nowheretowns: (14)
Jean Louis ([personal profile] nowheretowns) wrote in [personal profile] sociopolitically 2023-10-13 08:12 pm (UTC)

[ There's another pause, loaded this time. There's been no one for a while, for him - ever since Vincent decided that he wasn't trustworthy (it stings, still, because he'd very specifically tried to be trustworthy and failure is bitter, always), he's lived by himself, going home with no one at night because he can't risk it. In a few months, they will launch Liberté. They have to control the gossip stream, otherwise when the time comes, it'll drown them.

All the same, when Claude looks at him and tells him it wouldn't be empathy before plucking the cigarette from between his lips, his hand suddenly, briefly, so close that Jean Louis can smell his skin, a part of him wants desperately to imagine a reality where all that shit doesn't have to matter.

And perhaps it doesn't, at least not as much.

Ezio, after all, is quite happy these days. ]


Maybe empathy is not a draw in itself.

[ Watching Claude for a long moment, the air between them carrying the remnants of his cigarette now along with the mood of their conversation, he thinks about his empty warehouse, the glittering fish and the windows, stretching from the floor to the ceiling and letting in the light as well as the shadows in copious amounts. His skin prickles, his left shoulder twinging. Phantoms, ghosts. His homes, no matter when or where, have always been full of them.

Getting to his feet, maybe a little too fast, a little jerkily, he pauses again, his side to the table and glances at Claude out of the corner of his eye. Then, he drops his card on the table and says, voice quiet: ]


There are other things.

[ With that, he turns and walks away. ]

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