That's the only answer that counts, and it barely matters what the question is. Yes to the unspoken question of if he could get him to beg (easily, eagerly, whining and whimpering as if he's never known an ounce of shame). Yes to the way Astarion's fingers stroke his come-slick prick, high to low, high to low, and it's stunning how something so simple as a change in direction makes his thighs tremble and something searing hook deep in the pit of his belly. Yes to the suggestion of teeth against his ear and a slick palm roaming against his hip; yes to the sound of Astarion's voice low and throaty in his ear, murmuring such filth that sets off fireworks in his mind and dazes him to his core, yes, yes, yes—]
Ngh—
[A low moan slips past his lips instead of Astarion's name, and can anyone blame him? When his boyfriend whispers things that make him wring around the swell of his prick, face burning with desire and embarrassment both— when the thought of swaying on his heels, dripping with his own come and staring up at an enraptured, lustful Astarion captures his mind— when Astarion says such deliciously possessive things like my bodyguard— oh, Maker, he's only mortal.
He swallows thickly, squeezing his eyes shut as he tries to focus— to remember how to think, or speak, or do anything beyond rut his hips forward and whimper in blatant approval. Jerking his head back, he stares down at his boyfriend.]
Across your belly.
[There, now. Fenris tips his head, dark hair hanging like a curtain around his face as he peers down at him.]
So that I can have a claim, too.
[He brushes his knuckles against the edge of one sweat-damp cheek.]
You came in me— claimed me— made me yours— and now I want the same. I want you to be mine, even if the two of us are the only ones who ever know it.
So . . . make me come on you, Astarion.
[Experimentally he moves his hips just once, rocking them back to see if he can wring out one last noise from his boyfriend.]
He wrings out more than that. The noises Astarion makes (the noises that he's been making) are ones he's never heard before in all his life— not even here behind closed doors or when they (once, and only once) crawled through the vents between walls on hands and knees, places where stoked cries of whores and clients both were amplified like echoes— and he has to shut his mouth rather than his ears this time to silence them. He's not the catalyst (oh that is spread out over him, tight and fluttering around him and drenched with enough sweat and slick and heat and come that it threatens to smother him with its beauty— he's obssessed, memories fly off the shelves to make room for the buzzing trapped beneath his tongue— and he reels, and— ) he's just the source. Just the reactive set of muscle and teeth that snaps shut around his own sleeve whilst he stares up at heaven through a haze of scalding tears. Just the part of him that exhales noisily through it, whimpering at the aftershocks lithe hips strive to massage loose without letting his soft cock slip free.
He hears the silk of his sleeve tear. Feels the stitches popping loose between his teeth as his vision blurs beneath another squinting whine, each breath bellowed back into his own nose by soft silk. By the weight and shape of his forearm, his other fingers groping deep into tanned thighs with deeper, more demanding strokes than before— catching on occasion with a ring finger or a pinky the soft, supple hang of swollen curves behind it; hot and velvet-soft in a way that's tempting him to stop and wrap around them— but he can't right now. Not yet. Not when he feels the jolt of tensed-up muscles. Hears the telling strain in Fenris' roughened voice. He's starting to know the warning signs, what to chase and when to make things come apart. Or maybe that's just hubris— but he thinks he does. He thinks he does.
So this time he runs high.
This time he doesn't care how much silk he ruins when he pulls his jaw back from his arm, spit trailing sticky in slight strands from the wet-cold spot of where his mouth had been and where his tongue pants pink between childishly delicate canines— only long enough to speak.]
I'm already yours.
[It burns his lungs, the strain that holds his breath inside them at the height of their expansion. The effort that it takes to speak instead of keening like he wants to, feeling his own ribs grip back against soft flesh, trying to squeeze another outcry from him. The sort of mutiny that makes the world spin and his senses smear like paint on canvas, turning Fenris' handsomeness into a wetter haze— but he holds on.]
Make it undeniable.
[Another stroke. Another catch of fingers. Another glazing streak of movement wrapped around a still-glossed crown that shivers in his grasp.]
Like throwing gasoline onto a blazing inferno: Fenris moans without shame as he throws his weight forward, bracing himself against Astarion so that he can rut. Fucking himself with a fervor that grows more frantic with every passing second, his hips snapping forward to grind needily against Astarion's palm, shuddering with every wringing twist of pale fingers. More oh Maker please Astarion please I need it I need you please, his words slurred and broken up by the growing cacophony of moans and whimpers and mewls, until at last it simply becomes an endless echo of please. His thighs tremble as he gasps down at his boyfriend, eyes rolling back for every squeezing tug (please please please), electricity jolting up his spine whenever knuckles tap against soft curves (please more please don't stop). And when he manages to force open his eyes—
Fenris doesn't have words for what it is to see Astarion looking like that as he lies between tanned thighs. Glimmering eyes filled with tears that spill down flushed cheeks, the imprint of bitemarks vivid against sweat-soaked skin, the rise and fall of a narrow chest as he exhales hotly with every panting breath, and that's to say nothing of the saliva glittering against his chin, nor the way he's so overwhelmed he has to bite and tear his precious silks just to stay silent— Maker. He's damningly seductive in his messiness, all his pretty veneers stripped away into this raw, panting, perfect Diamond.
Come, his incubus whispers, and Fenris can do nothing but obey.
He's deaf to the hoarse scream that rips its way out of his throat and echoes around the room; he's blind to the way it looks as the first pulsing splatter of pearl lands atop Astarion's belly. Head thrown back and throat bared, he's too busy rocking into that coaxing grip, fucking himself blind— no instincts, no rhythm, no thought, nothing but longing and lust thundering through his veins. Again and again and again, until with one final, shuddering thrust of his hips . . .
. . . he's spent. His softening prick drools out one or two more droplets that form a viscous connection between stomach and cock; sweat drips along his temples and trickles down his spine as Fenris shivers atop his mate.
And then—
But there's nothing. No thoughts. No desperation. That last orgasm wiped him clean, and for a long moment Fenris simply sways there, a loud ringing in his ears and all of him so spent. Sooner or later he'll remember how to talk, perhaps, but for now there's only the increasingly adoring way he's looking down at Astarion. Oh, it's you, something in him murmurs. I love you, simple and yet so powerful he doesn't dare say it. Not now. Maybe not ever, or maybe tomorrow.
They're teenagers, after all. Fickle things in love and lust (and maybe there's a part of Fenris that will take a long time to accept that Astarion means to be his).
No, wait. There's one thought that permeates all that fog. Fenris blinks slowly, and then, with great force of effort, mumbles:]
[Happily is the key word. The underscoring. The pith, messy and pretty and still tight in all the places that it counts, beating with the slippery staccato rhythm of their pulses. He's slack around his elbows and tensed up round his cheeks and lower belly, so dizzy that the room around them is still spinning. That his thoughts themselves are going utterly lopsided, bullied by inertia and the way it pushes them in close.
He thinks with the same amount of grace he swallows by, scratchy and bobbing and as ungainly as a child—
—something he isn't now, though, is what comes rising to the surface. Through the high-pitched ringing in his ears that still sounds like Fenris' screaming and the shrill numbness of his fingertips now slid up around the nape of that lithe neck, left to shiver weakly in wet white hair. Through all the sticky, sweltering— and around their silhouettes, cold— sensations crawling in around them, he knows he's not a child anymore.
Children don't fall in love like this.
Children don't want to burn out from the inside and lap up come like cream, oh, no. That level of debauchery prints money here, and there's a reason why the sign on the front door makes damned well certain the only patrons passing through are those with age behind them. His heart is beating slower. Stronger. The jewelry he'd borrowed fits better where it's rucked up, gemstones glittering like welling droplets in the divots of his countours.
He feels taller, meeting Leto eye-to-eye at last now that they've grown. Face to face in ways they haven't been in years.
And then Leto arches forwards just enough to shift the pressure where they're bottled, and he lets out a heady groan as the entirety of his vision blurs (the slightest trickle slithering down between two sets of tangled thighs, coiled like a snake).]
And you....said I'm loud....
[He's smiling at a distance, ten thousand meters away from the place where an upwards angled cheek pushes hot against another. He wants to keep him here forever. Forever and a day, or as long as it takes to find the strength to wrap devotion round strong fingers like a band.]
[It isn't a very good retort, but on the other hand, it's a miracle he string words together at all. Eyes fluttering closed and every muscle aching, it's all Fenris can do to return those soft nudges. Damp skin meets damp skin as he pushes fitfully against Astarion's cheek, butting up against him like a needy packmate, his fingers aimless as they roam across whatever bits of Astarion he can find. Stay, stay, stay, the thought not fretful but languid. Stay with me, beloved, never leave me, for what could be better than this?
Nothing, that's what. Nothing at all. And it doesn't matter what debauchery goes on downstairs (though now Fenris has a renewed interest in understanding just what, exactly, he and Astarion might add to their next attempt), for none of the works those clients hold in their arms comes close to the blinding, blazing wonder that's Astarion.
Their loss, Fenris thinks smugly, and buries his face against the crook of his boyfriend's throat.
Eventually, his breath returns to him. He's still such a languid thing happily collapsed atop his mate, but his thoughts begin to take a sort of coherency. And the first thing he thinks, his thoughts trailing Astarion's own, is: we aren't children anymore. What surer marker of adulthood could there be? Virginites lost (and it's so deeply satisfying that it was to one another), that last bastion of unknown territory finally breached and given shape . . . what will it be like, Fenris wonders, to live in the cabaret now? The brothel was always kept separate from them both— not hidden, for Zevlor and Kanan are no fools, but at least ostensibly kept from the prying eyes of two impressionable teenagers. But now… what possible secrets could they hold now that Astarion and Fenris rank among their number?
Mm. Things to discover later, for all his musing on the future can’t compare to the present. Leto presses one tired kiss against Astarion’s cheek, then buries his face against the crook of the other boy’s neck.]
My Diamond . . . was it what you thought sex would be?
[That excursion into the vents had been educational, oh yes, and he’d been just as fascinated as Astarion (mouth dry and eyes wide, hardly daring to breathe for how fixated he was on the rutting, rhythmic show beneath them)— but it was nothing compared to this.]
Or should we try again soon?
[They’re still connected, he realized, and arches his back with a pleased little exhale.]
His groan is sharp, and only by the grace of the Maker or Sharess herself is he so lucky as not to really manage any sheer amount of volume in it; the enthusiasm is the fiercest part, not the air within his lungs— or out of his lungs, now, panting and clinging to Leto with a grip that no doubt burns.
Don't move like that, he thinks. And then, scolding his own synaptic instincts, spurns that same line of thought, do move like that. For where else do they have to be? What else do they have to do? What could be more important than this, other than love itself all sweaty and confined within their bodies, trapped around the places where they touch.
He kisses Leto back, and then squeezes the measure of their tangled legs together.]
Soon.
[(Flushing at the words 'his Diamond,' gods above that's all he wants to be. His Diamond. His.
Let fame and fortune keep itself company.)]
I didn't— I didn't know it could be this good. [Isn't flattery; he really hadn't thought sex was anything different than the usual thrills. Why people paid so much for it was like why some people preferred gold jewelry to silver— some mix of status and sheer expectation.
[Oh, how his ego swells for that compliment. Insecure anxiety hasn't yet gotten a chance to flare, and now perhaps it won't at all, for Astarion wouldn't say such things if he didn't mean them. Puffed up and proud, Fenris can't bite back his pleased smirk as he draws back to regard his boyfriend.]
I— didn't.
[Is that right? The past . . . however long it's been (minutes? hours? days? nothing really exists outside of this room, least of all the passage of time) are a happy blur, and only now does Fenris try to go back and pick apart each specific action.]
I . . . it just felt good, [he says a little helplessly. With a small wince he inches forward, drawing his legs up so he can ease them out of a kneeling position and stretch them back, and then lie down properly atop Astarion.]
I suppose some of it I must have seen in the past, but . . . I just did what felt good.
[Is that what sex is? It's such a scripted affair in the Moulin Rouge, or at least it's always seemed that way. Every dance is a titillating thing, meant to allure as it alludes to what might be sold later; every bounce and jiggle is planned in meticulous detail. Only now does Fenris think that maybe sex isn't quite the same way . . . or is it? Mm, it seems a little ridiculous to think that every person in the world plans out their rutting, so . . . maybe it's only good sex that's planned? But that can't be right, for look at what they've done . . .
Maybe they're just really, really good at it, Fenris thinks, and brushes a sweat-damp curl away from Astarion's face. His expression is more than a little besotted, he knows, but for the life of him he can't help it. His heart is just so full of adoration right now, doting and sweet; it's all he can do not to fiercely nuzzle against his boyfriend every second he gets.]
How did you learn? The dirty talk alone was . . . [Maker. He swallows thickly.] It was really good, Astarion. And when you said—
[I wonder if my bodyguard would look more handsome painted slick across my belly— or his own . . . match the way you look inside. Even now, the mere memory of them is enough to stir something in the pit of his belly— and yet he can't quite say it. What was easy in the heat of the moment is a little harder in the aftermath, and he glances away for a few seconds, pleasantly embarrassed.]
[Is that the first time in his life he's ever paid a compliment that devalues his own contributions?
(Yes, and it trickles effortlessly from his chest. Uncorked at last and beautifully aged— for the vintage might be far from ancient, but the potency is steep.)]
I think my lessons might've been paying off. [He's not yet learned how to even properly kiss; Satine has only covered etiquette, posture, and enunciation, common grooming tips and fashion. Astarion would've learned the exact same thing from any children's finishing school in the city, not that he knows it.
Not that either of them know it, and it's going to be such a menacing source of irritation for every single person around them from now until they (eventually) learn better.
He forces his fingers to unlatch— a dull ache flooding in alongside feeling and the rush of blood, so he's clunky in the act of stroking hair: not fully trembling in those first few passes, just close enough that he's aware each time they skirt too light or much too heavy in their path across his lover's sweatlaced scalp.
Hello, he thinks, words coming from a lifetime away.]
Don't....[it isn't tense; he's only interrupted by the fact that he forgot to breathe first, and finds he has to take in more to finish off his sentence] don't move yet.
I want to sleep like this if—
[This time the pause is real, he doesn't know the answer to this.]
[Oh, and he breathes out the word, his green eyes widening as he considers the idea. It would be satisfying, wouldn't it? To perch atop his cock for hours on end, their bodies intertwined in the most intimate way . . . oh, he thinks again, a flush dusting high along the tips of his ears.]
No-oo . . . not hurt.
[The words are spoken slowly as Fenris tries to make sure that's an honest reply. But no, there's no pain there, not even when he wiggles a little and arches his back just to be sure. Though that has the unintentional side-effect of teasing Astarion, and he makes a little face in an apology that's mostly genuine. Sorry-not-sorry, a little spark of satisfied sadism flaring momentarily in the pit of his stomach.]
It feels . . .
[How to describe it? Not something as simplistic as good, for that doesn't begin to cover it. Satisfying, maybe, is the best word for it: there's something so innately pleasing about the feeling of being caught and kept like this, speared open and spread wide around the not-inconsiderable width of his boyfriend's prick. I'm yours, that's what this feels like. I'm yours, only yours, slick droplets of pearl glossing his rim as Astarion claims him inch by inexorable, inevitable inch . . .
It's perverse, no doubt. Filthy in a way that he would have found repulsive in anyone else. But when it's them— well. That's different, isn't it? In the same way mulsum and agreggio pavali are both technically wines, but only one of them is innately desirable within these halls.
Oh, but he owes Astarion an answer . . . he'd nearly forgotten, lulled into dozing complacency by those fingers and his prick both.]
I want to sleep like this too. And stay atop you as long as I can. And next time, you can try it— it feels really good, Astarion. Better than you'd think. I like being with you like this . . . and—
[He draws back (one hand flying up to pin Astarion's in place— don't stop petting me).]
What if I move in my sleep?
[He used to cling when he was very young, his arms wrapping so tight around Astarion that the other boy couldn't get away if he tried. Now, older and more secure, he has a tendency to twist around until he's burrowed deep within the nest of blankets and sheets that make up his bed. It's not the worst behavior a bedmate could have, but there's been complaints of sharp heels and carelessly tossed limbs before.]
I don't want to break your cock.
[It's a good cock, and they've already had one scare tonight.]
[Maybe it'd be easier if he just wiggled off Astarion? He inches forward, trying to do just that, but oh, he's so loathe to lose that claim . . . mmph. A compromise: he nips at his boyfriend's jawline.]
Don't sleep just yet, for I don't want to get off you. Tell me instead what you want to try next time we do this.
[Next time, and despite himself, a little thrill runs through him for the thought. There will be a next time, won't there? And another, and another . . .]
Oh, the shiver that rockets through him at that (unintended) teasing. Oh gods the stars that burst across his eyes, shattering the slate of his awareness and leaving him clinging tight to Fenris— his stare unfixed and glassy, his fingernails dug in, shuddering like a wet cat.
It's only when he recovers that he knocks his cheek against his boyfriend's, letting one chastising scrape of skin-against-warm-skin serve as both scolding and acceptance all at once. How dare you mixed into I forgive you, menace.
He isn't really angry, after all.]
You won't break my cock. [Confident enough at first blush, his fingertips (the ones attached to his caught hand, anyway) resuming their slow petting. And then, amending:] ....at least I don't think you will.
You seem to like the way it feels, so I bet your subconscious would too.
[That sounds logical, right?]
Mmmm....but what I want to see next time.... [He's thinking. He's really thinking.] I hear blowjobs are amazing. That'd be nice. Maybe even....
Tying you up? —or blindfolds? The old silk ones are getting worn out, I heard Kanan say. It wouldn't be hard to borrow one without anyone noticing.
[Look how learned he is, Fenris. Look how much he knows about sex.]
[There's a small part of Fenris that still has some healthy doubts about Astarion's cock, but, well, so be it. They aren't sleeping just yet, and he does like the way this feels, thank you very much. It's all he can do not to squirm around experimentally; he has to settle for kneading gently against Astarion's chest, every touch a new wonder to be explored.
But oh, a blowjob— oh, those suggestions, and with each one Fenris' eyes grow wider and his cheeks warmer. He barely knows what a blowjob is, but it doesn't matter; anything that Astarion says he wants to try Fenris is more than game for.]
You—
[Tying you up or blindfolds . . . he'd known, vaguely, that those were things that people did during sex (for there was only so much Kanan and Zevlor could keep from them). But knowing it happened to others and considering it for himself are two very different things, and Fenris spends a precious few seconds trying to imagine what exactly that would look like. Though . . .]
Pick one to try.
[He tips his head, eyes narrowing in familiar competitiveness.]
Tie me up or blindfold me . . . but whatever you don't pick, I get to try on you.
[So flustered that it threads into his voice for half a second, breathy and completely uncomposed. His long ears sunken shyly underneath his curls until they twitch— and then jolt upright, all bashfulness wiped away by a short series of counterbalancing blinks.
(There's also the matter of the tension trapped low along his belly that still lingers, but he keeps his hands braced somewhere around either side of Fenris' shoulders now, and at least he can anchor himself through the way his fingertips curl just slightly over skin. Clinging and functioning like foundation all at once.)]
I mean— [Competitiveness. Competitiveness he can do, even distracted. An increasingly steady slant forming at the corner of his fresher grin insists on it, in fact.] of course. That's exactly what I had in mind, too.
That way we both can enjoy ourselves.
[Erh. No. Wait. Doesn't that imply that it wouldn't be pleasurable if they weren't taking turns?]
Try new things.
[ —Yes, there we go.]
Start making lists of all our favorites....just like the ones I've seen downstairs.
[Oh, Fenris' eyes gleam as Astarion flusters. He looks so sweet in those precious seconds, glimmering eyes wide and a pretty blush lighting up his cheeks . . . cute, Fenris thinks, and grins as his boyfriend regains his composure. Adorable how he flusters the moment the tables are turned on him, even if Fenris himself fares little better.]
I want to blindfold you first.
[The thought of Astarion with his hands drawn up over his head, lithe body drawn taut as he squirms in overstimulated impatience is, mm, a fantastic one, but Fenris likes the thought of him blind better. Going from arrogantly demanding things to gasping from the least little touch . . . oh, he likes the thought of that a lot, Fenris decides. And given they'll inevitably try everything from either end of the equation, he might as well demand what's on his mind first.]
That way we can start there . . . and go down any list we please.
[His eyes scan up and down Astarion's face, and then, in a burst of impulsive courage, he adds:]
I want to see you in lingerie. So. Add that to your list too. And I want to see you give me a blowjob too— maybe both of them at once.
[And maybe first, so that way Fenris can understand what exactly blowing someone entails.]
A handjob is when you use your hands for sex....probably. (Because he's never heard of a dickjob or an assjob come to think of it, and not for lack of listening in, either, so if he puts the logic of that together, and then applies that to the rest of it, then he knows exactly what to do.) And the thing is— when he thinks about it, it sounds hot. Imagining himself blindfolded, wearing the sort of expensive jewels and lace that the aristocracy drools openly for (borrowed without Kanan knowing, of course) in the depths of some shoddy backstage room, hoisting Fenris' cock towards his lips via a few carefully curled fingertips and gently blowing across its tip—
It sends prickles of sensation skittering across his skin. Wakes him up against the drowsy-sweet flow of exhaustion he's been fighting in the wings of his own consciousness, closer to the dawn than dusk.]
You'll be my first customer, then.
[Says the lovestruck boy busy weaving their ankles together, imitating whorish odalisquery the way a lion cub tackles grass for prey.]
[He means it to come out more emphatically than it does, but exhaustion (and the heavy, assuring swell of Astarion's cock) is lulling him into a sleepy stupor. He tucks his face into the crook of Astarion's neck, burying himself there with a little groan. There's a vague thought for draping the sheets over them both, but, well, eh. Astarion has more dexterity like this, Fenris thinks unfairly, and so he can be the one to tuck them both in.
But oh, right, he was saying something, wasn't he? Fenris tips his head up, blinking just a little blearily down at his boyfriend (and knocking his ankles back happily against that inviting coil).]
You're mine, just like I'm yours.
[And spent though he is, never doubt he knows the weight of those words. Not him.]
Not a customer. Not somebody you put on a farce to be around. I'm your bodyguard, and you're my Diamond— but you're also my boyfriend. And even if I—
[He hesitates for a moment. Jealousy gnaws sullenly at the back of his throat, but it's an easier pill to swallow when it's all conjecture. Still: there's a look of resignation in his eyes as he continues:]
Even if I have to share your, your expertise, I won't share your heart. Not with anyone.
[Again, he finds himself taken by surprise. Again, the forefront of his mind slips away into the gap between shock and sheer bewitchment— there, Fenris' face against his neck, cold with night sweat and flush with heat suffused underneath his skin all at once. There, the weight of sinew and muscle all real and undeniable no matter how his (formerly, he'd attest) juvenile mind defaults to thinking it's not real. It can't be real. It's too good, too tangible, too sharp with rampant clarity compared to the dullness of his life.
There, the words that leave him tight in the chest until he forgets that he's supposed to breathe.
You're mine, just like I'm yours.
He'd only meant it as a joke.
Or— no, not really. Not at all. Maybe he told himself it was a joke, but some part of him wanted it to be true: that Fenris would be his first customer. The only one that mattered. The only one that'd count. (Now the sentiment is small and pale. It's withered in its formerly perceived greatness, like a bite of apple that's too old to be anything but dry and spongy on the tongue.) He doesn't want to share his heart. Or himself. Or this.
Not with anyone that isn't Fenris.]
So you won't have to. [His head turns, cheek bearing against cheek as he tries to press a kiss to whatever edge of Fenris' face or temple or ear that he can find— less mouth to skin for the angle, but he can kiss the air and call it his lover too so long as they're the only ones here.] Not ever.
[He has to reach around strong shoulders to find the mess that was their bedding, tugging up a corner and a middle-section all at once. They're hopelessly intertwined; no straightening it out as he gives up and drags the bundle relatively over them in all the places where it counts, at least, with only an elbow or a foot or two left wanting for warm shelter.
Good enough, he thinks, collapsing across rucked pillows and slumping back into the boy who owns his heart, a few fingers threading through damp hair once more.]
You're my bodyguard....and I'm just yours.
[Even if he can't feel his fingertips, he likes the way straight strands twist between the pads of them.]
No, Fenris thinks distantly, surely not. Surely jealousy isn't so easily quelled; surely there will come a time when Astarion looks at some customer the way he's only meant to look at his Fenris, and that will hurt so badly. But . . . maybe it is, some small part of him whispers. It's the part that's currently melting beneath the way delicate fingers play with this hair; it's the part of him that rumbles softly in contentment as he settles beneath the covers and returns that clumsy kiss.
After all, isn't that how it's always worked between them? Ever since the beginning, back when Astarion had found him shattered into a hundred thousand pieces and offered him a handhold in the darkness. It's okay, you're okay, and though he'd known better even then to trust in such promises, Astarion has always had a way of achieving the impossible.
So why should this be any different?
It won't be, he thinks, his eyes fluttering closed as exhaustion begins to creep over him. He won't get jealous, and Astarion won't ever make him share. They'll be okay, because they're always okay. It won't be any different . . .]
It isn't any different than anyone else's first portraits.
[He cocks his head as he says it. It is, to his expert eye, a fairly good poster. The artist Zevlor hired knows how to arrange things just so, so that one's gaze is naturally drawn from the tangle of gleaming pearls wrapped carelessly around Astarion's hands down to the glass of bubbling champagne before him, and from there to the name of the establishment itself. Pale skin glows brightly against a black backdrop, and particular attention has been lovingly paid to the lines of Astarion's neck and collarbone.
None of that is the problem, of course, but still: it's a good painting.]
There's a wild-incredulous gleam within pale eyes as they turn to fix on Fenris, whipped away from the purported 'masterpiece'— his mouth hanging open, an eyebrow twitching.]
My fucking FACE for starters, Fenris!! I expected to see my own fucking FACE!
[Back and forth his hands snap between Fenris and the canvas: DO YOU SEE. THE ISSUE. HERE.
(Tiredly, Zevlor interjects that it's an advertisement for the establisment at large, not Astarion, but said interjection goes largely unheard beneath the cacophony unleashed by the youngest future-entertainer-in-waiting in the room.)]
To be fair to Astarion: it's not as if he's the only performer who's ever thrown a fit about not having his face in a poster. It's just that none of the others have ever mattered half so much as Astarion has, nor has anyone been quite so amusingly adorable in their puffed up rage. Biting his bottom lip to hide his grin, he glances just once at Zevlor before smoothly slipping one arm around Astarion's waist.
(It's not that Zevlor doesn't know (about them being a thing, anyway, though Fenris isn't sure if he knows about them having sex). But all of this is so new, and it's strange to try to find what new limitations and boundaries there are. For his part, Zevlor merely raises his brows for half a second, then turns his focus back towards Astarion.]
It's not your show.
[Blunt, but not unsympathetic. Nonetheless, there's the reason. Besides, it really is a nice poster . . . his hands a particularly well done touch, Fenris thinks. Clever fingers and defined tendons that offset the soft gleam of pearls . . . Fenris stares for a few seconds, caught by them, before remembering he's meant to be soothing.]
And anyway, did you not tell me that mystery was part of any diamant's allure?
[For whatever it's worth, Zevlor tries very hard not to know. In fact, the flattened expression and elsewhere aimed eyes in overt dismission are a sign that despite believing this is the byproduct of misdirected sibling bonding, and despite being grateful for Fenris' interference, he's in favor of assuming it will end soon. Young infatuation is a novelty, especially in this line of work.
Infatuation that, at present, looks a great deal like snarling pups.]
I am supposed to be the mystery! [He snaps back with something more akin to a whine than a snarl, increasingly pacified by the arm round his waist— moreover when it's chanced in front of Zevlor of all people. He is still riled. Still upset at the unveiling that he'd expected to go snubbing half of Paris with, and now instead will have to quibble over moles and the shape of his décolletage about, but....]
Tsk [ is a sinking against Fenris' side, oozing into his own posture in a way that resembles nothing of painted elegance or grace.
Only sulking.]
....I was supposed to be the mystery.
I bragged about this all week.
['You're not even a diamond yet,' Zevlor exhales, filing the paperwork for the latest set of portraitures. The ire that it earns (oh the glare angled Zevlor's way from the bastion of Fenris' comfort), could burn the Moulin Rouge down if left with kindling.]
[He murmurs it in Astarion's ear, equal parts flirtatious and mollifying. The gesture earns another quick glance towards Zevlor, there and gone, but . . . well, if the man wants to ignore them for the time being, let him. That suits Fenris just fine, frankly. Kanan's been the opposite: almost unnervingly amused by their newfound relationship status, constantly teasing (mostly Astarion) about flirtations and notable bruises, and that embarrasses Fenris.
Turning his head, he nuzzles just once against perfumed curls. There, there, dearest heart . . .]
Anyway, you can still brag, can you not? Simply tell them you planned this. They won't know the difference, and you can still preen to your heart's content.
[A majority of the performers won't be fooled, but some of the younger ones might. Maybe. If Astarion sells it right, but his boyfriend is remarkably good at acting when he wants to be (or lying, if you look at it another way).]
Or don't. But there will be other posters, and soon enough with your face on them.
Fenris glances over uncertainly at Zevlor, and then, carefully, adds:]
[There's something palpable about the way Astarion melts in Fenris' arms, almost rumbling in his throat for how he's been so thoroughly pacified by only a few whispered words and the feeling of one soothing, pressed-in nuzzle.
Zevlor, on the other hand, might as well embody the concept of exasperation when he asks with pointed precision:
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illithidnapped) wrote2025-05-31 06:45 pm
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That's the only answer that counts, and it barely matters what the question is. Yes to the unspoken question of if he could get him to beg (easily, eagerly, whining and whimpering as if he's never known an ounce of shame). Yes to the way Astarion's fingers stroke his come-slick prick, high to low, high to low, and it's stunning how something so simple as a change in direction makes his thighs tremble and something searing hook deep in the pit of his belly. Yes to the suggestion of teeth against his ear and a slick palm roaming against his hip; yes to the sound of Astarion's voice low and throaty in his ear, murmuring such filth that sets off fireworks in his mind and dazes him to his core, yes, yes, yes—]
Ngh—
[A low moan slips past his lips instead of Astarion's name, and can anyone blame him? When his boyfriend whispers things that make him wring around the swell of his prick, face burning with desire and embarrassment both— when the thought of swaying on his heels, dripping with his own come and staring up at an enraptured, lustful Astarion captures his mind— when Astarion says such deliciously possessive things like my bodyguard— oh, Maker, he's only mortal.
He swallows thickly, squeezing his eyes shut as he tries to focus— to remember how to think, or speak, or do anything beyond rut his hips forward and whimper in blatant approval. Jerking his head back, he stares down at his boyfriend.]
Across your belly.
[There, now. Fenris tips his head, dark hair hanging like a curtain around his face as he peers down at him.]
So that I can have a claim, too.
[He brushes his knuckles against the edge of one sweat-damp cheek.]
You came in me— claimed me— made me yours— and now I want the same. I want you to be mine, even if the two of us are the only ones who ever know it.
So . . . make me come on you, Astarion.
[Experimentally he moves his hips just once, rocking them back to see if he can wring out one last noise from his boyfriend.]
And then see what you find hotter.
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He wrings out more than that. The noises Astarion makes (the noises that he's been making) are ones he's never heard before in all his life— not even here behind closed doors or when they (once, and only once) crawled through the vents between walls on hands and knees, places where stoked cries of whores and clients both were amplified like echoes— and he has to shut his mouth rather than his ears this time to silence them. He's not the catalyst (oh that is spread out over him, tight and fluttering around him and drenched with enough sweat and slick and heat and come that it threatens to smother him with its beauty— he's obssessed, memories fly off the shelves to make room for the buzzing trapped beneath his tongue— and he reels, and— ) he's just the source. Just the reactive set of muscle and teeth that snaps shut around his own sleeve whilst he stares up at heaven through a haze of scalding tears. Just the part of him that exhales noisily through it, whimpering at the aftershocks lithe hips strive to massage loose without letting his soft cock slip free.
He hears the silk of his sleeve tear. Feels the stitches popping loose between his teeth as his vision blurs beneath another squinting whine, each breath bellowed back into his own nose by soft silk. By the weight and shape of his forearm, his other fingers groping deep into tanned thighs with deeper, more demanding strokes than before— catching on occasion with a ring finger or a pinky the soft, supple hang of swollen curves behind it; hot and velvet-soft in a way that's tempting him to stop and wrap around them— but he can't right now. Not yet. Not when he feels the jolt of tensed-up muscles. Hears the telling strain in Fenris' roughened voice. He's starting to know the warning signs, what to chase and when to make things come apart. Or maybe that's just hubris— but he thinks he does. He thinks he does.
So this time he runs high.
This time he doesn't care how much silk he ruins when he pulls his jaw back from his arm, spit trailing sticky in slight strands from the wet-cold spot of where his mouth had been and where his tongue pants pink between childishly delicate canines— only long enough to speak.]
I'm already yours.
[It burns his lungs, the strain that holds his breath inside them at the height of their expansion. The effort that it takes to speak instead of keening like he wants to, feeling his own ribs grip back against soft flesh, trying to squeeze another outcry from him. The sort of mutiny that makes the world spin and his senses smear like paint on canvas, turning Fenris' handsomeness into a wetter haze— but he holds on.]
Make it undeniable.
[Another stroke. Another catch of fingers. Another glazing streak of movement wrapped around a still-glossed crown that shivers in his grasp.]
Come, Fenris.
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All at once he's on the brink of orgasm.
Like throwing gasoline onto a blazing inferno: Fenris moans without shame as he throws his weight forward, bracing himself against Astarion so that he can rut. Fucking himself with a fervor that grows more frantic with every passing second, his hips snapping forward to grind needily against Astarion's palm, shuddering with every wringing twist of pale fingers. More oh Maker please Astarion please I need it I need you please, his words slurred and broken up by the growing cacophony of moans and whimpers and mewls, until at last it simply becomes an endless echo of please. His thighs tremble as he gasps down at his boyfriend, eyes rolling back for every squeezing tug (please please please), electricity jolting up his spine whenever knuckles tap against soft curves (please more please don't stop). And when he manages to force open his eyes—
Fenris doesn't have words for what it is to see Astarion looking like that as he lies between tanned thighs. Glimmering eyes filled with tears that spill down flushed cheeks, the imprint of bitemarks vivid against sweat-soaked skin, the rise and fall of a narrow chest as he exhales hotly with every panting breath, and that's to say nothing of the saliva glittering against his chin, nor the way he's so overwhelmed he has to bite and tear his precious silks just to stay silent— Maker. He's damningly seductive in his messiness, all his pretty veneers stripped away into this raw, panting, perfect Diamond.
Come, his incubus whispers, and Fenris can do nothing but obey.
He's deaf to the hoarse scream that rips its way out of his throat and echoes around the room; he's blind to the way it looks as the first pulsing splatter of pearl lands atop Astarion's belly. Head thrown back and throat bared, he's too busy rocking into that coaxing grip, fucking himself blind— no instincts, no rhythm, no thought, nothing but longing and lust thundering through his veins. Again and again and again, until with one final, shuddering thrust of his hips . . .
. . . he's spent. His softening prick drools out one or two more droplets that form a viscous connection between stomach and cock; sweat drips along his temples and trickles down his spine as Fenris shivers atop his mate.
And then—
But there's nothing. No thoughts. No desperation. That last orgasm wiped him clean, and for a long moment Fenris simply sways there, a loud ringing in his ears and all of him so spent. Sooner or later he'll remember how to talk, perhaps, but for now there's only the increasingly adoring way he's looking down at Astarion. Oh, it's you, something in him murmurs. I love you, simple and yet so powerful he doesn't dare say it. Not now. Maybe not ever, or maybe tomorrow.
They're teenagers, after all. Fickle things in love and lust (and maybe there's a part of Fenris that will take a long time to accept that Astarion means to be his).
No, wait. There's one thought that permeates all that fog. Fenris blinks slowly, and then, with great force of effort, mumbles:]
. . . fuck.
[Articulate. But happily so, at least.]
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He thinks with the same amount of grace he swallows by, scratchy and bobbing and as ungainly as a child—
—something he isn't now, though, is what comes rising to the surface. Through the high-pitched ringing in his ears that still sounds like Fenris' screaming and the shrill numbness of his fingertips now slid up around the nape of that lithe neck, left to shiver weakly in wet white hair. Through all the sticky, sweltering— and around their silhouettes, cold— sensations crawling in around them, he knows he's not a child anymore.
Children don't fall in love like this.
Children don't want to burn out from the inside and lap up come like cream, oh, no. That level of debauchery prints money here, and there's a reason why the sign on the front door makes damned well certain the only patrons passing through are those with age behind them. His heart is beating slower. Stronger. The jewelry he'd borrowed fits better where it's rucked up, gemstones glittering like welling droplets in the divots of his countours.
He feels taller, meeting Leto eye-to-eye at last now that they've grown. Face to face in ways they haven't been in years.
And then Leto arches forwards just enough to shift the pressure where they're bottled, and he lets out a heady groan as the entirety of his vision blurs (the slightest trickle slithering down between two sets of tangled thighs, coiled like a snake).]
And you....said I'm loud....
[He's smiling at a distance, ten thousand meters away from the place where an upwards angled cheek pushes hot against another. He wants to keep him here forever. Forever and a day, or as long as it takes to find the strength to wrap devotion round strong fingers like a band.]
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You— you are loud . . .
[It isn't a very good retort, but on the other hand, it's a miracle he string words together at all. Eyes fluttering closed and every muscle aching, it's all Fenris can do to return those soft nudges. Damp skin meets damp skin as he pushes fitfully against Astarion's cheek, butting up against him like a needy packmate, his fingers aimless as they roam across whatever bits of Astarion he can find. Stay, stay, stay, the thought not fretful but languid. Stay with me, beloved, never leave me, for what could be better than this?
Nothing, that's what. Nothing at all. And it doesn't matter what debauchery goes on downstairs (though now Fenris has a renewed interest in understanding just what, exactly, he and Astarion might add to their next attempt), for none of the works those clients hold in their arms comes close to the blinding, blazing wonder that's Astarion.
Their loss, Fenris thinks smugly, and buries his face against the crook of his boyfriend's throat.
Eventually, his breath returns to him. He's still such a languid thing happily collapsed atop his mate, but his thoughts begin to take a sort of coherency. And the first thing he thinks, his thoughts trailing Astarion's own, is: we aren't children anymore. What surer marker of adulthood could there be? Virginites lost (and it's so deeply satisfying that it was to one another), that last bastion of unknown territory finally breached and given shape . . . what will it be like, Fenris wonders, to live in the cabaret now? The brothel was always kept separate from them both— not hidden, for Zevlor and Kanan are no fools, but at least ostensibly kept from the prying eyes of two impressionable teenagers. But now… what possible secrets could they hold now that Astarion and Fenris rank among their number?
Mm. Things to discover later, for all his musing on the future can’t compare to the present. Leto presses one tired kiss against Astarion’s cheek, then buries his face against the crook of the other boy’s neck.]
My Diamond . . . was it what you thought sex would be?
[That excursion into the vents had been educational, oh yes, and he’d been just as fascinated as Astarion (mouth dry and eyes wide, hardly daring to breathe for how fixated he was on the rutting, rhythmic show beneath them)— but it was nothing compared to this.]
Or should we try again soon?
[They’re still connected, he realized, and arches his back with a pleased little exhale.]
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His groan is sharp, and only by the grace of the Maker or Sharess herself is he so lucky as not to really manage any sheer amount of volume in it; the enthusiasm is the fiercest part, not the air within his lungs— or out of his lungs, now, panting and clinging to Leto with a grip that no doubt burns.
Don't move like that, he thinks. And then, scolding his own synaptic instincts, spurns that same line of thought, do move like that. For where else do they have to be? What else do they have to do? What could be more important than this, other than love itself all sweaty and confined within their bodies, trapped around the places where they touch.
He kisses Leto back, and then squeezes the measure of their tangled legs together.]
Soon.
[(Flushing at the words 'his Diamond,' gods above that's all he wants to be. His Diamond. His.
Let fame and fortune keep itself company.)]
I didn't— I didn't know it could be this good. [Isn't flattery; he really hadn't thought sex was anything different than the usual thrills. Why people paid so much for it was like why some people preferred gold jewelry to silver— some mix of status and sheer expectation.
Now, though....]
How did you learn all that....?
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I— didn't.
[Is that right? The past . . . however long it's been (minutes? hours? days? nothing really exists outside of this room, least of all the passage of time) are a happy blur, and only now does Fenris try to go back and pick apart each specific action.]
I . . . it just felt good, [he says a little helplessly. With a small wince he inches forward, drawing his legs up so he can ease them out of a kneeling position and stretch them back, and then lie down properly atop Astarion.]
I suppose some of it I must have seen in the past, but . . . I just did what felt good.
[Is that what sex is? It's such a scripted affair in the Moulin Rouge, or at least it's always seemed that way. Every dance is a titillating thing, meant to allure as it alludes to what might be sold later; every bounce and jiggle is planned in meticulous detail. Only now does Fenris think that maybe sex isn't quite the same way . . . or is it? Mm, it seems a little ridiculous to think that every person in the world plans out their rutting, so . . . maybe it's only good sex that's planned? But that can't be right, for look at what they've done . . .
Maybe they're just really, really good at it, Fenris thinks, and brushes a sweat-damp curl away from Astarion's face. His expression is more than a little besotted, he knows, but for the life of him he can't help it. His heart is just so full of adoration right now, doting and sweet; it's all he can do not to fiercely nuzzle against his boyfriend every second he gets.]
How did you learn? The dirty talk alone was . . . [Maker. He swallows thickly.] It was really good, Astarion. And when you said—
[I wonder if my bodyguard would look more handsome painted slick across my belly— or his own . . . match the way you look inside. Even now, the mere memory of them is enough to stir something in the pit of his belly— and yet he can't quite say it. What was easy in the heat of the moment is a little harder in the aftermath, and he glances away for a few seconds, pleasantly embarrassed.]
You truly are a Diamond.
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[Is that the first time in his life he's ever paid a compliment that devalues his own contributions?
(Yes, and it trickles effortlessly from his chest. Uncorked at last and beautifully aged— for the vintage might be far from ancient, but the potency is steep.)]
I think my lessons might've been paying off. [He's not yet learned how to even properly kiss; Satine has only covered etiquette, posture, and enunciation, common grooming tips and fashion. Astarion would've learned the exact same thing from any children's finishing school in the city, not that he knows it.
Not that either of them know it, and it's going to be such a menacing source of irritation for every single person around them from now until they (eventually) learn better.
He forces his fingers to unlatch— a dull ache flooding in alongside feeling and the rush of blood, so he's clunky in the act of stroking hair: not fully trembling in those first few passes, just close enough that he's aware each time they skirt too light or much too heavy in their path across his lover's sweatlaced scalp.
Hello, he thinks, words coming from a lifetime away.]
Don't....[it isn't tense; he's only interrupted by the fact that he forgot to breathe first, and finds he has to take in more to finish off his sentence] don't move yet.
I want to sleep like this if—
[This time the pause is real, he doesn't know the answer to this.]
....it doesn't hurt, does it?
1/3
No-oo . . . not hurt.
[The words are spoken slowly as Fenris tries to make sure that's an honest reply. But no, there's no pain there, not even when he wiggles a little and arches his back just to be sure. Though that has the unintentional side-effect of teasing Astarion, and he makes a little face in an apology that's mostly genuine. Sorry-not-sorry, a little spark of satisfied sadism flaring momentarily in the pit of his stomach.]
It feels . . .
[How to describe it? Not something as simplistic as good, for that doesn't begin to cover it. Satisfying, maybe, is the best word for it: there's something so innately pleasing about the feeling of being caught and kept like this, speared open and spread wide around the not-inconsiderable width of his boyfriend's prick. I'm yours, that's what this feels like. I'm yours, only yours, slick droplets of pearl glossing his rim as Astarion claims him inch by inexorable, inevitable inch . . .
It's perverse, no doubt. Filthy in a way that he would have found repulsive in anyone else. But when it's them— well. That's different, isn't it? In the same way mulsum and agreggio pavali are both technically wines, but only one of them is innately desirable within these halls.
Oh, but he owes Astarion an answer . . . he'd nearly forgotten, lulled into dozing complacency by those fingers and his prick both.]
I want to sleep like this too. And stay atop you as long as I can. And next time, you can try it— it feels really good, Astarion. Better than you'd think. I like being with you like this . . . and—
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[He draws back (one hand flying up to pin Astarion's in place— don't stop petting me).]
What if I move in my sleep?
[He used to cling when he was very young, his arms wrapping so tight around Astarion that the other boy couldn't get away if he tried. Now, older and more secure, he has a tendency to twist around until he's burrowed deep within the nest of blankets and sheets that make up his bed. It's not the worst behavior a bedmate could have, but there's been complaints of sharp heels and carelessly tossed limbs before.]
I don't want to break your cock.
[It's a good cock, and they've already had one scare tonight.]
3/3
[Maybe it'd be easier if he just wiggled off Astarion? He inches forward, trying to do just that, but oh, he's so loathe to lose that claim . . . mmph. A compromise: he nips at his boyfriend's jawline.]
Don't sleep just yet, for I don't want to get off you. Tell me instead what you want to try next time we do this.
[Next time, and despite himself, a little thrill runs through him for the thought. There will be a next time, won't there? And another, and another . . .]
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Oh, the shiver that rockets through him at that (unintended) teasing. Oh gods the stars that burst across his eyes, shattering the slate of his awareness and leaving him clinging tight to Fenris— his stare unfixed and glassy, his fingernails dug in, shuddering like a wet cat.
It's only when he recovers that he knocks his cheek against his boyfriend's, letting one chastising scrape of skin-against-warm-skin serve as both scolding and acceptance all at once. How dare you mixed into I forgive you, menace.
He isn't really angry, after all.]
You won't break my cock. [Confident enough at first blush, his fingertips (the ones attached to his caught hand, anyway) resuming their slow petting. And then, amending:] ....at least I don't think you will.
You seem to like the way it feels, so I bet your subconscious would too.
[That sounds logical, right?]
Mmmm....but what I want to see next time.... [He's thinking. He's really thinking.] I hear blowjobs are amazing. That'd be nice. Maybe even....
Tying you up? —or blindfolds? The old silk ones are getting worn out, I heard Kanan say. It wouldn't be hard to borrow one without anyone noticing.
[Look how learned he is, Fenris. Look how much he knows about sex.]
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But oh, a blowjob— oh, those suggestions, and with each one Fenris' eyes grow wider and his cheeks warmer. He barely knows what a blowjob is, but it doesn't matter; anything that Astarion says he wants to try Fenris is more than game for.]
You—
[Tying you up or blindfolds . . . he'd known, vaguely, that those were things that people did during sex (for there was only so much Kanan and Zevlor could keep from them). But knowing it happened to others and considering it for himself are two very different things, and Fenris spends a precious few seconds trying to imagine what exactly that would look like. Though . . .]
Pick one to try.
[He tips his head, eyes narrowing in familiar competitiveness.]
Tie me up or blindfold me . . . but whatever you don't pick, I get to try on you.
[There's really no wrong answer here.]
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[So flustered that it threads into his voice for half a second, breathy and completely uncomposed. His long ears sunken shyly underneath his curls until they twitch— and then jolt upright, all bashfulness wiped away by a short series of counterbalancing blinks.
(There's also the matter of the tension trapped low along his belly that still lingers, but he keeps his hands braced somewhere around either side of Fenris' shoulders now, and at least he can anchor himself through the way his fingertips curl just slightly over skin. Clinging and functioning like foundation all at once.)]
I mean— [Competitiveness. Competitiveness he can do, even distracted. An increasingly steady slant forming at the corner of his fresher grin insists on it, in fact.] of course. That's exactly what I had in mind, too.
That way we both can enjoy ourselves.
[Erh. No. Wait. Doesn't that imply that it wouldn't be pleasurable if they weren't taking turns?]
Try new things.
[ —Yes, there we go.]
Start making lists of all our favorites....just like the ones I've seen downstairs.
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I want to blindfold you first.
[The thought of Astarion with his hands drawn up over his head, lithe body drawn taut as he squirms in overstimulated impatience is, mm, a fantastic one, but Fenris likes the thought of him blind better. Going from arrogantly demanding things to gasping from the least little touch . . . oh, he likes the thought of that a lot, Fenris decides. And given they'll inevitably try everything from either end of the equation, he might as well demand what's on his mind first.]
That way we can start there . . . and go down any list we please.
[His eyes scan up and down Astarion's face, and then, in a burst of impulsive courage, he adds:]
I want to see you in lingerie. So. Add that to your list too. And I want to see you give me a blowjob too— maybe both of them at once.
[And maybe first, so that way Fenris can understand what exactly blowing someone entails.]
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Right?
A handjob is when you use your hands for sex....probably. (Because he's never heard of a dickjob or an assjob come to think of it, and not for lack of listening in, either, so if he puts the logic of that together, and then applies that to the rest of it, then he knows exactly what to do.) And the thing is— when he thinks about it, it sounds hot. Imagining himself blindfolded, wearing the sort of expensive jewels and lace that the aristocracy drools openly for (borrowed without Kanan knowing, of course) in the depths of some shoddy backstage room, hoisting Fenris' cock towards his lips via a few carefully curled fingertips and gently blowing across its tip—
It sends prickles of sensation skittering across his skin. Wakes him up against the drowsy-sweet flow of exhaustion he's been fighting in the wings of his own consciousness, closer to the dawn than dusk.]
You'll be my first customer, then.
[Says the lovestruck boy busy weaving their ankles together, imitating whorish odalisquery the way a lion cub tackles grass for prey.]
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[He means it to come out more emphatically than it does, but exhaustion (and the heavy, assuring swell of Astarion's cock) is lulling him into a sleepy stupor. He tucks his face into the crook of Astarion's neck, burying himself there with a little groan. There's a vague thought for draping the sheets over them both, but, well, eh. Astarion has more dexterity like this, Fenris thinks unfairly, and so he can be the one to tuck them both in.
But oh, right, he was saying something, wasn't he? Fenris tips his head up, blinking just a little blearily down at his boyfriend (and knocking his ankles back happily against that inviting coil).]
You're mine, just like I'm yours.
[And spent though he is, never doubt he knows the weight of those words. Not him.]
Not a customer. Not somebody you put on a farce to be around. I'm your bodyguard, and you're my Diamond— but you're also my boyfriend. And even if I—
[He hesitates for a moment. Jealousy gnaws sullenly at the back of his throat, but it's an easier pill to swallow when it's all conjecture. Still: there's a look of resignation in his eyes as he continues:]
Even if I have to share your, your expertise, I won't share your heart. Not with anyone.
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There, the words that leave him tight in the chest until he forgets that he's supposed to breathe.
You're mine, just like I'm yours.
He'd only meant it as a joke.
Or— no, not really. Not at all. Maybe he told himself it was a joke, but some part of him wanted it to be true: that Fenris would be his first customer. The only one that mattered. The only one that'd count. (Now the sentiment is small and pale. It's withered in its formerly perceived greatness, like a bite of apple that's too old to be anything but dry and spongy on the tongue.) He doesn't want to share his heart. Or himself. Or this.
Not with anyone that isn't Fenris.]
So you won't have to. [His head turns, cheek bearing against cheek as he tries to press a kiss to whatever edge of Fenris' face or temple or ear that he can find— less mouth to skin for the angle, but he can kiss the air and call it his lover too so long as they're the only ones here.] Not ever.
[He has to reach around strong shoulders to find the mess that was their bedding, tugging up a corner and a middle-section all at once. They're hopelessly intertwined; no straightening it out as he gives up and drags the bundle relatively over them in all the places where it counts, at least, with only an elbow or a foot or two left wanting for warm shelter.
Good enough, he thinks, collapsing across rucked pillows and slumping back into the boy who owns his heart, a few fingers threading through damp hair once more.]
You're my bodyguard....and I'm just yours.
[Even if he can't feel his fingertips, he likes the way straight strands twist between the pads of them.]
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Can it be so easy as that?
No, Fenris thinks distantly, surely not. Surely jealousy isn't so easily quelled; surely there will come a time when Astarion looks at some customer the way he's only meant to look at his Fenris, and that will hurt so badly. But . . . maybe it is, some small part of him whispers. It's the part that's currently melting beneath the way delicate fingers play with this hair; it's the part of him that rumbles softly in contentment as he settles beneath the covers and returns that clumsy kiss.
After all, isn't that how it's always worked between them? Ever since the beginning, back when Astarion had found him shattered into a hundred thousand pieces and offered him a handhold in the darkness. It's okay, you're okay, and though he'd known better even then to trust in such promises, Astarion has always had a way of achieving the impossible.
So why should this be any different?
It won't be, he thinks, his eyes fluttering closed as exhaustion begins to creep over him. He won't get jealous, and Astarion won't ever make him share. They'll be okay, because they're always okay. It won't be any different . . .]
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[He cocks his head as he says it. It is, to his expert eye, a fairly good poster. The artist Zevlor hired knows how to arrange things just so, so that one's gaze is naturally drawn from the tangle of gleaming pearls wrapped carelessly around Astarion's hands down to the glass of bubbling champagne before him, and from there to the name of the establishment itself. Pale skin glows brightly against a black backdrop, and particular attention has been lovingly paid to the lines of Astarion's neck and collarbone.
None of that is the problem, of course, but still: it's a good painting.]
What did you expect?
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[What did he expect??
There's a wild-incredulous gleam within pale eyes as they turn to fix on Fenris, whipped away from the purported 'masterpiece'— his mouth hanging open, an eyebrow twitching.]
My fucking FACE for starters, Fenris!! I expected to see my own fucking FACE!
[Back and forth his hands snap between Fenris and the canvas: DO YOU SEE. THE ISSUE. HERE.
(Tiredly, Zevlor interjects that it's an advertisement for the establisment at large, not Astarion, but said interjection goes largely unheard beneath the cacophony unleashed by the youngest future-entertainer-in-waiting in the room.)]
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To be fair to Astarion: it's not as if he's the only performer who's ever thrown a fit about not having his face in a poster. It's just that none of the others have ever mattered half so much as Astarion has, nor has anyone been quite so amusingly adorable in their puffed up rage. Biting his bottom lip to hide his grin, he glances just once at Zevlor before smoothly slipping one arm around Astarion's waist.
(It's not that Zevlor doesn't know (about them being a thing, anyway, though Fenris isn't sure if he knows about them having sex). But all of this is so new, and it's strange to try to find what new limitations and boundaries there are. For his part, Zevlor merely raises his brows for half a second, then turns his focus back towards Astarion.]
It's not your show.
[Blunt, but not unsympathetic. Nonetheless, there's the reason. Besides, it really is a nice poster . . . his hands a particularly well done touch, Fenris thinks. Clever fingers and defined tendons that offset the soft gleam of pearls . . . Fenris stares for a few seconds, caught by them, before remembering he's meant to be soothing.]
And anyway, did you not tell me that mystery was part of any diamant's allure?
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Infatuation that, at present, looks a great deal like snarling pups.]
I am supposed to be the mystery! [He snaps back with something more akin to a whine than a snarl, increasingly pacified by the arm round his waist— moreover when it's chanced in front of Zevlor of all people. He is still riled. Still upset at the unveiling that he'd expected to go snubbing half of Paris with, and now instead will have to quibble over moles and the shape of his décolletage about, but....]
Tsk [ is a sinking against Fenris' side, oozing into his own posture in a way that resembles nothing of painted elegance or grace.
Only sulking.]
....I was supposed to be the mystery.
I bragged about this all week.
['You're not even a diamond yet,' Zevlor exhales, filing the paperwork for the latest set of portraitures. The ire that it earns (oh the glare angled Zevlor's way from the bastion of Fenris' comfort), could burn the Moulin Rouge down if left with kindling.]
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[He murmurs it in Astarion's ear, equal parts flirtatious and mollifying. The gesture earns another quick glance towards Zevlor, there and gone, but . . . well, if the man wants to ignore them for the time being, let him. That suits Fenris just fine, frankly. Kanan's been the opposite: almost unnervingly amused by their newfound relationship status, constantly teasing (mostly Astarion) about flirtations and notable bruises, and that embarrasses Fenris.
Turning his head, he nuzzles just once against perfumed curls. There, there, dearest heart . . .]
Anyway, you can still brag, can you not? Simply tell them you planned this. They won't know the difference, and you can still preen to your heart's content.
[A majority of the performers won't be fooled, but some of the younger ones might. Maybe. If Astarion sells it right, but his boyfriend is remarkably good at acting when he wants to be (or lying, if you look at it another way).]
Or don't. But there will be other posters, and soon enough with your face on them.
Fenris glances over uncertainly at Zevlor, and then, carefully, adds:]
How long is going to stay up for?
[Just. Curious.]
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Zevlor, on the other hand, might as well embody the concept of exasperation when he asks with pointed precision:
'Why.']
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2/2 me realizing I really need to just commit and make us more icons
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2/2 PLEASE I WOULD LOVE THIS
THEN IT WILL HAPPEN....SOON >:]
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