Owain nods. He's had years to process the loss of his parents - though process might be generous, with how he's internalized some things - and he forgets that it must be such a fresh wound for Poe. It still hasn't hit him, not really, that he would have cared about Lon'qu in much the same way he cares about Owain. As a human, not as a pledge.
He warms at the touch, skin pink, and sheepishly nods his head. If he can keep finding ways to make Poe proud of him, that's all he wants.
"We'll get there." He pauses, drifting down to Poe's tattoo. Warming, again, at the neck. "Especially now that I'll always be able to find my way back to you."
"Just don't accidentally go walking into an ocean or a star if you try it," Poe said, smile growing even more fond.
There was - a lot. Suddenly. A mass of feelings pulsing beneath his breast and clawing at his throat. It took all the will in the world to keep the shoved down there rather than breaking into words.
Owain deserved better than that.
So instead he just smiled, then stepped in, sliding a hand around the back of Owain's head to pull him in to a long, slow kiss.
"An ocean's not gonna stop me from finding you if we're apart."
His hands feel jumpy and weird, like he doesn't know where to put them, and any instinct he had to touch Poe before is completely shut down by a shy, nervous flutter where everything Poe does makes him shiver. He grabs a fold of Poe's shirt as if that might be enough, giggling, again, like an inexperienced kid and ruining the kiss.
He shuts his eyes tight and tries to will away all the warmth and the butterflies and just relax, but it's honestly next to impossible. It takes all his strength and all his focus to kiss Poe back, his lips parting and moving like heavy, heavy doors he has to throw everything he has into opening, and there's too much electricity, he has to pull back.
Owain dips his head and bends his knees and slumps against Poe's chest like a marionette with its strings cut, arms flopping uselessly at his side. Like a doofus.
"I really wanna kiss you," he says, like he's protesting his own bullshit. "Just-- my heart's getting all-- fluttery. And it's hard. 'Cause you seem more beautiful than you ever have and it's making me nervous."
"Yeah, I would just prefer not to have to pump sea water out of your lungs when I find you," Poe replied, the smile flickering.
The giggle in the kiss made him chuckle, so really in the end neither of them were actually kissing, just laughing with their lips against each other, which still honestly wasn't that bad, all things considered. Owain tries again and Poe's getting into it when suddenly Owain collapses on him and Poe lets out another soft, amused snort, his heart feeling approximately five times too big in his chest.
And it started to beat completely out of rythym when Owain spoke again.
I know the feeling, he wanted to say, but even that was too much, too close.
He owed Owain his freedom. He couldn't take it back from him, now. Not even for this.
"Should I make an ugly face until you feel better?" He teased quietly, pressing a kiss into his hair. "It's alright. I got you, okay? Whatever you want to do, it's all fine."
Owain weakly pats his hand on Poe's chest, letting it linger too long just to feel the firmness of it. Poe's body is so much more-- real, compared to Owain's. Strong because he fights. His own isn't like that, really. There's no denying his own athleticism - he was raised to be a soldier, raised to be able to swing a sword by Poe's side and not slow him down - but he's never been on the field of battle. There was such care taken to his appearance. Cut for aesthetic, raised to look perfect for someone else. He didn't even question that, until recently. That his fucking build was decided for him.
Every aspect of him was shaped for Poe. His body was just the most visible part of it.
He stands a little straighter. He tries to look Poe in the eyes, but he doesn't have the guts and ends up just sort of stammering again, laughing like a fucking idiot. He leans in and kisses his neck, because that comes easier to him than anything else right now - he gets to tuck himself up against Poe, breathe his scent, feel surrounded by Poe, yet not so naked in front of his spotlights.
He doesn't ask if they can go to bed, this time, even though he always has. He just pushes Poe back, gently, until they're at the cot, too small for the both of them but so much closer and cleaner. He drops Poe back onto it and rests one knee on the edge of the bed to deepen this, breathing him in, one arm around Poe's back for balance.
Poe had completed forgotten about the cot - and was startled a little when the back of his legs hit the edge of and he sat down a little too quickly, a little too heavily. One arm went out behind him to stabilize himself - leaning his weight back and also a good deal of Owain's, but he didn't seem to mind. His own heart was beating a jack rabbit pace, wild and sharp against his ribs despite to slow, methodical nature of Owain sliding in and slumping against him.
His free hand slid into Owain's hair, finger nails dragging into his scalp.
The words were there again, right on the tip of his tongue, and he swallowed them down. He couldn't offer Owain that - not when he had basically no choice. He would accept it and wouldn't even realize that he wouldn't have had another option.
But it wasn't the worst, Poe thought to himself. To love Owain. Even if he only got to feel like this for a little while.
Acting on instinct, Owain's hand travels again. Lower than it needs to, lower than this moment might want, his hand curling into a relaxed fist as it rests just above Poe's ass. He adjusts to the way Poe sinks against the mattress, lower to the ground than the bed ever was, and he raises his knee just a little further onto the cot to keep the both of them in place.
The nails in his scalp makes him shudder, and he doesn't hide it, his whole body quivering at even the slightest touch from Poe. The kiss on his neck comes slower, for a moment, and when he bites in its place, there's no frenzied marking, no desperate need for a flush of pink - there's barely any pressure, just the feel of teeth on flesh.
He leans back and again, can't quite bring himself to look at Poe. He laughs, as he's been doing this whole time, a jumble of nervous energy, everything too disorienting to think about.
The core, core tenet of Pledge training is to be able to serve your master with unflinching rigidity. The first thing he would have been trained in - the first lesson he would have learned, that he would have come back to time and time again through so, so many tutors - would have been how to conduct himself in front of his master. Every Pledge is the same - they have to keep their head lowered, but their eyes must meet their owner's. Always ready for an order, always ready to hurt or be hurt or to serve.
These butterflies, the shyness in Owain - the fact that meeting Poe's eyes is too much for him, makes everything inside him squirm and flutter and light up - the way he just blushes, laughs like a kid so clearly in love, tries to keep looking back at Poe but then ends up looking away with a shy smile and a happily angry bite of his bottom lip as if he's telling himself with a light heart to just get his shit together -
It's proof, above anything and everything, that whatever Poe's teaching him is sinking in. This is all him, against a decade of conditioning. Purely and totally Owain.
On the other hand, Poe couldn't stop looking at Owain. Every flush and bitten lip just made Poe grin so hard that it hurt, and he pressed a few warm kisses to Owain's cheek as he trailed down to try to catch at his mouth, the grin making it far more harder than it should have been.
He shuffled backwards on the bed, fingers hooking into Owain's belt loops to pull him along with him. His entire body felt far warmer than it should - hadn't even noticed that he was as flushed as Owain was, almost out of nothing but pure joy.
He'd never fallen this hard for anyone. The thought should be making him panic, but it isn't- it doesn't- all it does is make him want to lie back and pull Owain on top of him, arching his neck to steal a kiss as he pulls their clothes bodies flush against each other.
There's a stupid giggle in response to each kiss, followed by a quiet and embarrassed oh my god as Owain runs his hand down his stupid fucking stupid red stupid face and tries to just will away all this stupid fucking god damn BLUSHING. It doesn't work, but he lets Poe guide him, cock stirring just from the proximity of those fingers in his belt, and he settles down in an uncomfortable yet perfect closeness riiight next to Poe.
He shifts so he can be on his side facing Poe, closing him in against the wall and drawing the hand up from his back to rest on Poe's hip. He doesn't resume the kissing right away. He wants to, of course - he wants to do a lot of things, but. He's so close to Poe that he could count every lash, if he wanted to - catch the light of his eyes, the colour, commit his entire fucking face to memory so that when he's old and grey he'll be able to remember the curve of Poe's cheekbones, the perfect cut of his nose, those lips--
So that's what he does. He raises his hand, brushes some hair behind Poe's ear. Watches him, quietly, as the heat from his fades into something heavier and deeper and real. The way he's looking at Poe - like he's never seen him before, never seen someone so perfect before, never been given cause to feel so much admiration and fullness in him - it's a lot. Daunting, maybe, in its intensity. Examining every inch of Poe with a piercing clarity.
"You are so fucking beautiful." It's a whisper, one of awe and love, and he's said that word before, but it's true. There's nothing more strictly beautiful to him than Poe, and he runs his thumb over his cheek, just under his eye. Sappy.
"Fuck." He almost says it, again. Doesn't, of course. He just flickers his eyes back to Poe's, gets nervous again and cuts away, then forces himself to look back. To remember the colour. His heart feels like it's dying, from how fast its going, but he holds eye contact.
"I don't even know what I want to do," he admits, laughing nervously and apologetically and joyfully all at once. "It's like-- would it be too cheesy if I said it felt like I was on fire? Everything you do makes, like, an explosion. In me. It's scary. Not-- in a bad way. Just-- intense."
The way Owain was looking at him should have sent up warning flags - would, probably, if Poe wasn't feeling the same damn fucking thing. Or, at the very least, something very close in a slightly different shade. So instead of find warning signs all he found was a reflection of his own feelings back at him. It was intoxicating on a level he didn't even register.
He doesn't try to cross the space - hyper aware of Owain's fingers even just brushing his ear sending a shiver right down his spine that he didn't even try to suppress.
(This was bad, a part of himself would later tell him, berate him quietly in the darkness while he stared at the ceiling and listened to Owain's gentle breath next to him. This was bad, and was going to end in one of them getting really fucking hurt. If anyone had been there to witness it, they would have intervened - told Poe to cool his fucking heels and take a step back - to recognise what he was doing. That Owain had been made for him, that he should be pulling away so that Owain could find his own feet - find himself. That he was getting in the way of Owain's personhood, that it had been just four fucking days, that he was in over his head and he needed to breathe--)
But there wasn't anyone else there. And the voice in his head would stay silent until the darkness came. So all he could do was grin, his heart thundering away far too quickly, his pleasure and his feelings written far too clearly across the face that Owain was trying to memorise.
"... It's not too cheesy," he replied, his voice a low whisper. He raised a hand to touch Owain's face again, as if he couldn't stop himself from doing it, his breath shuddering in his chest. "... Trust me, I... get it."
Though his face is hot to the touch and though his eyes are still frantically finding somewhere to settle, though he can't stop fucking smiling - he still inches his fingers away from Poe. There's hesitation here now, and when he swallows and tries to set his face back into something stable, it helps him finally just look Poe in the eyes without running away from it.
He takes his hand back and just-- points at his own chest. He looks around as if there's someone behind him, someone else Poe must be talking to, then rolls back to smile at Poe again, leaning into his touch.
"For-- me?"
He stops pointing at himself and drapes his arm back over Poe's side.
"I make you feel the same as how you make me feel? The-- fire stuff?"
Poe just smiles, his eyes crinkling with it, so fond and so in love that it spills out of his expression with ease.
But he doesn't say it.
"Yeah." That's the most he's willing to say - the rest too much, too claiming. He nuzzled in closer, pressing his face up against Owain's throat, pressing his nose too close, breathing deep, lips skimming over Owain's skin.
Owain laughs, he can't help it - he uses the same soaps as Poe, so he wonders if it's not a slightly narcissistic comment, but he lets it slide. He's still dwelling on that yeah, anyway. A single word, completely fucking with his brain. He doesn't hide how happy it makes him, laughing again and again in these short, brilliantly happy outbursts, just because his lungs keep swelling and his heart keeps hurting and he can't contain all the disjointed bliss.
He looks at Poe, though, under the waves of all this silly, joyful energy, and he sees that face. That face he wants to remember when he's old and grey. Again, he touches Poe's hair just for the sake of touching it, and then leans in, kissing him just for a moment, the softness of Poe's lips setting that spark alight even brighter.
He... needs this.
"I wanna touch you more," he says, slowly. "Just-- to have you. As mine. For a while. Are you okay-- with that? I know I was, um. Rough. Earlier."
It's not the soap. It was the sweat and the slightly tangy scent of just being human that was impossible to describe.
He melts into the kiss like he would drown without it, sliding his body closer, pulling flush against him. Even when Owain speaks, Poe's lips are right there at the edge of his mouth, trying to catch the words as they were released.
"Trust me, I'm fine," he promised, murmured into Owain's lips and cheek. Then, in a tone that sounded like he believed it answered everything:
Maybe there's still a bit of conditioning in him that responds to I want you, but whatever the reason, it's enough.
Every part of him feels like it's touching Poe, now that they're this close. He knows he should be doing something, moving his arms and taking this further, but his eyes are locked on Poe's and he just keeps getting more and more lost in them. He remembers with a start, eventually, what he wants, and he chuckles a little low as he leans in to steal another kiss.
He rests his hand just below Poe's navel for a second before taking a breath and tugging at his belt, stripping it away. His hand doesn't touch Poe's flesh, but he sits up to pull Poe's pants down to his thighs, then rests his open palm over his tenting cock. He breathes out, shaky like he's the one being touched, then looks nervously back to Poe.
He feels his breath hitch as Owain's fingers rest against him, the thin
fabric doing absolutely nothing to hide the way his cock automatically
responded to it.
"There are... a lot of ways, in particular," He admitted, unable to
completely smother his grin, despite Owain's nervous look. "But it's your
birthday, Owain. Still." He leaned forward, just enough to press their
foreheads together, his hand resting on Owain's hip.
"... I would just lie here and kiss you forever, if that's what you told me
you wanted."
In all this sweeping, stars-under-the-skin emotion he's been caught up in after Poe's choice to get branded for him, he forgot. A wave of heat rolls from where Poe touches him, and he shuts his eyes, letting himself feel pinned under the gentle brush of that hand on his hip. Idiot, he tells himself. You're eighteen now.
Kissing Poe is only one thing he wants. He wants-- all of him, every part of him-- forever. It's timid and exploratory, every touch to Poe's cock like he's never done it before, hand shaking with nerves as his palm slides over his bulge, and he punctuates each movement by leaning forward to snag a blind, chaste kiss. Touching him like this feels momentous in a way that doesn't really make sense after everything they've done, like this is the moment where touching Poe really fucking matters, and he doesn't wanna mess up.
He carefully, carefully pulls Poe's underwear down, exposing his cock to the air and gently taking hold of it. It's featherlight, in the way a pledge's touches are supposed to be when shaking someone's hand or doing something for their master, stealthy and unnoticable. He steadily firms up his grip until Poe can really fucking feel the heat of his fist, the tightness of his soft skin, as he gently starts to stroke, rolling foreskin back from his head and kissing him once more to make it an even thousand.
"I want... you to fall apart in my hands," he confesses, slowly. "I want to just-- overload you. Make you writhe and cum and feel as intensely as I always do with you."
Every kiss feels a hundred times more sensitive than they should - tingling on his lips almost to the point of over-stimulation - every one of his nerves hyper alert. He is breathing very slowly - very deeply - every breath almost vibrating through his chest. He can feel the weight of every touch - not physically, no, but something else, something deeper, as if ever touch has meaning, and his cock throbs hotly even under the faintest brush of touch. He's so sensitive it almost tickles, and he squirms a little until Owain's grip firms. Then all he can do it pant, heavily, taking the kiss even as he's pressing closer in against him, making it hard to get a good stroke in.
"I already-- fuck, Owain, but I already do... You just- everything you do, I just--"
Shut up, Dameron! He scolds himself, cutting off with a low, helpless moan as he presses forward into another kiss - hot and heavy and open mouthed, the hand on Owain's hip curling with need but he doesn't move it yet.
"... Can I touch you?" He whispers, despite everything, he still can't help but ask. Feels the need to ask.
Poe says too much for Owain's world not to shift a little.
Everything you do. His heart hammers against his chest even though he doesn't fully understand why. These aren't feelings so easily identifiable for a man who grew up being told he had to shut everything about himself down; he watches his parents and knew in the short time they had together that the two of them were in love, and it's why he wants to tell Poe he loves him, because he wants to have with Poe what he knew Lissa and Lon'qu had with each other, but. Actually experiencing all of this? He has no idea what infatuation is, on an emotional level. Couldn't differentiate a crush with a storybook, fairy tale romance he hid away with at night to read under the covers as if it was something filthy.
All he knows is everything you do is how he feels about Poe. Every part of Poe makes his heart hurt.
So he stumbles and nods, feeling small and big all at the same time.
"I'd be mad if you didn't?" He laughs, shifting his elbow back so he can stroke Poe with a touch more access. "I want us to do-- everything. Anything. So... yeah. Don't-- ask. Just-- do?"
"Yeah," He murmurs, an agreement, and one that makes his heart skips a beat. "... Yeah, alright."
Don't ask, just do.
Don't say it, Poe, just show it.
His hands slipped down to Owain's belt buckle, pulling it open with a practised ease even though he's distracted - grinding himself a little into Owain's hand as he strokes. His touch is almost feather light as he pulls Owain's trousers down his thighs, pushing all the fabric as far out of the way as he can manage until it's pooling at Owain's ankles and he can force the rest off with a kick of his foot. He presses a hot kiss to Owain's neck, but he doesn't mark him, just lingers there against his skin and breathing in all of him. He doesn't go for his cock, first, and instead goes for the edge of his sweater, pulling it up and forcing Owain to let go of him for a half second so he could get it off and on the ground. Only once every scrap of fabric was off of Owain was he satisfied, leaning in to take a long, deep kiss as he slid his palm down the length of the man's cock and then curled his fingers warmly around it. Not stroking. Not yet. Just holding.
He's quiet when Poe strips him, but not in a way that makes him particularly obedient. He helps get his clothes off when he's guided, but he's rushing a little now, pulling everything off of himself faster so he can get back to this, the sleepy yet alert kisses and the firm and terrifying touches.
As Poe takes a hold of his cock, he shudders and bucks hard into it, too desperate to feel in his youth. He sucks in air and fills his lungs and wills himself to calm down, shutting his eyes with a flutter and resting his head against Poe's chest. He has no self-restraint at the best of times, but here and now with everything crashing over him with the force of a tidal wave - fuck, he just wants to cum already.
He realizes Poe's still a little dressed, so he buys time by easing him out of all of his clothes, leaving him naked and just fucking admiring the way Poe looks in the late afternoon sun. It's finally starting to set, leaving Poe in warm orange glows and making Owain's heart lodge in his throat every time he looks at him, and this, he thinks, is the way he'll remember Poe when they're older. Relaxed and smiling at him and everything you do still ringing in his head.
If what he feels isn't love, Owain doesn't know what possibly could be.
He guides Poe's hand back to his cock and finds his again once they're pressed together, Owain stroking Poe maybe a little faster than he should be with how careful this moment is.
"Fuck," he whispers again. He'd call Poe Captain or a good boy any other night, but he can't think of him as anything other than who he is. Poe, first and foremost. The man who saved him.
"Fuck, Poe, you don't--"
You don't know what you are, what you mean. He can feel his throat burn with a heavy, swollen emotion and he tries to swallow the lump down but it stays.
"I wish I knew how to tell you what you are to me," he finally says, voice thick. "You got my fucking brand--"
It's hard enough, reminding himself that he has to hold back, when Owain is just being himself. Hard enough to do when he's just laughing or grinning or getting suddenly nervous and Poe wants nothing more that to kiss the nerves away and bring the laugh back.
It's another thing altogether, when Owain is speaking and the words are sliding right into his heart and lodging there, heavier and heavier as they accumulate. It's hard enough, when it isn't so painfully obvious that Owain feels exactly the same way he does.
And that's okay. Owain can feel whatever he wants. Poe gave him that, specifically. Intentionally. The fact that he freely gives those feelings to Poe is enough to make him giddy, but doesn't break the overlying truth. There's still a power imbalance, there. Implicit. In time? In time, maybe they'll be just fine, and Owain will find himself and yet his heart will somehow still be here. With Poe. In time, Poe would even be able to accept that. Gladly. Warmly.
But it's too early.
It's too early and Owain is too young, and Poe is too fucking aware, now, of his own feelings. But he's had a decade to make sense of them. Had a decade to tell the difference between the first heady flutters of a crush, to something deeper.
Just because he's fallen so fast doesn't mean he hasn't realised how fucking hard he's fallen, too.
But he knows he can't expect that, from Owain. Knows he shouldn't.
Knows he can't deny him anything, despite that.
Once he has hold of Owain again he finally does begin to stroke - far slower than Owain is stroking him. His touch is almost too light - fingers barely brushing the underside. His eyes are locked on Owain's face, hair fucking glowing in the low afternoon sun, and he's pretty damn sure he's never seen anything more beautiful, than this. Locks the sight away, deep inside himself. Tells himself: even if this doesn't last - even if I'm only Owain's introduction to life, and not the entirety of it - it's worth it.
He doesn't reply. Not with words, at least. He presses closer, stealing the word 'brand' from Owain's lips with a searching kiss, tongue sliding deep to taste the entirety of him. His grip on Owain's cock firms, tighter, and he begins to stroke a little faster, slowly gaining on the pace that the other man is setting on his own cock. He presses closer, free hand reaching between them to pull Owain's hand back - but he doesn't leave any room for the other man to doubt his intentions. The hand that he'd been using to stroke him he now wraps around them both, letting a shuddering breath out against Owain's lips as he holds their cocks together and gives them both the same achingly slow stroke.
Everything inside of him is starting to fit into place, Poe's touch making him feel whole and human as it always does. His hand tightens around Owain and he squirms back, that kiss earning a soft smile that gives way to a quiet moan of ecstasy as he cants his hips. Everything-- everything-- completes him. He's aware, hyper-aware, that any trace of vigilant servitude in him is dead and fucking buried, at least for today. He almost breaks the kiss and stops what they're doing, because it hits him like a train that they could dance right now. They could dance, like they never had a chance to at the ball, and that's-- that's what Owain wants, he wants to be held, he wants to be held and he wants to do something intimate and romantic and not even strictly physical, just-- danced with.
But things progress in the instant that thought hazily connects, and soon Poe is chasing his hand away and moving everything forward, grinding their cocks against one another and making Owain shudder and moan as he curls forward. With Poe taking over, Owain has both of his hands free, and he slides them across Poe's neck just for the sake of touching him.
"Poe--"
He's shut his eyes again, helpless and vulnerable to all of this. Poe's moving too slowly and he's starting to get impatient - until now, just looking at Poe set a fire in him that made him too giddy and anxious to move, but that fire is beginning to burn in a slightly different colour. Now he just-- he wants more, he wants everything. He fucks into Poe's hand, a river of pre flooding down between them and making everything sound so much more wetter and lewder than beautiful like it feels.
His fingernails carve lines in Poe's neck as he curls them in, and Owain forces his eyes open to get a better look at him. He could say it. He could still say it.
"I..."
It wouldn't be like him to hold back, if he hadn't had years of being held back beaten into him. He could say it, if he had been raised as nobility, as he should have been. He looks at Poe, and it's there, it's so obviously there. Seconds from saying it. Seconds from telling Poe. He swallows, and it's hard to focus, hard to breathe, with the way Poe keeps stroking. Slowly. Too fucking slowly.
Another breath.
Eyes wide. Locked on Poe's.
Vulnerable, young. Barely experienced in the world, let alone in love.
Poe can see it, and it spreads a warmth through him that's so sweet it makes his tongue curl. But he doesn't let him say it. Before Owain can get another word in, he leans in, taking Owain's mouth with his own, kissing him slow, and lovingly, and deep - like there was nothing else in the world to do, save kiss him.
Owain is far from the only one leaking precum between them, and his hand is slick as it strokes them both, gripping a little tighter to make up for the loss of friction, still slow but the pace was picking up. Not consciously, just his body giving in to his need while his mind and heart were completely elsewhere. Locked into Owain's lips and words unsaid.
There's a momentary disappointment that flares in him, because he could have said it. He could have said it, and maybe Poe might have wanted to say it back, and maybe Owain doesn't fully understand the weight of what those words might hold outside of the vaguest fantasies and the base, hopeful thought that he and Poe could be something close to what his parents were to each other - but it could have happened. It could have shaped them into something even better.
But again - he's young and he's naive. It's so, so easy for Poe to captivate him, to change him. The kiss is a firework, all of Poe's intentions and all of his love warming Owain from the inside, and he slowly glides his cock harder against Poe's with a rut of his hips. He can already feel his climax building and he doesn't want this to end yet, so when he breaks the kiss to grunt and lower his head, he puts his hands on Poe's shoulders and squeezes down to warn him to take it easy for a second.
"Fuck, Poe--"
It feels unnatural at this point not to say it, but he looks up and he sees Poe's eyes and he doesn't have it in him anymore. The courage is gone, buried under waves of what if and the fear that everything could end. He swallows hard and slides his leg between Poe's, hooking behind his knee just to tangle them both together even tighter.
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no subject
He warms at the touch, skin pink, and sheepishly nods his head. If he can keep finding ways to make Poe proud of him, that's all he wants.
"We'll get there." He pauses, drifting down to Poe's tattoo. Warming, again, at the neck. "Especially now that I'll always be able to find my way back to you."
no subject
There was - a lot. Suddenly. A mass of feelings pulsing beneath his breast and clawing at his throat. It took all the will in the world to keep the shoved down there rather than breaking into words.
Owain deserved better than that.
So instead he just smiled, then stepped in, sliding a hand around the back of Owain's head to pull him in to a long, slow kiss.
The only safe way he had to express himself.
no subject
His hands feel jumpy and weird, like he doesn't know where to put them, and any instinct he had to touch Poe before is completely shut down by a shy, nervous flutter where everything Poe does makes him shiver. He grabs a fold of Poe's shirt as if that might be enough, giggling, again, like an inexperienced kid and ruining the kiss.
He shuts his eyes tight and tries to will away all the warmth and the butterflies and just relax, but it's honestly next to impossible. It takes all his strength and all his focus to kiss Poe back, his lips parting and moving like heavy, heavy doors he has to throw everything he has into opening, and there's too much electricity, he has to pull back.
Owain dips his head and bends his knees and slumps against Poe's chest like a marionette with its strings cut, arms flopping uselessly at his side. Like a doofus.
"I really wanna kiss you," he says, like he's protesting his own bullshit. "Just-- my heart's getting all-- fluttery. And it's hard. 'Cause you seem more beautiful than you ever have and it's making me nervous."
no subject
The giggle in the kiss made him chuckle, so really in the end neither of them were actually kissing, just laughing with their lips against each other, which still honestly wasn't that bad, all things considered. Owain tries again and Poe's getting into it when suddenly Owain collapses on him and Poe lets out another soft, amused snort, his heart feeling approximately five times too big in his chest.
And it started to beat completely out of rythym when Owain spoke again.
I know the feeling, he wanted to say, but even that was too much, too close.
He owed Owain his freedom. He couldn't take it back from him, now. Not even for this.
"Should I make an ugly face until you feel better?" He teased quietly, pressing a kiss into his hair. "It's alright. I got you, okay? Whatever you want to do, it's all fine."
shut up
Every aspect of him was shaped for Poe. His body was just the most visible part of it.
He stands a little straighter. He tries to look Poe in the eyes, but he doesn't have the guts and ends up just sort of stammering again, laughing like a fucking idiot. He leans in and kisses his neck, because that comes easier to him than anything else right now - he gets to tuck himself up against Poe, breathe his scent, feel surrounded by Poe, yet not so naked in front of his spotlights.
He doesn't ask if they can go to bed, this time, even though he always has. He just pushes Poe back, gently, until they're at the cot, too small for the both of them but so much closer and cleaner. He drops Poe back onto it and rests one knee on the edge of the bed to deepen this, breathing him in, one arm around Poe's back for balance.
Make me :')
His free hand slid into Owain's hair, finger nails dragging into his scalp.
The words were there again, right on the tip of his tongue, and he swallowed them down. He couldn't offer Owain that - not when he had basically no choice. He would accept it and wouldn't even realize that he wouldn't have had another option.
But it wasn't the worst, Poe thought to himself. To love Owain. Even if he only got to feel like this for a little while.
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The nails in his scalp makes him shudder, and he doesn't hide it, his whole body quivering at even the slightest touch from Poe. The kiss on his neck comes slower, for a moment, and when he bites in its place, there's no frenzied marking, no desperate need for a flush of pink - there's barely any pressure, just the feel of teeth on flesh.
He leans back and again, can't quite bring himself to look at Poe. He laughs, as he's been doing this whole time, a jumble of nervous energy, everything too disorienting to think about.
The core, core tenet of Pledge training is to be able to serve your master with unflinching rigidity. The first thing he would have been trained in - the first lesson he would have learned, that he would have come back to time and time again through so, so many tutors - would have been how to conduct himself in front of his master. Every Pledge is the same - they have to keep their head lowered, but their eyes must meet their owner's. Always ready for an order, always ready to hurt or be hurt or to serve.
These butterflies, the shyness in Owain - the fact that meeting Poe's eyes is too much for him, makes everything inside him squirm and flutter and light up - the way he just blushes, laughs like a kid so clearly in love, tries to keep looking back at Poe but then ends up looking away with a shy smile and a happily angry bite of his bottom lip as if he's telling himself with a light heart to just get his shit together -
It's proof, above anything and everything, that whatever Poe's teaching him is sinking in. This is all him, against a decade of conditioning. Purely and totally Owain.
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On the other hand, Poe couldn't stop looking at Owain. Every flush and bitten lip just made Poe grin so hard that it hurt, and he pressed a few warm kisses to Owain's cheek as he trailed down to try to catch at his mouth, the grin making it far more harder than it should have been.
He shuffled backwards on the bed, fingers hooking into Owain's belt loops to pull him along with him. His entire body felt far warmer than it should - hadn't even noticed that he was as flushed as Owain was, almost out of nothing but pure joy.
He'd never fallen this hard for anyone. The thought should be making him panic, but it isn't- it doesn't- all it does is make him want to lie back and pull Owain on top of him, arching his neck to steal a kiss as he pulls their clothes bodies flush against each other.
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He shifts so he can be on his side facing Poe, closing him in against the wall and drawing the hand up from his back to rest on Poe's hip. He doesn't resume the kissing right away. He wants to, of course - he wants to do a lot of things, but. He's so close to Poe that he could count every lash, if he wanted to - catch the light of his eyes, the colour, commit his entire fucking face to memory so that when he's old and grey he'll be able to remember the curve of Poe's cheekbones, the perfect cut of his nose, those lips--
So that's what he does. He raises his hand, brushes some hair behind Poe's ear. Watches him, quietly, as the heat from his fades into something heavier and deeper and real. The way he's looking at Poe - like he's never seen him before, never seen someone so perfect before, never been given cause to feel so much admiration and fullness in him - it's a lot. Daunting, maybe, in its intensity. Examining every inch of Poe with a piercing clarity.
"You are so fucking beautiful." It's a whisper, one of awe and love, and he's said that word before, but it's true. There's nothing more strictly beautiful to him than Poe, and he runs his thumb over his cheek, just under his eye. Sappy.
"Fuck." He almost says it, again. Doesn't, of course. He just flickers his eyes back to Poe's, gets nervous again and cuts away, then forces himself to look back. To remember the colour. His heart feels like it's dying, from how fast its going, but he holds eye contact.
"I don't even know what I want to do," he admits, laughing nervously and apologetically and joyfully all at once. "It's like-- would it be too cheesy if I said it felt like I was on fire? Everything you do makes, like, an explosion. In me. It's scary. Not-- in a bad way. Just-- intense."
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He doesn't try to cross the space - hyper aware of Owain's fingers even just brushing his ear sending a shiver right down his spine that he didn't even try to suppress.
(This was bad, a part of himself would later tell him, berate him quietly in the darkness while he stared at the ceiling and listened to Owain's gentle breath next to him. This was bad, and was going to end in one of them getting really fucking hurt. If anyone had been there to witness it, they would have intervened - told Poe to cool his fucking heels and take a step back - to recognise what he was doing. That Owain had been made for him, that he should be pulling away so that Owain could find his own feet - find himself. That he was getting in the way of Owain's personhood, that it had been just four fucking days, that he was in over his head and he needed to breathe--)
But there wasn't anyone else there. And the voice in his head would stay silent until the darkness came. So all he could do was grin, his heart thundering away far too quickly, his pleasure and his feelings written far too clearly across the face that Owain was trying to memorise.
"... It's not too cheesy," he replied, his voice a low whisper. He raised a hand to touch Owain's face again, as if he couldn't stop himself from doing it, his breath shuddering in his chest. "... Trust me, I... get it."
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Though his face is hot to the touch and though his eyes are still frantically finding somewhere to settle, though he can't stop fucking smiling - he still inches his fingers away from Poe. There's hesitation here now, and when he swallows and tries to set his face back into something stable, it helps him finally just look Poe in the eyes without running away from it.
He takes his hand back and just-- points at his own chest. He looks around as if there's someone behind him, someone else Poe must be talking to, then rolls back to smile at Poe again, leaning into his touch.
"For-- me?"
He stops pointing at himself and drapes his arm back over Poe's side.
"I make you feel the same as how you make me feel? The-- fire stuff?"
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But he doesn't say it.
"Yeah." That's the most he's willing to say - the rest too much, too claiming. He nuzzled in closer, pressing his face up against Owain's throat, pressing his nose too close, breathing deep, lips skimming over Owain's skin.
But he needed safer ground to talk on.
"... Fuck, you smell good."
Nailed it.
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Owain laughs, he can't help it - he uses the same soaps as Poe, so he wonders if it's not a slightly narcissistic comment, but he lets it slide. He's still dwelling on that yeah, anyway. A single word, completely fucking with his brain. He doesn't hide how happy it makes him, laughing again and again in these short, brilliantly happy outbursts, just because his lungs keep swelling and his heart keeps hurting and he can't contain all the disjointed bliss.
He looks at Poe, though, under the waves of all this silly, joyful energy, and he sees that face. That face he wants to remember when he's old and grey. Again, he touches Poe's hair just for the sake of touching it, and then leans in, kissing him just for a moment, the softness of Poe's lips setting that spark alight even brighter.
He... needs this.
"I wanna touch you more," he says, slowly. "Just-- to have you. As mine. For a while. Are you okay-- with that? I know I was, um. Rough. Earlier."
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It's not the soap. It was the sweat and the slightly tangy scent of just being human that was impossible to describe.
He melts into the kiss like he would drown without it, sliding his body closer, pulling flush against him. Even when Owain speaks, Poe's lips are right there at the edge of his mouth, trying to catch the words as they were released.
"Trust me, I'm fine," he promised, murmured into Owain's lips and cheek. Then, in a tone that sounded like he believed it answered everything:
"I want you."
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Maybe there's still a bit of conditioning in him that responds to I want you, but whatever the reason, it's enough.
Every part of him feels like it's touching Poe, now that they're this close. He knows he should be doing something, moving his arms and taking this further, but his eyes are locked on Poe's and he just keeps getting more and more lost in them. He remembers with a start, eventually, what he wants, and he chuckles a little low as he leans in to steal another kiss.
He rests his hand just below Poe's navel for a second before taking a breath and tugging at his belt, stripping it away. His hand doesn't touch Poe's flesh, but he sits up to pull Poe's pants down to his thighs, then rests his open palm over his tenting cock. He breathes out, shaky like he's the one being touched, then looks nervously back to Poe.
"You... want me in any way in particular?"
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He feels his breath hitch as Owain's fingers rest against him, the thin fabric doing absolutely nothing to hide the way his cock automatically responded to it.
"There are... a lot of ways, in particular," He admitted, unable to completely smother his grin, despite Owain's nervous look. "But it's your birthday, Owain. Still." He leaned forward, just enough to press their foreheads together, his hand resting on Owain's hip.
"... I would just lie here and kiss you forever, if that's what you told me you wanted."
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In all this sweeping, stars-under-the-skin emotion he's been caught up in after Poe's choice to get branded for him, he forgot. A wave of heat rolls from where Poe touches him, and he shuts his eyes, letting himself feel pinned under the gentle brush of that hand on his hip. Idiot, he tells himself. You're eighteen now.
Kissing Poe is only one thing he wants. He wants-- all of him, every part of him-- forever. It's timid and exploratory, every touch to Poe's cock like he's never done it before, hand shaking with nerves as his palm slides over his bulge, and he punctuates each movement by leaning forward to snag a blind, chaste kiss. Touching him like this feels momentous in a way that doesn't really make sense after everything they've done, like this is the moment where touching Poe really fucking matters, and he doesn't wanna mess up.
He carefully, carefully pulls Poe's underwear down, exposing his cock to the air and gently taking hold of it. It's featherlight, in the way a pledge's touches are supposed to be when shaking someone's hand or doing something for their master, stealthy and unnoticable. He steadily firms up his grip until Poe can really fucking feel the heat of his fist, the tightness of his soft skin, as he gently starts to stroke, rolling foreskin back from his head and kissing him once more to make it an even thousand.
"I want... you to fall apart in my hands," he confesses, slowly. "I want to just-- overload you. Make you writhe and cum and feel as intensely as I always do with you."
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"I already-- fuck, Owain, but I already do... You just- everything you do, I just--"
Shut up, Dameron! He scolds himself, cutting off with a low, helpless moan as he presses forward into another kiss - hot and heavy and open mouthed, the hand on Owain's hip curling with need but he doesn't move it yet.
"... Can I touch you?" He whispers, despite everything, he still can't help but ask. Feels the need to ask.
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Everything you do. His heart hammers against his chest even though he doesn't fully understand why. These aren't feelings so easily identifiable for a man who grew up being told he had to shut everything about himself down; he watches his parents and knew in the short time they had together that the two of them were in love, and it's why he wants to tell Poe he loves him, because he wants to have with Poe what he knew Lissa and Lon'qu had with each other, but. Actually experiencing all of this? He has no idea what infatuation is, on an emotional level. Couldn't differentiate a crush with a storybook, fairy tale romance he hid away with at night to read under the covers as if it was something filthy.
All he knows is everything you do is how he feels about Poe. Every part of Poe makes his heart hurt.
So he stumbles and nods, feeling small and big all at the same time.
"I'd be mad if you didn't?" He laughs, shifting his elbow back so he can stroke Poe with a touch more access. "I want us to do-- everything. Anything. So... yeah. Don't-- ask. Just-- do?"
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Don't ask, just do.
Don't say it, Poe, just show it.
His hands slipped down to Owain's belt buckle, pulling it open with a practised ease even though he's distracted - grinding himself a little into Owain's hand as he strokes. His touch is almost feather light as he pulls Owain's trousers down his thighs, pushing all the fabric as far out of the way as he can manage until it's pooling at Owain's ankles and he can force the rest off with a kick of his foot. He presses a hot kiss to Owain's neck, but he doesn't mark him, just lingers there against his skin and breathing in all of him. He doesn't go for his cock, first, and instead goes for the edge of his sweater, pulling it up and forcing Owain to let go of him for a half second so he could get it off and on the ground. Only once every scrap of fabric was off of Owain was he satisfied, leaning in to take a long, deep kiss as he slid his palm down the length of the man's cock and then curled his fingers warmly around it. Not stroking. Not yet. Just holding.
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As Poe takes a hold of his cock, he shudders and bucks hard into it, too desperate to feel in his youth. He sucks in air and fills his lungs and wills himself to calm down, shutting his eyes with a flutter and resting his head against Poe's chest. He has no self-restraint at the best of times, but here and now with everything crashing over him with the force of a tidal wave - fuck, he just wants to cum already.
He realizes Poe's still a little dressed, so he buys time by easing him out of all of his clothes, leaving him naked and just fucking admiring the way Poe looks in the late afternoon sun. It's finally starting to set, leaving Poe in warm orange glows and making Owain's heart lodge in his throat every time he looks at him, and this, he thinks, is the way he'll remember Poe when they're older. Relaxed and smiling at him and everything you do still ringing in his head.
If what he feels isn't love, Owain doesn't know what possibly could be.
He guides Poe's hand back to his cock and finds his again once they're pressed together, Owain stroking Poe maybe a little faster than he should be with how careful this moment is.
"Fuck," he whispers again. He'd call Poe Captain or a good boy any other night, but he can't think of him as anything other than who he is. Poe, first and foremost. The man who saved him.
"Fuck, Poe, you don't--"
You don't know what you are, what you mean. He can feel his throat burn with a heavy, swollen emotion and he tries to swallow the lump down but it stays.
"I wish I knew how to tell you what you are to me," he finally says, voice thick. "You got my fucking brand--"
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It's another thing altogether, when Owain is speaking and the words are sliding right into his heart and lodging there, heavier and heavier as they accumulate. It's hard enough, when it isn't so painfully obvious that Owain feels exactly the same way he does.
And that's okay. Owain can feel whatever he wants. Poe gave him that, specifically. Intentionally. The fact that he freely gives those feelings to Poe is enough to make him giddy, but doesn't break the overlying truth. There's still a power imbalance, there. Implicit. In time? In time, maybe they'll be just fine, and Owain will find himself and yet his heart will somehow still be here. With Poe. In time, Poe would even be able to accept that. Gladly. Warmly.
But it's too early.
It's too early and Owain is too young, and Poe is too fucking aware, now, of his own feelings. But he's had a decade to make sense of them. Had a decade to tell the difference between the first heady flutters of a crush, to something deeper.
Just because he's fallen so fast doesn't mean he hasn't realised how fucking hard he's fallen, too.
But he knows he can't expect that, from Owain. Knows he shouldn't.
Knows he can't deny him anything, despite that.
Once he has hold of Owain again he finally does begin to stroke - far slower than Owain is stroking him. His touch is almost too light - fingers barely brushing the underside. His eyes are locked on Owain's face, hair fucking glowing in the low afternoon sun, and he's pretty damn sure he's never seen anything more beautiful, than this. Locks the sight away, deep inside himself. Tells himself: even if this doesn't last - even if I'm only Owain's introduction to life, and not the entirety of it - it's worth it.
He doesn't reply. Not with words, at least. He presses closer, stealing the word 'brand' from Owain's lips with a searching kiss, tongue sliding deep to taste the entirety of him. His grip on Owain's cock firms, tighter, and he begins to stroke a little faster, slowly gaining on the pace that the other man is setting on his own cock. He presses closer, free hand reaching between them to pull Owain's hand back - but he doesn't leave any room for the other man to doubt his intentions. The hand that he'd been using to stroke him he now wraps around them both, letting a shuddering breath out against Owain's lips as he holds their cocks together and gives them both the same achingly slow stroke.
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But things progress in the instant that thought hazily connects, and soon Poe is chasing his hand away and moving everything forward, grinding their cocks against one another and making Owain shudder and moan as he curls forward. With Poe taking over, Owain has both of his hands free, and he slides them across Poe's neck just for the sake of touching him.
"Poe--"
He's shut his eyes again, helpless and vulnerable to all of this. Poe's moving too slowly and he's starting to get impatient - until now, just looking at Poe set a fire in him that made him too giddy and anxious to move, but that fire is beginning to burn in a slightly different colour. Now he just-- he wants more, he wants everything. He fucks into Poe's hand, a river of pre flooding down between them and making everything sound so much more wetter and lewder than beautiful like it feels.
His fingernails carve lines in Poe's neck as he curls them in, and Owain forces his eyes open to get a better look at him. He could say it. He could still say it.
"I..."
It wouldn't be like him to hold back, if he hadn't had years of being held back beaten into him. He could say it, if he had been raised as nobility, as he should have been. He looks at Poe, and it's there, it's so obviously there. Seconds from saying it. Seconds from telling Poe. He swallows, and it's hard to focus, hard to breathe, with the way Poe keeps stroking. Slowly. Too fucking slowly.
Another breath.
Eyes wide. Locked on Poe's.
Vulnerable, young. Barely experienced in the world, let alone in love.
Lips parted.
About to say it.
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Owain is far from the only one leaking precum between them, and his hand is slick as it strokes them both, gripping a little tighter to make up for the loss of friction, still slow but the pace was picking up. Not consciously, just his body giving in to his need while his mind and heart were completely elsewhere. Locked into Owain's lips and words unsaid.
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But again - he's young and he's naive. It's so, so easy for Poe to captivate him, to change him. The kiss is a firework, all of Poe's intentions and all of his love warming Owain from the inside, and he slowly glides his cock harder against Poe's with a rut of his hips. He can already feel his climax building and he doesn't want this to end yet, so when he breaks the kiss to grunt and lower his head, he puts his hands on Poe's shoulders and squeezes down to warn him to take it easy for a second.
"Fuck, Poe--"
It feels unnatural at this point not to say it, but he looks up and he sees Poe's eyes and he doesn't have it in him anymore. The courage is gone, buried under waves of what if and the fear that everything could end. He swallows hard and slides his leg between Poe's, hooking behind his knee just to tangle them both together even tighter.
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