Fic: Un Oiseau Rebelle
Title: Un Oiseau Rebelle
Play/Poem/Movie: Richard II
Rating: PG-13(ish)
Summary: May day in Oxford. Richard and Robbie. Academic!AU
Warnings: AU. Also slash.
Notes: Love to gileonnen for creating this AU, and to angevin2, who is working like a worky thing and has been so patient in waiting for this!
Un Oiseau Rebelle
Richard has set out, quite determinedly and deliberately, to hate May Morning. He wanted to hate it at first because it was everything he should not admire or love or want, because it was so deliberately beautiful, so utterly set aside, so reeking of privilege and grandeur and the sheer oldness of things that should never have been allowed to grow so old.
He still wants to hate it even when Finals loom and he should in no way be out celebrating, has promised he won't, has said he won't, has vowed to be nowhere near the bridge, one of the many listening for a sound that might never drift down -
Te Deum Patrem colimus,
Te laudibus prosequimur,
qui corpus cibo reficis,
coelesti mentem gratia.
But May in Oxford is more beautiful than anywhere else in the world, he sometimes thinks, heady and lush and full of legend, with the lilies that begin to appear with their purple dye because of all the metal in the ground from the Civil War someone tells him, they were white before, like they are on Magdalen's crest -
And he tries to sleep and cannot, drinks too much while he pretends to be above it all, taking notes in his room as though it were an eyrie, a sanctuary; thinks of what he isn't hearing and listens to it echo in his head, and is there, waiting, at half-past five, ready to catch the faintest traces -
Actus in crucem, factus est
irato Deo victima
per te, Salvator unice
vitae spes nobis rediit.
- and the mist is on the river, reflecting the faintest, earliest traces of gold, that strange haze that warms stone into living metal and the richest of promised summer hues, that lights the top of the High and catches the lily tower, and enthrals heart and mind and soul all at once.
He has promised his absence, and yet he is here, and it seems no dichotomy, to walk among the laughing girls in incongruous ball-gowns and the men in white tie, and people in gowns who are celebrating something deep and - to them - integral; a girl in jeans and a ripped shirt over something that was once a sequined top before the night got the better of it; a man in high heels and a long-haired, laughing woman next to him, too old to be there and too beautiful not to be, barefoot and long-legged as Yeats's fly moving upon silence, Oxford's morning Helen who desires nothing to burn but only to warm herself at an old heat.
He is looking for one man, and the beauty of it all is so great that he is too dazzled to find him; he tried to conjure up Robbie's features so that when he finds him in the crowds he will be unmissable, but every description he tries to form with his mind cloaks him in fresh anonymity, and Richard is looking for a ghost.
He can feel him, though, when he reaches the bridge he has somehow only to close his eyes and can feel him, unmistakably and forever, the sure hands that know so well what they want, never to be gainsayed and yet still gentle. When his arms are around Richard, he knows their curve as he knows the summer bends of the Cherwell, knows the hardness of Robbie's shoulder and its surprising breadth, and the way his lips are cold to feel at first -
"- and possessive -" Richard says out loud, and comes back to himself with a gasp.
He has never stood a chance, not against Robbie or the spell of Oxford, and he is caught in both as the water is caught in the dissolving mist.
He moves to the edge of the bridge, looks down, looks at the Magdalen students who have liberated punts and are laughing so loud that even when the choir sings it might not be heard, and everything is too great, the sky seeming wider than anywhere else, all gold and singing and bubbling life, and he is caught in the immensity of it, up on the parapet along with two laughing others before he even knows that is what he intends.
And the choir is singing, and singing, high and pure and welcoming, and Richard is sure for an instant that Robbie is there, in a punt all his own, fading in and out of the glowing mist and laughing soundlessly, so sure that he has almost jumped, well before the allotted time, until he realises that it is an illusion, as swiftly-disappearing as the pools created by the punt-poles, churning and vanishing into froth bubbles.
He looks to the side, ashamed, and laughs back at someone in nothing but swimming trunks and a gown, who is laughing back at him - what is that they have seen, to so sympathise, to so readily understand?
He hears the voice before he can be sure it is real.
"L'oiseau que tu croyais surprendre battit de l'aile et s'envola...l'amour est loin, tu peux l'attendre; tu ne l'attends plus, il est la."
And everything else is drowned, annihilated, fantastical, and Robbie looks up at him from the river with his tie undone and his throat curved upwards to Richard a second before his eyes open, more gilded than any dawn.
The first thing he sees is Richard, so clearly that they almost reflect one another back from the glassy surfaces of irises and river both, Robbie's eyes widening and blank and filmed with the mist-haze, and Richard wants to cry out -
See only me!
- but his voice has caught high in his head, like the sweet thin lime-juice sound of a crying violin, and he can only look.
Richard, Robbie mouths soundlessly, his eyes wide and dazzled and disbelieving and so utterly filled with drunken hope that they are yet another impossibility, and the champagne bottle drops from his hand as he holds out his hands, as though he would catch Richard if he fell, be more of a cushion than any water, be the bird-catcher of all opera and all song.
Tout autour de toi, vite, vite, il vient, s'en va, puis il revient ...tu crois le tenir, il t'évite, tu crois l'éviter, il te tient.
"L'amour..." Robbie mouths, still and caught as any painting.
The choir sings above them, faint and distant, and Richard closes his eyes, thinking of the cold shallowness of the water and all the reasons he has never dared do this before.
And jumps.
Triune Deus, hominum
salutis auctor optime,
immensum hoc mysterium
orante lingua canimus.
**
Play/Poem/Movie: Richard II
Rating: PG-13(ish)
Summary: May day in Oxford. Richard and Robbie. Academic!AU
Warnings: AU. Also slash.
Notes: Love to gileonnen for creating this AU, and to angevin2, who is working like a worky thing and has been so patient in waiting for this!
Un Oiseau Rebelle
Richard has set out, quite determinedly and deliberately, to hate May Morning. He wanted to hate it at first because it was everything he should not admire or love or want, because it was so deliberately beautiful, so utterly set aside, so reeking of privilege and grandeur and the sheer oldness of things that should never have been allowed to grow so old.
He still wants to hate it even when Finals loom and he should in no way be out celebrating, has promised he won't, has said he won't, has vowed to be nowhere near the bridge, one of the many listening for a sound that might never drift down -
Te Deum Patrem colimus,
Te laudibus prosequimur,
qui corpus cibo reficis,
coelesti mentem gratia.
But May in Oxford is more beautiful than anywhere else in the world, he sometimes thinks, heady and lush and full of legend, with the lilies that begin to appear with their purple dye because of all the metal in the ground from the Civil War someone tells him, they were white before, like they are on Magdalen's crest -
And he tries to sleep and cannot, drinks too much while he pretends to be above it all, taking notes in his room as though it were an eyrie, a sanctuary; thinks of what he isn't hearing and listens to it echo in his head, and is there, waiting, at half-past five, ready to catch the faintest traces -
Actus in crucem, factus est
irato Deo victima
per te, Salvator unice
vitae spes nobis rediit.
- and the mist is on the river, reflecting the faintest, earliest traces of gold, that strange haze that warms stone into living metal and the richest of promised summer hues, that lights the top of the High and catches the lily tower, and enthrals heart and mind and soul all at once.
He has promised his absence, and yet he is here, and it seems no dichotomy, to walk among the laughing girls in incongruous ball-gowns and the men in white tie, and people in gowns who are celebrating something deep and - to them - integral; a girl in jeans and a ripped shirt over something that was once a sequined top before the night got the better of it; a man in high heels and a long-haired, laughing woman next to him, too old to be there and too beautiful not to be, barefoot and long-legged as Yeats's fly moving upon silence, Oxford's morning Helen who desires nothing to burn but only to warm herself at an old heat.
He is looking for one man, and the beauty of it all is so great that he is too dazzled to find him; he tried to conjure up Robbie's features so that when he finds him in the crowds he will be unmissable, but every description he tries to form with his mind cloaks him in fresh anonymity, and Richard is looking for a ghost.
He can feel him, though, when he reaches the bridge he has somehow only to close his eyes and can feel him, unmistakably and forever, the sure hands that know so well what they want, never to be gainsayed and yet still gentle. When his arms are around Richard, he knows their curve as he knows the summer bends of the Cherwell, knows the hardness of Robbie's shoulder and its surprising breadth, and the way his lips are cold to feel at first -
"- and possessive -" Richard says out loud, and comes back to himself with a gasp.
He has never stood a chance, not against Robbie or the spell of Oxford, and he is caught in both as the water is caught in the dissolving mist.
He moves to the edge of the bridge, looks down, looks at the Magdalen students who have liberated punts and are laughing so loud that even when the choir sings it might not be heard, and everything is too great, the sky seeming wider than anywhere else, all gold and singing and bubbling life, and he is caught in the immensity of it, up on the parapet along with two laughing others before he even knows that is what he intends.
And the choir is singing, and singing, high and pure and welcoming, and Richard is sure for an instant that Robbie is there, in a punt all his own, fading in and out of the glowing mist and laughing soundlessly, so sure that he has almost jumped, well before the allotted time, until he realises that it is an illusion, as swiftly-disappearing as the pools created by the punt-poles, churning and vanishing into froth bubbles.
He looks to the side, ashamed, and laughs back at someone in nothing but swimming trunks and a gown, who is laughing back at him - what is that they have seen, to so sympathise, to so readily understand?
He hears the voice before he can be sure it is real.
"L'oiseau que tu croyais surprendre battit de l'aile et s'envola...l'amour est loin, tu peux l'attendre; tu ne l'attends plus, il est la."
And everything else is drowned, annihilated, fantastical, and Robbie looks up at him from the river with his tie undone and his throat curved upwards to Richard a second before his eyes open, more gilded than any dawn.
The first thing he sees is Richard, so clearly that they almost reflect one another back from the glassy surfaces of irises and river both, Robbie's eyes widening and blank and filmed with the mist-haze, and Richard wants to cry out -
See only me!
- but his voice has caught high in his head, like the sweet thin lime-juice sound of a crying violin, and he can only look.
Richard, Robbie mouths soundlessly, his eyes wide and dazzled and disbelieving and so utterly filled with drunken hope that they are yet another impossibility, and the champagne bottle drops from his hand as he holds out his hands, as though he would catch Richard if he fell, be more of a cushion than any water, be the bird-catcher of all opera and all song.
Tout autour de toi, vite, vite, il vient, s'en va, puis il revient ...tu crois le tenir, il t'évite, tu crois l'éviter, il te tient.
"L'amour..." Robbie mouths, still and caught as any painting.
The choir sings above them, faint and distant, and Richard closes his eyes, thinking of the cold shallowness of the water and all the reasons he has never dared do this before.
And jumps.
Triune Deus, hominum
salutis auctor optime,
immensum hoc mysterium
orante lingua canimus.
**