calliope_love: (Break: Take care of him.)
Callie ([personal profile] calliope_love) wrote2011-02-02 11:59 pm

22: Well, this came out of pretty much nowhere

Title: In the Still of Your Hands
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: If it was mine I wouldn't be po'
Summary: Kink meme fill: "Break/Reim. Sometimes just sleeping together is better than sex."

I promise I have no idea why it wound up being first person, or what to do about it. I love writing first person, but never in fic; these characters are hard enough to nail write properly as it is. XP
Length: 1,974 words


One of the many, many things I don’t tell people — one of the many things no one needs to know — is that I cannot sleep when the days run too long and full. I would not call it insomnia, nor would I say I grow too tired to sleep. It’s more of a sensory overload, of sorts. When there are too many things happening, when I am doing too much, when I haven’t had the time to sit and sort things through, I lose my ability to think. Everything turns and turns in my mind, around and around until I don’t remember what I was doing only a few moments ago, because there’s simply too much in there for anything else to enter and stay. Thoughts pass through my head before I can really register what they are and leave me scrambling to keep track of them while the next wave sneaks up on me from behind, only to be lost the same way. I forget to sleep when this happens. I’m too busy trying to remember how to know things.

It’s for this reason that I don’t do half the work I should. Once, I could do as much in a day as Liam does, easily, for weeks at a time. If I tried it now, I wouldn’t be able to function.

Tonight is one of those nights.

I come aware of myself again to find that I am standing next to my own bed. The overcoat of my uniform is laid out across it and my cravat is folded neatly in my hands, but I don’t remember doing either of these things; nor do I remember what I was thinking about before I noticed — my coat? Illegal contractors, two working together, murdered prostitutes, Gilbert’s thigh is bleeding but he can run, and I should turn out the lamp and climb into bed and that’s a familiar thought, one that I’ve probably already had at least three times tonight. Reports are due. These I must write myself. I don’t know which is needed first. I don’t remember which happened first. Sharon’s birthday is approaching and there is silk underneath my fingers, a contrast to the aches in the muscles I pulled because I didn’t have time to stretch before Gilbert’s thigh was bleeding but he could run. It is sometime after one in the morning, but I don’t know how much time has passed since I heard the clock; only that I probably did hear it tonight and not last night because I am never awake past one in the morning. Did Gilbert lose his hat? Emily is on the bed. I should turn out the light and climb into bed, and this is how it’s going to be all night unless —

The clock strikes two.

I should go to Liam.

Before I can lose track of this notion, I force myself to turn, climb into my wardrobe. The cravat is no longer in my hands. I must have dropped it. On sheer instinct, I force the wardrobe to shift, and then it’s Liam’s clothing surrounding me. I know this because the coat to my left has the faint scent of the subtle, simple aftershave he uses clinging to its collar. I am intimately familiar with this smell. Aftershave and blood and gunpowder and the lingering smell of a portal to the Abyss, something like lightning, and Sharon’s favorite tea and I clamber out of the wardrobe and don’t bother at all to be quiet about it. The moon is full and the curtains are just open enough to let some of the light in, because Liam doesn’t like to sleep in pitch dark, and in that light I can see him sitting up in bed, turned over his shoulder to stare at me. His eyes are wide.

When he sees that it’s me he relaxes, just a little, and calls my name. My first name — the one even I forget that I have, sometimes, unless it’s said to me. I miss what he says next but he’ll be wanting to know what’s wrong, and he scoots to the edge of his bed to meet me when I approach, stopping me to remove the long vest of the Pandora uniform. I had thought I’d taken it off, but I must be remembering taking it off on a different day; I regroup just enough to give him a smile and tell him I’m alright, that I just wanted to see him. He won’t believe it for a second, but he’ll worry more if I’m not attempting to lie to his face.

“What happened?” he’s saying. “Xerxes? Did the mission go badly? There were two at once, I read the briefing —”

“No, we did it, it went alright,” I say. “Gilbert. Hurt his leg, but he could run on it.” Might have lost his hat. I don’t think so. When did I last see it on his head, returning to Pandora after the mission or returning to Pandora yesterday?

“Xerxes.” Liam tugs me into the bed, pulling me close and rolling me over him, because his wardrobe is to the left of his bed and I like to be on the right side of it, when we sleep together. I don’t put up a fight. Liam is the one person I trust to move me to somewhere I am currently not, and I leave my legs slung over his as he settles me in. He’s taken his earrings off to sleep so I have nothing dangly to play with, but I lift my hand to his shoulder anyway, and run a finger through the short hair on his neck. I could never go to Sharon like this. I love her dearly, but she must always know exactly what’s wrong, and she’ll fuss and cry and hit until she gets every detail and if she doesn’t she’ll storm off in a huff and blame herself; Liam wants details, always wants details, but so long as I get back to normal relatively quickly he’ll let it all just pass away and this isn’t silk under my fingers so I must have dropped my cravat —

Xerxes.” It’s the feel of his hand catching mine that calls my attention more so than my name. When my eye focuses on him properly he says, “Xerxes, what’s wrong?”

I take a breath and don’t let it out because I don’t know what sorts of words will come out on it when I do. I don’t know where to start. I don’t want to tell him anything; that’s admitting something is wrong. I don’t want anything to be wrong. I want to exist. The night is quiet and I want to be quiet, too. But he will not let me get away with that, not when I’ve just burst into his room at some horribly uncivilized hour and then failed to pass it off as merely being obnoxious, so after a moment I put on my best smile and tell him, “It has been a very long day.”

Both smile and tone must have failed miserably because he actually accepts this as a real answer, and tilts my face up to kiss me. Liam-kisses are always good and sweet, even the early ones when he turned red and sputtered and didn’t know how to move, even the ones where he can’t see me very well and misses. I will never tell him that I like the corner-of-the-mouth-kisses. I think he has figured it out anyway. I am never up this late. Under my fingers now is the soft cotton of his pajama shirt, and he moves to put his arms around me and pull me close. Liam is a very huggy person, when he is done being shy with you, and I don’t mind because it reminds me that I’m not running full-speed down a broken street, sword in hand, blood on sword, not one Chain but two shrieking behind me, and one of them stops abruptly with a gunshot. I twist just enough in his hold to let my left leg fall to the bed, but my right remains draped over his; he moves one, settles one of his thighs between my own. I am entirely comfortable this way.

Liam is the one to end the kiss, but only to ask in a whisper, “Did you want to…?”

I know exactly what he means; he was just forward enough to slip his leg between mine. I am content to leave it there, but I shake my head, saying, “No, no, not tonight, I’m tired, I —” am bone tired and feel like I have been tired for years, and there is still the jolt in my ankles when I jump and land on stone, the air ruffling my hair when the Chain swipes behind me and misses, the drone of noble voices at a meeting I probably should have taken notes in because now I don’t remember a word.

But “no” is all Liam needs. He’s entirely pleased to have me in his bed whether we’re intimate or not, and he knows I wouldn’t be there at all tonight if I didn’t need him in some capacity. So he puts his mouth to mine again and slips his hands underneath the back of my shirt, doing nothing but touching, stroking, soothing. He’s been in bed for a while now and he’s warm and good and so easy to close my eye to, and though we’ve never discussed it and probably never will, we both know I sleep better when his hands have been on me.

I haven’t the faintest idea where he learned to be such a tender lover. It certainly wasn’t from me.

It’s gradual, but it works. It always works. Liam gives me something to focus on, a physical awareness I can’t deny. I can forget about the cravat when my mouth is resting against his neck. The movement of his hands is constant, regardless of when the clock struck last, and the heat of him doesn’t fade as I blank in and out. I’ll fall asleep like this, and I hope that for once I’m up first tomorrow morning — if he wakes up first, I’ll wake up alone, with breakfast waiting for me on his coffee table. There will be peppermint tea, because it’s the only tea I really enjoy cold, and he knows how easy it is for me to sleep till noon. But if I am up first, we will be intimate, then; I’ll wake him with touches just like these, and the first thing he’ll know will be me, and even though we’ve been together for ages he’ll blush every time he sees me for the rest of the day. It will be brilliant.

Either way of waking up would be fine, though, really, because either way I will wake up in Liam’s bed and all the nonsense of today will be far, far away. I will be properly Xerxes Break again and I will not care one whit whether or not Gilbert lost his stupid hat, and I might even remember what order my reports need to be done in. I might even do the first one. I might kiss Liam in his office with the door open and he will blush and stutter and lecture me about working hours, and I will go to visit Gilbert and his wounded leg and irritate him just by existing.

For now though, I desperately need to sleep, and Liam is busying himself working the tangles out of my hair with his fingers. Liam knows just what to do.

[identity profile] rosethorne.livejournal.com 2011-02-03 05:11 am (UTC)(link)
OMG so adorable! And thank you for responding to my proooompt~~~

Totally perfect in every way. <3

[identity profile] calliope-love.livejournal.com 2011-02-03 05:16 am (UTC)(link)
It was yours? The Break-and-Liam cult is starting to feel vaguely incestuous. We should stop posting on the meme entirely and just have prompt parties amongst ourselves. XD

I'm glad you liked it, though. <3 There's something more like my usual forthcoming, but this one shoved forward tonight.

[identity profile] rosethorne.livejournal.com 2011-02-03 05:19 am (UTC)(link)
Yeah, I randomly switch the spelling of Liam's name to make it harder to tell it's me. XD I actually have quite a few up there now. I'm glad this one inspired you!

I'd LOVE to do a prompt party. Hopefully I'll find the time to enjoy that kind of thing. Playing on [livejournal.com profile] springkink this month, with 9 Slayers prompts to write.

I shall look forward to that one, too.
ext_28298: Bakura Ryou kiss (Pandora Hearts BreakxLiam fall)

[identity profile] tsutsuji.livejournal.com 2011-02-03 10:39 am (UTC)(link)
So lovely and sweet, as it always is when you write them. It seems perfectly natural to me that you're writing Break in first person. The whole flow of his manic-exhausted thoughts seems very much him, including the way he starts to focus back on being his usual self near the end.

It's also a lovely way to see Liam through his perceptions of him, which is especially nice to me because, as dearly as I love Break, it's Liam I'm really in love with.

[identity profile] calliope-love.livejournal.com 2011-02-03 12:46 pm (UTC)(link)
I think this one really needed to be in first person because the manic-exhausted thoughts were the main point of the thing, and they wouldn't have had the same effect if I'd rattled them off in third. I got away with third in Needed because it was so urgent, I think -- this one was supposed to be lost in time somewhere. I double-checked by imagining the actions and dialogue and the faces he'd be making without the thoughts, and it seemed to read true.

I'm glad other people are saying I did keep him in character. Lately I've been really solidifying the way Break's mind works in my own headcanon in terms of scars left by his little jaunt through the Abyss, and I really do think his perceived laziness is absolutely conniving-ly deliberate for the sake of his own sanity. And that he would much rather let people think he's a bum than let on just what sort of madness it is he's constantly working through. The "easily overloaded" theme is also informed by the way he's been handling the chaos of Yura's party in recent chapters.

It's also a lovely way to see Liam through his perceptions of him

I will be working with this more in the very near future. In the meantime I agree with you -- Xerxes is the character I relate to personally, and like him, I rely on Liam as a steadying influence. And he's so fun to tease.

[identity profile] animaven.livejournal.com 2011-02-03 11:14 am (UTC)(link)
The comfort of a familiar lover is so soothing. How sweet it is.

[identity profile] calliope-love.livejournal.com 2011-02-03 12:50 pm (UTC)(link)
Mm. I have to admit my relationship with my long-term partner informs the way I write these two. Of course he's not really Liam and I'm not really Xerxes, but the dynamic of the kooky person whose brain isn't always fully functional and the steady person who supports the other just by being tender is there. It's one of my ways of keeping them natural.

[identity profile] animaven.livejournal.com 2011-02-05 08:24 am (UTC)(link)
And your icon of two hands grasping each other underlines the sentiments involved, also. Holding hands, touching lightly, these are moments that remain in our memories, long after any sexual moments. Love isn't sex alone, it is the fondness in our hearts for those we truly connect with in body and soul.

[identity profile] ryoura.livejournal.com 2011-02-03 12:38 pm (UTC)(link)
Ah, when I started, I was JUST thinking how nice it would be to have a Liam/Break fic from Breaks POV; and then this was! 8D Happiness!

This was so sweet and perfect! And Break's thought process was brilliant; loved it! :D

[identity profile] calliope-love.livejournal.com 2011-02-03 12:52 pm (UTC)(link)
Glad to be of service!

I have a nice bit of personal experience with being wired, scatterbrained, and fried in the middle of the night. I do not recommend it. :P

[identity profile] moonyazu9.livejournal.com 2011-02-11 02:57 pm (UTC)(link)
*sigh* You have such wonderful imagery throughout everything you write. And Break is very well done here! A bit of a change from your Liam-view fics, but it works nicely. The complexities of Break are very well-expressed and presented in a realistic, but very intimate manner, like Break's completely baring himself to the world. Very well done!