fic: Sarabande
Oz Magi 2005
For tboy
Pairing/Character(s): Augustus Hill/Anyone
Keyword/Phrase: Should I stop?
Canon/AU/Either: Either
Special Requests: The spirit is willing; Hill wants to get off.
Sarabande
This is how it starts:
It's the music that draws you - low, sweet mournful sounds
plucking at you, pulling you. The clatter of kitchen utensils and the
shouting of the other prisoners - all that falls away. The ripe
smell of overcooked vegetables laced sharp with detergent and
bleach fades. Your world narrows to the sound that wraps around
you, curls inside you, pulls something tight in your chest.
You move forward, wide-eyed. The music laps out and fills the
space you keep around yourself, the cushion of reserve you've put
up. It's like nothing you've ever heard before. It's
inescapable, more immediate and real than anything you ever flipped past on
television, richer than any beats from a box on any street
corner. You think if open your mouth, you could almost taste it -
thick on your tongue, sweet and heavy like honey, dark and sharp
like cinnamon.
Maybe you could drown in it.
It's like you've been hungry your whole life, and you didn't
even know it. Like you've been trying and trying to fill yourself
up with all of the wrong things, the red and the gold and the
tits, running to help Burr and running to stay ahead of the cops
and running to try to keep up with Vahue, and none of it ever
satisfied you like this.
You'll remember the onstage tableau in flashes, images captured
like the sepia-toned pictures your mother keeps stored between
the pages of the worn-out Bible on her nightstand: The long curve
of the instrument, like a woman's body; the glide of the bow
across the strings; capable fingers curled around the neck. Some
hot-shot, highbrow cellist, a furrow between his brows, expression
intent, head tilted as he pulls the rich, low sounds out of the
instrument, like he's listening to some secret language.
The bow scrapes, and thin mobile lips tighten before the music
smoothes out, and dark lashes flutter against pale skin, and you
can tell he's aware of you, despite the closed eyes. He shifts -
subtly, but you know that tiny extra dramatic flair, the way he
lifts his face to the crosshatched light that's falling across
it - that's for you.
Vain motherfucker, you think.
It's a brief moment of amusement because the shift turned you
from audience to intimate, from observer to confidante. Suddenly,
that cello's talking to you, sounding almost human with its
moans and its sighs, and you almost - almost - think you can
understand what it's saying as the music slows, gentles. It whispers to
you, and you lean forward, trying to catch the words. And that's
when you're hooked, drawn into their circle, just him and the
cello and you.
"It's priceless to me," he says later as your fingers glide
across glossy wood, and you look up at him as he looks down at the
instrument. They glow together, making the cool grey light that
pervades Oz look somehow warmer, and maybe the cello's still
reaching out to you even in the silence, because maybe you feel just
a little bit warmer, too.
Still, you're a little staggered, a little humbled at being
allowed to touch.
It's like touching him. You know. You've had motherfuckers
who'll lean on your chair like it's an armrest, until you roll over a
foot and jab them in the gut with one of those back handles.
Some people got no respect for a man's personal space. Give them an
inch, and they'll take a mile. In Oz, it's better to just keep
your distance.
Dobbins, he's like goddamned Bambi, waiting to get run down,
letting somebody touch him like this.
You can't decide if he's just that stupid, or if he's just that
smart, because who are you gonna run down? Even if you
have the wheels to do it?
"Like this," he says, leaning in and folding his fingers around
yours. You don't want to show any hesitation - any weakness -
but you're afraid of snapping something that shouldn't be broken
as he presses your hand into position around the neck of the
cello, the strings vibrating against your fingertips, humming like
your wheels in motion, full of possibility. His hands are sticky
from the powder he used on the bow - tacky, your mother would
call the sensation - and he rubs them impatiently on the rough
fabric of his pants before leaning back into you, breath a warm,
curiously scentless tickle against your cheek.
"Like this," he says again.
You press and pluck carefully, tilting your head to catch the
sounds of the instrument, because if you listen closely, maybe you
can hear what it might have to tell you. Maybe it'll give up
some of its secrets.
This is how it goes:
He's restless, boxed in, the plexiglass walls of your pod too
small, closing in on him as he paces, hands shoved in his pockets.
Every now and then, he pulls them out and shakes them as if
loosening his wrists. He's quiet, too quiet, but he's got to calm
down, because he's even making you shake.
"Sit down, man, you're making me nervous." You grab his sleeve
and pull.
When he folds himself down onto your bunk, you lean in and curl
a capable hand around the nape of his neck, pressing your
fingertips into the tense muscles there, feeling the leathered cup of
your palm warming against his skin. You don't realize his knee
is snugged against yours until you look down. The memory of
Annabelle's knee pressing against yours under your mother's kitchen
table, of the way she smiled at you the first time you brought
her home - it's an ache in your chest. You welcome the little dig
of his shoulder as he slumps into you.
"Thank you," he says, and you're still startled. Sincerity's
still a novelty inside prison walls.
"You ever take off that uglyass hat?" It's not much of a
response, but it's enough to drag a startled laugh from him as you
shove it off his head.
You know.
A lot of people would look at him and see a fiend, jittering,
needing the hit that would calm the itch in his blood - no
matter that it's music and not tits - but you remember waking up
that first time, lying in the hospital bed, weighted down by
your own body, stuck in place. You remember strings humming under
your fingers like wheels, full of possibility, and you know the
cello isn't an addiction.
It's freedom. Losing it would be like losing a limb, even if
it's not the wheels that take the place of your legs.
You try to imagine knowing your chair is right there, just out
of reach, locked away except for a single precious hour a day. If
that ain't cruel and unusual punishment, what is?
Your fingers glide across the nape of his neck, over the knob at
the crest of his spine and up into curls freed by your assault
on that damn hat. The curls cushion his head against the leather
of your glove as your hand curves around his skull, fingers
buried in fine silken hair, and you lean into him.
"That's good?" you ask as your thumb rubs over the soft skin
under his ear.
"That's good," he agrees. He shifts - subtly, but you know that
tilt of his head, that long bared sweep of his neck, that's for
you. Dark lashes flutter against pale skin.
Vain motherfucker, you think. You snort, and he makes a
humming sound, curling further into you like some kind of lanky
goddammed cat, and the little noise coils inside you, pulls
something tight in your chest, right underneath the place his hand
has come to rest, the cup of his palm warm through the thin
material of your T-shirt. You find you have to take a deep breath.
When you tilt your head, his hair tickles your cheek. If you
listen closely, maybe you can hear what he might have to tell you.
This is how it ends:
He's still wired, still high from the day's practice, from the
skipping intermingled notes of the trumpet and the cello, the
tangled interplay as the music chased itself back and forth across
the stage. Maybe you are too, a little bit, but it's not like
you'd admit it out loud, so you just laugh. You don't think
anything of it when he slides off your bunk to his knees in front of
you, not until the flow of words slows and you notice his hands
sliding up your thighs.
"Oh, hey, no man, that's not ..." you put up your own hands and
try to push him away, but he catches one wrist in those strong,
clever fingers, slides the other hand under your T-shirt,
touching the sensitive skin of your belly, just above the place where
your body goes dead, and you know you want this.
"Can you ..." he says, questioning, trailing off as his thumb
circles your left nipple. Your entire body seems to draw tight
along with the tiny nub, tension focused on it as that thumb
brushes over it.
"What? Yes, I can, what are you ..." You trail off and
wave your free hand. "I just can't feel it. So, you know ..."
Don't think you need to do this for me, is what you mean to
say, but you can't get the words out.
"Nothing?" He tilts his head. "Anywhere?"
"What?"
He gives a furtive look around - with your back to the door of
the pod, your own body hides a lot of this, but you never know
who might be peering around - and he licks his lips, and
Jesus, you think, wondering if he's going to go down on you, and
you don't even know if you're too far gone to care that it's
going to be an awful lot of effort and risk for limited return - for
you, anyway - but when he leans in, he licks a line up your
throat instead, before sucking lightly at your Adam's apple. You
can feel each one of the calluses on his fingertips as he runs
them across your collarbone, over your throat, traces the bones of
your face, plucking at you, pulling you. It's been so long since
someone's touched you, since you let anyone touch you, and you
drink it in, wondering - although you can't make yourself worry -
if you're going to drown. When your lips part and you pull in a
shaky breath, his fingers slick across your mouth and your
tongue flickers out - he tastes slightly bitter, the ghost of the
powder from his bow still clinging to him.
There's an itch building deep in your bones, settling into the
joints that hang you together, spreading through your sternum to
radiate out to the tips of your fingers. You just can't help it
when it pulls a small sound from the back of your throat.
'Should I stop?" he asks, and Jesus, you think, it
sounds like he actually means it, and no, please, God,
don't, you want to say. The hand under your shirt was cool, but
it's heating up fast as he spreads his fingers and presses his
palm against your chest. It's like the calluses on his fingertips
catch and tangle in your breath, and you have to gasp for air
again. When you open your eyes he's looking up at you, furrow
between his brows, expression intent, head still tilted as he pulls
the low sounds out of you, like he's listening to some secret
language.
He's greedy, and that's fine with you. It's no surprise - he's
nothing close to fat, but there's a slight roundness to his face,
a softness to the flesh on his hips and flanks when you run a
hand under the back of his shirt and the loose waistband of his
pants. It's all good, because it's like he can't get enough of
your skin under his hands and lips and teeth. His fingers trace the
curve of your ribs, skirt the blurry line of sensation over the
top of your hipbone, while his lips and breath feather hot and
wet along your jaw, turning you on even before you feel the
scrape and nip of teeth against your earlobe.
"Beautiful, but lonely." You can hear his voice, but you can't
tell if he's said it out loud or if it's just a memory, something
inside your head.
Your eyelids are heavy, and your head; your whole body sprawls
under a lassitude that's more than gravity and its own weight.
It's like tits, only it's not, because underneath this languor
there's a crystal-sharp clarity that flares along the paths he's
tracing on your skin.
You can feel the curve and heat of his body against your side
and down to your waist, and when you let your eyelids fall shut
again, you can see a picture of what you could look like with the
luxury of time and space and privacy, sheets rumpled around you,
pale skin against dark, his leg over yours, threaded between
your thighs, tucked against you like his face is tucked into your
neck.
When he pushes up your shirt and dips his head, sucking and
biting at one nipple while his fingers worry the other, phantom
pleasure curls through you, leaving behind a heaviness that seeps
slow and sweet through your chest like honey.
You don't realize he's come, too, until you look down.
For tboy
Pairing/Character(s): Augustus Hill/Anyone
Keyword/Phrase: Should I stop?
Canon/AU/Either: Either
Special Requests: The spirit is willing; Hill wants to get off.
Sarabande
This is how it starts:
It's the music that draws you - low, sweet mournful sounds
plucking at you, pulling you. The clatter of kitchen utensils and the
shouting of the other prisoners - all that falls away. The ripe
smell of overcooked vegetables laced sharp with detergent and
bleach fades. Your world narrows to the sound that wraps around
you, curls inside you, pulls something tight in your chest.
You move forward, wide-eyed. The music laps out and fills the
space you keep around yourself, the cushion of reserve you've put
up. It's like nothing you've ever heard before. It's
inescapable, more immediate and real than anything you ever flipped past on
television, richer than any beats from a box on any street
corner. You think if open your mouth, you could almost taste it -
thick on your tongue, sweet and heavy like honey, dark and sharp
like cinnamon.
Maybe you could drown in it.
It's like you've been hungry your whole life, and you didn't
even know it. Like you've been trying and trying to fill yourself
up with all of the wrong things, the red and the gold and the
tits, running to help Burr and running to stay ahead of the cops
and running to try to keep up with Vahue, and none of it ever
satisfied you like this.
You'll remember the onstage tableau in flashes, images captured
like the sepia-toned pictures your mother keeps stored between
the pages of the worn-out Bible on her nightstand: The long curve
of the instrument, like a woman's body; the glide of the bow
across the strings; capable fingers curled around the neck. Some
hot-shot, highbrow cellist, a furrow between his brows, expression
intent, head tilted as he pulls the rich, low sounds out of the
instrument, like he's listening to some secret language.
The bow scrapes, and thin mobile lips tighten before the music
smoothes out, and dark lashes flutter against pale skin, and you
can tell he's aware of you, despite the closed eyes. He shifts -
subtly, but you know that tiny extra dramatic flair, the way he
lifts his face to the crosshatched light that's falling across
it - that's for you.
Vain motherfucker, you think.
It's a brief moment of amusement because the shift turned you
from audience to intimate, from observer to confidante. Suddenly,
that cello's talking to you, sounding almost human with its
moans and its sighs, and you almost - almost - think you can
understand what it's saying as the music slows, gentles. It whispers to
you, and you lean forward, trying to catch the words. And that's
when you're hooked, drawn into their circle, just him and the
cello and you.
"It's priceless to me," he says later as your fingers glide
across glossy wood, and you look up at him as he looks down at the
instrument. They glow together, making the cool grey light that
pervades Oz look somehow warmer, and maybe the cello's still
reaching out to you even in the silence, because maybe you feel just
a little bit warmer, too.
Still, you're a little staggered, a little humbled at being
allowed to touch.
It's like touching him. You know. You've had motherfuckers
who'll lean on your chair like it's an armrest, until you roll over a
foot and jab them in the gut with one of those back handles.
Some people got no respect for a man's personal space. Give them an
inch, and they'll take a mile. In Oz, it's better to just keep
your distance.
Dobbins, he's like goddamned Bambi, waiting to get run down,
letting somebody touch him like this.
You can't decide if he's just that stupid, or if he's just that
smart, because who are you gonna run down? Even if you
have the wheels to do it?
"Like this," he says, leaning in and folding his fingers around
yours. You don't want to show any hesitation - any weakness -
but you're afraid of snapping something that shouldn't be broken
as he presses your hand into position around the neck of the
cello, the strings vibrating against your fingertips, humming like
your wheels in motion, full of possibility. His hands are sticky
from the powder he used on the bow - tacky, your mother would
call the sensation - and he rubs them impatiently on the rough
fabric of his pants before leaning back into you, breath a warm,
curiously scentless tickle against your cheek.
"Like this," he says again.
You press and pluck carefully, tilting your head to catch the
sounds of the instrument, because if you listen closely, maybe you
can hear what it might have to tell you. Maybe it'll give up
some of its secrets.
This is how it goes:
He's restless, boxed in, the plexiglass walls of your pod too
small, closing in on him as he paces, hands shoved in his pockets.
Every now and then, he pulls them out and shakes them as if
loosening his wrists. He's quiet, too quiet, but he's got to calm
down, because he's even making you shake.
"Sit down, man, you're making me nervous." You grab his sleeve
and pull.
When he folds himself down onto your bunk, you lean in and curl
a capable hand around the nape of his neck, pressing your
fingertips into the tense muscles there, feeling the leathered cup of
your palm warming against his skin. You don't realize his knee
is snugged against yours until you look down. The memory of
Annabelle's knee pressing against yours under your mother's kitchen
table, of the way she smiled at you the first time you brought
her home - it's an ache in your chest. You welcome the little dig
of his shoulder as he slumps into you.
"Thank you," he says, and you're still startled. Sincerity's
still a novelty inside prison walls.
"You ever take off that uglyass hat?" It's not much of a
response, but it's enough to drag a startled laugh from him as you
shove it off his head.
You know.
A lot of people would look at him and see a fiend, jittering,
needing the hit that would calm the itch in his blood - no
matter that it's music and not tits - but you remember waking up
that first time, lying in the hospital bed, weighted down by
your own body, stuck in place. You remember strings humming under
your fingers like wheels, full of possibility, and you know the
cello isn't an addiction.
It's freedom. Losing it would be like losing a limb, even if
it's not the wheels that take the place of your legs.
You try to imagine knowing your chair is right there, just out
of reach, locked away except for a single precious hour a day. If
that ain't cruel and unusual punishment, what is?
Your fingers glide across the nape of his neck, over the knob at
the crest of his spine and up into curls freed by your assault
on that damn hat. The curls cushion his head against the leather
of your glove as your hand curves around his skull, fingers
buried in fine silken hair, and you lean into him.
"That's good?" you ask as your thumb rubs over the soft skin
under his ear.
"That's good," he agrees. He shifts - subtly, but you know that
tilt of his head, that long bared sweep of his neck, that's for
you. Dark lashes flutter against pale skin.
Vain motherfucker, you think. You snort, and he makes a
humming sound, curling further into you like some kind of lanky
goddammed cat, and the little noise coils inside you, pulls
something tight in your chest, right underneath the place his hand
has come to rest, the cup of his palm warm through the thin
material of your T-shirt. You find you have to take a deep breath.
When you tilt your head, his hair tickles your cheek. If you
listen closely, maybe you can hear what he might have to tell you.
This is how it ends:
He's still wired, still high from the day's practice, from the
skipping intermingled notes of the trumpet and the cello, the
tangled interplay as the music chased itself back and forth across
the stage. Maybe you are too, a little bit, but it's not like
you'd admit it out loud, so you just laugh. You don't think
anything of it when he slides off your bunk to his knees in front of
you, not until the flow of words slows and you notice his hands
sliding up your thighs.
"Oh, hey, no man, that's not ..." you put up your own hands and
try to push him away, but he catches one wrist in those strong,
clever fingers, slides the other hand under your T-shirt,
touching the sensitive skin of your belly, just above the place where
your body goes dead, and you know you want this.
"Can you ..." he says, questioning, trailing off as his thumb
circles your left nipple. Your entire body seems to draw tight
along with the tiny nub, tension focused on it as that thumb
brushes over it.
"What? Yes, I can, what are you ..." You trail off and
wave your free hand. "I just can't feel it. So, you know ..."
Don't think you need to do this for me, is what you mean to
say, but you can't get the words out.
"Nothing?" He tilts his head. "Anywhere?"
"What?"
He gives a furtive look around - with your back to the door of
the pod, your own body hides a lot of this, but you never know
who might be peering around - and he licks his lips, and
Jesus, you think, wondering if he's going to go down on you, and
you don't even know if you're too far gone to care that it's
going to be an awful lot of effort and risk for limited return - for
you, anyway - but when he leans in, he licks a line up your
throat instead, before sucking lightly at your Adam's apple. You
can feel each one of the calluses on his fingertips as he runs
them across your collarbone, over your throat, traces the bones of
your face, plucking at you, pulling you. It's been so long since
someone's touched you, since you let anyone touch you, and you
drink it in, wondering - although you can't make yourself worry -
if you're going to drown. When your lips part and you pull in a
shaky breath, his fingers slick across your mouth and your
tongue flickers out - he tastes slightly bitter, the ghost of the
powder from his bow still clinging to him.
There's an itch building deep in your bones, settling into the
joints that hang you together, spreading through your sternum to
radiate out to the tips of your fingers. You just can't help it
when it pulls a small sound from the back of your throat.
'Should I stop?" he asks, and Jesus, you think, it
sounds like he actually means it, and no, please, God,
don't, you want to say. The hand under your shirt was cool, but
it's heating up fast as he spreads his fingers and presses his
palm against your chest. It's like the calluses on his fingertips
catch and tangle in your breath, and you have to gasp for air
again. When you open your eyes he's looking up at you, furrow
between his brows, expression intent, head still tilted as he pulls
the low sounds out of you, like he's listening to some secret
language.
He's greedy, and that's fine with you. It's no surprise - he's
nothing close to fat, but there's a slight roundness to his face,
a softness to the flesh on his hips and flanks when you run a
hand under the back of his shirt and the loose waistband of his
pants. It's all good, because it's like he can't get enough of
your skin under his hands and lips and teeth. His fingers trace the
curve of your ribs, skirt the blurry line of sensation over the
top of your hipbone, while his lips and breath feather hot and
wet along your jaw, turning you on even before you feel the
scrape and nip of teeth against your earlobe.
"Beautiful, but lonely." You can hear his voice, but you can't
tell if he's said it out loud or if it's just a memory, something
inside your head.
Your eyelids are heavy, and your head; your whole body sprawls
under a lassitude that's more than gravity and its own weight.
It's like tits, only it's not, because underneath this languor
there's a crystal-sharp clarity that flares along the paths he's
tracing on your skin.
You can feel the curve and heat of his body against your side
and down to your waist, and when you let your eyelids fall shut
again, you can see a picture of what you could look like with the
luxury of time and space and privacy, sheets rumpled around you,
pale skin against dark, his leg over yours, threaded between
your thighs, tucked against you like his face is tucked into your
neck.
When he pushes up your shirt and dips his head, sucking and
biting at one nipple while his fingers worry the other, phantom
pleasure curls through you, leaving behind a heaviness that seeps
slow and sweet through your chest like honey.
You don't realize he's come, too, until you look down.