anyband fic:: tablo/boa
This sort of spun out of control.
any seven verses, any seven notes
anyband cf-verse, tablo/boa, R (don't ask me how the hell it got porny, it just did), ~2,000 words. warnings for ewwwhet and even worse, hetsex! :O
-i-
She's fiery and hot and her eyes blaze as her lips speak of revolution. Of course he's in love before he even knows her name, but she looks at him like he's nothing.
“Who's he?” she asks.
“Tablo-hyung's the brains of our operation,” Xiah says.
Tablo smiles at her, and she snorts.
“Are you saying the rest of us are dimwits, Xiah? Geez.”
But any emotion in this drained, dull society is colorful enough to suit him and so he doesn't complain.
-ii-
It wasn't always like this. She remembers being able to sing as a kid. She remembers screaming and laughing, too. Noises, basically - anything but the typical dull rhythm of steps against pavement, the hum of what is more or less silence, which is what surrounds them now. Now nothing is everything.
She was too young to remember how it started, really. The government grabbed a hold of history writing pretty early on, so the only thing books will tell her is that they took corrupting, filthy music away from people, little by little, like weeding a garden one non-planted flower at a time. Music was the source for all society's fundamental issues, after all; violence, hatred, greed, sexual promiscuity. Then they took away phone networks, internet, because communication only breeds bullying and terrorism.
They're not the only rebels, Xiah and Jin Bora and Tablo and her. They're just the only ones in this city, but Tablo sends messages to the others - in Tokyo, New York, Moscow - via a special pre-historical looking web, where everything has to be coded and then decoded to be understood. The only good thing about a non-communicating world is that now, for once, they all speak the same language.
The language that isn't really a language at all, but silence altogether.
-iii-
For her it began with Jin Bora sending messages via the web system that still existed (after worldwideweb had been successfully abolished). She caught them, and sent back some of her own, and before she knew it she was sitting in some abandoned apartment building, brightly lit like Xiah wanted to be found, and staring at her comrades.
“So we'll just sing?” she asked.
“It's never 'just' when it brings down an entire system of governing people's thoughts and feelings,” Xiah said irritably but she ignored him, looking at the other guy now.
Tablo had less to say about things than Xiah, and he wasn't as nice as Bora, either, but he intrigued Boa all the same. Whereas Xiah said he couldn't live without music, and Bora played like she couldn't live without it, Tablo was the only one who looked like it. And then when he played, composed, scribbled down lyrics as if there was no time left, she just knew.
He was the reason they could all make this happen.
-iv-
Whenever they practise, it's in low volume, as deep underground as they can possibly go.
It's not safe for them all to gather in one place too often, so they usually go by pairs, as it's too risky to practise through the mobile phone network (that still exists, if you know how to use it) all the time.
This time it's just him and Boa, in silence, as she adjusts the microphone level and he tunes the guitar. He's not sure if he has to, most of the music is pre-recorded on tape anyway, and the song they're rehearsing has more of him rapping than playing. But it gives him something to do, other than to stare at her, the curve of her lower back, her fingers brushing back the long hair and extensions that cascade over her shoulders, before the same hand settles on her (he swallows and decides it's time to look away) exposed hip, between the low-waist jeans and the tight-fitting shirt.
“I'll protect you,” she says.
“What?” he says, taking his eyes off the guitar (as if he was really occupied with it).
“The lyrics. You wrote them, right?”
“Yeah.”
She doesn't say anything after that, and they practise the song and afterwards he sees frustration on her face, because she has to hold back with the volume, with the size of her voice. But in order to be loud, they have to be quiet now. It makes sense, kind of.
“Who is she?” Boa asks him, as they walk up the stairs from the deserted basement. “The girl the song's about.”
“Music,” Tablo just replies, and maybe that's a lie, because what he really thought of when penning the lyrics was her, all sound and all energy, like delicious bass drumming giving the space around him a heartbeat, a life. In a way, she is music to him, but that's a bit too corny, and a bit too weird - it's not something he'll ever share with her.
“You're a strange guy,” Boa says with a smile as she pushes the door open, and sunlight hits them. She hears a noise from afar and grabs his hand as they run, but soon it becomes evident there is nobody following them.
She lets go of his hand.
“See you later,” he says, maybe a bit too hopeful, and she grins at him.
“I'd prefer hearing you later.”
It's a lame joke, but at least it is one (he hasn't heard one in months because nobody ever tells any) and just then he falls in love with her even more.
-v-
In the hazy texture of the dream, there is no logic as to how she ends up pressing him against a surface (vertical, horizontal, she's not sure), hand running down his lanky, t-shirt covered form until she reaches his belt and if he happened to gasp that moment, she shut him up with a kiss. The next events are mostly just feelings and sounds, heartbeats and groans, and a sense of gravity only when he collapses on top of her, and then rolls off. She pins him down again, thinking he might be done, but she's not, and that's the moment (her thighs against his hips and panting like it's their first time breathing air) she wakes up from the dream.
The sheets twist around her body uncomfortably and she untangles them as the first thought runs through her head (“why the hell Tablo?”), quickly replaced by another (“well, why the hell not”).
The next time they meet, Jin Bora tracking escape routes and Xiah sketching graffiti, Boa ponders the irony of how they talk and play, but do very little of loving.
Xiah once told her he has somebody, but it seemed like a past love, a somebody he was still hung up over.
Jin Bora keeps to herself mostly, exchanging a word or two with Boa and smiling shyly at Xiah.
It's more the cause (than friendship or fondness for one another) that unites them. But then, she thinks as her eyes move over Tablo, focused on messing with the wiring of some old cell phone, how the hell is she to know anyway, how the others feel.
It's more or less a mystery, and she's pretty sure she intends to keep it that way.
-vi-
He's surprised, because he didn't think she knew where he lived.
“Why do you look so shocked?” Boa asks him. “I just came by to make sure we're going by the same plan tomorrow.”
“You could've just--” he begins but then sees her grin.
“What? Called?”
He smiles. “Next time, you will be able to call.”
She sits down on his sofa, and hesitantly he joins her, and talks about the plan, the guitar store (or museum, they probably call it now) and the connection to the big screens all around the city center. She nods but doesn't seem to be listening, and so he shuts up.
The next thing he knows, she's climbed on top of him and is tilting his head back, leaning in for a kiss.
“What are you--” he asks, not wanting to protest but being strangely unable to just not do anything, and her laughter vibrates beneath his hands (that seem to have a will of their own).
“Play,” she says. “Love.”
So it's partly interesting her brain subscribes to that particular definition of the word 'play' but before he can get to semantics of it all, he becomes too busy with kissing, his hands sliding up her sides and tentatively under her shirt. Her own hands pull his shirt over his head and he thinks about pulling away for a second to tell her that he has a bed but he's too afraid the moment will break. She strips off her top as he stares (would probably be rude not to), and then she lunges in again, licking and biting as her thigh grinds against his hardness in a way that's both painful and fantastic at the same time.
He touches, and listens, analysing what she likes and what she doesn't, and his hand settles between her legs, until she pushes it away, and strips off her own underwear (admirably easily, he thinks incidentally). The sounds she's making slowly become music in his head as he sinks against the sofa, her naked form hovering over him, and when she finally lowers herself onto him, all the sounds expand, fill the space around them.
When she comes, she does it quietly (and he, just a few seconds later, a little less so, and later he wonders how the fuck he ever managed to wait that long, anyway). In some of the old books that had been written about music, it said that every song starts from silence, and ends in silence.
She lies down against him, breathing in and out with a smile on her unlike anything he's ever witnessed on her before, and this is their fade-out, he thinks, and he's getting sleepy.
“I have a bed, you know,” he says and she looks at him like it's an invitation, when really it isn't, and he hadn't meant for it to come out as one, either.
But he supposes, as his lips slide over her navel and her back is arching on his bed, sleep can wait when you're making a revolution happen, and when it feels this good, the revolution can wait, too.
-vii-
It's done. A feeling of triumph is mixed with odd melancholy as Boa walks away from the crowds, away from him, as this is what they agreed. She has a new government to run, one of liberties and reason, and he has a whole world to connect, new rebel bases to help out - because if they can do it, everybody can.
A day goes by, a week goes by, and starting from scratch isn't easy and it wears her spirit down - in the end all she really wanted to was sing.
But then something happens, a package from Xiah. She waits until the end of the day to open it at a coffee shop, and just as she unwraps the phone, it rings.
She answers it, and the only thing she can hear at the other end is music, a completely unfamiliar tune, and she listens until the song ends.
“Hello?” she asks the silence.
“Hi,” Tablo answers. “Did you like it?”
“It was great,” she says, almost too glad to hear his voice, feeling her eyes suddenly swell with tears. She misses him. She didn't think she would, not this much, but she does, she misses them all.
“I want you to sing in it,” he says. “Is that okay?”
“I'll do it,” she says immediately. “Where are you?”
“There,” he just says. “Well, soon. Wait for me?”
“See you soon,” she replies, smiling against the receiver.
“I'd prefer that to hearing,” he tells her, but not through the phone, instead standing there in front of her.
She kisses him, happy and elevated, and realizing fast she needs him like she needs music, needs him like air or a feeling or singing.
He kisses her back, frantically with hands pulling her closer, his teeth accidentally scraping against her lips, and she can (in her head, where joy is busy mixing with want) taste how much he's missed her.
This time the song doesn't end and there's no fade-out, the record stuck on repeat.
When there is a silence, the music starts again.
any seven verses, any seven notes
anyband cf-verse, tablo/boa, R (don't ask me how the hell it got porny, it just did), ~2,000 words. warnings for ewwwhet and even worse, hetsex! :O
-i-
She's fiery and hot and her eyes blaze as her lips speak of revolution. Of course he's in love before he even knows her name, but she looks at him like he's nothing.
“Who's he?” she asks.
“Tablo-hyung's the brains of our operation,” Xiah says.
Tablo smiles at her, and she snorts.
“Are you saying the rest of us are dimwits, Xiah? Geez.”
But any emotion in this drained, dull society is colorful enough to suit him and so he doesn't complain.
-ii-
It wasn't always like this. She remembers being able to sing as a kid. She remembers screaming and laughing, too. Noises, basically - anything but the typical dull rhythm of steps against pavement, the hum of what is more or less silence, which is what surrounds them now. Now nothing is everything.
She was too young to remember how it started, really. The government grabbed a hold of history writing pretty early on, so the only thing books will tell her is that they took corrupting, filthy music away from people, little by little, like weeding a garden one non-planted flower at a time. Music was the source for all society's fundamental issues, after all; violence, hatred, greed, sexual promiscuity. Then they took away phone networks, internet, because communication only breeds bullying and terrorism.
They're not the only rebels, Xiah and Jin Bora and Tablo and her. They're just the only ones in this city, but Tablo sends messages to the others - in Tokyo, New York, Moscow - via a special pre-historical looking web, where everything has to be coded and then decoded to be understood. The only good thing about a non-communicating world is that now, for once, they all speak the same language.
The language that isn't really a language at all, but silence altogether.
-iii-
For her it began with Jin Bora sending messages via the web system that still existed (after worldwideweb had been successfully abolished). She caught them, and sent back some of her own, and before she knew it she was sitting in some abandoned apartment building, brightly lit like Xiah wanted to be found, and staring at her comrades.
“So we'll just sing?” she asked.
“It's never 'just' when it brings down an entire system of governing people's thoughts and feelings,” Xiah said irritably but she ignored him, looking at the other guy now.
Tablo had less to say about things than Xiah, and he wasn't as nice as Bora, either, but he intrigued Boa all the same. Whereas Xiah said he couldn't live without music, and Bora played like she couldn't live without it, Tablo was the only one who looked like it. And then when he played, composed, scribbled down lyrics as if there was no time left, she just knew.
He was the reason they could all make this happen.
-iv-
Whenever they practise, it's in low volume, as deep underground as they can possibly go.
It's not safe for them all to gather in one place too often, so they usually go by pairs, as it's too risky to practise through the mobile phone network (that still exists, if you know how to use it) all the time.
This time it's just him and Boa, in silence, as she adjusts the microphone level and he tunes the guitar. He's not sure if he has to, most of the music is pre-recorded on tape anyway, and the song they're rehearsing has more of him rapping than playing. But it gives him something to do, other than to stare at her, the curve of her lower back, her fingers brushing back the long hair and extensions that cascade over her shoulders, before the same hand settles on her (he swallows and decides it's time to look away) exposed hip, between the low-waist jeans and the tight-fitting shirt.
“I'll protect you,” she says.
“What?” he says, taking his eyes off the guitar (as if he was really occupied with it).
“The lyrics. You wrote them, right?”
“Yeah.”
She doesn't say anything after that, and they practise the song and afterwards he sees frustration on her face, because she has to hold back with the volume, with the size of her voice. But in order to be loud, they have to be quiet now. It makes sense, kind of.
“Who is she?” Boa asks him, as they walk up the stairs from the deserted basement. “The girl the song's about.”
“Music,” Tablo just replies, and maybe that's a lie, because what he really thought of when penning the lyrics was her, all sound and all energy, like delicious bass drumming giving the space around him a heartbeat, a life. In a way, she is music to him, but that's a bit too corny, and a bit too weird - it's not something he'll ever share with her.
“You're a strange guy,” Boa says with a smile as she pushes the door open, and sunlight hits them. She hears a noise from afar and grabs his hand as they run, but soon it becomes evident there is nobody following them.
She lets go of his hand.
“See you later,” he says, maybe a bit too hopeful, and she grins at him.
“I'd prefer hearing you later.”
It's a lame joke, but at least it is one (he hasn't heard one in months because nobody ever tells any) and just then he falls in love with her even more.
-v-
In the hazy texture of the dream, there is no logic as to how she ends up pressing him against a surface (vertical, horizontal, she's not sure), hand running down his lanky, t-shirt covered form until she reaches his belt and if he happened to gasp that moment, she shut him up with a kiss. The next events are mostly just feelings and sounds, heartbeats and groans, and a sense of gravity only when he collapses on top of her, and then rolls off. She pins him down again, thinking he might be done, but she's not, and that's the moment (her thighs against his hips and panting like it's their first time breathing air) she wakes up from the dream.
The sheets twist around her body uncomfortably and she untangles them as the first thought runs through her head (“why the hell Tablo?”), quickly replaced by another (“well, why the hell not”).
The next time they meet, Jin Bora tracking escape routes and Xiah sketching graffiti, Boa ponders the irony of how they talk and play, but do very little of loving.
Xiah once told her he has somebody, but it seemed like a past love, a somebody he was still hung up over.
Jin Bora keeps to herself mostly, exchanging a word or two with Boa and smiling shyly at Xiah.
It's more the cause (than friendship or fondness for one another) that unites them. But then, she thinks as her eyes move over Tablo, focused on messing with the wiring of some old cell phone, how the hell is she to know anyway, how the others feel.
It's more or less a mystery, and she's pretty sure she intends to keep it that way.
-vi-
He's surprised, because he didn't think she knew where he lived.
“Why do you look so shocked?” Boa asks him. “I just came by to make sure we're going by the same plan tomorrow.”
“You could've just--” he begins but then sees her grin.
“What? Called?”
He smiles. “Next time, you will be able to call.”
She sits down on his sofa, and hesitantly he joins her, and talks about the plan, the guitar store (or museum, they probably call it now) and the connection to the big screens all around the city center. She nods but doesn't seem to be listening, and so he shuts up.
The next thing he knows, she's climbed on top of him and is tilting his head back, leaning in for a kiss.
“What are you--” he asks, not wanting to protest but being strangely unable to just not do anything, and her laughter vibrates beneath his hands (that seem to have a will of their own).
“Play,” she says. “Love.”
So it's partly interesting her brain subscribes to that particular definition of the word 'play' but before he can get to semantics of it all, he becomes too busy with kissing, his hands sliding up her sides and tentatively under her shirt. Her own hands pull his shirt over his head and he thinks about pulling away for a second to tell her that he has a bed but he's too afraid the moment will break. She strips off her top as he stares (would probably be rude not to), and then she lunges in again, licking and biting as her thigh grinds against his hardness in a way that's both painful and fantastic at the same time.
He touches, and listens, analysing what she likes and what she doesn't, and his hand settles between her legs, until she pushes it away, and strips off her own underwear (admirably easily, he thinks incidentally). The sounds she's making slowly become music in his head as he sinks against the sofa, her naked form hovering over him, and when she finally lowers herself onto him, all the sounds expand, fill the space around them.
When she comes, she does it quietly (and he, just a few seconds later, a little less so, and later he wonders how the fuck he ever managed to wait that long, anyway). In some of the old books that had been written about music, it said that every song starts from silence, and ends in silence.
She lies down against him, breathing in and out with a smile on her unlike anything he's ever witnessed on her before, and this is their fade-out, he thinks, and he's getting sleepy.
“I have a bed, you know,” he says and she looks at him like it's an invitation, when really it isn't, and he hadn't meant for it to come out as one, either.
But he supposes, as his lips slide over her navel and her back is arching on his bed, sleep can wait when you're making a revolution happen, and when it feels this good, the revolution can wait, too.
-vii-
It's done. A feeling of triumph is mixed with odd melancholy as Boa walks away from the crowds, away from him, as this is what they agreed. She has a new government to run, one of liberties and reason, and he has a whole world to connect, new rebel bases to help out - because if they can do it, everybody can.
A day goes by, a week goes by, and starting from scratch isn't easy and it wears her spirit down - in the end all she really wanted to was sing.
But then something happens, a package from Xiah. She waits until the end of the day to open it at a coffee shop, and just as she unwraps the phone, it rings.
She answers it, and the only thing she can hear at the other end is music, a completely unfamiliar tune, and she listens until the song ends.
“Hello?” she asks the silence.
“Hi,” Tablo answers. “Did you like it?”
“It was great,” she says, almost too glad to hear his voice, feeling her eyes suddenly swell with tears. She misses him. She didn't think she would, not this much, but she does, she misses them all.
“I want you to sing in it,” he says. “Is that okay?”
“I'll do it,” she says immediately. “Where are you?”
“There,” he just says. “Well, soon. Wait for me?”
“See you soon,” she replies, smiling against the receiver.
“I'd prefer that to hearing,” he tells her, but not through the phone, instead standing there in front of her.
She kisses him, happy and elevated, and realizing fast she needs him like she needs music, needs him like air or a feeling or singing.
He kisses her back, frantically with hands pulling her closer, his teeth accidentally scraping against her lips, and she can (in her head, where joy is busy mixing with want) taste how much he's missed her.
This time the song doesn't end and there's no fade-out, the record stuck on repeat.
When there is a silence, the music starts again.