Showing off his flowers, Gilles was exhilarated. Some high, crystalline-struck frequency rang off him and whistled through him, bright and sharp as the flow of the water.
Daniel could not stop smiling at Gilles, transformed by joy into a child with a new playset. He danced Daniel down the aisles of poppies, waltzed him into the elevator and into the loft, spun him round and round the center of the room.
Laughter rang and rang, banging against the windows and whirling them faster; all Daniel could see as they spun was the smear of Gilles' flushed face and dark shine of his eyes. Then Gilles dipped him back, and back, so the room rose over him like an asteroid, and Daniel was laughing, too.
"Show you all my secrets," Gilles shouted, then wheeled around again, shimmying and twirling Daniel until he had no breath and his eyes swam in his head. "Tell you every lie, all the truth, *omniae fabulae et veritatês*--"
His joy sang around them, sweeping them up, pouring through Daniel. Heat springing out every pore, laughter spilling out to match Gilles' own, Daniel danced faster, keeping up, overtaking Gilles.
"Never tell a soul," Gilles said, panting for breath and hauling Daniel up, off the floor, into his arms. His hot mouth and bristled cheek moved over Daniel's throat as Daniel's head fell back, the ceiling wheeling over him all over again. Gasping with laughter -- alien joy, felt because Gilles felt it -- alien, then assimilated, and, finally, his own, indistinguishable in origin -- Daniel clung to Gilles, limbs wrapped around him, always about to fall, never slipping all the way.
"Never tell," he promised Gilles and Gilles smiled against his collarbone, shifting his grip so that Daniel slide fractionally down, Gilles' mouth moved up, and they were kissing.
One arm around Gilles' neck, the other around his shoulder, both legs wrapped around Gilles' waist: the embrace should have been awkward, but when Daniel caught sight, over Gilles' shoulder, of their reflection in the window, they looked perfect. He was slung over, around, Gilles, and Gilles was liquidly, constantly, shifting, at once holding him up and leaning against him.
Gilles' hand opened and closed on Daniel's buttocks, spreading them beneath the fabric, making him squirm closer, up and down. Their laughter continued, slowing slightly, burbling into chuckles and giggles as Daniel moved, deepening the kiss and clutching at Gilles, sucking his upper lip until it swelled in his teeth.
Gilles' eyes narrowed to bright slits and his mouth curved like a sleeping snake when Daniel trailed his lips down Gilles' neck, behind his ear, over the dense heat of his scalp.
"We'll celebrate --" Gilles turned, pressing Daniel back against the wall, freeing one hand and plucking something off the bookshelf.
Daniel slid lower, his spine bowing and groin coming to rest against Gilles'. More heat, laughter, there.
"What are we celebrating?"
"You, darling boy. Me, and you, Pandora --" Gilles opened his hand, revealing a small red box, cradled in his palm. He nudged the box with his thumb and the lid sprang open. Turning his gaze back to Daniel, he said, "You've never flown from Everest, have you?"
Everest. The men of his monastery had venerated the Himalayas nearly as deeply as they did Lama Ben. Mythical mountains, seat and ground of glory, where their faith was transformed amid stony crags and howling winds. Faith that had been Indian -- moist and vital, green saffron crimson muddy -- became stronger, newer, *different* on the heights as it bent and survived like stubborn trees and rarefied to crystal.
Everest.
"No, never," Daniel said. New Drepung was far from the mountains, as far as Verona Beach was from Bethlehem and Jerusalem. That details of faith persisted -- samsara in the Oregon forest, lacerated holy flesh on the beach -- was as miraculous-strange as how those details *changed* in their persistence. Samsara became smoky words, holy flesh worshipped with more flesh.
"Never," Gilles echoed. He kissed Daniel's forehead and repeated the word against the skin there.
*Never*. Daniel had come to Gilles with nothing. He cultivated the *never*, trusted that *nothing* was a virtue, and then everything changed. Continued to change.
Gilles rolled his hips into Daniel and offered the box. Eyes shining, he pressed his thumb against Daniel's mouth to wet it. "Taste this, then," he murmured and dipped his thumb into the box.
Blue white powder coated his thumb when it emerged, granular and bright as the beach at noon. The powder stung like ice when Daniel licked at it, then took Gilles' thumb into his mouth, where the cold bloomed and burst.
Gilles had beautiful hands, large but graceful, the fingers long and almost delicate. Daniel sucked the thumb deeper into his mouth, back and back, curving against his tongue, until he should have gagged. Close up, Gilles' hooded eyes were round shadows, washed with light, and his hips moved jerkily against Daniel even as he dragged free his thumb.
The icy sting continued to blossom, widening out through Daniel's body, knocking him shiveringly against the wall.
"Wait," Gilles said roughly, stepping back, letting Daniel unfold and slip down to his feet. "Love. Slow --"
Daniel could hardly walk; his legs were light and the floor slid and shifted under him. But he tried, following Gilles to the bed, reaching for him, touching him, then fetching another red box, this one long and flat as a book, when Gilles asked, then falling onto the bed, unbuttoning Gilles' shirt and waiting.
Anxious, cold-hot, waiting and watching.
Laughter, gone silent, did not vanish. It still flowed through Daniel as he rocked back on his heels, watching, always watching.
Stripped to the waist, Gilles looked like one of the fighters in an engraving about the Colosseum. His muscles did not bulge, but spread in plane across and down his body, like close-fitting armor; so much heat and strength lying in wait beneath his painted, scarred skin.
There was a new bruise high on his belly, snake-sliding around his waist. Gilles hissed in a breath, his hands stilling on the box, when Daniel brushed his hand over it.
Daniel withdrew the touch, but Gilles caught him by the wrist and brought his hand back. "Do as you will," he said, and Daniel traced the whip's trail while Gilles unrolled a spool of black ribbon and tied it around his bicep. A small dish appeared nect, filled with a large pinch of powder, then six drops from the bottle decorated with a cross.
"That would really kill Mick?" Daniel asked.
Gilles smiled. "Oh, yes. Force of convention and belief is something to marvel at."
Then he snapped his fingers beneath the dish, letting it float in midair, and a tiny flame sprang to life. Not one flame, Daniel saw when he leaned in, but an entire bonfire in miniature: tangled heap of timber and tiny celebrants dancing around it.
The needle, however, scared him. When Gilles drew it out of the box, Daniel had to concentrate on not moving away.
Fire, water, poppies and snow, even whips and scars -- he could see it all and marvel over, but the needle was out of place here. Sharp, clinical, it did not belong, yet Daniel watched as the powder and water boiled together, turning green-blue, then rushed up into the syringe.
Hooking his arm around Daniel's neck and hauling him close, Gilles kissed him roughly. "I love you," he muttered, words popping like logs in the bonfire against Daniel's mouth. He gripped Daniel there, the words reverberating between them, as he threw his arm outward, pushed the needle against the vein running inside his elbow, and plunged the stopper on the syringe.
The skin there was terribly tender. Daniel had kissed the pinprick scars and small round bruises there so many times. Soft, tender skin, taut of veins and muscles, and Gilles always crooned in the back of his throat when Daniel's mouth lingered there.
All was silent now, however. No crooning, or laughter, just Gilles' strained white face, a drop of blood welling where the needle had pierced, and love trembling over Daniel's lips.
The tender skin blanched, blood bloomed, and the tattoos stood out across Gilles' skin like etchings as his muscles contracted and seemed to rotate and twist like ropes.
Grotesque, captivating, something beyond laughter -- Gilles' face was drawn tight, his eyes rolling back, a parody of the expression that gripped him in the half-moment before he roared into orgasm.
Nothing beautiful was untouched. It was all twisted, shining and fleshy. Gilles' body spasmed, his eyes flew open, and he laughed again, grabbing Daniel and rolling over and over across the bed. From frozen terror to this, hooting laughter and wrestling, Gilles' long limbs tangling with Daniel's smaller ones, was nothing but a hop.
The laughter, Everest's bright sting, and Gilles' unbounded joy, all of it roiled through Daniel, and he kissed Gilles' heaving chest, wriggled against his hands and thrust against his leg. Helpless with laughter, he could not breathe but wheeze. Snow collapsing in an avalanche, thunder and slabs and powder, and Daniel rode it all the way down, Gilles underneath him, laughing and scowling and pushing at him.
Daniel tugged off Gilles' trousers and left him naked, muscles coiled and prick swollen thick and hard as reddened root against his belly. He paused, struggling to breathe against the laughter, and braced his hands on Gilles' knees. Leaning forward, Daniel opened his mouth -- so much song in his throat, such yearning to taste and fill and gorge himself on Gilles -- but Gilles reached up and stopped him.
Daniel froze there, hanging, as Gilles skimmed his fingernails over Daniel's chest, circling his nipples, twanging the rings there.
They breathed together, laughter shredding into a rough, quick symphony, as they regarded each other.
"Beauty mine --" Gilles twisted Daniel's nipples hard, then spread his fingers and pulled Daniel down against him. Pain that was not hurtful, simply razor-wire sharp, shot out from Daniel's chest, into his grip on Gilles' thighs, down his back into his cock, wrapping around it, wrenching it even harder.
Words floated over Gilles' chest, against Daniel's cheek: *AMOR* and *MATER* and others, graffito'd blackletter that blurred as Daniel struggled to compose himself. He pushed himself up and back, desperate to see Gilles, all of him, and was rewarded.
Gilles shone before him, stuttering in and out of focus as Daniel blinked to clear his eyes, to speak with iced-burning tongue.
Gilles was brass and gold, black designs and brazen skin, coiling strength, his eyes and mouth naked, fathomless shadows of need.
"Gilles?" Daniel asked. He'd only tasted the snow; Gilles had flooded his veins with the stuff. He had, he realized, when his throat was empty but for the cold, no words for Gilles beyond his name. Endearments came easily to Gilles, like all words did, but Daniel struggled even to name things.
"Darling." Gilles slid his hands up to Daniel's shoulders, rolling the bony joints there against his palms. "Daniel, beloved, dear --"
His voice was rich now, honey-thick, and as he spoke, he parted his legs more widely and canted up his hips so their cocks slipped and rubbed together.
Daniel was full of holes. Gaps waiting to be filled, aching for the burn of pleasure. Those spaces, sharp and irregular, twisted now, tightened, as Gilles moved under him. Tightened unbearably until they turned inside out, pushed outward, and suddenly, irrevocably, all Daniel wanted to do was bury himself in Gilles and grow whole again.
"I'm going to --" Daniel said. Stopped. He wondered what the words were. He looked down at their cocks, the bruise-and-crimson head of Gilles' glittering against the new whipmark, moistening it. He looked up again and found Gilles staring at him, his head raised and chin against his chest. "Gilles. I - I love you. I'm going to fuck you."
Simple as that. Truth, in monosyllables.
Such short, simple words that dragged up newer, fresher heat, rugburn and sunburn and tequila salt, and Daniel pushed his hips against Gilles in time with those words as Gilles dropped his head against the mattress and groaned.
He needed something wet. But he could only move in fractions, never break contact with Gilles, could, in fact, only move closer, pushing Gilles down and open. All he had within reach was the churchwater.
It smelled of roses and lotus when he splashed it over Gilles, down the tight, secret crack. Flowers that burned coldly on overheated skin when he rubbed it on himself.
Daniel was fragmented with need. Fragments, shards and pieces. Angles and edges and details wrenched free of context, but when he touched the skin that folded into Gilles' hole, a promise glimmered, just out of reach. Something entire and immanent, an oath beyond words, and Daniel needed it more than air.
Two fingers inside, Gilles grunting and twisting up to meet them, singing through clenched teeth. Inside, drawing up, it was better than the hinted-at promise, a bonfire seething behind tight silk, softer than anything Daniel had ever felt. He spread his fingers, scissored them as Gilles froze and seemed to loosen everywhere *but* around Daniel's fingers. Just that spot, the one that Gilles could find unerringly inside Daniel himself, and its twin throbbed inside Daniel, shooting firecrackers and pumping his hips in sympathy as Daniel stroked at Gilles'.
"Take me, boy to you: you so troubles me, 'tis past enduring --" Gilles chanted, and grunted, and squeezed Daniel's fingers past the point of numbness.
Long past time to make stories true and find the promised fullness. Daniel raised himself onto his knees, bracing one hand on the straining tendon in Gilles' thigh, gripping his aching cock with the other, and pushing. Pushing, praying.
Nothing, never, all, always.
He'd felt nothing like this, never imagined that Gilles had more wonders hidden and waiting inside; he pushed himself inside, all of himself, so slowly, pore by pore, and he could stay here always, rocking into Gilles.
"Love you," Daniel heard himself saying. Maybe he had never stopped saying it; words rhythmic as breathing, meaning even deeper, squeezed out of him by the pressure and heat of Gilles.
Inside Gilles, Daniel was everything; outside, something less than nothing. Breath and smoke outside, life, fire inside. He moved toward the source, watching Gilles' face contort and slide, then away, dragging down the burn, doubling it as he pushed back.
*Do you know what we're doing?* Gilles had asked him the first night. Daniel wondered now if he had ever known anything.
Wondered but did not care, could not, because he was here now, fucking Gilles, making him yowl, pant, tremble, and curse, and the pieces of himself were drawing together, knit in the heat of Gilles.
Daniel's body was stretching, pouring into Gilles, plumping with heat and pulling tight, all the fragments falling in line as he drove into Gilles farther, deeper, ever-hotter. Gilles gripped Daniel's shoulder, nails tearing skin, and everything grew white. A flash, a second avalanche, and Daniel fell onto his elbows over Gilles, hips jerking faster, pushing and clawing inside, coming in light and whole.
Gilles fell upward, tilting dangerously up, vertiginous and steep. One foot on the bed as he pushed up and up. "Touch me, please, D-d-daniel -- don't go -- please, never --"
Naked. And Daniel dragged his hand down Gilles' side, palming his cock and pulling at it, holding his hips still so he didn't slip out. Drawing the pleasure out of Gilles, watching his torso rise and fall, feeling him tighten harrowingly *more*, sucking Daniel deeper as he came. As his hips flew up and his torso jack-knifed to the side and hot liquid spattered out over Daniel's fist, staining and blurring the tattoo lowest on Gilles' stomach.
"Never, always," Daniel chanted back and -- he was hard again. Almost painful, certainly raw, scraped but full and whole.
Gilles had flipped back when he finished shooting, totally slack and heavy, but he gripped Daniel's hips now and smiled lazily.
"Sweet boy," he murmured, rubbing the small of Daniel's back. "Again already?"
There had been terror in Gilles' voice a moment ago, the desperate horror of needful desire, fear of loss, but now, he was calm. Warm, amused, even, his touch perfectly sure and his face loose with delight.
Daniel rolled his hips.
"Lest zeal, now melted by the windy breath, cool and congeal again to what it was --" Gilles added, tapping Daniel's vertebrae in turn and meeting the hip-roll with a drop of his own. "Love, Daniel. Love."
"Always," Daniel said. Meant it. There was no rush now. Pleasure already hovered around him, filled him from the inside out. He was not chasing anything; he had already arrived. Each rock forward, tiny twitch within Gilles, knit him warmer, fuller, plumper. "Always, Gilles."
Never leave; always stay.
He remained hard, happy to rock and bounce and simply feel as Gilles' hands moved over him, stroking, petting, soothing, just like this. No rush, no goal; he had come, and stayed, and fulfilled. The laughter had changed once more, from shrieking fragments, hail and gales to springmelt, full and thick.
When he came, later, he did not scream and claw. He opened, unfurled, floating around, over, Gilles. Staying, resting.
Sources:
Take me, boy to you...: Winter's Tale, 2.1
Lest zeal, now melted...: King John, 2.1