Fic: Consonance
Title: Consonance
Author: viceindustrious
For: anneka_neko
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Today is a day for indulgence and so, Blackwood thinks, it should be wrapped in silk like any proper treasure.
They have bought themselves a little luxury today.
Coward is laying beside him, his body curled into the stripe of wan September sunlight that's falling through the window and onto the bed, catching dust motes as they drift like specks of silence through the air. His face is turned toward that light just as a flower would turn its pretty head, the pale rose of his mouth, the lily softness of the slope of his shoulder. A beauty that begs to be plucked, Blackwood thinks.
The last of his tea is turning cold but he finishes it anyway and then sets the cup down in its saucer. Coward had stirred just long enough to call him a barbarian for taking milk instead of lemon before flipping his pillow over onto the cool side and drifting back into a doze.
The girl who brought them breakfast had been as hesitant as a doe, treading ever so lightly, her eyes fixed firmly on her own footsteps. They've assured her silence for the present with the kind of handsome gifts Blackwood imagines poor girls usually only dream of. In the long term, of course, it's of no concern. They'll have her on the altar by and by.
He's glad her fear kept her gaze downcast. He doesn't think he could have countenanced her looking upon Coward like this. This is for his eyes and his eyes alone.
A breeze stirs the voile hanging across the window, Coward shifts closer to him. When he lays he hand on Coward's arm it's as though something restless inside him can finally still. He feels a possessiveness for the flesh under his fingers stronger than anything he's ever known.
It's easy to be at peace in Coward's bedroom too. There is so much of Coward in it. Wealth, of course, Coward's family are ridiculously well moneyed, but the effect is artfully subdued. There's an understated elegance in the craftsmanship of the furniture, rather like Coward himself. Well put together, refined. Coward has a gift of eloquence that Blackwood finds quite maddening at times, an ability to remain soft spoken and temperate that Blackwood himself has never quite been able to master.
Coward should not be an easy man to be undone and that is, perhaps, why Blackwood enjoys the unravelling so much. That Coward falls apart under his hands so readily. That he understands how to light the powder under Coward's skin and set him to blazing, though it was never anything he had to learn. It's simply the pure, alchemical reaction between them.
Today is a day for indulgence and so, Blackwood thinks, it should be wrapped in silk like any proper treasure.
Coward comes awake as Blackwood ties his hands to the headboard but after one surprised gasp of breath, he stays as pliant as if he were still swaddled in sleep. Blackwood loops cuffs of silk around his wrists, a dark blue material as soft as the skin on the inside of his arms and knots them to the top of the bed. Coward makes a humming noise, a purr really and stretches lazily in his bonds.
Blackwood watches him pull against the silk. There's no real desire to escape in the movement, Coward just arches so that the curve of his body becomes a little more enticing. He's still so fresh, well rested. When he looks up at Blackwood there's a bright, clear challenge in his eyes.
Blackwood bends over to him to check the knots and Coward tilts his head up imperiously, demanding a kiss. He presses a finger to the seam of Coward's mouth, wait and is not surprised to feel the tug of Coward's teeth, nipping at the pad of his finger.
“My Lord,” Coward says, smirking, all plumped up with contentment, ready to be ravished.
His legs are bent, spread apart and falling open and he knocks Blackwood with the side of his foot, pouts at him with a delightfully impatient look. Blackwood takes his leg and kisses his ankle, then his calf and Coward sighs and tries to spread his legs further apart, wriggling the bedclothes into a mass of wrinkles. He's so greedy for pleasure, soaks it all up so very well and then carries that glow in his skin all day. It becomes a trial not to just drag him into deserted rooms, push him up against walls, lay him over the nearest flat surface to hand.
Today Blackwood has decided to make things easier on himself.
He pushes two fingers into Coward, who shivers and presses back against them. He's such a narrow thing, so tight, yet always eager for more. Blackwood climbs between his thighs and thrusts into him with one barely stuttered stroke, watching as the blackness of him pupils swallows up the blue, the blood that rises to stain his cheeks.
He buries his face against the crook of Coward's neck and the fine sheen of sweat that's sprung up there. Coward doesn't wilt in the heat he only grows more vibrant and Blackwood wants to put his mark there, to keep and conquer all that's spread beneath him. He bites at Coward's throat, one day and comes with that thought ringing in his mind. Of having Coward like he'll have the world, of taking the world like he takes Coward. Little difference between the two.
Coward smiles wide when he pulls out, self conscious but unashamed, as if he knows just how debauched he looks.
Not enough, Blackwood decides.
He rolls to one side, catching his own breath and Coward tries to turn toward him but it's clearly difficult, bound as he is. He looks young and lean, arms pulled over his head like that. Blackwood runs his fingers along the long muscle in his arm, under his armpit, along the rise and fall of his ribcage.
He pats Coward's flank and then climbs off the bed and starts to dress.
“Henry?”
There's a slightly peevish note in Coward's voice. Blackwood leans down and kisses him, placing his hand over the flat dip of his bellybutton and Coward tries to wriggle upward and direct that touch toward his poor, ignored cock. Blackwood laughs softly against his mouth, leans back and shakes his head.
“No,” he says.
There's an unspoken question in Coward's eyes now and an impatient twist to his mouth. Blackwood takes him by the chin, digging his fingers in just a trifle. He doesn't miss the way Coward's breath hitches or the sudden tense tremor that passes through his body.
“You're going to stay like this,” he says.
Doesn't say until, doesn't bother setting out the rules, doesn't need to. Coward swallows.
“That's not-”
He begins and Blackwood makes a fist in his hair and pulls, hard. Coward's mouth falls open with a strangled moan, his eyes screwing themselves shut and all the fight, all the impatience melts out of him with the sound. Blackwood can feel him, giving himself over under his hand and tightens his grip until Coward's teeth are chattering against each other and he's whining, quietly, but he doesn't tell him to stop. Never tells him to stop and Blackwood sometimes wonders what it would take...if anything would be too much, too far.
“You're going to stay here for me, aren't you?” he asks.
“Yes,” Coward whimpers.
“Even if I untied you.”
It's not a question but Coward nods anyway, pulls against Blackwood's hand even though it must hurt him to do so. Blackwood laughs.
“But I'm not going to untie you.”
Coward trembles and looks up at him and yes, Blackwood likes him like this. Sometimes, being looked at as though he's the only thing that matters in all of the world.
*
He returns later that morning and wakes Coward from the shallow sleep he's fallen into with careful kisses, skinning him slowly into sensitivity, watching as he quickens under his touch. He fucks him long and slow and thorough.
Slow. Sloe eyed, Coward looks at him, desire darkening his gaze. Blackwood rolls his hips, revelling in the feeling, touched by none of the urgency that makes Coward buck under him, only lapped sweetly by those fires. He fucks him deliberate and deep and watches the way Coward's fingers curl, the way the silk shines as it twists and narrows and bites into Coward's skin. Blackwood touches Coward's cock, just a little, strokes him light and teasing and doesn't change his rhythm, steady, oh so steady, taking his hand away when it looks like he's getting close.
When he's done, Coward gives a cry of despair, of loss. He bites at his lips and his heels dig furrows in the sheets. Blackwood looks at them thoughtfully and then ties his legs down too.
*
“Henry,” Coward murmurs when he returns again.
Murmurs his name over and over, licking at his bitten lips.
Blackwood approaches the bed with something in his hand and the spark of arousal he feels at Coward's confusion almost makes him bite his tongue. The uncertainty in Coward's eyes has been corroded by hunger, become something else, a plea to accept all that Blackwood offers him.
He kneels beside him on the bed and lets Coward get a closer look at the piece of ginger. The skin on it still shines, silver as a birch branch. There are soft, papery little fibres at the end where it's been snapped off and Blackwood runs it down Coward's chest, tickling him.
As Blackwood peels the ginger with a small, sharp knife, the smell fills the room quickly, sweet and spiced. Coward's chest rises sharply when Blackwood brings the piece down between his legs. It's smooth and cold and it slides into Coward almost effortlessly. Coward winces but then relaxes slightly, blinks. Blackwood smiles at the obvious relief on his face and settles down to watch.
It's a beautiful sight. The way the colour rises on Coward's face, the way he starts to squirm. The first prickling of sweat on his forehead. It's three minutes before he starts to chew on his lips again. Blackwood watches him clench around the ginger and he knows it must be involuntary because Coward lets out a yelp and then goes very still as if he's trying not to move.
Another couple of minutes pass and Coward's pale body is twisting like something serpentine. His breath is coming so fast, he's twitching all over.
“Oh god, Henry, Henry, please,” he moans but he doesn't say stop.
Coward's cock is red and straining and it looks so desperate for touch that it makes Henry ache in sympathy. He pulls the ginger out, then pushes it back in, fucking him with it and Coward keens, shakes his head back and forth.
Before he leaves he peels a fresh piece.
*
Halfway through the day, Blackwood has to find a piece of ribbon to wind flat around the base of Coward's cock. It's a small act of mercy, he doesn't think Coward would have been able to control himself otherwise.
Sometimes he fucks him, uses him and leaves as Coward begs and writhes and rubs his wrists raw. Sometimes he sits and plays with Coward's hole, sliding his fingers into the slippery mess of come between his thighs.
By the end of the day Coward is beyond desperate.
The room stinks of sex and Coward lies gleaming at the centre of it. He turns his head back and forth on the pillow like he's in a stupor and his cock looks so sore, full and frustrated. Blackwood unties his hands and feet and Coward doesn't even move them, he lies there lax and loose and open and his throat is that rough from begging Blackwood can hardly tell what he's saying when he whispers, please.
Blackwood takes in the flush of his skin, the sticky, hot wreck of the body in front of him. This shaking, fucked out creature is the same one that stands so prim and proper in Parliament, it would be hard to believe if Blackwood didn't know the mark of his own work. He brings Coward's wrists to his mouth and licks the dash of iron from the delicate abrasion of his skin.
Coward's gasps sound so perfectly frayed, the pulse under his tongue is wild, though not as out of control as Coward's breath. The haze in Coward's eyes clears and he looks at Blackwood as though he's the only thing holding him together. Blackwood understands exactly what he has in his hands, all the broken, bloodied pieces of Coward, fallen apart and entrusted to his safekeeping.
He strokes the tender, tight weight of Coward's balls, drawn up so close to his body and smiles at the shrill cry it forces from his throat. Lays his palm across the throbbing heat of Coward's cock and Coward grinds up into the touch mindlessly, head thrown back, his hands laying limp above him.
Blackwood bares his teeth, thinks mine as he pushes Coward's knees up to his chest, a word he never needs to say out loud for the redundancy of it would insult them both. Coward makes a noise that's more animal than human when Blackwood pushes into him, fucking him hard, all his weight behind each snap of his hips.
He reaches down between them and undoes the ribbon around Coward's cock and Coward comes instantly, howling, scrabbling at the sheets like a thing possessed. He wraps his arms around Blackwood as he shudders through the aftershocks and his short, neat nails still manage to put scratches on his back. It stings and Blackwood comes into the tight clench of Coward's body,with that a shared, rough edge of pain that sugars pleasure so well.
He falls forward onto Coward, who only clings to him with more ferocity now. He's crying, Blackwood realizes, sobbing gently with relief.
Blackwood holds him until he stops shaking. Time is precious, but Blackwood would always make sure there was time enough for this. The world rebuilding itself in his arms.
Author: viceindustrious
For: anneka_neko
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Today is a day for indulgence and so, Blackwood thinks, it should be wrapped in silk like any proper treasure.
They have bought themselves a little luxury today.
Coward is laying beside him, his body curled into the stripe of wan September sunlight that's falling through the window and onto the bed, catching dust motes as they drift like specks of silence through the air. His face is turned toward that light just as a flower would turn its pretty head, the pale rose of his mouth, the lily softness of the slope of his shoulder. A beauty that begs to be plucked, Blackwood thinks.
The last of his tea is turning cold but he finishes it anyway and then sets the cup down in its saucer. Coward had stirred just long enough to call him a barbarian for taking milk instead of lemon before flipping his pillow over onto the cool side and drifting back into a doze.
The girl who brought them breakfast had been as hesitant as a doe, treading ever so lightly, her eyes fixed firmly on her own footsteps. They've assured her silence for the present with the kind of handsome gifts Blackwood imagines poor girls usually only dream of. In the long term, of course, it's of no concern. They'll have her on the altar by and by.
He's glad her fear kept her gaze downcast. He doesn't think he could have countenanced her looking upon Coward like this. This is for his eyes and his eyes alone.
A breeze stirs the voile hanging across the window, Coward shifts closer to him. When he lays he hand on Coward's arm it's as though something restless inside him can finally still. He feels a possessiveness for the flesh under his fingers stronger than anything he's ever known.
It's easy to be at peace in Coward's bedroom too. There is so much of Coward in it. Wealth, of course, Coward's family are ridiculously well moneyed, but the effect is artfully subdued. There's an understated elegance in the craftsmanship of the furniture, rather like Coward himself. Well put together, refined. Coward has a gift of eloquence that Blackwood finds quite maddening at times, an ability to remain soft spoken and temperate that Blackwood himself has never quite been able to master.
Coward should not be an easy man to be undone and that is, perhaps, why Blackwood enjoys the unravelling so much. That Coward falls apart under his hands so readily. That he understands how to light the powder under Coward's skin and set him to blazing, though it was never anything he had to learn. It's simply the pure, alchemical reaction between them.
Today is a day for indulgence and so, Blackwood thinks, it should be wrapped in silk like any proper treasure.
Coward comes awake as Blackwood ties his hands to the headboard but after one surprised gasp of breath, he stays as pliant as if he were still swaddled in sleep. Blackwood loops cuffs of silk around his wrists, a dark blue material as soft as the skin on the inside of his arms and knots them to the top of the bed. Coward makes a humming noise, a purr really and stretches lazily in his bonds.
Blackwood watches him pull against the silk. There's no real desire to escape in the movement, Coward just arches so that the curve of his body becomes a little more enticing. He's still so fresh, well rested. When he looks up at Blackwood there's a bright, clear challenge in his eyes.
Blackwood bends over to him to check the knots and Coward tilts his head up imperiously, demanding a kiss. He presses a finger to the seam of Coward's mouth, wait and is not surprised to feel the tug of Coward's teeth, nipping at the pad of his finger.
“My Lord,” Coward says, smirking, all plumped up with contentment, ready to be ravished.
His legs are bent, spread apart and falling open and he knocks Blackwood with the side of his foot, pouts at him with a delightfully impatient look. Blackwood takes his leg and kisses his ankle, then his calf and Coward sighs and tries to spread his legs further apart, wriggling the bedclothes into a mass of wrinkles. He's so greedy for pleasure, soaks it all up so very well and then carries that glow in his skin all day. It becomes a trial not to just drag him into deserted rooms, push him up against walls, lay him over the nearest flat surface to hand.
Today Blackwood has decided to make things easier on himself.
He pushes two fingers into Coward, who shivers and presses back against them. He's such a narrow thing, so tight, yet always eager for more. Blackwood climbs between his thighs and thrusts into him with one barely stuttered stroke, watching as the blackness of him pupils swallows up the blue, the blood that rises to stain his cheeks.
He buries his face against the crook of Coward's neck and the fine sheen of sweat that's sprung up there. Coward doesn't wilt in the heat he only grows more vibrant and Blackwood wants to put his mark there, to keep and conquer all that's spread beneath him. He bites at Coward's throat, one day and comes with that thought ringing in his mind. Of having Coward like he'll have the world, of taking the world like he takes Coward. Little difference between the two.
Coward smiles wide when he pulls out, self conscious but unashamed, as if he knows just how debauched he looks.
Not enough, Blackwood decides.
He rolls to one side, catching his own breath and Coward tries to turn toward him but it's clearly difficult, bound as he is. He looks young and lean, arms pulled over his head like that. Blackwood runs his fingers along the long muscle in his arm, under his armpit, along the rise and fall of his ribcage.
He pats Coward's flank and then climbs off the bed and starts to dress.
“Henry?”
There's a slightly peevish note in Coward's voice. Blackwood leans down and kisses him, placing his hand over the flat dip of his bellybutton and Coward tries to wriggle upward and direct that touch toward his poor, ignored cock. Blackwood laughs softly against his mouth, leans back and shakes his head.
“No,” he says.
There's an unspoken question in Coward's eyes now and an impatient twist to his mouth. Blackwood takes him by the chin, digging his fingers in just a trifle. He doesn't miss the way Coward's breath hitches or the sudden tense tremor that passes through his body.
“You're going to stay like this,” he says.
Doesn't say until, doesn't bother setting out the rules, doesn't need to. Coward swallows.
“That's not-”
He begins and Blackwood makes a fist in his hair and pulls, hard. Coward's mouth falls open with a strangled moan, his eyes screwing themselves shut and all the fight, all the impatience melts out of him with the sound. Blackwood can feel him, giving himself over under his hand and tightens his grip until Coward's teeth are chattering against each other and he's whining, quietly, but he doesn't tell him to stop. Never tells him to stop and Blackwood sometimes wonders what it would take...if anything would be too much, too far.
“You're going to stay here for me, aren't you?” he asks.
“Yes,” Coward whimpers.
“Even if I untied you.”
It's not a question but Coward nods anyway, pulls against Blackwood's hand even though it must hurt him to do so. Blackwood laughs.
“But I'm not going to untie you.”
Coward trembles and looks up at him and yes, Blackwood likes him like this. Sometimes, being looked at as though he's the only thing that matters in all of the world.
*
He returns later that morning and wakes Coward from the shallow sleep he's fallen into with careful kisses, skinning him slowly into sensitivity, watching as he quickens under his touch. He fucks him long and slow and thorough.
Slow. Sloe eyed, Coward looks at him, desire darkening his gaze. Blackwood rolls his hips, revelling in the feeling, touched by none of the urgency that makes Coward buck under him, only lapped sweetly by those fires. He fucks him deliberate and deep and watches the way Coward's fingers curl, the way the silk shines as it twists and narrows and bites into Coward's skin. Blackwood touches Coward's cock, just a little, strokes him light and teasing and doesn't change his rhythm, steady, oh so steady, taking his hand away when it looks like he's getting close.
When he's done, Coward gives a cry of despair, of loss. He bites at his lips and his heels dig furrows in the sheets. Blackwood looks at them thoughtfully and then ties his legs down too.
*
“Henry,” Coward murmurs when he returns again.
Murmurs his name over and over, licking at his bitten lips.
Blackwood approaches the bed with something in his hand and the spark of arousal he feels at Coward's confusion almost makes him bite his tongue. The uncertainty in Coward's eyes has been corroded by hunger, become something else, a plea to accept all that Blackwood offers him.
He kneels beside him on the bed and lets Coward get a closer look at the piece of ginger. The skin on it still shines, silver as a birch branch. There are soft, papery little fibres at the end where it's been snapped off and Blackwood runs it down Coward's chest, tickling him.
As Blackwood peels the ginger with a small, sharp knife, the smell fills the room quickly, sweet and spiced. Coward's chest rises sharply when Blackwood brings the piece down between his legs. It's smooth and cold and it slides into Coward almost effortlessly. Coward winces but then relaxes slightly, blinks. Blackwood smiles at the obvious relief on his face and settles down to watch.
It's a beautiful sight. The way the colour rises on Coward's face, the way he starts to squirm. The first prickling of sweat on his forehead. It's three minutes before he starts to chew on his lips again. Blackwood watches him clench around the ginger and he knows it must be involuntary because Coward lets out a yelp and then goes very still as if he's trying not to move.
Another couple of minutes pass and Coward's pale body is twisting like something serpentine. His breath is coming so fast, he's twitching all over.
“Oh god, Henry, Henry, please,” he moans but he doesn't say stop.
Coward's cock is red and straining and it looks so desperate for touch that it makes Henry ache in sympathy. He pulls the ginger out, then pushes it back in, fucking him with it and Coward keens, shakes his head back and forth.
Before he leaves he peels a fresh piece.
*
Halfway through the day, Blackwood has to find a piece of ribbon to wind flat around the base of Coward's cock. It's a small act of mercy, he doesn't think Coward would have been able to control himself otherwise.
Sometimes he fucks him, uses him and leaves as Coward begs and writhes and rubs his wrists raw. Sometimes he sits and plays with Coward's hole, sliding his fingers into the slippery mess of come between his thighs.
By the end of the day Coward is beyond desperate.
The room stinks of sex and Coward lies gleaming at the centre of it. He turns his head back and forth on the pillow like he's in a stupor and his cock looks so sore, full and frustrated. Blackwood unties his hands and feet and Coward doesn't even move them, he lies there lax and loose and open and his throat is that rough from begging Blackwood can hardly tell what he's saying when he whispers, please.
Blackwood takes in the flush of his skin, the sticky, hot wreck of the body in front of him. This shaking, fucked out creature is the same one that stands so prim and proper in Parliament, it would be hard to believe if Blackwood didn't know the mark of his own work. He brings Coward's wrists to his mouth and licks the dash of iron from the delicate abrasion of his skin.
Coward's gasps sound so perfectly frayed, the pulse under his tongue is wild, though not as out of control as Coward's breath. The haze in Coward's eyes clears and he looks at Blackwood as though he's the only thing holding him together. Blackwood understands exactly what he has in his hands, all the broken, bloodied pieces of Coward, fallen apart and entrusted to his safekeeping.
He strokes the tender, tight weight of Coward's balls, drawn up so close to his body and smiles at the shrill cry it forces from his throat. Lays his palm across the throbbing heat of Coward's cock and Coward grinds up into the touch mindlessly, head thrown back, his hands laying limp above him.
Blackwood bares his teeth, thinks mine as he pushes Coward's knees up to his chest, a word he never needs to say out loud for the redundancy of it would insult them both. Coward makes a noise that's more animal than human when Blackwood pushes into him, fucking him hard, all his weight behind each snap of his hips.
He reaches down between them and undoes the ribbon around Coward's cock and Coward comes instantly, howling, scrabbling at the sheets like a thing possessed. He wraps his arms around Blackwood as he shudders through the aftershocks and his short, neat nails still manage to put scratches on his back. It stings and Blackwood comes into the tight clench of Coward's body,with that a shared, rough edge of pain that sugars pleasure so well.
He falls forward onto Coward, who only clings to him with more ferocity now. He's crying, Blackwood realizes, sobbing gently with relief.
Blackwood holds him until he stops shaking. Time is precious, but Blackwood would always make sure there was time enough for this. The world rebuilding itself in his arms.