Title: The Unforgettable Fire (breathe in, breathe out) Author: onozon
Subject info: B/K
Disclaimers: Characters belong to Tom Fontana and HBO. Note: My first B/K fic :)
It's written from both Chris' and Toby's perspectives - simultaneously. Lyrics by U2: "The unforgettable fire" used without permission.

The Unforgettable Fire
(1/1)

I can't sleep for some time now. I can feel it in my gut - everything's gonna change soon.

I get up from my bunk and lean against the top one. He's curled under the blanket, his breathing slow - almost peaceful, but just almost - 'cause I know him well: he wouldn't know peace if it stabbed him in the middle of the chest - this way he has some twisted purpose in his life.

Who am I to tell, right?

He thinks. He thinks too fucking much.

"Toby..." I whisper his name. No response. That's good. He's sleeping. He's finally sleeping.

I place my hand on his pale cheek, wipe my thumb against the soft skin right under his eye. Warmth of that almost-caress makes him sigh, but he remains still. I lower my head on the mattress, right in front of his; our eyes inches away, mine pierce right through to him. I breathe in, he breathes out. That's how it is with us.

I hope he doesn't wake up and see me like this-- unguarded. He needs me reserved, strong and slightly distant to be able to go on.

I wish I could just go on - when he's gone.

I can hear him think down there - voices screaming from every pore of his stiff body are somehow louder than those screaming in my own head. And how's that for a change?

He's been doing that a lot lately - just thinking. Silent. He hasn't really slept in weeks. He wordlessly paces the pod while I'm up, avoiding my eyes; and when he thinks I'm asleep, he finally approaches me and stares at me for hours. He lays his head beside mine, caresses my face with the lightest of touches, whispering something I can barely hear. Every now and then he calls my name as if to make sure I'm really asleep, and not about to witness his-- what is it?

I let him think I'm not aware. I let him be near and find his consolation on his own terms. It takes a lot of self-restraint to do that - not to reach out for him, let him know that I know, cradle his head and kiss his eyes, kiss his silent breaths and replace them with my own - of pleasure and emotion that is beyond everything we're about.

I'd banish all of his worries with my own body that's become a remedy in this hell, just like his is to me. It's not lust. It's not sex. It's the need. Of love. And we're addicted.

I hear him sigh, "Toby..." and tears start burning their way out behind my closed eyelids. Still, I keep quiet. His nose touches mine and I shift a little, because the heat of his breath and mine withheld tears is unbearable.

So close. He's so close.

He thinks I'm gonna wake up, so he pulls away. I keep still and he comes back to me. He always does. He calls me ever so softly, again and again, "Toby... Toby..."

When silence meets him, he whispers, clear enough to understand it, "Don't leave me."

And I can't control myself any longer as his desperation reaches me in that whisper. I bury my head in the crook of his neck, reach around his shoulders and lock my arms there; I grip his shirt, and breathe him in as if my life depends on it, as tears uncontrollably stream down my face.

I try to escape from his embrace, but he holds on to me tighter in return.

//Don't let go.//

So I finally give in. Caught again in my own trap. I hold him, and feel his warmth lighten my own skin, while my touches free his beautiful smell. And we breathe each other in. He breathes in, I breathe out. That's how it is with us.

His tears always burn their way through all of my shields. I cradle his head between my palms as he grips my shoulders, calling my name breathlessly, "Chris... Chris..."

"Chris..."

His name is almost like a chant to me. When we're making love, when we're fighting, when he's away, when I'm just being alone with myself within myself - "Chris" is my penance, my excuse, my vindication, and right now - anchor in the middle of my chest and only his touch can make the ache go away.

This hunger for him I'm feeling deep in my gut would be the easiest excuse for what's us. I ache for the warmth of his presence, and desire envelops every cell of my consciousness with the weight of its truth, the same truth that reveals itself over and over again every time he touches me. Nobody's ever touched me like that - with equal sincere, familiar, burning hunger. It's desperation fed with ultimate bliss. It's loving Christopher Keller. No reluctance, no fear-- just the essential feeling.

I look at him through misty eyes, his features sharp in the mid-dark of Oz night; my hands grip his strong shoulders, his own reach for mine, holding me at close distance. And then his lines soften all of a sudden as he whispers again, "Toby, don't leave me."

"Toby, don't leave me," I repeat.

His faces glows with emotion, with compassion only he has for me; he's a bit caught by all of this, I know that. He's shaking with sudden impact of cold air as his blanket falls when he comes down in front of me, his hands never leaving my shoulders, mine coming up his own, to his burning cheeks.

I pull him in once again, more desperately this time. I'll probably leave marks on his back, and I'd like to do just that-- I'd like him to have me branded on his flesh for the rest of his life.

I know words won't reassure him, but I still try to sooth him. "Shhh..."

We stay like that for what seams like forever. Both slightly shivering from the cold Oz air, pressed by the heavy weight of the walls around us that keep us together no matter what-- walls that are soon going to stand between us, keeping us forever apart. The thought strikes me and I tremble wildly against him. We're both trembling, actually, each with his own fears, and it's impossible to tell the difference where mine end and his begin; our shivers collide into one huge heath-rising chant--

"Toby..."

"Chris..."

"Baby..."

"Shhh..."

"Toby, don't leave me. Don't leave me..."

And then I kiss the corner of his mouth, and his hands come around my neck, tugging lightly at my hair. My eyes become heavy with both pleasure outside and ripping pain inside.

Soon.

But now...

I can hear his silent understanding. He'll never really be free. As much as I love him, I know I'll never be able to let him go. He'll hate me for it. But right now I can tell that he loves me more. Still, it's not enough. It'll never be enough.

As my hands go down his back, under his shirt, caressing his pale skin, he leans in, his mouth parted.

I run my hands down his chest, take his shirt off and lay my cheek against him. Kiss the scar, then lower, his nipples - I lick around as his fingers brush through my hair.

"Chris..." I whisper as I blow kisses up his chest to his mouth.

Then he takes my shirt off, his eyes piercing through me in the dark, still saying, "Don't let go".

He's almost ghostlike in this artificial Oz night - he's the only addiction I never want to give up.

I cup his ass and press him against me. He sighs, calls my name again and I can feel him growing painfully hard as we slowly rock together. I take all of his breaths inside me and release them along with my own through to him. And then we breathe in, and we breathe out. Together. And that's how it is with us.

I work my hand inside his boxers, cup his ass as he does mine. The fabric between us is too much to bear-- I need all of him. The essential - what comes through touch, from deep within. I need Chris Keller the way only I know him, the way he only lets me see him for who he really is. Bare skin against bare skin, scar against scar, bruise against bruise. No shame, no regrets, no guilt anymore. His hardness against mine, our juices mixed just like our breaths.

I carefully push his boxers down his hips. He steps out of them and does the same to me.

He presses our foreheads together, and closes his eyes. He stops every motion and I follow.

So close.

I wish I could capture him in my head - like this - forever. He's my prisoner - somewhere in the middle of me - painfully real, and I can feel his desperate touch scaring my surface. That's the real feeling of Toby. My Toby. I want the memory of him to be this loving, warm, willing and near, always. Just for me and just with me, that's what I'd selfishly like to believe.

I don't own anything valuable. I don't have any family to care about me. And I want him to know that it was never about things I didn't have, but wanting the things I had - keeping wanting them, over and over and over and more. And it really happened only once - with him, when he let me believe I had...him.

While I kept looking for enemies where I could have found a friend, God really did choose me, making my enemy become my friend. And through a painful battle for life, against all odds - this man became my love, my worthiest possession.

I can feel doubts and worries screaming in his head again. But I don't want anything standing between us, not tonight. I take him by the hand and lead us to my bunk.

I let him guide me. I used to be so afraid of control everybody had over me. This place killed every need. And then came Christopher Keller. Needs surged to life again, new needs that carried his name.

I let him do whatever he wants with me. I even need him to. He proves his love in the best way he knows, and I find comfort thinking that I'm the only one who'd seen this side of him - ever.

He touches me the way nobody has ever touched me before - with gratitude, with ardour - and I really do feel special. And wanted. And more.

I lay down. He's bared my body and soul to the very essentials and I reach for him impatiently to pull him over me like a cloth, like some other skin that only I'm privileged to use to make myself more presentable, that I can show off with. He is mine.

I lay myself down on top of him, all over him. Our thighs entwine, and I place my arms at the sides of his shoulders, palms cupping his face. He touches my face, too, with slow and caring caresses, and I know this will never really be over. No matter what.

//Back here. Or in heaven.//

When I kiss him, he doesn't close his eyes. Just like that first time - row and open. And we kiss again. And again. And again, lighting the fire inside.

I slide my hand to the middle of his back and feel him respond as he pushes against me.

I need him to fill every gap of my memory with his presence. Every stray emotion and every uncertainty will find its way with the sensation of him.

I need him physically in me, and that was the thing I feared the most. I'm not ashamed of it anymore. Time will soon be the space between us, and there might not be tomorrow to prove him my love.

This will never be over.

"Chris," I call him again, and I can't hold it any longer, so I whisper between kisses, "Chris...make love to me...please, make love to me..."

"Toby..."

His need bruises me deep inside, and I can't help but wonder how that little bit of innocence survived the hell of Oz.

My hand slides between us, down between our legs. We're both ready. I push one slick finger past the puckered ring of muscles, and call him again, "Toby..." When his eyes find mine I whisper, "I love you," meaning it with every atom of me.

"Please..." I urge him, spreading my legs wider as his fingers work their way deeper, finding just the right spot. I scratch his back, and hiss in pleasure, my eyes never leaving the dark blue of his own.

I finally enter him. Slowly. I pause. He nods like he's giving me permission and I can't help but smile. I kiss his eyelids as I carefully start moving. Once again I slide a hand between us and take him in my fist, but he holds my wrist. Entwining our fingers, he starts moving in tandem, arching his back.

He lifts his upper body a bit to increase the pressure, so air comes between us. This little distance is tantalizing, and I can't resist closing it up. I wanna follow wherever he's leading - I push upwards just in time as he finds epicentre of pleasure and pain that undulates along every nerve of my body.

Even though our breaths are laboured, our lips never part. He increases the pace, carefully - as if he's afraid he's gonna hurt me. My hardness is the only thing keeping me still aware of where we are, what this is, and what tomorrow brings-- 'cause everything else feels like some place else, not Oz.

I lower my chest onto his again - he's clinging to me with his feet tightly wrapped around my hips, his knuckles turning white against mine, his breaths short and heavy; his hardness pressed between us, responding to the inner touches. I go even deeper at his call as he pulls me harder against him once again, one hand squeezing my ass, the other scratching up and down my spine. His damp hair and skin glisten in the dark - the beads of sweat become our own stars in this little universe of ours where there's only us and this boiling need that screams for release.

I swear I could come just from seeing him like this. It's all for me. It's all because of me.

The pleasure he builds inside me can't be described in words. It was never like this with anyone. I was estranged from my needs for so long - a whole other lifetime ago, before Oz. And then he dared me. He still does - with his mere presence.

He makes time and space disappear. He uses his hands and his tongue, his breath and just the mass that is his body to fight everything around us into disappearing - until there's only the two of us, losing and finding each other in the other.

I mutter my screams against his tight, sweaty skin, lick it, scrape my teeth against it, and at the peak of pleasure, I bite him, right there - leaving my mark. He embraces me passionately as he mutters his own completion in the crook of my neck. He burns my skin with his rigid breaths and I'm crying again, "Ch...Ch...risss... Chris..."

"Agh...Toby..." I grind one last time and almost lose my grip - I wish I could scream his name as we come, for just once. Just once...

Before he's gone.

All flushed after our mutual last shiver of pleasure, I keep still, just as he does, cherishing this rare moment of peace when we become one, against time and space, against each other, against all odds. He is my body, he is the tears I cry, he is the breath I'm taking, he is Tobias that I am nowadays. And he is mine like he never was anybody else's.

"You ok, baby?" he asks me. He always does. Like he never stops worrying that he's hurting me somehow - by making me want all of this. And I do want it all, and more. I want everything.

I don't answer his question - my emotions do that instead, coloring my face with gratitude that I'm sure he never really got in full, from anybody, ever. For anything.

I cup his face and press our foreheads together, loosening the hold of my legs around him, still feeling him partly inside.

"Are you ok?" I ask him.

I close my eyes.

'Am I? As long as you're with me,' I think, turning my face against his sweaty chest. I don't say it out loud, though. And I never will. I've done him enough harm.

I breath in, he breaths out and I catch that little air he releases as I reflect in his loving expression that I know is only because of me, only for me.

"I--"

"Shhh... I'm here... It's gonna be fine..."

And I hold him tighter, daring to believe it.

THE END