t was the laugh; strangest thing, how it was the laugh. All tied up, strangled by something that might’ve been a whimper or might’ve been a groan. Even aching with every fiber of him, it was the laugh. He broke in the end too, he thought – he wasn’t paying too close attention – he knew his words got all choked and tangled with laughter. Once he thought he’d been good at all that dirty talk rubbish, at least with some kov, them as wanted to hear it. He couldn’t seem to remember how he’d done it, once, slid into it all smooth and olio, without any laughter or shame either.
Now all he could think of was Alioe’s skirts and clocking clocks and Hulali’s nethers, because somehow he’d got started on blasphemy. Charlie didn’t seem to mind, he thought, even if he could barely manage to make it all the way around the Circle.
Gratifying all the same, to hear that laughter cut off. To feel those long fingers – that’d been so cold and graceful, flicking the match and lighting his cigarette – splayed out and digging into his back, warm and sweatslick. To feel the fine muscles of his throat twitch and flicker against his lips.
It was driving him moony, whatever it was Charlie was doing. He could feel his finger tracing against his inner thigh, intricate, though he couldn’t and hadn’t the space to guess what it was doing. Sometimes they shuddered, traced backward; he grinned and let out a choked laugh of his own, pressing a kiss along his collarbones, too desperate to be gentle with his lips or teeth. It reminded him of something, and every time he thought hard enough to feel it, another jerk of wanting went through him, ‘til he was taut and ready to break.
Ready, but not breaking, not yet.
He stopped talking at some point. The words must’ve petered out, but he wasn’t there for them. He wasn’t there for anything. He had narrowed down to the skin pressed against his, the arm splayed out on his back, the fields shedding deep red and gold and silver and fascination. He wasn’t sure whose was doing what, now; he’d lost track of the mona, static and clairvoyant, wild in the air. The rhythm of his hand was steady and firm, fair firm, and Charlie was still going, and that fingertip was still moving, in spite of everything.
The cord was taut, but not breaking. It wouldn’t break for some time yet. He was patient, and Charlie was demanding; and he was demanding of patience, and very pleased to please and be pleased. There was no more speaking, but there was laughter in the midst of all the gasping, and little bursts of gold threaded through his field, with a pattern he could taste but couldn’t see.
He had dreamt of vines, curling over and over. Unfurling across ballroom floors, twining up columns and seizing mezzanines in a lush and terrifying whirl of leaves. He had dreamt of quiet little birds amid the greenery, poking their heads out and uttering toe-curling profanity.
And then he was awake, by turns.
He groaned. His head was an anchor at the bottom of the Mahogany, and every limb was snared by seaweed.
No. Sheets – sweaty, tangled sheets. One of his legs was bare, and he could feel a heavy chill prickling against his skin, settling almost into the bones. The rest of him might’ve been on fire; his heart was hammering, his mouth tasted like rust, and his throat hurt. He tried to open his mouth and found his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. He opened his eyes, Vita tilted, and then he squeezed them shut again, grabbing the first thing he could find and burying his face in it.
It was a pillow, and it was only a brief sort of relief. He grunted, shifting. There was a spring digging into his back. He shifted again, and there were two springs digging into his back.
He must’ve passed out, he thought. After – after. After? He had a crisp memory of pouring another round, of drinking more, of… singing, maybe, he couldn’t…
“Fuck,” he said out loud, sounding to himself like a particularly deep-voiced frog. “Fuck me,” he tried again, quieter, trying to disentangle himself from the sheets. He couldn’t; something was weighing them down. Eventually, he decided he didn’t much care, being honest, and instead pulled what he could of the covers over his head, to block out the paltry light.
Light. Light meant morning. How early? He blinked underneath the sheet, but he couldn’t make anything out by the slant of the light. Then he breathed in deep, and like an odd counterweight to the taste in his mouth, he found that the linens smelled – familiar. A good sort of familiar, he registered distantly.
That was just about all he could register. It wasn’t just his head that felt like it had been cracked with a hammer. Every muscle in him – his godsawful clocking hip, his shoulders, his back in particular – was aching. He shifted and felt a pleasant sort of friction, and realized he wasn’t wearing anything.
He tried to say something, but all that came out was, “Hnnnghhhh,” and he buried his face deeper in the pillow.