Title: Perhaps We May Hear Golden Trumpets
Author: Aspen ([email protected])
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Dickon/Colin
Warnings: PWP, m/m slash, (slightly underage?) graphic sex, kink, sap, and Yorkshire, Yorkshire, Yorkshire!
Notes: I did research on servants' clothing in India -- so hopefully that part is accurate, but I humbly apologize if I completely screwed it all up. And speaking of accuracy, I've drawn a lot from the absolutely gorgeous film... lovely as it is, I believe that the swing and the steps and pillars were all the film's creation... they sure did put their creative license to use, huh?
Disclaimer: Frances Hodgson Burnett owns them.
Dedication: To Kimmie, my Valentine. Kiko, your friendship, faith, and support mean more to me than I could have ever assumed when we first began to talk way back when, and in you I have found ultimate understanding and patience. Everything you do is Magic. Your talent, so vast in so many areas, overwhelms me, but moreso than that, the selflessness of your nature. I love you. That Dickon/Colin you desired... here it is.


"He's a sort of animal charmer and I am a boy animal." - Colin, about Dickon, in Chapter Fifteen of The Secret Garden




Spring.

It was Magic, Dickon knew.

Everything in the garden was taking on a brilliant, wick shade of green, so terribly beyond any other tint of green that it nearly hurt his eyes after the bleak grays and browns of winter. The fattest buds he'd ever seen were peeking out shyly, tender with the petals tucked inside them and promising explosions of colour soon, but holding back in the face of breezes that chilled when the sun slipped away for the night. Dickon had seen it every year for his past seventeen years, but there was so seldom a day like the one he and Colin were experiencing that Dickon wondered if Colin was silently chanting what Ben Weatherstaff called his "Doxologies," conjuring his Magic.

Colin would. Colin could.

Dickon turned his head slightly to look at the ghostly boy's profile; sharp nose, pale freckles barely visible beneath the healthy pearly-pink tinge resting on his ivory cheeks, eyes that were just the colour of the muted gray morning surrounded by thick dark lashes, so funny and angled and queer. Every time Dickon looked at him, he realized again, with a sweet lingering ache in his chest, that he would never see a flower more beautiful than the fine ivory white of his skin, handle a foal with a body more awkwardly delicate than his, or embrace a moor breeze that was gentler than him. Many springs had passed since Colin had learned to walk again, and while he was much healthier and much less spindly than he used to be, the fifteen-year-old once called "the cripple" and "the invalid" had retained a thinner, more delicate-looking body than even his cousin Mary, who had been the most sour-looking, skinny little girl Dickon had ever seen. And Dickon himself, the moor's own child, was still ruddy, thick, and sturdy, rusty-auburn hair its own wild tangle from the moor winds, respectfully quiet when one of Colin's flights of fancy would hit.

But Colin had yet to pick up from where he'd left off rambling about the upcoming summer's trip to India with his father and Miss Mary, lying sated on a blanket spread over the soft new grasses that lay in long, uncut, thick mats beneath the two. One arm was stretched behind his head, the other lay on his bare stomach, moving ever so slightly with the boy's regulated breaths. He seemed, though, to suddenly feel Dickon's eyes on him.

"It's strange, you know," he spoke up in a soft, dreamy voice, eyes still distant on the bleak white sky.

Dickon lifted his chin in question. He didn't know if Colin saw it or not, but the body language was common between the two now.

"Only a few years ago... only a few, really... I didn't know what the sky looked like... not like this. Not lying on my back out here... in the garden... on the hills... free and forever blue... forever blue. I only knew what my ceiling looked like, and the top of my canopy, all red satin with gold embroidery... so glinting and fake in the yellow candlelight..." He took a deep breath of air, eyes momentarily closing, then drifting open as if rosy-pale clouds were parting and a bit of the springtime morning gray-smothered-blue was peeking through again. "How I hated it."

Dickon listened wistfully, thinking of the way his own cabin's roof looked from his pallet on the floor, so dark that it always looked like a starless night sky, the merry fire crackling in the hearth lighting the faces of his brothers and sisters and mother as they played and laughed and worked. He was brought back to attention by an soft, equally wistful sigh from Colin.

"I'm so lucky I've come to know you, Dickon." His voice was as tender and breathy as a silken water lily. "I never would have imagined myself friends with a queer common boy, like Mary said you were, those years ago when I lay spoilt and sour in my bed and thought morbid thoughts of death and my father and mother and illnesses and spores all day..."

Colin's frail hand suddenly brushed Dickon's, a timid brushing of his bony knuckles over the sturdy skin of the back of Dickon's hand.

The gesture was so slight, so small, that no bird or beast looking at the two boys would have noticed and been startled away, but it made a hot flush rise in Dickon's cheeks.

"Aye," Dickon answered, "an' I never thowt I'd see th' Master's cripple son walkin', or be friendly wi' him. Or anythin' else," he added in a heartfelt whisper.

This made Colin turn his face to Dickon's, a pretty smile curving over his mouth. Dickon quickly became lost in the endlessness of the boy's gray eyes, finding them as vast as the very sky.

"Dickon," Colin whispered thickly, and Dickon suddenly felt as if he was standing on the edge of a cliff, the wind against his body keeping him from tumbling over the side of it; he suddenly felt close to touching a secret guarded more closely than the heart of a flower or the den of a fox. "Do you remember telling my cousin about lying on your back... like we are now... taking in long breaths of fresh air... like we are now... and that you felt it in your veins -- and it made you strong -- like you could live for ever and ever?"

"Aye," repeated Dickon, a million mornings of lying in the middle of a wild grassy hill whose grasses sang with the fresh clean wind coming back to him. Colin rolled over onto his side facing Dickon, cushioning his head with one lanky arm and staring at Dickon so intensely that the moor boy almost wavered gazing back.

A long moment of this passed, more silence from Colin in which the birds chirped hidden in the thick of the ivy and roses and Dickon's fox cub, Nimble, crept over Colin's feet with a brush of feathery fur and timid footsteps upon the blanket. Finally...

"I feel like when I close my eyes, it's you -- you I'm breathing," Colin whispered fiercely, and Dickon was sure his surprise was showing on his plain face, feeling his mouth fall open slightly. Colin ran on, "It's you, Dickon... I can feel you in my veins... you make me strong. And I'm going to live for ever and ever. And so are you. Always with me. You are mine, now, you know."

If Miss Mary had been there, she would have called Colin selfish.

If Miss Mary had known what secret blossom was bursting full in Dickon's heart then, she might have called Dickon selfish as well.

But Miss Mary was not there.

So Dickon, heart pounding in his chest, rolled over onto one elbow and pressed his nose into Colin's arm, smelling the wonderful smell Colin's fancy shirt, which was currently spread out on the grass beside them, had left on him, combined with the heat and sweetness that had sheened over his skin as Dickon had worked him to a frenzied climax only a few minutes ago. He knew what Colin meant. He knew what Colin felt better than Colin could express it. He breathed in deeply, and shivered with the pure emotion as Colin reached up with his other hand and gently brushed skinny fingers through his hair.

Though I knows thee i' an' out, tha' art still a thing o' mystery, Dickon marveled privately. Outwardly, he replied with a crinkly-eyed smile, "Tha' still orders us about like tha'rt one o' Miss Mary's rajahs."

Colin stiffened, tilting his nose up imperiously.

"Carry me to my cushion, servant," he mimicked in a regal fashion.

Dickon swung a leg over Colin's midsection, raising himself to all-fours with Colin spread underneath him, whose features were drawn up to be remarkably austere, though his agate-gray eyes glinted mischievously. The plain white patched blanket beneath them could have been a mango-print tapestry alive with a roar of fiery colours, and Colin could very well have been dripping with jewels and sporting a silken turban from the tone of his voice, one which had not quite all left since his days of being the young master of Misselthwaite.

"Aye, very good, sir," Dickon teased, and had a gasping Colin picked up and tossed over one shoulder before the younger boy had realized what was going on. Colin's fists beat Dickon's back as he climbed up from his knees; the rajah was choking back laughter. "Tha' wanted to be carried... carried tha'llt be!"

"I'll have you tortured for this impudence! Killed!" Colin wiggled, grasping the back of Dickon's suspenders as Dickon marched him across the garden, leaving their blanket and heading bumpily up a the set of stone steps that were crawling with ivy and were littered with a thousand shades of gold, scarlet, violet, and pink flower petals, all undisturbed by Dickon's bare feet as if his step were lighter than an angel's.

"Eh!" laughed Dickon, laughter full and strong and unabashed, "I knows thy punishment'll have me howlin' like a wounded beast."

"You!!" Colin beat him even harder, though Dickon was such a sturdy boy he barely felt it.

Colin was swung around sharply, warm sweet breeze fluttering his silk brown locks, before Dickon himself sat down on the wooden blank of the Secret Garden's swing, which creaked happily with their combined weight.

"No finer cushion i' all o' Yorkshire," the boy claimed as Colin slid down onto Dickon's lap, knees aside the boy's hips and resting on the worn wooden plank.

"I will not be lenient!" Colin announced. "You will suffer grievously, oh, how you shall suffer!"

Colin's hands were pale against the robin's egg blue of Dickon's shirt, which made the colour of Dickon's eyes seem all the more round and blue. Dickon's strong legs swung the two back and forth a little in a gentle rhythm. Colin brushed away a blood-red flower petal which landed on Dickon's shirt, wanting to see what all the fuss was about.

"All thy preachin' an' fussin' an' passions, an' tha' don't do a thing about it. Wilt tha' need me to punish mysel', or wilt tha' lift thy pearl-stuck hand an' do it thysel'?"

"Torture, I believe," Colin was musing. "Yes, divine, sweet torture..." His voice dropped to a whisper, and he leaned his forehead to Dickon's. "Tha' wants me, aye, but tha' cannot 'ave me till tha'rt beggin' for my pardon."

Dickon shivered. It was rare when the rajah condescended himself to lend voice to Dickon's tongue, and the whispery flow of the words always made curious feelings stir up inside. Colin's mouth brushed his softly, and Dickon's eyes shut as he tried to catch the flighty lips, but was too late.

"Ah-ah, servant," tutted Colin. "You can't touch royalty unless you have permission. Now remove your khameez."

Colin's command was as blunt as if he were still ten years old and prone to thinking all were born to serve him; it was a strange thing that being commanded like he was made Dickon shudder so, when he would have only been amused at age twelve. It took Dickon a moment to realize that Colin meant the shirt he still wore, which was only half-unbuttoned; the intensity of the two's earlier activities had been mostly focused on the restless Colin, who was devoid of vest, shirt, shoes and stockings. Colin's hands fastened themselves around the heavy black chains that held up the swing; his strange beautiful eyes regarded Dickon as the moor boy fumbled with the rest of his buttons and pulled the shirt up from his plain brown trousers, then shoved the suspenders from his shoulders and let the shirt fall behind him to brush in the dirt worn beneath the swing.

"Good, very good. You please me, servant," Colin purred grandeurly, looking up and down Dickon's sweaty chest, thinking that the sunburn on his neck and shoulders and the ruddy red complexion of his skin sprinkled lightly with rusty-red hair was more beautiful than the few glimpses of his cousin in her many layers of white unmentionables he'd caught, so fresh and strong and much more powerfully exciting, so much less fussy and more appealing. Dickon's muscles were a subject of great fascination for Colin, who was much more slight of build though a hundred times stronger and healthier than he used to be. "I shan't forgive you, yet, though," added the boy thoughtfully, tilting his head until the angle combined with his great large eyes made Dickon think of an owl. "Put those traitorous hands of yours to good use and slide your salwar down."

Dickon's eyebrows did a funny jump. Well, he only had one article of clothing left...

"Don't stare at me, servant!" Colin snapped, growing impatient. "Do as you are commanded."

Gracefully, Colin lifted himself into a kneel, allowing Dickon the room to make haste with his trousers, which ended up around his thighs. Colin sat on the folds of fabric purposefully, eyes staring down and mouth parting with hunger at the blood-engorged organ twitching against the auburn tuft of hair nestled just beneath Dickon's navel.

"Seeing as how you are mine to toy with as I please," Colin muttered intensely, voice a strained version of before, "I should like to watch you touch it."

Dickon opened his mouth in surprise. "Eh..." he started, then stopped short as Colin raised warning eyes to his.

"Touch yourself for me, my servant." Colin was nothing short of imperial. "If you do a good job, I will reward you."

Colin's strange system of rewards and punishments, his bursts of playing pretend, came off as nothing but odd to Dickon, but Colin had always been an odd boy, and for reasons Dickon couldn't even begin to grasp, they were awfully arousing. It was like play-acting, like being a child again, though they both were more young man than child now. Something about it struck a chord deep in him, and curiously, Dickon removed one hand from the chain swing and wrapped it gingerly around his pulsing cock. He gasped when he saw Colin's eyes drop down from his face again, almost unable to handle the rush of feeling that swept through his body. No one had ever seen him doing this before, and he'd never done it in Colin's presence, always occupied with exploring the smaller boy's body. It was sort of frightening... how good it felt. How it seemed like he was sharing a secret with Colin, another to add to the growing collection of secrets between the two of them.

"You like it, don't you," Colin moaned softly, bringing heat to Dickon's cheeks. He glanced down to watch his hand move with a growing speed over his own flesh, feeling his palm grow slick and slippery from his own excitement, and caught sight of Colin's own cock, throbbing visibly along his belly beneath the fabric of his shorts and trousers.

"So does tha', I'd reckon," Dickon said, unable to stop himself, mouth loosened by a groan.

"I told you that you pleased me," said Colin haughtily. "No reward shall be given, you disobedient boy; only my pleasure will be taken now. Remove my trousers. "

Dickon didn't need to be asked twice this time. He abandoned himself, hand sticky, to undo the many buttons on Colin's trousers, peeling them down to reveal the flimsy white undershorts Colin wore, the front of which were soaked through till they were transparent and filmy, and he could see the eager shaft, a deep pink, beneath the fabric. The very sight had him sighing deeply with want, though he'd seen it twenty minutes earlier and had seen it many a time before. Colin's body never failed to strike a flame in him.

"You may touch me, servant. Slave. Yes... slave... how pretty the word is on you, slave," mused the rajah, undulating stomach giving away the fact that he was just as desperately aroused as the servant, if not more. Dickon privately believed that Colin enjoyed hearing the sound of his own voice, which was why he talked so much, so it only made sense that this was all very exciting. He picked up a passing fancy that he should like to hear those words break apart, ruined by sensation, and brushed his fingers over the twitching cock so feebly restrained by underclothes. Colin issued a sharp gasp. "Oh!" His eyes closed in a fall of ashen-dark lashes. "Good. So good," he hissed.

Dickon's insides flushed over with new heat, and he cupped his palm over the curve between Colin's tense thighs, rubbing against his belly like the other boy was a hound getting a thorough massage.

"Take them off. Take them off, slave," Colin panted, raising his agile hips again to allow the sticky garment to be peeled down, revealing his jutting organ dribbling in his eagerness. The shorts made it past one knee, then the other, then were shrugged off one slim ivory ankle. The gray-eyed boy squinted down majestically. "You will serve me now... and you will love every moment of it, just as I will."

Truth had a queer way of being a double-edged knife.

Colin reached down with a hand so soft and fine that Dickon felt himself roughly shoved to the very edge of his boundaries, grasping him gingerly and sliding down and in and onto him, lowering and impaling himself on the slippery-wet tip of a spear. Dickon clutched Colin's sides with fingers that were sweaty and felt unusually clumsy, and Colin was going so slowly, like he was savouring the pain of being split and invaded and awkwardly filled.

And Dickon knew heat, and wet, and a grip sweeter than a hand could offer, and every gnash of Colin's small, white teeth, and the struggle to keep himself from falling apart at the seams.

Divine, sweet torture.

When at long last Colin had taken him mostly in, and was hovering, one long rose-flushed muscle in front of Dickon, he stopped, cocking his head oddly again and smoothing away the pained pleasure on his face in favour of a fierce look of pride mixed with rapture, he gasped out, "I feel you in my veins, Dickon."

Dickon's voice broke. "An' I feel thee, Colin..."

Somehow, Dickon didn't remember how, Colin came to be moving himself over Dickon's flesh, hips flicking, and the swing was moving back and forth in a rhythm slower than Colin's own, chains jerking slightly with the fevered movements. Dickon was lost already, hands creeping along Colin's shoulder blades all soft and slow like the roses creeping in canopies from tree to tree, breathing in short, labored gasps of him, nothing but him and the sharp smell of his skin and his bobbing cock and the salt of his sweat and excitement.

"Oh, it's... it's..." Colin was crying, commands slipping into begs, "please... help me, Dickon..."

Dickon obligingly snapped his hips up to meet Colin's; taking much of the work from the boy and shoving several sharp noises from him, accompanied by the slap of skin between them, jerking the swing into a sideways sway. Colin's voice whined lowly, diffusing into Dickon's very wish of incoherent desperate noises, jumbled remarks of how it felt to be pounded just so, to be loved just so, pleading wishes for it to end and for it to never end. They were both shaking with that very effort. If Dickon could have stayed so deep into Colin all the time, he decided he would have.

Abruptly, resisting temptation didn't matter anymore, because Colin was arching impossibly back into Dickon's twitching arms, half-scream lost into the trees somewhere, chest splattered with pearls marred by Dickon's cheek as he buried his face into Colin's heaving stomach and let go, cradling the boy, filling him, and becoming that much more his slave.

Finally, after the strange darkness had ebbed away from their vision, Colin ran a weak hand over Dickon's wet cheek and kissed him with his soft sad mouth. He thought just the opposite, wondering absently if Dickon knew.

They held each other for a long while in silence.

"I cannot tell," Colin said after a while, his cheek pressed into Dickon's shoulder, shivering as the boy lazily stroked his back, "where I end... and you begin."

"Us don't," replied Dickon in a soft voice, as if there were an animal he wanted to coax out around. "I feels tha' i' me, same as I'm in thee. It's like as if we shared th' same skin."

Colin closed his eyes, a tiny peaceful smile spreading over his lips without his permission.

It's strange, isn't it, he thought to himself, how without the queer common boy, the rajah isn't anything at all.




- Fin