[ It's a little cruel, maybe, to tease Verso with tongue and teeth, to suck lightly at the tips of those fingers and watch the way it blooms over his face: impatient want, barely held back by the scruff. Just as interesting are the heavy calluses he can feel beneath his lips as he brushes them over the man's palm: they're strangely similar to the marks on Gustave's own right hand, where his palm and fingers curl around the grip of his sword. Not wholly surprising, maybe, given Verso's agility with the grapple points, but... interesting, yes. His mysterious pianist has clearly trained at some point at the Expedition Academy, and either kept it up since or left only recently, because the calluses show no signs of softening or loosening.
He presses a last kiss to warm skin, then allows Verso to tip his head up so their eyes meet, and Verso is... wistful, maybe. The ripple of sorrow underlying every note he'd played those months ago now seeps into his eyes, the line of his mouth, the timbre of his voice. ]
I don't understand.
[ It's a kneejerk reaction to that sadness, not the words that come after — Gustave is plenty familiar with those in Lumiere who choose to grab hold of anything they can, savoring it, lingering in it, indulging in the physical and whatever small delight they can. He doesn't think they're wrong — they all do that here, to a greater or lesser extent — but Verso hasn't struck him as that sort of person. If he were, wouldn't he have shown up that night at the opera house? Wouldn't he have coaxed Gustave to stay longer during their very first meeting?
His metal hand isn't as desirable for touch as his flesh and blood right hand, maybe, but Gustave shifts it a little up the line of Verso's throat anyway, thumb rubbing through scruff along the angle of his jaw. ]
If you want to see me, you can.
[ So there must be some other element to all this. Maybe he's married; maybe he's spoken for in some other way. Maybe he's throwing himself into training for the next Expedition. Maybe he has some disease which will steal him away even before the next Gommage.
Gustave shifts the way he's holding the man's hand and guides it back towards himself again, to his chest, settling Verso's palm back on his belly. If you want to see me, you can. If you want to touch me, you can. ]
I'd like to see you again. But I think you know that already.
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He presses a last kiss to warm skin, then allows Verso to tip his head up so their eyes meet, and Verso is... wistful, maybe. The ripple of sorrow underlying every note he'd played those months ago now seeps into his eyes, the line of his mouth, the timbre of his voice. ]
I don't understand.
[ It's a kneejerk reaction to that sadness, not the words that come after — Gustave is plenty familiar with those in Lumiere who choose to grab hold of anything they can, savoring it, lingering in it, indulging in the physical and whatever small delight they can. He doesn't think they're wrong — they all do that here, to a greater or lesser extent — but Verso hasn't struck him as that sort of person. If he were, wouldn't he have shown up that night at the opera house? Wouldn't he have coaxed Gustave to stay longer during their very first meeting?
His metal hand isn't as desirable for touch as his flesh and blood right hand, maybe, but Gustave shifts it a little up the line of Verso's throat anyway, thumb rubbing through scruff along the angle of his jaw. ]
If you want to see me, you can.
[ So there must be some other element to all this. Maybe he's married; maybe he's spoken for in some other way. Maybe he's throwing himself into training for the next Expedition. Maybe he has some disease which will steal him away even before the next Gommage.
Gustave shifts the way he's holding the man's hand and guides it back towards himself again, to his chest, settling Verso's palm back on his belly. If you want to see me, you can. If you want to touch me, you can. ]
I'd like to see you again. But I think you know that already.