#it's bad luck to cut down a holly tree if you're to believe some folk

[bigein]

So awhile ago over on your other blog you answered that ask about Ireland ships, and I personally don't really see any of the characters you mentioned liking with him bottoming 👀👀👀 so like... What're Your Thoughts On That Subject???

Alternatively : Is Sean a switch or is Arthur just such a bottom even other bottoms want to top him?

hello!

I did sketch out a few relationships for Ireland a while back (you've no idea how long it took me to find this with a broken search function).

How I decide to write sex in fic is situational so save for a few examples i don't have a set position in mind-- sex can be so many things! So my thoughts on the subject are going to be a little winded:

DenIre

Mathias has broad, calloused hands and they span the width of Sean's thighs easily. He parts them for him, lets him close, and then parts his lips to swallow Mathias' deep laughter. If there is a taste to him that Sean might like to recall later it is lost to the tang of cider on their tongues and the hazy desire that heats the air between them. It is not often that Sean will bring a man into his bed but Mathias is all at once a body and a smoke-dream; something brought forth from the rowan branches turned to ashen coals over the grates that warm their tent. He will be gone with the Sprig thaw, him and his kin, but tonight he is Sean's to rut against. A warm, slick mouth to kiss and fuck; a voice to whisper into his ear about the things he has seen beyond the known seas that span between them.

When morning comes, Mathias is a warm body still but when their eyes meet it is sea-salt and wind, and a world beyond the horizon waking to a new age of wanderlust.

ScotIre

For a moment, Sean is sure they will kiss.

They do not.

Alasdair's forearm is like iron where it pins him against the rough-hewn walls that keep from them their enemies but ward them not against the biting chill of winter or the acrid stench of war. Last summer it was just them, silent and familiar, sharing a single cup and the glow of firelight. Alasdair had carved him a fine stag out of the pale wood of a Holly tree and come the harvest Sean had seen in that an omen.

It will be centuries before Sean learns of Alasdair's pleasure; how he unspools with it, grows slack and soft where Sean has only ever known him to be unshakable.

SpIre

Honey should not taste so rich as it does now, licked from the pad of Antonio's thumb almost unthinkingly.

He is being seduced, Sean realises, and almost starts. Antonio laughs like he expected it and boldly, good-naturedly, cups Sean where he is hottest; hums like it's his pleasure when he twitches and thrusts up, helpless against this kind of pleasure and wanting.

Sean closes his eyes and surrenders like a fool; like he is young and fresh rather than scarred and aching, a body grown abstemious and ascetic by violence, by hunger. These rooms are strewn in sunlight and silk; fresh linen and fine leather. The air scents like a hothouse and with every roll of his hips, for every sigh he pulls from Sean's lips, Antonio whispers a name. Jasmine and lemon balm; orange blossom, geranium. He draws their pleasure out, withdrawing like the tide to ask questions and bid Sean speak hoarsely in the language of his poets only to steal every syllable from his lips with sucking kisses that taste of foreign spices Sean cannot name. Antonio's fingertips are tinged golden and fragrant with saffron. Sean's thighs are slick with cypress oil and pre-spend, pressed tight for the cock that fucks between them in steady, languid thrusts. His own cock aches, denied and weeping in Antonio's firm hold, past the point of what he thought endurable.

When he spills it is at Antonio's mercy, once, twice— thrice, and Sean's last delirious thought is of flesh and the divine.

PrussIre

Gilbert bites Sean's neck where he has already left his mark, a scar long-healed but crooked and keloided. He kisses the sting of his teeth away only to bite down harder a second time. Sean grips him so hard that it must hurt, strips Gilbert's cock like a man that has never known mercy and feels nothing but heat. They meet on battlefields and fuck when they will not be missed, where they will not be seen. Violence breeds passion, breeds anger, breeds exhaustion and leaves little room for shame. It is not love but it is relief to fall into each other's arms and that is what they find in bitten-back moans shaped like other people's names.

Still, when it is over, they linger.

Gilbert's bandages have come undone. Sean puts them to rights and keeps his comments to himself, knowing what Gil already can guess—that his wound will scar, another mar of silver on his moonlit skin. Sean's only coat has lost three of its buttons in the fray. Gilbert gestures wordlessly for it and replaces one of them, squinting in the dim light of the oil lamp they share, having for once found themselves on the same side of the war.

That night, despite the hum of foreign land beneath their threadbare bedding, they find a dreamless sleep.