Come Crashing • Ragnar/Athelstan/Lagertha

[igrab]

Vikings • wordcount: 3599 • post ep 4 • slight canon divergence • NC-17

When Ragnar puts a hand on his head and shoves him to his knees, that's what Athelstan expects.

He's seen the way the man looks at him. He isn't unaware that he is wanted. The thought had only been confirmed when Ragnar chose him to be his prize, his thing, and this is what Athelstan expects - to be used, to be violated, to be, eventually, discarded. That's what a slave is; that's what he would expect from any master, let alone one who so clearly wants a bedwarmer.

Instead, he gets this - Ragnar pouring him a drink, promising that none in his household should ever go wanting. Ragnar and his wife, leaning against the wall, inviting him into his bed. Ragnar leaning in close with a knife, as if to punish him, to slice his head form his miserable body, but instead there's a rasp of a sound and the rope that bound him falls free.

Do not treat him as a slave, he says to young Bjorn, and Athelstan hears, he isn't one.

When Ragnar had, for all intents and purposes, set him free, Athelstan had taken only moments to rise to his feet and follow him. He would like to be able to say that he'd thought it through; that he had weighed his chances in a world outside of Ragnar Lothbrok's influence, that he'd made an informed decision for his own safety.

The truth is, Athelstan was so stunned at being given the choice, that he could not help but make the one that called to him.

When they're in public, off the Lothbrok land, in the eyes of the violent world that Ragnar floats through like foam on a tall wave, he is a slave. He kneels at a touch. He does not speak unless spoken to. He serves his master, always deferent. Ragnar leads him easily into playing his part, for he is so naturally commanding, so masterful, that the thought of disobedience doesn't even occur to him.

But when they're home, something changes.

It isn't that Ragnar is any less himself. He still wears his confidence like a great fur cloak, still smirks as if he has the key to a hundred secrets and you'll never know them all. He's the master of his land, of his children, of his own skin. He is Ragnar. That doesn't change.

It is Athelstan who changes.

Not by choice, not at first, anyhow. But where he expects orders, he receives offers, and to his very great surprise, when he turns them down, Ragnar listens.

He treats him as another human being, and in that care, Athelstan becomes one.

Ragnar asks a great many things. He asks Athelstan to drink with him, to teach him English. He asks him if he wants to learn runes. He asks him, and it is the most sinuous and persuasive of his questions, to come to bed, with him and Lagertha. But Athelstan says no, and they leave him be.

He's jittery and full of his own questions when they leave him in charge of the farm. This he was not asked, but there was a look in his eye, as if he would truly listen to Athelstan's objections, should he have any. But they both recognized what a gift this was, to be shown this respect. A respect never shown to a slave. Never. But Ragnar said, do not treat him as a slave, and Athelstan heard, he isn't one.

At night, he tucks his knees up under his chin and thinks about Ragnar Lothbrok, and how much easier it would have been if he were a little less kind.

If Ragnar were the man he had expected, his chastity would be long gone, that much was certain. But it would have been taken, not given, so Athelstan would have wrapped himself in God's word and prayed, secure in the knowledge that he was stronger than the barbarians, that his choices had been robbed from him. His pride, not at the state of his body but the state of his soul, would have been intact.

It would have been so much easier.

While they're gone, defiling another place of worship in the land Athelstan once called home, he thinks about what it means, to be given choices. He has more choices now than he did at the monastery. God has not given him choices like Ragnar has; he thinks, in the back of his mind where none can hear, that there is little that separates God from a kind but strict owner. His love, such as it exists, has conditions. Terms that must be met. Vows that must be taken. It is a relationship based on a mutual disparity of power, and for all his life he has accepted it, because he has believed that it is God's right, as a superior being. He is nothing without God, and why then should he not worship him?

Ragnar is not God, but he could have been.

He has held Athelstan's life in his hands, in more literal a sense than any on Heaven or earth. It is hard to think about what God wants for him, as it seems his life has been plucked from His hands and placed into those of a blond savage with clever blue eyes and a fierce thirst for knowledge and new lands. When he was with God, he had rules. He had a book. He had guidelines. Instead of guidelines, Ragnar gives him choices.

He realizes, on a day that might be Sunday but might not be, that he wants to sleep with them.

It isn't even half about lust, though that is part of it. He would have to be blind not to see that Ragnar and Lagertha have sin in their bones. But that is not all they are, and this is what Athelstan wants.

He wants their fire, their wildness and passion. He wants their love - fierce love, tender love, boundless love. A love that finds new ways to express itself, a love that speaks to Athelstan in the way that no passage of scripture ever has. The Book says, this is how to love. Ragnar and Lagertha say, how many ways can we find to love? He finds them beautiful in ways that are not alluring, and that itself is alluring. He wants to touch it, this thing between them that feels alive.

But mostly, he wants to choose.

He wants to reach out with his own hands. He wants, not because he has been overcome, but because the choice is his to make.

Of course, this is a choice he's already made, and he said no.

When they come back and Ragnar is carried away in chains, there is so much that Athelstan wants to say. Scripture says a great many things about rape; it is full of rules, of regulations. Were this England, transactions would have been made.

Instead, Ragnar says, how would you feel? and no man in the room did not understand. They did not turn away from such raw emotion, did not prevaricate and fill it with words and rules, always rules. Rape is a vile and ugly thing. Athelstan has always felt it. But the Book says, do not act in anger. Here is the proper restitution. The recompense.

Ragnar says, it is a vile and ugly thing, and therefore my anger was righteous, my rage and violence were just.

Athelstan has never felt want like this.

"Dance with us," he says, and Athelstan is so far beyond the word no. He goes, pulled into a raucous celebration that, to his life at the monastery, is far more sinful than love.

That night, he doesn't open his book. He doesn't pretend he isn't listening. Ragnar has her up against the wall and he's growling, she's laughing, and the stink of sex is heavy in the air. He's hard under his tunic, wet with it, he wants nothing more than to abandon himself, but this - this, here, is the most alive and whole he's ever felt. He's making a choice - accepting himself, accepting the fever under his skin and how their mingled voices make him ache. He accepts, too, that their muttered endearments make his chest feel at once too big and too small, that they make his heart pound.

It is so good to choose this, these feelings, this light hot sensation that divides itself from guilt and and the heavy shadow of sin. It is so good to feel free.

You know, Ragnar had said, back at the party, with their knees bumping and his face too close, in case you were wondering, it was not a one-time offer.

I'm sorry? Athelstan had responded, partly because he was drunk enough to be slurring and partly because Ragnar's voice made him feel like a purring animal had rubbed itself all over his skin.

He grinned as if he knew all of Athelstan's secrets. Our bed, he said, and did not specify who was included. The offer is open. You are welcome to join us if ever you wish.

He'd simply gaped at him, too drunk to be coherent, but the night air and the sounds of sex have sobered him. He hadn't imagined those looks that lingered, then. Ragnar did still want him, he hadn't offered for shock value alone, and the choice was his. He could have this, too, if he chose.

Athelstan stands and pulls his tunic over his head, then slips out into the bedroom. They've moved to the bed while he was musing; Lagertha's head between Ragnar's knees, her tongue lapping gently at the head of his dick, and the languid line of her body suggests she has already reached her peak tonight, at least once. Ragnar has been known to make her come again and again, until Athelstan loses count, until she has to beg him to stop (and then again, sometimes). But Athelstan's eyes are for her husband.

He does not look triumphant, cocky, or in any way mocking. His eyes are hot and dark and his lips, kiss-swollen; he looks like the picture of sin but his face says, I had hoped. On Ragnar Lothbrok, the expression is downright shy.

Athelstan does not ask, is this okay? He knows it's okay. The offer has been made, he isn't going to second-guess it like he's second-guessed everything else in his life. He moves toward the bed and Ragnar drops a hand to Lagertha's hair, gently urges her to look up, to move off his dick. When she sees, she does, a slow and secret smile on her face, and Athelstan looks down - he can't help it. Ragnar's length is impressive, his girth the more so, and it curves up hard and flushed and proud, slick with the spit from Lagertha's mouth. It makes him feel weak at the knees, to see such obvious arousal.

"Come here?" the man whispers, and Athelstan goes, perfectly willing to put himself in Ragnar's hands now that he's made his choice. He sits beside his spread legs on the sturdy bed; those hands reach out, curl around his neck, pull him down until their faces are closer than they've ever been.

"Have you been celibate in all ways, or just the important ones?" he breathes, and Athelstan shivers when he feels it, making his sensitive lips tingle.

"All ways," he whispers. He is neither proud nor ashamed of it.

"Then let me," and Athelstan does, he relaxes into his hands, so it's Ragnar who brings them in together, who seals their lips, taking the first kiss from him like he's taken everything else - in a way that's not taking at all, but giving. He gives the gift of a first kiss, and Athelstan accepts it, graciously, with parted lips and a soft, whining moan.

A hand comes to rest on his shoulder - Lagertha's, and as Ragnar draws him in deeper, his wife slides her fingers down his arm, until she can claim one of his hands. His are so much more delicate than either of theirs, and she seems to take great delight in this, for she's soon pressing her lips to each of his fingertips in turn, and the sensation makes him gasp, surprised, arching into them both.

Ragnar pulls back enough to suck in a shaky breath and run his thumb along Athelstan's jaw. "I do not wish to make you do anything you truly do not want," he murmurs. "But there is so much I want to show you. Tell me I may do as I will, if I swear to stop, the second you ask it." Athelstan is already nodding, but Ragnar holds his face and looks him in the eye. "Think, first. If you choose this, choose me, I will direct you, but only if you promise you will not let me take advantage."

In light of all that's happened, Athelstan thinks, it's no wonder this is so particularly important. He understands. Lagertha has stopped kissing him but her hand is still in his, giving him an anchor, a sense of solidarity. She tells him without words that she, too, would never let anyone take advantage.

Athelstan unsticks his throat and his words, when spoken, are rough. "I promise," he whispers. "I trust you."

It's not what Ragnar expected to hear, for his eyebrows rise and his eyes widen, something deep and soul-searching in them as he looks at Athelstan like he's seen God.

"Thank you," is what he says, though, and then they're kissing again, and it isn't gentle, isn't sweet. Ragnar kisses him like waves beating into rocky cliffs and Athelstan simply crumbles, melting into him. The sound he makes - he's never made a sound like that in his life, so pliant, so needy, and this time he can feel the way it makes Ragnar twitch and growl. With a rough but steady hand (like the hand on his head, pushing him inexorably to his knees, but no more, not cruel, never cruel) Ragnar pulls him, arranges his body to his liking - sprawled astride Ragnar's hard stomach, his arse snug against the girth of his cock. It's hot, so hot, and Athelstan has to squirm a little, has to press back into it, and he could say it's to get used to the new sensation but he'd promised himself he wouldn't lie. He likes it. Plain and simple. He likes it even more when it pulls a sound from Ragnar, a guttural groan, and his hips twitch up like he's trying, very hard, to hold himself back.

The thought alone makes heat race through Athelstan's body. He did this. Ragnar Lothbrok, confident war hero, losing control because an unskilled priest has chosen to grind against his dick.

He opens his eyes in time to see Lagertha shift places, moving in closer on her knees so she can get a hand on his chest. When she touches him, his skin jumps - this is big, somehow bigger, because she's a woman and he's been taught that women are he origin of sin. But here, in this bed, she does not seem so different from her husband. They are both warriors, both fierce and strong in heart as well as body. They both wear their hair long; neither is clothed. The only difference is beard upon Ragnar's face, and the soft swell of Lagertha's breasts. More hair here, more skin there. It does not seem such a great difference.

She scrapes her callused fingertips over Athelstan's pink nipples (as pert and firm as his cock, by now) just as Ragnar rolls his hips, deliberately. The combined sensations crash through him like lightning and he cries out - has to lean forward and brace himself on Ragnar's chest, and they haven't even touched him, not really. They don't leave him much room to contemplate, though. Lagertha's hands scrape lower, curling into pale, soft skin, and she murmurs something in their rough tongue that he thinks means, he's so delicate. From another couple in this land, it would be an insult, but Ragnar smiles, his eyes bright with some emotion he can't name. "I know," he says, and Athelstan understands that one. Then, in English, he adds, "he's beautiful."

He had been flushed but not blushing, before, but now color floods to his cheeks. Lagertha grins like a cat and leans up - his heart does a wild flip in his chest - but it's just to kiss those cheeks, sweetly, though she gives his jaw a little lick on the way down. Athelstan shudders. By the time they're done with him (tonight - he hopes that there will be more nights, he hopes they will never be done with him), he's not going to be able to look at any part of himself without blushing, without thinking of how they've touched him.

He makes a noise somewhere between a gasp and a squeak when Lagertha's hands drop lower. They dance in a line over the thatch of hair at the base of his dick, slide between Ragnar's fingers where he holds Athelstan by the hips, and then - then she touches him. Just one touch, featherlight, in a line up the length of his aching member.

Athelstan bucks and hisses but Ragnar's hands hold him strong. He shudders instead, then, and when Lagertha does it again, and again, each stroke a little more firm, he cries out and his back bows, hips trying to get away and get closer at the same time. "Lagertha," Ragnar grunts, sounding half as wrecked himself, as if he were the one being touched. They come to some sort of agreement with nothing but their eyes, and then he's being moved again, flipped around, and his back lands against Ragnar's chest and the man's thick cock trapped between their bodies. He whines, grinding back up against him, and when Ragnar growls he can feel the rumble of it in his chest. Ragnar leans down to get his teeth in the cords of Athelstan's neck, biting, as if he means to discourage that kind of movement again.

It has the opposite effect. When those teeth dig into his skin Athelstan feels heat flood him, turning mindless to desperate, and his hands fly up and fist in Ragnar's hair, holding on like an anchor as his hips stutter helplessly.

Ragnar growls again, but it's not at him. "Lagertha," he hisses, and Athelstan notes faintly that she'd gotten lost simply watching them. He hasn't a clue what kind of picture they make, only that it must be obscene. He arches his head back, baring his neck. He wants those teeth on him again.

As Lagertha wraps her hand fully around his cock, Ragnar takes a handful of Athelstan's curls and makes a fist, holding him tight and hard, and that should have been painful but instead it just makes him throb. He pulls his head further - holds him, his grip like iron - and then his mouth is back, licking, sucking, biting, and Athelstan can't think for how it feels, how Lagertha feels, how it takes him right out of himself and he's never been brought off in his life but he knows what's coming. He knows.

"Ragnar," he gasps, his throat wrecked like he's been screaming. "I - I - "

"Shhh," he says, and his hips shift behind him, cock sliding into the small of his back, making them both groan. "Shhh, Athelstan. Relax. I've got you. We've got you."

He looks down and sees Lagertha's hands, those dainty hands that can slice a man in two, with her fingers wrapped around his aching dick and thumbs spreading precome under the lip of his foreskin, and that's it - that's it. He comes with a sharpness and rawness that's unreal, a sob lodged in his throat, and for a long moment there's nothing but bliss - white light and happiness, as fierce and beautiful as the Lothbroks, and he thinks in that moment that he has surely died, for nothing but Heaven could be as pure and good as this.

He comes down slowly, by degrees. Lagertha is cleaning him with a damp cloth, and Ragnar has his arms locked around him, his face buried in Athelstan's neck. There's a wet spot at his back and a decided lack of hardness, and when he realizes Ragnar has come between them, simply from that - it makes his head swim, sends him on another wave of detached pleasure.

But small, soft kisses draw him back, and Ragnar's murmuring things, things in his own language, and it's just on the side of too fast for Athelstan to be able to understand. He shifts, dragging in a slow, sated breath. "Slower," he murmurs, and Ragnar stops, like he hadn't been aware he'd been speaking at all.

He watches as Lagertha exchanges a glance with him; she smiles, nods. Ragnar presses his own smile to the back of Athelstan's neck. "You should stay with us," he murmurs. "There is plenty of room for three."

He's fairly sure that wasn't what he'd been saying, but he's too tired, too happy, to care. "I'd love to," he mumbles, and in this, too, he's given a choice, and it makes his heart feel lighter than air. "I'll stay as long as you'll have me."

He falls asleep that night with a hard, warm chest at his back and a beautiful woman curled in his arms, and his last thought is, if God would call this sinning, then he is no longer a God worth believing in.