superniceone | tfln overflow / open post

Gustave remembers that with more fondness than embarrassment, back when they'd been awkward and uncertain around each other. Which - alright, sure, they're frequently awkward and uncertain around each other still, but for much different reasons than those had been.

His shoulders tremble again with laughter, and he smooths his hand against Verso's stomach. "Mmm," he says, shaking his head. "Pretty sure I just like you, actually."

"Hey," Verso scolds. "I thought I was the one doing the obnoxious charming here."

Although it's not obnoxious at all when Gustave does it—it's earnest and sweet and impossibly endearing. Where Verso tries too hard, Gustave doesn't try at all and still manages to hit the mark accidentally. It's the sort of thing that usually fills him with a vague sense of jealousy, but it's hard to feel negatively when pressed up against Gustave, his hand flattened against Verso's abdomen.

"You look good, too," he murmurs, absentmindedly arranging Gustave's collar as an excuse to touch him. Then, as payback: "It's nice to see you with brushed hair."

"I always brush it," Gustave protests, and he actually groans as he tilts his head back against the wall again. "I put some sort of— mousse or gel or something—" He is genuinely not certain. "—in it to make it lay like this. I still don't really see the point, but it's nice to know my efforts are appreciated, I guess," he complains, and he gently pinches Verso's side.

Not the 13-in-1 gel-mousse, Gustave!!! Please!!!

Unfortunately, this griping is also endearing. Verso presses his mouth to Gustave's jaw, then says—half-teasing and half-sincere—"It's very sexy." It is; Gustave looks very put together (at least, for him!), and it turns out that's just as charming as when he looks like he rolled out of bed after spending the entire night tinkering with something. "Très beau."

Gustave swears under his breath at the warmth of Verso's mouth on his jaw, at the strangely appealing way it feels like he's been cornered. "I am in my thirties," he says after a moment, and it's a whiny sort of whisper meaning: I can't believe I'm thinking about dragging you to bed twice in twelve hours.

His hand glides around Verso's side to rest on the small of his back. "T’es trop charmant. Infuriating."

"Oh—"

The most annoying person alive, Verso steps back, giving Gustave enough room to escape his affections. It's all obviously for show: the performatively slow way he withdraws, the mock-contrition in his voice, the way he lets his fingers linger just slightly against Gustave's hip.

"Well, if it's infuriating..."

Gustave flusters openly at that, because he knows what reason Verso is hoping to get from that. He's tempted to be obstinate, to call his pretend little bluff and sidestep him to finish grabbing his things, but—

Well. Even if he weren't very much enjoying himself here, he'd have to be somehow even denser than he is already to have missed the fact that Verso likes to feel wanted.

So Gustave reaches to catch him when Verso pulls away, doing his best to land on 'sulking disappointment.' "No, sorry, it's probably best if you stay where I can keep an eye on you. Make sure you're not getting into trouble. Come back here."

He had never, ever actually intended to deny Gustave for a second, especially because it's rare for him to initiate like this; Verso is literally always raring to go at a moment's notice, but Gustave is rather more reserved. Not a bad thing, but it does mean Verso's eager to take advantage of the opportunity he's been given.

So, he readily sandwiches Gustave between the wall and his body again, saying, "Your wish is my command," before pressing a kiss to the side of his neck. Pathetically true. If Gustave told him to jump right now, he'd ask how high.

"—Although," he adds, very gently dragging his teeth against Gustave's skin, because he's also going to take full advantage of the only vaguely kinky thing Gustave has ever expressed interest in, "I was hoping to get into a little trouble."

Tonight's plans have deviated abruptly from their earlier track. He'd meant to grab some clothes, maybe a bottle of wine to share with Verso while he listened to him compose. Getting pinned against the wall in the front hallway of his home hadn't even been a consideration for his bingo card.

They should retreat to his room, or at the very least lock the front door if they don't want to get caught like horny teenagers unable to keep their hands off each other, but that can wait another minute or two at least.

The light scrape of teeth gets a little catch of Gustave's breath. He reaches behind Verso then, gently tugging at his shirt, aiming to untuck it just enough to slip his hand up the bare skin of his back. "I thought you were going to play music for me," he says, tone affectionate.

Verso still fully intends to play piano for Gustave; all the better if it's during the afterglow, considering that being intimate with Gustave this morning had put him in a rather musical mood. He can't remember the last time he'd hummed a little tune while getting ready in the morning. Pre-Fracture, probably.

He hums again now, more thoughtful than melodic. Then, incurably smug: "Well, the sounds you make are music to my ears."

Gustave genuinely has no idea if Verso's theory will hold water, or if they'll be able to action anything for it in time even if it does. That matters less than the fact that the idea at all had blown away some of the clouds in front of his eyes. He approached every other problem from a dozen different angles, and it had startled him somewhat to realise he'd been so narrowly focused on this one.

(And, well, to a lesser but not insignificant degree — having a baked in excuse to keep Verso in his life a little while longer made it easier to feel like he was drawing a full breath when he thought about the future.)

There's a break of tension in the way he carries himself — it feels not unlike one of Lune's healing spells with all the really good healing buff pictos equipped — and the exaggerated way he rolls his eyes is softened by the way he's grinning. ('You roll your eyes a lot,' Lune had pointed out once, amused, to which Gustave had reminded her he lived with a teenage girl.)

"You're the worst," Gustave says, voice low and rich. "Why do I want you all the time?"

Verso is the worst. Like, objectively. Completely undeserving of being here right now, trapping Gustave against the wall, face pressed against the warmth of his neck. But Gustave had encouraged him not to preemptively ruin things, so he bats away any feelings of guilt or shame, tries not to think about all of the things that Gustave still doesn't know about him.

"It's okay," he says, blindly unbuttoning Gustave's pants. Softly, like it's a romantic confession and not a statement of how quickly Gustave can give him an erection, "I want you all the time, too."

There is some level of romance to it, he thinks. It's a very different sort of wanting when there's feelings involved, an intention beyond distracting himself from how awful everything is. Casual sex in the woods had felt like trying to quiet the pesky buzz of desire for human contact. This is more like a full-body ache to be close to someone for the sake of being close.

Embarrassing. He laughs. "Je suis fou."

"Yes," Gustave says, his hand sliding up to cradle the back of Verso's neck. "You are. I have no idea when the girls are going to be back." This is extremely irresponsible!! It had been bad enough when Maelle stumbled upon them post-make out; he might actually die on the spot if they find him squirming against the wall with Verso's hand in his pants.

Which probably means he should push him away instead of gently holding his face there, but what can you do.

"Oh," he says, a little surprised. He'd assumed that Gustave knew that his house would remain unoccupied for at least long enough to see this hanky panky to completion, given that he'd started it in the first place; it's unlike him to be so careless and irresponsible, which is both a little hot and a little anxiety-inducing—

It's been weeks since he's been able to speak to Maelle without awkwardly fumbling over all of his words, and the last thing he wants is for her to walk in on him defiling sweet, innocent Gustave. Emma, too—they've barely met, and he'd be inclined to find a cure for his immortality if this was one of her first impressions of him. At the same time, they aren't here right now, so it's a little difficult to peel himself away for a hypothetical when he's turned on in a very non-hypothetical way.

"Do you want me to stop?" He doesn't really want to stop, which is evident by the way he slips his hand underneath Gustave's waistband, but it seems like he should ask.

Gustave would argue that he hadn't meant to start anything — though he's realizing now that maybe it was naive of him to assume Verso would laugh his flirting off.

Not that intention matters right now, because he's flustered and aroused and maybe a little annoyed by how effortlessly Verso seems to have him wrapped around his finger.

"No, I don't want you to stop," Gustave huffs in a whisper, his fingers stroking through the fine hair where Verso's neck meets his skull. "They, uh— probably won't be home for a— while."

It's actually Verso's fingers that are wrapped around Gustave. It's all a little bit clumsy, his hand practically trapped between Gustave's skin and the fabric of his pants, very little room for proper movement. He palms at Gustave the best he can anyway, noting in some distant way how it feels so different than this morning, when he'd had science supplies. Quite a lot more friction.

"Mon dieu, I hope not." He really, really doesn't want to have to pull himself off of Gustave and hold a pillow over his lap while trying to act normal.

Then: "—Here?" That is, in the hall? "To clarify, I'm not opposed."

"Absolutely fucking not," Gustave blurts, a little flushed in the face, and then he gives a sort of horrified laugh when he's forced to confront the fact that Verso's hand is on his dick in the entry hallway of his home. "Putain," he groans, "we're worse than teenagers."

He grabs Verso's wrist to guide it out of his loosened waistband (though he does make a marked little noise of disappointment while he does.) Gustave nudges Verso off of him enough to slip from the wall, hooking a finger into Verso's belt and giving him a little tug. "One room over, come on."

Verso is visibly disappointed at being pulled away from, although his mood perks back up with the tug to his belt. (God!!! Why did he wear a belt to this thing!!!) "You're worse than a teenager," he accuses as he follows Gustave. Once he makes it to the doorway, he leans against it, long-suffering. "I am but a victim of your lust."

Gustave snorts aloud, making a point to lock the bedroom door behind them. "Well, who am I to disagree," he says as if he's resigned to it. He steps in to kiss Verso hard again, hands returning to his belt to start working it loose as he attempts to walk him backwards toward the bed.

Locks!! Still something he's learning to get used to. Either Gustave is going to have to be the one to remind him every time, or he's going to have to get traumatized by Monoco bursting in on him in flagrante delicto.

Not today, though, so—he settles on the mattress and tugs Gustave along by the collar of his shirt. "You were right," he gripes. "I shouldn't have worn a belt."

Not exactly what Gustave had said, but still true. He hadn't expected to get lucky tonight, didn't think his vague hypothesis would make Gustave so happy.

"Did I comment on your belt?" Gustave asks, faux-innocent. He's laughing a little as he follows Verso to the mattress, straddling his legs as he finishes pulling the buckle loose. "Because I don't normally go this far the night I meet someone, monsieur."

It's not happiness, necessarily, as much as it relief, and he's sure it'll run thin sooner rather than later; he'll revel in the lightness of his heart now anyway.

"Me, neither," he says, although it's a bit of a lie. Verso has always been the opposite of precious about sex; in the fantasy scenario where he meets Gustave for the first time in Lumière, he would absolutely try to get some that very night. He likes to think that he would succeed, too, although the accuracy of that remains debatable.

As he undoes the gold buttons of Gustave's vest, he says, "But there was just something about you."

He can't say for sure if he really would have been drawn to Gustave under these circumstances. Before the Fracture, before all of the horrible truths, he'd been a different person; Gustave would have been, too, if he were around then. Maybe they would have passed each other on the street and not even looked twice. He likes to think they would have been friends, at least, and that he would have spent all of his time teasing Gustave to get his attention.

"You know, I lied when I said your sister sent me over. I just wanted an excuse to dance with the most handsome man at the party."

It's probably his affection for the other man that causes Gustave to imagine such an idealized version of pre-Fracture Verso in his head. It has nothing to do with comparing him to the Verso outside the Canvas; instead, he can't help but imagine the charm and the talent without the aching pain. Verso would absolutely fail, if only because it would never occur to Gustave that he was trying in the first place.

But Gustave has a better read on him now, and he knows that sidestepping compliments like that — no matter how silly it feels to accept them — rankles Verso a little bit. He swallows the deflection on his tongue, shrugging the vest off and letting it fall to the floor.

"Good," he says, and then laughs, a little tongue-tied as it becomes clear he has no idea how to respond to a statement like that in earnest. "Merde. The smoothest talker in Lumière, aren't you?"

It's all right with him if Gustave doesn't know how to respond to flattery. Endearing, even, to watch him flounder. What bothers him is when Gustave lets the compliments slide right off of his shoulders like he doesn't want them, or maybe doesn't even believe that Verso actually thinks those things. (Like Verso is known for lying, or something!) But he's trying, and that's what matters; gold star.

"Only when I'm trying to charm the pants off of a beautiful man," he says with a grin, reaching to pull Gustave's shirt over his head next. Aware, distantly, that they are under a bit of a time crunch here. Maelle knocking on the door and calling Gustaaaave, are you home? would kill the mood, and he'd really like to not have to avoid Maelle directly after getting down and dirty with her father-brother.

Appreciatively: "And you are a beautiful man, mon beau."

It's just not the sort of flattery he's used to hearing, though it's not as if he dislikes it. His insecurities are odd. Speculative, almost, in a way, where idly he wonders if they'd ever started something like this at all if Lune had been warmer to Verso, if Sciel hadn't been promised Pierre's return.

Gustave likes himself fine, but he'd had similar thoughts even with Sophie. She was funny, brilliant, interesting, outgoing — and a quiet part of him had taken it for granted that her interest in him would, eventually, wane. She and Verso are nothing at all alike, but it's a hard thought process to shake.

"So are you," Gustave says, quietly and earnest as he shifts to urge Verso's back down against the mattress. He follows him down and kisses him soundly, before he sits up to start Verso's pants down far enough down his thighs. He looks quite pleased with himself for now. He will look much less pleased with himself when he hears Emma, who is currently en route to change a wine-stained dress, arrive home.

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i don't like that while i wrote this you dmed me "speaking of gay incest"

😎

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