steady now
Weird things happen during times of academic stress. WEIRD THINGS LIKE THIS FIC. (Thanks, JLPT. You remind me why I hated school.) Anyway, thank God that's over. HI INTERNETS, I MISSED YOU.
So, yes. MOAR PANDORA HEARTS. I promise I remember there are other fandoms out there. I'm even working on fic for, like...*counts*...five of them. Haha. Yeek. *runs in tiny circles*
Anyway, this is Oz/Gil. There's an actual sex scene, I am shocked at myself. But you can still tell I wrote it, because it's mostly about Oz being crazy. There will be a companion fic to this one, which will be totally gen and mostly about Ada. And Oz being crazy.
Oh Gil and Oz. I love the way their relationship is, on the one hand, unspeakably messed up. And on the other hand, ridiculously adorable. These things at the same time. What. XD
I don't own Pandora Hearts, which is the pity of the world. Spoilers through 55. Thank you to zephy_magnum for the beta! <3
Steady Now
It’s been a long day of politicking. A long day of trying to be the very image of Jack Vessarius for a bunch of leering strangers. A long day, and no one but Break to see him through it.
Break understands, obviously. Break, who’s spent all day trying to look as if he isn’t in pain, grieving, or blind. But precisely because Break understands, he has no mercy.
A long day. A late night. A cold, uncomfortable ride back to the Rainsworth estate and a borrowed bed. Yes, Oz and Break are in matching foul moods.
“Bad news, Master Oz,” Break says, apropos of nothing, just before they step inside the door. Just before there are people around to hear. “I think I’d best tell you now, before you find out on your own and do something ridiculous, hm?”
Bad news. When has it ever been anything but bad news? Your mother’s dead, your father hates you, your existence is an abomination. Oz thinks that if someone came up to him with some nice, clean, uncomplicated good news, he might cry from confusion.
Bad news: your dearest friend is ten years older, and you missed everything in between. Bad news: your chain, partner, and link to sanity is, despite her best efforts, slowly killing you. Bad news: Reim is dead.
Bad news, says Break. Your sister is in love with a murderous lunatic.
It hardly rates a reaction, and yet it definitely gets one. To think Oz had been afraid Gil was after Ada. He should be so lucky.
Ah, but Gil, that would’ve been a different sort of problem, wouldn’t it? Half protecting Ada, yes. And the other half blind, screaming jealousy.
There’s that much to be said for this newest bad news. Oz knows that Gil is still all his, which is a comfort. Even if it means his sister is in some weird thrall to a psycho who won’t even admit to himself what he’s done. Oz is a horrible failure of a brother.
But one must accept reality. One must always, always accept, because denial is a Vincent Nightray sort of trick, and Oz has no patience for that at all.
Denial isn’t the only thing against Vincent, of course. There’s also the way Break absolutely hates him, though Break hates so few people. The near-certainty that he was the one who killed Alice. The things that surprise Echo, and the things that don’t.
There aren’t an overabundance of things going for Vincent, in fact. But apparently Ada found one.
“You’ll need to discuss this with your sister,” Break instructs, standing on the doorstep and gazing straight into Oz’s eyes, for all the world as if he can see them. “She’s more likely to listen to her brother than to…a stranger.”
Oz thinks not. At age six, Ada was awfully cute. And she was also a willful monster child, if sneaky about it. He expects that hasn’t changed at all. Listen to her brother? Why would she start now?
“Does Gil…?”
Break’s expression goes bleak and unforgiving. “I think we’ve asked quite enough of Gilbert,” he says in an incongruously careless tone. “Don’t you?” He whisks into the house and disappears without waiting for an answer.
Enough and more than enough. But Gil likes to be needed.
No, Break’s right. This is Oz’s problem, not Gil’s. For one thing, Vincent is utterly out of anyone’s control, whereas Ada is only mostly out of control.
So Oz will talk to her. Of course he will. It won’t do the tiniest bit of good, but he has to try. He has to try, even though there’s no earthly reason for Ada to listen to him. No reason to listen to this brother who abandoned her for ten years (I didn’t mean to, I-), to this absentee family, who only shows up to tell her what she can’t have (really, Ada, you can do better), to this selfish brat who won’t actually propose any useful alternatives (but Gil is mine).
Oz abandoned Ada far more thoroughly than their father abandoned him. It wasn’t deliberate, but he’s not sure that matters. He’s a stranger to her now. She’s a stranger to him. Oz escaped the Abyss to find that Gil was still Gil, if annoyingly taller, but Ada? Ada’s grown so much, Oz only recognizes her in glimpses. They don’t belong to each other anymore; they haven’t for years.
Why in God’s name would Ada listen to anything Oz has to say?
These are problems for tomorrow, though. It would be impolite to attack Ada with no warning, and the odds of her listening to him would certainly drop to zero if he did. Anyway, he can’t do it today. He can’t. Today he needs to find…someone. Alice or Gil, he doesn’t care. Both would be best. They’re his balance. They’re his light and his shadow and his real life, and he needs-
Someone’s in the downstairs study, Oz can hear it. This late at night? Now that Reim’s dead, the only one who’s enough of a workaholic for that is Gil. Oz turns sharply, walks in, and only remembers that he should have knocked once he’s three steps past the doorway. Oh well. Oh well, it’s only Gil. And Oz owns Gil, doesn’t he?
-think we’ve asked quite enough-
Gil looks up from his desk, meets Oz’s eyes, and drops the entire stack of books he was holding with an awful crash-bang.
“Gil!” Oz smiles, feeling that old, bad childhood conviction that something black and evil is seeping out of his mouth and eyes and nose and poisoning everything around. But Gil was never poisoned. Gil was only ever Gil. “Gil, I have an unusual request.”
“Oz? What’s wrong? What happened?” Gil steps closer, quick like he can’t help himself, and grabs Oz’s shoulders.
Gil thinks himself a very terrible person. Gil is ridiculous. Oz laughs and slumps and lets Gil hold him up, knows that Gil will hold him up. Because Gil is ridiculous, and Oz loves everything about him except his brother.
“It’s been a bad day. I have a request.”
“What? Bad day, what kind of-wasn’t Break supposed to stay with you today? What did he say!? If he said something horrible, I’ll-”
“Aren’t you going to ask me what I want?” Oz asks with honest curiosity. Maybe Gil won’t ask. Maybe he’ll just keep fretting all night. That’s okay, too. Either way. As long as he’s here, it’s okay. Oz doesn’t get exactly what he wants very often, anyway-it might be confusing. Like good news.
Gil doesn’t say anything for a long time. Oz lets his head loll back; Gil’s hands on his shoulders are the only things supporting him now. Gil must be pretty strong, Oz reflects vaguely.
“What do you want, Oz?” Gil asks with the appropriate level of hush and concern, given the weird mood Oz is obviously in. Oz smiles and tries not to miss Alice, who would have hit him in counterpoint.
What does he want? Too much, as usual, and never quite the right things. Something about Ada and Vincent has overset a balance he’d never realized was fragile. Suddenly he’s drowning in guilt and rage and a sense of things slipping irrevocably out of reach. On top of some bizarre idea of elder sibling duty. (There are things an older sibling really ought to do first. How else can he give advice?)
There’s an obvious and simple solution to a lot of these problems. Unfortunately, it requires participation.
Oz is technically twenty-five years old and he’s never gotten closer to sex than some fairly obscure pornography and the most horrifically embarrassing Uncle Oscar lecture of all time. He didn’t really mind until today, though. When he found out that his sister was being romanced by a bitter, violent man with a history of killing little girls. At that point, you know, he started to feel a bit left out.
Besides, if Vincent gets to have Oz’s sister, then it logically follows…
“I’m glad you asked,” he tells Gil, and it’s true. In response, Gil looks even more panicked. Poor Gil. Why does he put up with all of this? Is it just out of loyalty to some half-lost memory of Jack?
Please God, don’t let it be because of Jack.
Oz steps forward, steps close. Too close. But then they usually are too close, he and Gil and Alice.
It really is a pity that Alice isn’t here.
Oz keeps walking forward, backing Gil toward the study couch. He thinks of everything he’s learned from Break about throwing people off balance. He grabs Gil’s shirt, hooks with one foot, shoves upward with both hands, and trips Gil onto the couch. Gil lands with a satisfying thump and gasp.
“Oz, what-”
“Shhh.” Oz climbs onto the couch too, straddles Gil, and sits in his lap. There. That gets a reaction. “You asked what my request was.”
“What are you-what happened, what’s going-?”
Oz puts a finger over Gil’s mouth, figuring shock alone will shut him up. It does. Momentarily. Oz bites his lip and tries not to laugh. They must be a sight: Gil thrown almost horizontal across the couch, Oz on top of him, holding him down. Anyone looking at the two of them right now would say Oz was taking advantage.
And maybe he is. He’s not sure he knows enough to take proper advantage, but if they’re talking intent…
‘I think we’ve asked quite enough of Gilbert.’
I know, Break. Too much. But one more thing, just one more thing, one more…
No, the odds seem good that Gil wants this; he’s not exactly fighting. Of course, Gil likes to be taken advantage of. So is it a good idea to give him what he wants, or isn’t it? And how unbiased is Oz on this subject, particularly at the moment?
Not very.
Deep thoughts, Oz sighs to himself, dropping his hand from Gil’s mouth and turning to his buttons. Deep thoughts for later consideration, when he’ll be hating himself for this anyway. He starts unbuttoning Gil’s shirt with savage gentleness.
“Oz,” Gil whispers, quiet and troubled. Afraid, even. “What are you doing?”
Oz laughs. “What does it look like I’m doing?”
Buttons finished, Oz pushes the shirt apart and traces his fingers down the scar he once left. He’s always asked for too much. It’s dumb luck that Gil’s too much of an idiot to realize it. Oz reaches the end of the scar, just above the hip, fans his hands across Gil’s stomach, then runs them up his sides, which makes him gasp and was therefore a brilliant plan. “Oz! Stop!”
Oz stops. Freezes in place, with one hand on Gil’s shoulder and the other just brushing a nipple. He smiles. Gil thinks they’re going to talk about this, doesn’t he? He is so ridiculous. “But Gil,” Oz says, “it’s my request.”
Gil’s trying to be the grownup here, Oz can tell. He’s got that look. Of course, his heart is also beating hummingbird-fast, and his breathing is going more ragged instead of less. It’s quite hopeless, what Gil’s trying to do.
But at least he clearly likes this. Something about it, anyway.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” Gil whimpers, which is…really a weak start, even for him.
“It makes perfect sense,” Oz says, unfreezing himself and looking for inspiration. If Alice were here, she’d have bitten somebody by now. Oz smirks at the thought. He’s not Alice, though. He kisses his way up that scar instead (that scar), and licks Gil’s neck. Gil gasps again, and sort of writhes. Oz wins everything, clearly. So there, Alice. “Because you’re mine.”
Gil stops writhing, which is a shame. “Oh,” he breathes, the usual horrified sound he makes when he’s discovered, yet again, that Oz is even crazier than he realized.
It should be disappointing, the way he’s always surprised, the way he never learns. But it isn’t. It isn’t, because every single time, he reacts by reaching out. He always drags Oz closer, has never once pushed him away.
Oz sighs and nuzzles at Gil’s neck, letting himself enjoy the feeling of arms folding around him. As if he is where he’s supposed to be, and someone wants him there. Strange idea.
Then he worms a hand between them and tries to unbutton Gil’s pants before any kind of equilibrium gets restored. Gil yelps.
“You’ll wake up Break,” Oz murmurs. A deadly threat, indeed. Oz, of course, knows that Break’s already awake, seeing as they just got home. But what Gil doesn’t know won’t embarrass him.
On reflection, maybe Oz should have closed the door. Oh well.
The Break threat works. Gil goes mostly quiet, but he keeps struggling in an insincere sort of way. If he wanted to, he could knock Oz clean across the room. If he wanted to. Instead, he’s twisting and writhing (but not enough to dislodge Oz), he’s grabbing Oz’s arms (but not pushing him away), he’s making absurd, growling, gasping noises (but he’s not actually complaining).
Dear Gil. The problem is, he has no idea what he wants.
Even the half-hearted protests stop, though, once Oz actually gets inside his pants.
Beautiful, Oz thinks, riveted. Gil is beautiful. Oz has been noticing it ever since he got out of the Abyss, in an abstract sort of way, but clothed, proper, public beauty is nothing like this. Even sweaty, disheveled, just-shot-a-guy beauty isn’t like this. Oz is trying to pay attention to what he’s doing, but Gil is some kind of amazing distraction. Arched back, throat bared, hair wild around his face. A bright flush that Oz put there. Gasping and moaning because Oz is making him.
Oz sees why people obsess about sex so much. It’s so fun that it absolutely must be bad for you, and probably shouldn’t be allowed.
And then Gil’s hands are going for his belt, and Oz almost yelps himself.
Gil’s hands, he can’t help but notice, seem very practiced in the art taking off someone else’s pants. What’s that about?
Ten years, a hysterical fragment of his mind whispers. You left him alone for ten years, what did you expect-?
Gil tugs them closer together, closer-ah-
Very good at being distracting, oh yes. Okay, so the ten years had their advantages if they taught Gil how to do this.
They’re making more noise than they should. Enough to wake people up, or at least to attract any number of curious servants. Oz doesn’t care. And Gil’s not thinking about it, which means Oz must be doing an okay job.
Skin, heat, awkward movement, Gil Gil Gil. The rest of the world pushed outside this little circle, waiting to crash back in, but not yet. Not yet.
Which is good, because if Oz isn’t thinking, he doesn’t have to wonder if Ada’s ever done this, if Vincent will talk her into it, if he’ll hurt her, if that would actually be a good thing considering he might just go straight for killing her instead-
Oz presses his face to Gil’s chest, rolls his hips, and tries not to cry. Gil’s saying something to him, something-gasped-out questions, Oz realizes. Still trying to figure out why this is happening. For God’s sake, Gil.
It’s great while it lasts, but it’s over much too soon. Oz comes first, possibly because Gil actually knows what he’s doing (for whatever reason). Heat, pleasure, and blank, dark nothing. No thinking at all; one perfect second of total silence. And his thoughts, when they start up again, are almost entirely Gil-centric.
They will be doing this again, Oz decides hazily. This is amazing.
He makes an effort not to slump into a puddle on Gil’s chest, makes an effort to be useful. The hysterical little voice that had temporarily shut up starts snickering insanely again, something about masters taking care of their servants. It occurs to Oz that he’ll never be able to look Elliot in the eye after this, and he’s not even sure why.
Gil arches, gasps, and comes, and Oz smiles with a glorious, terrifying sense of possession. You, at least, he thinks. Mine mine mine. Oz’s to protect and defend and make happy. Always. My Gilbert.
Afterward, Gil tries to be stubborn. Bless his heart, he’s always trying to bargain when he’s already lost all of his advantages.
“Oz,” he gasps, “what was that?”
“Um, technically?”
“Don’t-don’t be a-what was…?” His breathing is slowing down, but now his eyes are trying to close despite his best efforts to keep them open. “You never told me…what was wrong.”
“Because nothing’s wrong?”
“…Don’t lie! You didn’t…you never…you…I…” Trailing off into silence.
Falling asleep in the middle of a sentence, very Gil. Oz huffs a laugh against Gil’s sweaty chest. “Gil is ridiculous,” he whispers. Thank God.
He glances up. A frown is just fading from Gil’s face, his mouth still slightly open. He’s a rumpled, scandalous mess. He’s beautiful.
Oz could stay the night here with Gil. Though that might be a little awkward if Break caught them, and Break would.
…Or else Sharon would, which would be unspeakably worse. They’re really, really lucky no one’s come to investigate the noise already.
Alternatively, Oz could drag Gil back to his room. A prize for his efforts. He pulls back to study Gil and consider their relative sizes and strengths.
No, that’s just not going to happen.
And he can’t stay, not really. He can’t sleep yet. If he tries to sleep, he’ll only wake them both up with his screaming, visions of Ada/Alice/Gil bleeding and Vincent laughing and crying dancing through his head. He knows how his mind works, or fails so to do.
It’s better, now. He is better. But if he goes back to his room alone it’ll be the Rytas incident all over again, and no one needs that. Locked in his room and his head for days. It upsets Alice. And Gil. And besides, he needs to be able to talk to Ada tomorrow.
So he can’t stay, but he can’t take Gil with him. He sighs, stands, and pulls his clothes together and approximately straight. Unfortunately, nothing can be done about the stains, not for either one of them.
The maids are going to judge them. Assuming they weren’t already placing bets.
Oz gently straightens and buttons Gil’s clothes, too, brushes back his hair, and covers him with a blanket, which-haha, oh God-will also need cleaning after this. Ah, well. Oz never had much in the way of dignity to lose, and, frankly, neither did Gil.
Once Gil’s successfully tucked in, Oz stands and watches him sleep for a while. The frown is gone, and Gil looks…a little like he does when he’s drunk. A little like he did when he was fifteen. Like timid, gentle Gil, who had no serious barriers between his heart and the world. It’s a peaceful illusion. Peaceful, anyway, until Oz starts wondering what Gil would look like dead, and whether it wouldn’t be something close to this. Perfectly still. Calm at last.
But no, of course it won’t be this way. Their deaths will be a bloody mess, Oz is sure. His mind promptly treats him to a vision of that: a blood-spattered, bruised face overlying Gil’s peaceful, sleeping one.
No, he can’t stay here.
He kneels down next to the couch and touches his forehead to Gil’s; feels Gil’s breath on his face and breathes in the smell of him for the comfort in it. Then he stands, turns on his heel, and goes to find Alice.
Sequel: A Guide to Raising Perfect Children