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It’s preposterous.
Utterly absurd to be brutally honest.
Never in the last two hundred years did he think that he would ever lower his standards to such an extent.
Not that he had been in a position to ever really have any – given his status of spawn and slave alike.
And so, it baffles him completely that he is currently allowing this… this human barbarian… to pin him against a rough, bark broken tree stump and who then proceeds to kiss him senseless.
He whines for more when the kiss is broken and sharp teeth scratch down the side of his neck over his former masters’ scars.
Pathetic.
To be so entranced, so enraptured by a man who a mere hour ago had cleaved a hags head off her head and laughed uproariously as he waved it proudly about whilst bellowing like a conquering boar.
Rough, calloused fingers knead into his ass, alternating between tight squeezes and frantic petting. Astarion groans and threads his fingers through the fiery, cropped red hair, tugging desperately to get the mans attention.
He knows better than to speak. To draw attention to …gods… whatever this is between them. Its not the first time its happened and by the looks of things it certainly wouldn’t be the last time either.
He can’t seem to help himself – even if he knows better.
He knows sex. The act itself. Intimately, even. Like practicing for a ball with only the finest in attendance – he knows all the steps to please the crowd and have them clamouring for more.
He has, however, never experienced intimacy itself– until Damlin came along with his brutish, belly laughs and his axe-wielding chaos.
The human is covered in tattoos across his torso and arms, a few tendrils of black licking up the back of his neck. The artwork portrays his battles, his losses, and the few people he has loved in his short lifetime.
Not that Astarion has ever asked about them. In fact, he makes it his primary goal to never engage Damlin in conversation at all if he can help it. A kind word has never passed between them – all their short interactions ending in heated, flurried words of anger and disdain.
Astarion knows his heart is black from sins and deeds he can never atone for - and he has made his peace with it. He has hardened his heart, locked it away and vowed to never let anyone control him ever again – from the inside or out.
But somewhere along saving those damnable tieflings and druids at the grove - and marching through this gods-forsaken bog on another fools errand to save someone who he personally would let wither and die for her stupidity alone – something between them had started to change.
A lingering look after a battle to assess one anothers health.
A sweep of a hand across a broad back when reaching for his satchel beside the fire.
A playful tussle after a laugh shared at the expense of another.
His head clanks back against the tree and he hisses through his teeth as Damlin’s hand roughly unties the laces housing his cock, the sudden shock of warmth wrapping around his eternally frozen body making him jolt and curse.
Damlin growls in approval and continues his assault on Astarions neck - and once again – he just lets him.
It’s maddening. God's above!
He doesn’t understand it, but he will certainly never question it for fear of the answers or the deeper discoveries that are best left covered beneath the dirt.
The barbarians’ pants are harsh in his ear and match his own laboured breaths as his cock his expertly stroked and caressed like the fine wires on a lyre – he is being cajoled into singing a song with no words - and he clamps his mouth shut over the moans which bubble in his throat.
He feels…
Gods… he feels.
What a novel and frightening sensation.
An anger sweeps through him at his sudden vulnerability and he roughly jerks his bedmates head back, glaring at Damlin who only looks back at him with crinkles in the corners of his eyes and a fond, smug smile on his lips.
Damn him to all the nine hells.
Astarion kisses him, biting his lower lip; shuddering when a bead of the human’s succulent blood hits his tongue. One would think that sharing such fluids in such a manner would be off putting to most, but Damlin simply laughs softly into his mouth and thrusts his tongue deeper to give him a better taste.
How did they get here he wonders again as he is spun to face the tree, the loss of warmth around his cock an ache in the pit of stomach before a hotter than hell inferno crowds against his back and soothes away his concerns. Long, lean fingers wrap around his throat, an index finger pressing beneath his jaw where his pulse would have been wildly pulsing had he been alive to begin with - and not this husk of flesh he was forced into pretending was alive.
Reaching forward, Astarion places both his hands on the tree trunk before him, sharp nails scraping divots into the bark which crumbles and flutters to his feet. He widens his stance, cock swinging free in the breeze, and he holds his breath.
He hates the scars upon his back with as much fervour as he hates Cazador himself. He hates that he feels tainted, used, and abused with every word, every action and every breath. He has never shown these scars to anyone – until Damlin came along and blustered his way into his business one evening, drunk and tactless - and far too inquisitive for his own good.
So now when his travel-stained shirt from their endless journey begins to lift from his hips, bunching beneath his armpits – he stands frozen in time. He can feel his humans gaze upon his back, how his stare traces each and every infernal line.
He’s never seen it for himself, but he has felt every raised mark. Cringed inwardly at every patch of rough scarred skin his fingers could reach.
Despair claws at his insides and he begins to drown.
A soft, feather-light kiss is pressed to the centre of his back. His left shoulder. His right.
Astarion bites his lip as something peculiar lodges in his throat. His eyes sting, his throat burns but he will not turn to look at the man who is causing him to lose himself in increments with every soft touch.
This was never the plan.
He had at first – when joining the worm-addled flock of sheep – planned to seduce the strongest member of their group and secure himself a place of protection. A guarantee of sorts that even if his fighting skills were weak from centuries of feeding on rats – at least his body would once again ensure that he survived the night by being of use to someone.
It was all he had had to offer after all.
As it happened, Damlin was the strongest, the bravest and the most likely candidate. Whilst not clever enough to be marked in the annals of the greats for his intelligence and wit – his humour was dry, his character fair and gentle - despite his six-foot frame of muscles and startling brawn.
Astarion had instantly disliked the man and thought him a fool a mere hour after travelling in his company.
Damlin’s kind heart was so at odds with the gleeful way in which he felled his enemies. A constant contradiction. Blood, guts, and gore covering him from head to toe but a warm smile on his face as he ushered some poor, helpless child away from a cliff and back home as the fading tune of harpy still lingered on the wind.
For every good deed Astarion witnessed and was forced to be a part of – his anger grew to a proportion where most evenings within his tent he felt positively apoplectic with it.
The final straw had been a simple matter of Damlin nonchalantly stepping in front of crossbow, whose arrow would have surely lodged itself inside of Astarions head and ended his miserable life - and Damlin laughing as it plunged deep inside his meaty shoulder, shrugging it off as one would a stubbed toe.
To have someone risk their life for his – was never something he thought he deserved. Thousands of souls he had condemned through his acts of lies and seduction – and yet Damlin had found him worthy.
Shocked out of his musings – Astarion grunts as his hips are grasped, the hard length of the barbarian’s dick grinding against the cleft of his ass and he pushes back involuntarily - an automatic response to pleasurable stimulation which scatters his arousal around his bones like the fine sprinkling of dust which coats him completely.
This will the fourth time he has allowed Damlin to claim him. To have him. To bury himself so deep that he could scarce make out where one began and the other ended. His tight leather trousers loosen and slip down his slim hips, his cock bobbing once, then twice in anticipation of the fullness – the wholeness – he feels when they are finally connected.
Astarion braces himself, a small flinch jerking him forwards when the first wet and slippery finger circles at his hole. A firm but gentle pressure, a searing burn of a sting and the guttural groan which leaves the depth of his chest echoes back at him from Damlin, who is deftly preparing him for the final steps of the dance they will take.
He will not beg. Never again. But the clenching of his muscles around the warm digit within him beckons and yearns for more, and somehow, he never has to say the words because the man behind him knows.
Knows his desires.
His wants.
His needs.
Two fingers, then three - Astarion's panting breaths rustle the locks of his unruly hair which now fall across his forehead in disarray. More feather light kisses fall across the back of his neck as his body his bent and bowed to accommodate the bulkier frame which curls over and above him.
Astarion palms his cock, roughly jerking and twisting, balls tight and aching for release but his wrist is encircled and removed. A tut of admonishment filters through his lust-addled mind and is quickly replaced by a gasp which rips from his throat and drowns out all sounds- as the head of his lovers cock pushes past the tight ring of muscle, an inch and no more.
The pain is expected. He is no stranger to it. He welcomes it. It makes him feel alive.
And really – who travels with the necessary lotions for such forms of debauchery on the road anyway.
He hears it before he feels it.
The wet warmth of lubrication as his lover spits on his hand, withdraws his cock, coats himself and presses back in with a muffled curse and sigh.
Astarions head drops, the fingers of his left hand curled and clawing at the bark as the pressure in his ass increases, contracts, expands, releases and welcomes the cock which steadily presses forward with no signs of stopping nor ending.
His jaw drops, his mouth opens and still he has no words to describe just what it is that he feels. A strong hand on his, warm fingers threading between his own upon the stump and he gives in.
As with every other time – he vows for this to be the last.
And as with every other vow – he knows he excels at lying, even to himself.
Soft grunts from behind blow hot against his pointed ear, his hips slapping back at a steady pace against the groin which grinds the cock further inside of him with every thrust. It is slow, it is maddening and it it’s the most exquisite form of torture he has ever been made to endure.
He dares to look over his shoulder and instantly regrets it.
He catches the eye of his lover – deep, deep blue with flecks of gold – and they stare back at him with an a mesmerized intensity. The emotions within those depths bring the lump in Astarion's throat back in full force and with fiery vengeance. He cannot bear to see the look of affection on Damlin’s face. Even if he feels it with every touch, in every word in his defence when one of their party takes issue with his actions.
He has succeeded in making the strongest of their party care for him.
And he has never felt dirtier, more undeserving, or more loathsome for it.
‘’Astarion…’’ The whisper of his name, so loving, so gentle nearly brings him to his knees but a strong arm encircles his waist and presses him tight against the thundering heart at his back.
‘’Look at me.’’ Damlin pleads, breaths laboured, hips pistoning in rhythmic thrusts which shoots pleasure through every fibre of his being. Astarion shakes his head, shutting his eyes tight, brow furrowed and lowered and avoiding the mans gaze.
‘’You are beautiful.’’
Astarion shakes his head.
‘’You are … everything.’’
Astarion whimpers and takes hold of his cock.
‘’You are mine.’’
His eyes snap open. His cum leaking over the knuckles of his hand with a soundless cry.
Astarion nods his head.
He will deny doing so if pressed to admit it.
Damlin shudders against his back, pulling him even tighter against him, nose buried in the smooth lines of his pale neck.
Completion.
The only concession he can make – the only part of him that isn’t frightened beyond deaths door at this moment – leans back with a bravery he has never known to exist within him.
Damlin’s lips are sweet and soft, only the slightest threat of a beard on its away as Astarion's lips graze over them. He pours what little of his heart is left into the kiss and hopes it will be enough to convey what he feels - as he believes he will never have the courage to speak the words aloud.
The emptiness he feels when he is released is crippling - but he digs deep to find the resolve – the mask he is so used to donning when he is at his wits end and he fixes it firmly in place. He dresses himself curtly, tying his laces with more ferocity than is strictly necessary, smoothing his shirt back into the hem of his trousers.
Running a hand through his hair, artfully tousling his sliver locks to curl in a way he has been emptily complimented on a thousand times or more – he clears his throat and begins the walk back to camp.
He does not look back.
They never linger after.
There is no need to speak.
He knows Damlin is walking behind him, his shadow, his protector.
Astarion knows with certainty that he would stand before his lover and face any danger with a smile.