tfln overflow / open post

[superniceone]

(open / overflow)

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[recreatable]

It had felt important enough for him to feel bad about it all this time, but he can pick up on what Gustave's going for here, and he lightens up instantly so as not to disappoint. "I thought you liked these vintage Expedition uniforms." Naturally, he's been internally cringing ever since Gustave described his clothing as 'vintage'.

[superniceone]

Gustave won't apologize for his phrasing there. Any remnant of an Expedition Zero uniform that Verso might still have on his person is the literal prototype. Very hot to an archival nerd like him.

He hesitates, kissing him almost carefully, before he releases his hips and steps back. Gustave has one hand out to the side, like he's halfway to summoning his weapon. "Are we going to fight? You never actually gave me a clear answer."

[recreatable]

Verso laughs again, shaking his head in disbelief. He certainly hadn't meant a duel in any traditional sense of the word, but— "We could," he says with a shrug. "It would be fairer without weapons, though. Only I can reattach my limbs."

It's an entirely selfless offer, and has nothing to do with the fact that he'd rather be pinning Gustave down than swiping a sword at him like a Nevron.

[superniceone]

Gustave glances at his arm, then lowers it. "Not technically true," he says, but he's grinning a bit when he says it. It feels a little easier to breathe out here, and it's a relief he'd been desperate for. He's not obtuse; he knows that it's just a moment of respite in the form of sheer escapism, but he'll take what he can get.

He clears his throat and, a little awkwardly, swings his pack around to his front, retrieving a thin camping blanket from within. "You were right, you know," Gustave tells him, crouching down to spread it out. "This place is atmospheric."

[recreatable]

That Gustave thought to bring a blanket at all is irritatingly charming. Verso feels warm at the thought of Gustave thinking of this while he packed for the day, of him carrying that little blanket around with him all day for this express purpose. He smiles to himself, a private pleasure, as he settles down on it; it's thin enough that he can still feel the unevenness of the ground and the texture of grass beneath him, but it'll at least act as a barrier between them and the dirt.

He makes a noise of agreement before leaning back on his hands, appraising. "You look handsome in this light." Everything is cast in a faint, soft glow here; atmospheric indeed. "Obnoxiously so, some might say."

[superniceone]

Gustave doesn't have any particular issues with the way he looks. When he does appraise himself — which, admittedly, is not often — he figures he's mostly pretty average. All of that is to say: when he laughs at Verso's remark, it's not because he's being particularly hard on himself. It's just comically high praise from one of the most magnetic people he's ever met, and he lowers himself down next to Verso.

"You don't have to lay it on so thick, you know," he says, but there's still a laugh in his voice. "I'm already sold on you."

[recreatable]

Part of Verso had been hoping that the compliment would make Gustave swoon directly into his arms, admittedly; he can acknowledge when his hopes are unrealistic, as they so often are. He'd at least thought that Gustave wouldn't immediately brush it off, although perhaps it's for the best. Verso had been trying to infuse a little romance where he really shouldn't be.

"I haven't even begun to lay it on thick," he argues, although he doesn't try to compliment Gustave again. "But I see now that you preferred having your pigtails pulled."

[superniceone]

"I wouldn't go that far," Gustave says, and he'd be shocked to hear that Verso thought the situation was lacking romance at all. The soft light and the dense foliage are doing a lot of work as far as he's concerned. "But thank you. That's high praise from someone who is handsome all the time."

He thinks that he'd really like to just lean into Verso and close his eyes for half an hour — that the idea of another human body warm and solid against his own just seems unfathomably comforting.

"A little less handsome when you're kicking me awake," he adds, reaching over to sweep idly at that lock of Verso's hair again. "But I guess no one's perfect."

[recreatable]

"Nudging," is his defense. "Gentle nudging." With his foot, yes, but— details. "But I'll endeavor to look more handsome doing it in the future."

[superniceone]

Gustave has been conditioned to expect Verso to cut and run every time he gets too— sentimental; he's weirdly nervous when he slides his hand to the back of Verso's neck and shrugs. "I didn't hate it, actually. Seeing you first thing when I woke."

[recreatable]

It's difficult to reconcile the idea that Gustave is well aware of and at peace with the ill-fated, ephemeral nature of this with him saying things like that. He'd said he wanted to pretend, and for the first time, Verso wonders just how much he's supposed to pretend. He could turn on the charm if he really wanted to, act like this is something lasting and not a perishable item. Maybe Gustave would even like it.

But that would be getting his own hopes up, too. "You would get tired of it," he says instead, matter-of-fact, before leaning in to kiss him.

[superniceone]

Gustave has admittedly had a few flitting daydreams about it — bringing Verso back to Lumière with him, getting to know him when time wasn't short and the world wasn't falling apart around them. It's a pleasant thought.

He doesn't argue with him; he's just leaning a little too desperately into the kiss, trying to use the physical sensation of Verso's mouth on his to stabilize his racing thoughts a bit more.

[recreatable]

It's a relief, honestly, that Gustave doesn't have a rebuttal. It means Verso can focus on what's really important, which is pulling off Gustave's pesky overclothes. He gives the uniform a good tug, urging Gustave to help him remove it as he pulls back and asks, "Are you going to complain again if I ask what you want?"

[superniceone]

"Are you going to make fun of me again if I ask you?" Gustave shifts to sit up, shrugging off his jacket, but there's no desperate urgency in it like there'd been before. He pauses for a moment, before he peels off his undershirt as well, bare from the waist up now as he drops back to face Verso again. "I don't know what I want," he confesses quietly, "I just— it's nice to have time alone with you."

[recreatable]

Why can't Gustave be into normal things like choking? Why does he have to want 'time alone together' instead?

Clearly, Gustave can no longer be trusted to talk anymore, if he's just going to keep saying nice things like that. Verso swings a leg across Gustave's hips so that he can crawl on top of him and pin him down, which will hopefully put an end to this sentimentality. "Well, I'd like to do some impolite things to you, if you're amenable to that."

[superniceone]

It probably comes as a surprise to exactly zero people that, up until now, Gustave's sex life has been pretty vanilla. Tender, even. It probably makes the fact that there's a flash of something like relief on his face when Verso swings himself atop him a little unusual. He's very much in his own head about so many things, and hooking up messily with Verso in the middle of the woods is somehow the least complicated of all things he might do to clear his head tonight.

"Feel free to be filthy, even," he says, not challenging the way Verso has him pinned this time. He does raise his hand enough to touch Verso's stomach, sliding up to his side, quietly admiring. Gustave's eyes move to lock with Verso's, and he's grinning just very slightly. "Deviant. Depraved. Downright licentious." The joke here being mostly that Verso has never been anything but incredibly careful with him.

[recreatable]

"Licentious," Verso repeats, eyebrows raised in amusement at Gustave's vocabulary word of the day. He's yet again hit by Gustave's endearingly awkward charm, and on impulse, he leans down to press his mouth to the side of Gustave's neck. It's not affection, he tells himself, he's just being licentious.

Admittedly, none of those words describe what he'd expect Gustave to be into. When Verso thinks of Gustave's sex life prior to this, he imagines missionary in the dark while saying I love you, followed by an hour of cuddling. Not exactly Verso's experience of quickies in the cold dirt. "I don't know if you can handle licentious," he says before biting gently at Gustave's neck. "...Primarily because you use the word 'licentious'."

[superniceone]

Gustave isn't sure if Verso is just teasing him, or if it's a challenge outright. Either way, his breath hitches at the graze of teeth near his throat, and it will jump slightly when he swallows. "I'm automatically boring because I read books?" he protests.

He's really just stalling for a moment, because he's not sure if what he's going to do is going to be appealing or just get him laughed at. He turns his face to tuck closer to Verso's ear, voice low and a little embarrassed when he requests: "Bite harder."

[recreatable]

He didn't say boring. He implied it, maybe, but he didn't say it! There's nothing inherently wrong with tender and vanilla, and in fact it's probably a lot more fulfilling than anything Verso has experienced in at least the past few decades. Isolation and emotional distance isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Gustave's embarrassment is audible, and while Verso teases him to be fun and charming, he doesn't actually have any desire to make him feel truly self-conscious about something that should be easy. He obeys without complaint, biting down just hard enough to sting a little without really hurting; it's an ease in to roughness for someone who he imagines has rarely been treated roughly. There's a little red spot there when he pulls away, and he swipes his thumb over it soothingly.

"You aren't boring," he says. "For the record."

[superniceone]

Gustave has kept himself as carefully composed as possible on their previous little field trips. Even drunk with his trousers shucked around his thighs, he was extremely cognizant of the fact that too much noise could draw attention from either the rest of their team or any Nevrons nearby. He'd swallowed his own groans like a teenage boy trying not to get caught watching porn through his bedroom door.

That sting gets another hitch of breath, though. When Verso pulls away, Gustave makes a sound of protest that is meant to convey that he'd liked that; it bubbles out of his throat as a little whine instead.

"Trouduc," he swears softly, metal hand coming up to gently brace the back of Verso's neck so Gustave can answer him with an abrupt kiss, licking unashamedly into his mouth.

[recreatable]

He likes that sound quite a lot, and since he's incapable of enjoying anything without already grieving its loss, he thinks about how unfortunate it is that he'll probably only get to hear it a few more times. This is the most intimate encounters he's had with the same person in a long time; the realities of Expeditions usually cut off any dalliances before he could really start to learn what someone liked, how they wanted to be touched. It's interesting learning these things about Gustave, and while he's here, Verso bites his lip, an experiment to see if he likes the feeling of teeth there, too.

Verso likes it, at any rate, and he's slightly breathless with excitement when he pulls back to look at Gustave. Once again, the thought crosses his mind that Gustave really does look handsome, although he doesn't say so. "Did you learn that word in a book, too?"

[superniceone]

Gustave would do something about Verso's thoughts working themselves into overtime if he had even the slightest clue that it was happening. There's just enough sensory input that his own mind is too occupied to bother with the eventualities; for one of the few times in his life, he's more concerned with the present than the future.

He grunts slightly at the catch of teeth on his lip — that's a yes — and he's a little flustered when Verso moves to look at him. "No," Gustave says, grinning a little lopsidedly, "that one was definitely my mentor. Why are you so good at this."

[recreatable]

"I've had ample time to practice." And he has an insatiable desire to both please and be perfect at everything he does, which helps. Gustave seems significantly less uneasy than he had when he'd approached, and Verso considers that a win. A good grade in using sex to cheer someone up.

Gustave had seemed to be enjoying himself, so Verso presses his mouth against the underside of his jaw, facial hair tickling the tip of Verso's nose. "Just wait until you're a hundred."

[superniceone]

And, because Gustave is incapable of not being a dork even when getting handy with a hot man in the woods, he'll murmur like he's actually impressed: "Remarkable libido for a man your age, now that I think about it."

But he's tilting his chin up slightly, responsive, to make it easier for Verso to mouth at him; at the same time, his hand presses and strokes down the center of Verso's back in a slow, firm rhythm, like he just enjoys the feeling of him beneath his palm.

[recreatable]

Perks of being eternally stunted. Terrible life, active libido.

He thinks about Sciel's description of Gustave as sweet. It's accurate. Everything he does feels impossibly sincere, even a soothing hand on Verso's back. He nips playfully at Gustave's jaw, saying, "Maybe you just bring it out in this senile old man," before sitting up to fumble with his belt, considering that they really should have worn swimsuits. The Expedition uniforms were, shockingly, not designed to fool around in.