He stills, pleading eyes fixed on Orev; he remembers very well all the times he was denied something he demanded - at least until he begged for it. (Until -
Until Draža left and didn't return. He'd begged then. He'd pleaded desperately for Draža to stop teasing, to take it back, to say he hadn't meant any of it and was only teaching Gideon a lesson.
Then he had spent weeks pleading with the empty dark for Draža to come back.)
(What if Orev lets him go and throws him out?) Panic builds in his chest and tightens his throat; what if? What if? Maybe Orev remembered something more, maybe he's going to take away the chain and push Gideon towards the door. Maybe he didn't remember anything at all, but the demand was enough to turn him sour towards Gideon?
Except he feels the scrape of talons. Except when Orev removes the chains from his arms, he winds them anew around Gideon's torso, and it's all right.
It's all right.
When he heaves upward to Orev, it's from relief as much as need. He grasps as tightly as he dares, fingers clenched in Orev's feathers, arms locked, his face buried in the crook of Orev's neck. (He can feel himself trembling, terror leeching from him little by little.)
"Daddy." His voice is muffled and tearful, the grief-laced tone of a man who thinks he's regained something he might yet lose again. He repeats it once more into inky feathers. An unspoken why sits in his throat, threatening to remain like a thorny barrier between himself and Draža.
(But why couldn't Draža give him this before? Why wasn't he good enough, when he feels as though Orev thinks the world of him?
Or -
Can Orev lie that well?)
<.>
Questions stalk and howl the tumult in Gideon’s eyes and at the edges of awareness. Fears that drove the boy toward tension, toward a careening like despair. Queries (sorrow-laden, iron-tainted nausea to the tongue) that coil through that one word - Daddy - and through the body wrapped against his own.
Orev can guess some shape of these questions. (He doesn’t know anything. He doesn’t fucking remember.) (But hasn’t he heard enough from Jack, from Gideon? Hadn’t he seen enough in even one memory, his own voice speaking of a lack in value. Why would he have claimed such travesty? (There was a reason. A— Something he couldn’t hold onto, when Orev was whatever creature lived before Orev. Something he could only endanger, riotous as his mind had burned.)) He can’t put the questions into precise language, and anyway, anyway, how could he possibly approach them? He doesn’t know what he’d done, he doesn’t know what this boy needs—
No.
No, that isn’t true.
No, because he knows impulses in himself. Because he knew enough to shift the chains without rescinding their hold. Because he knew to call this man Puppy, Dearest. To call himself— Yes, Daddy. (And didn’t, doesn’t the word in Gideon’s voice run through him as a longing, a restorative shudder?)
He doesn’t know what to make of the way this man clings to him now, face buried at his chest, and at the same time, he understands. He hears. He— Knows this feeling, or something very like.
(If there’s anything that will bring Orev to the answers he seeks, knowledge of the man he was, it’s this man. More than any journal, more than any spell. Nothing draws light upon himself like (his Puppy) (his Dearest) ((his so much more, his everything, his l—)) Gideon.
So trust what this boy’s presence tells him.
Trust what he feels with this man.)
His own arms wrap around Gideon’s shoulders, sheltering the boy in a fall of feathers even as he maintains his grip upon the chain. Setting his jaw at the top of Gideon’s head and brushed, nestling slowly, humming a soft sound, then a purr that might be - is meant to be - reassuring.
“Yes, Puppy.
“Yes, I’m here.
“You’re here with me.
“I don’t— I don’t understand everything. But I’ll find it. I’ve found you.
“I said I can’t release you. I meant now, from the chains— I mean as well in ways beyond this moment.
“Gideon. Gideon. Puppy.” A kiss to the top of his head. Another nestled nuzzle. “I won’t lose you again.”
<.>
When Orev's wings enclose him, Gideon relaxes. It's almost immediate, a dissolve of his tension with a sigh: close off the world by a barrier of feathers, he feels safe. This is familiar. This is as much a haven as a terror and his body clearly, cleanly remembers it.
Draža held him this way in all their aftermaths, shrouded in feathery darkness.
(Still. He hears Orev speaking and feels flickers of doubt. He'll leave again once his memories return.)
(But Orev said, I've found you. Was he searching for Gideon? Was he looking, all this time? Was Gideon somehow lost to him, rather than the other way around? Or is that only wishful thinking?)
Better than contemplating any of this is to simply let it be. To ease his hold and let his tears abate, to let the trembling turn to shivers of delight for the feeling of chains and feathers, for the scent of Orev engulfing him.
Better to loosen the grip of his fingers and let his touch become a caress along a familiar spine, the planes of Daddy's back that he knows so well. Daddy's body is as ingrained in his memory as their song - and it's real now, not just a dream to leave him aching deep in the sucking well of his chest.
He avoids speaking by chasing a second kiss, stealing it the way a wild animal takes food from an outstretch hand.
<.>
Nothing exists beyond the moment, this place, the man held and holding Orev. (Or if there is. If there must be time beyond these hands, this kiss, it’s all brushed aside for the moment, can wait its time within the wings and will be, must be managed when it follows.) (If it follows, because now, right now, it seems impossible that any other state of being could exist.)
Yes, there may be unvoiced questions somewhere, somewhere, but what can they amount, when weighed against the warmth of breath against skin and feathers, the weight and tremor of this man (he’s real, he’s real, he exists and Orev’s found him (again))? When weighed against this kiss, first stolen by his Puppy, then returned by Orev, who’s nearly on the ground himself now, who straddles and enwraps and chains this man.
His own, his own, his Puppy for always.
((A warning, a burn: What happened to always, before? What came between their shared existence then and now?
Never mind, never mind, it doesn’t matter, the contradiction, quandaries can’t exist here.))
The trace along his spine is silken and shocking; claims a soft-jarred catch of breath, a quiet and half-shattered laugh. And he chases into the kiss he’s returned, seeking Puppy’s warmth, the breadth the breath of Gideon’s life and offering his own, one arm wrapping Gideon tighter as the other draws long along the boy’s side down to his waist, to hold with precise tension, a catch of claws that don’t break skin.
And when he draws back from the kiss, just enough to speak, lips brushing still with Gideon’s—
“You burn, Dearest, so bright.
“A flame I’d sing upon. A light to call me, always.
“But Puppy, my poor, poor Puppy—
“Tell Daddy: Does it ache to burn so fiercely?
“Have you been waiting, my Gideon, for apotheosis, for relief?"
<.>
The journal lies completely forgotten at his side. (And why should he worry about it? Anything he wrote in it could be gleaned from his reactions once Orev's chain wound around him and slammed him to the ground. Those admissions could be gleaned from his tears and, yes, from the resurgence of desire burning through him now.)
There was always one caveat to the commands Draža leveled on him: if Gideon didn't understand what the other man was saying, he never felt compelled to obey. Just now, he only thinks he understands what it is Orev is asking, but the uncertainty is enough for him to offer a sly smile and refrain from answering.
(He heard that hitched breath. He feels Daddy grown just as warm from the touch of his hand and the brush of kisses. And Daddy's straddling him now, just the way he used to. Maybe -
Maybe it's all right. (Maybe he can tease without fear of Orev walking out?))
"'Relief'?" he asks innocently, his voice carrying traces of tears, evident but vanishing in favor of husky pleasure. "It sounds like you're burning, if I'm the flame. Maybe you're the one who's aching."
(It's a gamble. He doesn't fancy the idea of leaving this room with another nine months, another *day* of aching looming before him. Still, he can't help himself: he's curious how much of Draža there is in Orev.
How much of Daddy.)
<.>
Oh, this…
This little shit.
Orev doesn’t doubt in the least that Gideon knew exactly what he meant. (Didn’t he see it in that not precisely contrived but absolutely emphasized suggestion of innocence? Those eyes pleading, wide, and accompanied by a little smirk?
His Puppy knows precisely what he’s doing.)
(A corollary thought, question: What is Gideon prodding against, and why? What (…who?) is this boy seeking?)
A click of his tongue. A shake of his head, calculated, theatric, and he doesn’t try to keep the grin - vicious, fond - from his lips. Doesn’t keep himself from giving the chain a tug, or from drawing his hand back through the feathers of his own head, from arcing his neck with a heady sigh.
Then returning, of course returning, his touch to Puppy’s cheek, to a dragging trace of Puppy’s lip.
“Now why in any world, any veil-strung existence should the aching be exclusive?” A cant of his head. A pause in silence, and a blink of his eyes, expression gone contemplative before his grin returns.
“You and I incinerate; you and I may burn alike.
“Must burn alike, each with each.
“What good is there, my Dearest, in walking through the fire alone? What sodden shadow of wonder would that be?
“What a waste, to howl in flames without resonance, consonance.”
His grin sharpens, and again he gives the chain a tug. Again his foot sets deeper pressure against Gideon’s chest, as his fingers trace down from sternum to stomach to hip. As Orev gives his own shoulders a subtle roll, and arcs his back, the better to draw nearer and nearer, to speak in Puppy’s ear—
“Puppy, Puppy… I didn’t say Daddy wouldn’t get his, hm?”
<.>
There he is. Gideon watches with horrified fascination as Orev arcs his neck, as he draws a hand through his feathers. (Beautiful. He was always deadly and beautiful.)
Gideon feels shivers crawling under his skin, his body answering with strung tension and small shifts in hopes of finding some ease where none exists.
For months now, he's avoided arousal; whenever he felt the stir of it, he would find some way to tune his mind to deadening notions, or exert himself in other ways. Anything, anything, to distract himself from need he couldn't sate. Now, though, he allows the full force of desire to seethe through him, a feral wanting that threatens to break him free from stillness.
Gods, he hopes Orev feels this way, too. (He could, sometimes, drive Draža to madness. To frenzy. It felt as good as winning at any gambling table, as good as plunging a knife in a back, as good as any drug he's ever consumed: to know he could make his Daddy need him.
His grin is a mirror of Orev's even if his body feels alight with little shocks, excitement and terror mingling in his breast. Even if his shivers begin anew with Orev's whispers at his ear.
Just one more push. Why not? It's been months since he plied at Daddy this way.
"You didn't say Daddy would, either." He pulls a thoughtful pout, his eyes glinting with half-terrified thrill. "Maybe I've gone so long without, I've forgotten how to burn. Maybe I only remember what it's like to be a light."
<.>
Another soft laugh, this time indulgent and laced with the hint of a hazard, a warning. A signal: *Oh, Puppy, I see what you’re doing.*
Orev sees, and he doesn’t disapprove. Cheekiness sits well on this man. (And it’s in Gideon’s right, Orev thinks, to push a little, to flaunt along the edge of whatever rules lies between them. Rogue that he is. Brat - ah, that’s the word - that he so beautifully embodies.)
The back of a talon traces Gideon’s jaw, and Orev speaks low, matter-of-fact, “I don’t believe that for a moment.”
“You’ve saved it, haven’t you? The knowledge of burning. The sense of fire in your veins. I don’t believe it left you.
“I don’t believe it ever could.”
A downward bend; a catch of teeth, gentle, at Puppy’s lower lip, and a tug with a low-growled purr, a sigh. Then withdrawing to caress, caress his Puppy’s hair as he continues—
“Gideon, Gideon…
“I find I know how to reach for you.
“How to be drawn toward you.
“How to burn for you.
“Doesn’t my Puppy remember the same? Don’t you feel its return.
“Didn’t I see you shiver.
“Didn’t I see you flush. The shallow swiftness of your breathing. The clench and tremor at your thighs.”
And, eyes fixed still with Gideon’s, he lets his hand drift further still, to trace the telltale jut of Puppy’s ache. To cant his head and—
Again, draw his fingertips along its length.
To smile, show a slight flash of teeth.
To caress again, and, “Oh, Puppy. I think you remember very, very well.”
After a moment. (Half-thinking, no, it really isn’t necessary.) (Half-thinking it’s a risk.) (Half-thinking it’s a… vulnerability, and he’s fairly certain he’s never cared to be around other without several layers of dissemblance— But then, Gideon is something better than the nattering crowds of this world.) (Gideon is something, someone, the only one worth calling worth knowing as special.) After a moment, he takes Gideon’s hand in his own, and guides it in a drift along his own aching cock.
no subject
Until Draža left and didn't return. He'd begged then. He'd pleaded desperately for Draža to stop teasing, to take it back, to say he hadn't meant any of it and was only teaching Gideon a lesson.
Then he had spent weeks pleading with the empty dark for Draža to come back.)
(What if Orev lets him go and throws him out?) Panic builds in his chest and tightens his throat; what if? What if? Maybe Orev remembered something more, maybe he's going to take away the chain and push Gideon towards the door. Maybe he didn't remember anything at all, but the demand was enough to turn him sour towards Gideon?
Except he feels the scrape of talons. Except when Orev removes the chains from his arms, he winds them anew around Gideon's torso, and it's all right.
It's all right.
When he heaves upward to Orev, it's from relief as much as need. He grasps as tightly as he dares, fingers clenched in Orev's feathers, arms locked, his face buried in the crook of Orev's neck. (He can feel himself trembling, terror leeching from him little by little.)
"Daddy." His voice is muffled and tearful, the grief-laced tone of a man who thinks he's regained something he might yet lose again. He repeats it once more into inky feathers. An unspoken why sits in his throat, threatening to remain like a thorny barrier between himself and Draža.
(But why couldn't Draža give him this before? Why wasn't he good enough, when he feels as though Orev thinks the world of him?
Or -
Can Orev lie that well?)
<.>
Questions stalk and howl the tumult in Gideon’s eyes and at the edges of awareness. Fears that drove the boy toward tension, toward a careening like despair. Queries (sorrow-laden, iron-tainted nausea to the tongue) that coil through that one word - Daddy - and through the body wrapped against his own.
Orev can guess some shape of these questions. (He doesn’t know anything. He doesn’t fucking remember.) (But hasn’t he heard enough from Jack, from Gideon? Hadn’t he seen enough in even one memory, his own voice speaking of a lack in value. Why would he have claimed such travesty? (There was a reason. A— Something he couldn’t hold onto, when Orev was whatever creature lived before Orev. Something he could only endanger, riotous as his mind had burned.)) He can’t put the questions into precise language, and anyway, anyway, how could he possibly approach them? He doesn’t know what he’d done, he doesn’t know what this boy needs—
No.
No, that isn’t true.
No, because he knows impulses in himself. Because he knew enough to shift the chains without rescinding their hold. Because he knew to call this man Puppy, Dearest. To call himself— Yes, Daddy. (And didn’t, doesn’t the word in Gideon’s voice run through him as a longing, a restorative shudder?)
He doesn’t know what to make of the way this man clings to him now, face buried at his chest, and at the same time, he understands. He hears. He— Knows this feeling, or something very like.
(If there’s anything that will bring Orev to the answers he seeks, knowledge of the man he was, it’s this man. More than any journal, more than any spell. Nothing draws light upon himself like (his Puppy) (his Dearest) ((his so much more, his everything, his l—)) Gideon.
So trust what this boy’s presence tells him.
Trust what he feels with this man.)
His own arms wrap around Gideon’s shoulders, sheltering the boy in a fall of feathers even as he maintains his grip upon the chain. Setting his jaw at the top of Gideon’s head and brushed, nestling slowly, humming a soft sound, then a purr that might be - is meant to be - reassuring.
“Yes, Puppy.
“Yes, I’m here.
“You’re here with me.
“I don’t— I don’t understand everything. But I’ll find it. I’ve found you.
“I said I can’t release you. I meant now, from the chains— I mean as well in ways beyond this moment.
“Gideon. Gideon. Puppy.” A kiss to the top of his head. Another nestled nuzzle. “I won’t lose you again.”
<.>
When Orev's wings enclose him, Gideon relaxes. It's almost immediate, a dissolve of his tension with a sigh: close off the world by a barrier of feathers, he feels safe. This is familiar. This is as much a haven as a terror and his body clearly, cleanly remembers it.
Draža held him this way in all their aftermaths, shrouded in feathery darkness.
(Still. He hears Orev speaking and feels flickers of doubt. He'll leave again once his memories return.)
(But Orev said, I've found you. Was he searching for Gideon? Was he looking, all this time? Was Gideon somehow lost to him, rather than the other way around? Or is that only wishful thinking?)
Better than contemplating any of this is to simply let it be. To ease his hold and let his tears abate, to let the trembling turn to shivers of delight for the feeling of chains and feathers, for the scent of Orev engulfing him.
Better to loosen the grip of his fingers and let his touch become a caress along a familiar spine, the planes of Daddy's back that he knows so well. Daddy's body is as ingrained in his memory as their song - and it's real now, not just a dream to leave him aching deep in the sucking well of his chest.
He avoids speaking by chasing a second kiss, stealing it the way a wild animal takes food from an outstretch hand.
<.>
Nothing exists beyond the moment, this place, the man held and holding Orev. (Or if there is. If there must be time beyond these hands, this kiss, it’s all brushed aside for the moment, can wait its time within the wings and will be, must be managed when it follows.) (If it follows, because now, right now, it seems impossible that any other state of being could exist.)
Yes, there may be unvoiced questions somewhere, somewhere, but what can they amount, when weighed against the warmth of breath against skin and feathers, the weight and tremor of this man (he’s real, he’s real, he exists and Orev’s found him (again))? When weighed against this kiss, first stolen by his Puppy, then returned by Orev, who’s nearly on the ground himself now, who straddles and enwraps and chains this man.
His own, his own, his Puppy for always.
((A warning, a burn: What happened to always, before? What came between their shared existence then and now?
Never mind, never mind, it doesn’t matter, the contradiction, quandaries can’t exist here.))
The trace along his spine is silken and shocking; claims a soft-jarred catch of breath, a quiet and half-shattered laugh. And he chases into the kiss he’s returned, seeking Puppy’s warmth, the breadth the breath of Gideon’s life and offering his own, one arm wrapping Gideon tighter as the other draws long along the boy’s side down to his waist, to hold with precise tension, a catch of claws that don’t break skin.
And when he draws back from the kiss, just enough to speak, lips brushing still with Gideon’s—
“You burn, Dearest, so bright.
“A flame I’d sing upon. A light to call me, always.
“But Puppy, my poor, poor Puppy—
“Tell Daddy: Does it ache to burn so fiercely?
“Have you been waiting, my Gideon, for apotheosis, for relief?"
<.>
The journal lies completely forgotten at his side. (And why should he worry about it? Anything he wrote in it could be gleaned from his reactions once Orev's chain wound around him and slammed him to the ground. Those admissions could be gleaned from his tears and, yes, from the resurgence of desire burning through him now.)
There was always one caveat to the commands Draža leveled on him: if Gideon didn't understand what the other man was saying, he never felt compelled to obey. Just now, he only thinks he understands what it is Orev is asking, but the uncertainty is enough for him to offer a sly smile and refrain from answering.
(He heard that hitched breath. He feels Daddy grown just as warm from the touch of his hand and the brush of kisses. And Daddy's straddling him now, just the way he used to. Maybe -
Maybe it's all right. (Maybe he can tease without fear of Orev walking out?))
"'Relief'?" he asks innocently, his voice carrying traces of tears, evident but vanishing in favor of husky pleasure. "It sounds like you're burning, if I'm the flame. Maybe you're the one who's aching."
(It's a gamble. He doesn't fancy the idea of leaving this room with another nine months, another *day* of aching looming before him. Still, he can't help himself: he's curious how much of Draža there is in Orev.
How much of Daddy.)
<.>
Oh, this…
This little shit.
Orev doesn’t doubt in the least that Gideon knew exactly what he meant. (Didn’t he see it in that not precisely contrived but absolutely emphasized suggestion of innocence? Those eyes pleading, wide, and accompanied by a little smirk?
His Puppy knows precisely what he’s doing.)
(A corollary thought, question: What is Gideon prodding against, and why? What (…who?) is this boy seeking?)
A click of his tongue. A shake of his head, calculated, theatric, and he doesn’t try to keep the grin - vicious, fond - from his lips. Doesn’t keep himself from giving the chain a tug, or from drawing his hand back through the feathers of his own head, from arcing his neck with a heady sigh.
Then returning, of course returning, his touch to Puppy’s cheek, to a dragging trace of Puppy’s lip.
“Now why in any world, any veil-strung existence should the aching be exclusive?” A cant of his head. A pause in silence, and a blink of his eyes, expression gone contemplative before his grin returns.
“You and I incinerate; you and I may burn alike.
“Must burn alike, each with each.
“What good is there, my Dearest, in walking through the fire alone? What sodden shadow of wonder would that be?
“What a waste, to howl in flames without resonance, consonance.”
His grin sharpens, and again he gives the chain a tug. Again his foot sets deeper pressure against Gideon’s chest, as his fingers trace down from sternum to stomach to hip. As Orev gives his own shoulders a subtle roll, and arcs his back, the better to draw nearer and nearer, to speak in Puppy’s ear—
“Puppy, Puppy… I didn’t say Daddy wouldn’t get his, hm?”
<.>
There he is. Gideon watches with horrified fascination as Orev arcs his neck, as he draws a hand through his feathers. (Beautiful. He was always deadly and beautiful.)
Gideon feels shivers crawling under his skin, his body answering with strung tension and small shifts in hopes of finding some ease where none exists.
For months now, he's avoided arousal; whenever he felt the stir of it, he would find some way to tune his mind to deadening notions, or exert himself in other ways. Anything, anything, to distract himself from need he couldn't sate. Now, though, he allows the full force of desire to seethe through him, a feral wanting that threatens to break him free from stillness.
Gods, he hopes Orev feels this way, too. (He could, sometimes, drive Draža to madness. To frenzy. It felt as good as winning at any gambling table, as good as plunging a knife in a back, as good as any drug he's ever consumed: to know he could make his Daddy need him.
His grin is a mirror of Orev's even if his body feels alight with little shocks, excitement and terror mingling in his breast. Even if his shivers begin anew with Orev's whispers at his ear.
Just one more push. Why not? It's been months since he plied at Daddy this way.
"You didn't say Daddy would, either." He pulls a thoughtful pout, his eyes glinting with half-terrified thrill. "Maybe I've gone so long without, I've forgotten how to burn. Maybe I only remember what it's like to be a light."
<.>
Another soft laugh, this time indulgent and laced with the hint of a hazard, a warning. A signal: *Oh, Puppy, I see what you’re doing.*
Orev sees, and he doesn’t disapprove. Cheekiness sits well on this man. (And it’s in Gideon’s right, Orev thinks, to push a little, to flaunt along the edge of whatever rules lies between them. Rogue that he is. Brat - ah, that’s the word - that he so beautifully embodies.)
The back of a talon traces Gideon’s jaw, and Orev speaks low, matter-of-fact, “I don’t believe that for a moment.”
“You’ve saved it, haven’t you? The knowledge of burning. The sense of fire in your veins. I don’t believe it left you.
“I don’t believe it ever could.”
A downward bend; a catch of teeth, gentle, at Puppy’s lower lip, and a tug with a low-growled purr, a sigh. Then withdrawing to caress, caress his Puppy’s hair as he continues—
“Gideon, Gideon…
“I find I know how to reach for you.
“How to be drawn toward you.
“How to burn for you.
“Doesn’t my Puppy remember the same? Don’t you feel its return.
“Didn’t I see you shiver.
“Didn’t I see you flush. The shallow swiftness of your breathing. The clench and tremor at your thighs.”
And, eyes fixed still with Gideon’s, he lets his hand drift further still, to trace the telltale jut of Puppy’s ache. To cant his head and—
Again, draw his fingertips along its length.
To smile, show a slight flash of teeth.
To caress again, and, “Oh, Puppy. I think you remember very, very well.”
After a moment. (Half-thinking, no, it really isn’t necessary.) (Half-thinking it’s a risk.) (Half-thinking it’s a… vulnerability, and he’s fairly certain he’s never cared to be around other without several layers of dissemblance— But then, Gideon is something better than the nattering crowds of this world.) (Gideon is something, someone, the only one worth calling worth knowing as special.) After a moment, he takes Gideon’s hand in his own, and guides it in a drift along his own aching cock.
“As do I, my Dearest. As do I.”