illithidnapped

“Kind of you to offer them.” Astarion counters coolly, black humor painting the smile he wears, already tipping his emptied cup towards the bottle in wordless acceptance.

Nobility. Elven nobility. It’s such a rare thing to encounter here, even amongst Rifters, that for a moment Astarion gets tangled in the web of his own contemplation, mind ticking faster than a clock. He’s prone to rushing, like that. Greedy even locked away in his own head, and all too quick to latch onto everything without so much as stopping to breathe.

So it’s silent for a beat aside from poured wine and the faint clinking of glass against tarnished metal. Gathering his thoughts until:

“But I’ve made enough mistakes of my own to feel somewhat sure of my own footing, even here. Because aside from the lamentable strangeness of this world's universal disdain for sharp ears, I didn’t have nearly so far to fall from the shock. In fact, if not for that insistent little rift tugging me through the void or weave or ether or whatever you want to call it— I’d probably still be a slave.”

He says it in part because it’s true. In part because he’d already confessed to Gwenaëlle, and Fenris, and Ellie, and Derrica herself. A secret poorly kept. And more than that, he says it as punctuation to prove his own point.

“So, my very regal darling, you don’t need to worry about me: I’ll be just fine here. No matter what happens.”

“Come, now,” Thranduil chides, refilling his glass. “You must know that is exactly what to say to guarantee my continued— interference.”

Involvement, more like. Interest— which Astarion was already guaranteed, on account of being an elf. But Thranduil gives him room to deny it none the less, a dignified exit left wide open for someone he suspects might spook, and smiles over the rim of his glass.

“You have sparked up my righteous side, you know,” he confides. “Or perhaps with all the Orlesian influence, I should call it chivalric.”

Better to play it off that admit it still turns his stomach. Better still not to offer an apology, to express sympathy that cannot be enough.

He’s right to think Astarion might spook. In fact, the odds are high in general that when Astarion’s hackles are raised, he’s just as likely to run as he is to bite.

But this miserable little closet is his home. His guarded territory. He feels safer here than anywhere else, even under the worst of circumstances— of which these are not. So instead, he simply drinks, that same bitter smile curled against the lip of his glass.

“Might I suggest dousing that spark? Chivalry is a wretched habit. It’ll only do you more harm than good.”

He’s slow to trust. Resentful of pretty words and kinder gestures. Lies unless proven otherwise, and precious few here have his near-absolute confidence. Thranduil is beautiful, what he says as lovely as a dream...

But Cazador was, too.

So he meets consideration with claws.

“Case in point: you’re here with me, rather than nestled in a warm bed with your startlingly bewitching beloved.”

“Ah,” Thranduil says, where weeks before he might have merely ended the conversation and left, in a sweep of silk and cloak, “but she does not want me, and no amount of chivalry could have stopped her.”

The reminder does drag at his mood, make him reach for the bottle. He cannot mourn a living woman when the list of the dead is so long. It is better to leave the wound to heal.

“Everyone is allowed a few bad habits, I think. Let an inclination to aid elves be the worst of mine.” He drinks, pauses, amends, with a tip of his glass, the wine glittering dark. “— or a thirst for wine.”

Astarion can sense the sting of a struck blow. Faint and ignored when arched fingertips move to curl around the neck of that pitch dark bottle. He’d be lying if he tried to claim some wicked, ever-hungering part of himself wasn't basking in it for the briefest of seconds.

Entertainment indeed.

Still, it has the benefit of almost immediately pacifying what might have been an otherwise quickly souring mood on Astarion’s part. His shoulders relax, he leans forward by degrees, those red eyes darkened by the lower hang of long lashes.

“My darling, if you’re going to indulge, never stop yourself at the first sip.” Spoken as he pulls a steadier drink from his own glass before reaching— ever so improperly— to pour almost half of what remains into Thranduil’s cup in turn.

“You can do better in picking your nastier inclinations.”

A breath. A beat. Like daring someone to walk on a neck-shatteringly high ledge, or drawing a hand between jagged rows of teeth.

“...or should I say worse?”

“You speak as though you have suggestions,” Thranduil murmurs, letting himself be caught in the melody of the conversation and drawing in. How novel it all is, how exciting. How strange to be ancient and still find new experiences. He is still unaccustomed to playing to hart and not the hunter. Astarion has leaned in, so he leans back in his chair, elbow propped against the back rest, his cheek in his hand.

“Go on,” Thranduil urges. “I will hear them.”

“I always have suggestions. That said, I’m not— despite appearances— a complete monster: I don’t take what I’m not given.” Not when it comes to people, at least. That single line drawn in an otherwise morally nebulous wasteland.

The devilish cast to his smirk draws back, offering only a single fang when he speaks, rather than a full display. Thranduil pulls away, and Astarion doesn’t chase him. This is an old game. A familiar one, even here.

Because of it, he isn't compelled to rush: it’s only the desperate that whimper and claw and beg for what they want— and now freed, Astarion is anything but that.

Wicked dignity serves him better.

“So I’ll give you a choice. Whet your appetite for vice with me at the nearest tavern, bleeding coin and drink from the worst Kirkwall has to offer, knowing full well the evening will likely cap itself off with an attempt on your life— or mine— and please don’t let that dissuade you: it’s the best part, really. A climax of its own sort.”

His glass of wine is set aside. Pale fingertips splayed instead across the flat of the table as he shifts his own weight forward, lone silver curl slung in front of his leveled stare.

“Or. You stay here, with me. Forgetting for however long you like.”

He doesn’t specify what’s to be forgotten. That’s the beauty of it, of course. He doesn’t need to.

“So,” Thranduil says, crossing his legs. “Either the opportunity to have cheap ale spilled all over my clothes and get ambushed in an alley on our return, or,” and now he pauses, resting his hand palm down on the table.

“Or…” he repeats, and his fingers slide up, lifting to hover over Astarion’s own. “An evening in your company.”

It is the barest touch, fingertips along the last two joints and mail of Astarion’s hand, but when it is the only touch, all the sensation is magnified a thousand fold.

He does not want to not remember. That much would be impossible, she too entwined with all he has made of himself, of them. He wants to not think, to be in another category entirely. This will suit very well.

“Or...”

His cold fingertips twist against that touch, snaking around to snare him with all the deft precision of a hunter’s sprung trap.

A hart indeed.

“You can simply leave. The door’s right there.”

As close as the bed. The low burning fire. As close as Astarion, when he draws warm knuckles to his lips, one sharp fang catching faintly. A warning and a sign of want, all at once.

“I won’t stop you.”

He brushes his thumb along Astarion’s lip, then pushes it up to better expose the sharp point of the fang, nestled among more innocuous teeth. Curious, and his hand still caught in Astation’s grip, he risks a press against the edge, testing the sharpness, then lifting away.

“How many warnings is that by now? Two? Three? I would almost think you did not want me to stay.”

He seals it. Makes himself commit to a course of action. He has been so bored. Lonely, too. His shirt is all buttons at the collar and front, and with one hand, he opens them, down the line easing button from loop.

There are more tucked away behind that initial set of fangs— easily revealed under the curious press of a thumb: front teeth flat and seemingly innocent, the rest as sharp as razors, running towards the back of his mouth. Flashed bright when he grins, leaning into that touch.

“I only want to be sure you want this.” No second thoughts, no shivering moments of regret where someone else’s name might linger on delicately shaped lips.

Not that it matters if that’s what this comes to: it wouldn’t be the first time he’s played patron to another person’s dreams.

“...And now I am.”

Serpentine and languid, he’s almost weightless in how swift he is when snakes around the table to fit himself in Thranduil’s lap, straddling him as surely as if he belongs there. Quick as when he’s slit Tevinter throats in the dark, and just as venomous at heart.

His other hand is still wrapped around Thranduil’s own— the opposite, chilled and artfully balanced, sinks down to flatten against freshly bared skin, skimming across the line of Thranduil’s breastbone. Slipping lower by the second to finish what's been started.

And then, decisively, his mouth is pressed to lips that still taste of richer wine. A hungering kiss, febrile and demanding, punctuated only by the scuff of sharp teeth.

It had been a startling revelation when he had realized he liked sex— the memories wrapped up in too much ancient grief and so long removed from routine that the act had seemed not distasteful, but… outdated. The providence of a younger man. But then there had been Gwenaëlle, and the reintroduction, and half of it was her-— her smile, her laugh, her sinking her teeth into all the soft parts of him, literally and not.

Astarion isn’t her. The sensations aren’t the same, and that is nearly a relief, to kiss him— to lift his hand away from the buttons of his shirt and slide his hand into the hair he will not ever admit he has wanted to touch for some time— and to find it new.

Which is good. He will not be weeping over it all.

He is careful with the teeth, mapping them and then letting Astarion take the lead, but there is so much hunger. He wants, suddenly, with the full force of someone previously accustomed to very frequent sex who has now gone months without and has too many feelings wrapped up with the absence. One hand free means he cannot pull him closer, merely squeeze where he has some hold on Astarion’s fingers. He does spread his legs, force the comfortable perching area forward, lean back so the other elf must lean forward.

“Lovely,” he says, when he has the space to say it, murmured against Astarion’s lips. “Beautiful one, let me—“

He is not wholly accustomed with not being the one leading.

Edited (hit the button too soon fucking phone) 2021-09-04 12:51 (UTC)

Beautiful one, what a dear creature he is. Both out of his depth and utterly transfixed, the sort of fascination that blooms so beautifully Astarion could drink it and never tire.

He bends to that urging, winding forward to give chase when Thranduil sinks back, unwilling to cede even an inch he doesn’t have to.

And he doesn’t have to.

“Yes?”

He forgets his hold on those delicate fingertips, fitting both hands to the underside of that jaw, pale fingers splayed across both cheeks, furthering the depth of each kiss he steals. Each breath he steals, in fact, before breaking away to nip impatiently at Thranduil’s lower lip. Enough of a pause for the man to speak.

If he wants to, that is.

“Is there something you need, darling? You’ll have to speak up. Can’t seem to hear a thing right now.”

“You,” Thranduil admits, wrapping an arm around Astarion’s waist, tying them together. “You, you wretched creature—“ he’s got a type, “— you intend to be a tease about it, clearly.”

All mirth, still, even swiping at his own lip when it stings before he grabs at Astation’s wrist, twisting at the little buttons on his cuffs. “Too many,” Thranduil complains, between kisses, though it is not like his is any better, all fiddly detail and elven ornamentation. “Off, come, lift your arms—“

He tugs at the hem to untuck it from his trousers, somewhat unproductive given frequent distraction.

There. There at last. Wretched is a far better name to go by, Astarion thinks ever so proudly— grinning even as he’s seized, and more than willing to cede his own anchoring grip in favor of assisting in the effort to yank his own shirt free: letting it displace silver curls with one last yank before it's thrown unceremoniously to the floor with all the rest of the clutter.

And, to his credit, under the press of a laugh that lives deep and dark in his throat, he does try to perch nearer. To inspire friction with the entirely direct shifting of his own weight. The bucking of slender hips.

Unfortunately, the chairs he owns are shit. Weak-jointed at best, and the noise of protest it makes has him stopping almost as soon as he starts, head dropping in defeat to press against Thranduil’s chest. “And here I thought my shrewd acquisition of furniture wouldn’t come back to bite me in the ass.”

This is why you don’t take what’s left out for free in the street home, is what he means.

“Right. To the bed, my dear.” Said as he climbs free of the tangled, wanton little web he's woven, now content to see to the rest of the matter of his own undress without any sort of overwhelming ceremony. “Because if you manage to break what little I have, you’re going to owe me more.”

There's a momentary pause as crimson eyes flick upwards in their focus, still sharp as any predatory beast.

“And I do charge interest.”

“Owe you?” Thranduil asks, standing slowly— it would have been him meeting the floor had Astarion not stopped (though in the moment perhaps it would have been worth it—). “What do I owe you for?”

He discards his own shirt, letting it drape over the abandoned chair. He undoes the buttons of his trousers, though he does not yet drop the front or shuck them off just yet, and his boots end up next to the chair as well before he steps to the bed, considering draping himself onto the mattress. Some lovely little picture, hair strewn across the sheets, some sultry look.

“You were very eager to drink my wine. And, I assume, to spend my coin had we gone mischief making.”

He sits, and the he decides he will lay back, one leg folded, propped up on his elbow, all the better to watch.

“Unless this all is merely because you pity me.”

“Ahah, no. I haven’t the heart for pity. A chronic failing— incurable, in fact.”

Gods, he does paint a picture though, doesn’t he? That cascade of golden hair, that musculature that would suit even the most insatiable and discerning tastes. There was a time when a body like that would only be a death sentence to the one in possession of it, once Astarion’s eyes were upon them.

Cazador was specific, after all. He only wanted the best.

Now, what Astarion sets his sights on, is his. The satisfaction of it is immeasurable. Overwhelming. He forgets himself for a beat, before one breath, feather-soft, is let out against the back of his teeth.

It’s nothing new, shedding cloth in the most achingly slow fashion. The firelight is dimmer, the hour is late: both paint deep shadows across the span of his body as he pulls himself free and climbs atop his quarry the way a tiger slithers through tall grass— led by sight and scent and a hunger hot as embers, burning beneath the cage of his ribs.

“I simply think I deserve it.” He says, as his tongue meets teeth. As his mouth finds the corded muscle of Thranduil’s throat— though he resists the urge to bite.

“Everything you have to give.”

He watches Astarion. He looks, and gluts himself on looking. He likes beautiful things, admires the way the light hits the curve of Astarion's hip, the chiaroscuro cast of his features, shadows and pale skin.

And when Astarion joins him on the bed, he indulges his inclination to touch. Again, the hair, soft against his palm, combing through the curls and seizing a handful when teeth brush against skin, the normal shocked jump of a new sensation.

"How arrogant," Thranduil says, and it is not a rebuke- not when he is twisting under him, trying to get a leg between his own for some blessed friction. He swipes his thumb along the tip of an ear, which turns into nails down the back of his head and neck, palm smoothing along his shoulder, noting but not mapping out scar tissue. "Am I to be ravished, then? I was hoping," his voice as steady as can be, though the steady metronome of his pulse is picking up, "- to get my mouth on you."

Like a scruffed cat Astarion pauses in that grip, pulling against instinct and thought in equal measure.

And then it’s devious, the way his lips twist high. The way hooded eyes gleam in the dark, almost feline. Appetite as deep and yawning as the ocean depths lapping somewhere just outside, only faintly audible.

He steals one last kiss against that neck, marking the skin without breaking it— and then sinks, languid, to the mattress. Curls framing the sharp lines of his face, back arched just so.

A wordless invitation.

“As you like,” consonants catching, voice a low hum of a thing when it leaves him.

“Until sunrise, I’ll give you whatever you ask.”

"And then?" he asks, pushing Astarion's legs open so he can settle between them, a quick thought given to Astarion's proclivities, the chair, and the hope that he at least tested the bed for sturdiness. "Will you melt away, like dew on grass?"

There are a number of stories to that effect, but they dissipate like so much fog as Thranduil's focus narrows, and he sets himself to his task. Perhaps he accused Astarion of being a tease because he himself enjoys playing at being one-- much attention given first to the inner thighs, a leg lifted to bend at the knee and spread wider, a scattering of kisses and scraping teeth as he works up, with occasional glances cast up at Astarion. He is handsome, nearly otherworldly, too much symmetry, but it's still a lovely picture to look down and see that, let alone feel the brush of all that soft hair.

“Shadows fade in daylight.” Astarion breathes, his exhale a steadying thing, working to ground him against the roaming scuff of Thranduil’s mouth. “Dreams, too.”

When Thranduil leaves, the scent of lilac and leather oil won’t go with him.

“You didn’t come here for love.”

And it’d be an insult to them both to pretend otherwise— much less the woman no doubt watching the stars from her high tower, stitching thread together between deft fingertips like Shekinester weaving fate.

One leg hooks high across the taut span of Thranduil’s shoulder, hips arching into even the barest contact, senses lost to both it and the agonizingly feathering glide of long hair where it manages occasionally to brush along his inner thigh. But his eyes stay open, even when heavy lashes flutter under the weight of overwhelmingly vivid sensation.

He refuses, right down to the marrow, to abandon such a breathtaking sight.

"Companionship," Thranduil agrees, not having the word for 'fuck buddy' in Trade, Sindarin, or Orlesian. He presses a final kiss to the soft place where thigh meets hip, and takes Astarion in hand and then into his mouth.

He wonders, briefly, if Astation would have liked the wide-eyed request to 'show me how' that Iorveth had been subjected to, and wonders further how much of sex thoughts of previous experiences overlaying current ones contains. There are new experiences- Astarion's taste, the smell of his skin, the odd coolness of his body- and Astarion himself, the acerbic wit, the hint of vulnerability running through him.

But he remains in the moment despite brief woolgathering, setting the pace, until he lifts his head, lips wet, cheeks colors, and grabs for Astarion's hand to twist into his hair.

He has, very slowly, come around to having it pulled on.

Astarion, who was inclined to burn hot enough to scald in that damnable chair. Astarion, who speaks openly of lust with sharp fangs glinting bright in dark places, thirst entirely unslaked. That is the creature who— when Thranduil reaches for him in urging earnest— decidedly curls his fingers away from those silver-blond strands of hair. The back of his fingertips opting to caress the edge of a sharp ear instead, lazily drawing a line down, nearer by degrees, as though he isn’t still twisted in the vice of his own want.

When he stops, his thumb kisses the rise of one arched cheek, mapping its flush for a beat that feels as though it could stretch on for an age.

And then he grins, jagged, quick to tangle his fingers in that curtain of pale hair. Quicker to stretch his own spine long when he wraps his legs tighter around Thranduil, using the entirety of that spun web to draw him in— to demand more. All soft, throaty whispers of encouragement for it.

There’s a tucked away set of phials resting on the nearby sill where it meets the bed, and it’s only after a short while that Astarion fumbles in reaching for them with his spare hand. The lightest catch of glass scratching over stone.

Perfumed oil. A necessary participant for this sort of affair.

He imagines, unless the poor elf has some withering change of heart, they’ll need it soon enough.

In this, he'll take direction- guidance- as eager to please in bed as ever, if without his usual confidence. Maybe the lack of surety is better. Maybe the novelty of uncertainty on his face is just as arousing as the flushed skin and uneven breaths. Praise certainly goes further with him, noticeable in how he shifts against the bed.

He pauses when Astarion moves, lifts his head, lips glossy wet. His sight is- complicated, but he still notices the flash of glass before he dips his head and replaces his mouth with his hand, all the better to leave him able to offer commentary.

"You've further ambitions," he accuses, his breathing evening out. His voice has an edge of roughness to it. His cheek against Astarion's thigh, he gazes up, all affection.

That such a proud creature makes himself so utterly biddable is unexpected. Thrilling, to say the least.

“Can you blame me?” Astarion asks, the edge of his hand quick to nestle just beneath Thranduil’s jawline— only the underside of his fingertips, the delicacy of it working as a guide for steering attention as surely as if it were a tether between them. Applied pressure is more than unnecessary when you have the gravity of desire on your side.

“Pretty thing like you all to myself? I’m hardly a bastion of restraint as it is.”

Its antithesis, more like.

The narrow cork is pinched between his teeth, pulled loose with a faint pop, and the scent of lilac that perpetually clings to Astarion has a far more direct source this time, a mystery perhaps all too quickly solved under the right conditions. He stoppers it with his own thumb, reaches with his other hand to pull Thranduil higher.

There will always be more time for touch. For the heat of his mouth and the roaming pleasure of kissing the way borders might be drawn across skin.

Instead Astarion finds his throat again, resisting temptation by using teeth and tongue to deepen that lone mark as he lets oil spill lazily between his fingertips. As the brush of his hand low across Thranduil carries with it a warming slickness.

Greedy, his touch. Palm fitted to the muscle spanning just above delicate ribs. His attention almost fixated. Greedier still when he crooks the fingertips of his opposite hand— only the barest warning living in that snaking touch— to let them sink in slow, and deliberate, and searching. He’s a ravenous, beastly thing, even without a thirst for blood. There’s nothing cruel about his touch—

But there’s no restraint to be found in it, either. Not a drop, as he presses in to the knuckle, dragging out an achingly slow rhythm.

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warning no kids in the deep end of the pool beyond this point, this is spicetown now

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