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wildsaltair · 2 months ago

Text

Nightmare

Pairing: Maximus Decimus Meridius x reader

Rating: T (hurt/comfort, angst, fluff)

Word Count: 2.3k

Tag List: @enjisbf, @nasatshirts, @empressenchanted

Author’s Note: Up until now I've never posted any Maximus fanfiction because it's always just sort of been something I did for my own enjoyment, but this is one that I don't mind sharing :) @streets-in-paradise inspired me by sharing some Maximus love with me, so this is dedicated to her (and all you other wonderful people who have made Tumblr a place where I can share my passion for this wonderful man)! There's a lot of love poured into this fic, so I hope y'all enjoy it :)

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You are not surprised to learn that Maximus has nightmares. The details of his past are something you can only guess at, though he has alluded to the terrible battles and bloody escapades that haunt his memories. You also know that his refuge in your home is the first peace he has known since he was a child.

But you are not prepared for the sheer forcefulness of his first nightmare. He’s asleep next to you in bed, pale blue moonlight filtering through the window of your room, but you are awakened by his movements in the middle of the night. He’s jerking back and forth, his face twisted in a look of concentration, agony, and terror. You can’t help the fear that rises in your throat at the sight.

He makes a quiet sound in the back of his throat, one hand gripping the sheets tightly enough that his knuckles turn white. Blinking yourself into consciousness, your heart tightens at the sight. Even all these miles and months away from battle, still his past pursues him in dreams.

His next convulsion shakes the bed, and you instinctively reach out to him, hoping to wake him from the nightmare. It proves to be a mistake the second your hand presses onto his shoulder to shake him awake.

His eyes fly open at your touch, but it’s abundantly obvious that he is not awake, still seeing visions of whatever memory he was in a few moments ago. The look in his eyes is one of pure survival instinct, of a desperation that breaks your heart.

A split second later, you’re flat on your back, and the full weight of his body is pinning you down against the bed. You barely have time to register the shock of his swift movement before you realize that you did not wake him up. Blinded by memory, all he can see is his opponent, and the thought drives you to panic and try to wriggle out from under him.

Grinding his teeth, he grips both your wrists in his left hand and restrains them above your head effortlessly, despite your struggling. You call out his name softly, then more loudly, but still he is lost in the nightmare.

You thought you had tasted his strength before, when he’s made love to you and demonstrated how easily he can hold you in whatever position he chooses, but this situation gives you an entirely new perspective of his strength. A second after flipping you over, his right hand is around your throat, his thumb pressing into your jugular with enough force to crush it.

You’ve never been afraid of him once, but in this moment, without a single hint of recognition in his eyes and all his power focused on choking you, you are so terrified you can barely react. You can’t even use your hands to try to push him away.

Knowing that you may only have a few seconds to react, you gasp out his name as loudly as you can, the word immediately drowned out by the pressure on your throat. Your vision is fading to black a moment later, all the feeling in your hands gone from his vise-like grip.

But your strangled cry reaches past the fog of his nightmare somehow. The pressure on your throat releases, and his eyes widen suddenly, letting you know that he’s finally awake and realizing what he has been doing.

You can never forget the look in his eyes at that moment. All the terrifying forcefulness, the single-minded fierceness, the brute strength that made him such a force of nature on the battlefield — it all vanishes in a split second, dissolving into a gaze of such horror and regret that it shatters your heart instantly. You know that from this moment forward, he may never truly trust himself with you again, a thought that devastates you for him.

You can’t move for a moment, still struggling to catch your breath, and the look of horror in his eyes only increases as he pushes himself off you. He seems torn between the need to gather you in his arms and the fear of hurting you as he just did. His lips move, but no sound comes out.

You draw a ragged breath, reaching out one hand toward him desperately. “I’m all right,” is all you can manage. “I’m all right.”

You try to push yourself to a sitting position, but you find that you simply cannot, still so shaken from thinking you were about to be choked to death by the man you love, who you know would rather die than cause you any harm. His hands are trembling wildly when he reaches out to steady you.

“I didn’t know it was you,” he says, his own breathing so erratic that you wonder if he can feel your pain. “I couldn’t see you. I didn’t know it was you.”

He’s repeating himself in absolute shock, his eyes scanning every inch of your face, your neck, your arms to see what damage he’s done to you. His shaking only worsens, but he doesn’t lay a hand on you during his frantic checking over you for injuries, just lets them hover as if he’s afraid to touch you again.

You manage to sit up this time, steadying yourself with a calming breath and trying to give him a relaxed smile. “I know, I know,” you murmur, reaching out to brush your hand over his ruffled hair. He almost recoils at your touch.

“I could have killed you,” he whispers, involuntarily shifting himself to the edge of the bed away from you.

You keep running your hand lightly through his hair, determined to reassure him. “Of course not,” you promise. “You were only dreaming. It was just a dream.”

“It was just a dream,” he echoes, but not in agreement. “A dream of a battle in which I almost died. In which I killed so many men I could never count them.”

You don’t betray a single hint of fear, just scooting forward to close the distance between you. You use both hands now, framing the sides of his face as his eyes search your face desperately.

“I’m perfectly all right,” you assure him with a smile. “See? No harm done at all.”

“You don’t understand,” he insists vehemently, his voice breaking. “I could have killed you. I didn’t know it was you. I only saw my enemy and thought of killing him.”

Seeing how shaken he is, you push forward and clasp your arms around his neck to steady him. He still doesn’t touch you, doesn’t return your embrace. You can feel his whole body quaking in your arms.

“You don’t understand,” he repeats. “You don’t know what I’m capable of.”

“I don’t need to know,” you whisper in his ear, stroking his hair rhythmically in the way he always responds to.

He actually pushes you away this time, his hands gentle on your forearms as he puts space between you again. His eyes are blazing, his face as white as your sheets. “You don’t know,” he murmurs again, dropping his hands. “I could snap your neck with one twitch of my wrist. I could break your wrists, your ribs, your spine as easily as I can hold you down.” He holds his hands up in front of you, eyes wide and haunted. “You have no idea what these hands have done.”

“I don’t care what they’ve done,” you argue, seizing his hands with yours before he can pull them away. This time, though, he doesn’t make a move to pull away, freezing in place while he watches you carefully. Slowly, intentionally, you kiss the backs of both his hands, his knuckles, his fingers, to demonstrate your words. “I know you, and I love you, no matter what you’ve done.”

He shakes his head, though his eyes drift closed at the touch of your lips on the base of his palms. “No,” he half-whispers, “no, no.” Your heart tightens seeing him so tortured, knowing that all this anguish lurks beneath his stoic exterior every day, hiding so you can’t see it. “I should never have risked you like this.”

“You’ve never risked me,” you insist. “You’ve never done anything but protect me.”

“Until tonight,” he counters sharply, his eyes flashing open and fixing on yours with his typical intensity magnified. “It only takes one time. I should never have taken the risk.”

You can read the meaning behind his words — that he thinks he can’t trust himself to sleep next to you. The thought of giving him up, especially for this reason, is utterly unacceptable to you.

“I am not afraid of you,” you tell him firmly. Your words seem to affect him, because the tension in his shoulders lessens fractionally. You kiss his hands again and again, then rest your cheek against the roughened skin that you love so much.

“You should be,” he replies softly, the severity in his voice already decreasing. You can see the waves of exhaustion and sorrow washing over him, and you reach out your arms to enfold him again. This time, he accepts your embrace, folding his arms around your waist gently and resting his forehead in the crook of your neck. His skin is burning hot against yours, his arms still trembling.

“I could never be afraid of you,” you whisper. “I could never be afraid of the man who has protected me and cherished me. You have treated me so gently, so tenderly all these months. Never once has it crossed my mind to be frightened of your strength.” You press a kiss to his shoulder, then the side of his neck. “I take pride in having the heart of a man so strong, so capable. I know you would never hurt me.”

He shifts you in his arms, lifting you slightly to align more easily against his body. You can feel the deep, shuddering breath he draws while he thinks about your words. “I would never mean to hurt you,” he replies, “but in a dream, I cannot tell the difference between memory and reality.”

“I believe you would be able to keep yourself from truly hurting me,” you reassure him, threading your fingers into his hair at the base of his neck. He reacts to your touch with a hand sliding up your back to cradle you closer to his chest.

“And if I could not?” he whispers in response, his lips pressing against the sensitive skin of your neck. “If I should wake and find you dead by my hand?”

You shake your head, feeling tears spring to your eyes. Any fear you felt in the moment while he was holding you down is completely gone, lost in the tender embrace he holds you in now. “I do not believe the gods would allow such a thing to happen. Not to you. Not to us.”

He releases a shaky breath, one that glides across the exposed skin of your neck. He ducks his head to press a kiss to your collarbone, letting his lips linger there in a way that makes you shiver in his arms. “I am honored by your trust.”

You smile in response, dragging your fingertips lightly down his sides, over the deep scar that slices down his ribs. “I could never trust another man on earth as I do you,” you reply. “My only fear is that I may drown in the love I see in your eyes every day.”

He kisses your collarbone again in response, then moves upward slowly, pressing his lips to the soft hollow of your throat, then the underside of your jaw at your pulse point. Lifting you up effortlessly with his hands hooked under your arms, he repositions you so that you’re straddling him.

He then rests his fingertips, feather-light this time, against the sides of your neck. He strokes his fingers over each mark they left, then presses the softest of kisses against each one. Goosebumps break over your skin at the intimacy of his actions, of the wordless apology in every touch.

He lowers his forehead against yours, eyes closed as he breathes you in. “I do not know what blind fortune allowed me to find you,” he murmurs, touching his lips softly against the corner of your mouth, “but I thank them every moment for the gift of holding you like this.”

At your affectionate smile, he finally gives you the ghost of one in return, though his eyes are still haunted. You suspect that he will retain that haunted look for some time, no matter how many reassurances you offer.

As the intensity of the last while calms, he shifts you in his arms again, cradling you gently and laying you back against the pillows. He leans up on one arm, facing you, and you reach up a hand to stroke the side of his face. His expression softens again, giving you a look of utter fondness and devotion that makes your heart melt.

He leans forward slowly, as if asking your permission, and you gladly grant it. His lips touch yours with a gentle brush, then a bit more pressure. His tongue slides across yours in the way that always sends shivers up your spine, and one of his hands reaches up to stroke your hair, the other resting lightly on your waist. He kisses you once, twice, three times, each one more tender than the last, then lets his lips linger against yours for a moment more.

“I love you,” he says softly that you barely hear it, but rather feel it against your mouth.

“I love you,” you return, “more than I can say.”

One last kiss, and he finally lays down beside you, his face mere inches from yours and his arm folded across your waist. He takes his time in going back to sleep, choosing instead to gaze at your profile in the soft moonlight, but sleep finally takes him. And when you finally close your eyes, content to sleep peacefully beside him again, it’s to the sound of his even breathing and the warmth of his protective embrace.

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More of my fanfiction if you're so inclined :)

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weaveandwood · 12 days ago

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The Snake and The Crow: The Beginning

Pairing: The Viper x Female Rook (Bianca, an Antivan Crow mage) Words: 4.3K NSFW Summary: Bianca and Ashur do something about the inexplicable tension that has followed them since the moment they met just two weeks prior.

AN: I bring you smut via flashback! This takes place six weeks prior to the current timeline, though this chapter can also read as a smutty one shot. Read on AO3! Read Chapter 2

DOCK TOWN, SIX WEEKS AGO

“Looking for something?”

She startled before turning slowly, the barest hint of a smile playing on the edge of her lips once she noticed it was him. It disappeared as quickly as he noticed it, her carefully crafted neutral expression a mask not dissimilar to his own. He wondered if there would be a day when he would see the Rook behind that mask. He wondered if she could be thinking something similar about him.

“I’ve never been good at being still, having patience, waiting around,” she said, leaning against a crate filled with extra robes, tunics, leathers – supplies for future members they kept stored away in this almost forgotten basement storage room. “I thought I would see if the mysterious Shadow Dragons had anything good hiding down here.”

“And? Find anything interesting?” he said, crossing the threshold and partially shutting the door behind him. He watched her eyes, blue as the depths of the sea, flick up and down. Before he knew it, he was right in front of her as if he were a moth and she was a flame. The air was charged like the moment before lightning struck, as it always was when they were in the same room. He could feel the sparks dancing across his skin – they were drawn to her, urging him forward to be nearer to her.

“I think the most interesting part of the Shadow Dragons is right in front of me,” she said, her fingers brushing the edging of his coat. “The name, the mask…there’s more to you than just The Viper.”

The tension between them had been potent since their first meeting in that alleyway in Dock Town two weeks prior. He had found himself half-listening as Neve and Rook confirmed things the Dragons had been hearing whispers of. His eyes were drawn to Rook - her curly hair, the scar on one cheek, the low cut top she wore. What caught his eye most of all were what looked to be scarred feathers trailing from her collarbone down her chest. They were too regular and defined to be accidental. There was a story there, as Neve would say. He looked at her face once more only to find her eyes already on him - he had been caught staring. He had never been more thankful for the mask to hide the hot flush that had climbed up his neck that day.

And yet, it didn’t stop him from staring every time they met since.

“I’m sure there’s more to you than just Rook. We all have our secrets, or burdens, our obligations. Especially those of us in…our positions.” He was so close to her now he could see her chest rise and fall with each breath, count each eyelash, see each tiny freckle. If he hadn’t been The Viper and were only Ashur instead, he would have already pressed his lips against hers. He would have already had her back against the wall as he dragged his hand up the side of her body to feel her curves. He would have already heard her whisper his name into his ear.

“The perks of leadership no one tells you about, right?” she smiled as he laughed softly, her fingers now grazing the stiffened collar of his shirt before moving to the lower edge of his mask. She traced the outline of his ear and he couldn’t help but close his eyes against the surge of desire that coursed through him. He wanted to touch her, to wrap his arms around her and kiss her roughly. It was new for him, to feel this way as quickly as he did with her, almost unexplainable - yet she was magnetic, she was intriguing, she was under the same amount of pressure he was, if not more. He wasn’t normally like this. He was a man of focus, a man with a mission – work against the Venatori, free slaves, get them to safe houses, and make Minrathous a better place. That had been his anchor all these years and his single goal. He found it was getting more and more difficult – the Venatori were brazen and the slavers grew more and more cruel, emboldened by the apathy of much of the Magisterium. He was frustrated, he was tired, he was angry. He had no outlet.

“It is nice to spend a quiet moment with someone who gets it,” he said, finding his finger tracing the placket of her top, unbuttoned to almost her stomach. Just one move and he could have it fully opened, he thought, with nothing between him and her skin that he spent more time thinking about than he should.

“Would be nice to be a little less quiet, too,” she said before ever so slightly biting her lip. He would remember that image for the rest of his days. “If you want.”

“I think it’s pretty obvious what I want.” The thought of them entwined made the air in the small storage room even more volatile – one word could set him ablaze. He could feel himself stirring at the thought of having her moan in his ear while he was buried deep inside her.

“Then will you let me see you?” she whispered, reaching for the fastening of his mask before he had a chance to answer. He froze, warning bells going off in his head – past experience told him to back away, that no one could know who he truly was. All of his work would be destroyed in an instant if anyone found out, and he couldn’t bear that for the people he was trying to help. And yet…his instinct told him to trust her. She was fighting a similar fight he was, holding similar burdens, similar pressures. He felt the clasp release, the familiar weight of the mask gone as it hung freely by his other ear. One burden so easily removed by her. How many others would she help him shed? Could he do the same for her?

The thin thread of his composure snapped when he saw the faint smile appear upon the revelation of his face, another small crack in her well-honed mask. He crashed his lips against hers, smiling against her as she kissed him back. It was almost funny, the tension of their last three meetings had come to a head and now they were making out in the basement of the Shadow Dragon’s pawn shop. His tongue pushed past the boundary of her lips, finding a rhythm as it danced with hers. Her lips were soft, full, and perfect against his. He pressed his body into hers, his fingers tangling in her mass of wild curls. She let out the softest moan into his mouth and it was all he could do to stop himself from taking her right then and there as his mind filled with images of them together. He imagined his hand sliding into one side of her top, feeling her bare breast beneath his fingers. He imagined her hand wrapped around him before climbing on top of him. He imagined the look on her face and the noises that would escape those perfect lips when he made her come.

The creak of the wooden stairs made its way to his ears, interrupting his reveries – someone was coming, and they couldn’t be found like this. He broke the kiss and she was left breathless, her lips swollen. She looked as disappointed as he felt. He might not normally be like this, but he wanted to be when he was with her.

“I can come back. Later. Alone,” she said, the implications clear. She wanted him as much as he wanted her.

“Ashur.”

“What?” she said, a look of confusion on her face.

“My name. It’s Ashur,” he smiled before fastening his mask and becoming The Viper once more.

“See you tonight, then,” he said as he walked out the door, leaving her alone in the storage room.

He waited for the telltale glow of an activated eluvian to fill the small room he was currently working in. Most of the Dragons had either left for the night or were sleeping on the scattered couches, even Tarquin after much convincing. Good . He wasn’t sure how he was going to explain Rook coming alone through the eluvian in the middle of the night and the longer he could delay that particular conversation, the better.

The mirror came to life, a faint hum preceding the soft white glow to announce his visitor. He set down the papers he was looking over - manifests from a slaver ship they were planning on raiding in the next few days. The work was never ending and progress seemed nonexistent on days like today where he was disheartened, where he longed for the day when The Viper didn’t need to exist, when he didn’t need to live a double life. As he saw Rook step through the eluvian, he took in the way her leathers hugged every strong curve of her body, the way her curls moved, the sway of her hips as she walked toward him. He supposed now that he would be living a triple life, though he would gladly do so for a few hours with her. The kiss they shared had been the one bright spot in this difficult day, and he found his mind drifting to it often as the hours passed.

“Bianca,” she said.

“What?” he tilted his head slightly, sure he missed something.

“My name – Bianca. I think it’s only fair if you know mine.” She was in front of him once more, toying with the edging on the jacket. “Especially if this is going where I hope it’s going?”

A thought flashed through his head, chastising him for getting this close to an Antivan Crow. He knew this was dangerous, that they were trained to use seduction techniques on their marks. If she found out who – no what – he was, he would be in even greater danger than he was before – bought and sold to the highest bidder, a trophy for someone who didn’t agree with his plans. Still, as her fingertips brushed the small amount of exposed skin on his neck he found that he didn’t care. Let him be her mark for tonight.

“Follow me,” he said, leading her to the back of the building to his quarters. A generous term, really, it was a small office with a desk and a sofa to sleep on in the rare hours he could afford to rest. He shut the door behind them. There would be no resting here for now.

“Nice place,” she said, watching him from the sofa as he hung up his coat and hat before unfastening his mask and laying it on the desk. “There you are,” she smiled.

“Here I am,” he said, walking to her with purpose. He sat next to her before pulling her onto his lap, ready to pick up where they left off that afternoon in the storage room. He wrapped a hand around her back, pressing her toward him as his lips brushed hers - both of them tentative for the briefest of moments, as if this was a line they weren’t sure they should cross even though they wanted to. The moment was fleeting, passing as swiftly as it came and they found themselves entwined together once again. His skin felt as if sparks of lightning were running just under the surface. They made him want more.

She moved to kiss his earlobe. He groaned when she kissed one forgotten spot on his neck that drove him mad and he pressed his hips up into hers on instinct. He ran his hand from her waist to her breast, palming it as she continued her torturing path down his neck and across the column of his throat before moving back up the other side. He thought of her kissing his chest, his stomach, her lips wrapped around him. The thought alone nearly sent him careening toward the edge and they weren’t even undressed yet.

“Can I ask you something?” he asked, breathless, needing a moment to recover from his imaginings.

She hummed against his neck in agreement.

“The…scars,” he inhaled sharply as she bit a little harder on his earlobe. “What is the story there?”

She sat up and looked at him. He had never seen someone with eyes that deep of blue – was it an Antivan thing? He could drown in them and be glad for it. He dragged a finger down the center of her chest, feeling the slightly raised skin.

“A question for a question?” she said, smiling at him. This could be dangerous, he thought, but then she rocked her hips against him and his better judgement went out the window.

“Deal,” he groaned.

“Training for the Crows starts when you are a child. I had just turned seven when they bought me. It is…tough. Brutal. Some would call it torture – I certainly felt that way. But I made it through, and I never was more proud of myself than when I was fully initiated. I was an Antivan Crow. So I got my wings to celebrate – I’ll always be a Crow.” He had heard rumors of the training methods of the Crows, children raised to know nothing but murder, that a life is what you can earn from it, that –

“Wait, they bought you? So you were a slave?”

“I only agreed to one question, Ashur,” she smiled. “My turn.”

“Fair enough, what is your question?” he said, kissing her neck, now his turn to give her sweet torture.

“What’s with the hat and the mask?” she whispered, her head tilted to the side to give him better access to the smooth skin above her collarbone. He paused as his lips brushed against her throat.

“I can’t answer that one,” he said.

“That’s not fair, we had a deal, Viper ,” she teased, a fake pout on her lips. She pressed her hips down again, drawing out another moan from his lips, knowing she could feel him straining against his pants. He sighed before looking into her eyes once more.

“All I can say is that if anyone knew what I looked like, who I am – it would be very bad for me, the Shadow Dragons, and the people we are trying to help, among many others. I am putting a lot of trust in you, Rook .”

“Luckily for you, you could be the Archon and I would have no idea,” she joked before kissing him again, a little softer, less desperate than earlier. “Who better to trust than a nobody who has to kill two, maybe three, elven gods? Odds are I won’t even be around to spill your secrets,” she said with a soft smile on her face.

He smiled back, though he would not tell her how close her joke was to the reality of his situation. He tucked a curl behind her ear, discovering it was pointed. She was an elf – how had he not realized until now? Another question for another time.

“You’re…not the Archon are you?” she asked with narrowed eyes.

He let out a loud laugh. Maker , how long had it been since he laughed like that? “No, Bianca, I’m not the Archon.”

“Good,” she said with a smile. “Now…where were we?” She reached around the back of neck, pulling him to her, kissing him deeply. He melted into her touch as her kiss heated him even more than he was before, the sparks of lightning giving way to a burning ember, ready to ignite at a moment’s notice.

He thought he should be embarrassed about how aroused he was with her hips rocking against his, even fully clothed, and yet…he couldn’t find a reason to. He didn’t know if it was a purely physical thing, or if it was because she uniquely understood the heavy weight of expectation. In the end, it didn’t matter. He wanted her, and he would have her. Only a few buttons stood in his way, and he made quick work of them to expose a narrow ribbon of her olive skin.

She slid the shirt off her shoulders to the floor, leaving her bare from the waist up. The dim lighting in the room played off the swell of her breasts, the dips and divots of the scarring on her chest, her shoulders, her arms. He was transfixed. He ran his fingers down the line of her shoulders, feeling the raised skin as he reached her scars. What must she have gone through for this to be a celebratory action? He thought of her laying on a table while someone carved into her skin, streaked with thin rivulets of blood. She nipped at his earlobe again before flicking it with her tongue, bringing him back to this room, this moment. There were other tables she could be laid upon, other feelings than pain he could give her. He pushed his hips up against her while her mouth trailed hot kisses down his neck, letting out a soft groan while using her hips as leverage to rock into her faster, harder. He felt like someone wholly different, who he might have been if not for responsibilities and obligations making him into who he was.

“Too many clothes,” she whispered. She climbed off him, leaving him missing the weight of her body pressed against his before taking his hand and pulling him up off the couch. “Off,” she said, backing up to sit on the edge of his desk. She watched him, intently, as he quickly shed his many layers of clothing like a snake sheds its skin. The layers of shirts, the wrapped belts, the pants...she was right – it was too many clothes, and they all ended up in a heap on the floor.

“Much better,” she smiled, looking at him naked in front of her. Once again he thought he should be embarrassed, but couldn’t find it within himself to feel it. Not with the way she looked at him, the hunger in her eyes growing by the second.

“Now who’s the one wearing too many clothes,” he smiled an easy smile at her, motioning with his eyes to her leather pants, still infuriatingly on her body.

“You tell me,” she smiled, leaning back slightly onto her hands, her legs parted. He stepped inside them, undoing the fastenings of her pants before desperately hooking his fingers into the waistband and pulling them off of her, adding them to the pile on the floor. He was both surprised and not surprised to find that she wasn’t wearing undergarments.

“Much better,” he said, his eyes blazing a path up her body just as she had moments ago. She was beautiful, every inch honed to be an assassin from her strong thighs to her muscular arms. She was a fierce mage, but she had the build of someone who knew her way around a throwing dagger, of using physical force to kill when mana was low. That turned him on even more. He felt her fingers press into the skin on his hips, pulling her closer to him.

“So,” she said with a teasing smile as she looked down at him, hard against her leg. “Still want this?”

He laughed. Here she was, naked on his desk with him hard as stone between her legs and she was asking if he still wanted her? He slid a hand between them down her center, and found her slick with desire.

“I don’t think I’m the only one who wants to,” he whispered into her ear as he gently rubbed her clit, her soft gasps falling from her lips to his ears. “I’ve wanted to touch you from the moment I met you,” he said, kissing down her neck once more to the tips of her scarred wings. He would touch each carved feather before he was done with her, he promised himself. She arched her back as he pressed his lips to her skin, one hand on her hip while the other continued tracing circles against her.

“Only touch?” she whispered.

“Among other things,” he smiled against her collarbone.

“Prove it,” she said. He could hear the smile in her words as she rocked her hips against his hand.

Whatever thin restraint he was holding on to previously broke – he was a man on fire. He kissed her roughly, all pretense of the evening gone, if there was any to begin with. They were both here for one reason and one reason only, the air in the room thick with tension as they balanced on the knife’s edge of before and after . He held himself in one hand as he lined himself up against her entrance, looking to her for one last confirmation before pressing into her slowly, using shallow thrusts to help her open up for him. He watched her close her eyes as he sheathed himself fully within her, pausing for a moment to let the both of them adjust to the feeling of each other’s bodies. Maker , she was tight, warm, and wet around him, the softest velvet against his steel.

Ashur was deliberate in everything he did, and this was no exception – he set a slow pace at first, nearly pulling out of her each time before fully sinking back in, drawing a moan from her lips when their hips met again and again. Each time she sent a gasp to the Maker he sped up, the desk creaking as he drove into her with his full length. He watched as her breasts moved with each thrust, he watched her stomach muscles flex as she moved her hips to meet his each time, he watched himself slide in and out of her. Every inch of him connected with every inch of her, and he never wanted to go without this feeling again. He wanted to have her again and again. It had been so long since he’d felt like this, selfish desire cast aside for holy purpose. Her nails dug into the skin of his arms, leaving divots in their place as he continued his relentless pursuit of her pleasure. Each minute bled into the next, time no longer holding meaning as the two of them chased their own highs. Each time she whispered “More, more, ” he gladly obliged and by the time he felt her starting to tighten up around him they were both coated with a thin sheen of sweat.

“I’m so… ah ! So close,” she panted, arching her back against the desk that she was now fully laid out upon. He licked the tip of his finger, reaching between them and tracing gentle circles against her clit once more, desperate to see her reach her peak, wanting to feel her shatter around him. Her hips jolted at his touch, her grip on his arms tightening as she got nearer and nearer to that edge. He kept a firm and steady pace, each thrust into her hard and relentless. He forgot about everything outside of this room as he watched her face. She was beautiful at any given point of the day, but when she was this close, she was radiant. Her cheeks flushed, her skin glowing with sweat, her curls wild and free around her head like a halo. She was divine in this moment. There was no mask.

He felt her muscles tense and her body freeze before she cried out, his name tumbling from her lips like the sweetest song. He felt her shudder around him, pulsing as her orgasm rocked through her. The fire raging under his skin settled lower and lower, driving him to thrust into her faster and harder as he edged closer and closer to the peak of his own desire. He lifted one of her legs, fingertips digging into the skin of her thigh as felt his abdomen tighten. He looked into her eyes and drove himself into her one last time before tumbling over the edge of his desire and falling into the sweetest bliss. His orgasm came with a cry to the Maker as he felt himself fill her with his release. Panting, he pulled out of her, reaching for her hand to help her sit up so he could kiss her once more.

“That was…” she smiled at him, breathless.

“Yeah…it was,” he replied.

“Should we do this again? And again? And again?” she laughed, tracing a finger down the center of his chest before resting her hands on his waist while he kissed her neck again, tasting the slight salt of her sweat.

“I think so,” he said, nipping at her ear. He hadn’t felt as relaxed as he was at this moment in ages. He was unsure if it was the sex or if it was just being with Bianca. What better way to find out than through repeated action? “Every other night? Same time, same place? Or is that too much?” he laughed.

“For the amount of stress we deal with and how good that was? I want to say it’s not enough, but it’ll do,” she joked, sliding off the desk to begin gathering her clothes from the floor. He was unsure if he would ever look at that desk the same way ever again, in a good way.

He said goodbye to her some minutes later, sending her back through the eluvian with a ratty old Shadow Dragon robe – “ For next time ,” she had said. He laughed to himself as he lay on his sofa. The sun would be up in a few short hours, but he was sure he would not find sleep tonight. It was elusive on a good day, which he would now count this as, but now he had visions of Bianca naked on his desk running through his mind. He should be thinking about so many other things, important things, serious things, but his mind always came back to the noises she made and the feeling of being deep inside her when she came.

He had fun. For the first time in years he allowed himself to have fun with her.

Whether he got sleep or not, it was worth it.

#my writing #viper x rook #the viper datv #ashur datv #the viper #the viper dragon age #ashur dragon age #datv rook #datv fanfic #dragon age the veilguard #datv the viper #datv ashur #the snake and the crow #the viper x bianca #ashur x bianca #bianca de riva #sorry this is a long one #i really enjoy writing their dynamic and couldn't rein myself in #the snake and the crow fic

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