Chapter Text
Bjorn was having the kind of day that really tested his resolve to not introduce his fist and the nearest solid object, and that was before the mindflayer ship. The rage that had consumed him after his escape from the pod and the realization that he was not, in fact, having another vivid dream was barely quelled in the battle with the cambion. His right hand flexed involuntarily, the dull throb of his knuckles a pleasant souvenir from repeatedly bashing against the fiend’s skull. He massaged his bruised skin with the thumb of his unscathed hand and smirked to himself as he walked along the beach, picking his way through the rubble. It had been very convenient to find the demons on the ship, providing an excellent way to clear his head with their unbridled slaughter.
Now that he had processed the ludicrous situation he was faced with, his years of barbarian training kicked in. The mindflayer worm was just another enemy to be eliminated, and Bjorn was very good at destroying things. All that mattered was that he find a cure as soon as possible and get back to his sister in Baldur’s Gate. His jaw clenched at the thought of the situation he’d left her in, but he knew his sister was smart. There was a reason they had survived all these years, despite everything. His pace quickened, and Shadowheart fell a few steps behind.
“I understand we’re a bit pressed for time right now, but not all of us have been blessed with great height and a long stride,” she remarked, and the edge in her voice did not go unnoticed.
Bjorn was nonplussed and his stride did not shorten. He had become immune to words laced with venom a long time ago and rebuffed them without thought. “That’s not the only thing about me that’s been blessed to be great and long, and besides…” He paused, turning to face her while jovially brushing his long hair over his shoulder. The barbarian gestured dramatically at himself. “It’s hard to miss me. I’ll flush all the enemies out, draw their fire, and give you a chance to run for it.”
“So charge in and hope for the best?” She scoffed. “What a sound battle strategy.”
Bjorn’s eyes returned to the path ahead of him as he shrugged. “It’s always worked for me before.”
Shadowheart didn’t get a chance to retort before a voice called from up ahead.
“Over here! I need some help!”
Bjorn hurried up the path towards the voice, his arm reflexively reaching behind him to grasp the hilt of the greatsword strapped to his back. He pulled the blade from its sheath, his body thrumming with the metallic song his weapon sang when it was brought forth. He felt the heat of his carefully controlled rage swelling inside him like a wildfire, ready to be channeled. His keen eyes swept the area ahead with practiced efficiency, quickly registering which areas had good cover and which route would provide the most expeditious retreat. His mind and body automatically responded to the call of battle; a rhythm carefully honed long ago and performed thousands of times over the years. He rounded the bend fully tensed and ready to spring, his pulse pounding in his ears, when he perceived a person agitatedly trying to get his attention– presumably the owner of the panicked voice.
As Bjorn approached and met the stranger’s sharp eyes, his first thought was that the gods must have sent a celestial being to aid in the fight against the budding mindflayer invasion. He immediately knew that wasn’t true, though–gods being selfish cocksuckers and all–and his mind raced to rationalize the image before him of a man with features so delicate, he could have been sculpted from marble. Or maybe porcelain, with the way the sunlight reflected off the sharp edges of his cheekbones. Uncharacteristically caught off guard, Bjorn lowered his greatsword ever so slightly, and an odd feeling washed over him. He felt the energy of moments before keeping momentum and barreling forward, but Bjorn remained anchored behind, utterly locked in place by the stranger’s gaze.
The stranger afforded the slightest hesitation, betrayed by an almost imperceptible twitch of his cheek as his eyes widened. Bjorn had learned to expect a reaction of some degree from people when they laid eyes on him for the first time. Every part of his appearance, from his braided beard to his boots, had been carefully tailored by his patron back home to be as intimidating as possible. A good guard dog doesn’t need to bite to be scary, he had been told. The moment was fleeting, and if Bjorn’s imposing frame had intimidated the man, his flawless demeanor betrayed no fear as he stepped forward.
“Hurry! I’ve got one of those brain things cornered.” The stranger gestured at the foliage behind him. “There, in the grass. You can kill it, can’t you? Like you killed the others?”
Bjorn had a fleeting feeling of suspicion at the man’s benign admission to having watched him for long enough that he had witnessed the short scuffle with the brain thralls he and Shadowheart had endured earlier. Bjorn’s hypothetical hackles bristled, but he glanced in the direction the man was pointing, stepping forward to lend his assistance. He rolled his shoulders and readjusted the weight of his greatsword, shaking off the uneasiness he felt before.
“Of course,” the barbarian replied confidently. “Step aside.” Bjorn kept an eye on the man with his peripheral vision as he passed. He noted that the slim stranger appeared very out of place, dressed more for a wealthy patron’s parlor than a trek through the wilderness. Something wasn’t quite adding up, but Bjorn took a risk and turned his attention away from the newcomer. It would be nice to hit something again, anyway.
–-
Bjorn was really tired of being right all the time, but at least Astarion had proven moderately amicable in the end. A small group of misfits, all survivors of the nautiloid, had now gathered around him and somehow decided they would join forces to figure out how to rid themselves of their shared affliction. If he was honest with himself, he was glad of the company. As they finished setting up shelter for the night, Bjorn took a moment to gaze across the campfire at his newfound compatriots. They were all so… interesting, and it was nice to find amusement amidst the chaos. He pulled an arm across his chest to stretch his back and let out a soft groan as his tired, heavy body surrendered the tension of the day. It felt nice, but his mind had been drifting towards thoughts of a different kind of release, and his bedroll beckoned to him.
Bjorn could never fully understand the reason he always got so worked up after a stressful event, but it had always been this way, and there currently was a surplus of simultaneous stressful situations. His mind craved the calm comfort in the moments after orgasm. The journey to the peak was pretty fun too, he mused, walking with purpose towards the kit he had set earlier on the far side of their camp. His brain registered an insistent ache growing between his legs as he lowered himself onto his bedroll, drawing his heavy legs towards him and resting his elbows on his knees. He casually scanned the camp, unabashedly searching for… inspiration.
His eyes travelled between the prickly but pretty cleric with the oddly shaped trinket that absolutely most definitely is not important at all; the classically handsome wizard that constantly acted like he expects applause; the githyanki goddess who could step on his neck and he would like it. He knew his subconscious was seeking someone else, but he clung to the vain hope that the others would somehow prevent the magnetic pull he had been feeling since earlier in the day. Bjorn had felt this way a handful of times before. He recognized what it meant, but he also knew how impossible–how downright ludicrous it would be, and so he purposefully had averted his eyes most of the day, forbidding himself to really look at the newcomer and fuel the enigma around him. This was the most poignantly inconvenient time to be consumed by lascivious thoughts, given the circumstances, but there also was no way to control his desire. Now, safely retreated into the shadows and with a modicum of privacy, he allowed himself the privilege and involuntarily sucked in a quiet breath when Astarion came into his field of view.
Bjorn’s jaw was not the only thing that twitched as his gaze settled on the lithe frame of the elf, who was bent over with his back turned, adjusting his various superfluous linens for the evening. He drew his eyes slowly over the conveniently taut night trousers that hugged the delicately sculpted curve of his ass and wondered what it might feel like to spread his palm there, his fingers firmly pressed against the coarse fabric that concealed the luminescent skin beneath. Bjorn’s mind leisurely mulled over the thought of what Astarion’s skin might look like coated in sweat, heated by blood set aflame with desire and reflecting the moonlight. Yes, that would do. He tore his gaze away from Astarion, who was settling in for the night anyway. Bjorn pulled the outer flap of his tent closed and sighed dreamily, leaning into the vivid debauchery still depicted in his mind’s eye.
His cock strained impatiently against his smallclothes and a large hand slipped inside his pants, grasping the thick base of his throbbing dick. He had been varying degrees of hard throughout the day, but only now could he afford himself the luxury of attending to his erection. He slowly shrugged his clothing further down his hips with his two thumbs hooked inside his waistband, biting his lip at the pleasurable sensation of the coarse fabric sliding across the most sensitive parts of his flesh. He exhaled sharply as his cock sprung free and bounced back to its resting position against his stomach. With a well-practiced motion, he used the pad of his calloused thumb to spread his leaking seed across the head of his cock, and for a fleeting moment he marveled at how long it had been since anyone else had touched him intimately. His own hands got the job done, of course, but they were rough and worn after years of brandishing a greatsword. An image of Astarion’s slender fingers deftly picking the lock of a buried chest they had found earlier appeared suddenly in his mind’s eye. Bjorn remembered being impressed with the show of dexterity in the moment, but now recalled the finer details of the elf’s unsullied hands and wondered how soft they would feel wrapped around his shaft. His eyes closed and he began stroking himself to the thought, imagining how Astarion might squeeze his cock just there to tease him of future pleasures with his pretty mouth. Bjorn had to stifle a gutteral moan, pressing his lips firmly together in a vainglorious attempt at keeping quiet as he increased his rhythm, hips rocking furiously as he fucked his closed fist. He felt sweat begin to bead on his forehead from his efforts as he hurtled himself towards release, imagining the sharp lines of Astarion’s jawbone and the exposed ivory skin of his neck when he threw his head back to laugh. In his mind’s eye, Astarion was on his knees before the barbarian, head thrown back not in mirth but in order to accommodate the monstrous cock shoved down his throat. Bjorn had one fistful of the elf’s silky tendrils and used it as leverage to push Astarion’s mouth so far down his shaft that his nose eventually touched the taut muscles of Bjorn’s abdomen. The barbarian moaned under his breath as he imagined Astarion’s throat tightening around his cock as he choked on it, and he felt the coil of desire in his core tightening. He was hurtling toward the point at which it would burst and let him come undone. He awaited this moment greedily.
When Bjorn was at his proverbial precipice, the worm residing behind his eye fluttered gently. A voice, dripping with arousal but also touched with bemusement, spoke to him in his mind-- the same way Lae’zel had spoken to him earlier when their minds joined in front of the tieflings. Every molecule in Bjorn’s body froze solid.
“I’m flattered, but give me some credit. I don’t have a gag reflex.”
Bjorn shot straight upwards, sheer panic consuming his thoughts. Had Astarion…? No, surely not. He had imagined it. Please, let it be another vivid hallucination his brain had conjured in a time of desperate need. The mindflayer worm had previously allowed him to connect his mind with his companions on a few different occasions, but it was random and brief. The heat of shame flooded his cheeks as he slowly came to the realization Astarion must have linked with his mind in the middle of him masturbating to the thought of the elf choking on his cock. A lilting chuckle that carried in the breeze confirmed his suspicions.
“Well… fuck,” the barbarian muttered under his breath as he lay back down in his bedroll and dragged a blanket up to his nose. It was tailored for a shorter person, and his cold feet stuck out at the bottom. “Fuck,” he cursed again, louder.
For a few moments, Bjorn lay perfectly still, scarcely allowing himself to breathe as he listened for any sign the others were also unwilling witnesses to his depravity. No such sounds materialized, and Bjorn breathed a small sigh of relief for that at least.
“You know…” he muttered to his empty tent, “Things had been going pretty well for a while there, all things considered.”
He threw the blanket off himself in a huff and reached for his sword. The embers of his rage had begun to spark again, and his body was beginning to protest with the effects of his ruined orgasm. He had heard rumors earlier in the day of a goblin horde nearby– yes, that would do. Bjorn mentally gathered the scattered remnants of his dignity–another practiced habit–and prepared for the coming battle.