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Jason lounges on one of the stupid decorative chaises in the Wayne manor library. He does this often actually, just sharing a space with Damian the days they are both home. Usually they are both reading or Jason is reading while Damian works on a painting or a particularly vexing college assignment. Today is a little different, Damian is working on a painting, yes, but Jason is browsing one of the teen’s sketchbooks.
The red one.
He carefully avoids drawings of himself, flipping past them without pausing most of the time, not wanting to spend too long looking at his own scars and expressions when he already has to avoid them in the mirror. The sketches of Damian’s friends also hold no interest to him, whether they are explicit or not interspaced between the images he’s really after.
It’s true that the red sketchbook has sexual imagery in it, but that’s not all it is. Several of the sketches are things or people in moments that have evoked some kind of strong emotion in Damian. Jon’s head thrown back in laughter, Talia with her arms spread wide for a hug, even Alfred (the man) dozing with Alfred (the cat) curled on his lap. These images are relatively sweet and tend to seem out of place interspaced with confused renderings of Bruce’s hands, Selina’s thighs, and the gentle curve of Cass’ neck. Even worse is a turn of a page or two later coming into contact with Dick’s o-face or Tim and Steph writhing together tangled in sheets.
A lot of these images are familiar to Jason since he flips through this sketchbook more than most people.
There are a few new ones though, new ones that immediately remind him of Damian casually asking him a few weeks ago if there were any kinks he wanted to try out or knew he enjoyed already. Jason wouldn’t say he’s vanilla, but he figured their adrenaline filled life (in and out of bed) and the weird open relationship half their family is taking place in was enough weirdness without addressing any recesses of his mind that cared about those sorts of things.
There’s two different sketches of Tim’s face on one page. In both there is a collar wrapped around his throat, the lead attached to it is leading off two different sides of the page. Both of the faces are rendered carefully. The first with sharp and heavy lines, his head tilted back a little and his eyes half-lidded looking down on the viewer with an air of haughtiness about him. The second one is drawn with much softer, gentle lines creating a downward tilt of Tim’s face, eyes wide and almost begging as they gaze up through his lashes at the viewer.
The collar is a splash of color on the otherwize monochrome page. Dark green around Tim’s pretty throat, silvery tag resting on the barest hint of his clavicle. The tag has Damian’s name on it, like he has some sort of ownership over Tim. Not something Jason would imagine Tim to be into in the slightest.
A couple of pages later there’s a full body spread of Dick across both pages. It’s like a damn pin-up. Dick is hanging from ropes, suspended by his shoulders and splayed thighs. He’s in a leotard in this, not his Nightwing suit, just something nondescript. The ropes are anything but nondescript, intricate crisscrossing sections of rope art keeping Dick immobile, colored a loving deep blue.
Jason’s breathing completely stalls at the sight.
Careful not to smudge the lines, his fingers run around the very edges of the drawing. It’s more detailed than the ones Damian does from memory, every line and swatch of shading done with a purposefulness that makes Jason wonder if Dick just hung there on these ropes while Damian drew him. It’s beautiful.
And worse, it makes Jason feel something.
Curiosity sparks behind his eyes, focusing on each knot and line of the rope, trying to figure out how the whole thing is rigged. Every time they’ve been tied up in the past it was much simpler than this, their captures focusing on keeping them in place rather than the artistic way the rope is twisted around Dick. Arousal pools in his stomach, and he first tells himself it's because of Dick, their older brother is a catch and amazing in bed, most things he does make Jason at least a little horny. He can't lie to himself for long though, because his gaze keeps dragging back to the ropes rather than the muscles underneath them or the relaxed, blissful look on Dick’s face.
“Did something catch your attention?” Damian asks. He’s probably been side eyeing Jason since his breathing stopped initially. His paintbrush is still poised over the intricate wing of a warbler he’s been painting bathing itself in a shallow dish. He’s going through a bird thing right now, all of them have some sort of art of a robin at this point, which was the catalyst to the whole thing.
“I, uh… Dick let you tie him up?” Jason asks, voice unhelpfully strained.
“Richard asked me to, yes,” Damian answers, dipping the skinny brush into a pool of orangy paint that he specially mixed from a bunch of colors that weren’t orange at all.
“And he just… hung there while you drew him?” The older man watches the flex of Damian’s fingers as he lays another feather with neat precision. If he ever let Bruce actually put these in a gallery he’d be richer than he already is.
“Indeed he did,” the teen answers, “he was the perfect subject.”
Jason licks over his bottom lip, eyes flitting between the sketchbook spread and Damian’s hands. “So you fucked him after?”
A warm chuckle escapes Damian assuring Jason that he has rapidly misstepped. The teen twists on his stool, paintbrush held carefully away from his face and clothes as he tilts his head to look at where Jason is sprawled on the chaise.
“No, we didn’t have sex.”
It should be a lie, but it isn’t. He doesn’t know how it isn’t. Why would someone get all trussed up in ropes like this and sit still and quiet while being drawn if not to get railed within an inch of their life after? It makes no sense.
“He says it reminds him of the circus,” Damian informs, immediately running Jason’s line of thought into the dirt. Shame catches in Jason’s throat, because of course it does, of course this is something that Dick wouldn’t want to be sexual. That’s why he’s dressed in the image. “I’m sure he could explain it to you better in his own words, but I believe Richard finds the balance of it very comforting.”
“Right, yeah, of course.” Jason swallows heavily, guiltily pulling his eyes away from the spread to close the book in his lap.
Damian quirks a brow, paint brush bobbing in his hand as he thumbs the end of it. “I enjoyed it without the sexual aspect, of course, but I will admit to being more than a little affected by the display.”
Jason snorts because how could Damian not be affected?
Paint brush dipped in the orangy paint again, the teen turns back to his painting, laying another feather with a small amount of flourish. “Perhaps I’ll ask Timothy to act as my model next. I’ll have to avoid complete immobility with him, but I am sure he will be receptive to my attentions afterwards.”
He’s being goaded, lead, and his mouth is too quick for his brain to stop him from jumping right into the trap. “Why not me?”
The teen hums, brush pausing over his paint table. “I thought you enjoyed how our sex life is.”
“I, well, if Dickie and Timbo can do it then I should try, too, don’t you think?” Jason manages to stumble the words out of his mouth becoming less confident with every single one.
Damian turns to look at him again, green eyes alight with something. “I would never attempt to force you into something you aren’t interested in, darling.”
“I’m interested.”
The grin that spreads across Damian’s lips is nothing short of shark-like and it gets turned right back to the little bird caught on his canvas. “Good things come to those who speak up, Jason.”
[][][]
Good things do come to those who speak up. Damian spends the rest of that afternoon in front of his warbler painting, carefully pulling details from Jason’s lips and filling him with reassurances and teases. They do have sex in the library, a quick thing before patrol that gets Jason off but doesn’t scratch the new itch he’s discovered.
No, something like this has to be planned, Damian tells him. It has to be organized, has to happen in a place that Jason finds truly safe and comfortable or as close as Jason can get. He even sends Jason several color swatches until Jason picks a red he likes. It’s a little on the nose but he’s not exactly looking for any creativity points, that's currently Damian’s job.
The day rolls around and he’s cleaned up the bedroom in his apartment, His actual honest to god apartment not just a random safehouse. The one where his dumb boy cat and his Austen collection live. It almost feels like too much, but his brothers have all been here at least once so their judgements should be all out of the way.
Damian crouches next to the door when he comes in, scratching Gilbo Boggins under the chin and behind the ears. He’s got a tote bag over his shoulder and he’s wearing soft clothes, even more soft than usual with no buttons or clasps in sight. When he stands, he loops both arms around Jason’s neck and kisses him softly. “Hello, my dear, did you do everything I said?”
Mouth dry, Jason nods his head. He’d been told to pick a place, make sure Damian had somewhere to sit, and prepare himself to his own comfort level. He’d done all of those things and barely pulled on a pair of joggers and a tank top before Damian knocked on the door, meaning that the teen probably timed it so that he wouldn’t get too far into his head and stress himself out.
“Yeah,” Jason croaks when he realizes Damian is waiting on a verbal answer. “I did it all. Bedroom.”
Damian takes the lead to the bedroom and it somehow relaxes the jumping muscle in Jason’s shoulders. He physically untenses himself as they walk into the cleaned room. The bed is made, the comfortable chair from the living room has been moved to the corner and the shades have been drawn, room lit by the floor lamp near his closet, his bedside table lamps, and the cracked bathroom door meaning the lights are enough to see by but not enough to bother either of them for a stretch of time.
The door clicks shut behind them and Damian takes his time to survey the room. His bag ends up in the chair for now. Circling the bed, he strokes his hand over the duvet, dipping under the edge to feel the bedframe before shifting the whole blanket so it hangs over more on the side closest to the chair. Picking up one of Jason’s thicker pillows, he gently lays it on the floor on that side of the bed as well.
“I’ll listen to ‘no’ and ‘stop’ but I want you to remember your safe words.” He looks at Jason as he makes his way back over to the chair.
“Stoplights,” Jason murmurs, trying to keep his eyes on Damian rather than the bag that he knows has ropes and art supplies within it. Domain had said before that he’d wanted Jason to have something in case he was too nervous to say no, or too caught up in his head.
“Good. Strip down, kneel on the pillow facing the bed,” Damian commands.
Jason does immediately. He doesn’t want to give himself the time to second guess himself or make his lover impatient. His clothes get discarded near the door, and seconds later he’s making himself comfortable on his knees. It isn’t bad with the pillow under him, especially since the area rug under his bed is pretty thick.
“I’m going to start at your ankles,” Damian informs him, “I want you to look at the bed and be silent.”
Seconds later, when his eyes are picking out part of the duvet’s stitching for something to focus on, Damian begins. The rope isn’t necessarily soft, but it doesn’t hurt either specifically made and chosen for this purpose. Jason’s breathing hitches when Damian gets to his thighs, strong knots digging into the outsides before the rope crosses around his hips like a harness.
Jason has to bite his tongue to keep quiet when Damian’s warm hands start to twist the rope around his torso, a line of straight knots digging right up his spine. Those same hands sweep over the span of his shoulders, taking his arms and pulling them up on the bed where Damian slowly presses him down so that he’s bent over it, nipples dragging over the duvet. His whole body is a livewire, goosebumps coating his skin, cock standing strong between his thighs, nipples peaked against the bed.
“Almost done,” Damian assures him.
Jason’s arms get pulled together, intricate diamonds forming in the rope all the way up until his hands are pressed palm to palm and Damian steps around the bed. The last of the length of rope, pulls him to where his hands rest in the middle of the bed, rope anchored to the bedframe on the other side. It’s a stretch of bright red lines across the dark grey of his duvet, and Jason’s eyes focus there first when Damian puts his fingers under his chin to let him finally look. When Damian lets go of him, he finally gets a look at his arms trussed up in the red. He almost looks like he’s praying.
“How does it feel, darling?” The teen asks him softly, fingers stroking comfortingly through Jason’s mostly dry hair. His nails gently skidding along Jason’s scalp send little static pulses through most of the nerves in his shoulders and back.
He’s completely immoble, completely at Damain’s will. He has no weapons on him, no training on how to get out of this intricate of rope work. He’s vulnerable. He’s… “Secure.” His voice is nothing but a rasp, the word falling off of his tongue like sand.
“Good, now lay your head however it is most comfortable.” Damian gives him one last firm squeeze around the back of his neck, finger and thumb digging behind Jason’s ears like he’s Gilbo.
Jason’s breathing is shallow as he lays his head on his arms angles to look at the chair. He doesn’t think he can handle not looking at Damian this whole time and he knows if he moves he risks changing some part of how he’s posed. Damian is a good enough artist to work with that, of course, but half of this is so Jason can be good for him.
The younger man makes himself comfortable in the chair. Shoes shed, legs crossed, sketchbook spread open. He has a small pouch of art supplies rather than his usual full spread, meaning that everything in the bag like everything leading up to this has been carefully planned.
He can’t see the clock on his bedside table when he’s looking at Damian, so time is nothing to him. The closest measure of time Jason can get is the way his muscles twitch and tighten against the knots or the way Damian’s utensils stroke the sketchbook. He doesn’t know when he closes his eyes and just lets his body melt against the bed, feeling the ropes against his skin while listening to the rasp of pencil against the page.
He can tell that the ropes are tighter around his torso and the outsides of his legs, carefully done to not cut off circulation where Damian could help it. Parts of him are going to be numb and asleep by the end anyway just from kneeling over the bed like this but it’s clear that Damian has put thought into this, planned every knot. That’s not to say the ropes don’t dig into his arms, they do, and Jason hopes there are marks left behind so he can trace them, but he can still move his fingers when he tries which brings him a measure of comfort.
“You’ve done so wonderful, Beloved,” Damian says an indeterminate time later, voice soft. “Just a little longer.”
The words send electricity through Jason’s body. All at once he becomes too aware. He knows exactly where the knots are digging in, exactly how tight his shoulders are, exactly how achy his knees are. It’s wonderful. It makes him impatient.
Damian has a red marker in his hand. It makes a different noise against the page than the pencils did, perking Jason’s ears up like a cat. He thinks of the blue lines zig-zagging across Dick’s body in the portrait he’d been so taken with that afternoon. That’s him, he’s in the book now, proof that Damian has tied him up and made him wait to be fucked until the event has been documented.
Damian stands from the chair and Jason’s breathing hitches.
The teen paces over to the bed, moving to the side across from him and Jason knows better than to move until Damian tells him to, so he has no clue what Damian is doing, only that he can hear fabric moving against fabric. His eyes catch on the younger man as he comes back into his line of sight once more and Damian smiles at him, open and sweet. It’s private, just for Jason.
He crouches next to Jason, pressing a kiss to his mouth and that’s when Jason notices he’s been drooling, embarrassment licking through his core making his abs clench against the rope work there. Damian doesn’t point it out, just takes him by the chin with kind but firm fingers. “You’re doing beautifully. I think you should see.”
Directing his head, Damian points his eyes once more at his hands. The rope leading from his arms to the other side of the bed has disappeared under one of his pillows. Propped at an angle on the pillow is the sketchbook, spread wide open to show two pages of Jason. A pin-up like Dick’s, like the one he had been so taken by. Usually he avoids the sketches of himself in Damian’s book but this? He can’t take his eyes off of it.
This isn’t just Jason laughing or biting Damian’s thighs or bending Tim over a sofa at the manor. It’s different. It’s art somehow in a way that the other depictions of Jason just aren’t.
He can see the pattern of the red rope in full now. A lattice of diamonds arching over his body, four knob-like knots up the curve of his spine, a harness showing off the muscles of his ass and thighs. He can see the head of his cock brushing against the phantom lines of the bed, precum beading on it that he now feels in damp trails down the underside of his cock. His face is turned towards the viewer, lashes rested against his cheeks, mouth slightly parted, brows relaxed.
Jason swallows, a soft whine escaping him.
“Do you like it?” Damian’s fingers massage some of the ache out of his neck from having been turned in one direction so long.
“Yes,” Jason breathes, eyes still caught on the perfect rendering of his fingers pressed together in a facsimile of prayer, ropes around his palms like a rosary.
“Do you still want me to fuck you, Beloved?” The words sound filthy coming from Damian’s patient, accented voice. It sends a shot of arousal through Jason’s whole body, more wetness sliding down his cock.
“Please?” The plea leaves his lips so sharply that Damian’s fingers actually twitch in shock where they’re pressing into his skin.
“Oh, my love,” Damian croons, withdrawing his touch to begin pulling his own clothes off as he moves out of Jason’s line of sight again.
The older man keeps his eye on the book both because he hasn’t been given permission to look away and because he truly cannot take his eyes off of the sight. Would it be the same with a mirror? Part of Jason doubts it, he feels that Damian’s version of him must be kinder than his reflection would be.
The other man presses himself all along Jason’s back a moment later. The bare warmth of his skin presses through the pattern of ropes over Jason’s body, bleeding Damian’s nigh unnatural heat into him. His fingers are wet, lube a warm thoughtful addition, when he tests that Jason is still open enough to fuck. He’d probably finger Jason for another hour if the older man hadn’t prepared himself beforehand, which is both something Jason wants and doesn’t want. He needs Damian inside him yesterday.
“Please,” he breathes again, eyes burning with the reminder that he has to blink. The drawing is still there when he opens his eyes again, bands of red digging into Jason’s biceps and forearms.
“I have you, Beloved,” Damian murmurs, withdrawing his fingers and lining himself up. They’d decided on a condom for this time, not knowing if Jason would have the energy or body control to clean himself out after. He’ll be changing that decision next time, he thinks, preferring Damian’s skin against his.
The slide in is slow, but Damian bottom’s out in one thrust leaving them both moaning wantingly. Slow doesn’t really seem like an option after the initial few thrusts. When the testing portion is over, Damian curls his fingers into the ropework at Jason’s hips and the tops of his thighs, and Jason lets out a sound he’s never heard himself make before. It’s pure pleasure, practically a plea in its own right.
Jason understands, in a distant way, why Dick didn’t want this part. If it means what Damian said it means to Dick, then it’s obvious that this isn’t sexual in nature for their older brother. Jason, however, doesn’t think he could do this without the sex part, he would feel lost if Damian unwrapped these ropes before using his body for pleasure, untethered. Maybe he really will talk to Dick about this later… compare notes.
Damian is good at fucking, probably always has been because he’s good at everything. His rhythm is hard and fast, just the way Jason needs right now. His knuckles dig into Jason’s skin where the ropes have already left shallow dents and his muscles are sensitive and twitchy. His grip on the ropes seems to pull them tight in other places as well, like Damian has rigged the knots to shift and tug from anchor points at Jason’s hips.
He planned to use his grip here to rail Jason.
Damian is pounding into him with enough force that they’re shaking the bed, the pages of the sketchbook swaying slightly but not closing or slipping with how perfectly he’s set it up. Jason keeps having to blink hard because he’s drying out his eyes, unable to look away. They burn with dryness but no tears come. He is drooling though, wetness sliding down his chin and his neck uncomfortably, a mirror of the precum being milked out of his cock. He’s a mess and he knows it.
Damian has been speaking, voice low and pressed against his skin in different places. The gap between two knots at his mid-back, right next to one of the knobs digging into his spine, teeth tugging gently at one of the lines of rope arcing over his shoulder, and finally his mouth lands next to Jason’s ear.
“Beautiful, darling. You take me so well. You sit so pretty.” The litany of praise gushes out of Damian and into Jason. The teen has made him into living art, something to be looked at and used. He’s not just a piece of paper under Damian’s skilled hands but something serviceable, valued, important.
A dry sob escapes Jason’s throat. “Dami, Dami, please!”
“Very good, Beloved,” Damian hums. He shifts his hips sharply, changing the angle of his body against Jason’s. Both hands sliding forwards, his fingers dig under the diamond of ropes over Jason’s pelvis, squeezing the roping so everything pulls taught around his hips as Damian’s cock skirts over his prostate.
A wail comes out of Jason and he’s too far gone to be embarrassed by how loud he is.
Damian is semi-consistently dragging his dick over Jason’s sweet spot and he is hurdling closer and closer to his climax before the other man even touches his cock. When he does wrap his hand around Jason it’s loose, not even a real attempt to get him off just a cradle of warm fingers around his dripping dick as if all Damian wants to do is feel him. It’s enough, believe it or not, with the way Damian is slamming his hips the loose hold does provide enough friction to make the heat pooling in his stomach coil tighter and tighter.
“What do you see?” Damian whispers at just the right moment.
“Me,” Jason moans pathetically, spilling over his fingers. His vision practically whites out, static buzzing in his ears, and he very nearly drops his head forward to rest it on his bound arms. It might be the best orgasm he’s had all year.
When he becomes aware of himself again, Damian has already pulled out of him and is sitting at his side, running gentle hands all over his body between the ropes. His green eyes flick to Jason’s face when the older man turns to look at him blinking sluggishly and he gives Jason another of those sweet smiles.
“There you are, my love.” He leans forward, kissing Jason’s slick mouth. “May I untie you now? Or do you need longer?”
Jason’s tongue feels useless in his mouth. He has to swallow down his excess drool and flex it against the roof of his mouth a few times before he’s even confident enough to say, “You can.”
The process of untying him is just as slow and meticulous as tying him up was. The sketchbook gets closed and set aside, the pillow placed back at the top of the bed, and Damian starts at his arms. Every single place the rope comes off the teen touches gently. He kisses every dent in Jason’s skin where two lines intersect. He stops to rub the feeling back into places that are a little too white and not red or pink.
It’s indulgent and sweet.
When he’s done untying Jason, coiling up the rope again and leaving it on the chair, he slips into the bathroom. A warm wet rag to clean him up and a glass of cool water later, Damian is bundling him into the bed and slipping in behind him, curling around him so that they can both trace the lines left in his skin before they fade.
“We can talk about it more later,” Damian says when the tension has melted out of Jason and he’s on the edge of what is probably going to be a several hour long nap. “But I need to know that you liked it, that you’re okay.”
“I want to do it again,” Jason admits, voice not necessarily shy but definitely not bold. It’s enough to answer both parts of Damian’s question that the teen simply hums out an ‘okay’ and presses a kiss to Jason’s hair.