[closed] and if tomorrow it's all over

[ring_for_giles]

Who: Giles and Oswald
What: finally confronting what they've been dancing around for far too long
When: beginning of september
Where: their private pocket dimension
Warnings: discussions of sex



It's been a few weeks since the Events at the diner, and although things have calmed down significantly, it's still been very tense. Giles has done his best to put everything out of his mind whilst around Oswald, but he's still been more distant than usual, and it hasn't helped that Oswald has been just as distant. He can't know for certain the cause of Oswald's distance, but he's sure that what Sharky told him is no small part of it.

Although Giles has known that it wont get any better if they don't talk about it, if he doesn't start the conversation, he's been unable to bring himself to take that first step into the unknown. The arrival of a new suit, one that feels familiar when he puts it on (although it cannot be the exact same one he remembers), is what finally starts a plan forming in his mind and has him take that final step.

Whether it's a good plan or not, Giles has no idea, but it's a plan and it's better than nothing. It's also a plan that has him pacing the living room, checking and rechecking the gramophone, adjusting and readjusting his suit, and trying his level best to keep his anxiety in check.

Oswald has to come into the room eventually, and when he does Giles will be waiting with a small but inviting smile on his face and almost all trace of his racing thoughts pushed down and rendered invisible.
Just don't look at the constant movement of his fingers.

"I believe I promised you another dance"

Comments

Oh darling, things seem so unstable

[ossie_oswald]

It's fine.

Honestly, it's all fine.
Perfectly fine.
They're in Arcadia or somewhere like it again. This is as good as anything is ever going to be. He's not talking to his oldest... person he knows, he can't go home, he can't go back to his cabin, he can barely muster the composure to eat. It's fine. It was always going to be torture if they got unlucky and ended up back here. So it is. It's torture. It's a slow and painful death by a thousand cuts and whatever modicum of control Ossie believed he was exercising when he first arrived has well and truly fallen out from under him.

Fuck it.
Giles slunk himself around when they first arrived, so Ossie can do the same. Surely he can be stealthy. It's one evening after Giles usually goes to sleep when he finally returns to the cottage, all his lovely wildflowers perking up like loyal guard-dogs as he paces the path back to his own front door. He can't shush them, just hope that Giles doesn't smell the blooming of columbines and cuckoo flowers.

And who waits for him but Giles. In a suit Ossie doesn't recognize, in the living room, with the gramophone like this is a bloody game of Clue and he's about to be murdered with exactly what he wants. A vision that could've been damn-well spun from his dreams.

Giles asks him to dance as if this is the easiest thing in the world.

Give him a minute, he's just going to be frozen in the doorway for... a moment. Maybe a few long moments.

[ring_for_giles]

Of all the reactions Giles had anticipated, this wasn't one of them. He's not sure what to do as Oswald just stands there, unmoving. Is it better to wait it out, or to interrupt whatever thought spiral might be happening?

He has to bite back the instinctual 'sir?' that threatens to form on his tongue, whatever the right move here is, he knows it's not that. Not if he wants to have any hope of following through, and not falling back into familiar patterns of avoidance.

Uncertainty is what makes the choice for him in the end, he doesn't have any idea of what to say, so he just... Waits.

[ossie_oswald]

Ossie's looking at Giles and Giles is looking at Ossie and you could spread the homoeroticism in the air on toast with a butter-knife. Giles always looks lovely, always neat and well-groomed, but there's something that sets his gut quivering about Giles wearing something other than his uniform to make this request. All the conversations with Sharky and Johnny just wicked away. Of course they wouldn't know him like Ossie knows him, wouldn't know what this means like he does.

Giles has accepted it, at last. The offer to be equals, his friendship, to stand shoulder-to-shoulder through this. He... can't bring himself to believe anything further about it, though the house fills with the scent of his blooming mantle, the roses outside sighing happily. But this... is a start.

So Ossie steps forward, his footsteps light, long strides, and reaches his hand out for Giles to take.

"Well? Don't keep me in suspense, Mr Giles. I hope you didn't show off all your tricks for our audience back at the diner."

[ring_for_giles]

Giles's smile grows, and it's approaching what an ordinary person would mean by the word, he's forcing himself out of habitual impassivity for this. It's the best way he has of showing that he's willing to share more of himself than he ever has before.

"Not all," he replies as he takes Oswald's hand, "if you recall, you left before the conclusion"

He regrets saying it almost as soon as the words leave his mouth. It's too much, surely, he'll scare Oswald away before anything can even start. But he manages to keep it from showing, at least.

[ossie_oswald]

"How selfish of me," Ossie places Giles' other hand firmly on his waist, "I assure you that this time, we'll both leave satisfied."

He can't not do it.

Still, Ossie's smile is easy and warm, and he holds Giles' hand in his as if it's the most comfortable thing in the world.

"Whenever you're ready."

[ring_for_giles]

One of the advantages of a magic house, is the ability to adapt as things come. Giles hadn't had any particular song in mind when he'd set up the gramophone, just something slow and sweet, now though there's only one song it can be.

Giles breathes a microscopic sigh of relief that not only was Oswald not put off, but he was encouraging more. It feels like an age since Giles last saw him smile like that, it's almost enough to render Giles unable to move from the sheer weight of his feelings.

But then the music starts, soft and gentle. The same song from the diner, although it feels far more intimate now. Giles holds Oswald close as they dance, closer than he would have dared in public, but still not quite so close as he truly wants.

[ossie_oswald]

There's no audience to perform for. In years past that might have put him off- in Arcadia there was always an audience, for everything. Dancing, eating, fucking on a few notable occasions, dressing, bathing; never a moment alone to himself. When he returned at first Ossie did what he always did, as many did. But slowly, by small measures, he found his tastes lay outside the spotlight. Away from the crowds, from any audiences... Ossie felt thin and transparent as a wasp's wing most days, like everything about him glittered on his surface. What was he, away from everyone? A meaty question, one he was still gnawing on the gristle of.

Giles never counted as everyone. Giles was familiar as the creases on his hand used to be when he still had them, a part of him and the other half of him.

When Ossie moves, the Wyrd moves with them, making up for any discrepancy in their separate bodies. And ever so softly, a performance just for Giles to hear, Ossie croons the words, closing the space so he hardly has to raise his voice at all.

[ring_for_giles]

The plan, such as it was, had been to ask Oswald to dance and then, while half of his brain was distracted with the movement and music, Giles had been going to say the things that need to be said.

Any thought of that vanishes as Oswald starts singing, though, for how can he interrupt something so lovely, so perfectly intimate? Instead, he simply listens and watches for a long moment, gaze drifting over the contours of Oswald's face. Then his eyes fall closed, and Giles pulls Oswald closer, as if perhaps they might meld into one given enough time.

[ossie_oswald]

In his idle imaginings, the two of them dancing would be far more Nureyev and Dowell in Valentino than it was anything close to this. Before he even knew Giles could dance, he longed for a chance to show how well he knew the man, how good a partner he could be in something concrete. Drifting about the living room like a pair of balloons in the wind with their strings tangled together was hardly the cinematic experience he'd been longing for. But arguably it was better like this.

A precipice has been toppled over and Ossie knows it. As much as imagining Giles as anything other than the straight, stern, upright fellow that he's always known him as is foreign, as much as just imagining him as a friend strains his mind to near the point of breaking, there's no pretending they can just go their separate ways after this, as if nothing happened. He hesitates to name it, like the risk of crushing a butterfly when trying to catch it. But it's there. Flitting its shimmering wings, undeniable.

Ossie carefully slides his hand down Giles' front, brushing aside his jacket with the back of his hand to find his watch-chain and hold it between his fingers, stroking it with his thumb, the song trailing off.

[ring_for_giles]

It's long moment before Giles opens his eyes again, in truth he's half expecting everything to dissolve into foam as soon as he does. But it doesn't, through some miracle, and Giles watches the movement of Oswald's hand with wonder.

Everything he'd been thinking, all the complexity, all the worry disappears, until only one thing remains.

"I love you"

It's quiet, not even a whisper, but in the stillness of the moment it feels like loudest thing Giles has ever said.

[ossie_oswald]

Oswald laughs.

Not unkindly and not like his polite tinkling laughter reserved for jokes while he's out on the town. It's a hysterical hiccup of a thing. Of course, this might as well happen. Giles loves him. Sure. He's so beyond questioning or comprehending the situation that all he can do is laugh. If this is an extended hallucination or a method of torture, well, he may as well enjoy it now before he finds out for certain.

Of course Giles might take that the wrong way and Ossie will be damned if he lets this slip through his fingers, so he answers in turn with a kiss. He presses into Giles, having to stand on his toes just a little, attempting to back the both of them towards the couch.

[ring_for_giles]

Giles huffs, the sort of reciprocal laugh that just sort of comes out when you don't know what's happened but everyone else is laughing, the air feels heavy with his racing thoughts and it's only the knowledge that however troubled Oswald has been he could never be cruel, and the memory of Sharky's insistence that Oswald shared at least some of his feelings that stops his heart from breaking.

But then he feels Ossie's lips against his own and it's... It's like the first ray of sun on a stormy day, like a fire crackling the hearth on a cold winter's night, intoxicating as prohibition moonshine, and a million other poetic things, and yet not like them at all, it's everything he's ever wanted and nothing like he imagined, and it's perfect. Giles clings to Ossie like a lifeline, pulling him impossibly closer, deepening the kiss, stooping enough that he doesn't have to stand on his toes, and following the guiding pressure until they reach the couch.

[ossie_oswald]

Ossie can't help giggling through the kisses, because really, this whole thing is absurd. If he'd told himself prior to his first durance that he'd end up kissing Giles, he would've slapped himself. There's so much to enjoy here he can't stand it- the feeling of Giles' sharp teeth, the sturdiness of him, the way he dips down so Ossie doesn't have to work so hard. Can anyone be this happy? Is that this feeling? Ossie presses the pair of them onto the couch, immediately sitting himself on Giles' lap, utterly lost as to where to put his hands for want of all of it. He wants them everywhere, every single blasted place he'd imagined putting them, and to replicate some certain touches from prior to this night, to see if they felt different now.

"I should've worn something hideous from that blasted Tommy Bahama," he manages at length, breathless, "so you could do me the kindness of ripping it from me."

As discussed on Discord

[midnightroads]

It's the late afternoon of his first day on the ship when Bash returns to his cabin to...fuck, what even is he going to do? Shower, take a nap, cry, laugh?

Maybe all of the above.

When Giles comes home, with the intention to pass through the cabin to the cottage, he'll find a man sitting curled up in a ball on the bed, holding his knees, chin tucked down to them. He's dressed in a tank top and black jeans, hair loose in fluffy curls around his tattooed shoulders. While he doesn't quite have a Mantle, there's a lingering scent of coffee and tobacco around him that's sort of similar in nature.

Surprise, here's your new roommate.

[ring_for_giles]

Giles hadn't ever met his previous roommate before they disappeared, and given that he very much doesn't inhabit the cabin except as a convenient entry and exit point to the cottage, he really isn't expecting to find someone else already there, especially not someone curled up on the bed like they're trying to hide. He spends a long moment just staring as he tries to decide on the best course of action, he doesn't know this person, doesn't know if they prefer company or to be left alone, but they look like they're struggling, and Giles doesn't especially want to have to avoid the cabin for fear of his roommate. Not like Ossie does

So, he clears his throat – not loudly or impatiently – just enough to ensure his presence is known before he speaks, to avoid startling the curled figure.

"Pardon me, but are you alright?"

[midnightroads]

Bash glances up at Giles, unfolding slightly.

"Oh. Roommate. I'd wondered. Sorry." Disjointed, but not angry or upset with Giles himself for being present. "Uh, how does anyone judge what alright is, under these circumstances? Like. I'm not hurt or nothing, if that's what you're asking."

But he's here. He's here, and has to get used to a new set of rules and circumstances and torments, and this time he doesn't even have run of a whole city, just a single ship, where there's no one he knows, nothing familiar, and still no underworld.

"I can, uh. Get out if you need the room for something."

[ring_for_giles]

"It is certainly a difficult thing to assess in a place like this, but if you don't mind my saying so, I don't think it's quite the truth that you're not hurt. Physical isn't the only pain one can feel"

Giles isn't going to pry further if Bash dismisses it again, but he knows well enough how hard it is to adjust, especially without someone to talk to. So he'd like to help, if he can.

"There's no need to trouble yourself on my account, I was only passing through. You're luckier than most, I have other accommodations, so you'll have the room to yourself the majority of the time"

[midnightroads]

Called out, and so gently. It makes him believe that Giles means wants to help, hearing that, and reminds him of his last few weeks in Duplicity, the lessons he'd been hit over the head with about not playing a martyr.

So he shifts so he's sitting pretzel-style instead, looking up at Giles quietly. "Not injured. Scared, lonely. Fucked up. This, uh. This is my second time, being tossed into a new world with new rules and people from all over the multi-verse. In fact, I think I've been kidnapped from my previous kidnapping. Or maybe, like. Traded like a Pokemon card or some shit. So. How's a guy supposed to deal with that? I gotta adjust, figure out how...how this place is gonna fuck with me, right? Um. Not that it's really your job to...help with any of that. I mean, just because you got bunked with me doesn't mean I'm your shit to handle. Right?"

He can't decide if he really is lucky, to have the room to himself. After almost a year in Dupe with partner nearly that whole time, to be all by himself feels daunting.

[ring_for_giles]

"That sounds a uniquely difficult situation"

If it were Giles in that position, plucked from one durance-adjacent experience to another, he'd be terrified of doing anything beyond what he had to, of getting to know anyone, lest he be ripped out of it again and into the next just as he was starting to get used to it.

Although, is that not what happened to him? The world he'd returned to after Arcadia wasn't his own in any meaningful sense after all, and- No. Giles isn't going to allow himself to continue down that train of thought, he can have his panic about it later. In private.

"It may not be my job to help, but I'd like to anyway, if I can." He sits on the side of the bed, keeping his countenance as open and receptive as he can, "I don't know you, so I don't know if there's something that would be of more help, but I know I find it easier to process when there's someone with a willing ear to listen"

[midnightroads]

"Could...could I hold your hand or something? I don't mean to be weird or nothing, I just, uh, it'd be nice to have physical contact to anchor on, right now. Something real to feel. Please?" He's nervous asking even that much from a stranger, certainly he can't ask for a hug. Giles looks so refined, so well put-together, he doesn't need to be mussed up by Bash.

"It was a really different kinda place. Different rules, different roles, different, uh, methods. I...it's gonna be a lot of. Untangling, what it did to me, while trying to cope with what this place is gonna do at the same time."

[ring_for_giles]

Giles shifts to sit properly beside Bash on the bed, rather than simply perching on the side, and takes Bash's hand in his own. Squeezes just enough for some gentle pressure, something to ground against and focus on.

"It takes a long time to come to terms with and begin to recover from experiences such as these. I'm not sure it's a process that ever stops." Not that he knows precisely what Bash has been through, but he can make an educated guess as to the shape of it, "This place doesn't have all that many rules or roles to fall into, the traumas seem to come mostly at random. It is both a blessing and a curse."

[midnightroads]

Bash holds onto that hand like a drowning man who needs the lifeline, and takes a couple deep, slow breaths to try and calm himself.

"No way to brace for heavy rolls. I getcha. Makes anticipation...different. I get it. Well, better to know that."

There's a small pause. Bash looks up. "Shoot straight with me a moment, and then pretend you never heard me ask this question: do the Captain's torments ever involve sex?"

[ring_for_giles]

Giles smiles, not from amusement at the question itself, but from how little it surprises him. It's a very reasonable concern, places of otherworldly torture that involve sex as a main mechanism are not uncommon as these things go.

"No, not that I've seen. The Captain strikes me as..." He stops, thinking over the best phrasing, a theory starting to coalesce in his mind, "As someone trying to enact the childhood they never had. Our trials, both the ones I've experienced and only been told about, have largely been replicas of books or of common milestones in an American childhood. He seems to like to play games with us, ones that do more often than not involve anguish and death, but are more like a child who plays by ripping the arms off their dolls than a directed act of sadism"

[midnightroads]

"I honestly can't say whether that's better or worse. Though. Maybe in time he can be understood and...babysat or something." His grip on Giles' hand loosens a little, but does not completely release. You know, if Giles needed that hand back, he could have it, but it's still helping. It's helping a lot.

"Shit. I don't know what to do with any of this at all. It's a lot, you know? I mean. You, at least, seem pretty okay. Uh, what's your name, by the way? I'm Bash. Bash St. Expedit."

[ring_for_giles]

"I go by Giles"

He doesn't withdraw his hand, it's Bash's until such a time as it stops helping or Bash withdraws.

"If I seem to be okay, it's only because I've spent the last few years learning to manage my anxieties surrounding places like this. That, and a lifetime spent in a career where maintaining a level of professional indifference is encouraged, if not required, certainly helps"