying to swallow, to speak— to suck in air of any sort or exhale in the slightest— all of it cracks where Fenris has him, keeping him held fast, his own claws planted against skin in a threat that doesn't quite match its catalyst.]
—will I, now....?
[It's better than chatting, isn't it? Better than thinking. Being angry, being nasty, being cruel. When everything's a flaring burst of overwrought emotion (the likes of which no mortal could ever sustain without weeping nigh on end), it's at least a mercy knowing the smallest ripple of fresh sensation can wipe clean the slate of all their scars.
At least for a little while.]
I don't need gossip to make you— look like the bitch you are, dressed up in a silk ruff like a joke.
[His grin twisted high, his fangs leading when he hisses (serpentine— pricked forwards). Cruelty the shine within his stare, and that much brighter by the second.] They'll laugh you out of court by the end of the week.
[Hiss. Hiss.
Death by a thousand little whispers such an appealing prospect, but when in the clutches of a brute—
His claws wrench. In half a blink, he's snapped his arms down into the fault lines of that hold— the whipcrack start to a countering offensive carved from vicious lunges and powerful swipes: elder strength a boon in moments such as these (feel it in every strike, little wolf— ) until the mirror's on its side. The parallel complete. A haggard slam defining shattered seconds when Fenris' own body's rammed against the wall and his throat is savagely pinned to the point of pain.
Hooked talons anchored into stone. Lips brought close enough to kiss, breath pooling in the bow of bloodstained mouths.
The true face of their joining.]
Do you want to know what our master said about you?
[Tongue to his canines, his own blood wrapped around its tip; grin like a wildfire. Like a knife. Like a start.] The things he whispered to me when you weren't around to hear them, riding my cock just to find a little succor....
[It's a crude imitation, his voice. Even so:]
He needs you, Astarion.
If he fled these halls, it would not be a year before he was killed. Such a young thing. Such a hopeless thing, yet I love him all the same.
[Fingers tugging at light lacework, opening the front of Fenris' trousers with probing demand, cool against little glimpses of skin— threatening to take. His every lie stitched in deep.
Come here. Come here.]
I'll shelter you. I'll be your new master. I'll do my duty just like he asked....
And keep you safe by putting a fresh muzzle on that pretty mouth of yours.
(Hopeless, and it slips beneath his skin, embedding itself deep like a barb. It doesn't hurt, not yet, but it will: Vakares' gentle tones taking on the sneering dismay of Danarius, his sire standing in the doorframe of a stone-lined cell: all that lyrium and you still disappoint me. Pain flooding his body with every breath, his eyes wide and red-rimmed, his mind little more than a blank slate— knowing only that his sole purpose in life is to please his master, and he is failing in that task. Hopeless, and though he thinks it a lie, that will not stop that gnawing seed of doubt to embed itself within him and grow like a festering thing).
It isn't the cold fingers wrapped around his neck, nor the ones that so boldly pry open his trousers. It's not the way his own cock twitches in panting anticipation (and yet still some part of him burns in humiliation to feel it, his body betraying him even as he growls low in his throat). It isn't the ghost of chilled breath on his lips, or the crude names that Astarion tries to cast upon him (and yet he does look ridiculous in this ruff, he knows; he does look like a silly little slave caught dressing in his master's robes— or at least, that's how it feels).
But then again, maybe it is. Maybe all of those build up in those precious few seconds as they stare at one another: a swirling whirlpool of resentment and insecurity that pushes him into the past farther than he realizes. Little slave, little one, his own mind betraying him even as he shoves resentfully against it. Did you dare to dream you hadn't traded in one master for another, boy? As if you could ever survive on your own— it won't be a year before you're killed. Stupid thing. Stupid, mindless vampire, only ever good for rutting and fighting, building and building in the back of his mind—
I'll be your new master. I'll keep you safe. Muzzle that pretty mouth—
Fenris bites.
Like the feral dog he'd just been labeled: his throat straining at that tight grip as sharpened teeth slice through pale flesh with bitter precision. His fangs catch at Astarion's lip, his tongue, a vicious parody of a kiss— blood smears over his lips, spilling down his chin, and still he lunges forward again and again, not caring what he bites so long as he does. So long as Astarion hurts, oh, he will earn that muzzle. His hands grab for lithe hips, talons shredding delicate fabric into tatters with one swift motion; his fingers wrap around that thickened prick, his grip so tight.
Fenris cannot pull away, it's true. Astarion has him beat when it comes to sheer strength, and so he'll stay put so long as those fingers are wrapped around his throat. But that goes two ways— and if Fenris is to be trapped here, so will Astarion.]
Don't you dare move.]
You will never be my master.
[Oh, it's too angry. It's too desperate, his seething rage only barely covering his panic— and yet there's no hesitance to the way he keeps a tight hold on that prick. If they're to fight, let them fight— and to Fenris' mind, he has the advantage.]
Try again, old man. Or are you so arrogant when you have your cock caught in the palm of my hand?
[And yet it's a goading stroke he offers: his wrist snapping as he shuttles his hand along his cock with all the familiarity of a doting partner. His grin bloody and mean as he feels the other man swell against his fingers, throbbing in needy eagerness— oh, he is hungry, isn't he? Of course he is.
I can beat you with one hand . . . His thumb smearing over his welling slit. His grip tightening as he picks up the pace, hard tight pullsanyára, pull away now. Dance out of range and see what it gets you.]
Not once. Not twice. Too many times to count before he feels light fabric rip— iron flooding through his senses, bitter and chalky and blunt, and they're both a little senseless aren't they? Neither one caring which blows hit (lies and obscured half-truths void of all their vital context; insults, swipes, digs, snarls, snaps— groping at anything in reach, and) the only thing that matters is that something lands inside their hateful fray, akin to animals warring over a single bone. Friction caught between their jaws, and it could be elation or concupiscence, avarice or hatred—
It soothes.
(Or: it roils.
Or: it aches, but it feels good.)
Fingers stroking over him while he keeps his prey well pinned, and if they're lamenting the fact that no hand comes down between them (no voice from the doorway, knowing and wearily-cut while it utters out they've failed), they can revel in that selfsame truth: martial law's the path to dominance now, both its coronet and vulgar chain. Deadened heart rammed against his throat while glassy fingers tease against his slit (his own twisted tight enough to cut within those laces), and were this just a battle on equal footing, they could play at that face-forwards for hours. Slipping the lead of their pain by testing prowess in all fairness, teeth and tongue and nails accompanying the rhythm of their hands while they stroke and stroke and stroke to see who's best. Who's weaker. Who wants it more— either victory or defeat.
The thing is, you see, Astarion wants to win.]
Oh you're showing me all right. [False breath collapsing in his lungs, delving into the base of his throat before slithering through crimson lips. Grin so wide it seems to split around the glimmer of his fangs, where pretense is unseated by the roll of his own spine, and the pressure nudged against marked palms.] Why don't you dig the knife in a little deeper and service me a little more fiercely....? I'm sure I'll learn my lesson, then.
[One part bluff. One part—
Oh.]
You're my bride after all. I want to see what your virgin little hole looks like stretched around my prick.
[Dig. Past the front of those unstrung trousers. Past supple heat trapped and left defenseless in pursuit of his assault, soft fingers skirting over the base of Fenris' scalding prick— feeling how it twitches in the rise towards his touch, almost begging for retaliating focus despite its master's whims— denying temptation by slipping lower still. Around velveteen contours that tuck heavily between soft thighs; up within their shadow, wrist cut against the waistband of coarse leather for just how far he's delved, utilizing the angle of his hold at his companion's throat in order to prevent rejection (without taking both hands back to break Astarion's hold— or at the very least abandoning his efforts to wring across his cock— ) the most Fenris could do like this is close his own thighs, and what good would that do, really? Those claws are already there by now, after all. Tapping slowly at the entrance to his cinch.
How unguarded you've left yourself, little wolf....]
Deny it all you want....once you get a taste, you'll be shivering again to be mounted with your back bowed and your head slung low in my grip.
Can you picture it, Fenris? [Fingers probing at him just to make him measure that heavily impending threat. Teasing with the very tips of his touch as he twists his head to bite that waiting throat (though in the struggle, it might be hard to reach— ) opening the way for feathered little pushes in. Out. In. Out. In. In. Pull— stretch (just the barest trace of slickness makes it rough and wholly forceful): dragging its bounds wide in little circles under the press of just one finger. This is what defines you. This is what I have. Spread wider for me. Lift your leg. Arch your back.]
[In and out, in and out— he wants it (and he doesn't), he wants it (he'd rather die), and the trick isn't that neither are true, but both are. Every false breath made ragged with lust is just as genuine as the snarl that paints his lips. Every little twitch from his waiting hole (please please please, and he hates his body for how it betrays him, his cock drooling as he spread so eagerly around that probing finger, fighting not to roll his hips down and rut) is just as real as the way his talons slice viciously along the skin of Astarion's hip, bloody lines a testament to his own rage.
You're my bride, and his cock twitches in response. I want to see what your virgin little hole looks like stretched around my prick, and he has always been so weak to filthy talk. His mind reels involuntarily, his body remembering just how good it felt to have that thickened prick split him open (and that was just the tip). Drifting into the fantasy of white lace and whimpering cries, corruption thrilling him even hands grip his wrists, that cock pounding into him as Astarion's voice hisses viciously in his ear—
Oh, sweet little virgin, what a wedding night I will give you . . .
And he wants to give in (good boy). He wants to be good (what a good pair I have, Vakares' voice so terribly warm in his memory). He longs for the security of a hand gripping his leash, fingers in his mouth and a fat cock splitting him open— and that's exactly why he can't give in.
Roll over now and sign away any hope of a partnership. Submit willingly (willingly) and know that this above all else will define you both for centuries to come. And Fenris could recover, he knows he could— but how long would it take? How many times would Astarion hold it over his head, a deliciously juicy secret to slip out at fêtes: oh, he was such an eager thing, my bride, so ready to feel his lord master's guiding hand—
No.
Whine for a good breeding . . .
The cleverest way to win a fight isn't head-on, but with tactics.]
As if you are capable of breaking me.
[Breathed out, and he does not mind the teeth at his throat. Vicious things that slice through skin and lyrium with ease, welling droplets of blood dripping down into his disheveled shirt as his hands suddenly release. Astarion's prick bobs in the air, heavy weight dragging it down— and then all at once forced up, pinned between their writhing bodies as Fenris drags his counterpart in. Closer, closer— til there isn't an inch of space between them, and no matter that it traps Astarion's hand against his hole, for it gives him all the reach he needs to grip those overfull cheeks and spread them.
Remember this?]
Mount me, if you wish. [Oh, he wants it, they want it.] Shove your way into me like the breeding stud our sire picked you out to be— the silly little noble who has nothing to his name but a big prick and an ego to match. Take me, if you can, but do not imagine that makes you a conquerer— or do you think you were the only one he confided in?
[He arches his back, a grin he doesn't feel sparking over his lips: come take me, then. As his hole is bared to the cold air, his cock throbbing between them untouched— mount me, little prince, and see what difference it makes.]
Settle down and perhaps I'll tell you what he said . . .
[A goading carrot as his fingers spread those cheeks wider still, groping and refusing to tend to him all at once.
[Fenris might not mind the dig of teeth against his throat, but Astarion—
He sees red the moment that the knife's edge turns.
Just for a second, his agile mind isn't thinking at all— his fingertips half-submerged in supple depths, his lips jammed tight (alongside the rest of his own body, now) against the map of Fenris' form where he's been dragged towards it— shared borders outlining the ties between microcosms and macrocosms. Every inch of him locked under the guillotine hang of a simple set of words: perhaps I'll tell you what he said.
And isn't it funny (it isn't) how the details always get lost in the belly of the most ambitious schemes. How it never once occurred to him, grand manipulator that he is, that a street this cutting could run both ways, or that Fenris would stoop low enough to lie to him like that (when all he's ever seen of the beast he bridles is how slavishly he'd tucked his ears back to be pet beneath his sire's hand)— or if it's even a lie at all.
After all, one man's bluff might warrant its own call.
The deck doesn't bless each player equally.
And suddenly Astarion has to know what it was. If it was. The rough shapes in his mind unfurled. (Ah, maybe Vakares did say something. Maybe maybe maybe, with his prick buried too richly and the lights of his study drawn low, lyrium-glazed fingers curled so sweetly round his cheeks that he forgot his firstsired ever existed, and whispered only praise for his spoiled little second; oh, little one, words churning high between sharp teeth that curve away from skin to kiss instead of bite, oh, only you— not him. You eclipsed him from the moment that I found you. He doesn't charm me anymore. He doesn't shine. He doesn't tempt, and his demands for my attention only exhaust me now. Needy Astarion, it isn't his fault. I loved him, but— )
By force, and only just, Astarion yanks away from it with his foot half in that trap (rough hands across his cheeks, and a groan behind his teeth snapped shut at just the last second), recognizing it all for what it is, no matter how his head swims and his deadened heart aches in fretted pain.
The only thing left within the harbor of his chest once that tide of insecurity goes rushing out is barbed, embittered hatred.
He wants to ruin the memory of Vakares for him. Etch his name across it all. Take his throne. His title. How dare he, the vile little beast. Little spread-legged whore. Little cur. Little mongrel. Look, Vakares. Look what he made me do, the little wretch that couldn't handle your vision. He was ungrateful. He forced my hand.
And while Astarion holds the thinnest advantage in a void, like this, leverage is on Fenris' side; he can't outmatch that captive strength outright— but sinking further into it? Oh, now that's a different game entirely: let his rival palm those cheeks with such enticing little whispers (and he's shivering up his spine, though enmity's far keener), it won't stay a thing when he rushes forwards in a lunge within tight spaces— slamming Fenris' back against the wall once— twice—
The third time harsh enough to daze a lesser thing, slid in before Astarion's pinning hand finally drops to meet its twin, hoisting his companion's legs high into the air until his knees come close to kissing smooth stone— and his cock slavers thickly at the entrance to that cinch, prettier than ever before when it's already so flush from crude attention, precome welling at its lip.
That his eyes glint with anticipation (oh, he will take you) is a sickly breed of gluttonous indulgence left to burn amongst dry tinder.]
Such boldness.
[In the faultline of his tongue, it doesn't sound like a compliment.]
Let it console you when I leash you under the table to service every cock and cunt in waiting with that lying tongue of yours.
[His eyes black. His voice humming with abyssal promise. And to punctuate that claim— he shoves himself in deep. Grinding. Shifting. Bucking down while sawing the thickset crest of his own cock across a tender bundle of soft, subverted nerves. There. There.] Shh shh shh— just like that, little wolf. There you go, writhe for me.
Good boy. [A knife, that praise. Retaliation.] That's a good boy.
I'm not normally a fan of sharing what's mine, but for the sight of you in lace....mhm, I'd lose the respect of my peers if I didn't let them taste.
[(This wasn't how it was meant to go, some faint thought whispers. The ghostly remnants of Vakares drifting through the back of his mind behind all the terror and rage and arousal: this wasn't how it was meant to go, but maybe that was always a foolish dream. Maybe they were always fated to end up like this: bitterly vicious, sinking their claws savagely into one another until one of them falls dead to the ground and the other triumphs. Power is never evenly shared, and it was stupid to think it could be. It was stupid to think they could get along. Stupid, stupid—)]
Ah!
[It's a bitten-back cry, his eyes rolling back even as his fangs sink deep into his lip, all of him such a brutal dichotomy right now. He wants so badly to hide his pleasure and deny Astarion the vicious satisfaction— but oh, little wolf, he can't, not this close. Not when his body overrules his mind, all enmity temporarily forgotten in face of molten pleasure— gods, he can't help it. He doesn't want this, he doesn't want this—
But he does.
His thigh shake as they're pinned back, saliva pooling in his mouth as he's impaled so brutally. Thick and hot and perfect, spreading him open with no regard for delicacy, and oh, he loves every roughened inch. He loves how deeply Astarion's cock pushes in, spearing him and filling him, spreading him open wide and satisfying him like nothing else ever does. Greedy and gluttonous, his eyes glazed over as heat searing as the sun rises within him, his cock drooling against his belly as his desperate squirming only sinks him down further. Helpless and thriving, and that would be bad enough. The way his thighs tremble and those muffled moans sound in his throat would be bad enough.
But then there's that insistent rubbing. The blunt crown of his cock grinding against that bundle of nerves over and over, and with every pass, it gets worse. White sparks burst in front of his vision as his cock twitches, his mouth finally dropping open as moans timed to that vicious assault slip past his lips, oh, oh—
Writhe for me, and he does. Instinctively, desperately, his body responding to commands far swifter than his mind can catch up— so that by the time he manages to grab some semblance of sanity with white knuckles, it's too late. He's all but drooling as he speaks, his eyes black and glazed with pleasure— and yet still, though his breath hitches and his toes curl, that's that spark of defiant rage.]
N-no—
[Oh, gods, no, he can't, he can't— but oh, he would. Why not? Why not parade his hated rival around, cementing his place as whore and humiliating him all at once? He sought their deaths, Fenris, and the depths of his jealousy was nothing compared to what he feels for Fenris. And as for the other vampires— oh, they'll see it as droll comeuppance and little more. A squalling brat put in his proper place, a slave kept down by his betters, oh, they'll eagerly settle in, hungry to play with the novelty of a pet leashed, his mouth forced open and his protests muffled by a thickened cock or slick cunt—
No, and the horror of it eclipses any humiliating heat that leaves his cock drooling for the thought.
And yet: what can he do? What can he offer? Astarion is older and stronger, and right now, he has the advantage. Protesting will only cement him in his line of action; pleading is out of the question, for no matter what happens, Fenris will not beg. Threats flood through his distracted mind, flickering wildly, I'll bite off anything you shove in my mouth, I'll hunt you down, I'll rip your tongue out, and he will, he will he will he will— but right now, they're impotent things, desperation woven in every word.]
A-and [nn, his tongue flushed and dripping, his eyes fluttering,] and let everyone know y-you couldn't even tame me yourself? That you n-needed a whole host of elders to do it for you?
[It isn't submission, but it's . . . something close to it. As close as he can bear. One hand darts out, wrapping around Astarion's neck; with a moan Fenris tips his head, bringing their lips together in a hungry kiss that tastes of sweat and blood and hate. Their tongues slide together, their mouths pulsing— and when he breaks away, strings of scarlet saliva bind them temporarily together, both their teeth still coated in blood.]
Such talk from a vampire lord w-who cannot even manage to tame his replacemen— ah!
Aren't you adorable, wriggling so nicely on a hook when you know you've been outfoxed....
[Tsk. Fool thing. Does he really expect that to work? Does he imagine Astarion so ineffably susceptible to distraction that one thinly veiled goad let out through spit-drenched fangs will somehow convince him to relent? Change his mind? Shy away from sadism in favor of being rational just this once, compared to an unliving lifetime of killing hens in his own coop?
Well.
The downside is: he's right.
Vakares had assessed his consorts correctly to begin with, be it ages or weeks or months or decades ago— their patterned strengths and weaknesses alike (you need each other— ) that depthless voice still humming fresh as snowfall in his mind. Where they'd flourish. Where they'd falter. And Astarion could sway courtly hearts through captivation, but in matters of strength? No doubt already they suspect his softness, nothing to be said about the compounding fact that what is two hundred years to any of their kind, really? There are spawn older than him. There are living elves older than him. The tablewear they'd dined on over the last few days could prove their eldest sibling. Ergo, what then? When the soft-soled heir usurps a waiting throne only to flex how his conquest had mewled for him without hanging his own head— and does still. That's no sign of power; that's hardly worth respect. A rabid dog cowed by many hands belongs to no one and nothing alone, and Astarion can't let that be his start, no matter how avidly it tempts.
But that isn't something Fenris needs to know.
While his mind reels over itself in oscillating forethought, Astarion bears into that kiss in full: catching tongue between his teeth with scraping little flicks of hungry movement while his hips count out a host of heartlessly supplanting seconds— all of his body still angled in pursuit of its captive dinner— tracking time through shallow thrusts and inlaid swells of depraved pressure. It's not obedience that he craves right now while his shoulders ache and his swallowed prick throbs inside hot leylines.
It's the taking.
And so when he pulls away, it's to look downwards into the heart of their vulgar alignment. The twisting, writhing spearpoint that keeps them locked in dripping struggle, one shoved tight atop the other. Hand rushed swift to the back of Fenris' skull, bending him forward until his still-prone posture bows— and he's treated with the obscene sight of his sore cock laid (and bouncing dazedly) on its side in the crook of his own legs: their slender, branded measure shoved back so far and so wide that they bracket either side of his slim torso, folded knees tucked up near his shoulders, toes twisting in dead air while mapped out in their shade—
It's only a glimpse, you see.
Only visible when Astarion draws back— revealing just how thick and long and rigid he is as if for the very first time between them— that the glossy base of his crude length shines in such romantic light as that of their christened room. Drawn back to the limits of his hips and yet still so harshly buried (too expansive not to feel just as full as their master had ever left them; too vindictively heavy not to mock the very same anatomy it defiles), keeping Fenris' body well aware of what it serves, massive and yet waiting just to pounce.]
Watch, now.
[Watch, little one.
As he rolls his hips by slight degrees at a probing angle, bruisingly blunt tip ramming and scraping at that singularly pliant spot. A jab to hunt for it— a dig to mark it— and then a lambent grind, dragging eagerly back and forth across its measure, his thickened shaft stretching out the roseated base of Fenris' tight hole. His fault for clinging. For fighting. For not relaxing and letting Astarion have his fill with servile ease. If it stings, there is a cure. If it maddens, he knows how best to appeal it. Be good. Open wide. Keep your hips relaxed, just like that— be a good boy, let me in.]
I've no choice but to tame you before I let them admire you, then.
—ah ah, watch, I said. [Don't shut your eyes. Don't look away.] You need to see what I'm doing to you to understand how perfect it'll all feel when you let me have my way. That's how it works, domestication.
....or so I've read. I've never tamed my own broodbitch before, after all.
And if you let me— [One pair of fingers lifting just to feather at Fenris' untouched tip, playing more than kindling his dripping need; inciting subservient bootlicking through imperious strokes and the conjoined efforts of his hips, dark lashes having fallen low across his downturned eyes while pleasure flutters through him (oh, through them both, no doubt). His own throat burning like soot. Like smoke. Like the heat of a kill drawn close— ]
I'll make it so much better.
[Calling for assistance is easy.
A single shouted word and one of their sire's— one of their spawn comes running, easily instructed on what to bring.
A bit. A set of cuffs. A collar. A chain. Toys upon toys resting on their waiting bed and a promise to track down 'something suitable to wear'. And all the while Astarion teases. Fucks into him only to stop once Fenris comes even remotely close— again and again and again.]
Relinquish his gift. Surrender.
[A nose bumped against his jaw, slipping over countless welling bites.]
Swims, spins, blurs, and though Fenris knows they have taken no drugs, it hardly matters, for he feels high as anything. Punch-drunk off searing sensation and overwhelmed arousal, and his defiant desperation only makes it worse. He's torn between the two, Astarion a siren dragging him into the darkest depths even as he struggles for air. I can't and don't and no all gracing his lips, barked out fitfully as his mind tries so hard to remember just why he'd resisted in the first place. Thoughts of hatred do no good, for the resulting humiliation burns through him as potent as any aphrodisiac, and as for plans for the future— oh, that means nothing at all. What future? What world? Nothing exists outside of this moment. Nothing exists outside of the two of them, locked together and yet still biting at one another's throats, collared together as surely as if they both had bands wrapped around their throats.
It's everything. It's everything, so blindly overwhelming that each time he thinks he's found a foothold through the scarlet haze of arousal, he's swept off his feet once more. It's the hypnotically vulgar sight of Astarion's prick gleaming in the candlelight as it saws temptingly in and out of him, earning a ragged moan each time it so cruelly grinds over that bundle of nerves (back and forth, back and forth, saliva pooling in Fenris' mouth as his jaw goes slack). It's they way Astarion's hands are always there to pin his own back each time he tries to reach for his prick, lilting voice whispering taunts in his ear (naughty thing, you know better). It's the trembling temptation that comes of featherlight fingertips toying with his welling slit, earning whimpering little whines that only grow as Astarion's cock grinds and ruts within him.
It's the rage that comes from hearing the word broodbitch, and the goading laughter that results when Fenris surges forward to bite that offending tongue. Blood runs hot between them and it doesn't matter, for no matter how he sinks his teeth in (and oh, he does), it's still him helpless. It's still him impaled, spread open upon his twin's cock and helpless to do anything save that. And so Astarion takes even that from him: turning his dripping fangs into a demonstration of his own helplessness, for what else does he have? Not his hands, held captive whenever he tries to seek relief. Not his legs, pinned back and dangling helplessly in the air, trembling wildly as Fenris tries not to lose his mind.
And it's the growing desperation as he is denied his release again and again and again.
Vampires are gluttonous creatures, and he is no different. A single orgasm doesn't approach satisfying him— and so this endless edging is the worst sort of torment. He loses track of how many times he verges on coming, his whole body tensing, his back arching, every inch of him surging up— only to be cruelly suffocated by a tight grip and a vicious thumb. Each waves leaves him reeling higher and higher, every potential orgasm more powerful than the last— so that by the time that spawn (only dazedly seen and vaguely registered) slips in and out of their rooms, Fenris feels nigh-mad from desire.
And the world swims . . .]
I—
[Oh, what a mess he is. Hair hanging damply in his unfocused eyes, his cock drooling as it bobs helplessly in the air. A soft nose bumps against his jaw and instinctively he nuzzles back against it, There's the faintest trace of a flush to his cheeks, the remnants of their wedding feast making itself known. Again the door opens, that same spawn coming in with a bundle of something white in his arms; drunkenly, Fenris thinks once more of ravaged brides and virginal first times. Of himself in torn skirts and stockings with runs in them, mewling as his body melts itself to the shape of Astarion's prick— his eyes rolling back, his mouth slack as he's fucked into his fourth, fifth, sixth orgasm of the night, a captive consort ridden hard and put back wet each and every night . . .]
I won't.
[Panted. Whined. His hips rocking forward desperately as he tries and fails to fuck himself, his skin gleaming with sweat and dripping with blood— and yet still some trace of defiance remains.]
I w-won't, I won't—
[Collar me, if you can. Fuck me. Tie me to the bed. Dress me as your bride— but I will not renounce my claim. That's what he wants to say. He wants to sound brave and defiant and unbreakable— but oh, two words are all he can bear. And in the end, he sounds more like a desperate thing than a defiant one.]
P-please, please, please, Astarion, please—
[Gods, it's been hours, please—]
[Desperate tears filling his eyes and tracking unheeded down his cheeks, his whole body shuddering as another pulsing wave of orgasm rises and falls— and Fenris in the middle, teeter-tottering frantically between his two selves, reeling and yet trying so hard even now to fight. Mouth dropping open before curling in a snarl, his teeth clicking in the open air as he snaps them.]
You will have to break me before you manage to ever come close to taming me— vishante kaffar mentula!
Oh but I will....if that's what it takes. [So little space between them that his cold breath clings to bitter tear-tracks when he murmurs. Holding fast the way Astarion holds fast; no part of him willing not to cling in its own right.] We could spend days together. Months. Years.
I know I always said I reviled you, but seeing you like this....
It's starting to bring me around.
[Oh it's torture for Astarion, too.
He's exhausted. Tested. Tried. Thrilling at the game around the shape of his own grin still means battling to make it last, and the map of their vampiric traits endure both ways: if he can last, so can Fenris; if Fenris can push himself to hold firm, so can Astarion—
Quite literally.
But that doesn't make it easy. In fact, as is proven under the weight of their vicious back and forth, that just makes it a fight. A true one. The sort they've never faced before between them, and for once (for now, while his idle thoughts are too busy drowning to hiss into his ears), he's glad to realize their sire isn't coming. That as the harshest minutes tick on— that obedient spawn still in the doorway (a tall, willowy young thing with deepset eyes and dark hair, always glancing towards Fenris as he listens to his master's call), finishes the last of his work ferrying items— it's a different kind of excitement lancing through his chest to think they can finally begin to test their limits unimpeded, the way any true vampire would.
There are no windows in this room. He can't tell how long it's been since they've started, and he won't risk asking his own slave for an answer that might tip Fenris off as well (let him think it's an eternity. Let him assume that it's been just as long as it feels); Astarion will see to his guests later.]
Our wedding night has to take priority, my love. [Cruel. Mocking. Poured from a tongue that plays it like it's true (and maybe— through that strange bond of theirs— in some way it could be), though he grins like a shark with a bloodied muzzle and reaches high to pin his thumb to the very center of Fenris' oozing lip in that same breath, smearing it again in a mockery of their ceremony. Hades and his pomegranates. Red as love. Red as lust. Red as torment.
Passion always wears the same cloak, and no poet worth his salt forgets the ugliness that makes cannibalism the very same act as kissing. Fucking. Loving. Longing.
Fenris took him before a crowd.
Astarion waited for this.
With a blink, his hands are free, his captive; the vampire could wrench at himself to try and work himself to rapture in the seconds he's afforded— but Astarion's already stilled himself while flush: their hips jammed together till Fenris' cheeks swell against the lower edges of pale hips and perched thighs, forcing them higher into rises that he freely palms (like stroking a horse run well, its nostrils foaming as it bucks and bites and falters)— and what sort of miserable orgasm would that be? Crumbs licked from the floor instead of a waiting feast—
Astarion of all people would know: that only makes it worse.]
I've been too eager to satisfy you.
[A lie. Not a lie.]
Rattus— [He barks out roughly, pulling Fenris forwards into his arms while letting his cock slide free. The boy behind him running, though that was never his name. His title.] Slave.
Help me tie him to the bed. I want him dressed properly.
[And it's two against Fenris' one in that instant: even if they were evenly matched rivals— even if that harried wolf thrashes or screams or snarls fangs-first— his arms are shackled to high bedposts; his ankles clapped in looser chains ('so that we can still attend to him', his betrothed says offhandedly), exhaling only once the job is done.
And from there, they both prepare.
In their own ways, that is. Not to be mistaken for equal ceremony: Astarion almost immediately demands blood (brought some whelpling noble who shrieks to be devoured— sobbing, wailing till every outcry quietens in death or slack unconsciousness; Fenris can't see well enough to tell), and spends the better part of an hour afterwards dabbing spare blood across his wounds, watching them heal while he's brushed, perfumed, dressed in sweeping midnight black and crisp glints of ornate gold. You'd think he'd pin a thorny crown to his temple in the last few beats— and maybe he will, eventually, knowing his own temperament— but he settles for jewelry instead: a choker of barbed obsidian briars, no doubt meant to guard his most vulnerable asset from the reach of his lover's fangs. Never mind that it cuts his own skin when it digs. Never mind that spite will always hurt.
In that same hour, Fenris is dressed, too.
White lace. Sheer silk. Thinner than gossamer and as revealing as a favored concubine's regalia. They pierce his ears and drive gilt jewelry into them before they heal (those ordered spawn who can't well disobey), they tether his nipples with golden chain and leash it to a collar round his throat. They pull aside the very same sheer lingerie they'd fit him in with all its unsubtle symbolism to squeeze a plugging toy between his legs with aphrodisiatic oil— (they paint his lips, they wipe his tears to re-line his eyes and brush his bloodied mane, they smooth with salve to heal the worst of all his bites and scrapes)— while from his distant perch Astarion occasionally toys with the enchanted little rune that powers said device, forcing it to spring to life and stop, spring to life and stop; no reasoning beyond his mood, and always quick.
Until it isn't.
Until he's standing there at the foot of their grand bed admiring the beauty of his conquest: lean musculature rippling beneath sheer fabric whenever the poor thing flexes— smooth and supple and devourable when it isn't. Sunset skin and ember eyes, painted and flocked with gold and cream.
How stunning.
It reminds him of the desserts he used to dine on when he was still uniquely mortal. His favorite, in fact— brûlée dancing on his tongue as it melted beneath crisp sugar, complimented by the cold bite of flaked gold and just a kiss of blood-colored, muddled raspberry—
Red stain bright on Fenris' lips.]
My my....
[He exhales from a distance. Just a step or two away from the foot of their bed, and the perfumed span of Fenris' captive legs.]
Don't you look good enough to eat.
[And if Fenris dares to open his mouth—
The rune is pressed; a jagged, world-shaking buzz rattling through him from the base of his tight hole— left to build this time. Higher. And higher.
And off.]
Well don't be so dour, my darling. Open your legs for me.
(He knows them, those spawn that tended to him. The one with dark eyes who tied him to the bed and clad him in silk stockings and white lace; the pretty red-head who stained his lips and lined his eyes with such care. There was no emotion on their faces, no glee nor grief as they worked to pierce his ears til they hung with gold rings— but they can't disobey, can they? And though they avoided his eyes, though they none of them could escape the call of their new master, it doesn't matter. They'll still remember this.
Good or bad. Humiliating or pitying. Poor thing or he got exactly what he's deserved, spoiled little pup— they'll remember, and worse yet, they'll tell the others. How can they not? It's such a striking picture, after all. Out with the old master and in with the new, and with it a whole host of changes that will affect them sooner or later, for this is just the start. One consort triumphing while the other buckles, and as he lies there, hips twitching with every merciless thrum of that swollen toy, he thinks of how the image will travel, searing itself into the coven's collective memory. Dark and light. Chained and free. A lord husband dressed in the finest of clothes, tended to until he looks every bit as powerful as he feels— and his captive bride, writhing and moaning as he's prepared for his master to devour.)
Lace presses tightly against his hips. His collar is snug against his throat, just tight enough that a mortal might whine for how they strain to breathe. Silk rustles as his knees brush against one another, chains clinking gently for how his fingers curl and uncurl. He'd been wiped clean before, sweat and precome vulgar intrusions on the fantasy of virginal brides— and yet still his neglected cock drools onto his belly, unheeded and yet still throbbing for that cruel punishment.
(And the line is this: he does not renounce his claim. He does not cede that which belongs to him, no matter how bad it gets. He is still Astarion's partner, despite it all; he still rules half of this coven, no matter how it seems right now. He is equal in law if not in deed, and that is important. He has to remember that's important. He has to hold on to that fact throughout the coming days and weeks and years, for it's so vitally important.
But any slave knows that bullheadedness will only end up hurting you in the long run. That defiance is a beautiful thing, and it must be kept burning internally, a flame that never goes out . . . but that to defy one's captors indiscriminately and without thought will never end well.
He could fight right now. He could refuse. And what would that get him?
And maybe he doesn't want to).
He spreads his legs, obedient little whore that he has become.
Slowly, jerkily: his feet slipping over cool sheets until the chain binding his ankles clinks in protest, straining at its limit. His panties inch up, pulling taut between his thighs as tanned cheeks peek out, azure dots of lyrium revealing themselves from behind sheer silk. And that toy— slickened with aphrodisiac oil so potent that even he, eternally undead, feels so hot as it burns through his veins and sinks into his skin— presses against him. Still, now, and yet Fenris swears he can feel it tremble in anticipation— or maybe that's just him. Maybe lust and loathing have tangled into one, and faced with an unwinnable scenario— oh, who wouldn't want to give in? After hours (or is it days, now?) of captivity, his body so spent from screaming that all it can do is whine and whimper and mewl, gods please, oh, is it any wonder he's lost the edge of his defiance?
Fuck me. Take me. Make me yours, but let me come, be sweet to me: his hair glossed and falling in his eyes, his scarlet lips parted as he tips his head to one side. His back arching so needily as his pinned cock strains at its lace prison, swollen and overheated, desperate to be tended to—
And yet his eyes burn with rage.
Come closer, and let me test the mettle of my jaw against that collar.]
Such a brave husband I have with that collar on you . . . why not chain my legs open and make it easy for yourself?
[And gods, he doesn't care what it earns him, so long as he can still speak to say it— for there's losing and losing, and though he's sure he'll howl and moan and beg soon enough, he has to try.
(And yet: he wants him. And yet: his nostrils flare as the scent of lilac washes over him; and yet his eyes are dark as pitch, darting up and down Astarion's form as his tight little hole throbs in memory of that thick cock sinking so deep into him. His mouth aches as his tongue longs to feel something heavy on it; those piercings fitted to his nipples pinch and tug each time he twists his head, and it's no mistake he does that again and again. Saliva pools in his mouth as his thighs tremble in anticipation, his fingers curling in wariness— and impatience.]
Or are you only pleased when you have some form of victory to hold over me?
[Oh, little pup barking just as loud as he can while he has breath still to do it— and yet that doesn't stop Astarion's shadow from falling over him as he comes closer still. His chest heaves, his eyes narrowed as he tries so hard not to squirm: come take me, please.]
Because you won't learn if I do everything for you.
[Pomegranate seeds. Sickles over bloody earth. Thorny collars. Wedding bands. Bitten lips. Proximity synonymous with covetous envy, or so every cautionary fable swears— and if their master dreams of anything, it isn't this (though his bookshelves were lined with warning signs; old fiction shoved beside penned accounts of fallen empires. The very same tomes Astarion had fit his claws to). Too little, too late now. They're past the point of no return, and a hungry beast with its jaws spread wide won't stop because of hindsight— and that's if there even is hindsight to speak of. As things are now, the only thing Astarion would see if he looked behind him, is every step that it's taken to get here.
Soothed by the sight of cream and lace. Gold and tender red. The same pretty mouth that used to snarl at him only whimpers while it barks. Maybe their maker should have said 'I brought him for you' when he'd first brought Fenris home, for there's nothing in Astarion that doesn't leap to see his twin all but stamped with his own name. Nothing in all his fantasies of ownership that quite compares to its own truth.
(He's beautiful.
And what a sin that is for a creature caught.)
But Astarion is placid on approach. His footsteps slow, halfhearted. Dressed in cruelty and dark silk, adorned in intent that looms more viciously than his shadowed silhouette, eclipsing those caught heels to settle in between them. Fingertips light as they stroke upwards over sheer white fabric gone a few shades darker for vulgarity alone— discovered dampness such a pretty sight.
Prettier when it stirs.
Stiffness straining towards the backs of his knuckles, begging where its master doesn't. Touch me. Take me. I need this. I want this. Please. Please— ]
I'll be kind.
[Cross his blackened, deceitful heart, he can be. And isn't that better than his claws?]
You don't have to surrender anything to me.
We're already wed, after all. [Leaning in shifts his weight against the lines of those raised thighs; pressure slow and steady (those panties tensing as the contours that they cling to shift— providing less room, less coverage, less comfort— ) while their contrasting outlines intermingle, bottled pressure caught tight in lightless planes.] Be sweet for me, and we can make our own truce. Christen our first night together. [Testing the waters with his finger first; letting it smooth over the centerline of Fenris' mouth before pressing its way in without request until it meets the very tip of all those waiting teeth. Toying at what it aims to take.
(Try again. Again. Again. Repetition is key.)]
Open for your husband. Tongue first— no fangs.
[For a while, that's fun enough. Tease at him while the toy plugged deep and tight shudders at his behest: too quick and there's a violent buzz between those shackled legs, too slow and there's a buzz; too sharp, too passive, too resentfully— all ending the same way. With Fenris' teeth chattering from the rune his lover keeps, always correcting him when he strays.] Get this right and you can have something nice and thick to suckle on instead. You must be starving by now, after all. [They vampires are such needy things.] Just think about how warm you'll feel with a full belly to sate you.
Your throat comfortably squeezed around my cock. Your mind blissfully blank, relieved just to take in more of my claim. [With a twist, Astarion's spare hand turns around the shape of that held stone— one leashing chain yanked to push a stocking-clad leg high across his shoulder, furthering the violating scrape of their pinned outlines. All of Fenris' lower body raised, providing one more glimpse of soaked lace and thin fabric pushed aside for the sight of his sore cock, its livid crown drooling down the slope of his lithe belly towards gold chain. Towards him. (His lips, his face, his collared throat— )
If Fenris is lucky, he might be able to grind— force scant lingerie and bare skin over thick brocade and dark leather— for some small amount of satisfaction against the measure of captivity, particularly in those moments when Astarion is briefly distracted; brought a glass of wine (no, blood) by waiting servants, the iron in the air makes sense— or to have some small piece of his appearance belatedly groomed mid-game.
Trying to take too much without Astarion's permission, though....
[It's too much (it's not enough). It's too much (and it's nothing, it's nothing, minimal maddening malicious). An endless ebb and flow, a torturous rhythm that never, ever works in his favor—
The slow fucking of his mouth. The seductive lack of a single finger pressing down teasingly against his tongue, taunting him with what he's all but salivating for. Astarion's eyes black as pitch as he stares down at him, his tones dulcet as he plays at teacher: wrap your lips around me, little one. Harder, faster— no, not like that, and it's nothing like he craves. It's the faintest pressure, the most meager drag as it slides slickly past swollen lips, and when his impatience (his rage, his grief, his lust) rises—
Buzz, and Fenris thrashes wildly, his eyes rolling back as frantic moans vibrate in his throat— please I can't please, for that toy is nestled so firmly above that bundle of nerves. Viciously thick, menacingly powerful— he can't think, he can't breathe when it's on, it's like lightning sparking through his veins. Too hot, too powerful, too much I can't too much please, his back arching and his hips wriggling in a futile attempt to escape&dmash;
It ceases.
And then it all begins again.
Over and over and over, and he knows what Astarion is doing. He knows that he is being trained, a nubile little consort educated on how best to please his master— but knowing it doesn't help anything. Fighting doesn't either— how long Astarion had kept him screaming the one time he'd dared to nick his finger with a stray fang? Hours, surely, or at least that's how it felt. Hours upon hours of merciless vibration twitching between his thighs, thrumming and pulsing against his prostate, his cock drooling in whimpering need as it strained against his panties, his orgasm rising, rising, rising—
Only to be cruelly smothered each and every time.
He doesn't know how many times they play like that. All he knows is that suddenly the scent of blood cuts through the sex and sweat, and he realizes that Astarion is drinking. The dark-eyed spawn is near, and oh, Fenris should feel some measure of humiliation for having a witness, but he doesn't care. Not anymore. His thigh tenses where his leg is hoisted over Astaron's shoulder; the other dangles uselessly, leather biting into soft skin as it strains against its cuff.
And Fenris grinds.
Desperately at first: a stop-start rut meant only to work his cock against stiffened leather, gasping softly each time a spark of pleasure travels lazily down his spine. But he can feel Astarion's own cock thick and stiff against the curve of his ass, straining against black leather— and it's easy, then, to adjust. To make sure that every slow grind ruts against that straining length, soft cheeks rocking against him again and again. Rhythmic, eager— and so clearly not trying to take, but give. Every slow push of his hips surely must be bliss to Astarion, a balm to those howling instincts that demand that he take.
Enjoy it. Enjoy what your consort gives you. Enjoy what his body so clearly can't help but offer up in needy tribute . . .]
Do not pretend at kindness as though you have anything but a blackened heart. The lie does not suit you. You wish to take my mouth? Then take it and spare me your lying tongue, for you have never been kind to me—
[His leg jerks, thrashing— and it's an awkward angle, not his best work, but still Fenris manages to wrap one calf around Astarion's back, yanking him forward. Blood spills everywhere, crimson soaking into white lace and pattering on his skin; it matches the smear of red stain on his lips as he bares his fangs. Click, click, and his teeth echo in the air once, twice, straining to meet flesh—
A satisfied growl rumbling in his throat as his fangs scratch at pale flesh, and it doesn't matter if that collar scratches his face in return, for he tastes blood.]
Or are you too frightened of your captive to do anything but tease like a noble, too scared to dare go further?
[It's too much (it's not enough). It's too much (and it's nothing, it's nothing). An endless ebb and flow, a torturous rhythm that never, ever works in Astarion's favor. He'd meant to cow him, make him beg, plead, cry, shriek (so shrilly that the other retained guests could hear him from their beds and lent-out coffins)—
(Fangs puncture flesh.
(Or:) they scrape.
(Or:) they threaten to, and it's only the briars that dig in far enough to pry up red.)
—now, though? Now Astarion still intends to, but at a pace all his own, on his own monstrous terms. His master's muzzle hanging loosely from the empty space his shoulders should be taking up, unlatched. Rinsed clean of all pointless propriety; obligation only in the marrow of his aching teeth.]
Oh, wail. [He hisses darkly, shoving back against the soft scratch of ravenous canines through the collar at his throat, feeling it punch into the soft skin of his neck as it catches against brief intrusion that can't last. (Spite. Spite. Call it by name with every gruesome shove. Every ensuing twist where his muscles bunch into corded ripples under silk, supporting the whole of their weights— their vulgar, voiceless wants. Taxation brimming with envied hate: let it cut them both, but let it hurt Fenris more.) No such thing as action lacking cost under diplomacy this cruel; the leg hooked around his spine the meridian that violatingly shackles them together, moreso than chains or tethers or bloodied stripes swiped sweetly over waiting lips before a gathered crowd. Oil and water have nothing on the way they reject-to-rush-back-in with hardly a second left for equilibrium that isn't overblown, roiling and violent. There's false breath on his neck. Jaws pushed tight against the grate that separates them while lithe hips lift and rut and grind. Tackiness flooded into white, squeezed tighter into black.
You can have what you want, greedy thing.
His promise. His belated vows. Have it all. Glut yourself. Feast until it hurts. You baying, feral, onanistic thing that never belonged in these halls. His hands. His heart. My bed. My bed. (Stay in my bed.) Unable to move as the noose of their entanglement narrows into a swifter tug of lacework that tangles faster than it unspools. Empty glass clattering to the floor with a shattering snap as the slave beside them starts. Silk tears; fingers and their attached claws pull, culminating in a single yank so rampageous that the bedframe jostles underneath them. Lace torn (defenses torn). Tanned skin livid in the shadow of friction burns like tiger stripes; thighs awash in them beneath torn stockings and vacant space, twitching wetly around smooth stone. Twitching harder to be seen.
It'll hurt you most of all.
Two pale fingers spread that much farther into the cusion of dense muscle. His well-braced palm flexes backwards til it aches, forcing those cheeks out wider while he ducks his chin, fangs clicking to meet their counterparts (or skin, or lips, or tongue). Sucking in snarls, snapping out mirroring growls of his own. Tiresome nuisance. Beautiful prize. Beloved. Beloved— conquest. Trophy. Whore. Bride. I want you. I loathe you. I need you. I despise you. And no matter what ceremony swears of love or lifted duty, nights like these do always end in theft.
And he's no better, saintliness emptied from his silhouette long before Vakares found him.
He's no better.
He—
—spreads his touch that much wider.
Aligns his hips and drags against the grain until the supple map around warm stone begins to part.
And with a single nudge— his blunted crest already fit flush to where it needs to be— fights to shove his way in beside that heavy toy.]
(They've only ever tried it once before. One drunken night nearly a century ago, when Vakares' consorts were still trying to feel out whether or not Fenris was a pet for Astarion— oh, they'd done their best. Astarion's prick sat so thickly in Fenris, cold hands braced around his waist as Vakares had tried— don't, I cannot, please, don't, burying his face against the crook of his mate's shoulder, so busy shuddering in shock that he was allowed to say no that he missed the pointed look in Astarion's eyes. Poor thing, his mate had cooed, nuzzling against the side of his head. Don't spend a single second fretting, pretty thing— it's just too much for you to bear, isn't it? his eyes glimmering in triumph).
He doesn't think about the toy, he doesn't realize what Astarion intends— his panties are ripped off, his hole twitching from the burst of cold air as his thighs widen. And he holds his breath, waiting for that cruel burst of pressure that will leave him empty, and it doesn't come, it doesn't come (he hasn't come)—
Blood drips from Fenris' ravaged throat. Blood stains his thighs, his lips; blood looks so searingly, sinfully seductive as it drools from Astarion's throat and stains the sheets beneath them. Blood strings its ways between their hungry lips, and every hot puff of breath Astarion exhales against his lips feels like confirmation of obsession. Yours. Your whore. Your bride. Your usurper. Your mate. Your partner, yours, yours, yours, and gods, Fenris never wanted to be enemies. He never wanted to be rivals. He never, he never—
But this is what it became. This is what their relationship is. And no matter that some part of his brain is screaming in pain for the puncture wounds in his throat, for there is something so soul-searingly satisfying about the wildly savage look in Astarion's dark eyes.
I need you as much as you need me.
(Oh, lonely things, and they dance around it so much that the truth almost hurts as its confirmed, as searing as the sun).
And then he understands.
As blunt heat forces itself forward and his body howls from how widely he's stretched (just the tip, just the head, it's just too much for you), oh, he understands. And Fenris screams.
Wails. Howls. Thrashes wildly against his bindings, chains snapping taut as his head slams back again and again, all of him failing utterly to escape from inevitable, inexorable heat stretching him open, prying him open, forcing him open, and it doesn't stop. Heat whips through him like lightning strikes, his desperate baying timed to every cruel snap of Astarion's hips— please don't please stop please please please!, ragged wrecked ruined, his body desperate to escape—
And desperate, too, to take more.
It's ecstasy. It's agony. Never before has his voice sounded so frantic; never before has he felt so full— he can't see his belly, but he knows all the same there must be a swell there. Some intimate sign that he's more full than his immortal body can handle— and yet that his body must be made for, for he hadn't known there was pleasure like this to be had. Every roughened thrust has him screaming; every pulsing push leaves his thighs shaking in desire, spit puddling on his lips as his eyes roll back, his cock flushed and hard against his belly—]
Don't, Astarion, don't, ple—
[His voice breaks. His next scream a soundless thing, his eyes fluttering as his body suddenly stills—
And then thrashes to its own rhythm, as all the while his neglected cock finally reaches its limit. Too long taunted, too long teased, his pretty little prick jumping against his belly as pulsing waves of come spill between them. Pearly white smears against tanned skin, damning evidence (as if his shrieks aren't enough, as if the way he moans like a wetted bitch in heat isn't enough) that won't stop. Another wave, another, and they are such possessive things, vampires. Their appetites endless, their habits gluttonous— and their reactions excessive. Come gushes of Fenris' flushed slit, pearly rivulets pooling on his belly and dripping down his sides, and it feels as though it never ends— pulse after pulse after pulse—
(And maybe those guests do hear. Maybe those vampiric nobles and their fawning spawn do catch an echo of it: the baying cries of a coy bride finally caught and tamed, broken in the basest of ways— and so, so ready to be remade in his husband's image . . .)
Not cruelty, not mercy, not the overheated flare of slack-jawed satisfaction. Not power, not loss. Not the perfect feel of how the battered legs he's pushed between thrash ( —and then stop: locking while they shiver, before they fight to tamp down on even that— palpably afraid of the sensation that fighting this enacts, while synaptic response screams just to thresh for freedom like the prey he is, caught in the jaws of something dangerous), each jagged jolt furthering their rut, their madness, their wild desperation. For every inch of twisting, gasping, panting, roiling movement, Astarion feels his partially submerged cock shove one centimeter deeper. Then two. Then three. Heat wet and dragging while his eyes roll back behind shut lids, fighting for dignity when neither he nor his quarry have any left to spare.
The spawn beside them's already sunken to his knees to sweep up shattered glass. The room is grand and empty and echoing. The gifts devised for unity only sit in untouched silence around the sight of their entanglement— a brutal outlay of dark silk and briar barbs hunched low over exposed limbs sporting tattered lacework streaked with blood; golden shackles and fine chains now taut from desperate pressure. They have each other in the eye of the storm (hot breath driven from Astarion's mouth over Fenris' wailing lips, those pleading cries taken across his tongue into a kiss, as if he aims to drink them from their source), and there's a savage beauty to it that overtakes him in ways his master's urging never did. His cock caught in a brutal vice, his body threatening to spill beneath the fluttering clutch of narrow little channels already stretched out to their limits.
His mouth can't keep up when his consort's outline wracks itself into pitilessly savaged shapes; there's nothing he can do to keep those pleas from saturating open air (it isn't benevolence, don't mistake it for that, don't you dare call it that, it isn't— ) two gloved fingers quick to push their way in once more, driven to the back of Fenris' tongue until they're bound to one another only in the reverberating stretches where they meet: fingers and prick both plugged in tighter than a trap within the vulgar throes of painfully glazed submission, no part left independent of this brutally enticing game.
He won't last much longer.
And it doesn't matter.
It's only them here now, and nothing perfect comes without cost.
Damp slickness soaks across the front of his blouse while he dazedly murmurs coarse encouragement (open, like that, yes, good— there's my good boy, my pretty bride, you're learning aren't you— ) but it's as instinctive as the desire to blink. To suck in air. To want to sleep when tired. His voided stare awash in the stunning sight beneath him, more than worthy of being fucked into drooling frenzy; black begetting black. Their pupils only as dark as what they crave in the pit beneath their ribs. Hungry. Hungry.
That prick isn't done twitching.
He can feel it when he lifts his own palm, taking deep breaths of his own.]
....brace....yourself....
[The only warning that he gives before he activates the rune clutched within his fingers, knowing full well what it'll do to them both.
There's no thought. No memory, no conscious will— he doesn't remember why he'd resisted so ardently before. He doesn't remember his resolution, don't ever give up your claim; he doesn't remember that they're meant to be equals, that he's more than Astarion's pretty bride (his pretty consort, bed-bound and desperate, a pent-up virgin in desperate heat that needs sating). The world has shrunk itself down to just the two of them, tangled together and housed forever in this grand room, and what else could there ever be? Every breath Astarion exhales is inhaled greedily; every roughened murmur is listened to with a thickened throat, Fenris' eyes black with lust and shiny with newfound tears. They mirror one another, the ebb and flow between them all but tangible, every inch taken earns a moan that buzzes on both their lips. He's a slave to his body, a helpless tag-along to the sensations wracking through him, and there is nothing, nothing that matters beyond the two of them.
Beyond him. Him. His darling. His partner. His lord, high and mighty and yet so intimately close that Fenris has lost all fear. Every brush of their lips is confirmation of their mutual adoration; every searing inch forced into his needy little hole proof of his devotion. My consort, my bride, and the slave who had spent his entire life beneath another's heel whines in agreement.
Yours, yes. Yours, yours, yours—
(And sometimes it's easier to shatter than to try and keep yourself together).
Gloved fingers slips past his lips and with a heady moan, Fenris welcomes them. His lips wrap tight around that slickened span as they fuck deep into his mouth, not caring for how leather forces his spit to spill messily over his lips. His smothered tongue struggles to writhe, so eager to slip between two fingers and show his husband just how clever he really is. The earthy taste of leather and slick oil drips down his throat, the tips of his fingers tapping at the back of his throat as Fenris swallows again and again. Don't stop, his lips aching for every rhythmic rock, his eyes rolling back each time Astarion fucks him from both ends in vicious synchronism, like that, like that, his spent cock already swelling with newfound lust.
Brace yourself, his lord whispers, and Fenris knows it to be a kindness. A momentary fondness amidst all this cruelty, born of a century of standing side-by-side. Brace yourself, and he holds his breath in anticipation.
And everything goes white.
Too much doesn't begin to cover it. Too much was the cry of a wriggling bride tied to a vibrator's cruel form; too much was edging of the worst caliber, a teasing taunt that Fenris had foolishly thought was the worst it could get.
This isn't too much.
It's everything.
He's blinded, his eyes squeezed shut; deafened as a roaring fills his ears, oblivious to the sound of his own baying howls of pleasure as vibration after vibration mercilessly assaults him. It's heat unlike any other, all the searing sensation of overstimulation forced so deep into him that he won't ever get it out. That toy presses mercilessly against his prostate, fixed into place by a cock so thick that Fenris all but barks to feel it move. Slow little rocks or heated thrusts, and it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, for throughout it all there's that maddening buzzing that can't escape (that he doesn't want to escape)—
Crack, and the sound of his own wrist breaking as he thrashes in his bindings isn't heard. The pain is negligible, a momentary burst of distraction that Fenris desperately clings to before it heals itself. His heels kick helplessly in the air, his thighs wrapping around lithe hips so tightly it must ache, his back arching as he snaps and writhes and snarls— oh, beastly thing, and he isn't fighting, he can't possibly fight it, he's just reacting. So overstimulated it hurts, so overwhelmed that he's become a wild-eyed beast, his screams echoing around the chamber over and over. No words, not for such a creature as him; no pleading can save him, no entreaty can possibly help, and so he howls in desperation. Ragged and wrecked, sweat shining on his skin as his lyrium pulses; blood smears over his lips, mixing with sweat and dripping down his chin—
And then he comes.
Again, again, his cock untouched and unheeded, gushes of come staining silk and smearing against skin. Again, his thighs trembling wildly as his body cinches rhythmically around Astarion's cock, the sound of their hips meeting such a wet, quick thing— again, and he does not know how many times he comes nor how long a refractory period he has, only that it doesn't stop, it doesn't stop—
It takes so much to sate a vampire. More still to overwhelm them. And so the blackness of unconsciousness doesn't take him, no— there's just the endless ebb and flow of their fucking. Those precious, breathless moments where there's the slightest reprieve, his body numb and his eyes hazy— and then that inevitable plunge back into the molten darkness, Astarion's name on his lips the entire time.]
It's his grip upon the wheel. His white-knuckled fingers that scream for him to let go. (To hold on tighter than he has before.) This vulgar event horizon's already seized them in its maw, and no amount of refusal keeps them from the snap-pop shattering of their own senses; even if he's lucky enough in the alternating pitch dive between awareness and oblivion to hear warning signs before it slams into him again (that endless ringing in his ears, a muted swell of vacant pressure like hot glass set down on frigid stone, readying to burst), the second he's struck, he's ruined— scattered to the corners of his skin, a phantom beast rasping through synapse wounds. His collar choking him. His gloves chafing him.
His hips pumping the way an animal ruts its wanted mate (its next squalling, pinned-down meal— oh, wail— ) Panting and drooling just to tremble, consumed from the inside out.
If he's lucky, he'll glimpse the edge of savage sublimation in any which way it comes to overblown senses: reveling in the feeling of his cock violating tight-cinched little spaces; his fingers rammed thick against the back of Fenris' mewling throat, barely able to cry out without gagging on reflexive pressure— more likely to keep suckling, keep choking in the search for a broodwhore's satiety— both ends of him well and truly used far beyond their limit....and still pushed to endure more. And more. And more.
(Every luching gush of bottled pressure fights for space beside its peers. Every thrust of pumping fingers fights for what there's no more room to take.)
Vampires know avarice, after all.
(The ugly kind; the kind with barbs; the kind that doesn't sleep; the kind that makes you faintly sick for devouring more than your share— before you lick your lips and feed again.)
Impulse control, not so much.
They never make it to their coffins.
Years from now, a Duchess will suggest over clotted tarts that the ambitious Lord Astarion killed his lover that first night for fucking him harder than even undead creatures were ever meant to take: masking his mistake by replacing the young vampire with a purchased lookalike.
In truth, though very much a gossipmongering little lie designed for trouble, it won't be far off from reality's filthy cast: hours (or possibly full days later) the bed's as soaked to the core as they are within it— his upturned palm pushed beneath his consort's thigh, raising it shamelessly high where it drapes over him, their bodies still stuck fast. It aches if he's careless, true, but he doesn't dare move for at least a few acclimating beats of near awareness, sugar-glazed slickness the first thing he feels each time he recklessly considers doing anything but motionlessly sucking in air.
Instead, slung low and dark across his virgin quarry (oh, not so much anymore, is he....?) Astarion loosely dedicates himself to thinking.
Musing.
Tomorrow he'll teach his bride to stay, beg, roll over, sit pretty: train him up like any true vampire should. Keep him heeled at his side. He can't bear the thought of letting anyone else see him unless they're together.
And there's a notion worth exploring (or is that just coital exhaustion talking?) Fenris really would look so beautiful in a cage. Bound with his arms to his ankles. Gagged with fine jewelry and left to wait with his legs spread, his hole still leaking bubbling rivulets of molten come. Meant to ask for the nominal mercy of being tended to.
One arm moves abruptly lower, his gloved hand catching the innermost droplets of overspilling gloss. The ones that well around that subdued cinch. Slow. Dragging.
Pretty thing, Astarion mutters listlessly, and it's too void of clarity to be a statement.
Just a fact.
Pearling sheen bright atop dark leather hemlines, pushed against the malleable give of fuck-red lips.]
Open.
[His demand all night—
Or is it day, now? His mind so addled with smoke and the scent of sex he can't think straight. Otensibly drunk, and more than willing to remain that way for as long as he can put off being called to bicker with high court.]
He doesn't need to. Even now, his mind gone and his eyes hazy, he knows that on an instinctive level. There's no amount of air that will restore his energy to him. He needs blood, and far more than the slick, searing droplets that've come from tangling tongues and overeager teeth— oh, that was barely enough to keep him going. And until he gets it, he's a trembling thing, spent and overwrought: a youthful vampire brought temporarily to heel. Not an archduke, powerful beyond reason and able to change the fates of thousands with a flick of his hand, no. He's not even Fenris, not right now. That fiercely defiant thing that had gone into this marriage determined to hold his own has retreated, safely stored in the back of his head in favor of something far more adept at survival. All that's left is Astarion's bride. His consort, who whimpers softly as hours (days) of brutal rutting finally lulls.
Truthfully, he does not know what to think (if he can think at all, his thoughts scatter-shot disconnected). He cannot tell if this is truly the end or merely a break: a time for Astarion to indulge in another vice, wine or blood or smoke, before he sets in on his prey once more. And yet Fenris can't ask. He knows better than that (and how easy it is to fall into old habits. Like breathing. Like this, his body and bearing snapping back so easily into slave, his mind so desperate to preserve his sanity that it will do anything to keep him alive).
So he breathes, inhale and exhale, and somewhere he keeps a gentle count. He lets out a soft noise as Astarion's hips shift and another trickle of come spills out of his overfull hole (oh, he's so full, full and fit to burst, his belly faintly swollen and come splattered over his thighs, his hips, his ass). And when he hears open—
Astarion's bride tips his head up (little virgin no longer, no, introduced to the vulgar world of vicious, vigorous rutting, debauched and yet with so much more to learn), his lips wrapping eagerly around leather-clad fingers. Bitterness floods his senses, the taste shockingly sharp after so long tasting nothing but leather and oil. It spills over his tongue, drips down his throat, and some part of Fenris whines silently in satisfaction to know that he's claimed in both ends.
And for a time, there's just that. Peace in the eye of the storm, a fragility that might almost be mistaken for intimate if you did not know better. The room is cool and dark; the boy from before lingers in one corner, his head tipped down and his bearing deferential. Outside, there are faint noises, devoid of context and thus utterly incomprehensible to Fenris. Laughter. Snatches of phrases. The clink of glasses and the sound of music . . . and yet those fade into the background, ignored in favor of the soft, slickened sounds his mouth makes as he suckles. Lazily his tongue winds between Astarion's fingers, his eyes unfocused as he stares up at the canopy of their marriage bed. His thigh rests high, his legs vulgarly stretched around his captor as his bindings dangle from one ankle. Occasionally a pulsing throb from his chest tells him that his piercings are still intact; a soft jangle whenever his ears twitch informs him of the same.
And once the taste of come has faded and there's only leather, his bride slips his tongue out. A pearly sheen coats a drooling tongue, his demonstration obvious: I swallowed.]
Release me . . .?
[It's soft. Not a demand for freedom, impudent and cold, but rather something sweeter: a desire. I want my arms free, and it isn't quite a request and it isn't quite an order. But they hurt. His wrists have broken themselves again and again, his skin rubbed raw; he has not been able to put them down for hours on end, and it hurts.]
It shows on his face, even if he says nothing. It shows in the eyes that dilate for the view that they take in, thickly coating brightness shining over a pale pink tongue— barely any milky gloss left to spare. It shows in the way his exhausted, drowsy prick has the briefest moment of stirring in the deep before he winces (and shifts with a jagged shudder, and stills— too late to keep another pulse of heavy ardor from trickling out around the edges of their mergered state), abuse the testament to glory. Chafed and swollen and stretched and sore and raw and chapped and blissfully subdued, all.
So yes, he considers it, some vestigial part of himself existing only when the kerosinic blanket of Astarion the vampire dissolves, swallowing once and feeling dryness knock inside his throat. Feeling more than that beneath his ribs, elusive and at war. Poor thing. Poor obedient thing.
And he almost feels his own lips loving.
And he almost lifts his arm.
And he almost— almost—
snap—
The door behind them opens.
And heralded by a twisting doorknob, the world comes rushing back towards them through the sound of hurried footfalls. That same spawn from before scurrying to his master's side to mutter something hushed about guests and stalling hospitalities— and in that breath Astarion remembers who he is. Who the creature held beneath him is, and all that stunning beauty represents.
He rises (and it kills him, you know, the suffering act of working to dislodge himself, leaving beckoning heat behind), he washes, he dresses— drinking blood from an overfull cup so that beneath the black thorns of his collar, every wound is healed.
He forgets it on the dressing table when he leaves, not ever offering it to that starving catamite kept shackled in his bed.
A lean hound obeys more.]
Keep him chained when you have him washed.
I want him in something more presentable for tonight— [the spawn beside him fighting to keep up with his pace, hunkered posture leaving them at eye level.] Something exotic.
No— not just that.
[Whether by blood or by movement, he's rousing. His thoughts are clearing.]
Make sure that it's obscene.
[The door shuts soon after that dismissive order, and at last, for the first time in an eternity, Fenris is alone.]
The spawn's still shut in with him, as it so happens. Approach slow after cleaning up the archduke's dressing station, with most of the supplies from that endeavor still caught up in his arms. His fineboned hands with clutching fingers.
He doesn't say anything, but they both know his duty.
Clean him. Leave him in chains. Let him starve.
The cup is cold and only halfway filled with blood when he pushes its edge against Fenris' lips.]
No thanks. No grateful looks or murmurs of relief, no: the instant blood comes near his lips, Fenris drinks like a starved thing. Gulping blood and not caring for the fact it's cold, not when it tastes so good slipping down his throat. Like a cold glass of water after working in the hot sun all day— and it isn't enough, not for his empty belly, but it's something. Enough to heal his bruises and mend his bones; enough to chase away the fog in his mind, his eyes becoming clear as he focuses.
(He has never starved as a vampire. Vakares never believed in such punishments, always preferring the carrot over the stick when it came to disciplining his coven. There was always blood to be had, decades' worth of donations from eager volunteers kept fresh with magic and stockpiled far down in the dungeons. Fenris hadn't understood at first— gods, he nearly starved himself by accident that first month. Too used to being told what he could and couldn't do, he hadn't dreamed he was allowed to help himself— and Vakares, darling heart that he was, hadn't thought that Fenris needed telling.
It had come to head when he'd fainted. Passed out in the middle of Vakares' office, and only come to an hour later. He'll never forget the expression on Vakares' face when he'd roused: a mixture of fretful anger and fierce grief, and he had not understood either. Little one, you have to eat, promise me you'll eat, and he had.)
He doesn't know this spawn, but there are so many.]
Thank you.
[His voice is clear and even, the former rasp gone. Pain still radiates down his arms, but he knows better than to demand this spawn release him just yet. Better, to Fenris' reckoning, to use his lyrium and free himself once he's properly alone— for that way, hopefully, this boy won't catch trouble from his master.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
no subject
[Consort. Partner.]
Our maker— [He starts slickly, bile sharpening the blade of a sentiment he— just can't finish. It's like a pill stuck in his throat, you know. The same feeling. There, meant to go somewhere— meant to hammer home with his typical acidic bite that there's a lot more intent than truth on the table— but no amount of pressure or flexing can keep it on its course.
Their master sleeps. He isn't here, gifts or fucking not.
And Astarion doesn't want to think about it.]
—imagined a lot of things.
[Like a sigh, it slips through his teeth alongside a slackening expression. Footfalls far from slowing even as Fenris creeps ever closer. Meaning that it's a simple thing to reach out with one hand in (sort-of) passing, palm pressed against a pair of slender hips crosswise— dragging as he continues on his way (again, like slithering coils before moving behind his companion), still getting a lay of the room for now.]
We both know reality wasn't his strong suit. Not any more than it fits in with all those highborne fangs.
[A beat, his eyes fixed on high glass:] An admirable effort, though.
[His sire's gift, their kin....or both?]
Not that it matters, in the end.
no subject
Ah.
Heat ripples through him at that sliding touch. The ghost of Astarion's fingers lingers on his skin. And what a thing it is to be a vampire, that his teeth ache to bite even as a pulse of arousal courses through him. The lyrium embedded in his palms pulses, his fingers curling as the phantom urge to sink his talons into soft flesh and rip courses through his mind. He knows what's going to happen next. No matter that he refuses to be the one to strike first, there's no way this won't end in blows.
And truth be told, he won't be sorry for it.
It's been a century of enduring Astarion's jealousy. A century of snide remarks and petty revenge; a century of cruelties great and small, humiliations tangling together with rage and grief. Decades of hands yanking at him during parties, shoving him down to his knees and fucking his mouth until he was drooling come; of vicious cruelty that always had the vague excuse of accidental, Fenris writhing in agony as Astarion watched his blood pool on the stone floor.
Years on end of the two of them barking at one another helplessly, impotent dogs collared and leashed by their master, but not anymore.
Fenris' eyes darken as he turns, and oh, but his smile has taken on a mean edge.]
A bold proclamation from a vampire who was taken in front of a thousand witnesses. Do you imagine your posturing will erase that from their minds?
[His head tips.]
Their first impression of our union was you submitting to me . . . and what will you do to remedy that? Tie me to the bed and fuck me? And yet that won't change what happened.
[The smirk fades.]
Try and make me yours, Astarion. You do not have Vakares to hide behind, not anymore— and older you may be, but I am trained for this. And I will not hesitate to finally put you in your place like the rabid dog you are.
no subject
A scrape there.
A playful snippet of mockery suddenly pushed too far.
It takes so little, is the point. Hairpin triggers set up on eggshells over glass compared to their maker's inexhaustible control, and it never starts out as wanting violence (or the marrow-deep satisfying sound of whimperering cries)— they don't begin their nights by waking and rubbing sleep from crimson eyes only to crow about what sort of cruelty they'll force upon their mate— it just grows in after one of them laughs a little too loudly. Gets flattered with a different word. Drinks too much. Speaks too bluntly. Bites down too hard, too fast.
Now this.
Innocuous discussion won't stay that way if it's flanked by less-than-innocuous stares. Grins that don't quite meet their eyes, and touching that's tantamount to smoking tinder.
Maybe that's the point.
The leash is gone. The collar loose. Unhappiness hardly solidifies a truth that's lasted the better part of one hundred— two hundred years— promising that whenever they showed teeth, he'd be there. (And this room still smells like him, and it's his writing on that desk, and even if it's only the smallest fragment of their minds that hopes this might all just be a test while the rest of their thoughts prepare themselves for war— ) how could they not intrinsically tug just to see if it might give?
One way or another, something will make it real. Something else will grieve for them. Take the blame for them. Be angry or hurt or resentful for them.
(Or afraid for them. That, too.)]
Word to the wise, little one.
Unlike you: a rabid dog doesn't know to submit.
[His back still to Fenris. His arms still loosely at his hips. Little one, not little wolf, for he'd reduce the creature just behind him to a timeline of fresh-abandoned masters just to soothe his paper skin. An artful twist of his neck angled just around his shoulder punctuating one seemingly smug stare.]
But I can't say it's a surprise a formerly kenneled broodbitch still can't tell what acting is even when it's dangled right in front of his stunted little snout. [Half-turning on his heel in that next breath, it's his chin that leads the way. His reddened eyes narrowed into lightless slits. His lips twisted high around long teeth. Sharp teeth. Mean teeth.
Suffer for him, Fenris, and maybe he'll call it even.]
I don't have Vakares to hide behind anymore?
[Oh, catulus.]
I've been waiting centuries for this.
I'm glad he's gone.
[Throw the first stone. Twist the knife. Snap bone. Lap blood. Scrape salt— make it hurt. Make it hurt, even if you're the one bleeding from it, too.
His mouth to Fenris' ear after a handful of silent strides, voice a pitchbound hum.]
I'll be glad when you are, too.
no subject
It hurts, it hurts, and worse still: Fenris cannot tell why it hurts. He is not so emotionally aware that he knows that some part of him longs for his sire so badly that it aches— oh, young thing. Young, stunted thing, and that's the thing about vampires, isn't it? A century old, but that does not mean he has all the maturity of an elder. Vampires are frozen in time, and in some ways, he is still the same bloody slave he'd been when Vakares had found him. And Fenris had learned to lean on him, to look to him for guidance, to mold himself to him—
Oh, young thing floundering without a master . . . he does not know just why he longs for his sire. He does not realize that perhaps he picks a fight so that Vakares, indeed, might return. He does not know why anger sparks so easily; why his blood boils when it usually takes far longer to rouse him into defensive snappishness. He knows only that his heart hurts— and that in these moments of newfound freedom, his collar cut and his tether released, when they both of them are charting the new way their dynamic might go, he is desperate not to come out the lesser.
I'll be glad when you are, too—
Turn, grab, shove— his forearm braced against Astarion's chest, striding forward until Astarion's back hits the wall with a dull thunk. His fangs are bared in a snarl, though he doesn't realize it; his talons slice through thin silk, his crimson eyes narrowed as he glares at his counterpart.]
Then try it.
[He leans forward, pressing his weight against the vampire's throat. They don't need to breathe, but that won't stop his voice from sounding strained from the pressure he puts on it.]
Go on. Do it. Kill me if you can— or is it that you intend only to gossip and whine until I slink away in shame? But you will have to try harder than that.
no subject
[Ah, so it does work well, that pinning pressure: trying to swallow, to speak— to suck in air of any sort or exhale in the slightest— all of it cracks where Fenris has him, keeping him held fast, his own claws planted against skin in a threat that doesn't quite match its catalyst.]
—will I, now....?
[It's better than chatting, isn't it? Better than thinking. Being angry, being nasty, being cruel. When everything's a flaring burst of overwrought emotion (the likes of which no mortal could ever sustain without weeping nigh on end), it's at least a mercy knowing the smallest ripple of fresh sensation can wipe clean the slate of all their scars.
At least for a little while.]
I don't need gossip to make you— look like the bitch you are, dressed up in a silk ruff like a joke.
[His grin twisted high, his fangs leading when he hisses (serpentine— pricked forwards). Cruelty the shine within his stare, and that much brighter by the second.] They'll laugh you out of court by the end of the week.
[Hiss. Hiss.
Death by a thousand little whispers such an appealing prospect, but when in the clutches of a brute—
His claws wrench. In half a blink, he's snapped his arms down into the fault lines of that hold— the whipcrack start to a countering offensive carved from vicious lunges and powerful swipes: elder strength a boon in moments such as these (feel it in every strike, little wolf— ) until the mirror's on its side. The parallel complete. A haggard slam defining shattered seconds when Fenris' own body's rammed against the wall and his throat is savagely pinned to the point of pain.
Hooked talons anchored into stone. Lips brought close enough to kiss, breath pooling in the bow of bloodstained mouths.
The true face of their joining.]
Do you want to know what our master said about you?
[Tongue to his canines, his own blood wrapped around its tip; grin like a wildfire. Like a knife. Like a start.] The things he whispered to me when you weren't around to hear them, riding my cock just to find a little succor....
[It's a crude imitation, his voice. Even so:]
He needs you, Astarion.
If he fled these halls, it would not be a year before he was killed. Such a young thing. Such a hopeless thing, yet I love him all the same.
[Fingers tugging at light lacework, opening the front of Fenris' trousers with probing demand, cool against little glimpses of skin— threatening to take. His every lie stitched in deep.
Come here. Come here.]
I'll shelter you. I'll be your new master. I'll do my duty just like he asked....
And keep you safe by putting a fresh muzzle on that pretty mouth of yours.
no subject
(Hopeless, and it slips beneath his skin, embedding itself deep like a barb. It doesn't hurt, not yet, but it will: Vakares' gentle tones taking on the sneering dismay of Danarius, his sire standing in the doorframe of a stone-lined cell: all that lyrium and you still disappoint me. Pain flooding his body with every breath, his eyes wide and red-rimmed, his mind little more than a blank slate— knowing only that his sole purpose in life is to please his master, and he is failing in that task. Hopeless, and though he thinks it a lie, that will not stop that gnawing seed of doubt to embed itself within him and grow like a festering thing).
It isn't the cold fingers wrapped around his neck, nor the ones that so boldly pry open his trousers. It's not the way his own cock twitches in panting anticipation (and yet still some part of him burns in humiliation to feel it, his body betraying him even as he growls low in his throat). It isn't the ghost of chilled breath on his lips, or the crude names that Astarion tries to cast upon him (and yet he does look ridiculous in this ruff, he knows; he does look like a silly little slave caught dressing in his master's robes— or at least, that's how it feels).
But then again, maybe it is. Maybe all of those build up in those precious few seconds as they stare at one another: a swirling whirlpool of resentment and insecurity that pushes him into the past farther than he realizes. Little slave, little one, his own mind betraying him even as he shoves resentfully against it. Did you dare to dream you hadn't traded in one master for another, boy? As if you could ever survive on your own— it won't be a year before you're killed. Stupid thing. Stupid, mindless vampire, only ever good for rutting and fighting, building and building in the back of his mind—
I'll be your new master. I'll keep you safe. Muzzle that pretty mouth—
Fenris bites.
Like the feral dog he'd just been labeled: his throat straining at that tight grip as sharpened teeth slice through pale flesh with bitter precision. His fangs catch at Astarion's lip, his tongue, a vicious parody of a kiss— blood smears over his lips, spilling down his chin, and still he lunges forward again and again, not caring what he bites so long as he does. So long as Astarion hurts, oh, he will earn that muzzle. His hands grab for lithe hips, talons shredding delicate fabric into tatters with one swift motion; his fingers wrap around that thickened prick, his grip so tight.
Fenris cannot pull away, it's true. Astarion has him beat when it comes to sheer strength, and so he'll stay put so long as those fingers are wrapped around his throat. But that goes two ways— and if Fenris is to be trapped here, so will Astarion.]
Don't you dare move.]
You will never be my master.
[Oh, it's too angry. It's too desperate, his seething rage only barely covering his panic— and yet there's no hesitance to the way he keeps a tight hold on that prick. If they're to fight, let them fight— and to Fenris' mind, he has the advantage.]
Try again, old man. Or are you so arrogant when you have your cock caught in the palm of my hand?
[And yet it's a goading stroke he offers: his wrist snapping as he shuttles his hand along his cock with all the familiarity of a doting partner. His grin bloody and mean as he feels the other man swell against his fingers, throbbing in needy eagerness— oh, he is hungry, isn't he? Of course he is.
I can beat you with one hand . . . His thumb smearing over his welling slit. His grip tightening as he picks up the pace, hard tight pullsanyára, pull away now. Dance out of range and see what it gets you.]
no subject
Not once. Not twice. Too many times to count before he feels light fabric rip— iron flooding through his senses, bitter and chalky and blunt, and they're both a little senseless aren't they? Neither one caring which blows hit (lies and obscured half-truths void of all their vital context; insults, swipes, digs, snarls, snaps— groping at anything in reach, and) the only thing that matters is that something lands inside their hateful fray, akin to animals warring over a single bone. Friction caught between their jaws, and it could be elation or concupiscence, avarice or hatred—
It soothes.
(Or: it roils.
Or: it aches, but it feels good.)
Fingers stroking over him while he keeps his prey well pinned, and if they're lamenting the fact that no hand comes down between them (no voice from the doorway, knowing and wearily-cut while it utters out they've failed), they can revel in that selfsame truth: martial law's the path to dominance now, both its coronet and vulgar chain. Deadened heart rammed against his throat while glassy fingers tease against his slit (his own twisted tight enough to cut within those laces), and were this just a battle on equal footing, they could play at that face-forwards for hours. Slipping the lead of their pain by testing prowess in all fairness, teeth and tongue and nails accompanying the rhythm of their hands while they stroke and stroke and stroke to see who's best. Who's weaker. Who wants it more— either victory or defeat.
The thing is, you see, Astarion wants to win.]
Oh you're showing me all right. [False breath collapsing in his lungs, delving into the base of his throat before slithering through crimson lips. Grin so wide it seems to split around the glimmer of his fangs, where pretense is unseated by the roll of his own spine, and the pressure nudged against marked palms.] Why don't you dig the knife in a little deeper and service me a little more fiercely....? I'm sure I'll learn my lesson, then.
[One part bluff. One part—
Oh.]
You're my bride after all. I want to see what your virgin little hole looks like stretched around my prick.
[Dig. Past the front of those unstrung trousers. Past supple heat trapped and left defenseless in pursuit of his assault, soft fingers skirting over the base of Fenris' scalding prick— feeling how it twitches in the rise towards his touch, almost begging for retaliating focus despite its master's whims— denying temptation by slipping lower still. Around velveteen contours that tuck heavily between soft thighs; up within their shadow, wrist cut against the waistband of coarse leather for just how far he's delved, utilizing the angle of his hold at his companion's throat in order to prevent rejection (without taking both hands back to break Astarion's hold— or at the very least abandoning his efforts to wring across his cock— ) the most Fenris could do like this is close his own thighs, and what good would that do, really? Those claws are already there by now, after all. Tapping slowly at the entrance to his cinch.
How unguarded you've left yourself, little wolf....]
Deny it all you want....once you get a taste, you'll be shivering again to be mounted with your back bowed and your head slung low in my grip.
Can you picture it, Fenris? [Fingers probing at him just to make him measure that heavily impending threat. Teasing with the very tips of his touch as he twists his head to bite that waiting throat (though in the struggle, it might be hard to reach— ) opening the way for feathered little pushes in. Out. In. Out. In. In. Pull— stretch (just the barest trace of slickness makes it rough and wholly forceful): dragging its bounds wide in little circles under the press of just one finger. This is what defines you. This is what I have. Spread wider for me. Lift your leg. Arch your back.]
I promise you'll enjoy it when I break you in.
no subject
You're my bride, and his cock twitches in response. I want to see what your virgin little hole looks like stretched around my prick, and he has always been so weak to filthy talk. His mind reels involuntarily, his body remembering just how good it felt to have that thickened prick split him open (and that was just the tip). Drifting into the fantasy of white lace and whimpering cries, corruption thrilling him even hands grip his wrists, that cock pounding into him as Astarion's voice hisses viciously in his ear—
Oh, sweet little virgin, what a wedding night I will give you . . .
And he wants to give in (good boy). He wants to be good (what a good pair I have, Vakares' voice so terribly warm in his memory). He longs for the security of a hand gripping his leash, fingers in his mouth and a fat cock splitting him open— and that's exactly why he can't give in.
Roll over now and sign away any hope of a partnership. Submit willingly (willingly) and know that this above all else will define you both for centuries to come. And Fenris could recover, he knows he could— but how long would it take? How many times would Astarion hold it over his head, a deliciously juicy secret to slip out at fêtes: oh, he was such an eager thing, my bride, so ready to feel his lord master's guiding hand—
No.
Whine for a good breeding . . .
The cleverest way to win a fight isn't head-on, but with tactics.]
As if you are capable of breaking me.
[Breathed out, and he does not mind the teeth at his throat. Vicious things that slice through skin and lyrium with ease, welling droplets of blood dripping down into his disheveled shirt as his hands suddenly release. Astarion's prick bobs in the air, heavy weight dragging it down— and then all at once forced up, pinned between their writhing bodies as Fenris drags his counterpart in. Closer, closer— til there isn't an inch of space between them, and no matter that it traps Astarion's hand against his hole, for it gives him all the reach he needs to grip those overfull cheeks and spread them.
Remember this?]
Mount me, if you wish. [Oh, he wants it, they want it.] Shove your way into me like the breeding stud our sire picked you out to be— the silly little noble who has nothing to his name but a big prick and an ego to match. Take me, if you can, but do not imagine that makes you a conquerer— or do you think you were the only one he confided in?
[He arches his back, a grin he doesn't feel sparking over his lips: come take me, then. As his hole is bared to the cold air, his cock throbbing between them untouched— mount me, little prince, and see what difference it makes.]
Settle down and perhaps I'll tell you what he said . . .
[A goading carrot as his fingers spread those cheeks wider still, groping and refusing to tend to him all at once.
You'll submit to me no matter how we do this.]
no subject
He sees red the moment that the knife's edge turns.
Just for a second, his agile mind isn't thinking at all— his fingertips half-submerged in supple depths, his lips jammed tight (alongside the rest of his own body, now) against the map of Fenris' form where he's been dragged towards it— shared borders outlining the ties between microcosms and macrocosms. Every inch of him locked under the guillotine hang of a simple set of words: perhaps I'll tell you what he said.
And isn't it funny (it isn't) how the details always get lost in the belly of the most ambitious schemes. How it never once occurred to him, grand manipulator that he is, that a street this cutting could run both ways, or that Fenris would stoop low enough to lie to him like that (when all he's ever seen of the beast he bridles is how slavishly he'd tucked his ears back to be pet beneath his sire's hand)— or if it's even a lie at all.
After all, one man's bluff might warrant its own call.
The deck doesn't bless each player equally.
And suddenly Astarion has to know what it was. If it was. The rough shapes in his mind unfurled. (Ah, maybe Vakares did say something. Maybe maybe maybe, with his prick buried too richly and the lights of his study drawn low, lyrium-glazed fingers curled so sweetly round his cheeks that he forgot his firstsired ever existed, and whispered only praise for his spoiled little second; oh, little one, words churning high between sharp teeth that curve away from skin to kiss instead of bite, oh, only you— not him. You eclipsed him from the moment that I found you. He doesn't charm me anymore. He doesn't shine. He doesn't tempt, and his demands for my attention only exhaust me now. Needy Astarion, it isn't his fault. I loved him, but— )
By force, and only just, Astarion yanks away from it with his foot half in that trap (rough hands across his cheeks, and a groan behind his teeth snapped shut at just the last second), recognizing it all for what it is, no matter how his head swims and his deadened heart aches in fretted pain.
The only thing left within the harbor of his chest once that tide of insecurity goes rushing out is barbed, embittered hatred.
He wants to ruin the memory of Vakares for him. Etch his name across it all. Take his throne. His title. How dare he, the vile little beast. Little spread-legged whore. Little cur. Little mongrel. Look, Vakares. Look what he made me do, the little wretch that couldn't handle your vision. He was ungrateful. He forced my hand.
And while Astarion holds the thinnest advantage in a void, like this, leverage is on Fenris' side; he can't outmatch that captive strength outright— but sinking further into it? Oh, now that's a different game entirely: let his rival palm those cheeks with such enticing little whispers (and he's shivering up his spine, though enmity's far keener), it won't stay a thing when he rushes forwards in a lunge within tight spaces— slamming Fenris' back against the wall once— twice—
The third time harsh enough to daze a lesser thing, slid in before Astarion's pinning hand finally drops to meet its twin, hoisting his companion's legs high into the air until his knees come close to kissing smooth stone— and his cock slavers thickly at the entrance to that cinch, prettier than ever before when it's already so flush from crude attention, precome welling at its lip.
That his eyes glint with anticipation (oh, he will take you) is a sickly breed of gluttonous indulgence left to burn amongst dry tinder.]
Such boldness.
[In the faultline of his tongue, it doesn't sound like a compliment.]
Let it console you when I leash you under the table to service every cock and cunt in waiting with that lying tongue of yours.
[His eyes black. His voice humming with abyssal promise. And to punctuate that claim— he shoves himself in deep. Grinding. Shifting. Bucking down while sawing the thickset crest of his own cock across a tender bundle of soft, subverted nerves. There. There.] Shh shh shh— just like that, little wolf. There you go, writhe for me.
Good boy. [A knife, that praise. Retaliation.] That's a good boy.
I'm not normally a fan of sharing what's mine, but for the sight of you in lace....mhm, I'd lose the respect of my peers if I didn't let them taste.
no subject
Ah!
[It's a bitten-back cry, his eyes rolling back even as his fangs sink deep into his lip, all of him such a brutal dichotomy right now. He wants so badly to hide his pleasure and deny Astarion the vicious satisfaction— but oh, little wolf, he can't, not this close. Not when his body overrules his mind, all enmity temporarily forgotten in face of molten pleasure— gods, he can't help it. He doesn't want this, he doesn't want this—
But he does.
His thigh shake as they're pinned back, saliva pooling in his mouth as he's impaled so brutally. Thick and hot and perfect, spreading him open with no regard for delicacy, and oh, he loves every roughened inch. He loves how deeply Astarion's cock pushes in, spearing him and filling him, spreading him open wide and satisfying him like nothing else ever does. Greedy and gluttonous, his eyes glazed over as heat searing as the sun rises within him, his cock drooling against his belly as his desperate squirming only sinks him down further. Helpless and thriving, and that would be bad enough. The way his thighs tremble and those muffled moans sound in his throat would be bad enough.
But then there's that insistent rubbing. The blunt crown of his cock grinding against that bundle of nerves over and over, and with every pass, it gets worse. White sparks burst in front of his vision as his cock twitches, his mouth finally dropping open as moans timed to that vicious assault slip past his lips, oh, oh—
Writhe for me, and he does. Instinctively, desperately, his body responding to commands far swifter than his mind can catch up— so that by the time he manages to grab some semblance of sanity with white knuckles, it's too late. He's all but drooling as he speaks, his eyes black and glazed with pleasure— and yet still, though his breath hitches and his toes curl, that's that spark of defiant rage.]
N-no—
[Oh, gods, no, he can't, he can't— but oh, he would. Why not? Why not parade his hated rival around, cementing his place as whore and humiliating him all at once? He sought their deaths, Fenris, and the depths of his jealousy was nothing compared to what he feels for Fenris. And as for the other vampires— oh, they'll see it as droll comeuppance and little more. A squalling brat put in his proper place, a slave kept down by his betters, oh, they'll eagerly settle in, hungry to play with the novelty of a pet leashed, his mouth forced open and his protests muffled by a thickened cock or slick cunt—
No, and the horror of it eclipses any humiliating heat that leaves his cock drooling for the thought.
And yet: what can he do? What can he offer? Astarion is older and stronger, and right now, he has the advantage. Protesting will only cement him in his line of action; pleading is out of the question, for no matter what happens, Fenris will not beg. Threats flood through his distracted mind, flickering wildly, I'll bite off anything you shove in my mouth, I'll hunt you down, I'll rip your tongue out, and he will, he will he will he will— but right now, they're impotent things, desperation woven in every word.]
A-and [nn, his tongue flushed and dripping, his eyes fluttering,] and let everyone know y-you couldn't even tame me yourself? That you n-needed a whole host of elders to do it for you?
[It isn't submission, but it's . . . something close to it. As close as he can bear. One hand darts out, wrapping around Astarion's neck; with a moan Fenris tips his head, bringing their lips together in a hungry kiss that tastes of sweat and blood and hate. Their tongues slide together, their mouths pulsing— and when he breaks away, strings of scarlet saliva bind them temporarily together, both their teeth still coated in blood.]
Such talk from a vampire lord w-who cannot even manage to tame his replacemen— ah!
no subject
[Tsk. Fool thing. Does he really expect that to work? Does he imagine Astarion so ineffably susceptible to distraction that one thinly veiled goad let out through spit-drenched fangs will somehow convince him to relent? Change his mind? Shy away from sadism in favor of being rational just this once, compared to an unliving lifetime of killing hens in his own coop?
Well.
The downside is: he's right.
Vakares had assessed his consorts correctly to begin with, be it ages or weeks or months or decades ago— their patterned strengths and weaknesses alike (you need each other— ) that depthless voice still humming fresh as snowfall in his mind. Where they'd flourish. Where they'd falter. And Astarion could sway courtly hearts through captivation, but in matters of strength? No doubt already they suspect his softness, nothing to be said about the compounding fact that what is two hundred years to any of their kind, really? There are spawn older than him. There are living elves older than him. The tablewear they'd dined on over the last few days could prove their eldest sibling. Ergo, what then? When the soft-soled heir usurps a waiting throne only to flex how his conquest had mewled for him without hanging his own head— and does still. That's no sign of power; that's hardly worth respect. A rabid dog cowed by many hands belongs to no one and nothing alone, and Astarion can't let that be his start, no matter how avidly it tempts.
But that isn't something Fenris needs to know.
While his mind reels over itself in oscillating forethought, Astarion bears into that kiss in full: catching tongue between his teeth with scraping little flicks of hungry movement while his hips count out a host of heartlessly supplanting seconds— all of his body still angled in pursuit of its captive dinner— tracking time through shallow thrusts and inlaid swells of depraved pressure. It's not obedience that he craves right now while his shoulders ache and his swallowed prick throbs inside hot leylines.
It's the taking.
And so when he pulls away, it's to look downwards into the heart of their vulgar alignment. The twisting, writhing spearpoint that keeps them locked in dripping struggle, one shoved tight atop the other. Hand rushed swift to the back of Fenris' skull, bending him forward until his still-prone posture bows— and he's treated with the obscene sight of his sore cock laid (and bouncing dazedly) on its side in the crook of his own legs: their slender, branded measure shoved back so far and so wide that they bracket either side of his slim torso, folded knees tucked up near his shoulders, toes twisting in dead air while mapped out in their shade—
It's only a glimpse, you see.
Only visible when Astarion draws back— revealing just how thick and long and rigid he is as if for the very first time between them— that the glossy base of his crude length shines in such romantic light as that of their christened room. Drawn back to the limits of his hips and yet still so harshly buried (too expansive not to feel just as full as their master had ever left them; too vindictively heavy not to mock the very same anatomy it defiles), keeping Fenris' body well aware of what it serves, massive and yet waiting just to pounce.]
Watch, now.
[Watch, little one.
As he rolls his hips by slight degrees at a probing angle, bruisingly blunt tip ramming and scraping at that singularly pliant spot. A jab to hunt for it— a dig to mark it— and then a lambent grind, dragging eagerly back and forth across its measure, his thickened shaft stretching out the roseated base of Fenris' tight hole. His fault for clinging. For fighting. For not relaxing and letting Astarion have his fill with servile ease. If it stings, there is a cure. If it maddens, he knows how best to appeal it. Be good. Open wide. Keep your hips relaxed, just like that— be a good boy, let me in.]
I've no choice but to tame you before I let them admire you, then.
—ah ah, watch, I said. [Don't shut your eyes. Don't look away.] You need to see what I'm doing to you to understand how perfect it'll all feel when you let me have my way. That's how it works, domestication.
....or so I've read. I've never tamed my own broodbitch before, after all.
And if you let me— [One pair of fingers lifting just to feather at Fenris' untouched tip, playing more than kindling his dripping need; inciting subservient bootlicking through imperious strokes and the conjoined efforts of his hips, dark lashes having fallen low across his downturned eyes while pleasure flutters through him (oh, through them both, no doubt). His own throat burning like soot. Like smoke. Like the heat of a kill drawn close— ]
I'll make it so much better.
[Calling for assistance is easy.
A single shouted word and one of their sire's— one of their spawn comes running, easily instructed on what to bring.
A bit. A set of cuffs. A collar. A chain. Toys upon toys resting on their waiting bed and a promise to track down 'something suitable to wear'. And all the while Astarion teases. Fucks into him only to stop once Fenris comes even remotely close— again and again and again.]
Relinquish his gift. Surrender.
[A nose bumped against his jaw, slipping over countless welling bites.]
Just say it....and I'll let you come.
no subject
Swims, spins, blurs, and though Fenris knows they have taken no drugs, it hardly matters, for he feels high as anything. Punch-drunk off searing sensation and overwhelmed arousal, and his defiant desperation only makes it worse. He's torn between the two, Astarion a siren dragging him into the darkest depths even as he struggles for air. I can't and don't and no all gracing his lips, barked out fitfully as his mind tries so hard to remember just why he'd resisted in the first place. Thoughts of hatred do no good, for the resulting humiliation burns through him as potent as any aphrodisiac, and as for plans for the future— oh, that means nothing at all. What future? What world? Nothing exists outside of this moment. Nothing exists outside of the two of them, locked together and yet still biting at one another's throats, collared together as surely as if they both had bands wrapped around their throats.
It's everything. It's everything, so blindly overwhelming that each time he thinks he's found a foothold through the scarlet haze of arousal, he's swept off his feet once more. It's the hypnotically vulgar sight of Astarion's prick gleaming in the candlelight as it saws temptingly in and out of him, earning a ragged moan each time it so cruelly grinds over that bundle of nerves (back and forth, back and forth, saliva pooling in Fenris' mouth as his jaw goes slack). It's they way Astarion's hands are always there to pin his own back each time he tries to reach for his prick, lilting voice whispering taunts in his ear (naughty thing, you know better). It's the trembling temptation that comes of featherlight fingertips toying with his welling slit, earning whimpering little whines that only grow as Astarion's cock grinds and ruts within him.
It's the rage that comes from hearing the word broodbitch, and the goading laughter that results when Fenris surges forward to bite that offending tongue. Blood runs hot between them and it doesn't matter, for no matter how he sinks his teeth in (and oh, he does), it's still him helpless. It's still him impaled, spread open upon his twin's cock and helpless to do anything save that. And so Astarion takes even that from him: turning his dripping fangs into a demonstration of his own helplessness, for what else does he have? Not his hands, held captive whenever he tries to seek relief. Not his legs, pinned back and dangling helplessly in the air, trembling wildly as Fenris tries not to lose his mind.
And it's the growing desperation as he is denied his release again and again and again.
Vampires are gluttonous creatures, and he is no different. A single orgasm doesn't approach satisfying him— and so this endless edging is the worst sort of torment. He loses track of how many times he verges on coming, his whole body tensing, his back arching, every inch of him surging up— only to be cruelly suffocated by a tight grip and a vicious thumb. Each waves leaves him reeling higher and higher, every potential orgasm more powerful than the last— so that by the time that spawn (only dazedly seen and vaguely registered) slips in and out of their rooms, Fenris feels nigh-mad from desire.
And the world swims . . .]
I—
[Oh, what a mess he is. Hair hanging damply in his unfocused eyes, his cock drooling as it bobs helplessly in the air. A soft nose bumps against his jaw and instinctively he nuzzles back against it, There's the faintest trace of a flush to his cheeks, the remnants of their wedding feast making itself known. Again the door opens, that same spawn coming in with a bundle of something white in his arms; drunkenly, Fenris thinks once more of ravaged brides and virginal first times. Of himself in torn skirts and stockings with runs in them, mewling as his body melts itself to the shape of Astarion's prick— his eyes rolling back, his mouth slack as he's fucked into his fourth, fifth, sixth orgasm of the night, a captive consort ridden hard and put back wet each and every night . . .]
I won't.
[Panted. Whined. His hips rocking forward desperately as he tries and fails to fuck himself, his skin gleaming with sweat and dripping with blood— and yet still some trace of defiance remains.]
I w-won't, I won't—
[Collar me, if you can. Fuck me. Tie me to the bed. Dress me as your bride— but I will not renounce my claim. That's what he wants to say. He wants to sound brave and defiant and unbreakable— but oh, two words are all he can bear. And in the end, he sounds more like a desperate thing than a defiant one.]
P-please, please, please, Astarion, please—
[Gods, it's been hours, please—]
[Desperate tears filling his eyes and tracking unheeded down his cheeks, his whole body shuddering as another pulsing wave of orgasm rises and falls— and Fenris in the middle, teeter-tottering frantically between his two selves, reeling and yet trying so hard even now to fight. Mouth dropping open before curling in a snarl, his teeth clicking in the open air as he snaps them.]
You will have to break me before you manage to ever come close to taming me— vishante kaffar mentula!
iliad XXX: the return to iliadening
I know I always said I reviled you, but seeing you like this....
It's starting to bring me around.
[Oh it's torture for Astarion, too.
He's exhausted. Tested. Tried. Thrilling at the game around the shape of his own grin still means battling to make it last, and the map of their vampiric traits endure both ways: if he can last, so can Fenris; if Fenris can push himself to hold firm, so can Astarion—
Quite literally.
But that doesn't make it easy. In fact, as is proven under the weight of their vicious back and forth, that just makes it a fight. A true one. The sort they've never faced before between them, and for once (for now, while his idle thoughts are too busy drowning to hiss into his ears), he's glad to realize their sire isn't coming. That as the harshest minutes tick on— that obedient spawn still in the doorway (a tall, willowy young thing with deepset eyes and dark hair, always glancing towards Fenris as he listens to his master's call), finishes the last of his work ferrying items— it's a different kind of excitement lancing through his chest to think they can finally begin to test their limits unimpeded, the way any true vampire would.
There are no windows in this room. He can't tell how long it's been since they've started, and he won't risk asking his own slave for an answer that might tip Fenris off as well (let him think it's an eternity. Let him assume that it's been just as long as it feels); Astarion will see to his guests later.]
Our wedding night has to take priority, my love. [Cruel. Mocking. Poured from a tongue that plays it like it's true (and maybe— through that strange bond of theirs— in some way it could be), though he grins like a shark with a bloodied muzzle and reaches high to pin his thumb to the very center of Fenris' oozing lip in that same breath, smearing it again in a mockery of their ceremony. Hades and his pomegranates. Red as love. Red as lust. Red as torment.
Passion always wears the same cloak, and no poet worth his salt forgets the ugliness that makes cannibalism the very same act as kissing. Fucking. Loving. Longing.
Fenris took him before a crowd.
Astarion waited for this.
With a blink, his hands are free, his captive; the vampire could wrench at himself to try and work himself to rapture in the seconds he's afforded— but Astarion's already stilled himself while flush: their hips jammed together till Fenris' cheeks swell against the lower edges of pale hips and perched thighs, forcing them higher into rises that he freely palms (like stroking a horse run well, its nostrils foaming as it bucks and bites and falters)— and what sort of miserable orgasm would that be? Crumbs licked from the floor instead of a waiting feast—
Astarion of all people would know: that only makes it worse.]
I've been too eager to satisfy you.
[A lie. Not a lie.]
Rattus— [He barks out roughly, pulling Fenris forwards into his arms while letting his cock slide free. The boy behind him running, though that was never his name. His title.] Slave.
Help me tie him to the bed. I want him dressed properly.
[And it's two against Fenris' one in that instant: even if they were evenly matched rivals— even if that harried wolf thrashes or screams or snarls fangs-first— his arms are shackled to high bedposts; his ankles clapped in looser chains ('so that we can still attend to him', his betrothed says offhandedly), exhaling only once the job is done.
And from there, they both prepare.
In their own ways, that is. Not to be mistaken for equal ceremony: Astarion almost immediately demands blood (brought some whelpling noble who shrieks to be devoured— sobbing, wailing till every outcry quietens in death or slack unconsciousness; Fenris can't see well enough to tell), and spends the better part of an hour afterwards dabbing spare blood across his wounds, watching them heal while he's brushed, perfumed, dressed in sweeping midnight black and crisp glints of ornate gold. You'd think he'd pin a thorny crown to his temple in the last few beats— and maybe he will, eventually, knowing his own temperament— but he settles for jewelry instead: a choker of barbed obsidian briars, no doubt meant to guard his most vulnerable asset from the reach of his lover's fangs. Never mind that it cuts his own skin when it digs. Never mind that spite will always hurt.
In that same hour, Fenris is dressed, too.
White lace. Sheer silk. Thinner than gossamer and as revealing as a favored concubine's regalia. They pierce his ears and drive gilt jewelry into them before they heal (those ordered spawn who can't well disobey), they tether his nipples with golden chain and leash it to a collar round his throat. They pull aside the very same sheer lingerie they'd fit him in with all its unsubtle symbolism to squeeze a plugging toy between his legs with aphrodisiatic oil— (they paint his lips, they wipe his tears to re-line his eyes and brush his bloodied mane, they smooth with salve to heal the worst of all his bites and scrapes)— while from his distant perch Astarion occasionally toys with the enchanted little rune that powers said device, forcing it to spring to life and stop, spring to life and stop; no reasoning beyond his mood, and always quick.
Until it isn't.
Until he's standing there at the foot of their grand bed admiring the beauty of his conquest: lean musculature rippling beneath sheer fabric whenever the poor thing flexes— smooth and supple and devourable when it isn't. Sunset skin and ember eyes, painted and flocked with gold and cream.
How stunning.
It reminds him of the desserts he used to dine on when he was still uniquely mortal. His favorite, in fact— brûlée dancing on his tongue as it melted beneath crisp sugar, complimented by the cold bite of flaked gold and just a kiss of blood-colored, muddled raspberry—
Red stain bright on Fenris' lips.]
My my....
[He exhales from a distance. Just a step or two away from the foot of their bed, and the perfumed span of Fenris' captive legs.]
Don't you look good enough to eat.
[And if Fenris dares to open his mouth—
The rune is pressed; a jagged, world-shaking buzz rattling through him from the base of his tight hole— left to build this time. Higher. And higher.
And off.]
Well don't be so dour, my darling. Open your legs for me.
Greet your husband properly.
no subject
(He knows them, those spawn that tended to him. The one with dark eyes who tied him to the bed and clad him in silk stockings and white lace; the pretty red-head who stained his lips and lined his eyes with such care. There was no emotion on their faces, no glee nor grief as they worked to pierce his ears til they hung with gold rings— but they can't disobey, can they? And though they avoided his eyes, though they none of them could escape the call of their new master, it doesn't matter. They'll still remember this.
Good or bad. Humiliating or pitying. Poor thing or he got exactly what he's deserved, spoiled little pup— they'll remember, and worse yet, they'll tell the others. How can they not? It's such a striking picture, after all. Out with the old master and in with the new, and with it a whole host of changes that will affect them sooner or later, for this is just the start. One consort triumphing while the other buckles, and as he lies there, hips twitching with every merciless thrum of that swollen toy, he thinks of how the image will travel, searing itself into the coven's collective memory. Dark and light. Chained and free. A lord husband dressed in the finest of clothes, tended to until he looks every bit as powerful as he feels— and his captive bride, writhing and moaning as he's prepared for his master to devour.)
Lace presses tightly against his hips. His collar is snug against his throat, just tight enough that a mortal might whine for how they strain to breathe. Silk rustles as his knees brush against one another, chains clinking gently for how his fingers curl and uncurl. He'd been wiped clean before, sweat and precome vulgar intrusions on the fantasy of virginal brides— and yet still his neglected cock drools onto his belly, unheeded and yet still throbbing for that cruel punishment.
(And the line is this: he does not renounce his claim. He does not cede that which belongs to him, no matter how bad it gets. He is still Astarion's partner, despite it all; he still rules half of this coven, no matter how it seems right now. He is equal in law if not in deed, and that is important. He has to remember that's important. He has to hold on to that fact throughout the coming days and weeks and years, for it's so vitally important.
But any slave knows that bullheadedness will only end up hurting you in the long run. That defiance is a beautiful thing, and it must be kept burning internally, a flame that never goes out . . . but that to defy one's captors indiscriminately and without thought will never end well.
He could fight right now. He could refuse. And what would that get him?
And maybe he doesn't want to).
He spreads his legs, obedient little whore that he has become.
Slowly, jerkily: his feet slipping over cool sheets until the chain binding his ankles clinks in protest, straining at its limit. His panties inch up, pulling taut between his thighs as tanned cheeks peek out, azure dots of lyrium revealing themselves from behind sheer silk. And that toy— slickened with aphrodisiac oil so potent that even he, eternally undead, feels so hot as it burns through his veins and sinks into his skin— presses against him. Still, now, and yet Fenris swears he can feel it tremble in anticipation— or maybe that's just him. Maybe lust and loathing have tangled into one, and faced with an unwinnable scenario— oh, who wouldn't want to give in? After hours (or is it days, now?) of captivity, his body so spent from screaming that all it can do is whine and whimper and mewl, gods please, oh, is it any wonder he's lost the edge of his defiance?
Fuck me. Take me. Make me yours, but let me come, be sweet to me: his hair glossed and falling in his eyes, his scarlet lips parted as he tips his head to one side. His back arching so needily as his pinned cock strains at its lace prison, swollen and overheated, desperate to be tended to—
And yet his eyes burn with rage.
Come closer, and let me test the mettle of my jaw against that collar.]
Such a brave husband I have with that collar on you . . . why not chain my legs open and make it easy for yourself?
[And gods, he doesn't care what it earns him, so long as he can still speak to say it— for there's losing and losing, and though he's sure he'll howl and moan and beg soon enough, he has to try.
(And yet: he wants him. And yet: his nostrils flare as the scent of lilac washes over him; and yet his eyes are dark as pitch, darting up and down Astarion's form as his tight little hole throbs in memory of that thick cock sinking so deep into him. His mouth aches as his tongue longs to feel something heavy on it; those piercings fitted to his nipples pinch and tug each time he twists his head, and it's no mistake he does that again and again. Saliva pools in his mouth as his thighs tremble in anticipation, his fingers curling in wariness— and impatience.]
Or are you only pleased when you have some form of victory to hold over me?
[Oh, little pup barking just as loud as he can while he has breath still to do it— and yet that doesn't stop Astarion's shadow from falling over him as he comes closer still. His chest heaves, his eyes narrowed as he tries so hard not to squirm: come take me, please.]
no subject
[Pomegranate seeds. Sickles over bloody earth. Thorny collars. Wedding bands. Bitten lips. Proximity synonymous with covetous envy, or so every cautionary fable swears— and if their master dreams of anything, it isn't this (though his bookshelves were lined with warning signs; old fiction shoved beside penned accounts of fallen empires. The very same tomes Astarion had fit his claws to). Too little, too late now. They're past the point of no return, and a hungry beast with its jaws spread wide won't stop because of hindsight— and that's if there even is hindsight to speak of. As things are now, the only thing Astarion would see if he looked behind him, is every step that it's taken to get here.
Soothed by the sight of cream and lace. Gold and tender red. The same pretty mouth that used to snarl at him only whimpers while it barks. Maybe their maker should have said 'I brought him for you' when he'd first brought Fenris home, for there's nothing in Astarion that doesn't leap to see his twin all but stamped with his own name. Nothing in all his fantasies of ownership that quite compares to its own truth.
(He's beautiful.
And what a sin that is for a creature caught.)
But Astarion is placid on approach. His footsteps slow, halfhearted. Dressed in cruelty and dark silk, adorned in intent that looms more viciously than his shadowed silhouette, eclipsing those caught heels to settle in between them. Fingertips light as they stroke upwards over sheer white fabric gone a few shades darker for vulgarity alone— discovered dampness such a pretty sight.
Prettier when it stirs.
Stiffness straining towards the backs of his knuckles, begging where its master doesn't. Touch me. Take me. I need this. I want this. Please. Please— ]
I'll be kind.
[Cross his blackened, deceitful heart, he can be. And isn't that better than his claws?]
You don't have to surrender anything to me.
We're already wed, after all. [Leaning in shifts his weight against the lines of those raised thighs; pressure slow and steady (those panties tensing as the contours that they cling to shift— providing less room, less coverage, less comfort— ) while their contrasting outlines intermingle, bottled pressure caught tight in lightless planes.] Be sweet for me, and we can make our own truce. Christen our first night together. [Testing the waters with his finger first; letting it smooth over the centerline of Fenris' mouth before pressing its way in without request until it meets the very tip of all those waiting teeth. Toying at what it aims to take.
(Try again. Again. Again. Repetition is key.)]
Open for your husband. Tongue first— no fangs.
[For a while, that's fun enough. Tease at him while the toy plugged deep and tight shudders at his behest: too quick and there's a violent buzz between those shackled legs, too slow and there's a buzz; too sharp, too passive, too resentfully— all ending the same way. With Fenris' teeth chattering from the rune his lover keeps, always correcting him when he strays.] Get this right and you can have something nice and thick to suckle on instead. You must be starving by now, after all. [They vampires are such needy things.] Just think about how warm you'll feel with a full belly to sate you.
Your throat comfortably squeezed around my cock. Your mind blissfully blank, relieved just to take in more of my claim. [With a twist, Astarion's spare hand turns around the shape of that held stone— one leashing chain yanked to push a stocking-clad leg high across his shoulder, furthering the violating scrape of their pinned outlines. All of Fenris' lower body raised, providing one more glimpse of soaked lace and thin fabric pushed aside for the sight of his sore cock, its livid crown drooling down the slope of his lithe belly towards gold chain. Towards him. (His lips, his face, his collared throat— )
If Fenris is lucky, he might be able to grind— force scant lingerie and bare skin over thick brocade and dark leather— for some small amount of satisfaction against the measure of captivity, particularly in those moments when Astarion is briefly distracted; brought a glass of wine (no, blood) by waiting servants, the iron in the air makes sense— or to have some small piece of his appearance belatedly groomed mid-game.
Trying to take too much without Astarion's permission, though....
Well, the toy is there for a reason, isn't it?]
no subject
The slow fucking of his mouth. The seductive lack of a single finger pressing down teasingly against his tongue, taunting him with what he's all but salivating for. Astarion's eyes black as pitch as he stares down at him, his tones dulcet as he plays at teacher: wrap your lips around me, little one. Harder, faster— no, not like that, and it's nothing like he craves. It's the faintest pressure, the most meager drag as it slides slickly past swollen lips, and when his impatience (his rage, his grief, his lust) rises—
Buzz, and Fenris thrashes wildly, his eyes rolling back as frantic moans vibrate in his throat— please I can't please, for that toy is nestled so firmly above that bundle of nerves. Viciously thick, menacingly powerful— he can't think, he can't breathe when it's on, it's like lightning sparking through his veins. Too hot, too powerful, too much I can't too much please, his back arching and his hips wriggling in a futile attempt to escape&dmash;
It ceases.
And then it all begins again.
Over and over and over, and he knows what Astarion is doing. He knows that he is being trained, a nubile little consort educated on how best to please his master— but knowing it doesn't help anything. Fighting doesn't either— how long Astarion had kept him screaming the one time he'd dared to nick his finger with a stray fang? Hours, surely, or at least that's how it felt. Hours upon hours of merciless vibration twitching between his thighs, thrumming and pulsing against his prostate, his cock drooling in whimpering need as it strained against his panties, his orgasm rising, rising, rising—
Only to be cruelly smothered each and every time.
He doesn't know how many times they play like that. All he knows is that suddenly the scent of blood cuts through the sex and sweat, and he realizes that Astarion is drinking. The dark-eyed spawn is near, and oh, Fenris should feel some measure of humiliation for having a witness, but he doesn't care. Not anymore. His thigh tenses where his leg is hoisted over Astaron's shoulder; the other dangles uselessly, leather biting into soft skin as it strains against its cuff.
And Fenris grinds.
Desperately at first: a stop-start rut meant only to work his cock against stiffened leather, gasping softly each time a spark of pleasure travels lazily down his spine. But he can feel Astarion's own cock thick and stiff against the curve of his ass, straining against black leather— and it's easy, then, to adjust. To make sure that every slow grind ruts against that straining length, soft cheeks rocking against him again and again. Rhythmic, eager— and so clearly not trying to take, but give. Every slow push of his hips surely must be bliss to Astarion, a balm to those howling instincts that demand that he take.
Enjoy it. Enjoy what your consort gives you. Enjoy what his body so clearly can't help but offer up in needy tribute . . .]
Do not pretend at kindness as though you have anything but a blackened heart. The lie does not suit you. You wish to take my mouth? Then take it and spare me your lying tongue, for you have never been kind to me—
[His leg jerks, thrashing— and it's an awkward angle, not his best work, but still Fenris manages to wrap one calf around Astarion's back, yanking him forward. Blood spills everywhere, crimson soaking into white lace and pattering on his skin; it matches the smear of red stain on his lips as he bares his fangs. Click, click, and his teeth echo in the air once, twice, straining to meet flesh—
A satisfied growl rumbling in his throat as his fangs scratch at pale flesh, and it doesn't matter if that collar scratches his face in return, for he tastes blood.]
Or are you too frightened of your captive to do anything but tease like a noble, too scared to dare go further?
no subject
(Fangs puncture flesh.
(Or:) they scrape.
(Or:) they threaten to, and it's only the briars that dig in far enough to pry up red.)
—now, though? Now Astarion still intends to, but at a pace all his own, on his own monstrous terms. His master's muzzle hanging loosely from the empty space his shoulders should be taking up, unlatched. Rinsed clean of all pointless propriety; obligation only in the marrow of his aching teeth.]
Oh, wail. [He hisses darkly, shoving back against the soft scratch of ravenous canines through the collar at his throat, feeling it punch into the soft skin of his neck as it catches against brief intrusion that can't last. (Spite. Spite. Call it by name with every gruesome shove. Every ensuing twist where his muscles bunch into corded ripples under silk, supporting the whole of their weights— their vulgar, voiceless wants. Taxation brimming with envied hate: let it cut them both, but let it hurt Fenris more.) No such thing as action lacking cost under diplomacy this cruel; the leg hooked around his spine the meridian that violatingly shackles them together, moreso than chains or tethers or bloodied stripes swiped sweetly over waiting lips before a gathered crowd. Oil and water have nothing on the way they reject-to-rush-back-in with hardly a second left for equilibrium that isn't overblown, roiling and violent. There's false breath on his neck. Jaws pushed tight against the grate that separates them while lithe hips lift and rut and grind. Tackiness flooded into white, squeezed tighter into black.
You can have what you want, greedy thing.
His promise. His belated vows. Have it all. Glut yourself. Feast until it hurts. You baying, feral, onanistic thing that never belonged in these halls. His hands. His heart. My bed. My bed. (Stay in my bed.) Unable to move as the noose of their entanglement narrows into a swifter tug of lacework that tangles faster than it unspools. Empty glass clattering to the floor with a shattering snap as the slave beside them starts. Silk tears; fingers and their attached claws pull, culminating in a single yank so rampageous that the bedframe jostles underneath them. Lace torn (defenses torn). Tanned skin livid in the shadow of friction burns like tiger stripes; thighs awash in them beneath torn stockings and vacant space, twitching wetly around smooth stone. Twitching harder to be seen.
It'll hurt you most of all.
Two pale fingers spread that much farther into the cusion of dense muscle. His well-braced palm flexes backwards til it aches, forcing those cheeks out wider while he ducks his chin, fangs clicking to meet their counterparts (or skin, or lips, or tongue). Sucking in snarls, snapping out mirroring growls of his own. Tiresome nuisance. Beautiful prize. Beloved. Beloved— conquest. Trophy. Whore. Bride. I want you. I loathe you. I need you. I despise you. And no matter what ceremony swears of love or lifted duty, nights like these do always end in theft.
And he's no better, saintliness emptied from his silhouette long before Vakares found him.
He's no better.
He—
—spreads his touch that much wider.
Aligns his hips and drags against the grain until the supple map around warm stone begins to part.
And with a single nudge— his blunted crest already fit flush to where it needs to be— fights to shove his way in beside that heavy toy.]
Have what you're after and wail.
no subject
(They've only ever tried it once before. One drunken night nearly a century ago, when Vakares' consorts were still trying to feel out whether or not Fenris was a pet for Astarion— oh, they'd done their best. Astarion's prick sat so thickly in Fenris, cold hands braced around his waist as Vakares had tried— don't, I cannot, please, don't, burying his face against the crook of his mate's shoulder, so busy shuddering in shock that he was allowed to say no that he missed the pointed look in Astarion's eyes. Poor thing, his mate had cooed, nuzzling against the side of his head. Don't spend a single second fretting, pretty thing— it's just too much for you to bear, isn't it? his eyes glimmering in triumph).
He doesn't think about the toy, he doesn't realize what Astarion intends— his panties are ripped off, his hole twitching from the burst of cold air as his thighs widen. And he holds his breath, waiting for that cruel burst of pressure that will leave him empty, and it doesn't come, it doesn't come (he hasn't come)—
Blood drips from Fenris' ravaged throat. Blood stains his thighs, his lips; blood looks so searingly, sinfully seductive as it drools from Astarion's throat and stains the sheets beneath them. Blood strings its ways between their hungry lips, and every hot puff of breath Astarion exhales against his lips feels like confirmation of obsession. Yours. Your whore. Your bride. Your usurper. Your mate. Your partner, yours, yours, yours, and gods, Fenris never wanted to be enemies. He never wanted to be rivals. He never, he never—
But this is what it became. This is what their relationship is. And no matter that some part of his brain is screaming in pain for the puncture wounds in his throat, for there is something so soul-searingly satisfying about the wildly savage look in Astarion's dark eyes.
I need you as much as you need me.
(Oh, lonely things, and they dance around it so much that the truth almost hurts as its confirmed, as searing as the sun).
And then he understands.
As blunt heat forces itself forward and his body howls from how widely he's stretched (just the tip, just the head, it's just too much for you), oh, he understands. And Fenris screams.
Wails. Howls. Thrashes wildly against his bindings, chains snapping taut as his head slams back again and again, all of him failing utterly to escape from inevitable, inexorable heat stretching him open, prying him open, forcing him open, and it doesn't stop. Heat whips through him like lightning strikes, his desperate baying timed to every cruel snap of Astarion's hips— please don't please stop please please please!, ragged wrecked ruined, his body desperate to escape—
And desperate, too, to take more.
It's ecstasy. It's agony. Never before has his voice sounded so frantic; never before has he felt so full— he can't see his belly, but he knows all the same there must be a swell there. Some intimate sign that he's more full than his immortal body can handle— and yet that his body must be made for, for he hadn't known there was pleasure like this to be had. Every roughened thrust has him screaming; every pulsing push leaves his thighs shaking in desire, spit puddling on his lips as his eyes roll back, his cock flushed and hard against his belly—]
Don't, Astarion, don't, ple—
[His voice breaks. His next scream a soundless thing, his eyes fluttering as his body suddenly stills—
And then thrashes to its own rhythm, as all the while his neglected cock finally reaches its limit. Too long taunted, too long teased, his pretty little prick jumping against his belly as pulsing waves of come spill between them. Pearly white smears against tanned skin, damning evidence (as if his shrieks aren't enough, as if the way he moans like a wetted bitch in heat isn't enough) that won't stop. Another wave, another, and they are such possessive things, vampires. Their appetites endless, their habits gluttonous— and their reactions excessive. Come gushes of Fenris' flushed slit, pearly rivulets pooling on his belly and dripping down his sides, and it feels as though it never ends— pulse after pulse after pulse—
(And maybe those guests do hear. Maybe those vampiric nobles and their fawning spawn do catch an echo of it: the baying cries of a coy bride finally caught and tamed, broken in the basest of ways— and so, so ready to be remade in his husband's image . . .)
no subject
Nothing.
Not cruelty, not mercy, not the overheated flare of slack-jawed satisfaction. Not power, not loss. Not the perfect feel of how the battered legs he's pushed between thrash ( —and then stop: locking while they shiver, before they fight to tamp down on even that— palpably afraid of the sensation that fighting this enacts, while synaptic response screams just to thresh for freedom like the prey he is, caught in the jaws of something dangerous), each jagged jolt furthering their rut, their madness, their wild desperation. For every inch of twisting, gasping, panting, roiling movement, Astarion feels his partially submerged cock shove one centimeter deeper. Then two. Then three. Heat wet and dragging while his eyes roll back behind shut lids, fighting for dignity when neither he nor his quarry have any left to spare.
The spawn beside them's already sunken to his knees to sweep up shattered glass. The room is grand and empty and echoing. The gifts devised for unity only sit in untouched silence around the sight of their entanglement— a brutal outlay of dark silk and briar barbs hunched low over exposed limbs sporting tattered lacework streaked with blood; golden shackles and fine chains now taut from desperate pressure. They have each other in the eye of the storm (hot breath driven from Astarion's mouth over Fenris' wailing lips, those pleading cries taken across his tongue into a kiss, as if he aims to drink them from their source), and there's a savage beauty to it that overtakes him in ways his master's urging never did. His cock caught in a brutal vice, his body threatening to spill beneath the fluttering clutch of narrow little channels already stretched out to their limits.
His mouth can't keep up when his consort's outline wracks itself into pitilessly savaged shapes; there's nothing he can do to keep those pleas from saturating open air (it isn't benevolence, don't mistake it for that, don't you dare call it that, it isn't— ) two gloved fingers quick to push their way in once more, driven to the back of Fenris' tongue until they're bound to one another only in the reverberating stretches where they meet: fingers and prick both plugged in tighter than a trap within the vulgar throes of painfully glazed submission, no part left independent of this brutally enticing game.
He won't last much longer.
And it doesn't matter.
It's only them here now, and nothing perfect comes without cost.
Damp slickness soaks across the front of his blouse while he dazedly murmurs coarse encouragement (open, like that, yes, good— there's my good boy, my pretty bride, you're learning aren't you— ) but it's as instinctive as the desire to blink. To suck in air. To want to sleep when tired. His voided stare awash in the stunning sight beneath him, more than worthy of being fucked into drooling frenzy; black begetting black. Their pupils only as dark as what they crave in the pit beneath their ribs. Hungry. Hungry.
That prick isn't done twitching.
He can feel it when he lifts his own palm, taking deep breaths of his own.]
....brace....yourself....
[The only warning that he gives before he activates the rune clutched within his fingers, knowing full well what it'll do to them both.
After all: nothing comes without its cost.]
no subject
There's no thought. No memory, no conscious will— he doesn't remember why he'd resisted so ardently before. He doesn't remember his resolution, don't ever give up your claim; he doesn't remember that they're meant to be equals, that he's more than Astarion's pretty bride (his pretty consort, bed-bound and desperate, a pent-up virgin in desperate heat that needs sating). The world has shrunk itself down to just the two of them, tangled together and housed forever in this grand room, and what else could there ever be? Every breath Astarion exhales is inhaled greedily; every roughened murmur is listened to with a thickened throat, Fenris' eyes black with lust and shiny with newfound tears. They mirror one another, the ebb and flow between them all but tangible, every inch taken earns a moan that buzzes on both their lips. He's a slave to his body, a helpless tag-along to the sensations wracking through him, and there is nothing, nothing that matters beyond the two of them.
Beyond him. Him. His darling. His partner. His lord, high and mighty and yet so intimately close that Fenris has lost all fear. Every brush of their lips is confirmation of their mutual adoration; every searing inch forced into his needy little hole proof of his devotion. My consort, my bride, and the slave who had spent his entire life beneath another's heel whines in agreement.
Yours, yes. Yours, yours, yours—
(And sometimes it's easier to shatter than to try and keep yourself together).
Gloved fingers slips past his lips and with a heady moan, Fenris welcomes them. His lips wrap tight around that slickened span as they fuck deep into his mouth, not caring for how leather forces his spit to spill messily over his lips. His smothered tongue struggles to writhe, so eager to slip between two fingers and show his husband just how clever he really is. The earthy taste of leather and slick oil drips down his throat, the tips of his fingers tapping at the back of his throat as Fenris swallows again and again. Don't stop, his lips aching for every rhythmic rock, his eyes rolling back each time Astarion fucks him from both ends in vicious synchronism, like that, like that, his spent cock already swelling with newfound lust.
Brace yourself, his lord whispers, and Fenris knows it to be a kindness. A momentary fondness amidst all this cruelty, born of a century of standing side-by-side. Brace yourself, and he holds his breath in anticipation.
And everything goes white.
Too much doesn't begin to cover it. Too much was the cry of a wriggling bride tied to a vibrator's cruel form; too much was edging of the worst caliber, a teasing taunt that Fenris had foolishly thought was the worst it could get.
This isn't too much.
It's everything.
He's blinded, his eyes squeezed shut; deafened as a roaring fills his ears, oblivious to the sound of his own baying howls of pleasure as vibration after vibration mercilessly assaults him. It's heat unlike any other, all the searing sensation of overstimulation forced so deep into him that he won't ever get it out. That toy presses mercilessly against his prostate, fixed into place by a cock so thick that Fenris all but barks to feel it move. Slow little rocks or heated thrusts, and it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, for throughout it all there's that maddening buzzing that can't escape (that he doesn't want to escape)—
Crack, and the sound of his own wrist breaking as he thrashes in his bindings isn't heard. The pain is negligible, a momentary burst of distraction that Fenris desperately clings to before it heals itself. His heels kick helplessly in the air, his thighs wrapping around lithe hips so tightly it must ache, his back arching as he snaps and writhes and snarls— oh, beastly thing, and he isn't fighting, he can't possibly fight it, he's just reacting. So overstimulated it hurts, so overwhelmed that he's become a wild-eyed beast, his screams echoing around the chamber over and over. No words, not for such a creature as him; no pleading can save him, no entreaty can possibly help, and so he howls in desperation. Ragged and wrecked, sweat shining on his skin as his lyrium pulses; blood smears over his lips, mixing with sweat and dripping down his chin—
And then he comes.
Again, again, his cock untouched and unheeded, gushes of come staining silk and smearing against skin. Again, his thighs trembling wildly as his body cinches rhythmically around Astarion's cock, the sound of their hips meeting such a wet, quick thing— again, and he does not know how many times he comes nor how long a refractory period he has, only that it doesn't stop, it doesn't stop—
It takes so much to sate a vampire. More still to overwhelm them. And so the blackness of unconsciousness doesn't take him, no— there's just the endless ebb and flow of their fucking. Those precious, breathless moments where there's the slightest reprieve, his body numb and his eyes hazy— and then that inevitable plunge back into the molten darkness, Astarion's name on his lips the entire time.]
no subject
It's his grip upon the wheel. His white-knuckled fingers that scream for him to let go. (To hold on tighter than he has before.) This vulgar event horizon's already seized them in its maw, and no amount of refusal keeps them from the snap-pop shattering of their own senses; even if he's lucky enough in the alternating pitch dive between awareness and oblivion to hear warning signs before it slams into him again (that endless ringing in his ears, a muted swell of vacant pressure like hot glass set down on frigid stone, readying to burst), the second he's struck, he's ruined— scattered to the corners of his skin, a phantom beast rasping through synapse wounds. His collar choking him. His gloves chafing him.
His hips pumping the way an animal ruts its wanted mate (its next squalling, pinned-down meal— oh, wail— ) Panting and drooling just to tremble, consumed from the inside out.
If he's lucky, he'll glimpse the edge of savage sublimation in any which way it comes to overblown senses: reveling in the feeling of his cock violating tight-cinched little spaces; his fingers rammed thick against the back of Fenris' mewling throat, barely able to cry out without gagging on reflexive pressure— more likely to keep suckling, keep choking in the search for a broodwhore's satiety— both ends of him well and truly used far beyond their limit....and still pushed to endure more. And more. And more.
(Every luching gush of bottled pressure fights for space beside its peers. Every thrust of pumping fingers fights for what there's no more room to take.)
Vampires know avarice, after all.
(The ugly kind; the kind with barbs; the kind that doesn't sleep; the kind that makes you faintly sick for devouring more than your share— before you lick your lips and feed again.)
Impulse control, not so much.
They never make it to their coffins.
Years from now, a Duchess will suggest over clotted tarts that the ambitious Lord Astarion killed his lover that first night for fucking him harder than even undead creatures were ever meant to take: masking his mistake by replacing the young vampire with a purchased lookalike.
In truth, though very much a gossipmongering little lie designed for trouble, it won't be far off from reality's filthy cast: hours (or possibly full days later) the bed's as soaked to the core as they are within it— his upturned palm pushed beneath his consort's thigh, raising it shamelessly high where it drapes over him, their bodies still stuck fast. It aches if he's careless, true, but he doesn't dare move for at least a few acclimating beats of near awareness, sugar-glazed slickness the first thing he feels each time he recklessly considers doing anything but motionlessly sucking in air.
Instead, slung low and dark across his virgin quarry (oh, not so much anymore, is he....?) Astarion loosely dedicates himself to thinking.
Musing.
Tomorrow he'll teach his bride to stay, beg, roll over, sit pretty: train him up like any true vampire should. Keep him heeled at his side. He can't bear the thought of letting anyone else see him unless they're together.
And there's a notion worth exploring (or is that just coital exhaustion talking?) Fenris really would look so beautiful in a cage. Bound with his arms to his ankles. Gagged with fine jewelry and left to wait with his legs spread, his hole still leaking bubbling rivulets of molten come. Meant to ask for the nominal mercy of being tended to.
One arm moves abruptly lower, his gloved hand catching the innermost droplets of overspilling gloss. The ones that well around that subdued cinch. Slow. Dragging.
Pretty thing, Astarion mutters listlessly, and it's too void of clarity to be a statement.
Just a fact.
Pearling sheen bright atop dark leather hemlines, pushed against the malleable give of fuck-red lips.]
Open.
[His demand all night—
Or is it day, now? His mind so addled with smoke and the scent of sex he can't think straight. Otensibly drunk, and more than willing to remain that way for as long as he can put off being called to bicker with high court.]
no subject
He doesn't need to. Even now, his mind gone and his eyes hazy, he knows that on an instinctive level. There's no amount of air that will restore his energy to him. He needs blood, and far more than the slick, searing droplets that've come from tangling tongues and overeager teeth— oh, that was barely enough to keep him going. And until he gets it, he's a trembling thing, spent and overwrought: a youthful vampire brought temporarily to heel. Not an archduke, powerful beyond reason and able to change the fates of thousands with a flick of his hand, no. He's not even Fenris, not right now. That fiercely defiant thing that had gone into this marriage determined to hold his own has retreated, safely stored in the back of his head in favor of something far more adept at survival. All that's left is Astarion's bride. His consort, who whimpers softly as hours (days) of brutal rutting finally lulls.
Truthfully, he does not know what to think (if he can think at all, his thoughts scatter-shot disconnected). He cannot tell if this is truly the end or merely a break: a time for Astarion to indulge in another vice, wine or blood or smoke, before he sets in on his prey once more. And yet Fenris can't ask. He knows better than that (and how easy it is to fall into old habits. Like breathing. Like this, his body and bearing snapping back so easily into slave, his mind so desperate to preserve his sanity that it will do anything to keep him alive).
So he breathes, inhale and exhale, and somewhere he keeps a gentle count. He lets out a soft noise as Astarion's hips shift and another trickle of come spills out of his overfull hole (oh, he's so full, full and fit to burst, his belly faintly swollen and come splattered over his thighs, his hips, his ass). And when he hears open—
Astarion's bride tips his head up (little virgin no longer, no, introduced to the vulgar world of vicious, vigorous rutting, debauched and yet with so much more to learn), his lips wrapping eagerly around leather-clad fingers. Bitterness floods his senses, the taste shockingly sharp after so long tasting nothing but leather and oil. It spills over his tongue, drips down his throat, and some part of Fenris whines silently in satisfaction to know that he's claimed in both ends.
And for a time, there's just that. Peace in the eye of the storm, a fragility that might almost be mistaken for intimate if you did not know better. The room is cool and dark; the boy from before lingers in one corner, his head tipped down and his bearing deferential. Outside, there are faint noises, devoid of context and thus utterly incomprehensible to Fenris. Laughter. Snatches of phrases. The clink of glasses and the sound of music . . . and yet those fade into the background, ignored in favor of the soft, slickened sounds his mouth makes as he suckles. Lazily his tongue winds between Astarion's fingers, his eyes unfocused as he stares up at the canopy of their marriage bed. His thigh rests high, his legs vulgarly stretched around his captor as his bindings dangle from one ankle. Occasionally a pulsing throb from his chest tells him that his piercings are still intact; a soft jangle whenever his ears twitch informs him of the same.
And once the taste of come has faded and there's only leather, his bride slips his tongue out. A pearly sheen coats a drooling tongue, his demonstration obvious: I swallowed.]
Release me . . .?
[It's soft. Not a demand for freedom, impudent and cold, but rather something sweeter: a desire. I want my arms free, and it isn't quite a request and it isn't quite an order. But they hurt. His wrists have broken themselves again and again, his skin rubbed raw; he has not been able to put them down for hours on end, and it hurts.]
no subject
It shows on his face, even if he says nothing. It shows in the eyes that dilate for the view that they take in, thickly coating brightness shining over a pale pink tongue— barely any milky gloss left to spare. It shows in the way his exhausted, drowsy prick has the briefest moment of stirring in the deep before he winces (and shifts with a jagged shudder, and stills— too late to keep another pulse of heavy ardor from trickling out around the edges of their mergered state), abuse the testament to glory. Chafed and swollen and stretched and sore and raw and chapped and blissfully subdued, all.
So yes, he considers it, some vestigial part of himself existing only when the kerosinic blanket of Astarion the vampire dissolves, swallowing once and feeling dryness knock inside his throat. Feeling more than that beneath his ribs, elusive and at war. Poor thing. Poor obedient thing.
And he almost feels his own lips loving.
And he almost lifts his arm.
And he almost— almost—
snap—
The door behind them opens.
And heralded by a twisting doorknob, the world comes rushing back towards them through the sound of hurried footfalls. That same spawn from before scurrying to his master's side to mutter something hushed about guests and stalling hospitalities— and in that breath Astarion remembers who he is. Who the creature held beneath him is, and all that stunning beauty represents.
He rises (and it kills him, you know, the suffering act of working to dislodge himself, leaving beckoning heat behind), he washes, he dresses— drinking blood from an overfull cup so that beneath the black thorns of his collar, every wound is healed.
He forgets it on the dressing table when he leaves, not ever offering it to that starving catamite kept shackled in his bed.
A lean hound obeys more.]
Keep him chained when you have him washed.
I want him in something more presentable for tonight— [the spawn beside him fighting to keep up with his pace, hunkered posture leaving them at eye level.] Something exotic.
No— not just that.
[Whether by blood or by movement, he's rousing. His thoughts are clearing.]
Make sure that it's obscene.
[The door shuts soon after that dismissive order, and at last, for the first time in an eternity, Fenris is alone.]
no subject
The spawn's still shut in with him, as it so happens. Approach slow after cleaning up the archduke's dressing station, with most of the supplies from that endeavor still caught up in his arms. His fineboned hands with clutching fingers.
He doesn't say anything, but they both know his duty.
Clean him. Leave him in chains. Let him starve.
The cup is cold and only halfway filled with blood when he pushes its edge against Fenris' lips.]
no subject
No thanks. No grateful looks or murmurs of relief, no: the instant blood comes near his lips, Fenris drinks like a starved thing. Gulping blood and not caring for the fact it's cold, not when it tastes so good slipping down his throat. Like a cold glass of water after working in the hot sun all day— and it isn't enough, not for his empty belly, but it's something. Enough to heal his bruises and mend his bones; enough to chase away the fog in his mind, his eyes becoming clear as he focuses.
(He has never starved as a vampire. Vakares never believed in such punishments, always preferring the carrot over the stick when it came to disciplining his coven. There was always blood to be had, decades' worth of donations from eager volunteers kept fresh with magic and stockpiled far down in the dungeons. Fenris hadn't understood at first— gods, he nearly starved himself by accident that first month. Too used to being told what he could and couldn't do, he hadn't dreamed he was allowed to help himself— and Vakares, darling heart that he was, hadn't thought that Fenris needed telling.
It had come to head when he'd fainted. Passed out in the middle of Vakares' office, and only come to an hour later. He'll never forget the expression on Vakares' face when he'd roused: a mixture of fretful anger and fierce grief, and he had not understood either. Little one, you have to eat, promise me you'll eat, and he had.)
He doesn't know this spawn, but there are so many.]
Thank you.
[His voice is clear and even, the former rasp gone. Pain still radiates down his arms, but he knows better than to demand this spawn release him just yet. Better, to Fenris' reckoning, to use his lyrium and free himself once he's properly alone— for that way, hopefully, this boy won't catch trouble from his master.]
What is your name?
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
1/2
2/2
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
iliad 34534676 forever and ever
ILIAD III: RETURN OF THE KING
1/2
2/2
(no subject)
(no subject)
1/2
(no subject)
(no subject)