[ He listens. He listens and he leaves his own sense of selfish indignation on the sidewalk, because this isn't about him. It's not about what he knows to be true, right or wrong, it's about the experience Jean Louis had when he was fifteen which haunts him now, because the world as you experience it as a teenager isn't the same world you navigate as an adult and the whole point of being a child is to be taught how to bridge those two realities and to eventually step into the grown-up world, immigrate and assimilate. Those two things.
And he gets a sense that Jean Louis never assimilated, because his childish world was too adult for anyone's good, so the journey between childhood and adulthood might have felt like nothing, nothing at all. More of the same.
Potos should have guarded him against that experience, that was why he was there, fuck, but this isn't about that. It isn't about that.
Jean Louis looks down at his shoes, definitely reeking of 'fifteen years old' and 'orphaned' and Claude's heart bleeds for him. This is what socialism should cure, what socialism should help, but maybe there's no helping it when it happens, maybe there's only trying to heal it, later, when the symptoms have already become a tumor, a disease.
Swallowing heavily again, he moves up close to Jean Louis' side and leans up against him, knowing he won't budge, because Jean Louis has never budged, he's never given an inch. He rest his cheek against his upper arm where it becomes shoulder, standing like that, at perfect height for it. For support. Jean Louis has been lucky. He's here. He came from less than nothing and now he's one of the most influential men in the country.
It isn't about the power, really. It's about the journey into it.
He thinks about Jean Louis' back, then he sighs. ]
At fifteen, no one can manage notions that aren't childish, Jean Louis. That isn't on you. You didn't get the aid that should've taught you to understand it right, to see through it. Whatever you felt back then, about sleeping with him, that's valid, but it belongs to that time. [ He pauses, hums slightly and turns his face in towards the coarse fabric of Jean Louis' coat sleeve, kissing his shoulder softly. Carefully, ] How you feel about it now, that belongs to the present and that's what you've got to work with.
[ Claude leans his cheek against his upper arm where they've stopped, the weight of him warm and familiar and grounding, somehow. There are only few things that work for him like that. Working. Smoking. His fish. And now Claude, too, it seems, Claude with his sensible words and all that kindness that no one in the world deserves. Perhaps except for Claude, himself. That's why returning whatever little he can is so important, because Claude gives very little to himself and has been given very little from others. There are many different ways life can fuck you over and no doubt, that's one similarity between them that Stéphane didn't notice when they met. They've been shaped by strange powers, the two of them. It's a peculiar way to exist but easier, he thinks, when you aren't doing it alone.
He releases Claude's hand and slips his arm around his waist instead, pulling him in against his side. Around them, the rows of old townhouses are quiet. People are celebrating the weekend in the inner city, on bars and restaurants and clubs. The privileged rule around here, as is evident from who's on top but Jean Louis has sunk his teeth in, hasn't he. That's what he knows about the world. He knows the feel of Claude's body against his and the taste of power.
Along with the way it tastes when it's ripped from you.
He blows a smoke ring into the air. It disintegrates fast. ]
He taught me how to cook, you know. How to eat in fancy restaurants, how to navigate a dress code. [ Inhale. Exhale. ] How to enter a home without checking through the windows, first. This thing we did... It pales in comparison. It means almost nothing. [ Almost. He doesn't dwell on that. ] I see now that it's a card I have no use for.
[ He doesn't know what that means yet. That in the end, what he did when he crawled into Stéphane's bed and refused to be dismissed was a purely selfish thing, driven by no strategy, no foresight and no notion of consequences. He can tell himself all he likes that he'd planned it, that he wanted the man to keep lusting for him, to be just exactly as unavailable as he needed to be in order to get his way.
Jean Louis barely ever lies, least of all to himself.
[ Letting himself be pulled in by Jean Louis' arm around his waist, he shifts slightly against him, feeling all that rigid straightness, that standing tall in the storm that is Jean Louis' method, his way. Claude admires it, he is more of a swayer, someone who bends and curves not to break, only to emerge tall and straight once the storm dies out. Claude is grass, Jean Louis is a fucking tree. That's the difference between them, for all the similarities that Claude praised when they met Potos.
Whose dick he'd still like to crush, by the way.
But it's an easier feeling now. More distanced.
His breathing slow, even, in and out, he listens to Jean Louis conclude something about his relationship to Potos. That the man did what he was supposed to do as his legal guardian, let him into the grown-up world, showing him how to be an adult among adults, he did that, good, congratulations to him. It doesn't matter, only insofar that it matters to Jean Louis. It matters exactly as much as he reads into it.
And since Claude is listening, he hears that it matters as much as it does what your parents ever do for you. The gratefulness no child should have to feel for the one job parents have, but which they feel anyway, because - what does he know, biology, social imprint, what have you. It's there and you can't shake it.
God knows, he's tried with his mother often enough.
Supposedly, he understands this as well, although he'd rather not, he'd rather be angry and kick someone in the face and then, in the dick. But Jean Louis knows that for everything Potos might have done for him, he did something else as well and it might not matter, almost, he says. But in that almost, it does. It matters. That part both does and doesn't count for everything. It taints everything else.
It's complex, his therapist would say. It was complex with Rainier as well. Claude hates 'complex', it's a stupid word. Still, he reaches up and slips his arm around Jean Louis as well, holding him, clinging to him, no weight, just support. ]
He served his purpose, then, and I guess that's what he gave you. Skills that are useful and you're using them well now, too, but how well you're doing with it is on you, you know. Not on him.
[ At their feet, the river is glinting in the lamp-light. Less complex than the rest of it. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
[ He listens. He listens and he leaves his own sense of selfish indignation on the sidewalk, because this isn't about him. It's not about what he knows to be true, right or wrong, it's about the experience Jean Louis had when he was fifteen which haunts him now, because the world as you experience it as a teenager isn't the same world you navigate as an adult and the whole point of being a child is to be taught how to bridge those two realities and to eventually step into the grown-up world, immigrate and assimilate. Those two things.
And he gets a sense that Jean Louis never assimilated, because his childish world was too adult for anyone's good, so the journey between childhood and adulthood might have felt like nothing, nothing at all. More of the same.
Potos should have guarded him against that experience, that was why he was there, fuck, but this isn't about that. It isn't about that.
Jean Louis looks down at his shoes, definitely reeking of 'fifteen years old' and 'orphaned' and Claude's heart bleeds for him. This is what socialism should cure, what socialism should help, but maybe there's no helping it when it happens, maybe there's only trying to heal it, later, when the symptoms have already become a tumor, a disease.
Swallowing heavily again, he moves up close to Jean Louis' side and leans up against him, knowing he won't budge, because Jean Louis has never budged, he's never given an inch. He rest his cheek against his upper arm where it becomes shoulder, standing like that, at perfect height for it. For support. Jean Louis has been lucky. He's here. He came from less than nothing and now he's one of the most influential men in the country.
It isn't about the power, really. It's about the journey into it.
He thinks about Jean Louis' back, then he sighs. ]
At fifteen, no one can manage notions that aren't childish, Jean Louis. That isn't on you. You didn't get the aid that should've taught you to understand it right, to see through it. Whatever you felt back then, about sleeping with him, that's valid, but it belongs to that time. [ He pauses, hums slightly and turns his face in towards the coarse fabric of Jean Louis' coat sleeve, kissing his shoulder softly. Carefully, ] How you feel about it now, that belongs to the present and that's what you've got to work with.
no subject
He releases Claude's hand and slips his arm around his waist instead, pulling him in against his side. Around them, the rows of old townhouses are quiet. People are celebrating the weekend in the inner city, on bars and restaurants and clubs. The privileged rule around here, as is evident from who's on top but Jean Louis has sunk his teeth in, hasn't he. That's what he knows about the world. He knows the feel of Claude's body against his and the taste of power.
Along with the way it tastes when it's ripped from you.
He blows a smoke ring into the air. It disintegrates fast. ]
He taught me how to cook, you know. How to eat in fancy restaurants, how to navigate a dress code. [ Inhale. Exhale. ] How to enter a home without checking through the windows, first. This thing we did... It pales in comparison. It means almost nothing. [ Almost. He doesn't dwell on that. ] I see now that it's a card I have no use for.
[ He doesn't know what that means yet. That in the end, what he did when he crawled into Stéphane's bed and refused to be dismissed was a purely selfish thing, driven by no strategy, no foresight and no notion of consequences. He can tell himself all he likes that he'd planned it, that he wanted the man to keep lusting for him, to be just exactly as unavailable as he needed to be in order to get his way.
Jean Louis barely ever lies, least of all to himself.
He won't start with this. ]
no subject
[ Letting himself be pulled in by Jean Louis' arm around his waist, he shifts slightly against him, feeling all that rigid straightness, that standing tall in the storm that is Jean Louis' method, his way. Claude admires it, he is more of a swayer, someone who bends and curves not to break, only to emerge tall and straight once the storm dies out. Claude is grass, Jean Louis is a fucking tree. That's the difference between them, for all the similarities that Claude praised when they met Potos.
Whose dick he'd still like to crush, by the way.
But it's an easier feeling now. More distanced.
His breathing slow, even, in and out, he listens to Jean Louis conclude something about his relationship to Potos. That the man did what he was supposed to do as his legal guardian, let him into the grown-up world, showing him how to be an adult among adults, he did that, good, congratulations to him. It doesn't matter, only insofar that it matters to Jean Louis. It matters exactly as much as he reads into it.
And since Claude is listening, he hears that it matters as much as it does what your parents ever do for you. The gratefulness no child should have to feel for the one job parents have, but which they feel anyway, because - what does he know, biology, social imprint, what have you. It's there and you can't shake it.
God knows, he's tried with his mother often enough.
Supposedly, he understands this as well, although he'd rather not, he'd rather be angry and kick someone in the face and then, in the dick. But Jean Louis knows that for everything Potos might have done for him, he did something else as well and it might not matter, almost, he says. But in that almost, it does. It matters. That part both does and doesn't count for everything. It taints everything else.
It's complex, his therapist would say. It was complex with Rainier as well. Claude hates 'complex', it's a stupid word. Still, he reaches up and slips his arm around Jean Louis as well, holding him, clinging to him, no weight, just support. ]
He served his purpose, then, and I guess that's what he gave you. Skills that are useful and you're using them well now, too, but how well you're doing with it is on you, you know. Not on him.
[ At their feet, the river is glinting in the lamp-light. Less complex than the rest of it. ]