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THIS WAS WORTH THE WAIT GOD DAMN
Thank you for le meal
Title: Admiration Pairing: Brasidas x fem!Reader x Alexios Rating: M Summary: Brasidas has never mixed pleasure and business, but there’s a time and a place for everything. A late Christmas/New Year‘s gift for a good friend, @dynamicorbit. ♥️ May your dreams of a Spartan sammich come true.
RAYS OF GOLDEN light filter through the sheer curtains drawn around the rooftop peristyle. A gentle awakening after the early mornings and long days of reaping the summer harvest. Turning over, you glimpse your husband —the linen sheet tangled around his waist and legs, chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm, his lips parted, still snoring softly. It’s a rare thing for you to wake before him, but you take a moment to study the sunspots on his cheeks and shoulders and the scars from the agoge and battle.
Brasidas of Sparta wakes with a soft groan, instinctually seeking you out. His arms twine around your waist, pulling you to him on the bed of linens and pillows. You smile against his neck, feeling the tickle of his dark beard on your temple as he inhales the rose scent lingering in your hair.
“Agapi mou,” he breathes, voice still tinged with sleep and rougher than normal. His fingers soothe along your spine, and the way he holds you reignites a fire from the previous evening in its wake.
There’s little more you want than to be able to stay in his embrace all day, relaxing, talking of childhood, and nothing of importance. But there are chores and errands to be done, and both you and Brasidas know this —having set aside extra stores of grain and olives to be donated and traded. You place a hand on the center of his chest, fingers grazing over the smattering of hair there as you distance yourself, resisting his tantalizing caresses while your will is still strong enough. “Not now, husband,” you chide. “We must go to the agora.”
He curls his fingers around your wrist and pulls your hand up to his lips, placing a chaste kiss upon your knuckles with a languid smile. “Forgive me, wife,” Brasidas muses before sitting up, stretching out his arms with a low groan —joints popping and back cracking. You echo his movements, knowing neither of you could set aside duty and errands any longer.
BRASIDAS REMOVES THE last woven basket of olives from the cart, passing them to a merchant in exchange for two amphoras of sweet wine and the promise of a chous of pressed and infused olive oil. The Thracian makes a note in his ledger, then passes you a smooth stone, no larger than a coin, with the sigil of his family carved into it —a token to be traded when he returned to Sparta with fresh oils.
Dianthe waves you over, offering a small basket of figs and apricots in exchange for you and Brasidas helping her with her youngest son —a brazen boy of four, too young for the agoge but not too young to begin to learn— since his father’s passing. Few boys could say they’d been trained by the great general. Watching the two had only made you long for the day when the gods would grant you a son or daughter.
He’s quick to take the basket from you, adding it to the cart next to a newly woven blanket —a gift from a helot you had helped evade the autumnal slaughter. “Alexios!” Brasidas calls, spotting a man walking through the agora wearing the armor of a lowly mercenary. The misthios waves back and heads in your and your husband’s direction. The two clasp forearms in greeting, smiling. “It is good to see you, my friend.”
Alexios’s attention shifts to you, standing vigilant at Brasidas’s side —curiously observing him with bright and kindly eyes. His smile is wide and charming and crinkles the corners of his tawny-gold eyes when he realizes who you must be. “You never mentioned a wife,” the misthios accuses.
“I do my best not to mix pleasure with battle or politics,” Brasidas notes, his hand settling on the curve of your back. It is a partial truth; he refrains from speaking of his personal life to the Spartan regiments. Though, he often seeks your advice in matters of both war and policy now, making you his closest and most trusted confidant in the whole of the Greek world.
You stop the misthios before he can leave —hand resting over the scars wrapped around his bicep. “Why don’t you join us tonight, Alexios?” He glances between you and Brasidas, then nods his acceptance of the offer before continuing through the agora. Turning back to the cart, you survey the last goods to sell and trade, a basket of olives and bundle of wheat, and feel your husband’s gaze, curious and skeptical of whatever ploy you have set in motion. “What?” You ask, brow raised in your best attempt to seem innocent. Then you shrug. “He’s blessed by the gods.” Alexios bore the eagle of Zeus; it would have been an insult to the gods to not invite him to hearth and home.
“Is he?” Brasidas challenges, a tinge of jealousy in his tone as he follows you, weaving in and out of the merchants and Spartiates.
“And so are you” —you lean toward him, placing a quick kiss on his cheek— “my sweet general.” The praise is enough to soothe his pride.
BRASIDAS AND ALEXIOS speak of battles, reminiscing the days when the fighting was thickest, and they stood at each other’s side. The misthios excitedly recalls the Battle of Pylos and how the small island had been aflame, and the Spartans nigh outnumbered and outmaneuvered by the Athenians. While not a sure victory, it had not been a defeat either. It’s a battle you do not remember as fondly, thinking of the wounds your husband sustained and how, from time to time, they still grieved him.
Rising, you fetch the decanter of wine —a sweet Samian vintage— and refill both you and Brasidas’s cup before taking Alexios’s, topping off the remaining swig settled in the bottom of his cup. You don’t miss his dark gaze lingering on you, hunger still in his eyes despite a full belly. He takes another sup of wine, quickly glancing between Brasidas and you. “I wonder if you’re as sweet as the wine,” Alexios asks, forgetting himself.
“Sweeter, my friend,” Brasidas remarks, not missing a beat —a smirk hiding beneath his beard. Neither you nor Alexios was immune to one another, but he cannot fault his friend for taking an interest in a woman such as you. When you look to him, cheeks warmed by the wine and fire, something inside him stirs. The gods would not fault him or Alexios for lavishing you with attention and affection —the admiration you deserve. “Would you like to taste for yourself?”
A chill slithers down your spine at the proposition, and a jolt of heat pierces the depths of your belly —smoldering embers fanned to flames under their intense gazes. You look to Brasidas, but he only smirks, knowing he’d won the game this time, and whatever ploy you’d thought up earlier could not compare to this. Alexios is both eager and hesitant. He leans toward you, lifts his hand, and brushes the tips of his fingers across your cheek. You can taste the wine of his breath before his hand tugs on your hair and his lips ghost over yours. If Brasidas is Hades in his zeal and devotion to his wife, then Alexios is Ares —rough and merciless— and you, his Aphrodite for the moment.
Alexios reaches for you, pulls you astride his thighs, and undoes the pin of your peplos —the pale green linen puddles around your waist. He sucks in a slow breath as his hands trail along your sides, thumbs brushing the underside of your breasts before sliding down your back, across your ass, and settling on your thighs. You gasp when he lifts you onto the table with no further preamble aside from a hurried and brutish tug on one taut nipple before letting you back.
His arms take the liberty of spreading your legs, and he dips below —drunk on the sight of you, bared before him, and the way your sweet, honeyed cunt glistens by the warm firelight. Easily, he plants one hand firm to your hip, the other holding onto your thigh tightly in return. Alexios looks to Brasidas, but his friend only nods, lifting his cup of wine as though to say enjoy.
Still, there is a strange feeling in his gut as he catches your gaze —burning and needy. The scent of you encases his senses, a fragrance so sweet it makes his head churn. You whimper when he kisses gently along the inside of your thigh, leaving his mark. The sounds you make, once only Brasidas’s to selfishly devour, are like the voices of the muses or a siren’s song. No small wonder the Spartan General kept you as a secret.
“Alexios–” you whine, tugging on his matted locks, urging him to do more. Calloused and scarred fingers spread open your delicate folds, and his lips douse a wet, feverish kiss right to your clit. It’s not long before he has you unraveling underneath him. His stubbled beard scratches against your sensitive skin as he trails over you in a path of kisses. You almost yelp when you feel his mouth close over your clit, tenderly sucking. Stifling moans float in the air, and Alexios’s tongue flattens over your cunt, licking a long and hot stripe.
A warmth floods your insides —familiar yet still strange— sending butterflies drifting afloat. He smiles. A deep moan vibrates through the pits of his mouth— and your breath hitches to the sounds of his tongue slicking along you, nose brushing against the soft folds as you gush underneath him. Alexios alternates between fast and slow flicks of affection, and you whimper his name, feeble legs sprawling further for him.
Then your body tenses, toes curling. His tongue speeds over you, and you whisper his name as if a recited prayer, gasping, quivering, crumbling. Untethered in a sea of nirvana. He moans against you, then runs two fingers through your slick and brings them to his lips —sucking them clean with a low groan. “Like ambrosia,” Alexios affirms, sitting back on his haunches.
Brasidas draws you to him and into his lap —chiton already discarded to the side. The feel of his large palms gliding easily over the curve of your back soothes you to the soul, and you sigh, carving a smile despite your greatest attempts to smother it. Eyes closed, you savor in the feel of him browsing you appreciatively, hands slow and searching.
It sends a spark spiking inside you when you feel your husband’s hands on your ass. Brasidas’s breath is warm and tempting, and you bite your lip when he curls two fingers under your chin, tilting your face back with ease. His eyes are dark yet filled with that special love— awe he holds solely for you. His lips dangerously close to yours when he leans in, nose brushing yours, but he does not kiss you, not yet, though his adoration is reflected in his slow, appreciative hums into your neck as he breathes in your honeyed scent.
Brasidas shifts, urging you to turn —the way his hand glides over your back and presses light at the back of your neck tells you what it is he wishes. You lean forward, weight braced on the table and displayed on hands and knees. He does not take you like this often, but when he does…the initial push has your head spinning —you could lay with your husband a thousand times over and never become accustomed to the stretch of his girthy cock.
Your hands scratch at the table beneath you for purchase but fail to find any semblance of such as Brasidas presses further, your hips subconsciously rising higher off the table as if to coax his cock deeper and deeper into you. Brasidas braces himself by grabbing your hips firmly and pulling them further back against his— the sudden push makes you whimper on shaky knees.
There’s a sort of ceremonial relief Brasidas feels once he’s pushed himself inside your cunt that never fades. He imagines this is how Hades must feel when welcoming Persephone back to the Underworld after months away —a combined mix of relief, desire, and triumph that comes with claiming the only thing you’ve ever wanted for yourself.
He grunts under his breath, hands digging into your hips as he pounds himself into you with all the fervor of a man starved. He hunches forward to bend himself over you as you writhe and breathily moan beneath him, your body wriggling desperately against his. When you hiss his name and shyly cant your hips back against his to allow him to thrust into you at a deeper angle, he groans.
There’s a moment when you forget it is not just you and Brasidas, but when you lift your gaze from the tabletop, Alexios is there, unclothed —his body is a myriad of scars and lean muscle. He’s slimmer than Brasidas, an echo of his wayfaring lifestyle, but nigh the same height, and there isn’t the slightest bit of shame in the way he strokes his cock. Alexios doesn’t have to ask you to open your mouth — the hazy distance between you and reason clouded with arousal. You wanted him too.
The flushed head of his cock presses between your lips, filling your mouth with the bitter-salt taste. Looking at him through your lashes, you see his chest rising and falling rapidly in anticipation. You suction your lips around his cock, and Alexios swears, one of his hands tangling in your hair. He pushes himself a little deeper, languidly thrusting in and out of your mouth —all of your moans and whimpers eaten away by his chase of pleasure.
Brasidas’s restraint begins to halt. It only seemed to occur to him sometimes that he might have been being too rough, thrusting into you with animalistic abandon. He blames it on the sight before him —his cock sinking into you over and over, your lips wrapped around another man’s cock. He fills you, just as he does when it the two of you, and despite the artlessness of his movements, he begins striking that spot deep inside that forces you to quake. And with each powerful thrust from behind, you take Alexios a little deeper.
Alexios’s warm, calloused hands palm your breasts, tweaking your nipples to make you tighten around Brasidas, whining helplessly around his cock. Your hips jerk helplessly, Brasidas meeting yours with a particularly hard thrust that pushes Alexios a little harder against your throat. Alexios rolls your nipples again, pinching them between his fingertips. Your husband’s hand leaves your hip to graze along your clit, and your body twitches as if shot through with lighting when the rough pads of two fingers begin to rub in frantic little circles as Alexios fucks your mouth. He groans loudly as a reward, praising you and sighing your name for the gods to hear, his hands drawling up to pet your neck.
There isn’t enough air, and you are shaking, feeling ready to break, your body jolting back and forth between the two like a pendulum. The blood rushing to your head is getting to you, or the fact that you are thrumming with lust and adrenaline and a million other things you are too far gone to comprehend. Alexios teases your nipples, pinching and plucking at them, the sharp spike of pain makes your cunt tighten around Brasidas, and he lets out a harsh groan, hands digging into the skin of your thigh. His hips falter, the wood of the table creaking as he balances an arm on it to steady himself.
Everything tingles, sparking and sparkling, zipping through your body and the foggy mess of overwhelming pleasure. And they don’t stop.
Alexios’s groan is strangled, and finally, he stills —cock twitching, bitter warmth sliding down your throat— and draws back, breathing heavily. And with your mouth free, all of the moans that you’d been choking on come tumbling out, hoarse and broken and stuttered with the pace Brasidas has set. He leans over you, forehead pressed into one of your shoulders, beard scraping against your skin —panting. It’s all too much, and everything blurs together in a wave of burning pleasure. The way your cunt spasms around Brasidas’s cock as you’re coming has him following your lead.
He lets himself rest atop you, weight braced on bent forearms, his lips brushing across your shoulder blade. You smile with a content sigh, glancing up to see Alexios pulling his chiton back up and securing it at one shoulder with a bronze pin. It is late, and he should be returning to the Adrestia before the morn as to not keep Barnabas waiting. “Thank you for the hospitality,” he says, finishing his cup of Saman wine, then he winks with a smile, “and for the meal.”
Brasidas laughs, the sound rising from deep in his belly and reverberating through you both. “Anytime, my friend,” he remarks as the splintered wooden door creaks open and close. He groans again, low and breathy when he pushes up, cock slipping free of your warmth —his seed dripping down your thighs.
You roll onto your back and look up at him with a tired smile before sitting up, hands running up the broad plains of his chest and then around to his back. Brasidas leans toward you, and now he will kiss you —slow and burning, his beard scraping against your jaw. He lifts you from the table, swallowing the surprised little gasp you make as he carries you to your rooftop sanctuary. Gently, he lets you down to the pallet of pillows and linens and lips brushing over your temple as he promises to return after tidying up after the evening's festivities.
With your movement slow and collected, you gently amble behind Brasidas once he rejoins you —admiring the way his skin is illuminated by the warm firelight. Your arms wrap his torso from behind, resting your hands just below his mid. You nestle in, close and proximate, as you melt into him from behind. With your cheek pressed to his back, you allow your tired eyes to close in symphony. “S'agapo,” you breathe. Brasidas rests his hand atop yours and lets himself settle into your embrace, thinking you to be his sweet Persephone.
[taglist: @wallsarecrumbling @novastale @maximalblaze @elizabethroestone @kitkitvm @dynamicorbit @mrsragnarlodbrok @alexandra-alle @thepreciouspurrsian @missmannequin @chaotic-spooky @balmacedapascal @tammym3903 ] if your name is italicized, tumblr would not let me tag you. if you’d like to be added to my Alexios or Brasidas taglist, just let me know!
practical writing advice part 2
part 1
get used to carrying a notebook around with you. or get used to writing on your phone. you will not always have access to your computer, but it’s much easier to take something compact with you to quickly jot down ideas. also i have chronic illness and sometimes my bones feel like lead and going upstairs to get my laptop is a herculean task, BUT i can write on my phone lying down instead of just scrolling through my camera roll and being miserable. which brings me to my next point:
if you have to choose between writing unconventionally or even unproductively and not writing at all, choose the writing. i’ve said before not to create a habit of writing in bed, but if it comes down to writing in bed or not writing whatsoever, i’ll write in bed. i just try to stretch before and after (which you should also do!!!).
you’re not wasting time or being silly by making playlists or moodboards or memes of your characters and environments. having fun with your stories outside of writing them is a good way to stay motivated.
i like to stop my writing sessions in a place where i know exactly what i want to write next, so when i pick back up i won’t be left hemming and hawing over where to begin. HOWEVER, if you’re absolutely locked in, don’t interrupt that flow state. it’ll be harder to find it again later—instead, wait until you find a natural place to stop where you haven’t run out of ideas.
“why do i have a headache 3 hours into my writing session?” because the last time you had a sip of water was 4 hours ago, you dingus! keep your drinks near your workspace while you write. and i do mean, like, a full bottle of water at least. if you’re like me, things stop existing when they leave your line of sight, so keep these beverages where you can see them and refill during bathroom breaks.
uhhh try not to think negatively about your writing while you’re doing it because when i do that i just get bummed out. “this scene is terrible” -> “oh yeah fuck it up oh yeah fuck it up” (positive reframing)
ok thanks bye
B in Peter B Parker stands for burrito
(it’s based on some Tumblr post I saw months ago and couldn’t find ever since)
Let me tell you some things. I used to investigate child abuse and neglect. I can tell you how to stop the vast majority of abortion in the world. First, make knowledge and access to contraception widely available. Start teaching kids before they hit puberty. Teach them about domestic violence and coercion, and teach them not to coerce and rape. Create a strong, loving community where women and girls feel safe and supported in times of need. Because guess what? They aren’t. You know what happens to babies born under such circumstances? They get hurt, unnecessarily. They get sick, unnecessarily. They get removed from parents who love them but who are unprepared for the burden of a child. Resources? Honey, we try. There aren’t enough resources anywhere. There are waiting lists, and promises, and maybes. If the government itself can’t hook people up, what makes you think an impoverished single mom can handle it? Abolish poverty. Do you have any idea how much childcare costs? Daycare can cost as much or more than monthly rent. They may be inadequately staffed. Getting a private nanny is a nice idea, but they don’t come cheap either. Relatives? Do they own a car? Does the bus run at the right times? Do they have jobs of their own they need to work just to keep the lights on? Are they going to stick around until you get off you convenience store shift at 4 AM? Do they have criminal histories that will make them unsuitable as caregivers when CPS pokes around? You gonna pay for that? Who’s going to pay for that? End rape. I know your type errs on the side of blaming the woman, but I’ve seen little girls who’ve barely gotten their periods pregnant because somebody thought raping preteens was an awesome idea. You want to put a child through that? Or someone with a mental or physical inability for whom pregnancy would be frightening, painful or even life-threatening? I’ve seen nonverbal kids who had their feet sliced up by caregivers for no fucking reason at all, you think sexual abuse doesn’t happen either? You say there’s lots of couples who want to adopt. Kiddo, what they want to adopt are healthy white babies, preferably untainted by the wombs and genetics of women with alcohol or drug dependencies. I’ve seen the kids they don’t want, who almost no one wants. You people focus only on the happy pink babies, the gigglers, the ones who grow and grow with no trouble. Those are not the kids who linger in foster care. Those are certainly not the older kids and teenagers who age out of foster care and then are thrown out in the streets, usually with an array of medical and mental health issues. Are they too old to count? And yeah, I’ve seen the babies, little hand-sized things barely clinging to life. There’s no glory, no wonder there. There is no wonder in a pregnant woman with five dollars to her name, so deep in depression you wonder if she’ll be alive in a week. Therapy costs money. Medicine costs money. Food, clothes, electricity cost money. Government assistance is a pittance; poverty drives women and girls into situations where they are forced to rely on people who abuse them to survive. (I’ve been up in more hospitals than I can count.) In each and every dark pit of desperation, I have never seen a pro-lifer. I ain’t never seen them babysitting, scrubbing floors, bringing over goods, handing mom $50 bucks a month or driving her to the pediatrician. I ain’t never seen them sitting up for hours with an autistic child who screams and rages so his mother can get some sleep while she rests up from working 14-hour days. I don’t see them fixing leaks in rundown houses or playing with a kid while the police prepare to interview her about her sexual abuse. They’re not paying for the funerals of babies and children who died after birth, when they truly do become independent organisms. And the crazy thing is they think they’ve already done their job, because the child was born! Aphids give birth, girl. It’s no miracle. You want to speak for the weak? Get off your high horse and get your hands dirty helping the poor, the isolated, the ill and mentally ill women and mothers and their children who already breathe the dirty air. You are doing nothing, absolutely nothing, for children. You don’t have a flea’s comprehension of injustice. You are not doing shit for life until you get in there and fight that darkness. Until you understand that abortion is salvation in a world like ours. Does that sound too hard? Do you really think suffering post-birth is more permissible, less worthy of outrage? “Pro-life” is simply a philosophy in which the only life worth saving is the one that can be saved by punishing a woman.
STFU, Conservatives: When I say I’m pro-life…
I got a Tumblr Ask awhile ago about my views on abortion and I didn’t want to answer it because it’s a ~controversial~ issue. But THIS sums things up perfectly.
(via dontstopthefrizz)
seriously, i have no patience for pro-life anymore.
(via scientistslovecoffeetoo)
WAAaaat
I never looked that deep into it.
Mind=Blown
this changes my view of KH2 Sora COMPLETELY
Most dramatic costume change