It always was, but its easier to forget and let that slip away when he's just carried by the moment, by heat and want and the desire to pull someone apart beneath him. Having space to breathe and think means his mind can't help but latch back on to the reality of things, who he is, where they are, who Gustave is, how much of a fucking idiot and a terrible person he's being for letting anything get this far -- and how he couldn't help himself, not nine months ago and not now. He doesn't know this man. He knows him more than Gustave thinks he does, with the time he's spent watching him from afar, but he still doesn't know him. But the immediate connection he'd felt that night was unmistakable. In the months since, he's thought back on it. Was it just music, was it just being able to play for someone again after literal decades? Yes, at least in part, he thought. But not entirely.
Because there's also this. That smile and how it stirs something in him, a faint fluttering that makes him feel almost a bit absurd when moments before he'd been kissing him like he needed the air from Gustave's own lungs more than his own. His touch, gentle and earnest even after Verso had distinctly tried to flood him out with something much more heated and raw. And just like before, the only word that Verso can find for it in the haze of his thoughts is -- disarming. And dangerous, for it.
For the incredible effort it clearly took for him to stop, Verso's easily coaxed into letting Gustave take his hand. He watches, pupils blown under half-lowered lids, as Gustave kisses delicately at the tips of his fingers ( the calluses there maybe a bit more coarse and rough than might be expected, for a pianist, not to mention spread across his palms ). His eyes widen noticeably when he takes those fingers into his mouth, his fingers twitching, pressing slightly down against his tongue. Watching him take them in so gently with those lips, kiss-bruised as they are, has a little almost-growl sounding in his throat, a reflexive tension through his shoulders before he pushes it down. Putain de merde, he just wants to push him down to the ground, right here on the rooftop.
There's that question, though. And again, a bit of a stillness in answering it. A flicker of something across his eyes that isn't just want. He keeps his hand relaxes in Gustave's grip, letting him do as he will -- only turning it only just enough to lightly trail his thumb against his lower lip. The gesture soft, affectionate -- and delaying the answer yet another moment more. ]
The only rush is mine.
You can forgive me, I hope, for being so -- inspired. [ The corner of his mouth twitches upward, something that's a bit more of a smirk than just a smile. Surely he can be forgiven for the great sin of finding Gustave so infuriatingly tempting that he's just desperate to get a taste of him, get a feel of him, to take what he can, before.
He wishes he could be honest. He wants to be. But especially when they're here on Lumiere, when Verso doesn't have the additional safety net of the sheer impossibility of Expeditioners making it home -- he can't afford the risk. But as always, while he'll lie through his teeth when it comes to it, if he can simply -- evade. Then that's better. ]
I can't tell you when you might see me again.
[ There's a sadness in his words, thats at least partially performance -- but its performance that comes from something true. It sounds like a man that could be talking about his own Gommage, or anything else that might be in his future that might take him away from this, from the world. Verso doesn't know how old Gustave is, and will not ask, because it invites the question in turn, invites a necessary lie. So he genuinely doesn't know if he might see him again. And when life in Lumiere is what it is, desperately clawing something for itself out of the dark . . . His fingers curve slightly to gently press under Gustave's jaw, guiding his head up ever so slightly, to look at each other full in the eyes. ]
-- But I think we're all always taking what we can.
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It always was, but its easier to forget and let that slip away when he's just carried by the moment, by heat and want and the desire to pull someone apart beneath him. Having space to breathe and think means his mind can't help but latch back on to the reality of things, who he is, where they are, who Gustave is, how much of a fucking idiot and a terrible person he's being for letting anything get this far -- and how he couldn't help himself, not nine months ago and not now. He doesn't know this man. He knows him more than Gustave thinks he does, with the time he's spent watching him from afar, but he still doesn't know him. But the immediate connection he'd felt that night was unmistakable. In the months since, he's thought back on it. Was it just music, was it just being able to play for someone again after literal decades? Yes, at least in part, he thought. But not entirely.
Because there's also this. That smile and how it stirs something in him, a faint fluttering that makes him feel almost a bit absurd when moments before he'd been kissing him like he needed the air from Gustave's own lungs more than his own. His touch, gentle and earnest even after Verso had distinctly tried to flood him out with something much more heated and raw. And just like before, the only word that Verso can find for it in the haze of his thoughts is -- disarming. And dangerous, for it.
For the incredible effort it clearly took for him to stop, Verso's easily coaxed into letting Gustave take his hand. He watches, pupils blown under half-lowered lids, as Gustave kisses delicately at the tips of his fingers ( the calluses there maybe a bit more coarse and rough than might be expected, for a pianist, not to mention spread across his palms ). His eyes widen noticeably when he takes those fingers into his mouth, his fingers twitching, pressing slightly down against his tongue. Watching him take them in so gently with those lips, kiss-bruised as they are, has a little almost-growl sounding in his throat, a reflexive tension through his shoulders before he pushes it down. Putain de merde, he just wants to push him down to the ground, right here on the rooftop.
There's that question, though. And again, a bit of a stillness in answering it. A flicker of something across his eyes that isn't just want. He keeps his hand relaxes in Gustave's grip, letting him do as he will -- only turning it only just enough to lightly trail his thumb against his lower lip. The gesture soft, affectionate -- and delaying the answer yet another moment more. ]
The only rush is mine.
You can forgive me, I hope, for being so -- inspired. [ The corner of his mouth twitches upward, something that's a bit more of a smirk than just a smile. Surely he can be forgiven for the great sin of finding Gustave so infuriatingly tempting that he's just desperate to get a taste of him, get a feel of him, to take what he can, before.
He wishes he could be honest. He wants to be. But especially when they're here on Lumiere, when Verso doesn't have the additional safety net of the sheer impossibility of Expeditioners making it home -- he can't afford the risk. But as always, while he'll lie through his teeth when it comes to it, if he can simply -- evade. Then that's better. ]
I can't tell you when you might see me again.
[ There's a sadness in his words, thats at least partially performance -- but its performance that comes from something true. It sounds like a man that could be talking about his own Gommage, or anything else that might be in his future that might take him away from this, from the world. Verso doesn't know how old Gustave is, and will not ask, because it invites the question in turn, invites a necessary lie. So he genuinely doesn't know if he might see him again. And when life in Lumiere is what it is, desperately clawing something for itself out of the dark . . . His fingers curve slightly to gently press under Gustave's jaw, guiding his head up ever so slightly, to look at each other full in the eyes. ]
-- But I think we're all always taking what we can.
[ In the time they have. ]