Title: to a stranger
Author:
denoriosRating: R
Summary: Chris, Vin, a bed and Walt Whitman.
Pairing: Chris/Vin
Word Count:
Notes: I asked for prompts and I was given Chris reading to Vin, a lazy morning and Vin writing on Chris's back, so I decided to combine the three and add a dash of Walt Whitman. The poem Chris reads is called 'To A Stranger' and it just screamed Chris/Vin to me the first time I read it. So
umbralillium and
farad, this is for you.
***
"Passing stranger, you do not know how longingly I look upon you, you must be he I was seeking..."
Chris' voice is low and deep, with a breathless husk to it that only Vin hears, only Vin knows, alone in the intimacy of their bed. He presses his ear to Chris' back and listens to the cadence of his voice as he speaks softly, slowly, as he reads to Vin of love and loss.
He listens to Chris' words and his breath and the slow rustle of pages turning, and there is no world outside of this room, this bed; there is no dry dusty sun, no bare bleached landscape, no small isolated town, no gunfights and no blood spilled. There is only Chris and Vin and this touch, these words.
"I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you-"
The bed is wide and warm; and Vin has no desire to leave this place, no desire to rise and ride into the light. He awoke with the dawn, but Chris caught his wrist, pinned him down beneath his body, kissed him as the sun moved and turned and the day advanced and all Vin knew was warmth and touch and love.
"All is recall'd as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured..."
Vin loves to listen to Chris' voice, loves the way Chris reads to him, the patience he shows in helping Vin to read himself, to follow the sounds and the shapes and see the patterns, the meaning - but he can't help but try and distract Chris sometimes, with fingers and tongue and mouth, can't help but smile as Chris trembles in voice and body at Vin's touch.
He trails his fingers along the ridge of Chris' spine, down the swell of his buttocks, listening for the tiny hitch, the brief pause before Chris continues, watching the small hairs rise up as his fingers pass, the helpless shiver when he nuzzles at Chris' neck.
"I ate with you and slept with you, your body has become not yours only nor left my body mine only," and Chris' voice wavers for a moment as Vin presses his forehead in the hollow between Chris' shoulders, stretches his arms up to lay along Chris', curls his hands around Chris' wrists.
Chris stops, he breathes and Vin feels his chest expand beneath him, senses the shake in his breath as he sighs Vin's name.
"Keep reading," Vin whispers, his lips brushing against Chris' skin in an almost-kiss, and there's a moment when he can feel Chris fight the urge to turn beneath Vin, when his muscles tense and his hips shift restlessly, his head turns, and not yet, not yet.
"You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh," Chris breathes, and Vin closes his eyes and sees the words, sees the letters and the shapes. He can sketch them in the air with his hands, trace them onto Chris' skin with his fingers.
Mary had clapped her hands with delight when he had written his name, slowly and laboriously, the ink pooling on the paper as he wrote and paused, wrote and paused. He hadn't the heart to tell her it wasn't the first time, they weren't the first words. He had practiced and practiced, with sticks in the earth, water droplets in the dust, dirt on a windowpane, but it wasn't his own name he wrote, over and over, it wasn't Vin Tanner; and the best poetry he has ever written is the kind he and Chris make in this bed.
"I am not to speak to you," Chris says, and Vin can hear the smile in his voice as he speaks, as he tips his head back and brushes it against Vin's. "I am to think of you when I sit alone or wake at night alone-" and there's the shiver again as Vin presses in close, as he bites Chris' ear gently, so gently, and never alone, he whispers, never alone.
Chris turns suddenly, and he's quick, so quick, rolling Vin beneath him, and the book is forgotten, lost in the sheets and the blankets. Chris is warm and hard and soft, and they fit so well, they always fit, since that first day, and they were never strangers to each other. Vin wasn't looking for Chris, wasn't looking for anyone, but he stopped running when he saw Chris and he never thought to question why.
Chris lays his hands along Vin's face, rests his forehead against Vin's and closes his eyes. Vin's legs curl around Chris', his heel rubbing the back of Chris' knee and he rocks slowly, carefully, smiling as Chris throws his head back, his mouth opens and oh, oh...
"You didn't finish," Vin says, but Chris just shakes his head, bites his lip, and when he opens his eyes he's lost, Vin can see he's lost. His eyes are heavy-lidded, the pupils blown, and Vin laughs, twists his hips and thrusts just so, and Chris groans.
"I am to see to it that I do not lose you," Vin finishes, and arches up, lips moving on Chris', a word for each kiss, each slow shift of hips and cock, and you could never lose me, Chris sighs, you will never lose me.
When Vin wakes later, the afternoon sun slanting across his face, when he stirs and turns in Chris' arms, the book is crumpled beneath their bodies, the ink smudged and marking the sheets and their skin. He touches the stains, seeing the words again in his mind.
"I am to see to it that I do not lose you," he whispers.
He ghosts his fingertips across Chris' hip, traces 'Vin Tanner' across his stomach, the sharp spike of the 'v', the lines and dot, the crossroads of 't'. Chris stirs in his sleep, shivers, so responsive, always so ready for Vin's touch.
Vin thinks of words painted on skin, ink seeping into flesh and bone, and he smiles.
***
Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you,
You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me
as of a dream,)
I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,
All is recall'd as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate,
chaste, matured,
You grew up with me, were a boy with me or a girl with me,
I ate with you and slept with you, your body has become not yours
only nor left my body mine only,
You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass, you
take of my beard, breast, hands, in return,
I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you when I sit alone or
wake at night alone,
I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again,
I am to see to it that I do not lose you.