βsuddenly, just like that. To confess. He stuns Arthur into unresponsiveness. Hope and horror. The serpent squeezes, and the rabbit begs for deathβfor freedom, for release.
The hope bleeding through the fear is what makes him feel dizzy, nauseated, though he's lying on the carpet-covered floorboards under some miscellaneous bed, within some miscellaneous room, in some house far larger than any man really needs.
With what may amount to the predictability of startled prey, he sends no reply or acknowledgement. In mind, he springs for trees, stalled momentarilyβif only within himselfβby an urgent, stupefying instinct to bound toward the wolf's salivating maw.]
[Arthur sends no reply or acknowledgement, and Rico's starting to become just a fraction more aware of the pressing of each night now, as the storm continues - the fairytale can't last forever. When spring comes and the deadly cold abates, he'll have to release him from his company. Let go of Arthur's heart, pulsating and bleeding in his cupped hands - always so frantic, running, hiding from something that can't be escaped.
It'll be a while yet, though. And so, Rico squeezes.]
[Dusk settles over the house when Arthur can no longer reconcile to the fraught indulgence of Rico Dredd supporting him with strong, warm hands. Or the bend of those unyielding arms, a shoulder. Spooning medicine or steaming broth to his faintly parted lips. Providing tinctures when he's fallen ill or to assist better sleep. Tilting toward him attentively, ever the rapt warden.
Much like the source of these memories, they press inward with incessancy. Interrupt and curb the budding stark recollections of the same hands bestowing lessons colored in cruelty. Every man has his limit, no man indomitable β and though it is fair to say he may not have reached this point without extenuating circumstances, here he is: nudged passed the border.
Broken child who cannot bear to lose the hat of the father who treated him like property, he weeps silent into the back of an arm pressed against his eyelids. Soundless and shuddering. Consumed with confusion and grief and shame. A strange sense of pleading. This is not the first time Rico hasn't left room for doubt. But none of them are you, is what he said, wasn't it, that night, when he allowed the outlaw to see what he could really be capable of.
His eyes are red though dry and his throat sore by the time he wanders through the house to the master bedroom. From the slash of light from beneath the door, the flickering of lengthening and receding shadows, shuffle of steps approaching and then suddenly retreating, Rico, at the room's desk or otherwise, may easily tell the stray is outside of it, contending with his own thoughts.
Then, finally, the restless sway and quiver of shadow stills, and he knocks. Once, twice. Short andβcredit owed to fearβwith an appalling lack of enthusiasm.]
[When Rico sees that long shadow filter through the crack in the door, reaching out to him in decision long before its owner makes up his mind, he simply watches for a bit. And when he opens the door and sees the red-rimmed eyes of a young man who had tears spill from them not that long ago staring up at him, he knows what kind of disposition Arthur's heart is bedded in. When Rico walks the house and finds no hide nor hair of his favorite beau, and where else is he to be found but his hiding place? The childish act of some reconciliation of two extremes - his mind gone someplace farther from him, but a state that brings him closer to him.
It's odd. But fascinating, too. And softening, in some ways, to a man as capable of cruelties as Rico. Because seeing Arthur standing there, fearful yet wordless, asking for something he can give him, wanting him; it's enough to make him break out into a smile of genuine happiness, an unguarded expression so few other than Arthur have truly been privileged to see. He beckons him closer, gives him permission just as wordlessly.
And true to his word, Rico has abandoned his work - which lies cast aside slaphappy at the desk.]
[He's stalled by that smile, the beautiful sincerity of it. At the open door, he lingers, he stares with such artless innocence and surprise. Breath held without his very knowing, he feels a sudden stab in his heart, a wasp sting, struck with the realization this unnameable feeling is akin to long ago days in the presence of Mary Gillis.
There is no differentiation between the apprehension or the shy longing increasing the beats of his heart. Unsure, worried, flustered, he drops his gaze, and vaguely entertains no novel idea of bolting. And as he dwells upon ingrained instinct and his resistance to it thereof, his jewel-like eyes skim Rico's hands. Yesterdays have yet to release their gripβhe's plunged into recent memories of the damage those very hands have done. Of the sweetness, tantalizing and precarious and shockingly soothing.
And what his father's hands did, again and again, trail close behind. His father's rage. His father's absence. For days, weeks. A month at times. Even when his mind refuses to acknowledge it, his body still remembers yearning for the beatings over the absence. At least he was there. Good boys must be obedient and pleasing and unquestioning to earn safety, warmth, affection.
Whether it's vanished by now or not, that smile burns through this like unexpected and streaming sunlight. There's one of those abrupt, unconscious, droplets of a tear dropping off his cheek he hardly notices, and a shuddering breath comes after, as though he means to settle and steel himself.]
Thisβ¦ You'reβ [with face rising. But timid creature, he freezes and falters again, and stares shyly and needing and round-eyed at Rico's knees. He's provided permission, however. Beckoned him. Only Arthur feels overwhelmingly too awed by him to look at him directly when he shuffles those few steps closer to delicately plant face and body near-imperceptible into Rico's familiar and expansive chest.
His shoulders are high and tight, the fear and uncertainty ever-pervading, but he's closed his eyes, relief stirring through him just as much.]
β¦it's really okay? [Meant solely, utterly for Rico Dredd's ears alone. Though spoken so quietly, lips fluttering against cloth, who knows if he'll hear it.
He feels a fool entire β but he is too lonely, too disconnected, too heartbroken, too afraid to care to muster up bravado. He wants nothing else, in this moment, than to think about Rico allowing him this nearness, choosing him over something else.]
[Good boys don't cry. Good boys don't want, not when they don't want for anything - for food, for shelter, for luxuries and clothes or education. Good boys grow up to be good men. And this is how good men do not grow up; close to their brothers, sharing clothes and beds and names, backs to each other in sleep, two little hands of two little boys resting over the grip of the same pistol, one and the same. You and me.
Rico was once needed. And then, he was not. Instinct brings his arms up to envelope that tense slope of Arthur's shoulders, and instinct compels him to hold him fast. Perhaps, in this moment, Rico sees something of himself. He feels the whisper of a question, mouth moving barely against the stiff fabric of his shirt. This soft moment is something for him, and him alone. Plenty of times Rico's indulged the luxury of embracing him like this in sleep, pliant and half-confused in a dream. Doted on him like a favorite pet while leashed to his hand, wrist tied to wrist. But ever-so-rarely in waking, willing moments, with Arthur coming to him.
Rico hums a deep, dark sound, meaningless and yet an answer all at once.]
You're mine now, little Arthur.
[He gives a name to the thing he holds - shown in a crack, his past and the years between. Little Arthur. Little Joe. Shameful creature, desperation-for-affection. He stands there, his hand twined in Arthur's fine hair, swaying him slightly. To settle the shuddering breath, and in the warm crook of his elbow to collect any further tears to come. Like some content beast, whose prey has chosen to come to him.]
How could anyone say no to a pretty thing like you, when you ask so nicely?
[Dizzied, for all of Rico keeping him stable and standing, the initial, overbearing thing he feels is dizzied. It's the lunacy of it all β of the sobriquet, of the hypothetical question, of the pair of them, the pair of them, standing together as they are. Worst of all, of Arthur and his coveting, his yearning made worse in the cascading of that dark sound, fallen fruit decaying. What other sweetness can one compare it to?
The palpitations of his heart come so sharp, so severe, he fears it will pierce straight through his ribcage and into the ribcage of this house's warden. Wouldn't that be a way for this frozen, ambiguous place in time to end, this ill-fit couple speared by Arthur Morgan's terrified heart?
And with the tick of the clock's littlest hand, superficial strangeness, Rico will feel his often-reluctant companion ease into his embrace, that vexed pulse slowing. He's brought his arms up to β not firmly, nor loosely β embrace him back, a portion of his face and one unsure, wet, glittering eye peeking out beyond the swell of Rico's arm.
Then, gone. Fawnlike, he's properly tucked it into obscurity, into hidding. The influence Rico's solid embrace, his swaying, the hand cupped in his hair have on the memory of Arthur's nerve-ends causing this tangible response. Much of what he can recall of Rico tugging him close in debatable consciousness feels little more than a dream. Held, or the rough stroke of knuckle, thumb on his soft, always-waiting lip. Never enough pressure to jolt him, neither light enough to evade encouraging electric tingling.
He has no memory, nothing proper. Nothing to testify with were he a man that bothered with such notions, were this a world that cared for such notions. But oh, the flesh, the shape of this caught outlaw's very being, they keep keen records. And Rico is radiating warmth, heavy presence, he doesn't waver like a dream of lost loved ones, doesn't swing from his neck like his father. He stays, significant and substantial.
Branded teethmarks, sinister devotion.
Between the passage of time and the displays of affection Rico has demonstrated therein, and the desperation for comfort and love from one flickering, ghost-child, something is crossed β something is lost and damaged, and in a barely acknowledged response to the lessons Rico's hands have taught this embraced body countlessly, Arthur's erect. The faint, small mound of denim warming, pulsing once, factual, against Rico Dredd's abdomen.
And so nice, and cherished, and favored as Arthur feels, even at present, this erection feels a trivial, distant memory. He's let himself go astray in those arms, let them lull him away from the damning threat of his own heart which, for once, has failed to alert him entirely of any impending threats. He's practically melted, caught up in his arms like some soft-boned, silk-furred, milk-mouthed pup.
Through his tattered, sun-faded denim, he feels a second, delayed pulse, and the desire for Rico seems to make him swelter, and, there β guilt. It wedges between them, and breaths a little unsteady, he shifts to break free of his arms.]
β¦I'm. I'm sorry, [in hushed tones still, like he's drowsy, like he's unmistakably self-conscious. Like he hasn't a clue what else to say.]
[Rico is a presence settled in his skin. The body is essential to the essence of humanity, and nobody knows that better than him. Sinew and muscle, love and arousal. His own body carries the imprint of so many others; His fathers will, the hard set of his jaw, the resonance of his voice, the resemblance unmistakable. His brothers face. His hands. Rico's hands, now. What is a man to do when he does not possess even anything of himself?
A simple enough answer, one that Rico eventually understood to be true: he is to possess others. Rico would be pleased to know that he's left more than just a ghost in Arthur's dreams, that even his body recognizes what the conscious mind does not - or refuses to. If you want my attention, you'll have it. You've always had it.]
Don't apologize for anything. Never for being yourself. [A half-smile, humorless, but not unkind.] I certainly don't.
[Some things are born crimes, long before they become criminals. The drowsy thing in his arms - he lets him emerge but not too far, regards him seriously, cups calloused hand to cheek. Unwittingly dredged and inspired from the depths of some memory, imagined or not;]
Let's put you to bed.
[Those words come out as the flinty patrician, crossed with the memory of the mother.]
[But what does that mean, being yourself? Three minutes ago he would have had absolute conviction that without some forced stimulus he would never of his own accord become of a sudden aroused over Rico Dredd. The whole of him: presence, sensation, carnal reality. Scent of starch and ink and deep, preferred cologne. The sound of his beating heart. A guardian's embrace, that could remove Arthur from this life if he ever wished, tighten with the strength of a boa constrictor.
Never mind the sprinkle of conflicted, troubled fantasies which would torment Arthur into waking over these months β long before the chill of winter hit the air, and compounded during his time under this roof. Seized by this lapse, this loss of self β how else to describe it? β he stares into the small space made new between them when Rico allows him to loosen free. Already that terrible heartbeat surges, rattled.
And his familiar boy, Rico places hand to face, and receives the dip of visage, more eyelashes as Arthur retreats partially into himself, diffident, warm skin heating rose. His legs stay planted though, obedient, up until he's shuffling back and to the side to give up what space Rico needs to move. He glances beyond him into the master bedroom, at the desk, and the abandoned work.
What an argument to lead him here. It isn't what he wanted. Not to be embraced, to be lit from the inside out by the corporeality of Rico. He wanted things to feel like they once did β simple, menial work. Easy conversation, absent of expectation. No one reaching to touch him for too long, or at all. Is the loneliness turning him mad? All that's transpired between them, will any form which banishes loneliness make him less of the person he remembers?
Never for being yourself.
What does that mean, when Rico's punished him for the rebellion he clung to so it felt and feels a very fixed part of himself? Being yourself.
Who and what is that?
Rico could be speaking to him now, but it hasn't registered. He's dissociated into himself, for a moment or minutes, neither moving nor speaking, absent gaze on the legs of the desk. Unfocused inside this room which he's never been allowed into. No dogs in the bedroom.
With a slow, heavy blink, he sinks back into his own body, says, an almost yet not quite empty vessel:] I can manage.
[Not retaliation, so much as it is suggestion. It's what he'd like β to put himself to bed without company or interference. But there's no tells he'll make a pain of himself should Rico insist on his involvement.]
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judgementcrime) wrote2000-08-20 11:21 am
no subject
βsuddenly, just like that. To confess. He stuns Arthur into unresponsiveness. Hope and horror. The serpent squeezes, and the rabbit begs for deathβfor freedom, for release.
The hope bleeding through the fear is what makes him feel dizzy, nauseated, though he's lying on the carpet-covered floorboards under some miscellaneous bed, within some miscellaneous room, in some house far larger than any man really needs.
With what may amount to the predictability of startled prey, he sends no reply or acknowledgement. In mind, he springs for trees, stalled momentarilyβif only within himselfβby an urgent, stupefying instinct to bound toward the wolf's salivating maw.]
no subject
It'll be a while yet, though. And so, Rico squeezes.]
You know where I am.
[Do with that what he will.]
no subject
Much like the source of these memories, they press inward with incessancy. Interrupt and curb the budding stark recollections of the same hands bestowing lessons colored in cruelty. Every man has his limit, no man indomitable β and though it is fair to say he may not have reached this point without extenuating circumstances, here he is: nudged passed the border.
Broken child who cannot bear to lose the hat of the father who treated him like property, he weeps silent into the back of an arm pressed against his eyelids. Soundless and shuddering. Consumed with confusion and grief and shame. A strange sense of pleading. This is not the first time Rico hasn't left room for doubt. But none of them are you, is what he said, wasn't it, that night, when he allowed the outlaw to see what he could really be capable of.
His eyes are red though dry and his throat sore by the time he wanders through the house to the master bedroom. From the slash of light from beneath the door, the flickering of lengthening and receding shadows, shuffle of steps approaching and then suddenly retreating, Rico, at the room's desk or otherwise, may easily tell the stray is outside of it, contending with his own thoughts.
Then, finally, the restless sway and quiver of shadow stills, and he knocks. Once, twice. Short andβcredit owed to fearβwith an appalling lack of enthusiasm.]
no subject
It's odd. But fascinating, too. And softening, in some ways, to a man as capable of cruelties as Rico. Because seeing Arthur standing there, fearful yet wordless, asking for something he can give him, wanting him; it's enough to make him break out into a smile of genuine happiness, an unguarded expression so few other than Arthur have truly been privileged to see. He beckons him closer, gives him permission just as wordlessly.
And true to his word, Rico has abandoned his work - which lies cast aside slaphappy at the desk.]
no subject
There is no differentiation between the apprehension or the shy longing increasing the beats of his heart. Unsure, worried, flustered, he drops his gaze, and vaguely entertains no novel idea of bolting. And as he dwells upon ingrained instinct and his resistance to it thereof, his jewel-like eyes skim Rico's hands. Yesterdays have yet to release their gripβhe's plunged into recent memories of the damage those very hands have done. Of the sweetness, tantalizing and precarious and shockingly soothing.
And what his father's hands did, again and again, trail close behind. His father's rage. His father's absence. For days, weeks. A month at times. Even when his mind refuses to acknowledge it, his body still remembers yearning for the beatings over the absence. At least he was there. Good boys must be obedient and pleasing and unquestioning to earn safety, warmth, affection.
Whether it's vanished by now or not, that smile burns through this like unexpected and streaming sunlight. There's one of those abrupt, unconscious, droplets of a tear dropping off his cheek he hardly notices, and a shuddering breath comes after, as though he means to settle and steel himself.]
Thisβ¦ You'reβ [with face rising. But timid creature, he freezes and falters again, and stares shyly and needing and round-eyed at Rico's knees. He's provided permission, however. Beckoned him. Only Arthur feels overwhelmingly too awed by him to look at him directly when he shuffles those few steps closer to delicately plant face and body near-imperceptible into Rico's familiar and expansive chest.
His shoulders are high and tight, the fear and uncertainty ever-pervading, but he's closed his eyes, relief stirring through him just as much.]
β¦it's really okay? [Meant solely, utterly for Rico Dredd's ears alone. Though spoken so quietly, lips fluttering against cloth, who knows if he'll hear it.
He feels a fool entire β but he is too lonely, too disconnected, too heartbroken, too afraid to care to muster up bravado. He wants nothing else, in this moment, than to think about Rico allowing him this nearness, choosing him over something else.]
no subject
Rico was once needed. And then, he was not. Instinct brings his arms up to envelope that tense slope of Arthur's shoulders, and instinct compels him to hold him fast. Perhaps, in this moment, Rico sees something of himself. He feels the whisper of a question, mouth moving barely against the stiff fabric of his shirt. This soft moment is something for him, and him alone. Plenty of times Rico's indulged the luxury of embracing him like this in sleep, pliant and half-confused in a dream. Doted on him like a favorite pet while leashed to his hand, wrist tied to wrist. But ever-so-rarely in waking, willing moments, with Arthur coming to him.
Rico hums a deep, dark sound, meaningless and yet an answer all at once.]
You're mine now, little Arthur.
[He gives a name to the thing he holds - shown in a crack, his past and the years between. Little Arthur. Little Joe. Shameful creature, desperation-for-affection. He stands there, his hand twined in Arthur's fine hair, swaying him slightly. To settle the shuddering breath, and in the warm crook of his elbow to collect any further tears to come. Like some content beast, whose prey has chosen to come to him.]
How could anyone say no to a pretty thing like you, when you ask so nicely?
no subject
The palpitations of his heart come so sharp, so severe, he fears it will pierce straight through his ribcage and into the ribcage of this house's warden. Wouldn't that be a way for this frozen, ambiguous place in time to end, this ill-fit couple speared by Arthur Morgan's terrified heart?
And with the tick of the clock's littlest hand, superficial strangeness, Rico will feel his often-reluctant companion ease into his embrace, that vexed pulse slowing. He's brought his arms up to β not firmly, nor loosely β embrace him back, a portion of his face and one unsure, wet, glittering eye peeking out beyond the swell of Rico's arm.
Then, gone. Fawnlike, he's properly tucked it into obscurity, into hidding. The influence Rico's solid embrace, his swaying, the hand cupped in his hair have on the memory of Arthur's nerve-ends causing this tangible response. Much of what he can recall of Rico tugging him close in debatable consciousness feels little more than a dream. Held, or the rough stroke of knuckle, thumb on his soft, always-waiting lip. Never enough pressure to jolt him, neither light enough to evade encouraging electric tingling.
He has no memory, nothing proper. Nothing to testify with were he a man that bothered with such notions, were this a world that cared for such notions. But oh, the flesh, the shape of this caught outlaw's very being, they keep keen records. And Rico is radiating warmth, heavy presence, he doesn't waver like a dream of lost loved ones, doesn't swing from his neck like his father. He stays, significant and substantial.
Branded teethmarks, sinister devotion.
Between the passage of time and the displays of affection Rico has demonstrated therein, and the desperation for comfort and love from one flickering, ghost-child, something is crossed β something is lost and damaged, and in a barely acknowledged response to the lessons Rico's hands have taught this embraced body countlessly, Arthur's erect. The faint, small mound of denim warming, pulsing once, factual, against Rico Dredd's abdomen.
And so nice, and cherished, and favored as Arthur feels, even at present, this erection feels a trivial, distant memory. He's let himself go astray in those arms, let them lull him away from the damning threat of his own heart which, for once, has failed to alert him entirely of any impending threats. He's practically melted, caught up in his arms like some soft-boned, silk-furred, milk-mouthed pup.
Through his tattered, sun-faded denim, he feels a second, delayed pulse, and the desire for Rico seems to make him swelter, and, there β guilt. It wedges between them, and breaths a little unsteady, he shifts to break free of his arms.]
β¦I'm. I'm sorry, [in hushed tones still, like he's drowsy, like he's unmistakably self-conscious. Like he hasn't a clue what else to say.]
no subject
A simple enough answer, one that Rico eventually understood to be true: he is to possess others. Rico would be pleased to know that he's left more than just a ghost in Arthur's dreams, that even his body recognizes what the conscious mind does not - or refuses to. If you want my attention, you'll have it. You've always had it.]
Don't apologize for anything. Never for being yourself. [A half-smile, humorless, but not unkind.] I certainly don't.
[Some things are born crimes, long before they become criminals. The drowsy thing in his arms - he lets him emerge but not too far, regards him seriously, cups calloused hand to cheek. Unwittingly dredged and inspired from the depths of some memory, imagined or not;]
Let's put you to bed.
[Those words come out as the flinty patrician, crossed with the memory of the mother.]
no subject
Never mind the sprinkle of conflicted, troubled fantasies which would torment Arthur into waking over these months β long before the chill of winter hit the air, and compounded during his time under this roof. Seized by this lapse, this loss of self β how else to describe it? β he stares into the small space made new between them when Rico allows him to loosen free. Already that terrible heartbeat surges, rattled.
And his familiar boy, Rico places hand to face, and receives the dip of visage, more eyelashes as Arthur retreats partially into himself, diffident, warm skin heating rose. His legs stay planted though, obedient, up until he's shuffling back and to the side to give up what space Rico needs to move. He glances beyond him into the master bedroom, at the desk, and the abandoned work.
What an argument to lead him here. It isn't what he wanted. Not to be embraced, to be lit from the inside out by the corporeality of Rico. He wanted things to feel like they once did β simple, menial work. Easy conversation, absent of expectation. No one reaching to touch him for too long, or at all. Is the loneliness turning him mad? All that's transpired between them, will any form which banishes loneliness make him less of the person he remembers?
Never for being yourself.
What does that mean, when Rico's punished him for the rebellion he clung to so it felt and feels a very fixed part of himself? Being yourself.
Who and what is that?
Rico could be speaking to him now, but it hasn't registered. He's dissociated into himself, for a moment or minutes, neither moving nor speaking, absent gaze on the legs of the desk. Unfocused inside this room which he's never been allowed into. No dogs in the bedroom.
With a slow, heavy blink, he sinks back into his own body, says, an almost yet not quite empty vessel:] I can manage.
[Not retaliation, so much as it is suggestion. It's what he'd like β to put himself to bed without company or interference. But there's no tells he'll make a pain of himself should Rico insist on his involvement.]