(no subject)

[thewidewideworld]

{from here}

Sin leads Athelstan outside, hand in hand. The sun has just set and the first stars are coming out. Sin draws him gently to an out of the way corner where the grass is soft and there's a view of the sky over the lake. "Here, lay down with me."

He stretches out on the grass, his white blouse riding up to reveal creamy flesh framed by his low slung jeans.

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[thewidewideworld]

"Are you worried they'll shun you?" He asks softly.

[athelstanthescribe]

"They probably will", Athelstan admits. "If they knew what we've just done..."

[thewidewideworld]

Sin's expression softens as he cups Athelstan's cheek "Are they really so judgemental? You laid under the stars while I sung to you. Nothing less, and so much more." He kisses Athelstan again, deeply and lovingly.

[athelstanthescribe]

"It's the so much more they'll never understand." He kisses Sin back. "Did Ragnar tell you anything of what he saw?"

[thewidewideworld]

"Only that he found you beautiful, and unsuited to where you were." Sin returns his kisses, cuddled intimately close.

[athelstanthescribe]

"We're... strict." He brushes a hand through his own curls. "No sex before marriage, and I, I... I'm not exactly in a hurry to find a - wife."

[thewidewideworld]

Sin captures that hand and entwines their fingers, kissing Athelstan again. "Then they couldn't see or accept you for who you are. And take it from someone who knows, hiding who you are hurts more."

[athelstanthescribe]

"They have no idea. I stay at home and I write my books, and I let them think that's why. Just because I'm too busy."

[thewidewideworld]

Sin holds him, looking deep into those beautiful eyes. "Your path was meant to lead you here, just as my path was meant to cross yours tonight. I haven't seen Ragnar in over a year so it would only be fate that brought us to this point."

[athelstanthescribe]

"And fate made Ragnar come to my church hall tonight", he says quietly, not looking away. "Of all the places he could have stopped."

[thewidewideworld]

"I'm a wanderer, beautiful boy. I belong to the wide world and the east wind. I believe everything happens for a reason, even if we may never know what it is. Ragnar's finding you. Me finding him. This-" he tangles their hands together and kisses him, "happened for a reason. And for that, I'm very glad."

[athelstanthescribe]

"What's it like?" he asks quietly. "To be as free as you are?"

[thewidewideworld]

"Liberating, and terrifying. Wild and wonderful and sometimes too painfully for words. Like all life, it can be glorious and devastating, sometimes in the same breath. And its all I've known since I was sixteen."

[athelstanthescribe]

"You've never wanted to settle down? Pick a person - or a place, even - and stick with that?"

[thewidewideworld]

"I've never tried. I can stay a year sometimes. If the fancy strikes me or the wind is in the south. But when the call comes, I follow." He looks down at his hands and the soft ridges of scar tissue on his inner right wrist. "I don't do well if I can't."

[athelstanthescribe]

Athelstan follows his eyes then reaches out, fingers hovering just above the scars.

"You did that when you couldn't?" he asks quietly.

[thewidewideworld]

"Iceland, last year. I got caught by bad weather and the coming winter. Three months trapped in a small town with no way out. Thankfully a friend understand what I was suffering and found ways to distract me. He give me these." He touches the piercings through his nipples. "And others. They act like an addict's rubber band when I need them to."

[athelstanthescribe]

"May I touch?" He'll understand if Sin says no. "You can tug on the piercings if it gets too much?"

[thewidewideworld]

"Please, be my guest." Sin rolls onto his back, leaving his chest open to Athelstan's touch.

"More or less. I have heavier jewellery that I can change out when I need it. They provide a kind of constant low level stimulation that distracts me."

[athelstanthescribe]

He'll move on to Sin's chest in due time, but first he lifts his wrist in delicate fingers.

"The people in the town weren't diverting for you?"

[thewidewideworld]

Sin hadn't realised Athelstan's meant his scars but let's him touch and see without complain. Three even cuts, each deeper that the last, scars almost silver in the moonlight.

"I knew no-one there, I was just passing through when the storm hit and closer the roads for the winter."

"The Icelanders are a gentle, pragmatic people. They readily accept eccentricities but are not always quick to engage with those outside their idea of normal. They keep themselves to themselves, preferring a stability communities like that must need to survive."

"Olaf was... an exception to that rule, not that you would have known it from the outside."

[athelstanthescribe]

He raises the scarred wrist towards his lips, slowly, giving Sin time to pull it away.

"Olaf was who did the piercings?"

[thewidewideworld]

Sin doesn't pull away, his eyes fluttering with a warm sigh as Athelstan's lips brush the spot.

He hums an affirmative. "He made his living as a builder but his passion was for body modifications and photography. He took the most amazing series of studies of me during those months. I'm told he sold three to the Tate Modern."

[athelstanthescribe]

"Maybe you've helped him, then", Athelstan suggests. "It's hard to make money from art, but if they're buying from him, he's made his name."

[thewidewideworld]

"I hope so. I don't think I would have seen the sun again without his intervention."