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The fourth time Athelstan wakes up in their bed, being forcefully cuddled against Lagertha’s side as Ragnar snores softly into the pillows next to him, he finds himself forced to concede that perhaps he has a problem here.
He makes a valiant attempt to untangle himself, but Lagertha is just as strong as she looks and pretty intent on him staying put, and he really doesn’t want to have to explain why he’s trying to sneak out (again) without saying goodbye. So he stares up at the ceiling, tries to plan, and wonders above everything else how he managed to get himself to this point.
His parents always warned him that his music would lead to nothing good.
The fact of the matter was that up until he’d been a last minute replacement for a Tuesday night gig at Shieldmaiden’s in Camden, he’d been assuring his mum almost nightly that he was doing well, really. He’d just come off a Wednesday night at the Bedford where three actual people he’d never even met before had actually paid real money to take home his CD. He had picked up eight new likes on Facebook and was riding pretty high, as far as it went. So when his friend Edwin had said he’d heard Shieldmaiden’s was looking for someone to fill in with, like, six hours’ notice, and would he be interested? He jumped at the chance.
Shieldmaiden’s, as it turned out, was not exactly the kind of place his music was usually well-received. He realized it first when he turned up at the back door to the pub to meet the booking manager and had to wait twenty minutes before a skinny man in leather trousers and smeared black eyeliner stumbled toward him.
“I haven’t got any money,” Athelstan began before he saw that, rather than a knife, the man was brandishing a key.
“Me either, mate,” the man said, and unlocked the door. “You coming in?”
The man’s name was Floki, or so he claimed, and he looked like he was tweaking on something Athelstan’s mum would have warned him about after seeing the effects of it on one of Jeremy Kyle's guests. He seemed to be waiting for Athelstan to follow him, though, and he really could not afford to say no to a perfectly good gig just because the booking manager looked like he didn’t know what day it was. So Athelstan followed.
He’s still regretting that decision.
Okay, well, not entirely - the acoustics at Shieldmaiden’s were really great, and even if his acoustic covers of Ed Sheeran, Mumford and Sons, and one original song he’d been messing with for a good three weeks hadn’t been particularly well-received, his share of the tip jar at the end of the night had been enough to clear his overdraft with some left over. He tucked most of it into his case and, after a moment’s hesitation, sat down at one end of the bar to order a pint.
Another regrettable decision.
Three hours later, he was pulled into the back of a black cab by the bartender, Lagertha, who had served him pint after pint - actually, two pints, interspaced with a big glass of water and an amused smile, but he had never claimed to be anything other than a lightweight - and Ragnar, the towering bouncer who hefted Athelstan’s case over one shoulder and helped him stumble after Lagertha without tripping over the suddenly tricky cobblestones. They were warm and dangerous-looking in the best possible kind of way, and he remembers being sure he would figure out a way to stop leaning toward Lagertha’s bare shoulder and fitting his mouth to it as soon as he could figure out which way was up.
“Are you making a pass at my lady?” Ragnar said, the lilt of his accent thicker with booze and the late hour, and when Athelstan turned around Ragnar was right there against his neck, words buzzing against his skin with just the suggestion of teeth.
“No?” Athelstan responded. Whimpered, maybe.
“Are you sure?” Lagertha said.
The rest of the night was blurry, mostly, and he was not a hundred percent proud of his behavior, because the last thing he remembers before blacking out was trying and failing to wank himself off while watching Lagertha ride her tattooed mountain of a sex god bouncer boyfriend into the mattress.
When Athelstan woke up, he found himself being spooned to within an inch of his life by the sex god boyfriend. Athelstan was grateful to realize he was fully clothed. Except for his dick, of course, which was poking out half-hard from the fly of his corduroys, coming dangerously close to brushing against Ragnar’s hand.
He rolled over once, just on instinct, and fell out of the bed with a truly undignified squawk.
God, he realized at that point (and about a million times since), truly punishes the wicked.
Athelstan knows that the only reason he’s been asked back to Shieldmaiden’s is that Lagertha and Ragnar want to continue whatever little game they’re playing with him. They watch him as he plays, and he sees Lagertha scowl at customers who avoid the tip jar - and it somehow doesn’t matter that his cover of Bastille’s “Pompeii” doesn’t fit in at all with the Black Keys style rock of the other acts. At the end of the night he gets a cut of the tip jar, and then he gets felt up on the cab ride to Shoreditch by Ragnar and Lagertha.
Each night, it feels a little sillier to wait, and watch, and list off the reasons why he shouldn’t be fucking them.
All of which has led him here, to the space between Ragnar and Lagertha, to watching the play of dappled sunlight on the ceiling, to formulating and discarding escape plan after escape plan.
“You are thinking too loudly,” Ragnar says.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” Athelstan replies stiffly. “I was just...”
“Thinking?” Ragnar suggests. “Trying to sneak out again, maybe?” He leans in, and Athelstan can feel the warmth coming off of his skin. It makes Athelstan want to cuddle up close, which is completely ridiculous. Ragnar grins like he knows exactly what Athelstan is thinking. “Are we really so unappealing?”
Athelstan hears himself say, “No,” and then Ragnar’s mouth is catching his, the best kind of good morning Athelstan could ever bring himself to imagine.
Ragnar’s kisses are lazy and slow in the late morning light, and he tastes like last night’s whisky. God only knows what Athelstan’s breath is like, but Ragnar doesn’t seem to mind. He tilts Athelstan’s head up and just takes, like it’s his right.
He feels Lagertha stirring behind him, and on his hip her fingers twine loosely with Ragnar’s. “This is a pleasant way to wake up,” she says, and presses a kiss against the back of Athelstan’s neck.
When she turns to him, he can feel her bare breasts against his skin, the tips growing to hardness as they brush against his skin. Ragnar is smiling at her over Athelstan’s shoulder, and he looks smug, almost. It shouldn’t be attractive. He shouldn’t be here, with these people who seem to have no rules, who look perfect when they shouldn’t and touch him gently when he expects force.
“You’re thinking again,” Ragnar says, and runs a thumb down the center of his forehead, smoothing away the worry line. “You think this much when you’re about to perform?”
“Am I about to perform?” Athelstan says on a little laugh.
Ragnar’s eyes flash wickedly. “Well,” he says. “I think it would be only fair.”
“Don’t think we didn’t notice you watching us fuck,” Lagertha says, and she laughs when Athelstan’s cheeks flush scarlet.
“Come on,” Ragnar says, hitching up on an elbow. “Put on a show.”
Fine. Just - fine. Slowly he rolls onto his back and pushes the sheets down around his thighs, sliding a shaking hand into his boxers. He must be hungry, he thinks. Not enough food last night, and now his blood sugar’s low. That’s probably why his hand is shaking.
His dick, when he touches it, is half-hard already, filling as he draws it out. Lagertha makes a pleased little noise, but says nothing - gives no direction, and for a minute he’s very conscious that all of them are just looking at his dick, watching him get hard.
A show, that’s what he’s doing.
He starts to stroke himself, slow and easy, and tries to figure out what it is they want from him. It embarrasses him - he’s never been good at this, never felt comfortable enough with his body to explore, to feel anything but shame at the sensations he feels when he takes himself in hand. And now, as he watches his hand slide down his cock, stretch his foreskin with his thumb before scratching at the slit with his nail, he feels almost lightheaded with the humiliation of it. It’s like he’s out of his body, looking at someone else doing this to him, and inside his head all he can hear is his own voice. You’re so easy, he says to himself, you want it so bad you’d beg for it if you could talk.
The thought makes his hips jerk up, cock sliding faster in his fist, and he feels his other hand rise, almost automatic, to twist at a nipple.
He can’t take his eyes off of himself, wishes he could close them and block out the way his body is responding, but this is a show, and he’s on stage and he won’t fuck this up.
In his peripheral vision he can see Ragnar’s hand sliding down his own body, pressing into the snake tattoo that curls around his hipbone. It’s an ouroboros, and it’s been a source of fascination for Athelstan. It makes him think about the snake in the garden, the ever-present temptation of ripe fruit bursting in his mouth.
Easy, he thinks, and sees his hand speed up, feels his grip tighten.
There is no hiding here, not behind his guitar or his voice. He is for their pleasure, and they want him opened to them in all the ways he can be. And strangely, though he still feels the urge to fight it, he wants them to be pleased. He wants to give this to them, to let them crack him open and see what they find.
Dimly he hears a moan crackle from his own throat, and now that the sound is hanging in the air between the three of them it doesn’t make sense to hold himself back anymore. Ragnar has reached across him to slide a hand up Lagertha’s leg, eyes on Athelstan all the while, and the sight of it spins images in his mind. He can see them all wrapped up together, imagine Ragnar’s mouth hot against his neck, see how Lagertha’s hair would sweep across Athelstan’s chest like the close of a stage curtain. They would move like dancers around him, sure and true with their bodies, guiding him when he falters, setting the pace and holding him to it.
Athelstan feels hot all over as his rhythm grows stuttered. There is a buzzing under his skin that is familiar and, usually, uncomfortable. This time, though, he races toward it. Their eyes are on him - they want this from him, need it, and there is no way he can fail them.
“So inside his own head,” he hears Lagertha murmur. “What do you think he’s doing in there?”
Ragnar’s laugh is cracked and dirty. “Perhaps we’ll find out.” He leans in close, and his breath is warm against Athelstan’s ear. “Come for us.”
Then he’s spilling over his hands, feeling the warm mess as it hits his stomach and chest. It just seems to keep coming - he can’t take his hand away, doesn’t want to stop the feeling.
When he falls back into himself, all he can really hear is his own ragged breathing. Lagertha and Ragnar stare down at him, one from either side. One of Ragnar’s hands rests heavily on Lagertha’s well-muscled thigh, sliding in alongside Lagertha’s where her fingers flick against her cunt. His other hand is stroking lazily at his dick, slow pulls without any sort of urgency.
“Perfect,” Ragnar says, and pauses in jacking himself, sliding his fingers through the mess on Athelstan’s belly. He spreads Athelstan’s come around, and it’s slick and warm and Athelstan knows it’s going to be hell to clean up later, but right now all he can do is think, yes.
“Perfect,” he says again. Then he’s returning his hand, still glistening with Athelstan’s come, to his cock.
He watches them, these two surreally beautiful creatures who seem, for some reason, determined to attach themselves to him. They murmur softly to each other as they kiss, as they touch each other and themselves, and when their eyes find his, he can’t stop the smile that breaks across his face.
Later they lay together, fucked out and soaking up the sunlight. Athelstan still doesn’t understand how they can be so comfortable like this, totally naked and open to each other and to him. They are exactly what they appear to be. He doesn’t have to guess with them.
“So,” says Lagertha as they come back to themselves. “Are you done?”
“Done with what?” Athelstan says, blinking up at them drowsily.
“Pretending you don’t want this,” she replies. She lays a hand on his chest, and he’s strangely comforted by it.
“I don’t know,” he says honestly. “I want it, I just. I don’t know if I’m allowed to have it.”
“What can we do?” Ragnar asks. His hand covers hers on Athelstan’s chest. “What do you need from us?”
“Just,” he begins, and takes a deep breath. “I’m pretty sure I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“You’ll figure it out,” Ragnar says.
“Yeah,” Athelstan says, and tangles his fingers in theirs. “Yeah, I think I will.”
If it’s a mistake, he thinks, it’s one he needs to make. For now, that is enough.