thecountofthree | (5) the other side

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(5) the other side

Characters: Claude, Vincent.
Date: June 17th, 1893.
Place: The Ganymede.

The sun’s burning low on the horizon when he ventures out into the city, hands buried in his pockets and his jacket buttoned up tightly around his frame. True, he’s been working with his sleeves rolled up above his elbows today, the heat in the office threatening to leave him dripping sweat all over his books. But with the Seine cooling down the inner districts of Paris, Vincent nevertheless feels better dressed in too much – even if sparse or at least, light might have been more… suitable. For the occasion, such as it is.

As he nears their designated meeting spot, he hopes to God that Claude hasn’t taken offense to his lack of reply. Or lost courage if such a thing is possible for a man like him – beneath that confident surface of his, Vincent is at least starting to think that his core might just be softer than one might think at first glance. The thought’s calming. Comfortable, in a familiar kind of way.

All the same, one might assume… since Vincent hasn’t even agreed to meet… With a slight frown, he pushes his hands even further into his pockets, the fabric straining in response. No doubt, there’ll be a few seams loose when he gets home later tonight but so be it – his mother already knows that he’ll be out tonight, that he’ll be… socializing. She hasn’t shown any interest in neither Claude nor their designation and really, regardless of the reason he can still be grateful, can’t he? For the fact that she hasn’t changed at all, overlooking when she ought to be scrutinize.

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Vincent glances at Prudence when she invites the angry little man to approach their table, noting the nonchalant gesture, the thoroughly informal language. Though he has no experience with these types of places – or really, any bars – it’s becoming quite clear that these people are a group of some sort. Though judging by Claude’s reaction to Sylvain’s rudeness, it’s a group with very fluid boundaries. He’s once again surprised at how right it feels. At how he breathes more freely, even with the tension rising steadily from across the table. Reaching down, he curls one arm around Claude’s waist easily, meeting Sylvain’s narrowed gaze without any visible reproach.

Though he’s been an underdog in many aspects of his life, he’s not in general afraid of other men. Perhaps it’s connected to him being taller than most, perhaps it’s just another aspect of his personality that won’t be tamed. In any case…

“It’s a pleasure to meet you as well, monsieur. Unless you’d rather it weren’t, of course.” Spoken with a light laugh as he reaches for his glass, taking a sip and savouring the rich taste. Once again, expensive. Luxurious. Mm. Glancing at Claude, he adds, “If this keeps up, I’m going to start associating you with expensive beverages, Claude. Fair warning.” A light squeeze of his hand, not quite enough to be a pull. He's got no reason to act like a dominant bastard, does he? Whether or not Claude chooses to stick with him, whatever time they get together can definitely be spent more constructively than that. He pushes the rest of the thought aside - knowing that he hasn't been promised anything doesn't make the thought of giving the other man up willingly any less terrible.

Multiple developments happen simultaneously. Vincent tugs him closer to his body by his waist, all long limbs and half-embraces that cause another sort of warmth entirely to spread through Claude's body. Prudence is watching them, discreetly as is her style when it's not a question of clothes or mannerisms. She's a sensitive person. As is Vincent, it seems, when he offers Sylvain no bait and only implications, soon ignoring his narrowed eyes and that all too clear warning of his. Sylvain's warnings are always unmistakable, always have been. Albeit easy to recognise and navigate, no less impossible to steer around. The man takes no responsibility for himself, idiot.

Finding Vincent looking at him, openly, Claude tires of considering Sylvain at all. He inches further into Vincent's hold, reaching up to slide his hand around to the back of the other man's neck, fingers splayed out over heated skin, burying into brown strands of hair. Then, he leans in and kisses him. They both taste like alcohol, alcohol and maleness and freedom - and Claude could get drunk on the concepts alone. When he pushes his tongue in between Vincent's lips, it's a hot slide, smooth and therefore gentle in its own right. Unapologetic, even so. He cocks his head, his other hand coming to a rest against Vincent's stomach. How often haven't Pavel and he sat in some spot around here and done this, done this freely. Certain parts of your history sink into oblivion (off to the side, Prudence is dragging off with a dangerously silent Sylvain), while others are meant for reenactment.

The true art form is learning how to distinguish between them.

Sylvain simply drops out of focus, Vincent’s gaze landing directly on Claude’s face as he slips closer, his hand curling over the back of his neck. The smile doesn’t quite leave, not even as Claude kisses him – his expression changes only when he’s pushed into responding, Claude’s tongue hard and wet against his own. It takes him a moment, too – because here he is, in a public place and he’s being kissed and it’s so good, it’s actually the best thing he’s ever tried, not counting the night they spent together weeks back. Breathing out slowly, shakily, he buries his fingers in Claude’s hair, pulling him closer and deepening the kiss.

He’s never kissed anyone like this before, certainly not the girls his mother keeps presenting to him. And what’s more, he’s having a hard time imagining himself kissing someone else like this, too, even another man. There’s simply something so satisfying, so inherently true about Claude, something that he wouldn’t quite have believed in before meeting him. He’s always been a strictly realistic person, Vincent, perhaps bordering on cynical if one should be unkind enough to draw the necessary, hasty conclusions. But anything like… like true love, like real, honest love… Perhaps he’s always expected the world to come out a little bit less colourful than he’d imagined, a little bit less real than he’d truly hope.

Perhaps he’s always been afraid of disappointment more than anything else.

Drawing back, he leaves his lips as they are – wet and slick, ready for more. Taking another sip from his whiskey without losing too much of their physical proximity, he gives Claude a wide smile. Devoid, this time, of confrontation or arrogance. “You know,” he says, keeping his voice low enough to imitate a state of privacy, “I've missed you. Very much so.”

When Vincent draws away to make an advance at his alcohol instead, Claude mirrors him - moves little, least of all out of Vincent's reach, but wraps the fingers of his free hand around the coolness of his cognac tumbler. The contrast in comparison to the heat of Vincent's skin which he's lazily brushing with his other hand stark. He sighs in pleasure, relaxes back against Vincent's curl of a hold and rolls his shoulders slightly. They're always tense, his shoulders - it's the stress point he is bothered by the most on most days, but in these surroundings, in this company, he hardly notices. It's simply of no relevance, is it? Not when the sight that greets you, meets you upon turning your head is Vincent's honest gaze and a wide, unguarded smile that seems to have grown out of an unnatural meekness. Like that of soil exhausted for all its nutrients.

Another long drink of his cognac, draining it almost completely and he pushes the crystal out of the way. Cocks his head at Vincent's words and smiles, slightly but with all his warmth and a touch of tease, before pushing up against him again, breathing against his cheek first, then his ear. Long mouthing kisses of lips only. "I've missed you as well," he answers, most of the sentence skirting over the shell of Vincent's ear. His other hand has sought back to Vincent's stomach, but is travelling down rather than up. Down over hipbone and the joint between abdomen and thigh. Vincent has such gorgeous, long limbs. He can feel it even when he's all wrapped up in clothing - the length and terseness of his muscles. Much like he can feel himself react, grow harder in his trousers fast. Claude manages a long, hard exhalation, then he reaches up and grabs hold of Vincent's hand by the wrist, waiting for him to dispose of his glass with ungraceful impatience. Shuffles closer, inching along the leather of the seat. "I could show you just how much, Vincent."

Claude’s kisses, deceptively light, feel like divagated splotches of sunlight against his chin. Leaning into his touch, he decides to be bold – after all, Claude may be the one to fly across the stage every evening, but surely even a spectator can draw his own learning from what he sees. When Claude takes his wrist, he doesn’t wait for him to lead them onwards. Leaving his glass on the table, he reaches down between them, flattening one, hot palm over the growing bulge in Claude’s trousers. Christ. Sucking in a breath, he runs two fingers over the contours of his cock, the long lines of its hard shaft firm beneath his touch. After a second or two, he draws his fingers backwards, then forwards, a slow but insistent rubbing motion. It only occurs to him seconds later that they’re in a public place, they’re in full view of anyone who might pass by and the best thing is… the best, most outrageous thing is how he doesn’t feel the least bit worried about it. All he cares about is how long and hard the other man is, how wonderful it would feel without all those layers of clothes, separating them…

He shifts slightly, his own trousers feeling uncomfortably tight. The fabric is loose enough that it isn’t painful, exactly. Rather, it’s that tight throbbing between his legs, the one he knows so well by now though he no longer fears or detests it. Not here, not with Claude – how could he when he knows… When surely, there’s no better place for it…

Turning his head enough to catch Claude’s lips in a kiss, lips ghosting over his, breathing coming out fragmented, he pushes upwards slightly against his hand, the one currently resting beneath his stomach only inches away from his cock. True, Claude’s impressive body might easily drive him to distraction but his own is still very much in need of attention and if he has to keep it down, push it all to the background once again, he’s afraid he might very well perish from the effort. It’s been too long. All he wants is more – of Claude, of his hard cock and his hands and his mouth and his…

His kiss is hot and full of harsh breathing, the taste of whiskey and cognac in a strange blend - the sensation of their fronts pushed halfway up against each other, Vincent's fingers rubbing in distractingly long motions up the underside of his cock. On the backside of his closed eyelids, all Claude sees is stars, bright like the stage lights when you look up during a performance. He groans into Vincent's mouth and drops his own hand lower, a fast plunge, inelegant (but what have you) in its efficiency... The bulge that meets his palm is hard and palpably throbbing and Claude closes the entire expands of his palm and splayed fingers out over it, rubbing up against it with a touch from all sides. A cup and feel, yes? Just like that. Another groan, a halfway mumble against Vincent's lips. Perhaps a cuss.

Positioning himself more comfortably, Claude finds himself draped in against Vincent's side, careful not to let him carry the full force of his weight (muscles weigh a ton), but enough to completely abandon himself and just push his arse off the bench, pelvis up against Vincent's fingers, his now fully erect cock rubbing along the entire length of the other man's touch, into his palm, around... He leans his head back, breathes out hard and doesn't care that besides Vincent watching, there is probably an entire audience out there in the shadows. He's used to audiences. Usually, though, he's the pleaser. Right now --

"It's amazing, Vincent," he manages, a hoarse, deep whisper. Thrust, thrust, thrust. He only halfway manages to keep moving his own hand in time. "My God."

His breathing grows progressively more irregular as Claude thrusts upwards into his hand, his own palm busy handling Vincent’s arousal with as much grace as you’d rightfully expect. All the same, it feels as if the other man has lit a match to his entire system, his cock straining in his trousers now and his blood rushing through his veins, shrouding up any last remains of rational thought. God. God. Turning his touch into a grip, he strokes Claude through his trousers, following the movements of his hips. The stimulation of Claude’s hand isn’t enough by any means and that’s good – that’s fortunate, in fact, because all he wants to focus on right now is making him as happy as humanely possible. Happy and sated.

In the back of his mind, he keeps revisiting the same scenario – the two of them on Claude’s sheepskins, the warmth of the fire and the taste of cock on the back of his tongue. Brow furrowing, he pushes his other hand downwards, fumbling around for the buttons on the other man’s trousers. Whether or not this is the time for it (and really, his mind doesn’t truly want to deliberate propriety, not with Claude’s cock pressing into his palm), surely the only logical step is forward and he can’t think of any other way than to flick each button free, one at a time, feeling the fabric loosen in turn.

“I’m sorry – I… if you think we shouldn’t…” He’s speaking against Claude’s lips, words as ragged as his breathing. But despite his words, his hands aren’t even pausing, movements bordering on frantic. If Claude doesn’t stop him, in a short moment at best he’ll be slipping that gorgeous cock free from its confinements and it’s been so long, it’s been weeks and weeks and weeks…

If you think we shouldn't, Vincent mumbles, words sinking into each other in a perfect reflection of how Claude is well on his way to sinking far, far, far beneath the surface of his common sense. His best intentions. Vincent's fingers are nimble and work fast, work precisely and with every button flicked open, his cock gains a little more ground for itself. Freedom. Claude could stop him, he knows. Tell him that they're being improper and that Nicolas would throw them out on their arses, if he found them actually... But surely, Ganymède has seen worse than Vincent's hand granting him his rightful climax. Didn't he see Strauss run through here naked once? ... It doesn't matter. Nicolas is lenient, as a rule. Is good at overlooking what he doesn't need to see. It's fine. It's fine. It's good, so good.

"Don't stop," Claude manages to whisper, through gritted teeth as he lifts himself up enough to help the process along. No, he doesn't want Vincent to stop, but they need to be fast about it, if not necessarily, exactly discreet. The gentlemen in the corner sure have noticed already. He breathes in, breathes out. Smiles faintly, head dipped back and gaze on the ceiling, all muscles straining from the back of his neck to his inner thighs. "Can you feel how much I've missed you?"

He doesn’t. Stop. At least not for long – but just enough to shift to the floor beneath the table. It’s not a fantasy or a result of anything even remotely well-deliberated, just an impulse, plain and simple, an urge. He can certainly feel how much Claude has missed him in return and he’s growing almost desperate to feel it in his mouth, too, that sharp ache in his jaw and the sense of stretch, of Claude’s girth pressing into his throat. Like last time they slept together, all rational thoughts have been pushed aside, his vision narrowed down to the two of them. To Claude, here, next to him and the heat of arousal rushing through his body.

Leaning in, his hair brushing up against the edge of the table, he undoes the last few remaining buttons on Claude’s breeches, gaze completely focused on the task. At hand. Sure, his legs may be sticking out from underneath the table cloth but truthfully, unless someone actively pulls him away right this second, he simply can’t bring himself to care. Another hasty breath, another flick of his wrist and finally, the white fabric falls away to reveal Claude’s gorgeous cock underneath. Lines upon lines of naked hardness.

“Oh, you truly have. Missed me.” Spoken with a slight smile, voice sounding several notches lower than usual. Leaning in, ignoring the way the table edge digs into the back of his scalp, he presses a kiss to the underside of Claude’s cock, the skin warm and soft against his lips.

Whatever Vincent said after Claude's breeches finally come undone, Claude doesn't hear. It is a combination of the tablecloth slurring the words and, more prominently, the feeling of Vincent's lips brushing up the underside of his now very bare, very hard cock. He doesn't even attempt breathing normally, although Prudence has entered from the bar area and (fortunately) gotten into conversation with an elderly man who at times plays the fiddle on their music nights. It's torture, how he can feel Vincent so close to his crotch, palms flat where they are resting against his inner thighs, warm through the fabric - but not the heat of his mouth, the wet softness, the suction... Trying to bow his head a little to the side, to keep his voice low and private, he exhales the plea: "Vincent, don't --" A pause as his hips work forward in a helpless thrust against Vincent's face. Claude frowns, reaches beneath the table with one hand to bury his fingers in the hair at the back of Vincent's head, hand taking the brunt of the table's edge. Vincent better thank him, thank him now, too. "Don't dally. I really need --"

Another broken, unfinished sentence, but surely the man will understand the message. Take pity on him. Sweat is beginning to pearl down his temples, over his brow and he dries off the worst with the back of his free hand. The other already tightening something awful in Vincent's hair. Pavel and he did something like this once, didn't they? Here. Not right here, but somewhere around... And yet, it was nothing -- like this. Dear Lord, have mercy.

Thank God Claude’s telling him not to dally – rather than not to proceed. For a second (just an outdrawn blink of his eyes), he was afraid. To be discouraged now, with Claude’s cock more or less pushed against his face. Smile dissipating, he takes a moment more to simply look – at the long lines of flesh and skin, the head already glistening, Claude’s hand in his hair telling him all that he can’t possibly convey in words now. In public.

Christ.

Taking a deep breath, he finally reaches up with one hand, curling his fingers around the base of Claude’s cock. Guiding the whole length of it away from his body, he opens up wide and sucks the head into his mouth. The taste explodes on his tongue; arousal, sweat, fluids and skin. The scent of sex goes straight to his cock and he takes a moment to enjoy, to suck on the tip, saliva running down the shaft in slim, wet drops. Then, he complies – swallowing and going slow to avoid choking, he relaxes his throat and takes his cock in. Inch by inch, willfully ignoring the very instinctual urge to gag on it, his jaw straining all the way until he’s got his nose buried in Claude’s soft pubic hair. Filled up completely and utterly, his mind a haze of sensations, his free hand cradling Claude’s inner thigh hard.

A part of him imagines it must be an amusing sight indeed for the passing Prudence, how she notices Vincent beneath the table first and then Claude's heated, quickly flushing face as she looks up, just in time with Vincent taking the head of his cock into his mouth, his tongue pushing up while he sucks on the tip and Claude is fighting a lost battle not to let it show. How good it is. How he's all but exploding from the pleasure of it. Pure. It's pure. She raises an eyebrow briefly, then continues into the adjoining room - the study... Leaves them to it. And Claude loses track without a single regret, Vincent sinking down over his cock in one, long outdrawn mouthful. Until he's buried in the other man's throat to the hilt. He can feel his lips. The wetness and the softness and the heat. Whimpering, as low as he can manage and very much under his breath, he keeps still. Doesn't thrust into the sensations, feeling no need to challenge Vincent's gag reflex further, but dear Lord... Move, move, move. The fingers in his hair are gripping so tight a hold that it might just be hurting himself more than Vincent, though Vincent as well. He'll have to bear it. Claude knows he can, Claude knows -- "Move, Vincent," he whispers through lips that are hardly moving at all themselves, sweat dripping into his eyes and his back muscles hurting from his attempt not to just bury forward. "It's better than anything, but I need more, don't just, don't --" Staring unseeingly into thin air as his balls tighten up further and further, he can tell it'll be as fast an endeavour as he insisted it must. He only needs the peak now. To fall.

At the back of his mind, he remembers like an afterthought that none of his prior bed mates ever managed to take all of it. His length. When fluting him. They could suck him down their throat well enough, but this tight constriction, this... His eyes are falling closed, a slight groan escaping him despite his best efforts.

Though Claude’s voice is little but a whisper, it carries across the mostly figurative distance between their bodies quite unmistakably. Though it’s odd to think of himself as a lover – after all, he’s been cradling little beyond his own sheets for so many years – he’s nevertheless come to realise something about his own character when it comes to sex. A very general observation, even. He’s never been a cruel person by any means and in bed, this becomes all the more obvious for how teasing simply doesn’t appeal to him. He’s no wish to keep Claude hanging by the tips of his fingers (not even counting the way he’s more or less pulling out his hair at the moment), no need to drag him along, to withhold or overwhelm.

Thus, he doesn’t waste many minutes keeping the other man on the edge. God knows he wouldn’t mind just staying here with his throat blocked out, with the scent and taste of the other man melting through his system. He’s getting all that he’s been missing for the past many weeks and more, his own cock positively soaking his breeches. How selfish would it be, then, to take and take without any thought to Claude’s desperate breathing, his plea for more, constricted only by their circumstances?

Relaxing his body and muscles once more, Vincent pulls back very slightly, then dives back in. Repeat. Repeat, until there’s a semblance of rhythm to it, a sense of in and out. The table and Claude’s hands aren’t leaving him room for too much but really, it’s blatantly obvious, isn’t it? That ‘too much’ isn’t needed anyway and isn’t that just a wonderful thought?

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(5) the other side

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