Callie (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
calliope_love) wrote2010-09-25 08:39 pm
calliope_love) wrote2010-09-25 08:39 pm
Entry tags:
008: Gift fiiiiic
Title: Cannot Be Unseen
Rating: R -- I wouldn't call it NC-17, but, you know, there's this one bit that...don't read it at work.
Disclaimer: I'm not near this preoccupied with any of my OWN stories.
Summary: Gilbert makes a discovery. (Then he makes another one later, because I find it funny to cause Gilbert distress.)
Length: 2,534 words
Something a bit different from me -- and so I am not too sure about it. It's Break/Liam, really, but through the eyes of another character. I don't quite feel like I have a handle on writing Gilly, but it's good to break out of one's shell once in a while, so here we are. Enjoy!
Gilbert couldn’t really remember the last time they’d enjoyed a day so calm. It wasn’t that their workload had decreased — no, they had plenty of time to themselves as it was, really, and all the same worries and concerns as they usually did. It was more that the atmosphere had. . .not stilled, exactly, but the chaos that was prone to breaking out over the group at any given time was missing. Alice was in a pleasant mood, and tolerating more of her companions’ general existence than she usually did; Oz was introducing her to his Holy Knight novels, laughing easily as she voiced her arrogant, simple opinions on them. Sharon was spending the day with her grandmother, giving them all a lovely reprieve from her attempts to teach the stupid rabbit that she was female. Liam had joined them for breakfast, and then he and Break had gone off somewhere together. Given that Liam was Liam and Break was Break, Gil figured that Liam was trying to get some work done and Break was doing his best to make that difficult, but at least it meant the Hatter wasn’t harassing the rest of them.
With the day so peaceful, Gil was more than content to simply sit back and enjoy it, holding himself carefully apart from any situation that could disturb things. He was still prowling the halls of the Rainsworth mansion and checking on Oz frequently, of course. But for the most part he let his young master be. Oz was happy, so things were fine. Things were good, even.
It was really a wonderful day.
In the end, when he was not prowling, he wound up spending much of his time in the room that had been set aside for him at Rainsworth. He wasn’t particularly attached to it; he never really slept well when he stayed there, because Break’s room was directly below his and he didn’t trust for an instant that the man had no plans to take advantage of that little detail at some point. Gilbert inspected the wardrobe every time he settled in for the night and checked every lock he could find three times before getting into bed, but this meant nothing in the grand scheme of things — not where Break was concerned. Not if the man could pop out from under table cloths. All the maids were probably wondering why Gilbert kept stuffing the dust ruffle of his bed up under his mattress, leaving whatever was beneath the bed in full view.
Or maybe they weren’t wondering. Break had lived there for years, after all.
In any case, it was a very nice room despite its proximity to mortal terror, and Sharon had seen to it that he’d been given one with a balcony so he’d have a private place to smoke. He was on the balcony just then, leaning on the railing; his packet of cigarettes was at his elbow. And everything was lovely. The peace was lovely, the weather was lovely, Oz was — finally having his master back was lovely. Lovely lovely lovely; until he turned to go back inside and accidentally knocked his cigarettes off the balcony and into the bushes by Break’s window.
Ah. Well, crap.
Gilbert spent a moment debating the likelihood of Break having horrible booby traps set up outside his room. It was probably very high. But, Break was out, so at least if Gil tripped anything Break wouldn’t have the satisfaction of seeing it. Feeling rather too mellow to be fussed — a novel feeling, that — he went outside to fetch his cigarettes, swinging by to check on his master as he did so. He noted happily that Alice was now too interested in the story to trash-talk it and Oz was just getting to one of his favorite parts. The stupid rabbit wasn’t so bad when her mouth was shut.
Outside, he glared suspiciously at the shrubbery that now contained his cigarettes. He didn’t see anything that could be a booby trap, but again, this meant nothing when you were standing outside the window of one Xerxes Break. At last, Gil heaved a sigh and decided to just go for it. Move in, get cigarettes, move out. Get it over with. The pack was easy to spot, white and blue against the green of the shrubs; it was in his hand and he was standing to make his exit when he glanced up and noticed that Break’s curtains had not been shut very carefully, and there was just enough of an opening that he could see into Break’s room.
Break was definitely in his room just then, it turned out. And Liam was definitely in his room with him, because those were definitely Liam’s earrings in that man’s ears, and the two of them definitely were not wearing any clothing and they were, in fact, definitely having sex.
Gil gaped. It was instinct alone that kept him from emitting the strangled noise that formed in his throat. Because there they were, obviously having been at it for a while, and Break was on his back with his hair fallen away from his face and the jacket of Liam’s uniform was crumpled carelessly at the foot of the bed; Break reached up to wrap an arm around the other man’s shoulders and the sheets were half off the bed and Liam was moving slowly, so slowly, and oh God he was circling his hips in order to get himself as deep into Break as possible with every — and then Break arched against him as Liam started to speed up and —
His face so hot he almost couldn’t stand to have it attached to his head, Gil sank down into the bushes the way a boulder sinks in a pond, trying to process what he’d just seen. It had honestly never occurred to him in his entire life that Break or Liam had sex with anyone, let alone with each other; but now all manner of small, inconsequential things he’d noticed over the past few years suddenly made a disturbing amount of sense. There was the uncanny ability the two had to spot the one another across a crowded room within seconds, as though they were always looking out for each other. There was the time Gil had gone to leave some paperwork in Liam’s office, sure the other man was there, only to find the door shut and locked. There was the time he’d seen one of Break’s favorite candies fall out of Liam’s pocket, and the way they bickered like an old married couple —
…oh God, they bickered like an old married couple. They did. They did. Gil pressed his fists against his closed eyes, which were probably always going to have the image of — um, yes, that, burned into them now; right then both of the men in the room let out strained moans, one after the other, probably because Gil had not actually had a heart attack yet. The silence resumed after that, though. Feeling cold and shaky, and also possibly suicidal, Gil risked lifting his head to peer into the window again, just to make sure he hadn’t somehow hallucinated the whole thing.
Nope. They were still there, and also still naked. They seemed to be done with the sex part, though. They were both breathing heavily, eyes closed, and Break took hold of Liam’s face to pull him in for a kiss — okay, yeah, no, that was too much, and Gil turned around to make a hasty exit, planning to lock himself in his room and whimper in the corner for the rest of the day.
As it happened, however, Break did have some booby traps placed right outside his window. A snapping sound, a twanging rope, and a shriek from Gilbert later, the young man found himself suspended upside down from his own balcony, a noose wrapped firmly around one of his legs.
oOo
It was a blessing in disguise, really, because by the time Break could be bothered to come out and taunt the young Nightray, it was obvious that Gil had a reason to be red in the face and spluttering, and that reason certainly had nothing to do with people who were not him having sex, and definitely not with Gilbert having seen it.
“Oh, goodness me,” Break said sadly as he rounded the corner of the house and stopped in front of Gil, who was swinging back and forth and clawing at the rope by then. “I seem to have caught a Raven.”
Emily was perched on his shoulder again and he was holding his floppy sleeves up to his face, feigning dismay. He was as carefully dressed as he always was, but now that he was paying attention Gilbert couldn’t help but notice that Break’s hair was just a bit sweaty at the sides of his face, and it was mussed awkwardly in the back. Liam joined them then, also as neat and tidy as ever, except that he was still buttoning the cuff of one sleeve and there was a faint flush across his cheeks.
Gaaaaaaaaaaaah.
“Xerxes Break, what in the world?” Liam was saying as he approached.
“A suspicious character has triggered one of my traps, Mister Liam!”
“I am not a suspicious character, I dropped my cigarettes,” growled Gil, still trying to tear himself down.
“In front of my window?”
“I was on my balcony and dropped them, now would you please get me down?”
“Your balcony?” Break turned to stare at it. “Oho, that’s your room right above mine?”
Gilbert stopped tugging at the rope in favor of staring at Break. So he hadn’t — hadn’t known…? Goddammit.
“Let him down, Xerxes, for pity’s sake. You are an unholy terror.”
“I am not unholy. And I’d rather like to leave him there, I think.”
“You are most certainly unholy and you are not leaving him there. Look at him, he’s going to have apoplexy in a moment.”
“That would be funny.”
“Xerxes!”
Please stop bickering like an old married couple, Gil begged them silently.
They didn’t, sniping gently at one another for several minutes before Break finally wandered into the bushes to deactivate his trap, saying something about how Liam ought not go over there; Gil didn’t quite register the bulk of it, having retreated to his favorite happy place in the back of his mind. He was jolted back to reality when the rope suddenly slackened and he tumbled back into the bushes, his reflexes the only thing that saved him from landing on his head.
Liam was standing over him suddenly, glaring over his shoulder at Break and saying, “You could have been a bit more gentle about it, you know.” Then he knelt down and placed his hand on Gilbert’s shoulder. “Are you alright?”
It was a good thing Gil’s face was already bright red. It saved him from having to explain a new flush as he pondered where the other man’s hand had probably been lately. He tore the rope from his leg and snatched his cigarettes from the ground where they’d fallen again, then accepted Liam’s aid in standing up.
They were both wearing gloves. Gloves made it okay. …Ick.
“You’re not hurt, are you?” Liam was asking. Gil shook his head no. The other man adjusted his glasses and glared at Break again, saying, “You were probably pretty lucky, all things considered. At least it wasn’t a terrible, psychologically traumatizing, deadly trap.”
“That one lives in front of Milady’s room,” Break said nonchalantly, gathering up his rope. “And now I’m going to have to redo this one. Silly Gilbert, causing me so much trouble.”
“Or you could stop being so horribly paranoid,” Liam suggested.
And there they went again. Gilbert walked a ways behind them as they went back into the house, trying not to notice the casual way that Liam reached out to straighten Break’s hair. This was going to take him ages to recover from.
oOo
One Month Later
For a while, Gilbert avoided Break and Liam when they were together. He found he could handle them each on their own without becoming too flustered, but now that he was watching for it, he couldn’t see why he had never suspected them of being together before his unfortunate little wake-up call. Break actually sort of behaved like a human being when he was interacting with Liam, and it almost seemed like Liam was such a nag to the other because it was his way of expressing affection. It made Gilbert feel shoved to one side when they were all in a group, with those two constantly retreating into their little bubble; it was almost the way he felt seeing Oz and Alice together, except that he knew Oz still definitely cared for him.
Oz. That was one good thing that had come of the whole fiasco. Break and Liam had a thirteen-year age difference between them. It made Gil feel a bit better about — well. It could work, someday.
It was that thought that really helped him move past what he’d seen, in the end. Good for them for having a relationship that was obviously very successful, he decided, and shoved the issue out of his mind.
Having removed it, he stopped being so carefully evasive, and barged into Liam’s office at Pandora one day with only a brief knock to announce himself. He stopped short when he discovered that Break was already in the office with Liam, and was in fact occupying most of Liam’s desk. They were both already half out of their uniforms. Liam had his hands up Break’s shirt and Break was tugging at Liam’s waistband.
Gilbert stared at Break and Liam. Break and Liam stared back. Presently, Liam cleared his throat and said, “I, ah. I’m a bit busy at the moment, Gilbert.”
Gil opened his mouth, and then shut it again, and then decided he was simply far too mortified to go on and fainted dead away.
“Oh dear,” noted Break.
“I thought you locked the door.”
“So did I. It must not have been closed all the way. Better watch out for that, next time.”
“Should we…?”
“No, he’s fine. Keep going.”
“But the door is open now,” Liam pointed out.
“Oh, alright, go tend to it,” Break said, releasing Liam’s pants and making a sulky face at him. “But do be quick about it.”
Liam carefully shoved Gilbert out into the hallway. When Gilbert woke up there later he could just barely hear the desk creaking through the heavy door. Rhythmically. He let out a little sob and dragged himself away.
It took him a full three months to get over that one. And it did not help that Break took to making lewd jokes at the dinner table.
PANdora Haatsu -- omake!
Rating: R -- I wouldn't call it NC-17, but, you know, there's this one bit that...don't read it at work.
Disclaimer: I'm not near this preoccupied with any of my OWN stories.
Summary: Gilbert makes a discovery. (Then he makes another one later, because I find it funny to cause Gilbert distress.)
Length: 2,534 words
Something a bit different from me -- and so I am not too sure about it. It's Break/Liam, really, but through the eyes of another character. I don't quite feel like I have a handle on writing Gilly, but it's good to break out of one's shell once in a while, so here we are. Enjoy!
Gilbert couldn’t really remember the last time they’d enjoyed a day so calm. It wasn’t that their workload had decreased — no, they had plenty of time to themselves as it was, really, and all the same worries and concerns as they usually did. It was more that the atmosphere had. . .not stilled, exactly, but the chaos that was prone to breaking out over the group at any given time was missing. Alice was in a pleasant mood, and tolerating more of her companions’ general existence than she usually did; Oz was introducing her to his Holy Knight novels, laughing easily as she voiced her arrogant, simple opinions on them. Sharon was spending the day with her grandmother, giving them all a lovely reprieve from her attempts to teach the stupid rabbit that she was female. Liam had joined them for breakfast, and then he and Break had gone off somewhere together. Given that Liam was Liam and Break was Break, Gil figured that Liam was trying to get some work done and Break was doing his best to make that difficult, but at least it meant the Hatter wasn’t harassing the rest of them.
With the day so peaceful, Gil was more than content to simply sit back and enjoy it, holding himself carefully apart from any situation that could disturb things. He was still prowling the halls of the Rainsworth mansion and checking on Oz frequently, of course. But for the most part he let his young master be. Oz was happy, so things were fine. Things were good, even.
It was really a wonderful day.
In the end, when he was not prowling, he wound up spending much of his time in the room that had been set aside for him at Rainsworth. He wasn’t particularly attached to it; he never really slept well when he stayed there, because Break’s room was directly below his and he didn’t trust for an instant that the man had no plans to take advantage of that little detail at some point. Gilbert inspected the wardrobe every time he settled in for the night and checked every lock he could find three times before getting into bed, but this meant nothing in the grand scheme of things — not where Break was concerned. Not if the man could pop out from under table cloths. All the maids were probably wondering why Gilbert kept stuffing the dust ruffle of his bed up under his mattress, leaving whatever was beneath the bed in full view.
Or maybe they weren’t wondering. Break had lived there for years, after all.
In any case, it was a very nice room despite its proximity to mortal terror, and Sharon had seen to it that he’d been given one with a balcony so he’d have a private place to smoke. He was on the balcony just then, leaning on the railing; his packet of cigarettes was at his elbow. And everything was lovely. The peace was lovely, the weather was lovely, Oz was — finally having his master back was lovely. Lovely lovely lovely; until he turned to go back inside and accidentally knocked his cigarettes off the balcony and into the bushes by Break’s window.
Ah. Well, crap.
Gilbert spent a moment debating the likelihood of Break having horrible booby traps set up outside his room. It was probably very high. But, Break was out, so at least if Gil tripped anything Break wouldn’t have the satisfaction of seeing it. Feeling rather too mellow to be fussed — a novel feeling, that — he went outside to fetch his cigarettes, swinging by to check on his master as he did so. He noted happily that Alice was now too interested in the story to trash-talk it and Oz was just getting to one of his favorite parts. The stupid rabbit wasn’t so bad when her mouth was shut.
Outside, he glared suspiciously at the shrubbery that now contained his cigarettes. He didn’t see anything that could be a booby trap, but again, this meant nothing when you were standing outside the window of one Xerxes Break. At last, Gil heaved a sigh and decided to just go for it. Move in, get cigarettes, move out. Get it over with. The pack was easy to spot, white and blue against the green of the shrubs; it was in his hand and he was standing to make his exit when he glanced up and noticed that Break’s curtains had not been shut very carefully, and there was just enough of an opening that he could see into Break’s room.
Break was definitely in his room just then, it turned out. And Liam was definitely in his room with him, because those were definitely Liam’s earrings in that man’s ears, and the two of them definitely were not wearing any clothing and they were, in fact, definitely having sex.
Gil gaped. It was instinct alone that kept him from emitting the strangled noise that formed in his throat. Because there they were, obviously having been at it for a while, and Break was on his back with his hair fallen away from his face and the jacket of Liam’s uniform was crumpled carelessly at the foot of the bed; Break reached up to wrap an arm around the other man’s shoulders and the sheets were half off the bed and Liam was moving slowly, so slowly, and oh God he was circling his hips in order to get himself as deep into Break as possible with every — and then Break arched against him as Liam started to speed up and —
His face so hot he almost couldn’t stand to have it attached to his head, Gil sank down into the bushes the way a boulder sinks in a pond, trying to process what he’d just seen. It had honestly never occurred to him in his entire life that Break or Liam had sex with anyone, let alone with each other; but now all manner of small, inconsequential things he’d noticed over the past few years suddenly made a disturbing amount of sense. There was the uncanny ability the two had to spot the one another across a crowded room within seconds, as though they were always looking out for each other. There was the time Gil had gone to leave some paperwork in Liam’s office, sure the other man was there, only to find the door shut and locked. There was the time he’d seen one of Break’s favorite candies fall out of Liam’s pocket, and the way they bickered like an old married couple —
…oh God, they bickered like an old married couple. They did. They did. Gil pressed his fists against his closed eyes, which were probably always going to have the image of — um, yes, that, burned into them now; right then both of the men in the room let out strained moans, one after the other, probably because Gil had not actually had a heart attack yet. The silence resumed after that, though. Feeling cold and shaky, and also possibly suicidal, Gil risked lifting his head to peer into the window again, just to make sure he hadn’t somehow hallucinated the whole thing.
Nope. They were still there, and also still naked. They seemed to be done with the sex part, though. They were both breathing heavily, eyes closed, and Break took hold of Liam’s face to pull him in for a kiss — okay, yeah, no, that was too much, and Gil turned around to make a hasty exit, planning to lock himself in his room and whimper in the corner for the rest of the day.
As it happened, however, Break did have some booby traps placed right outside his window. A snapping sound, a twanging rope, and a shriek from Gilbert later, the young man found himself suspended upside down from his own balcony, a noose wrapped firmly around one of his legs.
It was a blessing in disguise, really, because by the time Break could be bothered to come out and taunt the young Nightray, it was obvious that Gil had a reason to be red in the face and spluttering, and that reason certainly had nothing to do with people who were not him having sex, and definitely not with Gilbert having seen it.
“Oh, goodness me,” Break said sadly as he rounded the corner of the house and stopped in front of Gil, who was swinging back and forth and clawing at the rope by then. “I seem to have caught a Raven.”
Emily was perched on his shoulder again and he was holding his floppy sleeves up to his face, feigning dismay. He was as carefully dressed as he always was, but now that he was paying attention Gilbert couldn’t help but notice that Break’s hair was just a bit sweaty at the sides of his face, and it was mussed awkwardly in the back. Liam joined them then, also as neat and tidy as ever, except that he was still buttoning the cuff of one sleeve and there was a faint flush across his cheeks.
Gaaaaaaaaaaaah.
“Xerxes Break, what in the world?” Liam was saying as he approached.
“A suspicious character has triggered one of my traps, Mister Liam!”
“I am not a suspicious character, I dropped my cigarettes,” growled Gil, still trying to tear himself down.
“In front of my window?”
“I was on my balcony and dropped them, now would you please get me down?”
“Your balcony?” Break turned to stare at it. “Oho, that’s your room right above mine?”
Gilbert stopped tugging at the rope in favor of staring at Break. So he hadn’t — hadn’t known…? Goddammit.
“Let him down, Xerxes, for pity’s sake. You are an unholy terror.”
“I am not unholy. And I’d rather like to leave him there, I think.”
“You are most certainly unholy and you are not leaving him there. Look at him, he’s going to have apoplexy in a moment.”
“That would be funny.”
“Xerxes!”
Please stop bickering like an old married couple, Gil begged them silently.
They didn’t, sniping gently at one another for several minutes before Break finally wandered into the bushes to deactivate his trap, saying something about how Liam ought not go over there; Gil didn’t quite register the bulk of it, having retreated to his favorite happy place in the back of his mind. He was jolted back to reality when the rope suddenly slackened and he tumbled back into the bushes, his reflexes the only thing that saved him from landing on his head.
Liam was standing over him suddenly, glaring over his shoulder at Break and saying, “You could have been a bit more gentle about it, you know.” Then he knelt down and placed his hand on Gilbert’s shoulder. “Are you alright?”
It was a good thing Gil’s face was already bright red. It saved him from having to explain a new flush as he pondered where the other man’s hand had probably been lately. He tore the rope from his leg and snatched his cigarettes from the ground where they’d fallen again, then accepted Liam’s aid in standing up.
They were both wearing gloves. Gloves made it okay. …Ick.
“You’re not hurt, are you?” Liam was asking. Gil shook his head no. The other man adjusted his glasses and glared at Break again, saying, “You were probably pretty lucky, all things considered. At least it wasn’t a terrible, psychologically traumatizing, deadly trap.”
“That one lives in front of Milady’s room,” Break said nonchalantly, gathering up his rope. “And now I’m going to have to redo this one. Silly Gilbert, causing me so much trouble.”
“Or you could stop being so horribly paranoid,” Liam suggested.
And there they went again. Gilbert walked a ways behind them as they went back into the house, trying not to notice the casual way that Liam reached out to straighten Break’s hair. This was going to take him ages to recover from.
One Month Later
For a while, Gilbert avoided Break and Liam when they were together. He found he could handle them each on their own without becoming too flustered, but now that he was watching for it, he couldn’t see why he had never suspected them of being together before his unfortunate little wake-up call. Break actually sort of behaved like a human being when he was interacting with Liam, and it almost seemed like Liam was such a nag to the other because it was his way of expressing affection. It made Gilbert feel shoved to one side when they were all in a group, with those two constantly retreating into their little bubble; it was almost the way he felt seeing Oz and Alice together, except that he knew Oz still definitely cared for him.
Oz. That was one good thing that had come of the whole fiasco. Break and Liam had a thirteen-year age difference between them. It made Gil feel a bit better about — well. It could work, someday.
It was that thought that really helped him move past what he’d seen, in the end. Good for them for having a relationship that was obviously very successful, he decided, and shoved the issue out of his mind.
Having removed it, he stopped being so carefully evasive, and barged into Liam’s office at Pandora one day with only a brief knock to announce himself. He stopped short when he discovered that Break was already in the office with Liam, and was in fact occupying most of Liam’s desk. They were both already half out of their uniforms. Liam had his hands up Break’s shirt and Break was tugging at Liam’s waistband.
Gilbert stared at Break and Liam. Break and Liam stared back. Presently, Liam cleared his throat and said, “I, ah. I’m a bit busy at the moment, Gilbert.”
Gil opened his mouth, and then shut it again, and then decided he was simply far too mortified to go on and fainted dead away.
“Oh dear,” noted Break.
“I thought you locked the door.”
“So did I. It must not have been closed all the way. Better watch out for that, next time.”
“Should we…?”
“No, he’s fine. Keep going.”
“But the door is open now,” Liam pointed out.
“Oh, alright, go tend to it,” Break said, releasing Liam’s pants and making a sulky face at him. “But do be quick about it.”
Liam carefully shoved Gilbert out into the hallway. When Gilbert woke up there later he could just barely hear the desk creaking through the heavy door. Rhythmically. He let out a little sob and dragged himself away.
It took him a full three months to get over that one. And it did not help that Break took to making lewd jokes at the dinner table.
PANdora Haatsu -- omake!
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Old married couple, indeed!
Now I would love to hear about the "terrible, psychologically traumatizing, deadly trap.” that's outside Sharon's window...
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Haha, oh poor Gilbert :P
<3
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I think if anyone really did walk in on Liam having a romp he'd probably do the flustered thing. But maybe since it was Break he had switched into dominant-mode and couldn't be bothered. XD
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And agreed. Break and Liam totally argue like an old married couple x'D <33
Poor Gilbert though...ornot.He did get to see some sexytime. Lol.
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