jade ☃ harley (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
basslines) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
bakerstreet2016-09-08 02:14 pm
basslines) wrote in bakerstreet2016-09-08 02:14 pm
thursday pic prompt
the picture prompt meme
i. COMMENT WITH CHARACTER
ii. OTHERS LEAVE A PICTURE (OR TWO OR THREE....)
iii. REPLY TO THEM WITH A SETTING BASED ON THE IMAGES.
THIS POST WILL BE IMAGE HEAVY.
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It was easy to get swept up in it, caught in the current and drawn, heady and swirling, into the tide--especially when he felt Charles start to give himself over to the moment. Aurus knew (by now, of course he knew) that Charles had proceeded with caution thus far, but he couldn't be ruled by caution as they kissed.
Hungry lips, testing tongue, arms now wrapped firm around Charles' body, palm against his spine cradling the small of his back, the other against his head, fingers threading through hair. The contact licked through Aurus like flame; he lost the passing of time.
Of course, he would say, of course he would still want Charles like this back in the waking world. Inevitably there would be some differences to negotiate, but to him that seemed a negligible concern. To lie with Charles this way rather than stand--he wouldn't hold him any less close, kiss him any less deeply. But this wasn't the sort of thing to be said with words, and for now he was far away from saying anything at all. He just wanted their mutual surrender to the intoxicating delirium of reckless kisses, and so he did surrender, for a longer time than he knew.
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Charles let it pull at him, tug him along a current stronger than he, perhaps ironic for a man who used to regularly swim such heady rivers. Now, it felt like if he was not careful, he would drown on them, and not in the way that Aurus would wish. His fingers curled around leafy extensions of hair, though strange to the touch, simply came into his mind as Aurus and grew more familiar with each passing moment they remained together, as they shared the same breath.
Aurus was forging something new with him with every heartbeat, teaching him things that had once been learned but now in an entirely new light. Still, there was caution that lingered in the back of his mind, 'knowing' that was false but society and pain had beat into his unconsciousness. It was none of those that finally brought his head away, mouth tasting of earth and flowers, but the need to take a full breath, one that found itself on exhale turning into a soft laugh.
That... had been somehow the very expected and very unexpected outcome of coming up here.
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Aurus's body melted by slow degrees and he exhaled a low appreciative moan when Charles' fingers grasped the fronds of his hair, but he didn't fight against coming up for air.
He let his forehead rest briefly against Charles' brow, unable to suppress the smile that pulled at his lips. It felt so good to him to have finally come this far, as though the two of them had accomplished something together, which was perhaps an odd way to think of a kiss. But given the hurdles they'd had to overcome, maybe it wasn't so odd after all.
Either way, it did him good to feel the lightness of Charles' laughter, left him buoyant, a sense of air and breath in his chest that became his own soft echo of laughter too. He thumb came up to stroke the man's cheek, trace along the line of his jaw. There was, it seemed to him, a captivating new light in Charles' eyes which he'd not seen there before.
"You look very good like this," his thumb slid over Charles' lower lip. Perhaps it wasn't quite kiss swollen, but it was still delightfully pink. "I believe we ought to continue the gesture, given how it suits you so well," teasing and playful, yes. But as to whether they continued here in the Dream or outside of it, and whether right away or slowly and gradually, Aurus was giving to Charles to decide. After all, he had been with humans (and human men) before, but he was Charles' first sylvari; it was more than understandable if the foreignness turned out to be both daunting and thrilling at once.
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"Aurus... you are a terrible sylvari." Charles voice was playful, the smirk on his lips teasing, but he remained close. He recognized the choice Aurus was giving him, and he had to make that decision. Yet... there was one piece of advice he was missing, something that occurred to him as he turned over these thoughts, frowning a slight frown to his lips.
"Does this," the stress in his voice suggesting the Dream, "affect our real bodies? The time spent here, the... physical of what might be done?" A more honest concern in the sense that just how long could his body, and his mind, maintain the position that he was currently in? Would a bruise here mean a bruise to his body? He knew well that the physical within his mind would cause his own body to react as if it had been a blow without, but... something more sexual?
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“Yes,” Aurus teased back, “the absolute worst. I’m an terrible influence, clearly. Completely not to be trusted.” He was smiling like the cat that got the canary.
That didn’t make him take Charles’ question any less thoughtfully though, or stop him from considering the complexities of what was being asked. “Hm. Under normal circumstances the effect would show in only the most subtle of ways—an ache to echo the memory of a pain where a dreamed injury left no mark. But,” he leaned in so that his breath would warm the shell of Charles' ear as his spoke, his voice low and private like the slow drip of honey, “if it’s arousal you’re wondering about, I have had sex in the Dream before, and I’ve awoken sometimes to find my pleasure wet across my thighs and others to find myself still achingly hard and waiting for release.”
Far from being embarrassed or ashamed of this, Aurus was completely unabashed, more than willing to open the path of pleasures yet to come. Actually, he was curious to see what Charles might make of this little bit of dirty talk.
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Shudder. Aurus would feel it as much as see it in Charles, that shudder that went the length of him at Aurus' choice of words and the feeling of his breath against his ear. Never mind his past experience; he wasn't certain anyone, ever, had spoken to him like that. There was no denying that his body was responding eagerly, the way his mind remembered but could not do so easily in the waking world. Charles' eyes closed as he took a slow, steadying breath against the dizzying wave of arousal and had to work to find his voice.
"Proof you are the absolute worst," he finally said, a husk to his voice that had not been there moments before. Another breath, but this time he could look to Aurus and his smugness, giving him a long look before the corner of his mouth lifted. "You are enjoying this far too much." Yet there was so much that he had to learn, even physically, about Aurus.
This breath, gathering. It was no easy topic, not in common discussion nor with himself, but it had to happen. To let Aurus make the choice. "Things would be... very different here, than out there. What I am capable of." It too everything in him to utter those words, to admit part of the weakness that had kept him from returning to his desires of the past. Part of.
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Completely and shamelessly guilty as charged, Aurus's smile was quite enough to admit that. And the heat that flooded his body as he felt Charles move against him would be equally clear, equally shameless. He had to take a moment upon receiving that shudder to let the wave of want crest and ebb, at least enough for him to focus on words.
"You realize, of course, that I am far too greedy to choose only one place or one time. If you leave it to me, I will have you here, both our skin bared to the sky and my hands all over you, your whole body arching into my touch. And then let us wake together on our completion and do it all over again in my bed back at your home.
"The question of difference does not bother me at all, Charles. I don't deny that it exists--between my body and yours as much as between your body here and your body in the waking world--but there are many different ways to fuck. Have you ever been inside someone's mind as they touched themselves? Would you be able to feel what I feel so completely as to make my release your own? I want to try it, to find out how it feels. That's much more important to me than penetrating your body or having you penetrate mine." Which was not to say that he was opposed, particularly to the former if it was something that Charles wanted to explore.
But as far as Aurus was concerned, it simply wasn't a matter of Charles being capable of less than other men. Frankly, he thought of him as capable of more, or at least more of the interesting, non-conventional elements of sex, which to him were precisely the elements that mattered. Aurus was (perhaps unsurprisingly) not particularly inspired by much conventional sex anyway.
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It was... overwhelming. Not only Aurus' choice of words, that brought a spike of arousal so strong that he had to close his eyes against the ensuing moment of dizziness that came on the heels of it. He took a breath, the images in his mind entirely his own but pointedly clear thanks to Aurus' descriptions. It had been a long time since he had heard such a crude term used in this context, found himself not disliking it.
"...so far, this night, you have led me down this path, down a path I knew in part, once, but now I walk in darkness along it. So tonight I would continue to follow you, wherever it might lead." Charles said, slowly, when he found himself not only capable of words but collecting his thoughts out from below his waistband. There was a heady, heavy feeling as the words left him, spilling as if a dam had been released and they were free to flow and unstoppable. He might have laughed at himself in his head.
The amount of trust he was offering Aurus with those words, as far as he was concerned, put the trust he had in coming here to shame.
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If there was a wall handy, Charles would probably have found himself backed swiftly against it with Aurus's hands tugging up the hem of his shirt and his lips trailing from mouth to jaw to neck.
There wasn't, however, a wall handy, so what Aurus did instead...well, he knew it would certainly surprise Charles, but he felt too overcome in the rush of the moment to keep his feelings in better check: he lifted the man clean off his feet, pulling him in so that Charles could--and Aurus hoped would--wrap his legs around his hips, thoroughly kissing him again as he did so.
It was a gesture of pure exuberance, the physical extension of that unstoppable current let loose with Charles' words. And it was a pure, lighthearted, joyful declaration that even something as foreign as all this did not need to be daunting or overly serious. Even if it was unexpected, even shocking at first, it could still be steady and safe and fun.
He let the kiss break before too long this time, smiling, with his forehead pressed to Charles' and the bridges of their noses aligned. He wasn't in any hurry to put the man down. "I'm sorry," he murmured, clearly not really sorry at all, "I know this is terribly undignified. I don't know what came over me. I think I couldn't quite figure a quicker way to get closer to you."
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There was a brief moment of something akin to panic, given that he simply was not used to being hauled up like this on his own two feet even if he was used to the occassional aid since he'd loss the use of them in the waking world, Charles ended up grasping anywhere he could on Aurus which started awkwardly as his shoulder and his arm until he realized what the other was trying to do. A breath left him and even as the first kiss landed (mentally realizing just how properly strong Aurus was to lift him so easily) he managed to do as Aurus hoped, though it was still a touch awkward. Not a position he was used to being in (it had always been the opposite).
In the end though Aurus' enthusiasm was hard to ignore, and Charles found himself quietly laughing when the kiss finally broke, panting slightly with a dizzy head as long as the kiss had gone on. Not.. complaining. "Terribly undignified," he agreed, trying to sound serious but failing. "I can think of what came over you." His arms went around Aurus' neck proper, trusting his weight to the other. "Sometimes, I forget you are sylvari and all that comes with it, including that impromptiveness." Teasing, gently, the look in his eyes warm.
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His arms settling to hold Charles steady, Aurus smiled into the soft nuzzle of their faces, the levity of their embrace. "I want you to see what else comes with it too," he murmured back, playfully hinting towards all the details of his body that Charles hadn't yet gotten to know.
He would very happily have just carried Charles over to a private glade or bower if there was one handily nearby (because yes, he was quite strong enough not just to lift the man but to carry his weight--when a thrown warhammer was one's weapon of choice, one did tend to build up some impressive muscles, even if those muscles were actually thickly corded vines beneath surface layers of leafy skin). From their current high vantage point though, carrying wasn't really very practical, so presently he set Charles down again, still holding him close and as reluctant to leave their embrace as he was to delay them longer. "Come," he took Charles' hand, "I know just the place."
It was only a little way further along the high walkway made by this exposed crest of root: on the opposite side from the promenade they'd come up along, the ground descended in a series of moss-covered rocky tiers like steps into a little glen. Well concealed from all the rest of the Grove, this was a place where the shapers had not touched and the natural jungle was largely unaltered. The descent brought them a few meters down to a broad plateau in the rock, the ground covered mostly in soft, rich moss. Cypress and juniper trees grew along one side, increasing the solitude of the spot, and farther along several streams tumbled over the rocky ledges of the promontory, gathering speed and force before they crashed down a further ledge somewhere into a deeper valley far below.
Aurus turned to offer Charles a hand if he needed it for the last leap down--a few of the "steps" were more jumps or climbs than anything--and then chose a soft place for them to sit where he could draw Charles down beside him with a little tug on his hand. "Completely secure from prying eyes," he assured, drawing circles with his fingers over the skin of Charles' hand, "and ears for that matter."
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"...I want to see what else comes with it." Funny, how forward that felt for Charles to say, when he knew he had been far, far more forward in the past. Yet the words were truer than in the past. It wasn't just words to say to flirt, to encourage some beautiful young lady to come sleep with him. He was curious in a way he couldn't remember being with any other person before (to be fair... Aurus was a great deal of firsts. He may have loved Erik, but there was a physical divide in what they had done.)
Charles would not exactly have been happy to be carried around, either. There was already a resentment when he had to ask for such help in the real world that in a place where he could walk it would only be worse, so he was far more pleased to walk along side of Aurus, using this physical-yet-not body to jump, climb down, and everything else he missed so deeply elsewhere. The offered hand was waved off and he ended up lowering himself down, but not before standing at the edge and looking the beautiful location over. Every second seemed to be something new and incredible to see, something he never wished to forget.
But he let himself be pulled down to the moss once he was down there, moss so thick he could not even feel the wood or stone beneath, letting him stretch out and look to Aurus. "You know me well." He would always be a private man, at least now in his life he would be. This time, he took the more forward step, pulling Aurus in close and brushing their lips together, only the barest touch. He had put himself into Aurus' hands, for better or worse, but he refused to be an idle player while 'captured' in them.
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There was something, Aurus realized as he watched him climb down those ledges, that was slightly different about Charles now--a new decisiveness maybe. He may have slowly been shedding his initial caution and uncertainty since they first arrived here in the Dream, but now it felt like the turning of a new page, and he realized that what he was seeing might not just be Charles stretching his literal legs, but also him moving like he once was used to in more figurative ways too: more forward, yes, and bolder, more direct in pursuing his curiosity and desires without second-guessing himself on them.
He felt it especially when the man pulled him in for that barely completed kiss, the teasing warmth of his breath sparking a flare of want that was hard for Aurus to rein in. "I mean to know you yet better still," his mouth drew the words across Charles' lips before seizing them in a brief, intense kiss (clearly, Aurus's own self control was not at its highest right now either, since he basically felt like he didn't want to stop kissing Charles ever).
Ironically, it was his eagerness that reminded him not to get too carried away. There was no way he could expect any human to simply intuit everything about sylvari anatomy, or indeed about sylvari clothing. ...But then Charles was definitely not just any human, and here in the Dream with their minds already so closely linked, Aurus wondered if it might be possible for him to tell Charles these things without needing to speak the words at all.
He barely stopped kissing him to ask: "Can you hear my thoughts?"
Behind my right shoulder--there's a stem, forking into leaves. Snap it free. You won't hurt me. It's like a belt buckle, a button on a shirt.
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Charles would be very grateful for those little hints because no, he certainly had no idea about how Aurus... worked. This clothing that grew straight out of him that wasn't truly clothing, the lines of his body mimicking a human without truly being one. Still, the curious, intrigued part of him that had never left, only briefly been buried, wanted to know all of it from both an intellectual standpoint as much as a more personal (more lewd, if he was being honest).
"I-" But words were already filtering in. When they both concentrated, he could. He was still in Aurus' mind, even if the situation was beyond anything that he had ever experienced, but he couldn't concentrate on 'thoughts' like he normally could unless he focused specifically on being able to do so. Aurus' warning gave him something to focus on just before the words came.
His fingers crept up towards Aurus' shoulder, showing that he did in fact hear those words. He blindly felt along for the stem that Aurus was talking about, though the layers and the textures were so unusual that it took longer than he might have hoped. Still, he did find it, and trusting Aurus' words, he flicked his thumb and index finger on either side of it to snap it free, tugging gently to pull the leaves away.
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Aurus breathed a slight sigh against Charles' lips when the stem snapped free--it would have been difficult to describe how it felt, but it wasn't unlike the small release of removing any garment after spending the day wearing it or, more to the point, like the pleasure of having one's lover remove it on one's behalf. For a moment, he let his head rest against the man's shoulder while he composed himself into some semblance of control, then sat back a little to let Charles look at him properly.
The leaves, which were like long corn husks, wraped from Aurus's shoulder around his chest in a long coil down to his waist. They'd come away easily though, almost as easily as removing any shirt, exposing the smooth blue skin with its purple variegations beneath.
Unlike Aurus's arms and neck and even his face, the surface of his chest was perfectly smooth, with no seams of overlapping leaves showing anywhere from his clavicle all the way down to his waist. There were also no nipples, though he did have a navel, and beneath the surface of the skin with its texture like hosta leaves there was the contour of something like a rib cage and the shape of his muscles.
(Removing the shirt had also revealed another similar stem-fastening at his left hip, which was the "snap" for his leafy pants, but Aurus had no intention of rushing that.)
"Touch me," there was a need behind the words that he didn't bother trying to disguise, "everywhere." He wanted to feel Charles' hands on him, wanted him to explore.
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Touch me. There was no easier command to obey in that moment. He did take his time, though, before he followed, allowing his eyes to take in everything before he touched. The little details were fascinating, but striking, showing ever more that the design of the sylvari mimicked humanity without truly being human, and the missing details might have stepped into the uncanny valley if he didn't know Aurus personally. However, he did, and could take them into account as points of interest and things to be further investigated - with his fingertips.
He reached out and slowly brushed them carefully across the flat plane of a pectoral muscle, taking in the feeling of the texture of the skin there, without the ripples of overlap, the fleshy-yet-not of the skin in general. His fingertips follow the natural lay of muscle, though he honestly doesn't believe it to be as such, down over 'ribs', down to the hips, before returning upwards and the second hand joining. His hands splayed against Aurus' chest, paused. Feeling... was there the feeling of a heart beat? Before sliding up and over his shoulders until one settled at the back of his neck, the other sliding around to pull him closer. Something that had once come so naturally to him took effort now, but it was a worthy effort to bring their bodies close together.
"...you feel... like something beyond anything we have on Earth, yet somehow... familiar." His voice was soft, expressing thoughts he didn't particularly need to but felt the deep need to whisper them into the space between them. To let those thoughts go, to let Aurus follow his train of thought.
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There was an exhaled murmur of pleasure when he felt the warmth of the man's palms, the steady pressure of his fingers. Aurus's skin was a degree cooler by comparison, especially here in the Grove's nighttime shade where, despite the warm air there was no sun, and the slight difference made the sensation of Charles' touch all the more intense.
The play of expressions over Charles' face as his hands traced their path made a smile tug at the corner of Aurus's lips, especially when the man felt for his heart--there wasn't one, at least there was no central beating organ in his chest, so that sense of a pulse sometimes felt in his limbs must be created another way. "It's odd, isn't it--as similar as the shape of our bodies is, what's inside them is wholly different. Under the surface of your skin are organs and bones. Under mine there are vines all tightly woven and pulled into the shape of my body."
He moved willingly at Charles' touch, answering the urging closeness with hands that slipped around the man's waist, tugging at the hem of his shirt to slide palms and splayed fingers over his bare skin. Made of materials you have on Earth, but put together like nothing that you'd find there. He thought, rather than spoke the words, trusting that the more the concordance between them deepened, the less he would need to say aloud.
Find the edge of a leaf--on my arm, my neck. Run your finger along the crease, just a little to pull back the edge, not too hard.
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"I know I'll never understand what's made your people as they are, but I know I will never not find it fascinating." His voice was a low murmur, the words coming without higher thought required to produce them. No, he was losing himself in the physicality of it, the old feeling of sensuality he had thought no longer a part of himself. Maybe the very thing Aurus wanted from him.
It made it harder to focus on bringing their minds closer together, even though it instinctively nuzzled itself closer to Aurus' mind, the conscious ability faltered and the unconscious became stronger.
The edge of a leaf? Charles' brows lifted at that before coming together, shifting his weight enough to be able to focus on the broader expanse of Aurus' 'bicep', studying. Was it like prying apart layers of flesh? What was Aurus asking of him? But he did it anywhere, his finger moving lightly across the crease first before carefully working his nail enough to nudge up the edge, then delicately brush his finger along to work it up further, shifting his gaze to Aurus' face and studying the reaction.
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The shudder that went through Aurus's body made him tremble all over, his breath catching in a near moan as he let his head fall forward against Charles' shoulder, fingers tensing against his flanks. For a moment he felt almost like he couldn't bear to move at all, but then he reached up to catch the man's hand and still it just before the touch became too much--it was a very fine line, the sensation unmistakably intense, pleasure and a hint of pain edging together. The scale could easily tip the other way though, and asking Charles for this was opening that door, leading him to a place where Aurus knew he could easily end up being overwhelmed.
That wasn't any accident though. Letting themselves be overtaken by passion, by need, letting them each be guided by the way their touch moved the other's body--this was where their path was inexorably leading them. It was just a matter of finding that moment when the updraft of thermals would catch and carry them, lift them away from the encumbrance of too many conscious thoughts.
So maybe it was no accident that Aurus recovered himself only by thin degrees, face pressing to Charles' throat and lips dragging over the skin, breath hot on the pulse point just below his ear as he let his grip on his wrist go, trusting his hands to go where they pleased.
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That reaction! Charles' eyes went wide with it, surprised at how strong it was from such a little gesture. He was intensely curious as to the reason why, when it was so obvious that it rode that pain-pleasure line, Aurus had suggested it so early on, but Charles was far from complaining. It was intoxicating to be able to get such a reaction from the sylvari, his mind cataloging the action in the back of his mind for... later use.
His head tilted back as Aurus' mouth pressed to his throat, all too willing to expose somewhere so vulnerable to Aurus' desire, offering himself up. With every passing moment, each touch from Aurus' fingers, each breath of his lips, the restrictions he had placed on himself were falling away like leaves, crushing beneath their feet. Outside of here, when the physical restrictions returned, it might change drastically - for better or worse.
"Aurus," Charles breathed, his tone encouragement, letting his hands fall to hips that had no hipbones beneath them, pulling their bodies close to allow their groins to touch. "Don't- don't you dare hold back on me, not now." No, he wanted Aurus to make him feel all of this, now that it was real and it was happening. Here... it didn't feel like he would break.
He wanted to remember this for the rest of his life.
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It was, in fact, precisely because he trusted Charles to store this bit of knowledge away for later use that Aurus chose to introduce it now. There were plenty of ways that he was sure his new lover would just organically learn to touch him, but this was not one that he expected him to just stumble across on his own. Even most sylvari would probably hesitate to explore such a touch. It also encoded a good number of things which he was, in a way, telling Charles about all at once, like the fact that he was not completely "vanilla" where his sexual tastes were concerned. And that, as gentle and tender a lover as he could be, he would also be very...vigorous if given the chance and if he wasn't holding back.
So the fact that Charles was now telling him not to hold back? Between that and the growing hardness as their hips met, it was pretty much all the encouragement that Aurus needed.
In one smooth movement, he pulled the man into his lap to have him straddling his hips. He was tugging his shirt off over this head the next moment, tossing it aside so that he could touch the smooth expanse of revealed skin, his palms sliding up Charles' back, hands hooking over shoulders as he pulled him in for hungry kisses.
Positioned like this, he could feel Charles' arousal against the flat of his stomach, and he was sure that Charles could feel his against the inside of his thigh--a light touch; not nearly enough--and in the frenzy of movement he wasted no time at all before he'd let go of the man's shoulders and was tugging at the opening of his pants, all without ever breaking away from the kiss.