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There’s only a handful of times Alistair can really remember touching himself since puberty hit seemingly overnight, leaving his legs dangling off the bed and his spend coating the linens.
Since that first mortifying experience, he’d gotten good—too good, perhaps—at ignoring whenever arousal pulled him toe-curlingly tight, alongside other basic human urges. Hunger. Thirst. What have you. Besides, the Chantry dormitory didn’t exactly leave a lot of privacy for that type of indulgence, and maybe that was on purpose, considering that’s exactly what Alistair was taught it required afterward should he give in – a remission before the Maker - usually in the form of bent knees, aching from hours of supplication - repenting for temporal punishment due his sins whose guilt has already been forgiven.
Forgiven for what? Why should he feel guilty, exactly? He still doesn’t quite know. (But that doesn’t stop him from feeling it.)
Regardless, it wasn’t until much later that he realized he’d misunderstood something. Alistair learned (maybe a bit later than he should’ve) that, while the other Chantry denizens were being taught the exact same lessons he was - were left with the same rapped knuckles and essays on reflection - apparently, not everyone shared the same scrupulous terror.
Not all of them were as deterred as he was from the pleasures of the flesh.
The first time he realized this was when one of his fellow initiates stumbled back into their shared space and threw himself onto the bed, dazed and clearly pleased with himself — the stench of booze, sweat, and, well, sex wafting off him in waves as he launched into a vivid description of just how he spent his 18th birthday.
A brothel, he said. Older Templars took him and some others, he had said. There was a girl — a working girl — offered him a discount, he said. Ya know, ‘cause he was the birthday boy, all nice and sweet like, right? — and when they got up to her room, he kissed her - hard - laid her down on the bed, and took off her clothes one by one and put his mouth on her.
Everywhere.
Or so he said.
And all I had to do was use my tongue like…—yeah, there— and she made these noises…
There wasn’t an ounce of shame in his voice, no hesitation, just satisfaction — like it was the most natural thing in the world – like he hadn’t just broken every rule they’d been taught since childhood – like Alistair wasn’t three feet away, a part of him still half-ready to watch his roommate be struck down in front of him.
She just kept saying, ‘Right there, don’t stop.’ And so, of course, I didn’t….
Alistair’s ears burned as he went on, detailing every touch and lick and suck and kiss — how she had guided him with breathy moans of encouragement and tugs on his hair until she was clenching her thighs tight around his head, grinding herself against him as she worked through her orgasm.
Maker, I practically got off right there.
The other boys had snickered, shoved him, traded barbs and jabs – what sort of man willingly spends his coin that way? what sort of man finds his release between a pair of legs?
But Alistair understood. Even if he had never experienced it himself, he understood. Even if he didn’t understand his own understanding, which came less in the way of a fully-formed cognizant thought and more so in the pillow-covered hardness between his legs, throbbing at each evocative illustration – her slick on his tongue, her muscles tensing under his hands, his name on her lips again and again and again.
Even if the thought of it left him feeling as equally guilty as it did aroused.
To rectify the situation, he had turned over in his cot and tried to will himself to sleep, attempting to ignore the continued monologue fanning the already forest-fire flames of his need.
By the time Alistair finally gave in - his hand fumbling under the thin blanket and the cover of night to address his aching length, biting down on his hand to keep from making any noise, his tongue sliding between his knuckles as he worked himself over - he barely lasted a minute.
(And Alistair can hear again – what sort of man? – and each time he has heard that question thrown out, he has felt his blood freeze solid at what he knows to be the answer.)
Now, years later, the memory creeps in unbidden, sharp and uncomfortably vivid, as Alistair presses his knees into the uneven ground and bows his head in deference. The position is familiar – achingly so, to the point where, in this brief, gulfing valley between mountains of pleasure, parts of the Chant float to the forefront of his mind unbidden.
But when he looks up through his lashes, lids drawn heavy, there’s no cold, stone altar of Andraste before him, nor the equally freezing faces of Chantry sisters etched deep with disapproval.
No, not even close.
It’s Cain — his Cain — half-propped up on one of their pushed-together bedrolls – bare knees bent and knocking — eyes searching, analyzing, reading for signs of discomfort. Unwillingness.
Wanting Alistair’s comfort. Alistair’s willingness.
(It’s a bit unnecessary, Alistair thinks. This had been his idea, after all.)
And if the lengthy process of their kissing, fumbling, groping hadn’t caused Alistair’s cock to indicate his need by way of pressing against his stomach and dripping onto the sparse hair there, the sight before him certainly would’ve — the rogue’s dark locks mused where Alistair’s shaking fingers raked through it mere moments ago, his lips kiss-slick-swollen, pale cheeks dusted with a beautiful pink that goes from the tips of his pointed ears down to his cheeks to his neck to his chest to his-…
Maker…
His eyes follow the flush downward as his hands slide upward — both sets seemingly moving on instinct, both equally as hot across the expanse and contours of toned flesh until they meet in the middle — Alistair’s fingers curling around the elf’s waist, but his focus is squarely on where his knees drop to the side, exposing the inside of his thighs and the burning hot apex of them — all slick with evidence of his arousal.
Suddenly, the description that had a younger Alistair muffling his moans as he rubbed himself raw doesn’t feel like an adequate depiction in the slightest. Like having someone laughing through the setup of the funniest joke, unable to control their shaking enough to get to the punchline.
But now Alistair is here. And he might laugh, but it’s not quite humor that makes him deliriously giddy.
He knew Cain was beautiful. But, Maker, all of him is beautiful.
And in the exactly three seconds it takes before his mouth reaches the man, Alistair tries to remember everything his fellow Chantry student had attempted to teach him in the nights following his coming of age however many years ago.
Start slow, warm up.
Alistair tries. He really does. He pushes aside the urge to immediately slide his over-eager tongue between Cain’s folds and lap up his wetness like a dying man. The need to do this right, make it good, give and give and give again is more overwhelming than the need to do it at all — and, by replacing one desire with another, Alistair finds his scrupulosity once more.
Faint tremors move between the two of them as he ghosts his mouth over the inside of Cain’s knee, uses his moving lips to map the taut planes of his thighs - press a chaste kiss here - leave a modest kiss there - then there - then everywhere - then deeper - then more - until suddenly, it’s less feverish, restrained pecks and more of a litany written by his open mouth in the hollow of the elf’s thighs.
Alistair doesn’t know when his mouth became this urgent, hungry beast - fueled by two parts desperation, every other part longing - but he’s been finding lately that he is still learning new things about himself, even at the ripe old age of twenty.
Here’s another: Alistair Theirin finds he is unable to stop himself from sinking his uneven teeth into the pale expanse beneath him – and he also notices, somewhere, somehow that he relishes, delights, throbs both at how Cain keens under him and the feeling of his mouth around the flesh, sliding along it, sucking, nibbling, biting.
To the point where, at some point, Alistair’s eyes flutter closed, unable to focus on memorizing every detail of Cain’s reaction - focus slipping as he revels - indulges, even - in the feeling of muscle tensing under his tongue.
He traces the indents on his skin with the crevasses of his lips, leaving blossoming red and purple marks while working his way ever-upward, thumbs tracing absent patterns across the jutting bones of the rogue’s hips as he moves. Meanwhile, there is a part of Alistair that is attempting to will his own arousal, flush and angry and demanding attention, to remember every lesson learned both in the Chantry halls and behind closed doors.
By the time Alistair’s face is flush against Cain’s cunt, the combination of anticipation and frustration and pleasure has the elf shaking under his palms, eyes squeezed shut as he murmurs a barely-restrained prayer of encouragement, praise, demands, and please, Maker, please…
It’s not the Maker between his legs, Alistair thinks. Perhaps, he should be offended. But he doesn’t think he could refuse Cain, even if he really wanted to.
Alistair flicks his tongue experimentally outward, rewarded with both the taste of him and the sound of a low, punched-out groan muffled by a pair of thighs. He repeats the motion, unable to stop his own moan from pouring out as he swipes along the elf’s entrance, sweat-arousal-slick and fluttering around his probing tongue.
He moves eagerly, clumsily — a starving dog to a bone — a drowning man pulled to shore — the most devoted disciple — ardently finding the hard length of Cain’s clit and licking it into his mouth.
If it feels good, trust me, you’ll know.
Nimble hands - previously fisted in and out and around the bedrolls beneath them – card urgently through his hair, pulling - tugging – demanding.
It’s a heady sense - both the control and lack thereof, knowing that he is being used for the elf’s pleasure, he is the one submitting beneath Cain’s presence as if it is divine because he is equally as holy - the chosen one to cause the quakes that ripple through his thighs, the high-pitched whines that vibrate unbidden through his throat, the broken, gasped out
Yes.
It’s a simple word, but the most beautiful one in the Trade tongue, a prayer falling desperately from Cain’s mouth as he cants his hips upward, as far as he can before Alistair’s hands stop the movement. It forms on his lips before disappearing into the hot air around them - yes, yes, yes, yes - as Alistair’s tongue swirls eagerly, wantonly, pliant under Cain’s commanding grip.
His touch stays firm, palms ever-connected to the rogue as they finally move from the concave of his waist, sliding down lithe legs until his fingers meet his own mouth.
One slides in and curls inside the elf with little resistance. Then another.
The desperate moan that shakily rolls its way out of Cain as a result has Alistair’s other hand quickly snaking its way between his own legs to stave off the impending orgasm. His cock twitches where he holds it at the base, the urgency of his own arousal almost unignorable.
Almost.
A pitiful whine caused by his own self-denial forms in his throat, hips jerking forward helplessly into his repudiating grip, caught between his own warring desperations. He can’t indulge, not now, not when he’s so close to the pearly gates — heaven in Cain’s release coating his face.
Just focus on what you’re doing, mate.
And Alistair… tries.
He tries so damned hard. Alistair knows as intimately as he knows anything else the painful truths that come with his wandering mind (and, sometimes - when the Chantry seemed empty and quiet, and he was particularly desperate - guilty, remorseful hands). He knows the consequences of his deficits of attention and self-control.
But when one of the rogue’s legs hooks itself over Alistair’s shoulders, urging him further down, pressing him deeper inside, his cares - and his focus - are seemingly sent to the Void.
He doesn’t realize when quite it happens - when he loses himself in the movement of his mouth on flushed, dampened skin - but, at some point, Alistair starts working his cock in earnest, his brain tuning back in at some point for him to realize he’s pumping his arms simultaneously, grinding his hardness into one hand and the palm of the other against Cain’s cunt in equal measure. Thankfully, his tongue keeps the careful cadence causing Cain’s canting and cooing, Alistair’s experience in over-using his mouth (even while detached from himself), for once, anything other than a hindrance.
The warrior’s eyes flutter open when he feels the heat of Cain’s stare. Without moving his head, he lifts his gaze through heavy lids, still open-mouthed against the elf’s cunt, half-gasping for air as he does so, still fervently fucking his fist.
And what a sight it is before him - Cain, sweat-slick and shaking, eyes blown black with desire as they follow the movement of Alistair’s arm before making its way back to his face - still half-buried against his core. When he speaks, it’s a gasp of realization more than a real question: “Are you…?”
Alistair knows it’s more Cain wanting him to admit his lack of self-control more than anything.
For a moment, a flood of shame wrestles with Alistair’s need for the privilege of flushing his face a bright red — as if it was the Revered Mother herself who caught the forcibly-made Chantry boy with his hand in his pants, trapped under the heel of an elven man’s foot, rather than say, the beautiful person who’s currently pressing him against his groin.
But still, as much as he can from his position still lodged between trembling thighs, he nods, unwilling - or unable - to tear his own line of sight from the rogue’s - unwilling, or unable, to lie to the man.
Cain’s mouth drops open - a silent recognition - pupils growing impossibly larger, nearly eclipsing what’s left of the forest green before his head tilts back with a groan.
Then, with a sharp tug of strawberry hair - Alistair is back to work, the resulting moan being the only thing separating him and the resumption of finding redemption between his lover’s thighs. He is repenting for his transgressions even as he causes them, curls his contrite fingers and provides penitence in long, wet strokes of the tongue whilst simultaneously pulling on his cock in quick, desperate strokes.
The sound of rushing blood clears long enough for his half-pointed ears to pick up Cain begging - an act Alistair is pretty sure he’s never done - his voice desperate and needy - two things he rarely ever is.
“Fuck, right there—Alistair, please—more, more—don’t stop.”
Alistair doesn’t need the advice, but he remembers it anyway: When you hear that, you don’t stop. Seriously. Don’t. Stop.
He wouldn’t. Won’t. Couldn’t. Can’t - nuzzling himself further into dark wirey curls, scissoring Cain open with his fingers and twitching in his hand at each reaction, each version of his name choked out whether in plea or through broken moans. Alistair goes and goes and goes until Cain’s other leg joins the first, thighs clenching tight around his head until he’s damn-near suffocating, a new chant forming on the elf’s lips that contains only praises and curses, yes and pleas and gasps and Alistair, Alistair, Alistair…
Cain spasms as he comes, hips searching for as much of Alistair as he’s willing to give - which is all of him, in whatever form Cain will accept.
He gives his tongue - his lips - his mouth - his release, overtaking him suddenly and powerfully - his cock, pulsing as he comes - his spend, coating his fingers — all of it finally forcing the man to separate from the cunt in front of him with a gasped-out moan. Or, as far as he can manage, anyway, before meeting the barely-there resistance of the leg muscles easily keeping him in place.
Not that he’s complaining. Quite the opposite.
However, focus is a fool’s errand at this point - even Alistair knows this. But he is more than happy to abandon the prospect entirely - relinquishing control over his tongue’s movements in favor of rolling it out for the rogue to ride his orgasm out against.
Meanwhile, Alistair himself wrings his cock dry, spend dribbling through his fingers and coating the already semi-soiled linens beneath.
What sort of man?
Alistair. That’s who - spent - completely drained and dazed and very much pleased - unable to bring himself to move (not that Cain’s thighs are giving him much choice).
Eventually, Cain uses Alistair to his content, easing his grip just enough for the warrior to knock his forehead against the inside of his thigh, panting shallowly.
It takes a moment for the rogue’s muscles to finally relax enough for him to begin slowly unfurling himself from around Alistair to settle in a wide straddle. His chest rises and falls in gasping breaths as he untangles the bony fingers lodged in and out and around ginger-blonde hair.
Then, with a satisfied sigh, he pushes his bangs out of his sweat-damp face with one hand, leaving the other to smooth out Alistair’s own wayward tufts - his loving attempt to undo his pleasure-induced damage.
It’s only then that Alistair realizes how much his scalp stings.
But, in the lingering ecstasy he is currently living in, he can’t bring himself to care one bit. He’ll live.
Or, according to all the rules he started learning at age ten after being dragged away from the only home he had ever known, he won’t - instead struck down in a flash of righteous lightning for defying the Maker’s holy will.
Whatever.
It is so worth it.
Alistair slowly gathers his wits enough to lift his head and untangle his own hands - one from himself, coated with cum and wrapped around his softening cock, the other buried in Cain’s cunt. With a slow, reluctant motion, the once-upon-a-time Chantry boy pulls his hand away - his spent cock twitching as he does so - a low whine escaping the rogue as his hole flutters around the space Alistair’s soaked fingers used to be.
Then, with no shame or hesitation, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world, Alistair brings his digits to his mouth to clean - counting his blessings with closed eyes and wandering lips.
His tongue is halfway around his index finger when he finally lifts his gaze, once again prompted by the intensity of the elf’s. An ever-guilty child somewhere still, Alistair drops his hand, mouth left hanging open in an attempt to… explain? defend? (why?) as shame and guilt coils in his stomach - low and potent.
(For what, exactly? He still doesn’t know)
But it is mercifully brief, left on the wayside with the rest of Alistair’s leftover Chantry baggage, because Cain is staring at him not with judgement or even his normal teasing amusement - just that same potent heat, only seemingly somewhat tempered by his release.
He moves at the same time Alistair does, shifting down effortlessly as the warrior hauls himself up, the two meeting in the middle in a kiss that’s both languid and passionate - Alistair opening wide to allow the elf to taste himself on his lover’s tongue - the pair wordlessly breathing their devotion into each other's mouths.
Eventually, they separate, just barely - as if refusing to let the other escape this shared space they have created.
But it isn’t until later when Cain’s pressed against Alistair’s chest, the dark of night settling over them, that words finally return to him after being lost in the haze of pleasure. “I liked watching you, you know.”
Alistair glances down, brow raised. A silent question.
“Watching you touch yourself,” the elf clarifies before pressing a kiss against his collarbone, settling against him deeper. “It was hot,” he murmurs, sleepy and honest from the aftermath. “I like seeing you enjoy yourself.”
And pleasure is something Alistair spent a long time ignoring, alongside other basic human needs. Pride. Affection. What have you.
But, he thinks, it’s one he’ll have to indulge in more often.