#(if there's anything i should change please lmk! otherwise please know she spoils him rotten w aftercare as he deserves)

[softersinned-arc]

@xfindingtrouble said: ❛  please ,  please ,  please -  ❜ from percy :)

He's perfect like this.

Her grip on his jaw is firm, almost unforgiving, and she keeps his face turned towards her. Everything about him, from the uneven flush in his cheeks to that kiss-reddened mouth, inspires the sort of awe she'd once thought she'd outgrown. Then again, he always does that, doesn't he? Creates such an honest, unexpected wonder? Astoria's eyes are hungry as they sweep across his face, and she bows her head, presses an almost reverent kiss to the flutter of his pulse in his throat.

"I love you like this," she says softly, voice muffled against their neck, lips dragging over their skin. It's hardly news—she loves them any way she can have them, though this is, admittedly, something special—but she says it with all the honest fervor of the first time she admired them. "Watching you come undone for me. I can never get enough of it." Another kiss, this time to the corner of their jaw, barely an inch from the iron grip of her fingers. "I could spend my next century watching you and still want more. Look at me, sweet thing."

She lifts her head so she can meet his eyes. Beneath her, Percy is unraveling, and he brings his fevered gaze to meet hers, and Astoria's lips curl up in an impossibly fond, entirely indulgent smile. (It's the one way in which she will always, always fail him: no matter how hard, how cruel he asks her to be, she cannot keep herself from looking at him like this.) He opens his mouth to speak, and she moves the hand at his jaw only enough to let one of her fingers fall past his parted lips, brushing over his front teeth.

"I'll tell you when you can speak," she says, rather adoringly, loosening her grip only enough for him to nod in understanding. There is something to be said for commanding his silence—not that she isn't perpetually enchanted by the sound of his voice, but simply that she likes to know she can exert such consistent control. Fuck, but his eyes are the most beautiful shade of green. She always thinks she knows this, and then she looks at him and she loses her focus again. Just like that stunning curve of his lower lip, the breathtaking angles of his jaw—

Years, decades of learning absolute control mean that she's able to move only as much as she'd like. Her bent legs bracket his hips, and she hovers just above him, careful not to lower herself too far, her heels digging gently into his thighs to keep him from arching up to meet her. The hand not at his jaw is settled over his sternum, though she lifts it now to give him room to move.

"Up, my love," she instructs. "On your elbows." Percy complies at once, pushing themselves up at an angle she knows they can't keep indefinitely. She releases them and leans forward, reaches to pull the pillows down to their shoulders to help keep them comfortable so she can take her time. Her hands card through their hair, fingers tangling in the silver strands, and she tugs lightly, just enough to make their eyes widen and prompt a sharp intake of breath. The rest of her body doesn't move.

"Gods," she breathes, "but you are beautiful. You are so beautiful." And he is. Astoria is utterly enraptured by the hint of a wrinkle beginning between his eyebrows from the persistence of his thoughtful frown, as much as by the promise of laughter lines around his mouth. She has memorized the location and shape of each scar, has learned the landscape of his body a hundred times over now with her fingers, her lips, her teeth, her tongue. "So perfect for me. My sweet love. The whole of my heart. You have been so good for me tonight."

One of her hands moves to his chin, and she drags the pad of her thumb gently along his lower lip. She presses her heels harder against his thighs; she thinks she might leave bruises there. "Speak," she instructs warmly. "Tell me who I belong to."

"Me." The answer comes readily. They know exactly what she wants to hear. "You belong to me. You're mine."

"That's right. I'm yours. I am yours, unconditionally and entirely. I spent a hundred years waiting for you without even knowing who you were, and every second was worth it, to have you here with me. To have you like this. I would have waited a thousand to have you here." He flushes a beautiful pink with pleasure at that, and Astoria leans forward, presses her lips to his in a long, lingering kiss. "And who do you belong to?"

"You."

"Yes." She releases his chin, curls her hand very gently around his throat. She feels the tension in his arms, his thighs; he wants so badly to move, to wrap his hands around her hips and pull her closer, closer, closer, but he refrains, waits for instruction. "You are mine. You're so precious to me." Her free hand moves, and she pushes her hair back, only for it to fall around them in a curtain of waves, as if to block out the rest of the world. "You mean more to me than anything or anyone. Oh, Percy." She kisses him again, and again. "My Percy. You've been so good for me. You're always so good for me. Tell me what you want, beloved."

He tries to speak, and he can't quite manage it; Astoria takes mercy on him. Another night, she'd tease, she'd torment, make him speak if he could, but she's as desperate for him as he is for her, now.

"Do you want me to touch you?" He nods. "Do you want me to fuck you?"

They find their voice this time. "Yes."

She releases him, lifts her head. "I'll do anything for you," she breathes. "I'll give you everything you want. Everything. Say it for me. Beg me."

"Please. Please."

"Sit up. Fuck." She lowers herself just barely as he follows her instructions, but still not enough. He lets out a desperate whine that very nearly breaks her. She's aching for him, wet and needy and clinging desperately to the ever-thinning last threads of her self control. "Fuck. I love you. I love you so much. My perfect darling. My sweet perfect darling. I love to hear you beg for me."

Percy's arms wind around her, his hands at her back, his fingernails digging into her skin at her shoulders. "Please," he practically whimpers, and she leans forward to kiss him again, as if even a moment with so little distance between them is intolerable. "Please, please, please—"

"So beautiful," she murmurs. "So beautiful, and mine. Only mine. Do you have any idea how much I adore you?"

"Yes," he says at once, his voice vehement, his expression fierce, and somehow, she loves him more for it.

"Keep your eyes on me," she instructs, her own voice nearing a whine. "I want to watch you come for me. Can you do that?"

"Yes."

"My beautiful love," she whispers against his mouth, "so good for me, so perfect, always so perfect, and mine. You're so good for me." Slowly, tortuously slowly, she lowers herself onto him. "Fuck. Fuck. I love you." She could say it a thousand times, and still need to tell him again. "Tell me what you want, darling. Tell me exactly what you want."

They hold her so close, so tight she almost thinks they want to climb into her chest, settle within her rib cage. When they ask her to bite them, voice breathless and uneven, her skin breaking under their fingernails, she sinks her teeth into the scarred flesh of his throat. His blood is richer than any wine, sweeter than honey, and she only takes enough that he'll taste a hint of copper on her lips and tongue when she lifts her head and kisses him.

He comes undone beneath her, chest heaving, hips stuttering in their movements, and all the greatest artworks of the centuries can't compare to the shape of their parted lips and the mess of their hair and the desperate need in their eyes as they pull her closer, closer still.