[He chuckles silently. It's a rumble of amusement more felt than heard, and therefore intended for one person only. Astarion is such an insistent weight atop him, his cheek warm and his limbs all tangled up within Leto's own. Like a pup eager for love, he thinks. So needy for affection that the concept of personal space simply doesn't exist, and gods, but Leto is enjoying it. Far more than he thought he would, in fact, and he shifts, tipping his head up, turning a little: making room.
Come here. Come here, now, lie with me, for at this point, he sees no use in resisting. And there's something quite soothing about being able to curl up with someone like this.]
We aren't.
[Mm. He resists the urge to turn and nuzzle against the top of Astarion's head. Or, no, not just that: to turn utterly, lying on his back so that he might gather the other elf up in his arms. But that would be too dangerous tonight, and they have danced on the edge of impropriety as it is. One thing at a time, he tells himself, and tries not to feel the ache in his arms as he rues the loss.]
But decades of watching parties brings its own expertise. My former master did not enjoy frivolities as a rule— certainly you would never catch him dancing, not especially as he got on in years. But he would attend the parties nonetheless, competing in that grand Game you all enjoy so much. As did his father, and his father's father . . . and the styles do not change much. What's fashionable now becomes intriguing once again in a few decades— and there are only so many ways in which one can move their body.
I would stand to the side more often than not. Theoretically, my job was to watch for threats— but as most nights were dull affairs, I watched the dancers instead.
[He wonders if he'd ever seen Astarion at one of those parties. Not as he is now, an elf grown, but as a child: silver hair and gold braid stitching, far more interested in getting his hands on food than the dull going-ons of adults. If so, Fenris does not remember, and gods know Astarion likely doesn't, for who takes heed of slaves? But still. It's an oddly bittersweet thought, and he exhales sharply, trying to dismiss it.
And ah: there's a bit of a weary note in his voice as he adds:]
[Astarion wends in without a word like a cat slithering into the crack in a sill, making transference anything but a loss: boneless volume charting a course for the rest of him to follow— which isn't entirely unlike the conversation passed back and forth between them (his slight ears softly perked; his lashes lowered after a long day where his tired eyes sting with fainter dryness) as he listens, not at all inclined to sleep just yet. At least not while he's outlining all the passed-on details in real time as he compiles them: that Fenris' master wasn't young. He liked— or he was obligated to— the grandeur of his station more than the motions of it. But was it glory over pleasure, or was it simply the odd, contagious numbness that runs rampant amongst nobility? Did he like anything? Did he even notice Fenris at all?
And it's methodical and thoughtless in the background of all that musing, the way Astarion compares himself to it, ascertaining absently that there's a difference. (I'm young. I don't keep slaves. I don't hate fun— all the petty, pointless divides that promise— I'm not him.
Does Fenris know that he's not him?)]
Watching isn't the same thing as doing. [Asserts the young rake to the proverbial choir, not even registering what the layout of experience looks like between them anyway (Have you ever been properly fucked, little brat? Have you ever been driven out of your mind? I doubt it.)
Circling the past instead of diving for it, and shifting more onto his side just to tip his view towards the lower end of his guardian's face.]
If you've never actually gone through the motions, you won't do any better than I did shooting a gun.
—what, though? Afraid I'll drag you to every ball and dinner party this side of Faerûn? [Astarion asks, finally letting his mouth slant around his teeth at that final inquisition.]
Because if so: yes.
[Though it's with the sharper nudge of a settled elbow that he adds, mildly:]
But unlike your old master, I know how to have fun.
[He's surprised to hear the purr in his own voice, richly amused and with just a hint of teasing. It's far more playful than he's ever inclined to be— but gods, being tangled up like this inspires it in him. Having that hand in the dark extended to him, that nuzzling nurturing . . . it broke a wall between them, Fenris thinks. Gods only know what that means for the coming weeks, for they cannot act like this around one another outside of this room, but . . . right now, Fenris does not feel the looming tension and danger of the past few weeks. There's no harm in teasing his charge, not like this.
And maybe it helps, not lingering on the past. Maybe it's nice for once to speak about Danarius without either shuddering in terror or flinching in pain. He's never done it before, and every irreverent, sneering word that slips past his lips is an exercise in freedom. He cannot say the topic does not hurt, for it does, and he can feel the strain already (the urge to speak of him more and the urge to never speak of him tangling up nauseatingly within him, slow to rise but overwhelming in its intensity)— but still, it is a marvel.
Idly, his fingers trace against Astarion's bare skin, curves and whirls that mean nothing.]
But if you're going to threaten me, little noble, do it properly. Do you intend to drag me out on the dance floor at one of these parties? Or merely teach me in some back room and make sport of it?
[Not lingering doesn't mean forgetting. Laughing doesn't mean it doesn't ache. He's smiling, but it's disjointed: partially in the clockwork tick of half a minute ago, rolling the marbled concept of 'I would stand to the side more often than not' between tangled fingertips, imagining what it would've looked like— if Astarion had ever even seen him.
(Passing through a crowd with laughter in his throat, paying less than any heed to those ungilded accompaniments while his knuckles curl in silk. The same creature he huddles into now like sunlight rendered as invisible as music to silver eyes, and far less valued in that falsely conjured mind. Just a blot at the corner of his mirthful vision, and behind its blurred out shadow: sad eyes. Hollow cheeks. Laced with placidity and misery in equal doses, unable to even hope for more.)
Rough fingerprints begin to drawl along bare skin, and before he knows it, he's wide awake again.]
I'll teach you here first, daring wolf.
Spare you the public ridicule until you're actually worth the sport.
['I won't touch you', Astarion gritted little over half an hour ago when beckoning his companion into bed. He's breaking that rule in overdrive by jabbing his chin into the thickset muscle over Fenris' shoulder (amongst every other bit of intertwining between fingers and toes and feet), grinning hard enough to cut.]
[He doesn't move. A shard of ice ripples through his soul, cutting through his growing fondness and leaving his heart thundering in his chest, and he does not move, not an inch. It's not a conscious choice, but an instinctive one. Fight, flight, or freeze, that's what they always say, and gods know Fenris has been trained to fight— but any slave will tell you that the best instinct to cultivate is freeze.
Freeze, and perhaps whatever master is angry over won't be made worse. Freeze, and they cannot claim any of the rage and grief you always feel has made it to your expression. Freeze, and maybe, just maybe, you'll get out of this intact. Fenris' fingers have stilled, locked in place against Astarion's bare skin; his other hand has stilled, his fingers stiff despite being intertwined.
And he isn't stupid. He knows that Astarion likely meant nothing by the remark. Your reputation is mine now, I can't have you making a fool of us both with your ungainly steps, and it's just another way to continue their conversation, pushing the boundaries gently back and forth. But the word mine works its way under his skin like fiberglass, stinging so sharply that it aches.]
But things are different in this room, aren't they? Just for tonight, maybe. Just for this hour, this minute, this moment, when they're tangled together and more equal than they've ever been. When Astarion looks at him as companion instead of bodyguard, and Fenris—
Fenris needs to act as more than flinching slave.
It's quick, the way he moves: a lightning-fast burst of movement, shifting and twisting his body as he spins to face Astarion, his arms surging forward to wrap around the other elf and tug him in close. Their bodies suddenly aligned (oh, Astarion is so slight compared to him, his body such a fragile thing when grasped with roughened hands), one hand wrapping firm around his torso while the other threads through unruly curls. He doesn't grip so tight it hurts, for he isn't in this to punish— just to command attention, so suddenly and swiftly that Astarion will have no choice but to pay him mind.]
And what of yours is mine, little star?
[Focus, little one. Choose carefully, and it's impossible to read Fenris' expression. There's nothing but intent focus, emerald eyes glinting in the darkness.]
[His vision is filled with the sight of that cold glare.
An exhale— and his lips crack open without breath, silver eyes shivering as their pupils constrict into beaded little pinpricks, the byproduct of terror bred ages ago into his forebearers: alertness meant for unwalled places. Rigidity to counter prey drive, but it doesn't work as well when his own jeweled fingertips lay tight against tanned skin. Everything he provoked through carelessness (the kind he still can't track in hindsight) hunched over him in a corded array of knotwork muscle. His ribcage— that narrow network of threading marrow— made narrower by the steady lock of an arm that feels like steel around his body, keeping him from sucking in full gasps of deadened air.
And those fingerpads....]
I—
[His curls part under pressure. He thinks his legs might, too, though as his cock jerks hot against his thigh it's only his own toes that curl, scrubbing at silk sheets.
He could come from this.
He—
—click— or maybe it's a wetter sound when his tongue unhooks itself from the roof of his mouth, the act of swallowing too noisy to ignore. Tender throat bobbing only once.]
....whatever you want.
[It's not a line. The words have to crawl from his throat to leave his mouth in roughcut shambles, registered like dry silt to his ears. And with the implication of anything his left leg inches higher, nudging in a less-dazed invitation that's as reflexive as a buckled spine or lowered, motionless dedition. The subtle scuff of their trousers pinching round their knees leading into that slight shift in balance. Adding pressure to the notion of surrender through open thighs....and the ensuing rush that drives two pale hands up to fist however they can in white hair set to match. The same breed of boldness as sweat-lined palms locked tight around the grip of a borrowed gun.
He's a fawn. A yearling with velvet on his pallid antlers. A soft-bellied beast laid back— no one's master.
[Whatever you want. And that's true, Fenris thinks during the next handful of breathless seconds. He could take anything he wanted right now and Astarion would acquiesce. Push his fingers into that pliant mouth, fucking them in and out as Astarion trembled and drooled in pent-up need. Slot his thigh between those parted ones, guiding that offered leg into wrapping around one hip. Flip him over and yank those trousers down, spearing him with his prick and drinking in every overheated moan that leaves those lips, Fenris please Fenris, thighs trembling for a partner who finally takes what he wants instead of giving Astarion what he thinks he needs . . .
The room is cool tonight, though the space between them is warm. The muted sounds of the city drift in, but it only serves to highlight the breathless silence that's fallen, and all the little ways in which they puncture it. Ragged breath. Unsubtle swallows. Pale skin gleams in the moonlight, those silver eyes full of fear and longing all at once. A pretty prince caught by a prowling wolf, trembling in lust and anticipation as he waits for his fate to be pronounced. Astarion's body is so slight against his hand, his weight negligible, and Fenris swears he can feel his heartbeat thundering against the palm of his hand, a rapidfire rhythm so heavy that it pulses down his fingertips, echoing in counterpoint to his own.
His eyes slide slowly down, making no secret of the way he drinks in his companion. Lingering on the swell of his lips, the faint shine of spit— and then down further, to the slender line of his neck. The curve of his chest and jut of his ribs (and his hand draws him in a little closer, mine, mine). Then back up again, relishing taking the time to make Astarion squirm.
What will I do with you, little boy . . .
When he moves, it's a deliberate thing.
Calloused fingertips press against pliant skin, urging Astarion to draw even closer. Until there's not a fingerspan of space between them, their bodies pressed up against one another in roughshod intimacy. Astarion's panted breath is hot against Fenris' lips, and he can count every errant freckle across the bridge of his nose.
His other hand slides down, first cupping his cheek, then gently gripping his chin. His thumb presses against Astarion's bottom lip, teasing against the pliant give in one slow, indulgent swipe. And then, before he has time to react—
Fenris kisses him.
Softly. Gently. Their mouths meet with such aching tenderness, and Fenris lingers there, relishing this perfect moment. The feeling of lips against his own, heated and pliant; the dichotomy of their mouths, Fenris' bitten and chapped, Astarion's soft and swollen. The warmth of that lithe body pressed against his own, and the way he's surrounded by Astarion, scent and sensation subsuming him in the sweetest way. An eternity passes, or only a few seconds, and then—
Their mouths part with a soft noise. Fenris stares hazily down at his Astarion, his cheeks flushed and his eyes full of an indescribable longing.]
No.
[Soft. Throaty.]
You do not understand the weight of what you offer me.
[So young, how could he? So rich, how could he? But no one knows the gravity of a word like anything better than a slave. No one knows better what it is to give yourself, all of yourself, to another. Darling little star who offers himself again and again— to get what he wants, to use as base comfort, to even out the score between all the bastards in Fenris' life who have ever taken from him . . .
And it's not about sex (and it is, a little bit). It's about ownership, and possessiveness, and the desperate desire to not become one on a string of dozens, swiftly consumed and spat out when he is no longer a novelty. It's about loneliness and wanting so badly it hurts— and yet knowing that to take now would be to seal himself from it forever.]
I will have all of you, or none of you.
[Throaty. Intent, as his eyes dip down to focus on the curve of those lips just once.]
Tell me again. When you know what it is you offer me . . . tell me again, and I will come running.
He might not be now either, all truth be told. Not even with his lips left wet and tingling with the pin-and-needle salve of slick saliva left behind, his eyes half-closed behind lids still partway smudged with kohl (he should've wiped it off properly; he never does), dark-stained skin shimmering like an oil slick. Twitching under mounting heat he wishes he could mount. Or surmount. Or—
Or.
Every thought's a stutter. Every reaction sluggish and dense whenever it inevitably finds him, having had to crawl on hands and fumbling knees just to shove at the forefront of his mind over and over again. It leaves him drowsy while he struggles around the shape of embers in his throat and that kiss across his tongue, and gods have pity, it's not his fault that he's combustible as flint. That he's suddenly tempted to cry if he can't have what he wants like a stupid, shameful child; the knot in his chest swollen until it barely fits behind his ribs, making every breath more shallow than the last for the pointless ache of trying (oh, he's forgotten about his racing pulse— about that arm still holding him in its coils: ataxiated mind supplanting reality with superstition). It's not his fault because whatever this is— love or fear or hunger so potent in its distillation that Astarion can't even taste it without buckling— it's unlike anything he's ever put his mouth to before. A counter to the synaptic rush of pleasure solely from a thumb clumsily hitting the right spot or a few words happening to thrill.
Fenris could devour him whole and he'd beg to vanish again and again and again inside that striking maw. Everything in him swears it.
Staring until his eyes hurt. Gawking until his tongue goes raw. He can't shake the thought from his head even as he revels in its irony when it finally sinks beneath his skin: I will have all of you or none of you. A noble lordling enslaved to a slave.
His leg hooks on its own.
He feels the pressure bow before it bears down on their hips in married unison, pushing stiffness against stiffness through the dull scratch of their own trousers. (It takes everything in him not to arch instead of listen). He wants that thumb back. He wants to drive it hard to the back of his own mouth through the rolling of his tongue and the neediness of blunted teeth. He wants to squirm. To writhe. And not because he wants the fun of being caught come sunrise, but because now he wants never to be caught.
Fuck.
Fuck, that his father finally got the better of him without even realizing it.]
....I do know.
[And he hates the way it sounds.
Like begging. Like pleading. Like that too protesting insistence on I can, I am, I know. I'm old enough. Smart enough. Trust me, cries the thing that only looks smaller for asserting. No, not that, then. Not that.]
Fenris— name it. [Anything. Anything. Sensation verging on dictation for just how fervently it presses.] Whatever it is I can do to convince you, it's yours.
[This time he does rub. Hips working. Straining for that kiss like a creature in withdrawal, shaking for more than strain. A trembling that matches the muted rattle of his phone across the nightstand. Don't ignore me.]
I'm yours. Please—
[Please please please—
Tugging on those soft white locks behind subtly downturned ears.]
[Don't, he thinks as one slender leg hooks around his hip, pressure urging his back to arch. Don't, don't, and it's the same old refrain, but it takes a different tune than all the times before. Don't, Fenris had coldly snapped at his smirking charge, refusing to stare as he stood pale and perfect in front of the mirror. Don't as their lips met, aphrodisiac stinging his throat as the world swum and the laughter of his friends echoed all around them. Don't as they'd stood parallel in that alley, panting and heaving, Fenris trembling in rage and arousal all at once—
Don't, Fenris thinks now, and it is not a refusal, but a last, desperate gasp. Don't, because I cannot resist you, not really, not if you try.
Their hips rub together, dull friction sending sparks shooting through his frame— but though his hips buck in instinctive desire, that isn't what tears at his resolve. Astarion's voice sounds so desperate as he pleads. Not a brat unwilling to accept he won't get his way, no, for that would not sway Fenris. Rather: it's the cry of a person locked away in the darkness for so long, one who has finally had the briefest glimpse of sunlight: please, please, I cannot go back, not again.
He knows that fear. He knows that grief, for some days it feels as if he has spent his entire life silently screaming with that same pain. When you feel as though you're alone in a crowd, and everyone around you is too cruel or hateful or stupid for words . . . and it isn't about being understood, not really. It isn't about being known, or having some special soulmate that reads your thoughts before you've even begun to think. It's about being seen. Listened to.
It's about whispering how miserable you are— and hearing someone whisper that they, too, know that grief.]
Shh— shh, shh—
[Another kiss, shallow and swift. And then another, their mouths meeting clumsily, as he tightens his grip around Astarion's frame. Don't, don't, but can he be blamed for what he takes anyway? Like a drowning man gasping for air, and a few lungfuls surely won't shatter them.]
I am not going anywhere— shh, little star. Settle. I am not leaving.
[The bridge of his nose bumps against Astarion's own, their foreheads pressing together even as Fenris shifts, til he's resting atop his charge. I am not leaving, and he does not try and dissuade those fingers knotted in his hair. I'm here, and it isn't the same as yes— but it's something.
And he'll clarify later. When that racing heart beneath him has settled and there isn't such panic in the room, he'll explain. But for now . . . shh, and the nosing kiss he presses against Astarion's cheek is as much for himself as it is the pale elf.]
Not tonight. Not like this. Trust me, for my age if nothing else— and trust, too, that I want as badly as you do.
Like he didn't just pride himself for years now on toying with the lives of his servants, his tutors, his friends— if one could even call them that. Before tonight, he could practically see the puppet strings tied tight around each and every last one his fingers, prompting everyone and everything beneath him to dance. That was the joy of it. The only thing he had aside from pretty clothes. Expensive faff.
Now, they read as something else. So brittle he worries they could snap from even the slightest movement, and his fingertips twitch against a febrile scalp to that same end (feathersoft ribbons of hair knifing at his circulation, digging deeper into his skin), every part of him trying to keep still.
He does trust him. Against everything that screams, he does. But every scuff is incendiary. Subtle waves of coiling breath kiss the edges of his aching lips in ways he wishes their origination would. Centimeters feel like lifetimes. Hot air, hot need, hotter pinpricks of sensation threatening the outline of his vision every time he blinks. Wanting like a blaze. Needing like a yawning pit.
It'll be morning soon.
Not the stroke of midnight, but daylight erasing what this is, when— if he doesn't want to lose whatever they've found (and he doesn't, trust that he doesn't despite all his restless fidgeting)— they have to crawl back into the narrowness of their roles. A noble that doesn't know the smell of sandalwood or sword oil. A guard that keeps his distance with stiffened, cold indifference. For a while they'll go back to being nothing but museums of themselves. Shut doors letting nothing inside escape.
And for a while (no matter how awful that night is, their backs angled towards each other by the end. Frustrated in a way that isn't angry), it works.
For a while, anyway.
'What's his type?' Aurelia asks in that clear-cut way of hers. Two drinks in and already watching Fenris from the corner of her vision.
'As if Astarion would know.' Answers Leon before the high elf can open his mouth, ending with the most narrowed expression imaginable.
'Maybe he doesn't have one.'
Petras, of course. At last.
(At this rate, Astarion's never going to have a chance to actually answer the damned question— which is par for the course for nights like these, actually.) Drink in hand and the party around them mutedly stirring into a later rhythm than the one that came before sunset; respectable enough in theory that even dear Lord Ancunín, pleased to have peace for a scarce few weeks, didn't bother to object to.
'Of course he does. Everyone does.' Violet. Stubborn as ever, and trying to size up the topic of conversation from a distance, as is her usual wont.
'Not everyone.'
Dal.
Who brings a flicker of a smirk to Astarion's lips for that, if only because it's the first time in a good long while she's been wrong.
Fenris does have a type. And it's sitting, for all Astarion's bold, impulsive certainty, right at the heart of this discussion.]
He's going to hear you thirsting from a mile away, if you keep this up. And then none of you will know his type.
['Bullshit.' Snaps Petras around the edge of his drink— following it up with a long pull from a cigarette that (in theory) makes him look older than he is. If he didn't suck on it like a bottle, maybe it actually would.
The smoke from it trailing when he adds with one low cough, 'Bet he loves it when it's forwards.'
That Astarion kicks his chair after that is just coincidence.]
It's funny, for the attention doesn't bother him quite so much as it normally might. Normally he despises parties like this for just that reason: countless nobles gawking at him as if he's an exotic and delightfully intimidating bit of entertainment, caring not for how their too-loud whispers or pointed objectification makes him feel. The women giggle and the men deride, and though he is too old to be hurt by their comments anymore, still. It makes for a long and unpleasant evening.
And indeed: he isn't happy to feel six sets of eyes burning holes into his frame. But some combination of Astarion's presence and (oh, admit it) their collective age leaves Fenris feeling vaguely amused. They're so obvious in the way they gawk and gossip, and he cannot decide which is worse: the arrogant looking girl who stares at him so coldly (oh, he knows her type: the ones that want to be wanted, and think that he'll be all the more intrigued by her because she doesn't slaver over him), or the pale, petulant boy who keeps sneaking glances at him when he thinks Fenris is unaware (smoking as though he's a practiced hand and nearly burning his fingers in the process). Children, all of them, in general life experience if not true age.
And in the middle of it all: Astarion. Not quite as young as his peers (and there's surely no bias showing there, thank you), but brighter and more vivid than any of them could hope to be. Fenris glances over just in time to see him kick Petras' chair, and despite himself, smiles for just a moment.
Strange to be endeared to the sight of one's charge. Stranger still to realize that, in his own way, he's acting protectively, safeguarding his bodyguard from wagging tongues and cruel jibes.
But that group isn't the only one paying him mind.
'Here's your chance to find out,' Leon says, nodding back towards Fenris. No longer is the bodyguard facing them; instead, his attention has been captured by a tiefling woman who leans up against the wall next to him. Large is the first word that comes to mind when looking at her: tall and broad both, with swelling biceps and thighs tensed with well-honed muscles. One horn peaks out beneath a shock of black hair; the other is broken, the edges filed down and softened.
She speaks animatedly to him, her hands gesturing emphatically in front of her as she tells her story. Loud as she is (attracting no small host of stares, the wealthy elite so disapproving of the help making itself known), it's hard to make out individual words. Gortash, maybe, but then again, maybe not— it's not as if anyone really knows or cares about the name of some arms dealer.
But Fenris seems interested in her. His body is half-turned, his gaze warming as he focuses on her. Occasionally he'll speak, contributing only a little compared to her enthusiastic deluge— but he does not pull away when she grips his shoulder, smiling as she yanks him in closer.
'So he likes women who are stronger,' Violet declares with a judgemental little sniff. 'Figures.'
'It's one conversation,' Dal interjects. Her brow is creased, her expression caught between vague amusement and mild incredulity. 'Just because he's speaking to her doesn't mean—'
'Look at him. He's clearly invested,' Violet argues. 'And isn't he supposed to be looking after you, Astarion? And yet he's distracted.' So there, and she shrugs one shoulder. Takes a sip of her wine— and then, quite pointedly, adds: 'Have you even managed to seduce him yet?'
As if that's some kind of litmus test— but you know, perhaps it is. After all: she's so different than Astarion, and if Fenris seems more interested in one than the other, well. It has to come down to type, doesn't it?
[How tall she is. Beautiful in a— crush you between her thighs sort of way. Rowdy and raw, near crackling with energy that seems to flicker through the edges of her clothing: a pointed cross between thick leather and modern formality, her rolled dress shirt bunches through every gesticulation underneath countless buckles and clasps that do nothing to hide rippling layers of idle muscle. Imposing but bright. Boisterous yet warm. A network of scars and coarse tattoos and stories to match their accompanying exploits, no doubt resonating with a fellow fighter in hedonism's gilded lair as she tugs on him like an old denmate.
In other words: everything Astarion isn't.]
Shut up. [He doesn't look at Violet when he snaps it, his eyes boring straight ahead towards the pair against the wall, their bodies angled towards each other in mirrored unison. Bringing himself to blink is like an exercise in trying to unglue his lids, when even a second might mean watching his bodyguard (his bodyguard) tilt a few centimeters closer to her— and farther away from him.]
You saw that I did.
['We saw you cheat and run away with him.' Petras grunts in the middle of stamping out what's left of his cigarette on the side table his chair's still wedged against, clearly taking Violet's side in the debate. 'That's what we all saw. Doesn't count.'
'Could've just walked it off.' Adds Yousen. Neutral only for the way he's stating nothing more than the facts themselves, punctuated by a shrug.
Astarion's eye twitches. A byproduct of his nostril twisting when it flares.
He's seeing red. Literally. Figuratively. And the chatter around him smears accordingly.
'I mean we all know how fast Astarion burns through hired help. If he really did anything, he'd have a new bodyguard already.'
'Maybe the mutt just doesn't care for boys.']
I said. Shut. Up.
['Dalyria's right. Enough, you two.' Leon cuts through at last like yet one more voice of reason, recognizing the bolded outline of Astarion's telltale temper burning hotter than the Hellish eyes he's watching from across the room.
The problem is he adds, unkindly: 'It's bad form to pick on children.'
And like a viper, Astarion's lunged over his knees in his seat, baring contempt in lieu of fangs. Something that'd be more effective if he had a target for it; the pack's turned against him, he realizes too late.]
I could hire someone to kill you and they'd never find the body—
['Ooh. Such words from a Magistrate.' Pale petras shivers, eliciting a rumbling chuckle from at least half the present party, though it dithers in at least a few specific margins.
The point is, however long it takes, by the time Leto shores up any lingering conversation, that circle of waiting silhouettes will be missing one.
The one he's meant to be guarding.
'No luck, Fenris?' Asks one pale not-elf from where he's sprawled himself in drinking— boots up, ankles crossed— over two adjacent seats, now. Head resting on the edge of Violet's shoulder. Hard to say which of the lot is vying harder for Fenris' attention on return.
[His first thought, as Karlach wanders off to check upon her charge and Fenris attempts to do the same with his own, isn't that Astarion might have disappeared out of spite. And that's important. It's important because everything between them is so terribly tentative, and now more than ever Astarion deserves the benefit of the doubt. It would be a lie to say his mind doesn't dart towards a more carnal explanation (especially in wake of how utterly frustrated his lord had been by the end of that first night), but still, he bites his tongue and keeps that thought to himself.
Though frankly, Fenris thinks as he approaches that wolf pack in noble attire, even if he was utterly convinced that was why Astarion ran off, he still would keep it to himself. He does not like Astarion's friends. Likely he'll never like any of them individually (except maybe Dalyria, and even then, he likes her for her ability to hold her tongue more than anything), but gods, he especially despises them when they're together. There's such an air of sneering, airy judgement about them— childish compared to Danarius and his ilk, but all the more vicious for it. They've nothing to blunt their teeth upon just yet, and so they turn upon one another— or any other luckless victim too powerless to properly fight back.
It's not that Fenris is intimidated as he stands before them. Even if he was, he's too practiced at making his face stone to give away any hint of anxiety or fear. But it's uncomfortable watching them watch him. Hunger in their gaze and nothing but malicious sport in their hearts— and no matter what he says or does next, there's nothing that can save him from it.
But really, what can they do? Actually do? Not much. They can't bed him, not without earning not just Astarion's wrath, but that of his father. They can't bully him into running some embarrassing errand, or force him to get drunk . . . all they have is their words, and what can they say that hasn't already been whispered in Fenris' ear? How far down does that lyrium go, what a savage beast, what a thrilling bit of sport, oh, he's heard it all. So what's there to be afraid of?
He wishes that thought helped.]
Luck?
[He regrets it the moment it slips past his lips, but the question takes him by surprise. There's smirks all around— and despite himself, despite all that he'd just assured himself on, still, Fenris feels a rush of hot embarrassment. He isn't stupid, but this lot will take his question as proof of it nonetheless.
'Yes, luck,' Violet drawls. Her head tips back, her hair tossed artfully over her free shoulder. 'From your little conquest— well. I say little . . .'
'We had a debate, you see.' Petras again, his words slow but deliberate. 'On what your type was. Astarion seemed confident he knew it, but then again . . . perhaps he didn't count on you having a taste for the strong, savage type.'
And the puzzle pieces fall into place. Fenris exhales slowly, his mouth thinning as he glances around the room. There's no shock of white hair that pops out immediately, but then again, this estate is a grand thing. There's plenty of rooms where he might be hiding.]
Where is he?
['Settle our argument first,' Violet commands— and it is a command, snapped out so effortlessly that Fenris feels his spine instinctively straighten. 'Did you end up bedding him? He keeps telling us you did.']
I—
[He knows why Astarion asserts that. He really does. It's so easy to lose standing among your peers no matter who they are, and this lot is the worst of them. Of course he said such a thing; there's no advantage to admitting that all you did was jerk off in an alley.
But suddenly Fenris is tired of this. These stupid games played by these idiotic children who have nothing better to do than endlessly speculate . . . well, let them. But there's nothing that says Fenris need play along.
Still: their eyes are gleaming. Still: they hang on to his every word, and will only laugh in spiteful mockery if he simply stalks off. And chalk it up to Astarion's influence, maybe, or his own newfound freedom— but Fenris feels something in him quietly snap.]
It was not a conquest. Simply because you six have little else going on in your lives beyond lustful machinations does not mean the rest of us do. And as for your argument—
[Gods. He hesitates for half a moment before finally continuing abruptly:]
— settle it yourselves. You have little else going on tonight.
[It won't win any awards for cleverest comeback of the year, but on the other hand, it's deeply satisfying to say. And certainly not what they expected: Violet's expression snaps into shocked indigence, while Petras (to his mild credit) snorts at that bucking bit of backtalk. Fenris doesn't bother to check the rest, turning on his heel and heading for the door.
The party spills into countless rooms, some more quiet than others. It takes him a few tries before he finds Astarion. His charge is sprawled in a chair in the middle of the room, a drained glass at his side and more than a few people gathered around him, chattering and laughing at something he says. And in his lap—
The son of the host himself, and oh, what a pretty thing he is. Giggling as he leans in to whisper in Astarion's ear, his cheeks flushed beneath tanned skin and teeth so white they gleam. A darling, daring little thing, drunk off champagne and all the bolder for it.
And it's all Fenris can do not to stalk over and tear the boy's throat out.
Somehow, impossibly, he makes his way over to a nearby wall. It's a miracle he doesn't bump into anyone, for he refuses to take his eyes off the sight of Astarion and this boy. This child, this drunken idiot who thinks it's the height of coy cleverness to splay his fingers against Astarion's chest, loudly admiring the supposed detailing on his buttons.
And unlike last time, he's no leave to grab Astarion and march him out. A bit of unsubtle flirting isn't enough to warrant any kind of scolding. And so he simply stands there, seething silently, his expression stone and his eyes thunderous, glaring fiercely at the brat in his brat's lap.
But oh— he has leave to say something, doesn't he? Innocuous and not untrue, and it's a flimsy excuse, but he'll take what he can get. His jaw clenched, Fenris slips between partygoers, glaring down at his errant charge.]
You should have told me you were leaving the room.
[There's a thousand statements layered beneath that, jealous and seething, angry and upset— but to the guests around them, he simply appears like an overly serious bodyguard. Enthusiastic, yes, but not particularly inappropriate.]
First: Petras gasping in cold shock after his snort wears away, Violet's settled outline still planted partway underneath him with increasingly stiffened contours: her slackened anger the picture of a fish somehow drowning in its native stream, petty counterpart to his bemused incredulity with the rest of the group following suit.
'Can he do that?' A question to which no one present has a definitive answer for once asked. Something that, in a way, makes it an answer unto itself (though it'll take them the better part of the next hour to reach that same conclusion in a somewhat drink-addled deliberation between adolescent hearts).
Second: Astarion.
Drawing den a charcoal map of pipesmoke and half-lit walls while something bassy plays on loop in either this room or the next; his audience thicker than the atmosphere that flanks him, more amenable than the cocksure pack he'd left behind. More willing to be regaled, particularly when the one talking isn't shy about making it a show.
Not to mention the weight on his lap's a pleasant distraction when he otherwise lacks for it in the minutes before footsteps pad close enough to break relative silence. Tangled friction lending itself to a sense of acclimated control that— like a drug— quenches the restlessness in his veins: inflamed jealousy already fading into pleasant numbness under the places where clothed bodies meet, embracing the delicate care of those fingers as they move to fuss along his buttons (ignoring that same attention when the drunken little thing strains higher every now and then, trying to fit spice-scented lips against his own). A game, not a rejection. Why let fantasy hold the reins? This isn't about neophytic love, after all, no matter what his catch might think with every soft attempt to kiss— all redirected to Astarion's neck or cheek or shoulder through tepid tilts of his own head, and like the good little find the host's son is, he obediently takes to it with lavish capitulation (he is a darling little thing. So well behaved. Astarion could free his cock from his trousers right now and tease him to orgasm in front of every set of eyes in the room, and he'd no doubt purr for more).
Which makes this conversation easier, actually.
Left free to frame his focus around that pretty patriar's shoulder while dull teeth nip and worry at his throat, smelling of brandy and too much wine. The ensuing sight of Fenris (oh, still handsome as ever when dark brows shadow green eyes in rage), bristling like a taphouse cat and snapping out sharp irritations that only curl that much sweeter within Astarion's own embittered gut. Different day, same old, destructive habit: l'appel du vide— he likes the attention more than he cares about its type.
Matting its hedonistic spite with a palm slid along the inline of spread legs starting at the knee just to feel fine threadwork pull. His every blink slow. Smolderingly placid. A half-smile on his lips.
Oh.
Hello, Fenris.]
You were busy, last I checked.
[As Astarion is busy now.
Thumb squeezed into the junction between thigh and inseam— punctuated by a panting moan— the slight thing in his lap curled higher.]
Petulant little brat. One night between them had done wonders to improve Fenris' opinion of his charge, but he is a fool to be shocked by this behavior. Astarion is cut from the same cloth as that wolf pack he calls a social circle, after all, and his mannerisms and impulses are just the same as any of them. He's not used to being told no. He's not accustomed to the prickle of unpleasant emotions (at least as far as Fenris knows, and someday he'll learn better). He struts boldly and acts out in an audacious manner, for he knows just what will garner him attention. But gods, the ploy isn't subtle. It's laughably clumsy, a child's stamping foot translated into a more salacious act. I saw you talking to someone else— well, I've found someone else too, now aren't you jealous? It's pathetic.
The trouble is: it's working.
Never mind that it's unfair. Never mind that this is all a misunderstanding. Never mind even the fact that Astarion really ought to behave like this, lest everyone wonder why the notoriously hungry heir to the Ancunín name has suddenly gone celibate. Right now Fenris can't think. There's a tiny voice in the back of his mind roaring to be heard, listing out all the reasons he ought to just walk away and show Astarion that this ploy isn't working—
But he can't. Not when the sight of Astarion's hand slipping between slender thighs sears itself into his mind's eye; when the sound of that excitable little moan (pathetic, a pent-up little slut of a boy that's too stupid to know he's nothing more than a prop in a larger play, oh, Fenris is scathing in his thoughts) echoes endlessly in his ears. He can't leave and he can't bear to stay— and so he stands there, jealousy and anger pulsing through his body with every thundering beat of his heart.]
I was speaking to a friend, yes.
[A friend, though he isn't so obvious as to emphasize the word. His glare does that for him.]
Yours are looking for you. Perhaps you should—
['He's needed here,' the boy declares. His head is still tipped towards Astarion, reddened lips lingering against his skin. Liquor makes the edges of his words slur softly, but there's no mistaking the amusement in his tone.]
Be that as it may—
[The boy scoffs as he turns, nosing needily at Astarion's neck. 'Do you always let your bodyguard order you around like this? He seems more nursemaid than protector . . . unless he's trying to keep you safe from me.' A drunken laugh, low and hungry, as the boy arches his back and presses himself against Astarion's hand.
It's all Fenris can do not to roll his eyes. But his attention is fixated on Astarion, refusing to divert for even a moment. Stop it, and the thought echoes seethingly in his mind, a snarling command that he longs to enact. Two strides forward, yanking that boy out of his charge's lap so he might haul him out of the room (just as he had at that party), and then—
A wall. An alcove. A brutal undressing as their mouths met, expensive cloth tearing and buttons clattering as they hit the floor. Astarion's goading laughter melting into breathless whines as Fenris spins him around and pins him there, making him tremble as he waits for blunt heat to spread him open and fill him up the way he craves—
Over and over, fucking into him with all the blunt brutality of a beast. Until that arrogant composure doesn't just melt but shatters, Astarion's voice breaking as he cries out again and again. His own cock untouched and his writhing growing desperate, until at last he pleads, slick-mouthed and desperate (Fenris please, and he knows what that pretty voice sounds like when it begs). Touch me, please touch me, and he will. He will. The palm of his hand striking at supple curves over and over, teaching his little brat exactly what a foolish idea it was to ever underestimate his bodyguard. Until his ass is bright red from abuse; until even the slow, steady slap of their bodies meeting is enough to leave him trembling in painful aftershocks. Until he learns his lesson, and can repeat it back with wet eyes and a drooling cock: I won't play games, not with you.
And then he'd fuck him again.
Over and over, pistoning in and out of that tight little cinch til his cock is streaked with pearl; until Astarion's thighs are shaking with desire, his back arched and his eyes unfocused, so thoroughly intent on being bred that he's forgotten his own pleasure. Until at last the roaring rage and jealousy simmers down with Fenris, and he's left with a pliant, pretty little charge once more . . .
. . . who will take nothing from that lesson save that acting out gets him exactly the kind of treatment he longs for.
Fenris' tongue runs over his teeth, a swift motion.]
. . . find me when you are ready to depart, then.
[His voice is pitched lower, his tenor's tone gone rough and gravely from his thoughts. He wonders if Astarion can guess at them. He wonders if Astarion knows just how frayed Fenris' self-control truly is.
(He wonders, quietly and without really wondering at all, if Astarion cares overly much for how his newfound companion just spoke to him).]
[Astarion hums quietly to the lordling in his lap, directly addressing an earlobe— or the soft muscle of his conquest's jaw— obeying the law of the figurative jungle to keep from spoiling the first real taste of freedom he's had in weeks: answer the patriar, shun the hireling, but it's only his wicked mouth that pays its respects. Only his teeth, his tongue, his throat and attached lungs, and the crooked pressure of his fingers—
His eyes are drawn to Fenris.
The rest of him is, too.
Unreadable. Lidded. Unmoving as his own mouth after those murmurs, caught in a half-blink that never closes, only twitches. Watching the only creature that watches him rather than the show he's putting on: Fenris, who stands there and implores his reckless charge. Fenris, who's stubborn enough to linger stock-still with both fists balled at his sides, letting his teeth grit across themselves to howl out everything he can't.
The problem is, there's not enough smoke in the world to make them psychic, let alone this room. (Or maybe that's the point.)
Whatever Fenris is thinking of, Astarion doesn't seem to notice: the word friend elicits nothing between languid, palming strokes, and no verbal reply slips in either— just something passing for a nod that languidly tilts the little pale elf's head more than it angles it in acknowledgment. He'll find him in the end no doubt, like a coat or a checked wallet; an accessory doesn't warrant anything else in a place like this. (So go on, then. Stay and watch or leave and pretend it isn't happening.)
And in the interim: fingers fist tighter in the other boy's hair. A giddy laugh erupting from that splash of pain as it likely catches in his belly, high and heady and slurred. Sweet as the alcohol he's drunk on, and barely anything but dazed.
And the farther away Fenris gets, Astarion grows mean.]
Look at you.
[An offered command, not commentary. Look down. Look at how you're enjoying this.]
Performing in front of everyone like some common whore. Does your mother know you're the entertainment? [How he palms at him. How he tugs, ensuring fabric's just an afterthought when he can still fully wrap his hand around a swollen, straining little cock (already leaking for all its worth beneath richly tailored silk if sight is any indication: grey threadwork stained two shades darker, and coursing headlong for coalish black), no part taken to fighting back.]
Should I tell her what you're doing?
[Time drags as conversation's relegated to little whispers that flit around them, struggling to ignore the filth he fits against that young thing's mouth in lieu of the kisses that it tirelessly continues straining for, always hungrily swallowing the next best thing. If not love: humiliation. If not flattery: crude debasement in front of a salivating crowd that tries— and always fails— not to give that fact away.
Astarion knows the boy's name through hearsay; he never once uses it.
The thing spread out in his lap till rucked clothing strains to rip. Angled directly towards that not-so-distant shadow in the corner, rather than his highborne flock: slender back arched high, sloped backwards— every inch of that graceful body poured over Astarion's shoulder, down along his chest, his stomach, his legs— caught around the front of his neck with a single, pallid hand that looks like smooth marble against pinched skin, dimpling it through the force it takes to pull him closer. To make grinding the only option left (because he is grinding, that ensnared patriar. Made to play the captive odalisque while Astarion hisses in his ear):]
If you can keep from coming in your pants, you cockstarved little slut, I might just offer you a treat next time I see you.
....and we can all take bets on how long you hold your breath. [Boldness that on any other night would end with a sucked prick and a heeled shoe to shove him off once finished, Astarion's hunt ending with a worthwhile prize.
He's close, now.
He's so close.
Instead— ]
—Ready to go?
[Lord Ancunín asks with a flash of teeth as he pulls away, his hands briefly planted on the wall on either side of the moon elf's hips— warmth from all that lavish friction still radiating through his palms in a way Fenris can very nearly feel— and then does feel, once the high elf catches his wrist to pull him towards the door. Prowling like a cat on weightless strides.
('Wait—'
That disheveled (and-yet-entirely-unfinished) little patriar calls out before a few of the other guests catch him with a tepid laugh, urging him to stay sitting before he cracks his own head stumbling across the room in pursuit of the two silhouettes taking their leave.)
It's probably no shock to confess that they don't wait.]
It's a fervent thought whispered in the back of his mind as Fenris stares at Astarion's little display. Not a coherent one, and certainly not one he wants to have, but there nonetheless. As a lithe figure twists and writhes beneath clever fingers and the most whorish little moans drift from across the room to slip into pointed ears— don't stop, hoarse and hungry, drifting like lightning beneath the scarlet and black frustration coursing through him.
It's too easy to imagine himself in the same position.
He doesn't want to. He wants to linger in that dominant role, relishing the fantasy of hauling Astarion off and fucking him into shrieking, drooling compliance, docile once he's filled and kept warm with a body full of come. He wants to think about how he'll drag Astarion over his knee for this little stunt, palms striking at his cheeks until he sobs for forgiveness; he wants to think about tying his lord to his bed and putting his tongue to him until he comes untouched. Merciless, and yet not cruel, teaching this uppity noble what it means to truly give himself over to pleasure . . .
And he does want to. And he will.
But something deep in the pit of Fenris' stomach jerks as Astarion's voice cuts through the air. If you can keep from coming in your pants, you cockstarved little slut— and the rest doesn't matter, for those words are more than enough to wipe his mind blank. His mouth goes dry as heat floods through him— and it's not like before. It's not like the desire he had when they were in bed together, nor even at the gun range. Those were mere candles in the dark compared to the sudden inferno that's caught him— inflamed him, his knees weak and his cock heavy and hard, rigid against his leg (and thank gods for a long jacket).
He wants to be that boy. The realization strikes at him even as something in him curdles at the thought, loathing it (loathing himself) for even having it. He shouldn't want Astarion— at least not like this. Not when he's mean and merciless and cruel, spiteful in his arrogance and awful in his mannerisms . . . it's everything Fenris hates. It's the exact opposite of that lonely boy he'd held close nights ago, the one who'd reached out and ignored reality in favor of companionship (it's not fair, and there will never be a day when he doesn't hear the echo of those words in the back of his mind).
But lust doesn't listen to sense, and the fantasy that arises pulses through him: Astarion, arrogant and beautiful, perched upon his mattress with a leash drawn taut in one hand and his cock in the other, drawling out such a filthy thing. Staring at his bodyguard who strains stubbornly at the collar locked around his throat— and yet who stares and pants and drools for the overheated prick hanging just out of reach. Letting him taste the agony of being forced into patience for once, scorning him for his lust even as he deigns to sate it, such a good boy, now show me your tongue—
Fuck.
He's still half-hard when Astarion sets his hands on his hips. Still fuming and furious when he takes him by the wrist, and yet his skin still sings with the echo of that warmth. Lingering against his hips, his wrist, and it's telling that he doesn't wrench his arm back until they're well outside that smoking room. Then it's a fist grabbing that silk shirt, yanking it roughly to one side as he hauls Astarion into an empty room— come here, a seething hiss as he slams the door shut behind them, shoving Astarion up against the wall with a growl.]
Are you satisfied with yourself?
[Silk creaks warningly within his fist as he grips it too tightly; his other hand grabs for Astarion's hip, pinning him flat against the wall. Don't you dare move.]
Showing off to everyone— and for what? Because you were bored? Because they goaded you?
[No, this won't do— with a growl he spins him around, shoving him face-first against the wooden beam— no moving, no squirming, and a heavy hand pressed against the flat of his back ensures that his prey stays still. Astarion's back arches, his pert little ass sticking out— and oh, far be it for Fenris to resist looking. Soft and supple, and those leather trousers do nothing to conceal what lies beneath . . .
His next swallow is audible.]
Or are you so desperate to be touched you'll take any slut who offers?
[Mine, and the possessive howling in his heart drowns out any good sense he might have. Mine you're mine you're meant to be mine, and only later will he hear the hurt beneath the anger. He crowds forward, forcing Astarion flat against the wall as he shields him and pins him all at once— stay put, his breath ghosting hot against the line of Astarion's ear. Don't move as his hands reach down, finding Astarion's own and pinning them up against the wall. Obedient thing whispered roughly as Fenris rocks his hips forward— and grinds.
Again and again, slowly and yet all the more deliberate for it: a hot, heavy rut as his cock fits between supple cheeks, eagerly claiming every inch of what Astarion cedes to him. There's two layers between them, but Fenris swears he can still feel heat radiating off of the younger elf— all the lust from before still coiling in him, perhaps, and the thought only spurs Fenris on further, his next movement a mean snap of his hips as he presses as far in as those trousers will allow. Deeper, deeper, his cock aching to reach that tight little cinch, precome soaking into the fabric of his boxers as he strains— and then back. Back to that slow, deliberate rhythm, using Astarion's body just to satisfy himself.
And it's such a selfish motion, for there's no thought given to poor Astarion's straining prick, oh, no. Pinned flat between the wall and his belly, and there's not a chance that Fenris will let him reach for it— oh, no, not tonight. Not when he's proven to be so good at teasing others— petty little thing, surely he can handle being on the other side. Again and again, his eyes fluttering as his fingers tighten and loosen in echoing rhythm, his harsh breathing melting into a rumbling groan more felt than heard.]
He's drenched in Fenris' shadow before he knows where he is. Snapped up against a featureless wall, barely visible, subsumption doesn't even begin to cover the sight of them (it covers all of him outside the twitching span of pale white fingers, pink flush staining their useless tips and spreading lower every second, angling for the places where they meet). And in the other room someone's whining loudly for attention. In the other room someone's wishing for what Fenris has caught between his jaws— or more accurately: what Astarion has. Its audible memory loitering dangerously nearby, feet planted in the present through the thinnest barrier of a dividing wall, muffled voices crawling through plaster and dense-carved polished wood, scraped hard against the shell of Astarion's own ear.
(Don't stop.)
—oh.
Oh.
The winding breed of depravity that'd circled Astarion's mind long before the door snapped shut catches like a spark again and again and again inside his belly for every milestone they blaze past in a roiling blur of frustration. Seconds doing the work of minutes to rearrange them both and yank him higher into outpours of groaning lust already well-incited: jagged and cruel and sweeter than the most expensive wine— punctuating a point he'd only half-imagined under his own bedding until now.
How he loves to be his.
It hits him hard enough to blank his senses in that first, degrading push. It glazes his eyes on the second, dragging bluntness fitfully seeking shelter in the tangle of tight cloth as it wrinkles until it snags rough across his obscured cinch— yes yes yes. Like that. Just like that, gods, please— too much and not enough: he's wanted this from the second he saw Fenris talking to that woman. From weeks ago, in fact, dark wine staining at his lips while he stood on fine carpet and sized up gold-green eyes. Obedient thing is right (and he's glad not to have a choice when those growls wash over his curls in close proximity), considering he does everything he can right down to the rounding of his spine to draw it in with only centimeters to his name. Answering with his own vulgar moan for pressure he could swim in, and proud to play the part better than the patriar he'd had in his arms not two minutes ago, working at like tinder. Trying to catch a spark at a distance.
A long shot.
One that paid off, as it so happens.
(His laugh is a low, razed thing. It shudders in between his shoulder blades to the sound of rustling fabric twisting. Creaking.)]
So you say— but you couldn't stop staring, could you?
[Oh, it's a growl of his own. The nastiest cast to a voice that can't quite match Fenris' rumble, though it's enviably sharp, and only just cut through by panting breaths.]
You're....you're salivating, old man.
....I can hear it.
[He's braced against the wall so tight— no, he's pinned, his cock squirming anxiously against his inseam (his belly) each and every time those bucks dig harder, wringing the air out of his lungs with roughened groans. Barely able to keep himself upright against pressure that has him seeing stars by the end of every blink.
And yet he makes the stupid choice (it isn't a choice) to hook his left ankle back around Fenris' own, twisting his leg to draw his guardian in when there's nothing else left to spare. Goading him the only way he knows how when agency might as well be back in the other room with that heaving little patriar.]
Maybe you should slow down. [The soft, dry click of licked lips, before:] Get a drink.
We wouldn't want you to overexert yourself just— to rut against a pair of pants like the starving thing you are. [He has to be creative. He has to make it count, through the rucking of his trousers and the knitted prickle of his sock set to scraping in the narrow gap it offers: as prudish an invitation as his father's father's courtship (all wound up in the wrists; the ankles), with a still-clothed prick sunk thick between his cheeks and stalking for slick prey.
He tries to pull at that grip (fuck, he's strong). He tries to twist or arch or buck to unclasp the measure of his waistband (fuck, he's pinned too tight), his features scuffing at the wall like a lover all the while, sore and cold against hot skin. Cheeks stinging for its scratch. And yet— and yet and yet and yet— it's intoxicating.
He'd never expected the bait to work so well, but....]
Put yourself on your knees....and I'll let you do to me what I left him panting for.
[His heart pounds like a drum in his ear, pulsing through his entire body and timed to the steady rut of their hips. Astarion's ankle flexes against his shin, a goading bit of contact from mewling prey who can't offer up anything else; he registers it in the same way he registers that drawling offer. It's fine enough on its own, registered and enjoyed for what it is (on your knees, and for the briefest moment he's distracted by the thought of heavy heat flattening his tongue, pearl dripping down his chin)— but it's secondary. Irrelevant, for no matter how his squalling prey reacted, Fenris' goal remains unchanged.
But it amuses. This arrogant pup strutting around on paws too big for him, barking loudly as he tries to pretend he's won . . . Fenris chuckles breathlessly against the sharp line of Astarion's ear, his teeth gleaming in the darkness.]
What an offer.
[Emphasis punctuated by the slow roll of his hips.]
Get to your knees and I will grant you the honor of sucking my cock . . . little noble, your seduction needs work. That kind of offer might fly in these gilded halls among your peers, but you'll have to do better than that if you want to see me on my knees.
[Not tonight, though. Cold air rushes between Astarion's frame and the wall as Fenris draws him back by an inch— just far enough for him to slip deft fingers against his slender frame. Blindly he plucks at his belt buckle, uncinching it swiftly and shoving Astarion's trousers down to his mid-thigh. His cock springs out, heavy heat brushing against the back of his knuckles, and it's so tempting to take it in his palm, to squeeze and stroke and tease—
Instead, Fenris yanks hard at Astarion's belt, cinching it as tight as it will go around pale thighs. It's little more than a makeshift binding, crude but effective, forcing him to keep his legs firmly closed (and trust that there's a smirk on Fenris' lips, the joke too obvious to bother saying aloud). Then that same hand plants itself against Astarion's back, inexorable force urging his back into a sharp arch, his ass pushing out even as his face is pressed closer against the wall— just like that, Fenris whispers, and grips his hips tightly even as he steps back.
And oh, what a sight he makes.
Fenris' charge is a vain thing, but that vanity is well earned— for the sight of him half-naked and trembling leaves Fenris breathless, the air rushing out of his lungs in one harsh burst. His mouth goes dry, his eyes locked on the sight before him: pale skin all but glowing in the darkness, his ass so perfectly pliant before him. Almost in a daze he gropes at him, tanned fingers digging into soft flesh and squeezing hungrily as it melts beneath his palm. He spreads one cheek open, his eyes locking on to the sight of that tight little hole— gods, and it takes everything in him not to tease. To tap the tips of his fingers against that waiting cinch, his thumb rubbing tauntingly without ever once pushing in, but ah— later.
For he wants to relish the sight of Astarion like this. Undignified. Unkempt— no longer is Astarion the proud figure of before. There's not a trace to be found of that arrogant noble who so loves to toy with his peers, baiting them and teasing them until they're worked up in a frenzy, offering him the attention he so obviously craves. That man is a dignified thing, cold and untouchable in all his sadistic glory. Petty in his power and clever in his manipulations, hungry only to see the world bow before him.
This brat is nothing like that. His body half-exposed and his bearing awkward; his hands freed and yet all of him still utterly trapped. Too weak to push the predator slavering over his form away— and in truth, far too hungry to try. He's no noble now. He's not even the odalisque that idiot outside had been, dignified in his seductive air— oh, no. He's little more than a slut in heat now. A boy all but drooling in his desire, wriggling and twisting as he offers himself up, and all the while still trying desperately to pretend he's every inch the proud lord he presents himself as . . .
They'll fix that soon enough.]
Pretty thing . . . you won't come at all tonight.
[It's a warning and a command all at once, issued as Fenris grabs for Astarion's wrist, twisting his arm back behind him. The other he leaves only for support— and so that his little brat might choose what he wants more. To stop himself from being shoved up against the wall like a common slattern, his cheek pressed against wood and his ear listening to all the drifting voices of his peers . . . or to touch himself. To eke out an orgasm clumsily with his left hand, or at least try.
(For the truth is, Fenris won't let him come. Not tonight. If he has to cinch his fingers around the base of that hefty prick or wrench his hand back, he will— for there's no use in rewarding brats when they act out).
From there, his movements are insulting languid. His fingers fish into Astarion's vest, finding the oil tucked there and flicking it open, drizzling it generously atop his cock. Artificial warmth floods through him, a cloying tingle that he shudders to feel— of course it's laced with aphrodisiacs, and he cannot say he didn't expect it.]
Enjoy this, now. Your reward for all your petty manipulations . . .
[A sudden edge to his rumbling voice as Fenris discards the bottle and grips Astarion's hip. Yanks him back as he presses forward, his cock smearing slickly against that unguarded little hole. Blunt heat presses against it, oil smearing against that cinch as it starts to cede beneath inexorable pressure—
And stops.
Dripping and suddenly untouched, and before Astarion has time to cry out, Fenris' cock slips lower, swiftly forcing itself between pale thighs. Fenris groans low in his throat as lithe muscles squeeze at him so tight, the warmth of Astarion's skin more than enough to sate him— especially as his hips pick up a swift rhythm. His cock slams forward, the blunted crown only occasionally tapping roughly against Astarion's own forgotten hang; again and again he fucks his student's thighs, rutting him with all the inelegant grace of a brute fighter, practical and messy. Oil drips down pale thighs that can't part, the slap of their hips meeting echoing throughout the room— each noise cruel reminder of what Astarion might have gotten, as all the while cold air stings as it drifts over his untouched cinch. Again and again Fenris drags him back as he slams forward, growling low in his throat as he takes his prize— and it's not what he wants, it's not tight heat squeezing his cock, it's not being buried to the hilt in his errant student, claiming him in the most primal way— but it's enough. It's enough, it's enough, every thrust a sharp rebuke against that stupid boy's giggle, every squeeze of Astarion's thighs validation that there is nowhere his student would rather be. Just with me, just with me, Fenris' fingers leaving bruises against fair hips, mine mine mine—]
Is this what you envisioned? Is this what you wanted, little brat? I hope so, for it's all you've earned . . .
[And like this, perhaps, the lesson from teacher to student becomes clear: act out and I still won't give you what you want, little one.]
Joke or not (how he feels that smear of breath across his neck that signals Fenris' self-satisfied smirk— the one that makes Astarion's legs go numb below the knees, yanking his foot back in line against any and all resistance— ) it's the first time in his short life he's been up against the wall with his legs kept intentionally shut; his mouth unused and open in their place, wet with hunger and dry from sucked-in air. Thickslung arousal throbbing from whatever pent-up pressure already streaks along gilt wallpaper, bouncing as it sways sharply back and forth.
He groans to feel his ass lift without his input. Cheek a half-breadth away from scraping its way to a messy sort of bruise.
Fumbling with an open palm that slaps more than it braces; he doesn't have time to think between the footnotes, crying out for the slick across his hole, left damningly abandoned.
He's slipped (his toes slip inside his patent shoes, shoving him— nearly slamming him— against cold plaster on the next reverberating pump of iron hips). Arrogance made him clumsy. Makes him prey when he's a lion's lauded cub: trounced in an empty room and made into a little wriggling furrow for some unimportant servant's perfumed cock. Oh, the talk would ruin if word somehow managed to get out. Fine to be an apex thing that pumps one's length or sates one's cunt on the squealing use of lesser game, for supremacy makes everything viable, but the other way around? That's weakness. That's unworth. That's—
—perfect.
Relentless and perfect. Infuriating and perfect. Violating and demeaning and perfect, perfect, perfect. Tongue shoved against the backs of his own teeth while his head lolls and the world runs white, incapable of blinking. Thinking. Name it and he can't: a rutting hole won't be picky for its use, and ignoring the finery he's dressed in (tailored coat enough to feed a family for months; the leather belt drawing livid welts across his skin that burn like snapping sparks more expensive than a car; his sweatsoaked pants painstakingly stitched by peerless hands, gilt thread unraveling by the second as it frays), that's all he is under hands that feel like sandpaper and glass and heat. Raw, commanding heat. Held steady to the rock-hard thresh of slickness pushing harsh between his thighs over and over the way someone stokes a fire, fierce momentum feathering the underside of plush curves and closing in against his drooling prick, almost enough to— to—
He gets as far as the first bump before his nerves all but shriek in outrage, fever pitch taking him gut-first and using his throat as its conduit: howling like a rabbit seized by its own neck— trying to thrash just as effectively, in fact, meaning only that it isn't. Just a jolt between trapped shoulders. A painful twisting of his arm. He can't see behind him (Fenris a blur of silver-blue and white in the farthest corner of his watering left eye), but he can feel that rhythm keeping pace with the way the room is shifting, and fucking Hells, he's rocking with it. Groaning and mewling and sweating and whining in inglorious near-ecstasy, the narrow little span of his entry grasping at nothing at all between his battered cheeks.
Free hand whipped back to yank nails first at whatever part of his keeper's within reach.]
F— Fen— !!
[Barely a minute in, and Fenris is about to prove himself wrong.
Not about it being what Astarion wants, or what he's even earned, that wicked instigator still choking on his imperious fantasies unmade. Not even about enjoying it, because oh, he's doing that more than he ever thought he could in every vulgar, outright spasming sense. But when the stakes are this high and the friction sweet as liquid sugar to a thing so bloody young— ah.
The slide of it's too much, channeling between his legs. Knocking into his prick (oh, that's what does it in the end: a single, passing nudge struck just beneath his crest).
Astarion comes.
One warning pulse of rippling tension the only sign of what comes next, and if his bodyguard isn't swift enough to tamp it before it starts— ]
And Fenris, for all his talk of before, allows it. It's a split-second impulse, one that pays off in an instant— for Astarion is so pretty as he tumbles headfirst over the edge. His prick (heavy, and Fenris' eyes greedily drink in the sight, heavy and thick and hot, oh, he will relish wrapping his lips around that cock someday) bobs in the air as the force of his orgasm wracks through him. Thick ropes of pearly come splatter messily against the wall in heaving rhythm, drooling down messily from his slit and smearing against pale thighs, as all the while Astarion lets slip the sweetest noises. Mewling moans and ragged cries, sweat lining his forehead as his body goes so rigid in Fenris' arms— oh, it wracks through the whole of him, tip to toe, a shuddering little mess that can't help himself.
Pretty thing. Pretty loud thing; Fenris releases his arm in favor of slipping his hand up, two fingers thrusting into that drooling mouth as it howls its pleasure. And you know, it's a pity to lose all those whimpers and moans&dmash; but there's something fantastic about the wet gurgle of Astarion's voice as calloused fingers flatten his tongue and knock against his teeth.
They stay like that: interlocked, intertwined, Fenris' cock still slowly pumping between pale thighs. Until at last that heavy cock pulses one last time, meager droplets pattering onto the marble beneath them, and all those drooling howls ebb into something softer. He leans forward then, nuzzling sweetly behind the line of one upturned ear, his fingers slowly matching the rhythm of his hips as he languidly claims Astarion's mouth.]
Oh, little noble . . . I forgot how new this must be for you.
[It's the purring delight of a predator who found unexpected prey, the fondness in his tone corrupted by the sadism woven deep within. Fenris chuckles, and it is a mean thing, dark and depthless. All the frustration of the past few weeks thrums within his body; all the humiliation he suffered at Astarion's hands, forgiven but never forgotten, roars up to fuel this mood. Get on your knees and entertain us, oh, arrogant little pup . . .]
Excitable thing . . . is this the first time you've ever been taken like this? Not like a spoiled little princeling who gets to dip his cock in anyone and know they'll beg for more, but like the mewling slut in heat you really are . . .
[His fingers keep pumping into Astarion's mouth, edging deeper and deeper with every slow pulsing push. Heels click rapidly as they pass the doorway, a sharp break to the steady murmur of voices and laughter that lies just a doorspan away.]
Keep quiet, now. My fingers will only muffle so much, and we don't want your precious friends to find you, hm? Ah— they're hunting for you already.
[For the owner of those heels is speaking, and Violet's arrogant tones are impossible to mistake. He can't make out what she's demanding, but it barely matters: it's enough she's near. It's enough that Astarion shivers in his arms, his legs still tied together and his cock drooling in the aftermath of his inelegant denouncement. With a little groan Fenris' hips pick up the pace, the soft slap of skin against skin music to his sadistic ears.]
Perhaps I should let them watch . . .
[(Oh, he would never. He would never, not just because he wouldn't wish such humiliation on anyone, but because he wouldn't do that to his Astarion. But his noble need not know that. He need not know that the door is locked; that Fenris would whisk him away in an instant if need be. Let him squirm. Let him wriggle and writhe and mewl in belated payback for the way he'd made Fenris little more than humiliating spectacle that first night.)]
Freed fingers already scrabbling at Fenris' thighs, his eyes still partway rolled beneath his lids, jaw open and quivering for the next encroaching thrust of coarsegrained fingers (that taste so good— like oaken casks or sandalwood and the crispness prior to a storm), filled up with the scrape of bitter salt dragging hot along the back of his tongue in a rhythm that won't settle, pushing him further and further into the crook of Fenris' waiting shoulder without so much as a breathy, whimpered fuss: every bit of him remolded with senseless ease in the way something wild knows to settle when it's scruffed. And really, what difference is there? Kept upright beneath Fenris' arm and the measure of that rigid cock pushed snug around the bottom of his cheeks: he'd be on the floor if that teetering sense of pleasurable fatigue had its way with him, not that it changes much. His limbs are still limp. His neck's still craning under the pleading urge for more— playing witness to how Fenris fucks steadily into the channel that barely divides his legs— his own spent span splayed across his upper thighs and flush for how it throbs in gravity's harsh grip; he's shuddering under its palpitating aches more than the halfhearted gushes of pearl that languidly crawl down to channel against leather and sore skin in their own time, framing each of those sawing pumps with the sight of everything they've made. Wet between his legs and proven wet behind the ears.
Excitement and exhilaration making him sweet against an onslaught that he purrs for as it tears him into shreds.
Overstimulated. Understoked— all that he can think of is that he's grateful his cock's gone too limp to be of use. That he can't sink further into this game (oh, little elf, how wrong you are....) when the click of heels and familiar voices mingle with Fenris' reverberating chastisement against the shell of his ear, and the low, muffled keen Astarion makes out of contentment (for that's what it is, mistake it for nothing else but that) never makes it past his lips: pumped right back down by the pads of fingers that could crawl into his stomach if they wanted. Into his chest. His heart. His veins. Fuck— he doesn't care, so long as they don't leave; sinking his teeth in cruelly for the overriding burst of a few seconds where his mind stutters hard enough to hurt (to feel beyond wonderful)— swallowing the crook of his knuckles, though that's as far as it goes. Length, alas, only lets fingertips slide so far back, and no matter how he works his throat for more, he can't have it. Can't have anything, in fact, the shuttling of that prick still teasing the underside of him so that he's riled but not close, and yet he could, he thinks— or only realizes, maybe. He could come like this. He could, he could, he could. Just with a little more....and more....and....
(He could.)
To just the patter of those feet and the brace of Fenris' strong chest. To the way his heels are useless: buckled and reduced to a static buzz that underscores every jostle of his overwhelmed cock. To the way he reaches back again, raw momentum leading, to hook his fingers in those pants behind him, twisting against fabric with his pristine nails until they anchor, threatening to break beneath bright lacquer. His mind a roaring blaze of empty heat, dissembling everything into more of that contagious, vacant shriek that cracks between his teeth, welcoming grotesque vulgarity instead of pressure.
And then he—
(Comes.)
Bites down.
Again.
Synaptic crackle searing away minutes (or seconds?) a second, reeling time: sensation sounding like the high-pitched soughing of plastic against metal as it churns inside his skull into a violent snap that he can taste— he's thrashing in his mind and stilling in reality; his cock the only thing that jerks just once, throat a gurgling mess of extant bliss— imagining this, craving this, for exactly what it is. Everything. Everything. Everything he could want and everything he needs, swallowing him pride-first two steps away from his friends. His peers. Ten away from his conquests. Mewling and moaning for the meal he hasn't even had yet that keeps on taunting and tempting him to ruinous despoilment.
So it's the third bite that brings him back enough to sink his figurative fangs in like a twitch of half-strung awareness clinging to fractured reflexes.
A twinge of pressure before his jaws finally clamp tight around thick knuckles, bearing down until they shake. Until his tongue begins to lathe between caught digits in a stumbling pattern. Still whining, still wanting, still heaving on the verge of consciousness itself, but stubborn in it. Unwilling to let go when there's nothing left to give.
Staying latched through trembling palms and working with his own numbed hips no matter how his body screams. He will take this. He will prove he's not some pampered thing in need of service. That he can rut harder. Fight better. The echo of some dark, damp alleyway ringing in his ears alongside the bone-deep shock of orgasm, spurring him against himself. Don't pity him. Don't you dare— ]
[He hisses it against Astarion's ear, his vicious grin all but audible as fledgling fangs sink into calloused flesh. Pain erupts behind Fenris' eyes, a bright white flash that sings up his nerves, piercing right through the pleasure in three sharp rapidfire bursts. And the guiding trick in Fenris' life has always been to learn to love pain— and so it's a slick, low moan that chases after that mocking praise. The shrieking pulse of pain weaves its way into the rhythmic symphony already thundering through his body, pulsing in time with the unrelenting throb of his cock squeezed between lean thighs, the rapid slap of flesh against flesh, all of it only ever growing faster, hotter, hungrier.
And then there's that tongue.
Overheated and sinfully clever as it lathes its way between Fenris' fingers, proving once again that Astarion might be young, but he isn't virginal— oh, no, not with a tongue like that. His lips suckle at Fenris' knuckles as the tip of his tongue teases so pointedly, caressing every whorl along his fingerpads, teasing against old scars and blunted nails. Look what I can do, his charge all but whines, look at how well I could treat you, and far be it for Fenris to ignore such a dexterous show of spirit.]
All that talk about having me get on my knees, but oh, little noble . . . it seems like it might suit you more. Look at how eager you are . . . does it feel good, having that weight on your tongue? Sucking at my fingers as you drool for them— I can feel you salivating, boy, [and trust that's an intentional echo.]
Just think of how much more you could have had.
[The hungry snap of his hips suddenly picks up the pace, his cock thrusting slickly between Astarion's thighs— in and out, in and out . . .]
My cock flattening that pretty tongue of yours— a gag that finally suits you and shuts you up all at once. Sinking so deep in you that I wouldn't just claim your mouth, but your throat: watching you swallow desperately around me, fighting not to gag, for you're far too experienced for that, aren't you? And yet . . . so eager to be dominant. So eager not to get on your knees . . . so perhaps not. Perhaps I'll have to teach you what it is to suck on a prick properly, breaching your throat again and again until at last you learn to take it all . . .
[His tongue drags over the edge of one pointed ear, his teeth sharp as he bites at the tip.]
And that's to say nothing of when I finally fuck you the way you deserve— splitting that little hole of yours open atop my prick and breeding you until you're docile for me— begging me for more even as you drip my come from both ends . . .
[Oh, he's so close. He's so close, his cock pumping so swiftly between those pretty thighs and the fantasy of Astarion drooling with come sharp in his mind's eye, but ah, not yet, not yet. Fenris forces his hips to slow, his cock pumping steadily as he adds with a roughened chuckle:]
His protest lost beneath those fingers, an expert working at his craft and yet unmade by it— vulgarity devouring him alive with avid interest. No, he won't come, he tells himself, denial framed by the thought of rough-edged fingertips replaced by something softer and heavier, expansive in the sweetest sense. Gazing up at that magnificent creature from the center of those legs, knees aching, pulse racing while his fingers pump in and out swiftly (throat bobbing) in obscene shadow, mind numb.
It's running numb again.
Dangerously numb, in fact. Under the sway of temptation and the snap of thrusting hips, he's faltering like there's nothing else besides it to sink into— not victory, not the fight, just bliss and comfortable mockery that curls inside his stomach, telling him to stay. To behave.
Ask anyone and they'll call it impossible a task as ever, convincing the long-impetuous Lord Ancunín to curb his want for someone else's, and what he'd wanted tonight was a grander thought: Leto sucking mouthfuls from his cock in a closed room, already suckled into warming on that bout of prior foreplay he didn't even feel. His stern visage gone obedient and pretty as it sank down to the floor in slow petition, falling prey to the old tried and true tricks kept locked within Astarion's sharp arsenal, left tamed as surely as any bit or bridle would insist— tongue shining white just to pour out of his mouth in drooling patters. Look at what I've done for you. How much I've given you at last.
Instead they aren't even fucking, and he's running out of willpower faster than he's running out of air, albeit by the thinnest margin. He hasn't been touched— not properly. Not like he'd expected. Not like he deserves. His knees taken to shivering for the feeling that they lack while he wrestles just to offer up small pumps of swift manipulation, driving Fenris' thickglazed prick along the slender channel dividing entry and soft swells, his hands shaking, knuckles screaming, nails biting. It's a miracle he hasn't lost his balance in the battle, but maybe he can thank the brace of Fenris' shoulder combined with the thrust of heated fingers for that cruel, humiliating (satisfying) anchor.
The door could swing right open and his friends would never believe it. This isn't how things work. This isn't how he works—
And as he cants himself into the next precipitating buck, imagining every last profane image of himself split wide across what won't even deign to use him in this moment (his body stretched to all its limits, glutted on his guardian's offered signature), all he can think of— the last thing that he thinks, in fact— is that it's perfect.
He wakes up later with a start.
A jolt of sharp awareness that's disorienting, fingers rushing to his mouth, his jaw, his legs—
It's daylight. He's in bed. Clean. Dressed, but only in his sleeping clothes. He doesn't smell like sex or Fenris. Not even that puerile little noble's perfume lingers when he gives his own wrist a perfunctory sniff just to be sure. No. No, just himself.
But it can't have been a dream (it damned well better not have been), glancing around his room for the one person with insight— and barring that (finding Fenris' windowside seat frustratingly vacant), his own phone, searching for messages. Timestamps. Photos. Anything.
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albinomilksnake2023-07-11 12:43 am
no subject
Come here. Come here, now, lie with me, for at this point, he sees no use in resisting. And there's something quite soothing about being able to curl up with someone like this.]
We aren't.
[Mm. He resists the urge to turn and nuzzle against the top of Astarion's head. Or, no, not just that: to turn utterly, lying on his back so that he might gather the other elf up in his arms. But that would be too dangerous tonight, and they have danced on the edge of impropriety as it is. One thing at a time, he tells himself, and tries not to feel the ache in his arms as he rues the loss.]
But decades of watching parties brings its own expertise. My former master did not enjoy frivolities as a rule— certainly you would never catch him dancing, not especially as he got on in years. But he would attend the parties nonetheless, competing in that grand Game you all enjoy so much. As did his father, and his father's father . . . and the styles do not change much. What's fashionable now becomes intriguing once again in a few decades— and there are only so many ways in which one can move their body.
I would stand to the side more often than not. Theoretically, my job was to watch for threats— but as most nights were dull affairs, I watched the dancers instead.
[He wonders if he'd ever seen Astarion at one of those parties. Not as he is now, an elf grown, but as a child: silver hair and gold braid stitching, far more interested in getting his hands on food than the dull going-ons of adults. If so, Fenris does not remember, and gods know Astarion likely doesn't, for who takes heed of slaves? But still. It's an oddly bittersweet thought, and he exhales sharply, trying to dismiss it.
And ah: there's a bit of a weary note in his voice as he adds:]
Tell me you do not attend many.
no subject
And it's methodical and thoughtless in the background of all that musing, the way Astarion compares himself to it, ascertaining absently that there's a difference. (I'm young. I don't keep slaves. I don't hate fun— all the petty, pointless divides that promise— I'm not him.
Does Fenris know that he's not him?)]
Watching isn't the same thing as doing. [Asserts the young rake to the proverbial choir, not even registering what the layout of experience looks like between them anyway (Have you ever been properly fucked, little brat? Have you ever been driven out of your mind? I doubt it.)
Circling the past instead of diving for it, and shifting more onto his side just to tip his view towards the lower end of his guardian's face.]
If you've never actually gone through the motions, you won't do any better than I did shooting a gun.
—what, though? Afraid I'll drag you to every ball and dinner party this side of Faerûn? [Astarion asks, finally letting his mouth slant around his teeth at that final inquisition.]
Because if so: yes.
[Though it's with the sharper nudge of a settled elbow that he adds, mildly:]
But unlike your old master, I know how to have fun.
no subject
[He's surprised to hear the purr in his own voice, richly amused and with just a hint of teasing. It's far more playful than he's ever inclined to be— but gods, being tangled up like this inspires it in him. Having that hand in the dark extended to him, that nuzzling nurturing . . . it broke a wall between them, Fenris thinks. Gods only know what that means for the coming weeks, for they cannot act like this around one another outside of this room, but . . . right now, Fenris does not feel the looming tension and danger of the past few weeks. There's no harm in teasing his charge, not like this.
And maybe it helps, not lingering on the past. Maybe it's nice for once to speak about Danarius without either shuddering in terror or flinching in pain. He's never done it before, and every irreverent, sneering word that slips past his lips is an exercise in freedom. He cannot say the topic does not hurt, for it does, and he can feel the strain already (the urge to speak of him more and the urge to never speak of him tangling up nauseatingly within him, slow to rise but overwhelming in its intensity)— but still, it is a marvel.
Idly, his fingers trace against Astarion's bare skin, curves and whirls that mean nothing.]
But if you're going to threaten me, little noble, do it properly. Do you intend to drag me out on the dance floor at one of these parties? Or merely teach me in some back room and make sport of it?
no subject
(Passing through a crowd with laughter in his throat, paying less than any heed to those ungilded accompaniments while his knuckles curl in silk. The same creature he huddles into now like sunlight rendered as invisible as music to silver eyes, and far less valued in that falsely conjured mind. Just a blot at the corner of his mirthful vision, and behind its blurred out shadow: sad eyes. Hollow cheeks. Laced with placidity and misery in equal doses, unable to even hope for more.)
Rough fingerprints begin to drawl along bare skin, and before he knows it, he's wide awake again.]
I'll teach you here first, daring wolf.
Spare you the public ridicule until you're actually worth the sport.
['I won't touch you', Astarion gritted little over half an hour ago when beckoning his companion into bed. He's breaking that rule in overdrive by jabbing his chin into the thickset muscle over Fenris' shoulder (amongst every other bit of intertwining between fingers and toes and feet), grinning hard enough to cut.]
Your reputation's mine now, too, you know.
1/2
[He doesn't move. A shard of ice ripples through his soul, cutting through his growing fondness and leaving his heart thundering in his chest, and he does not move, not an inch. It's not a conscious choice, but an instinctive one. Fight, flight, or freeze, that's what they always say, and gods know Fenris has been trained to fight— but any slave will tell you that the best instinct to cultivate is freeze.
Freeze, and perhaps whatever master is angry over won't be made worse. Freeze, and they cannot claim any of the rage and grief you always feel has made it to your expression. Freeze, and maybe, just maybe, you'll get out of this intact. Fenris' fingers have stilled, locked in place against Astarion's bare skin; his other hand has stilled, his fingers stiff despite being intertwined.
And he isn't stupid. He knows that Astarion likely meant nothing by the remark. Your reputation is mine now, I can't have you making a fool of us both with your ungainly steps, and it's just another way to continue their conversation, pushing the boundaries gently back and forth. But the word mine works its way under his skin like fiberglass, stinging so sharply that it aches.]
no subject
Fenris needs to act as more than flinching slave.
It's quick, the way he moves: a lightning-fast burst of movement, shifting and twisting his body as he spins to face Astarion, his arms surging forward to wrap around the other elf and tug him in close. Their bodies suddenly aligned (oh, Astarion is so slight compared to him, his body such a fragile thing when grasped with roughened hands), one hand wrapping firm around his torso while the other threads through unruly curls. He doesn't grip so tight it hurts, for he isn't in this to punish— just to command attention, so suddenly and swiftly that Astarion will have no choice but to pay him mind.]
And what of yours is mine, little star?
[Focus, little one. Choose carefully, and it's impossible to read Fenris' expression. There's nothing but intent focus, emerald eyes glinting in the darkness.]
no subject
An exhale— and his lips crack open without breath, silver eyes shivering as their pupils constrict into beaded little pinpricks, the byproduct of terror bred ages ago into his forebearers: alertness meant for unwalled places. Rigidity to counter prey drive, but it doesn't work as well when his own jeweled fingertips lay tight against tanned skin. Everything he provoked through carelessness (the kind he still can't track in hindsight) hunched over him in a corded array of knotwork muscle. His ribcage— that narrow network of threading marrow— made narrower by the steady lock of an arm that feels like steel around his body, keeping him from sucking in full gasps of deadened air.
And those fingerpads....]
I—
[His curls part under pressure. He thinks his legs might, too, though as his cock jerks hot against his thigh it's only his own toes that curl, scrubbing at silk sheets.
He could come from this.
He—
—click— or maybe it's a wetter sound when his tongue unhooks itself from the roof of his mouth, the act of swallowing too noisy to ignore. Tender throat bobbing only once.]
....whatever you want.
[It's not a line. The words have to crawl from his throat to leave his mouth in roughcut shambles, registered like dry silt to his ears. And with the implication of anything his left leg inches higher, nudging in a less-dazed invitation that's as reflexive as a buckled spine or lowered, motionless dedition. The subtle scuff of their trousers pinching round their knees leading into that slight shift in balance. Adding pressure to the notion of surrender through open thighs....and the ensuing rush that drives two pale hands up to fist however they can in white hair set to match. The same breed of boldness as sweat-lined palms locked tight around the grip of a borrowed gun.
He's a fawn. A yearling with velvet on his pallid antlers. A soft-bellied beast laid back— no one's master.
And Fenris is no slave.]
no subject
The room is cool tonight, though the space between them is warm. The muted sounds of the city drift in, but it only serves to highlight the breathless silence that's fallen, and all the little ways in which they puncture it. Ragged breath. Unsubtle swallows. Pale skin gleams in the moonlight, those silver eyes full of fear and longing all at once. A pretty prince caught by a prowling wolf, trembling in lust and anticipation as he waits for his fate to be pronounced. Astarion's body is so slight against his hand, his weight negligible, and Fenris swears he can feel his heartbeat thundering against the palm of his hand, a rapidfire rhythm so heavy that it pulses down his fingertips, echoing in counterpoint to his own.
His eyes slide slowly down, making no secret of the way he drinks in his companion. Lingering on the swell of his lips, the faint shine of spit— and then down further, to the slender line of his neck. The curve of his chest and jut of his ribs (and his hand draws him in a little closer, mine, mine). Then back up again, relishing taking the time to make Astarion squirm.
What will I do with you, little boy . . .
When he moves, it's a deliberate thing.
Calloused fingertips press against pliant skin, urging Astarion to draw even closer. Until there's not a fingerspan of space between them, their bodies pressed up against one another in roughshod intimacy. Astarion's panted breath is hot against Fenris' lips, and he can count every errant freckle across the bridge of his nose.
His other hand slides down, first cupping his cheek, then gently gripping his chin. His thumb presses against Astarion's bottom lip, teasing against the pliant give in one slow, indulgent swipe. And then, before he has time to react—
Fenris kisses him.
Softly. Gently. Their mouths meet with such aching tenderness, and Fenris lingers there, relishing this perfect moment. The feeling of lips against his own, heated and pliant; the dichotomy of their mouths, Fenris' bitten and chapped, Astarion's soft and swollen. The warmth of that lithe body pressed against his own, and the way he's surrounded by Astarion, scent and sensation subsuming him in the sweetest way. An eternity passes, or only a few seconds, and then—
Their mouths part with a soft noise. Fenris stares hazily down at his Astarion, his cheeks flushed and his eyes full of an indescribable longing.]
No.
[Soft. Throaty.]
You do not understand the weight of what you offer me.
[So young, how could he? So rich, how could he? But no one knows the gravity of a word like anything better than a slave. No one knows better what it is to give yourself, all of yourself, to another. Darling little star who offers himself again and again— to get what he wants, to use as base comfort, to even out the score between all the bastards in Fenris' life who have ever taken from him . . .
And it's not about sex (and it is, a little bit). It's about ownership, and possessiveness, and the desperate desire to not become one on a string of dozens, swiftly consumed and spat out when he is no longer a novelty. It's about loneliness and wanting so badly it hurts— and yet knowing that to take now would be to seal himself from it forever.]
I will have all of you, or none of you.
[Throaty. Intent, as his eyes dip down to focus on the curve of those lips just once.]
Tell me again. When you know what it is you offer me . . . tell me again, and I will come running.
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He might not be now either, all truth be told. Not even with his lips left wet and tingling with the pin-and-needle salve of slick saliva left behind, his eyes half-closed behind lids still partway smudged with kohl (he should've wiped it off properly; he never does), dark-stained skin shimmering like an oil slick. Twitching under mounting heat he wishes he could mount. Or surmount. Or—
Or.
Every thought's a stutter. Every reaction sluggish and dense whenever it inevitably finds him, having had to crawl on hands and fumbling knees just to shove at the forefront of his mind over and over again. It leaves him drowsy while he struggles around the shape of embers in his throat and that kiss across his tongue, and gods have pity, it's not his fault that he's combustible as flint. That he's suddenly tempted to cry if he can't have what he wants like a stupid, shameful child; the knot in his chest swollen until it barely fits behind his ribs, making every breath more shallow than the last for the pointless ache of trying (oh, he's forgotten about his racing pulse— about that arm still holding him in its coils: ataxiated mind supplanting reality with superstition). It's not his fault because whatever this is— love or fear or hunger so potent in its distillation that Astarion can't even taste it without buckling— it's unlike anything he's ever put his mouth to before. A counter to the synaptic rush of pleasure solely from a thumb clumsily hitting the right spot or a few words happening to thrill.
Fenris could devour him whole and he'd beg to vanish again and again and again inside that striking maw. Everything in him swears it.
Staring until his eyes hurt. Gawking until his tongue goes raw. He can't shake the thought from his head even as he revels in its irony when it finally sinks beneath his skin: I will have all of you or none of you. A noble lordling enslaved to a slave.
His leg hooks on its own.
He feels the pressure bow before it bears down on their hips in married unison, pushing stiffness against stiffness through the dull scratch of their own trousers. (It takes everything in him not to arch instead of listen). He wants that thumb back. He wants to drive it hard to the back of his own mouth through the rolling of his tongue and the neediness of blunted teeth. He wants to squirm. To writhe. And not because he wants the fun of being caught come sunrise, but because now he wants never to be caught.
Fuck.
Fuck, that his father finally got the better of him without even realizing it.]
....I do know.
[And he hates the way it sounds.
Like begging. Like pleading. Like that too protesting insistence on I can, I am, I know. I'm old enough. Smart enough. Trust me, cries the thing that only looks smaller for asserting. No, not that, then. Not that.]
Fenris— name it. [Anything. Anything. Sensation verging on dictation for just how fervently it presses.] Whatever it is I can do to convince you, it's yours.
[This time he does rub. Hips working. Straining for that kiss like a creature in withdrawal, shaking for more than strain. A trembling that matches the muted rattle of his phone across the nightstand. Don't ignore me.]
I'm yours. Please—
[Please please please—
Tugging on those soft white locks behind subtly downturned ears.]
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Don't, Fenris thinks now, and it is not a refusal, but a last, desperate gasp. Don't, because I cannot resist you, not really, not if you try.
Their hips rub together, dull friction sending sparks shooting through his frame— but though his hips buck in instinctive desire, that isn't what tears at his resolve. Astarion's voice sounds so desperate as he pleads. Not a brat unwilling to accept he won't get his way, no, for that would not sway Fenris. Rather: it's the cry of a person locked away in the darkness for so long, one who has finally had the briefest glimpse of sunlight: please, please, I cannot go back, not again.
He knows that fear. He knows that grief, for some days it feels as if he has spent his entire life silently screaming with that same pain. When you feel as though you're alone in a crowd, and everyone around you is too cruel or hateful or stupid for words . . . and it isn't about being understood, not really. It isn't about being known, or having some special soulmate that reads your thoughts before you've even begun to think. It's about being seen. Listened to.
It's about whispering how miserable you are— and hearing someone whisper that they, too, know that grief.]
Shh— shh, shh—
[Another kiss, shallow and swift. And then another, their mouths meeting clumsily, as he tightens his grip around Astarion's frame. Don't, don't, but can he be blamed for what he takes anyway? Like a drowning man gasping for air, and a few lungfuls surely won't shatter them.]
I am not going anywhere— shh, little star. Settle. I am not leaving.
[The bridge of his nose bumps against Astarion's own, their foreheads pressing together even as Fenris shifts, til he's resting atop his charge. I am not leaving, and he does not try and dissuade those fingers knotted in his hair. I'm here, and it isn't the same as yes— but it's something.
And he'll clarify later. When that racing heart beneath him has settled and there isn't such panic in the room, he'll explain. But for now . . . shh, and the nosing kiss he presses against Astarion's cheek is as much for himself as it is the pale elf.]
Not tonight. Not like this. Trust me, for my age if nothing else— and trust, too, that I want as badly as you do.
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Funny, that.
Like he didn't just pride himself for years now on toying with the lives of his servants, his tutors, his friends— if one could even call them that. Before tonight, he could practically see the puppet strings tied tight around each and every last one his fingers, prompting everyone and everything beneath him to dance. That was the joy of it. The only thing he had aside from pretty clothes. Expensive faff.
Now, they read as something else. So brittle he worries they could snap from even the slightest movement, and his fingertips twitch against a febrile scalp to that same end (feathersoft ribbons of hair knifing at his circulation, digging deeper into his skin), every part of him trying to keep still.
He does trust him. Against everything that screams, he does. But every scuff is incendiary. Subtle waves of coiling breath kiss the edges of his aching lips in ways he wishes their origination would. Centimeters feel like lifetimes. Hot air, hot need, hotter pinpricks of sensation threatening the outline of his vision every time he blinks. Wanting like a blaze. Needing like a yawning pit.
It'll be morning soon.
Not the stroke of midnight, but daylight erasing what this is, when— if he doesn't want to lose whatever they've found (and he doesn't, trust that he doesn't despite all his restless fidgeting)— they have to crawl back into the narrowness of their roles. A noble that doesn't know the smell of sandalwood or sword oil. A guard that keeps his distance with stiffened, cold indifference. For a while they'll go back to being nothing but museums of themselves. Shut doors letting nothing inside escape.
And for a while (no matter how awful that night is, their backs angled towards each other by the end. Frustrated in a way that isn't angry), it works.
For a while, anyway.
'What's his type?' Aurelia asks in that clear-cut way of hers. Two drinks in and already watching Fenris from the corner of her vision.
'As if Astarion would know.' Answers Leon before the high elf can open his mouth, ending with the most narrowed expression imaginable.
'Maybe he doesn't have one.'
Petras, of course. At last.
(At this rate, Astarion's never going to have a chance to actually answer the damned question— which is par for the course for nights like these, actually.) Drink in hand and the party around them mutedly stirring into a later rhythm than the one that came before sunset; respectable enough in theory that even dear Lord Ancunín, pleased to have peace for a scarce few weeks, didn't bother to object to.
'Of course he does. Everyone does.' Violet. Stubborn as ever, and trying to size up the topic of conversation from a distance, as is her usual wont.
'Not everyone.'
Dal.
Who brings a flicker of a smirk to Astarion's lips for that, if only because it's the first time in a good long while she's been wrong.
Fenris does have a type. And it's sitting, for all Astarion's bold, impulsive certainty, right at the heart of this discussion.]
He's going to hear you thirsting from a mile away, if you keep this up. And then none of you will know his type.
['Bullshit.' Snaps Petras around the edge of his drink— following it up with a long pull from a cigarette that (in theory) makes him look older than he is. If he didn't suck on it like a bottle, maybe it actually would.
The smoke from it trailing when he adds with one low cough, 'Bet he loves it when it's forwards.'
That Astarion kicks his chair after that is just coincidence.]
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It's funny, for the attention doesn't bother him quite so much as it normally might. Normally he despises parties like this for just that reason: countless nobles gawking at him as if he's an exotic and delightfully intimidating bit of entertainment, caring not for how their too-loud whispers or pointed objectification makes him feel. The women giggle and the men deride, and though he is too old to be hurt by their comments anymore, still. It makes for a long and unpleasant evening.
And indeed: he isn't happy to feel six sets of eyes burning holes into his frame. But some combination of Astarion's presence and (oh, admit it) their collective age leaves Fenris feeling vaguely amused. They're so obvious in the way they gawk and gossip, and he cannot decide which is worse: the arrogant looking girl who stares at him so coldly (oh, he knows her type: the ones that want to be wanted, and think that he'll be all the more intrigued by her because she doesn't slaver over him), or the pale, petulant boy who keeps sneaking glances at him when he thinks Fenris is unaware (smoking as though he's a practiced hand and nearly burning his fingers in the process). Children, all of them, in general life experience if not true age.
And in the middle of it all: Astarion. Not quite as young as his peers (and there's surely no bias showing there, thank you), but brighter and more vivid than any of them could hope to be. Fenris glances over just in time to see him kick Petras' chair, and despite himself, smiles for just a moment.
Strange to be endeared to the sight of one's charge. Stranger still to realize that, in his own way, he's acting protectively, safeguarding his bodyguard from wagging tongues and cruel jibes.
But that group isn't the only one paying him mind.
'Here's your chance to find out,' Leon says, nodding back towards Fenris. No longer is the bodyguard facing them; instead, his attention has been captured by a tiefling woman who leans up against the wall next to him. Large is the first word that comes to mind when looking at her: tall and broad both, with swelling biceps and thighs tensed with well-honed muscles. One horn peaks out beneath a shock of black hair; the other is broken, the edges filed down and softened.
She speaks animatedly to him, her hands gesturing emphatically in front of her as she tells her story. Loud as she is (attracting no small host of stares, the wealthy elite so disapproving of the help making itself known), it's hard to make out individual words. Gortash, maybe, but then again, maybe not— it's not as if anyone really knows or cares about the name of some arms dealer.
But Fenris seems interested in her. His body is half-turned, his gaze warming as he focuses on her. Occasionally he'll speak, contributing only a little compared to her enthusiastic deluge— but he does not pull away when she grips his shoulder, smiling as she yanks him in closer.
'So he likes women who are stronger,' Violet declares with a judgemental little sniff. 'Figures.'
'It's one conversation,' Dal interjects. Her brow is creased, her expression caught between vague amusement and mild incredulity. 'Just because he's speaking to her doesn't mean—'
'Look at him. He's clearly invested,' Violet argues. 'And isn't he supposed to be looking after you, Astarion? And yet he's distracted.' So there, and she shrugs one shoulder. Takes a sip of her wine— and then, quite pointedly, adds: 'Have you even managed to seduce him yet?'
As if that's some kind of litmus test— but you know, perhaps it is. After all: she's so different than Astarion, and if Fenris seems more interested in one than the other, well. It has to come down to type, doesn't it?
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In other words: everything Astarion isn't.]
Shut up. [He doesn't look at Violet when he snaps it, his eyes boring straight ahead towards the pair against the wall, their bodies angled towards each other in mirrored unison. Bringing himself to blink is like an exercise in trying to unglue his lids, when even a second might mean watching his bodyguard (his bodyguard) tilt a few centimeters closer to her— and farther away from him.]
You saw that I did.
['We saw you cheat and run away with him.' Petras grunts in the middle of stamping out what's left of his cigarette on the side table his chair's still wedged against, clearly taking Violet's side in the debate. 'That's what we all saw. Doesn't count.'
'Could've just walked it off.' Adds Yousen. Neutral only for the way he's stating nothing more than the facts themselves, punctuated by a shrug.
Astarion's eye twitches. A byproduct of his nostril twisting when it flares.
He's seeing red. Literally. Figuratively. And the chatter around him smears accordingly.
'I mean we all know how fast Astarion burns through hired help. If he really did anything, he'd have a new bodyguard already.'
'Maybe the mutt just doesn't care for boys.']
I said. Shut. Up.
['Dalyria's right. Enough, you two.' Leon cuts through at last like yet one more voice of reason, recognizing the bolded outline of Astarion's telltale temper burning hotter than the Hellish eyes he's watching from across the room.
The problem is he adds, unkindly: 'It's bad form to pick on children.'
And like a viper, Astarion's lunged over his knees in his seat, baring contempt in lieu of fangs. Something that'd be more effective if he had a target for it; the pack's turned against him, he realizes too late.]
I could hire someone to kill you and they'd never find the body—
['Ooh. Such words from a Magistrate.' Pale petras shivers, eliciting a rumbling chuckle from at least half the present party, though it dithers in at least a few specific margins.
The point is, however long it takes, by the time Leto shores up any lingering conversation, that circle of waiting silhouettes will be missing one.
The one he's meant to be guarding.
'No luck, Fenris?' Asks one pale not-elf from where he's sprawled himself in drinking— boots up, ankles crossed— over two adjacent seats, now. Head resting on the edge of Violet's shoulder. Hard to say which of the lot is vying harder for Fenris' attention on return.
Little songbirds straining on a sill.]
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Though frankly, Fenris thinks as he approaches that wolf pack in noble attire, even if he was utterly convinced that was why Astarion ran off, he still would keep it to himself. He does not like Astarion's friends. Likely he'll never like any of them individually (except maybe Dalyria, and even then, he likes her for her ability to hold her tongue more than anything), but gods, he especially despises them when they're together. There's such an air of sneering, airy judgement about them— childish compared to Danarius and his ilk, but all the more vicious for it. They've nothing to blunt their teeth upon just yet, and so they turn upon one another— or any other luckless victim too powerless to properly fight back.
It's not that Fenris is intimidated as he stands before them. Even if he was, he's too practiced at making his face stone to give away any hint of anxiety or fear. But it's uncomfortable watching them watch him. Hunger in their gaze and nothing but malicious sport in their hearts— and no matter what he says or does next, there's nothing that can save him from it.
But really, what can they do? Actually do? Not much. They can't bed him, not without earning not just Astarion's wrath, but that of his father. They can't bully him into running some embarrassing errand, or force him to get drunk . . . all they have is their words, and what can they say that hasn't already been whispered in Fenris' ear? How far down does that lyrium go, what a savage beast, what a thrilling bit of sport, oh, he's heard it all. So what's there to be afraid of?
He wishes that thought helped.]
Luck?
[He regrets it the moment it slips past his lips, but the question takes him by surprise. There's smirks all around— and despite himself, despite all that he'd just assured himself on, still, Fenris feels a rush of hot embarrassment. He isn't stupid, but this lot will take his question as proof of it nonetheless.
'Yes, luck,' Violet drawls. Her head tips back, her hair tossed artfully over her free shoulder. 'From your little conquest— well. I say little . . .'
'We had a debate, you see.' Petras again, his words slow but deliberate. 'On what your type was. Astarion seemed confident he knew it, but then again . . . perhaps he didn't count on you having a taste for the strong, savage type.'
And the puzzle pieces fall into place. Fenris exhales slowly, his mouth thinning as he glances around the room. There's no shock of white hair that pops out immediately, but then again, this estate is a grand thing. There's plenty of rooms where he might be hiding.]
Where is he?
['Settle our argument first,' Violet commands— and it is a command, snapped out so effortlessly that Fenris feels his spine instinctively straighten. 'Did you end up bedding him? He keeps telling us you did.']
I—
[He knows why Astarion asserts that. He really does. It's so easy to lose standing among your peers no matter who they are, and this lot is the worst of them. Of course he said such a thing; there's no advantage to admitting that all you did was jerk off in an alley.
But suddenly Fenris is tired of this. These stupid games played by these idiotic children who have nothing better to do than endlessly speculate . . . well, let them. But there's nothing that says Fenris need play along.
Still: their eyes are gleaming. Still: they hang on to his every word, and will only laugh in spiteful mockery if he simply stalks off. And chalk it up to Astarion's influence, maybe, or his own newfound freedom— but Fenris feels something in him quietly snap.]
It was not a conquest. Simply because you six have little else going on in your lives beyond lustful machinations does not mean the rest of us do. And as for your argument—
[Gods. He hesitates for half a moment before finally continuing abruptly:]
— settle it yourselves. You have little else going on tonight.
[It won't win any awards for cleverest comeback of the year, but on the other hand, it's deeply satisfying to say. And certainly not what they expected: Violet's expression snaps into shocked indigence, while Petras (to his mild credit) snorts at that bucking bit of backtalk. Fenris doesn't bother to check the rest, turning on his heel and heading for the door.
The party spills into countless rooms, some more quiet than others. It takes him a few tries before he finds Astarion. His charge is sprawled in a chair in the middle of the room, a drained glass at his side and more than a few people gathered around him, chattering and laughing at something he says. And in his lap—
The son of the host himself, and oh, what a pretty thing he is. Giggling as he leans in to whisper in Astarion's ear, his cheeks flushed beneath tanned skin and teeth so white they gleam. A darling, daring little thing, drunk off champagne and all the bolder for it.
And it's all Fenris can do not to stalk over and tear the boy's throat out.
Somehow, impossibly, he makes his way over to a nearby wall. It's a miracle he doesn't bump into anyone, for he refuses to take his eyes off the sight of Astarion and this boy. This child, this drunken idiot who thinks it's the height of coy cleverness to splay his fingers against Astarion's chest, loudly admiring the supposed detailing on his buttons.
And unlike last time, he's no leave to grab Astarion and march him out. A bit of unsubtle flirting isn't enough to warrant any kind of scolding. And so he simply stands there, seething silently, his expression stone and his eyes thunderous, glaring fiercely at the brat in his brat's lap.
But oh— he has leave to say something, doesn't he? Innocuous and not untrue, and it's a flimsy excuse, but he'll take what he can get. His jaw clenched, Fenris slips between partygoers, glaring down at his errant charge.]
You should have told me you were leaving the room.
[There's a thousand statements layered beneath that, jealous and seething, angry and upset— but to the guests around them, he simply appears like an overly serious bodyguard. Enthusiastic, yes, but not particularly inappropriate.]
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First: Petras gasping in cold shock after his snort wears away, Violet's settled outline still planted partway underneath him with increasingly stiffened contours: her slackened anger the picture of a fish somehow drowning in its native stream, petty counterpart to his bemused incredulity with the rest of the group following suit.
'Can he do that?' A question to which no one present has a definitive answer for once asked. Something that, in a way, makes it an answer unto itself (though it'll take them the better part of the next hour to reach that same conclusion in a somewhat drink-addled deliberation between adolescent hearts).
Second: Astarion.
Drawing den a charcoal map of pipesmoke and half-lit walls while something bassy plays on loop in either this room or the next; his audience thicker than the atmosphere that flanks him, more amenable than the cocksure pack he'd left behind. More willing to be regaled, particularly when the one talking isn't shy about making it a show.
Not to mention the weight on his lap's a pleasant distraction when he otherwise lacks for it in the minutes before footsteps pad close enough to break relative silence. Tangled friction lending itself to a sense of acclimated control that— like a drug— quenches the restlessness in his veins: inflamed jealousy already fading into pleasant numbness under the places where clothed bodies meet, embracing the delicate care of those fingers as they move to fuss along his buttons (ignoring that same attention when the drunken little thing strains higher every now and then, trying to fit spice-scented lips against his own). A game, not a rejection. Why let fantasy hold the reins? This isn't about neophytic love, after all, no matter what his catch might think with every soft attempt to kiss— all redirected to Astarion's neck or cheek or shoulder through tepid tilts of his own head, and like the good little find the host's son is, he obediently takes to it with lavish capitulation (he is a darling little thing. So well behaved. Astarion could free his cock from his trousers right now and tease him to orgasm in front of every set of eyes in the room, and he'd no doubt purr for more).
Which makes this conversation easier, actually.
Left free to frame his focus around that pretty patriar's shoulder while dull teeth nip and worry at his throat, smelling of brandy and too much wine. The ensuing sight of Fenris (oh, still handsome as ever when dark brows shadow green eyes in rage), bristling like a taphouse cat and snapping out sharp irritations that only curl that much sweeter within Astarion's own embittered gut. Different day, same old, destructive habit: l'appel du vide— he likes the attention more than he cares about its type.
Matting its hedonistic spite with a palm slid along the inline of spread legs starting at the knee just to feel fine threadwork pull. His every blink slow. Smolderingly placid. A half-smile on his lips.
Oh.
Hello, Fenris.]
You were busy, last I checked.
[As Astarion is busy now.
Thumb squeezed into the junction between thigh and inseam— punctuated by a panting moan— the slight thing in his lap curled higher.]
Besides— you found me, anyway.
[Didn't you?]
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Petulant little brat. One night between them had done wonders to improve Fenris' opinion of his charge, but he is a fool to be shocked by this behavior. Astarion is cut from the same cloth as that wolf pack he calls a social circle, after all, and his mannerisms and impulses are just the same as any of them. He's not used to being told no. He's not accustomed to the prickle of unpleasant emotions (at least as far as Fenris knows, and someday he'll learn better). He struts boldly and acts out in an audacious manner, for he knows just what will garner him attention. But gods, the ploy isn't subtle. It's laughably clumsy, a child's stamping foot translated into a more salacious act. I saw you talking to someone else— well, I've found someone else too, now aren't you jealous? It's pathetic.
The trouble is: it's working.
Never mind that it's unfair. Never mind that this is all a misunderstanding. Never mind even the fact that Astarion really ought to behave like this, lest everyone wonder why the notoriously hungry heir to the Ancunín name has suddenly gone celibate. Right now Fenris can't think. There's a tiny voice in the back of his mind roaring to be heard, listing out all the reasons he ought to just walk away and show Astarion that this ploy isn't working—
But he can't. Not when the sight of Astarion's hand slipping between slender thighs sears itself into his mind's eye; when the sound of that excitable little moan (pathetic, a pent-up little slut of a boy that's too stupid to know he's nothing more than a prop in a larger play, oh, Fenris is scathing in his thoughts) echoes endlessly in his ears. He can't leave and he can't bear to stay— and so he stands there, jealousy and anger pulsing through his body with every thundering beat of his heart.]
I was speaking to a friend, yes.
[A friend, though he isn't so obvious as to emphasize the word. His glare does that for him.]
Yours are looking for you. Perhaps you should—
['He's needed here,' the boy declares. His head is still tipped towards Astarion, reddened lips lingering against his skin. Liquor makes the edges of his words slur softly, but there's no mistaking the amusement in his tone.]
Be that as it may—
[The boy scoffs as he turns, nosing needily at Astarion's neck. 'Do you always let your bodyguard order you around like this? He seems more nursemaid than protector . . . unless he's trying to keep you safe from me.' A drunken laugh, low and hungry, as the boy arches his back and presses himself against Astarion's hand.
It's all Fenris can do not to roll his eyes. But his attention is fixated on Astarion, refusing to divert for even a moment. Stop it, and the thought echoes seethingly in his mind, a snarling command that he longs to enact. Two strides forward, yanking that boy out of his charge's lap so he might haul him out of the room (just as he had at that party), and then—
A wall. An alcove. A brutal undressing as their mouths met, expensive cloth tearing and buttons clattering as they hit the floor. Astarion's goading laughter melting into breathless whines as Fenris spins him around and pins him there, making him tremble as he waits for blunt heat to spread him open and fill him up the way he craves—
Over and over, fucking into him with all the blunt brutality of a beast. Until that arrogant composure doesn't just melt but shatters, Astarion's voice breaking as he cries out again and again. His own cock untouched and his writhing growing desperate, until at last he pleads, slick-mouthed and desperate (Fenris please, and he knows what that pretty voice sounds like when it begs). Touch me, please touch me, and he will. He will. The palm of his hand striking at supple curves over and over, teaching his little brat exactly what a foolish idea it was to ever underestimate his bodyguard. Until his ass is bright red from abuse; until even the slow, steady slap of their bodies meeting is enough to leave him trembling in painful aftershocks. Until he learns his lesson, and can repeat it back with wet eyes and a drooling cock: I won't play games, not with you.
And then he'd fuck him again.
Over and over, pistoning in and out of that tight little cinch til his cock is streaked with pearl; until Astarion's thighs are shaking with desire, his back arched and his eyes unfocused, so thoroughly intent on being bred that he's forgotten his own pleasure. Until at last the roaring rage and jealousy simmers down with Fenris, and he's left with a pliant, pretty little charge once more . . .
. . . who will take nothing from that lesson save that acting out gets him exactly the kind of treatment he longs for.
Fenris' tongue runs over his teeth, a swift motion.]
. . . find me when you are ready to depart, then.
[His voice is pitched lower, his tenor's tone gone rough and gravely from his thoughts. He wonders if Astarion can guess at them. He wonders if Astarion knows just how frayed Fenris' self-control truly is.
(He wonders, quietly and without really wondering at all, if Astarion cares overly much for how his newfound companion just spoke to him).]
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[Astarion hums quietly to the lordling in his lap, directly addressing an earlobe— or the soft muscle of his conquest's jaw— obeying the law of the figurative jungle to keep from spoiling the first real taste of freedom he's had in weeks: answer the patriar, shun the hireling, but it's only his wicked mouth that pays its respects. Only his teeth, his tongue, his throat and attached lungs, and the crooked pressure of his fingers—
His eyes are drawn to Fenris.
The rest of him is, too.
Unreadable. Lidded. Unmoving as his own mouth after those murmurs, caught in a half-blink that never closes, only twitches. Watching the only creature that watches him rather than the show he's putting on: Fenris, who stands there and implores his reckless charge. Fenris, who's stubborn enough to linger stock-still with both fists balled at his sides, letting his teeth grit across themselves to howl out everything he can't.
The problem is, there's not enough smoke in the world to make them psychic, let alone this room. (Or maybe that's the point.)
Whatever Fenris is thinking of, Astarion doesn't seem to notice: the word friend elicits nothing between languid, palming strokes, and no verbal reply slips in either— just something passing for a nod that languidly tilts the little pale elf's head more than it angles it in acknowledgment. He'll find him in the end no doubt, like a coat or a checked wallet; an accessory doesn't warrant anything else in a place like this. (So go on, then. Stay and watch or leave and pretend it isn't happening.)
And in the interim: fingers fist tighter in the other boy's hair. A giddy laugh erupting from that splash of pain as it likely catches in his belly, high and heady and slurred. Sweet as the alcohol he's drunk on, and barely anything but dazed.
And the farther away Fenris gets, Astarion grows mean.]
Look at you.
[An offered command, not commentary. Look down. Look at how you're enjoying this.]
Performing in front of everyone like some common whore. Does your mother know you're the entertainment? [How he palms at him. How he tugs, ensuring fabric's just an afterthought when he can still fully wrap his hand around a swollen, straining little cock (already leaking for all its worth beneath richly tailored silk if sight is any indication: grey threadwork stained two shades darker, and coursing headlong for coalish black), no part taken to fighting back.]
Should I tell her what you're doing?
[Time drags as conversation's relegated to little whispers that flit around them, struggling to ignore the filth he fits against that young thing's mouth in lieu of the kisses that it tirelessly continues straining for, always hungrily swallowing the next best thing. If not love: humiliation. If not flattery: crude debasement in front of a salivating crowd that tries— and always fails— not to give that fact away.
Astarion knows the boy's name through hearsay; he never once uses it.
The thing spread out in his lap till rucked clothing strains to rip. Angled directly towards that not-so-distant shadow in the corner, rather than his highborne flock: slender back arched high, sloped backwards— every inch of that graceful body poured over Astarion's shoulder, down along his chest, his stomach, his legs— caught around the front of his neck with a single, pallid hand that looks like smooth marble against pinched skin, dimpling it through the force it takes to pull him closer. To make grinding the only option left (because he is grinding, that ensnared patriar. Made to play the captive odalisque while Astarion hisses in his ear):]
If you can keep from coming in your pants, you cockstarved little slut, I might just offer you a treat next time I see you.
....and we can all take bets on how long you hold your breath. [Boldness that on any other night would end with a sucked prick and a heeled shoe to shove him off once finished, Astarion's hunt ending with a worthwhile prize.
He's close, now.
He's so close.
Instead— ]
—Ready to go?
[Lord Ancunín asks with a flash of teeth as he pulls away, his hands briefly planted on the wall on either side of the moon elf's hips— warmth from all that lavish friction still radiating through his palms in a way Fenris can very nearly feel— and then does feel, once the high elf catches his wrist to pull him towards the door. Prowling like a cat on weightless strides.
('Wait—'
That disheveled (and-yet-entirely-unfinished) little patriar calls out before a few of the other guests catch him with a tepid laugh, urging him to stay sitting before he cracks his own head stumbling across the room in pursuit of the two silhouettes taking their leave.)
It's probably no shock to confess that they don't wait.]
no subject
It's a fervent thought whispered in the back of his mind as Fenris stares at Astarion's little display. Not a coherent one, and certainly not one he wants to have, but there nonetheless. As a lithe figure twists and writhes beneath clever fingers and the most whorish little moans drift from across the room to slip into pointed ears— don't stop, hoarse and hungry, drifting like lightning beneath the scarlet and black frustration coursing through him.
It's too easy to imagine himself in the same position.
He doesn't want to. He wants to linger in that dominant role, relishing the fantasy of hauling Astarion off and fucking him into shrieking, drooling compliance, docile once he's filled and kept warm with a body full of come. He wants to think about how he'll drag Astarion over his knee for this little stunt, palms striking at his cheeks until he sobs for forgiveness; he wants to think about tying his lord to his bed and putting his tongue to him until he comes untouched. Merciless, and yet not cruel, teaching this uppity noble what it means to truly give himself over to pleasure . . .
And he does want to. And he will.
But something deep in the pit of Fenris' stomach jerks as Astarion's voice cuts through the air. If you can keep from coming in your pants, you cockstarved little slut— and the rest doesn't matter, for those words are more than enough to wipe his mind blank. His mouth goes dry as heat floods through him— and it's not like before. It's not like the desire he had when they were in bed together, nor even at the gun range. Those were mere candles in the dark compared to the sudden inferno that's caught him— inflamed him, his knees weak and his cock heavy and hard, rigid against his leg (and thank gods for a long jacket).
He wants to be that boy. The realization strikes at him even as something in him curdles at the thought, loathing it (loathing himself) for even having it. He shouldn't want Astarion— at least not like this. Not when he's mean and merciless and cruel, spiteful in his arrogance and awful in his mannerisms . . . it's everything Fenris hates. It's the exact opposite of that lonely boy he'd held close nights ago, the one who'd reached out and ignored reality in favor of companionship (it's not fair, and there will never be a day when he doesn't hear the echo of those words in the back of his mind).
But lust doesn't listen to sense, and the fantasy that arises pulses through him: Astarion, arrogant and beautiful, perched upon his mattress with a leash drawn taut in one hand and his cock in the other, drawling out such a filthy thing. Staring at his bodyguard who strains stubbornly at the collar locked around his throat— and yet who stares and pants and drools for the overheated prick hanging just out of reach. Letting him taste the agony of being forced into patience for once, scorning him for his lust even as he deigns to sate it, such a good boy, now show me your tongue—
Fuck.
He's still half-hard when Astarion sets his hands on his hips. Still fuming and furious when he takes him by the wrist, and yet his skin still sings with the echo of that warmth. Lingering against his hips, his wrist, and it's telling that he doesn't wrench his arm back until they're well outside that smoking room. Then it's a fist grabbing that silk shirt, yanking it roughly to one side as he hauls Astarion into an empty room— come here, a seething hiss as he slams the door shut behind them, shoving Astarion up against the wall with a growl.]
Are you satisfied with yourself?
[Silk creaks warningly within his fist as he grips it too tightly; his other hand grabs for Astarion's hip, pinning him flat against the wall. Don't you dare move.]
Showing off to everyone— and for what? Because you were bored? Because they goaded you?
[No, this won't do— with a growl he spins him around, shoving him face-first against the wooden beam— no moving, no squirming, and a heavy hand pressed against the flat of his back ensures that his prey stays still. Astarion's back arches, his pert little ass sticking out— and oh, far be it for Fenris to resist looking. Soft and supple, and those leather trousers do nothing to conceal what lies beneath . . .
His next swallow is audible.]
Or are you so desperate to be touched you'll take any slut who offers?
[Mine, and the possessive howling in his heart drowns out any good sense he might have. Mine you're mine you're meant to be mine, and only later will he hear the hurt beneath the anger. He crowds forward, forcing Astarion flat against the wall as he shields him and pins him all at once— stay put, his breath ghosting hot against the line of Astarion's ear. Don't move as his hands reach down, finding Astarion's own and pinning them up against the wall. Obedient thing whispered roughly as Fenris rocks his hips forward— and grinds.
Again and again, slowly and yet all the more deliberate for it: a hot, heavy rut as his cock fits between supple cheeks, eagerly claiming every inch of what Astarion cedes to him. There's two layers between them, but Fenris swears he can still feel heat radiating off of the younger elf— all the lust from before still coiling in him, perhaps, and the thought only spurs Fenris on further, his next movement a mean snap of his hips as he presses as far in as those trousers will allow. Deeper, deeper, his cock aching to reach that tight little cinch, precome soaking into the fabric of his boxers as he strains— and then back. Back to that slow, deliberate rhythm, using Astarion's body just to satisfy himself.
And it's such a selfish motion, for there's no thought given to poor Astarion's straining prick, oh, no. Pinned flat between the wall and his belly, and there's not a chance that Fenris will let him reach for it— oh, no, not tonight. Not when he's proven to be so good at teasing others— petty little thing, surely he can handle being on the other side. Again and again, his eyes fluttering as his fingers tighten and loosen in echoing rhythm, his harsh breathing melting into a rumbling groan more felt than heard.]
I am not in the habit of sharing, my charge . . .
[My brat. My elf. Mine, mine, mine . . .]
no subject
He's drenched in Fenris' shadow before he knows where he is. Snapped up against a featureless wall, barely visible, subsumption doesn't even begin to cover the sight of them (it covers all of him outside the twitching span of pale white fingers, pink flush staining their useless tips and spreading lower every second, angling for the places where they meet). And in the other room someone's whining loudly for attention. In the other room someone's wishing for what Fenris has caught between his jaws— or more accurately: what Astarion has. Its audible memory loitering dangerously nearby, feet planted in the present through the thinnest barrier of a dividing wall, muffled voices crawling through plaster and dense-carved polished wood, scraped hard against the shell of Astarion's own ear.
(Don't stop.)
—oh.
Oh.
The winding breed of depravity that'd circled Astarion's mind long before the door snapped shut catches like a spark again and again and again inside his belly for every milestone they blaze past in a roiling blur of frustration. Seconds doing the work of minutes to rearrange them both and yank him higher into outpours of groaning lust already well-incited: jagged and cruel and sweeter than the most expensive wine— punctuating a point he'd only half-imagined under his own bedding until now.
How he loves to be his.
It hits him hard enough to blank his senses in that first, degrading push. It glazes his eyes on the second, dragging bluntness fitfully seeking shelter in the tangle of tight cloth as it wrinkles until it snags rough across his obscured cinch— yes yes yes. Like that. Just like that, gods, please— too much and not enough: he's wanted this from the second he saw Fenris talking to that woman. From weeks ago, in fact, dark wine staining at his lips while he stood on fine carpet and sized up gold-green eyes. Obedient thing is right (and he's glad not to have a choice when those growls wash over his curls in close proximity), considering he does everything he can right down to the rounding of his spine to draw it in with only centimeters to his name. Answering with his own vulgar moan for pressure he could swim in, and proud to play the part better than the patriar he'd had in his arms not two minutes ago, working at like tinder. Trying to catch a spark at a distance.
A long shot.
One that paid off, as it so happens.
(His laugh is a low, razed thing. It shudders in between his shoulder blades to the sound of rustling fabric twisting. Creaking.)]
So you say— but you couldn't stop staring, could you?
[Oh, it's a growl of his own. The nastiest cast to a voice that can't quite match Fenris' rumble, though it's enviably sharp, and only just cut through by panting breaths.]
You're....you're salivating, old man.
....I can hear it.
[He's braced against the wall so tight— no, he's pinned, his cock squirming anxiously against his inseam (his belly) each and every time those bucks dig harder, wringing the air out of his lungs with roughened groans. Barely able to keep himself upright against pressure that has him seeing stars by the end of every blink.
And yet he makes the stupid choice (it isn't a choice) to hook his left ankle back around Fenris' own, twisting his leg to draw his guardian in when there's nothing else left to spare. Goading him the only way he knows how when agency might as well be back in the other room with that heaving little patriar.]
Maybe you should slow down. [The soft, dry click of licked lips, before:] Get a drink.
We wouldn't want you to overexert yourself just— to rut against a pair of pants like the starving thing you are. [He has to be creative. He has to make it count, through the rucking of his trousers and the knitted prickle of his sock set to scraping in the narrow gap it offers: as prudish an invitation as his father's father's courtship (all wound up in the wrists; the ankles), with a still-clothed prick sunk thick between his cheeks and stalking for slick prey.
He tries to pull at that grip (fuck, he's strong). He tries to twist or arch or buck to unclasp the measure of his waistband (fuck, he's pinned too tight), his features scuffing at the wall like a lover all the while, sore and cold against hot skin. Cheeks stinging for its scratch. And yet— and yet and yet and yet— it's intoxicating.
He'd never expected the bait to work so well, but....]
Put yourself on your knees....and I'll let you do to me what I left him panting for.
[Come on, wolf.
Come on.]
no subject
But it amuses. This arrogant pup strutting around on paws too big for him, barking loudly as he tries to pretend he's won . . . Fenris chuckles breathlessly against the sharp line of Astarion's ear, his teeth gleaming in the darkness.]
What an offer.
[Emphasis punctuated by the slow roll of his hips.]
Get to your knees and I will grant you the honor of sucking my cock . . . little noble, your seduction needs work. That kind of offer might fly in these gilded halls among your peers, but you'll have to do better than that if you want to see me on my knees.
[Not tonight, though. Cold air rushes between Astarion's frame and the wall as Fenris draws him back by an inch— just far enough for him to slip deft fingers against his slender frame. Blindly he plucks at his belt buckle, uncinching it swiftly and shoving Astarion's trousers down to his mid-thigh. His cock springs out, heavy heat brushing against the back of his knuckles, and it's so tempting to take it in his palm, to squeeze and stroke and tease—
Instead, Fenris yanks hard at Astarion's belt, cinching it as tight as it will go around pale thighs. It's little more than a makeshift binding, crude but effective, forcing him to keep his legs firmly closed (and trust that there's a smirk on Fenris' lips, the joke too obvious to bother saying aloud). Then that same hand plants itself against Astarion's back, inexorable force urging his back into a sharp arch, his ass pushing out even as his face is pressed closer against the wall— just like that, Fenris whispers, and grips his hips tightly even as he steps back.
And oh, what a sight he makes.
Fenris' charge is a vain thing, but that vanity is well earned— for the sight of him half-naked and trembling leaves Fenris breathless, the air rushing out of his lungs in one harsh burst. His mouth goes dry, his eyes locked on the sight before him: pale skin all but glowing in the darkness, his ass so perfectly pliant before him. Almost in a daze he gropes at him, tanned fingers digging into soft flesh and squeezing hungrily as it melts beneath his palm. He spreads one cheek open, his eyes locking on to the sight of that tight little hole— gods, and it takes everything in him not to tease. To tap the tips of his fingers against that waiting cinch, his thumb rubbing tauntingly without ever once pushing in, but ah— later.
For he wants to relish the sight of Astarion like this. Undignified. Unkempt— no longer is Astarion the proud figure of before. There's not a trace to be found of that arrogant noble who so loves to toy with his peers, baiting them and teasing them until they're worked up in a frenzy, offering him the attention he so obviously craves. That man is a dignified thing, cold and untouchable in all his sadistic glory. Petty in his power and clever in his manipulations, hungry only to see the world bow before him.
This brat is nothing like that. His body half-exposed and his bearing awkward; his hands freed and yet all of him still utterly trapped. Too weak to push the predator slavering over his form away— and in truth, far too hungry to try. He's no noble now. He's not even the odalisque that idiot outside had been, dignified in his seductive air— oh, no. He's little more than a slut in heat now. A boy all but drooling in his desire, wriggling and twisting as he offers himself up, and all the while still trying desperately to pretend he's every inch the proud lord he presents himself as . . .
They'll fix that soon enough.]
Pretty thing . . . you won't come at all tonight.
[It's a warning and a command all at once, issued as Fenris grabs for Astarion's wrist, twisting his arm back behind him. The other he leaves only for support— and so that his little brat might choose what he wants more. To stop himself from being shoved up against the wall like a common slattern, his cheek pressed against wood and his ear listening to all the drifting voices of his peers . . . or to touch himself. To eke out an orgasm clumsily with his left hand, or at least try.
(For the truth is, Fenris won't let him come. Not tonight. If he has to cinch his fingers around the base of that hefty prick or wrench his hand back, he will— for there's no use in rewarding brats when they act out).
From there, his movements are insulting languid. His fingers fish into Astarion's vest, finding the oil tucked there and flicking it open, drizzling it generously atop his cock. Artificial warmth floods through him, a cloying tingle that he shudders to feel— of course it's laced with aphrodisiacs, and he cannot say he didn't expect it.]
Enjoy this, now. Your reward for all your petty manipulations . . .
[A sudden edge to his rumbling voice as Fenris discards the bottle and grips Astarion's hip. Yanks him back as he presses forward, his cock smearing slickly against that unguarded little hole. Blunt heat presses against it, oil smearing against that cinch as it starts to cede beneath inexorable pressure—
And stops.
Dripping and suddenly untouched, and before Astarion has time to cry out, Fenris' cock slips lower, swiftly forcing itself between pale thighs. Fenris groans low in his throat as lithe muscles squeeze at him so tight, the warmth of Astarion's skin more than enough to sate him— especially as his hips pick up a swift rhythm. His cock slams forward, the blunted crown only occasionally tapping roughly against Astarion's own forgotten hang; again and again he fucks his student's thighs, rutting him with all the inelegant grace of a brute fighter, practical and messy. Oil drips down pale thighs that can't part, the slap of their hips meeting echoing throughout the room— each noise cruel reminder of what Astarion might have gotten, as all the while cold air stings as it drifts over his untouched cinch. Again and again Fenris drags him back as he slams forward, growling low in his throat as he takes his prize— and it's not what he wants, it's not tight heat squeezing his cock, it's not being buried to the hilt in his errant student, claiming him in the most primal way— but it's enough. It's enough, it's enough, every thrust a sharp rebuke against that stupid boy's giggle, every squeeze of Astarion's thighs validation that there is nowhere his student would rather be. Just with me, just with me, Fenris' fingers leaving bruises against fair hips, mine mine mine—]
Is this what you envisioned? Is this what you wanted, little brat? I hope so, for it's all you've earned . . .
[And like this, perhaps, the lesson from teacher to student becomes clear: act out and I still won't give you what you want, little one.]
no subject
No—
Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck—
Joke or not (how he feels that smear of breath across his neck that signals Fenris' self-satisfied smirk— the one that makes Astarion's legs go numb below the knees, yanking his foot back in line against any and all resistance— ) it's the first time in his short life he's been up against the wall with his legs kept intentionally shut; his mouth unused and open in their place, wet with hunger and dry from sucked-in air. Thickslung arousal throbbing from whatever pent-up pressure already streaks along gilt wallpaper, bouncing as it sways sharply back and forth.
He groans to feel his ass lift without his input. Cheek a half-breadth away from scraping its way to a messy sort of bruise.
Fumbling with an open palm that slaps more than it braces; he doesn't have time to think between the footnotes, crying out for the slick across his hole, left damningly abandoned.
He's slipped (his toes slip inside his patent shoes, shoving him— nearly slamming him— against cold plaster on the next reverberating pump of iron hips). Arrogance made him clumsy. Makes him prey when he's a lion's lauded cub: trounced in an empty room and made into a little wriggling furrow for some unimportant servant's perfumed cock. Oh, the talk would ruin if word somehow managed to get out. Fine to be an apex thing that pumps one's length or sates one's cunt on the squealing use of lesser game, for supremacy makes everything viable, but the other way around? That's weakness. That's unworth. That's—
—perfect.
Relentless and perfect. Infuriating and perfect. Violating and demeaning and perfect, perfect, perfect. Tongue shoved against the backs of his own teeth while his head lolls and the world runs white, incapable of blinking. Thinking. Name it and he can't: a rutting hole won't be picky for its use, and ignoring the finery he's dressed in (tailored coat enough to feed a family for months; the leather belt drawing livid welts across his skin that burn like snapping sparks more expensive than a car; his sweatsoaked pants painstakingly stitched by peerless hands, gilt thread unraveling by the second as it frays), that's all he is under hands that feel like sandpaper and glass and heat. Raw, commanding heat. Held steady to the rock-hard thresh of slickness pushing harsh between his thighs over and over the way someone stokes a fire, fierce momentum feathering the underside of plush curves and closing in against his drooling prick, almost enough to— to—
He gets as far as the first bump before his nerves all but shriek in outrage, fever pitch taking him gut-first and using his throat as its conduit: howling like a rabbit seized by its own neck— trying to thrash just as effectively, in fact, meaning only that it isn't. Just a jolt between trapped shoulders. A painful twisting of his arm. He can't see behind him (Fenris a blur of silver-blue and white in the farthest corner of his watering left eye), but he can feel that rhythm keeping pace with the way the room is shifting, and fucking Hells, he's rocking with it. Groaning and mewling and sweating and whining in inglorious near-ecstasy, the narrow little span of his entry grasping at nothing at all between his battered cheeks.
Free hand whipped back to yank nails first at whatever part of his keeper's within reach.]
F— Fen— !!
[Barely a minute in, and Fenris is about to prove himself wrong.
Not about it being what Astarion wants, or what he's even earned, that wicked instigator still choking on his imperious fantasies unmade. Not even about enjoying it, because oh, he's doing that more than he ever thought he could in every vulgar, outright spasming sense. But when the stakes are this high and the friction sweet as liquid sugar to a thing so bloody young— ah.
The slide of it's too much, channeling between his legs. Knocking into his prick (oh, that's what does it in the end: a single, passing nudge struck just beneath his crest).
Astarion comes.
One warning pulse of rippling tension the only sign of what comes next, and if his bodyguard isn't swift enough to tamp it before it starts— ]
no subject
And Fenris, for all his talk of before, allows it. It's a split-second impulse, one that pays off in an instant— for Astarion is so pretty as he tumbles headfirst over the edge. His prick (heavy, and Fenris' eyes greedily drink in the sight, heavy and thick and hot, oh, he will relish wrapping his lips around that cock someday) bobs in the air as the force of his orgasm wracks through him. Thick ropes of pearly come splatter messily against the wall in heaving rhythm, drooling down messily from his slit and smearing against pale thighs, as all the while Astarion lets slip the sweetest noises. Mewling moans and ragged cries, sweat lining his forehead as his body goes so rigid in Fenris' arms— oh, it wracks through the whole of him, tip to toe, a shuddering little mess that can't help himself.
Pretty thing. Pretty loud thing; Fenris releases his arm in favor of slipping his hand up, two fingers thrusting into that drooling mouth as it howls its pleasure. And you know, it's a pity to lose all those whimpers and moans&dmash; but there's something fantastic about the wet gurgle of Astarion's voice as calloused fingers flatten his tongue and knock against his teeth.
They stay like that: interlocked, intertwined, Fenris' cock still slowly pumping between pale thighs. Until at last that heavy cock pulses one last time, meager droplets pattering onto the marble beneath them, and all those drooling howls ebb into something softer. He leans forward then, nuzzling sweetly behind the line of one upturned ear, his fingers slowly matching the rhythm of his hips as he languidly claims Astarion's mouth.]
Oh, little noble . . . I forgot how new this must be for you.
[It's the purring delight of a predator who found unexpected prey, the fondness in his tone corrupted by the sadism woven deep within. Fenris chuckles, and it is a mean thing, dark and depthless. All the frustration of the past few weeks thrums within his body; all the humiliation he suffered at Astarion's hands, forgiven but never forgotten, roars up to fuel this mood. Get on your knees and entertain us, oh, arrogant little pup . . .]
Excitable thing . . . is this the first time you've ever been taken like this? Not like a spoiled little princeling who gets to dip his cock in anyone and know they'll beg for more, but like the mewling slut in heat you really are . . .
[His fingers keep pumping into Astarion's mouth, edging deeper and deeper with every slow pulsing push. Heels click rapidly as they pass the doorway, a sharp break to the steady murmur of voices and laughter that lies just a doorspan away.]
Keep quiet, now. My fingers will only muffle so much, and we don't want your precious friends to find you, hm? Ah— they're hunting for you already.
[For the owner of those heels is speaking, and Violet's arrogant tones are impossible to mistake. He can't make out what she's demanding, but it barely matters: it's enough she's near. It's enough that Astarion shivers in his arms, his legs still tied together and his cock drooling in the aftermath of his inelegant denouncement. With a little groan Fenris' hips pick up the pace, the soft slap of skin against skin music to his sadistic ears.]
Perhaps I should let them watch . . .
[(Oh, he would never. He would never, not just because he wouldn't wish such humiliation on anyone, but because he wouldn't do that to his Astarion. But his noble need not know that. He need not know that the door is locked; that Fenris would whisk him away in an instant if need be. Let him squirm. Let him wriggle and writhe and mewl in belated payback for the way he'd made Fenris little more than humiliating spectacle that first night.)]
no subject
Freed fingers already scrabbling at Fenris' thighs, his eyes still partway rolled beneath his lids, jaw open and quivering for the next encroaching thrust of coarsegrained fingers (that taste so good— like oaken casks or sandalwood and the crispness prior to a storm), filled up with the scrape of bitter salt dragging hot along the back of his tongue in a rhythm that won't settle, pushing him further and further into the crook of Fenris' waiting shoulder without so much as a breathy, whimpered fuss: every bit of him remolded with senseless ease in the way something wild knows to settle when it's scruffed. And really, what difference is there? Kept upright beneath Fenris' arm and the measure of that rigid cock pushed snug around the bottom of his cheeks: he'd be on the floor if that teetering sense of pleasurable fatigue had its way with him, not that it changes much. His limbs are still limp. His neck's still craning under the pleading urge for more— playing witness to how Fenris fucks steadily into the channel that barely divides his legs— his own spent span splayed across his upper thighs and flush for how it throbs in gravity's harsh grip; he's shuddering under its palpitating aches more than the halfhearted gushes of pearl that languidly crawl down to channel against leather and sore skin in their own time, framing each of those sawing pumps with the sight of everything they've made. Wet between his legs and proven wet behind the ears.
Excitement and exhilaration making him sweet against an onslaught that he purrs for as it tears him into shreds.
Overstimulated. Understoked— all that he can think of is that he's grateful his cock's gone too limp to be of use. That he can't sink further into this game (oh, little elf, how wrong you are....) when the click of heels and familiar voices mingle with Fenris' reverberating chastisement against the shell of his ear, and the low, muffled keen Astarion makes out of contentment (for that's what it is, mistake it for nothing else but that) never makes it past his lips: pumped right back down by the pads of fingers that could crawl into his stomach if they wanted. Into his chest. His heart. His veins. Fuck— he doesn't care, so long as they don't leave; sinking his teeth in cruelly for the overriding burst of a few seconds where his mind stutters hard enough to hurt (to feel beyond wonderful)— swallowing the crook of his knuckles, though that's as far as it goes. Length, alas, only lets fingertips slide so far back, and no matter how he works his throat for more, he can't have it. Can't have anything, in fact, the shuttling of that prick still teasing the underside of him so that he's riled but not close, and yet he could, he thinks— or only realizes, maybe. He could come like this. He could, he could, he could. Just with a little more....and more....and....
(He could.)
To just the patter of those feet and the brace of Fenris' strong chest. To the way his heels are useless: buckled and reduced to a static buzz that underscores every jostle of his overwhelmed cock. To the way he reaches back again, raw momentum leading, to hook his fingers in those pants behind him, twisting against fabric with his pristine nails until they anchor, threatening to break beneath bright lacquer. His mind a roaring blaze of empty heat, dissembling everything into more of that contagious, vacant shriek that cracks between his teeth, welcoming grotesque vulgarity instead of pressure.
And then he—
(Comes.)
Bites down.
Again.
Synaptic crackle searing away minutes (or seconds?) a second, reeling time: sensation sounding like the high-pitched soughing of plastic against metal as it churns inside his skull into a violent snap that he can taste— he's thrashing in his mind and stilling in reality; his cock the only thing that jerks just once, throat a gurgling mess of extant bliss— imagining this, craving this, for exactly what it is. Everything. Everything. Everything he could want and everything he needs, swallowing him pride-first two steps away from his friends. His peers. Ten away from his conquests. Mewling and moaning for the meal he hasn't even had yet that keeps on taunting and tempting him to ruinous despoilment.
So it's the third bite that brings him back enough to sink his figurative fangs in like a twitch of half-strung awareness clinging to fractured reflexes.
A twinge of pressure before his jaws finally clamp tight around thick knuckles, bearing down until they shake. Until his tongue begins to lathe between caught digits in a stumbling pattern. Still whining, still wanting, still heaving on the verge of consciousness itself, but stubborn in it. Unwilling to let go when there's nothing left to give.
Staying latched through trembling palms and working with his own numbed hips no matter how his body screams. He will take this. He will prove he's not some pampered thing in need of service. That he can rut harder. Fight better. The echo of some dark, damp alleyway ringing in his ears alongside the bone-deep shock of orgasm, spurring him against himself. Don't pity him. Don't you dare— ]
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[He hisses it against Astarion's ear, his vicious grin all but audible as fledgling fangs sink into calloused flesh. Pain erupts behind Fenris' eyes, a bright white flash that sings up his nerves, piercing right through the pleasure in three sharp rapidfire bursts. And the guiding trick in Fenris' life has always been to learn to love pain— and so it's a slick, low moan that chases after that mocking praise. The shrieking pulse of pain weaves its way into the rhythmic symphony already thundering through his body, pulsing in time with the unrelenting throb of his cock squeezed between lean thighs, the rapid slap of flesh against flesh, all of it only ever growing faster, hotter, hungrier.
And then there's that tongue.
Overheated and sinfully clever as it lathes its way between Fenris' fingers, proving once again that Astarion might be young, but he isn't virginal— oh, no, not with a tongue like that. His lips suckle at Fenris' knuckles as the tip of his tongue teases so pointedly, caressing every whorl along his fingerpads, teasing against old scars and blunted nails. Look what I can do, his charge all but whines, look at how well I could treat you, and far be it for Fenris to ignore such a dexterous show of spirit.]
All that talk about having me get on my knees, but oh, little noble . . . it seems like it might suit you more. Look at how eager you are . . . does it feel good, having that weight on your tongue? Sucking at my fingers as you drool for them— I can feel you salivating, boy, [and trust that's an intentional echo.]
Just think of how much more you could have had.
[The hungry snap of his hips suddenly picks up the pace, his cock thrusting slickly between Astarion's thighs— in and out, in and out . . .]
My cock flattening that pretty tongue of yours— a gag that finally suits you and shuts you up all at once. Sinking so deep in you that I wouldn't just claim your mouth, but your throat: watching you swallow desperately around me, fighting not to gag, for you're far too experienced for that, aren't you? And yet . . . so eager to be dominant. So eager not to get on your knees . . . so perhaps not. Perhaps I'll have to teach you what it is to suck on a prick properly, breaching your throat again and again until at last you learn to take it all . . .
[His tongue drags over the edge of one pointed ear, his teeth sharp as he bites at the tip.]
And that's to say nothing of when I finally fuck you the way you deserve— splitting that little hole of yours open atop my prick and breeding you until you're docile for me— begging me for more even as you drip my come from both ends . . .
[Oh, he's so close. He's so close, his cock pumping so swiftly between those pretty thighs and the fantasy of Astarion drooling with come sharp in his mind's eye, but ah, not yet, not yet. Fenris forces his hips to slow, his cock pumping steadily as he adds with a roughened chuckle:]
Are you going to come again?
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[Which sounds like a muffled mmph.
His protest lost beneath those fingers, an expert working at his craft and yet unmade by it— vulgarity devouring him alive with avid interest. No, he won't come, he tells himself, denial framed by the thought of rough-edged fingertips replaced by something softer and heavier, expansive in the sweetest sense. Gazing up at that magnificent creature from the center of those legs, knees aching, pulse racing while his fingers pump in and out swiftly (throat bobbing) in obscene shadow, mind numb.
It's running numb again.
Dangerously numb, in fact. Under the sway of temptation and the snap of thrusting hips, he's faltering like there's nothing else besides it to sink into— not victory, not the fight, just bliss and comfortable mockery that curls inside his stomach, telling him to stay. To behave.
Ask anyone and they'll call it impossible a task as ever, convincing the long-impetuous Lord Ancunín to curb his want for someone else's, and what he'd wanted tonight was a grander thought: Leto sucking mouthfuls from his cock in a closed room, already suckled into warming on that bout of prior foreplay he didn't even feel. His stern visage gone obedient and pretty as it sank down to the floor in slow petition, falling prey to the old tried and true tricks kept locked within Astarion's sharp arsenal, left tamed as surely as any bit or bridle would insist— tongue shining white just to pour out of his mouth in drooling patters. Look at what I've done for you. How much I've given you at last.
Instead they aren't even fucking, and he's running out of willpower faster than he's running out of air, albeit by the thinnest margin. He hasn't been touched— not properly. Not like he'd expected. Not like he deserves. His knees taken to shivering for the feeling that they lack while he wrestles just to offer up small pumps of swift manipulation, driving Fenris' thickglazed prick along the slender channel dividing entry and soft swells, his hands shaking, knuckles screaming, nails biting. It's a miracle he hasn't lost his balance in the battle, but maybe he can thank the brace of Fenris' shoulder combined with the thrust of heated fingers for that cruel, humiliating (satisfying) anchor.
The door could swing right open and his friends would never believe it. This isn't how things work. This isn't how he works—
And as he cants himself into the next precipitating buck, imagining every last profane image of himself split wide across what won't even deign to use him in this moment (his body stretched to all its limits, glutted on his guardian's offered signature), all he can think of— the last thing that he thinks, in fact— is that it's perfect.
He wakes up later with a start.
A jolt of sharp awareness that's disorienting, fingers rushing to his mouth, his jaw, his legs—
It's daylight. He's in bed. Clean. Dressed, but only in his sleeping clothes. He doesn't smell like sex or Fenris. Not even that puerile little noble's perfume lingers when he gives his own wrist a perfunctory sniff just to be sure. No. No, just himself.
But it can't have been a dream (it damned well better not have been), glancing around his room for the one person with insight— and barring that (finding Fenris' windowside seat frustratingly vacant), his own phone, searching for messages. Timestamps. Photos. Anything.
Where is Fenris?
(Had they actually— )]
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god that icon tho i am DYING about all these new ones
good because more are on the way for YOU >:]
AA BOO THANK YOU once again you spoil me :>
POINTS. AT. YOU.
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