nowheretowns: (14)

[personal profile] nowheretowns 2023-11-15 06:23 pm (UTC)(link)
[ He sets the coffee on the small table near the window. It's not that he can't drink it; right now, it feels like he could probably down anything, trying to re-create the balance between outside and inside. Claude shows him the big bruise on his neck, a marking courtesy mostly of his own stupidity and there's something so sweet and ridiculous about it (innocent, like something you do just because life makes it happen for you because that's the kind of surprises you get in the world Claude inhabits) and when he tells him to kiss it better, for a few seconds he almost can't breathe for the sheer sense of discrepancy. Only hours earlier, he'd been meeting with a man in the backroom of a butcher's shop in Grund, talking checkpoints and timetables. The man is a cop. A cop who's going to ensure that the path through City remains open and uncontested for the Dutch.

In less than three months, the mob is going to kill that cop.

Then, there'll be another person rising in the ranks and from there, they'll have a new board set, new pieces to move, always one step ahead.

With Claude sitting there in front of him, that world - Jean Louis' world, the world he knows with deep, nearly visceral intimacy - feels fake. Like an illusion. ]


Claude.

[ He sounds breathless because he is. It's choking him, somehow, this nameless thing. Wetting his lips, he looks down at the floor, then back up at Claude with his stupid marks and his sweet smile, small, careful, like he understands what he's looking at even though he couldn't possibly, he doesn't have the eyes for it. Slowly, he slips onto his knees on the carpet, breaking Claude's hold on his knee. It's not enough. As far as bridges go, it's little more than a line of rope. Instead, he shuffles into Claude's personal space, between his legs, and runs both hands up his knees, thighs. He looks up at him and stretches for him, folding one hand against the side of his neck and pulling him down (down, that's true, this way is down and to be very, very frank, Claude shouldn't even here, it's not down for him, it shouldn't be).

Then, he leans up and in, mouthing a path along the line of his jaw, over his neck. He's breathing too fast already; fuck, but right now, he wants to disappear within him. Any way he can, any way Claude will let him. ]
nowheretowns: (10)

[personal profile] nowheretowns 2023-11-17 05:13 pm (UTC)(link)
[Claude runs his fingers through his hair, stroke after stroke, and the way it's going all over the place makes something in his chest tighten. Take me apart, he thinks but doesn't say, he wouldn't ever, you invite that kind of shit into your life, you might as well flop down onto your back and let them have a go at you. He thinks about the Netherlands, about Rotterdam and the smell of metal and ozone. The drugs, boxed and ready and his right-hand man (Ezio's, in truth) tasting it on the tip of his tongue. Buono, he'd said and waved his hand, joining Jean Louis moments later and waiting for his silent nod of approval. It was a good deal. It was even worth slashing a line down the middle of his country.

A part of him knows all of this.

But most of him knows Claude now, the smell of him, the warmth of his breath as he buries his nose against his temple and he wants that. He doesn't care about what he knows. He cares about what he wants. Groaning, he turns his head in turn and catches Claude's lips along with that small yes, his willingness. He presses into his mouth, filling him up, their tongues gliding together wetly and the feel of it isn't nearly enough but it's good, regardless, which is one of the greatest contrasts between Claude's reality and his own. In his world, nothing's good enough. Nothing's enough.

In Claude's, even a small percentage of something greater feels immense.

He runs his free hand up between Claude's legs, curving his palm over his crotch and feeling him out beneath his jeans. Yes, he said. Yes, presumably, to whatever the fuck this is, Jean Louis' mind speeding by like a coked-up chicken, but not necessarily to everything it implies. You can't presume with him. You mustn't.

Claude is a treasure.

He pulls out of the kiss, sinks onto his knees more fully and tilts his head upwards, catching the other man's gaze. ]


Let me suck you off.

[ Can I. He doesn't quite manage to actually ask. It's not that kind of night. ]