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A force akin to a raging storm shakes the car. Rimbaud’s hands fumble with his seatbelt and his fingers find the button he needs to push to open it. He rid himself of his gloves that stuck to him like a second, ill-fitting skin, now exposing his knuckles in red and purple. They look like the rest of his body feels: beaten and tired, yet shaking.
When his eyes are drawn to the ball of flames that rises and paints the sky in bright orange, the remaining blood on his fingers makes them slip off the button. With a swear under his breath, he rattles the seatbelt buckle, growing in force until another curse scratches in his throat and releases his energy.
His hands sink onto the seat, his head meets with the headrest, and he only stares outside.
The explosion was roughly a kilometre away, so the clouds all above him are lit up, shimmering in the colours that only a dying star could usually gift them. Sparks glimmer and die out before they can even reach the ground. Just ash falls past the car’s windows.
Every time he sees this scene, it seems unreal: the sky burns while snow drifts past him.
He shouldn’t be here, not in this man-made disaster started by none other than himself. He’ll do it all over again. And even though he won’t forget about what he’s seeing—it’ll etch itself into his memory, even—he’ll gravitate back towards it.
Rimbaud’s jaw clenches. His fingers tremble but he can’t get them to move again. All they need to do is open the seatbelt, then the car door. Then it’s his legs’ job to carry him to the source of the explosion, his eyes’ job to search. In the worst case, his hands’ job to rescue or recover a body. The tasks are evenly distributed but his hands already fail.
There is more failure in not even trying than in having to stop along the way. His partner said that to him many times.
The fault lies within him, within the very core of his being that can’t get him to try. If he doesn’t get out now, then Verlaine’s death will solely be his burden to bear.
It’s this thought that makes him rattle the seatbelt buckle again, to no avail.
Going out, the fire in the sky makes room for a darkness that feels intrusive. Rimbaud’s hands still with it, and he holds his breath. His eyes widen and his ears crack to make up for the lost sense while he sits frozen in their getaway car. Had he acted sooner, then the chaos from the fresh explosion could’ve covered their escape. Like this, however, attention turns to the outside—where Rimbaud is.
He can’t hear sirens or screams, but he doesn’t think that the aftermath of an explosion of this magnitude wouldn’t require help from the fire department.
He should search for Verlaine, but that’s probably what they’d want him to do. Being discovered would mean certain death. But not trying is a bigger failure. He thinks about what Verlaine would want him to do, but he loses that trail in the darkness around. Although Rimbaud has never had any trouble making his own decisions, another life being at risk (and at that, one he cares about deeply) makes things more difficult.
Rimbaud bites his tongue and nearly bites it off when movement outside his window startles him. His eyes widen to combat the darkness but he can barely make out anything between the trees. He keeps his gaze fixed on the outside while his hand automatically finds the glove compartment. This time, he doesn’t struggle to open it and reach for the spare gun.
It immediately glides out of his hand, however.
The spy slams the compartment shut, not caring for the noise anymore. He leans over the centre console and passenger seat to open the door from the inside long before Verlaine can reach it.
In the darkness and from a distance, Rimbaud can’t make out much but he’s sure it’s his partner. His silhouette and posture are the same; the way he carries himself hasn’t changed, which also tells Rimbaud that Verlaine isn’t gravely injured. Still, he needs to be cautious, and if his eyes are deceiving him, the glove compartment is still within reach.
Just a few more metres, then Rimbaud is sure. The trembling slips off of his fingers. Worry remains but it’s bearable.
When he arrives, Verlaine nearly falls into the car and his seat. He barely pulls the door shut behind himself. His mouth is slightly open but he doesn’t say a word, leaving Rimbaud to assess his condition and what to do all on his own. In this moment, they become a team again. And although Rimbaud could make the decision to just drive and listen to Verlaine along the way, he hesitates.
Additionally, his partner, usually so quick to snap and make fast judgements that he voices as orders rather than suggestions, stays silent as well. He simply turns his head towards Rimbaud.
His blond hair sticks to his forehead, now darkened in a mix of liquid and dry grime.
Beneath that, his eyes remain clear between the red. No blood dripped down to darken the white around his crystal irises. It’s merely their own, natural redness that contrasts them. They must be irritated from smoke, or it’s anger forcing its way into them. Either way, Rimbaud doesn’t care. As long as those eyes look at him like this, he’s alive.
Verlaine is alive.
His breaths are heavy, moving his shoulders and upper body every time he sucks in air and exhales it.
‘What happened back there?’ is the question Rimbaud has on his tongue but he doesn’t voice it. His own breathing has ceased but there’s no danger around that would force him to hold it. He can only stare at Verlaine, who stares back at him.
It doesn’t matter, he concludes in his hazy mind. His partner’s survival is his priority. Second comes the success of their mission. Only third is how it all happened.
‘I was scared for you,’ is another thing he could say, but he doesn’t. The first and last time he did, Verlaine scoffed at him. It was early on in their partnership and he hasn’t tried since. Although it’s true every time.
‘Let’s go home,’ is something he wishes he could say but cannot. There is no place to return to for men such as themselves. They can only flee to some place far away, which can hardly be called a home.
“You’ve made it,” is what Rimbaud eventually breathes out. It implies a degree of disbelief and the question of what happened. It’s also relief, and thus expresses the concern that can’t make it past his tongue. And it leaves open what to do next. Homewards, which doesn’t exist.
Verlaine nods. He doesn’t further the conversation but he doesn’t shut it down or shut Rimbaud out either.
For a moment, Verlaine furrows his brows and averts his eyes. The movement of muscle beneath his skin squeezes blood out of a small cut on his forehead. It must’ve been from the explosion and flying debris because usually, enemies won’t harm Verlaine. Although he isn’t looking, his partner seems to feel the fresh blood and he wipes it away with his thumb. It leaves an almost clean trail behind, his skin poking out between the soot and grime.
Most of it is on Verlaine’s forehead and sitting on top of his cheekbones. It’s evident that he was covering the lower half of his face with his sleeve, only protecting the rest briefly during the initial explosion before breathing became a challenge. Still, his entire face is smudged.
His hair hangs down in clumped strands; some of it sticks to his neck, other parts take the same red, brown, and grey colours as the fabric underneath as they dry into one single, filthy mass.
Rimbaud’s hands find the collar of Verlaine’s suit. It’s one that they picked together, and Verlaine has worn it to many a mission. It’s ruined, in all senses of the word. Sparks burnt holes into it and Rimbaud is sure that no laundry detergent and scrubbing could get the sheer amount of blood out. For a humorous second, Rimbaud thinks about dipping the entire thing in blood to make it appear natural. That, however, wouldn’t fix the holes.
Verlaine will most likely throw it away. Clothes or other items hold little sentimental value to him, he usually says. Rimbaud feels differently but expressing as much gets him a scoff or a slow shake of Verlaine’s head. Nothing and nobody is disposable, Rimbaud tends to argue, but he’s brushed off with the words that anything that’s of no use should be discarded. Still, he holds onto things. His partner is unpredictable and hypocritical, but Rimbaud sees those traits within himself as well.
As his thumb circles one of the burn marks, Rimbaud sighs. The fabric is hard around it, atop of the black colour. He has to agree; it’s not his place to mourn an item that didn’t even belong to him in the first place.
His fingers wander up and find Verlaine’s neck. His Adam’s apple moves beneath his fingers and his throat vibrates when he says something that Rimbaud cannot hear. The voice that’s been the only constant in his life appears distant and shut-out, even though it’s the first words that Verlaine has said to him since they parted ways earlier.
Maybe it’s the remaining ringing in his ears from the explosion—it’s such a natural thing that he barely even noticed it, or the noise and pressure finally made him deaf. He could hear himself, the car door, and their breaths and movements just fine, though.
He figures that Verlaine’s words are simply secondary right now.
The pads of his index and middle fingers find a point on the side of his partner’s neck and he gently presses down on it.
Alive.
There’s a pulse. Meaning that Paul Verlaine, who sits in front of him, is alive. It may be obvious. But a part of Rimbaud always ends up doubting it with how he knows his ability to work, and how human minds can trick themselves.
His pulse speeds up minimally, and Rimbaud wonders why. It must be the red-glazed anger in Verlaine’s eyes. He looks up at his face and lets the hand that’s not on his pulse point follow.
The blood which has been drying on his palms mixes with the fresh liquid on Verlaine’s skin when he rests it on his cheek. He’s warm to the touch. Verlaine is alive. It’s visible in his eyes that haven’t lost their shine despite the constant cynicism in them, and in the way his nostrils move with breaths he’s struggling to get under control.
Rimbaud smudges some of the blood when he lets his thumb wander over his skin. The feeling is one he’s familiar with but will never get used to. He usually wears gloves, but cotton simply absorbs blood, so he’s started opting for leather ones. Blood still got under them, so he pulled them off when he got into the car, and, despite the gross feeling sticking to the pads of his fingers now, he’s thankful he did.
Verlaine moves, nearly prompting Rimbaud to pull back when a hand lands on his wrist. He doesn’t remove it from his face, though.
Rimbaud’s pulse beats against Verlaine’s thumb, which found the point immediately.
When Rimbaud finally dares to read Verlaine’s eyes once more, he discovers that he was wrong: there’s no anger in them. His brows are furrowed, nearly meeting in the middle of his forehead. From just that, Rimbaud can barely infer what emotions Verlaine might be experiencing right now. Because the one he sees won’t make any sense.
Sorrow and regret sit in his partner’s eyes. As if all hope is lost and the bodies of his loved ones litter the ground he walks on.
Rimbaud is right here, though.
He’s right here. So close that their breaths meet, closer than ever before. Alive.
Deciding to allow himself to investigate that sorrow, Rimbaud keeps looking. The blue eyes that have stared at him with ice-cold rage, indifference, and terror—barely have they shown him joy or contentment—and still looked out for him, are drilling into his now.
Verlaine keeps looking back at him and he wonders just what it is that his partner is seeing. If he’s also decoding the expression in his eyes and the unspoken words of feelings he doesn’t know how to decode. Maybe he’ll find an answer in the mirrored image of himself that rests upon the blue regret.
Before he can explore this, however, Verlaine’s eyes flutter shut. Rimbaud’s do, too.
It wasn’t his intention, he thinks, at least not consciously. But when Verlaine’s lips meet his—warm and alive—he wants to tell himself that it was his intention from the very beginning, from when he first looked into those eyes of rage and sorrow and joy.
It’s a mere brush of lips. It leaves blood on Rimbaud’s face and he wishes he could say that he doesn’t feel that or anything else that isn’t the kiss. But he still senses the dirt that sticks to his skin. The fear from earlier lingers as well, and how fast his heart has been beating—again, not from the kiss.
His pulse hammers against Verlaine’s thumb, just like that of his partner under his fingers. Sped up exponentially by the sudden action.
Lasting a mere second, Rimbaud would usually disregard such an action. This time, though, he won’t. That’s what he decides immediately, almost against his will. He decides it means something to him because he can’t deny the craving he’s felt, that a simple touch of hands can’t satisfy.
However, there’s always something in between him and Verlaine. It’s neither invisible nor incomprehensible, but instead something tangible. Still, he doesn’t feel like he has any sort of control over it. Maybe, if they work together, they can finally meet each other without that something in between.
Much to his dismay, Verlaine chooses to support it instead.
“Drive,” he orders in a whisper.
He pulls back and sinks into his seat, crossing his arms in front of his chest. Rimbaud looks at him for a second too long, in which that something in between manages to overwhelm him. The blood on his hands and face cools and dries until it itches. His heart, still running wild, forces itself to shrink. It shouldn’t be beating against his ribs like it wants to escape and reach out to his partner. No, it should stay right there. Never to be heard or touched by anyone else.
Water rinses off the second skin of blood, but it doesn’t take away the tightness that surrounds him. Rimbaud checks the mirror several times, never seeing anything unusual about his body. Some bruises are common. Even when he doesn’t get injured during fights all that much, hasty escapes leave him near-senseless sometimes, so he’s bound to bump into things. Verlaine is no better, as Rimbaud caught him massaging spots on his legs and arms during the drive back to the hotel.
Rimbaud wipes some of the fog off the mirror, just enough to sharpen the reflection of his face. The edges of it are missing and his cheekbones and forehead melt into blurriness. The spy doesn’t think he looks any different. He’s had episodes where his face was unrecognisable to himself, even though it was undeniably still him. But that face doesn’t look foreign at all. He can both see and feel it when he lightly touches his cheek.
His eyes narrow when he moves his fingers towards his lips. They’re what Verlaine saw before he kissed him. He saw the very same face, dirty, with nonsense falling from his mouth. And he still kissed him. It’s a surprise, in some way. Rimbaud didn’t even try to come looking for Verlaine because the fault within himself wouldn’t let him. He wishes he could say that his trust in Verlaine’s return kept him bound to his seat, but he’s not so sure about that. He can’t give himself the benefit of the doubt, and he can’t explain himself in any way.
This should show how he lost his usefulness as a spy, and thus he should be discarded. Verlaine kissed him instead.
With a shake of his head, Rimbaud tears his eyes away, then slips into the bathrobe he put on the radiator before he jumped into the shower. The warmth the fabric absorbed leaves him nearly satisfied for now, but he’s most looking forward to the blanket he put over the heater next to his bed.
Rimbaud has seen countless hotel rooms, many of which have switched to air conditioning through vents near the ceiling. So, finding one with a regular heating system is like striking gold.
When he leaves the bathroom, Verlaine waits for his wordless nod that gives him the OK to use it himself.
His partner took the bed by the wall. It didn’t take Verlaine long to learn about and respect Rimbaud’s needs and habits, and he’s mentioned that they feel like second nature to him at this point. As if his own needs align with taking the bed away from the heater.
Meanwhile, Rimbaud adapted to Verlaine’s habits: keeping the space tidy has become one of his priorities. He started folding his clothes and making his bed, as well as putting his shoes neatly next to the door. It should be a given to do those things, but they didn’t come naturally to the spy. Only possessing very few personal items that he keeps close, he either doesn’t unpack them in the first place, or doesn’t mind scattering a handful of things for a night before he needs to leave again.
Being called ‘chaotic’ by Verlaine was a huge overexaggeration, but even just being considered not entirely tidy came as a surprise. He's adapted since, though.
In turn, Verlaine is in the process of giving up one more habit. Rimbaud spots the pack of cigarettes on the nightstand by the bed that’s against the wall. This one is more of an involuntary process. But since Verlaine can’t smoke indoors (for one, Rimbaud doesn’t appreciate it, and it’s not allowed in the majority of places they’ve stayed at), and opening the window would be counterproductive.
To avoid all of this, Verlaine would have to take the elevator all the way down and risk being seen, then go all the way back up. Another added risk is talking to strangers. Rimbaud isn’t familiar with such settings for conversation, but Verlaine’s expression soured considerably when he told him about some of his encounters. He could be found out, be approached with ill intentions, or simply have someone talk his ears off after a stressful day.
After a while of this, Verlaine seems to be giving up on this vice, but he still buys a pack in every country they visit—never taking one across a border for fear that it’ll create a trail anyone could follow.
As he sits down on his own bed for the night and pulls his blanket from the radiator, Rimbaud sees the worn t-shirts that Verlaine rolled up and placed on the windowsill to prevent any cold air streaming in through the cracks.
A thin smile makes itself known on Rimbaud’s lips. If anything, Verlaine still cares. Despite the lack of words or even looks between them, and despite everything else that separates them, care remains on both sides.
The blanket is comfortably warm when Rimbaud sits against the headboard and pulls it over his legs. He doesn’t want to lie down yet since his hair would just drench the pillow. He’ll blow-dry it once Verlaine is done in the bathroom. The thought of having freshly dried and heated hair draped around his shoulders makes him smile. A fully warm feeling is foreign to him, but being able to combat it in some way will never go unappreciated.
The shower starts running, making for a constant background noise. The spy leans his head against the wall and stares into the room they share for the night. It’s unremarkable: the dark green carpet with specks of red, white, and blue seems familiar, like he’s seen it before. The wall behind him matches in a lighter green, whereas all other walls remain white. As though the designer didn’t want to fully commit, the curtains are a plain grey to block out the sun during the day, or the light pollution from the city at night.
At some point, foreign things become familiar when you’ve seen everything. At least that’s Rimbaud’s experience. In order not to get attached, he doesn’t pay attention to his surroundings or the people any more than necessary, unless he sees a threat. Instead, he takes everything in constantly until it becomes muddy.
Were he a tourist, this would bother him. But he’s not here to admire the beauty of the city.
So, everything being familiar already is of no bother.
Language barriers pose little issue. All over the place, a lot of people know English at this point; most also speak French where they are. However, Rimbaud refrains from using his native tongue. Being traced back to France, no matter in what way, is a threat to his cause. He simply allows his ears to perk up when he hears it in passing. It’s a small reminder of the past, one of the only things he allows himself.
The people here, when they speak French, do so with a slight dialect. Rimbaud wants to point out one or two differences to his partner; indulge for just a moment before they go back to English.
Most of those currently around them speak Dutch, though. North of Belgium’s Wallonia, even north of Brussels, they found temporary refuge in Anvers, as he learned to say in French. After their mission by a port in the Netherlands, Antwerp is their final stop on the way back to France. They’ll have to find a new car and make their way south as soon as the sun rises.
Rimbaud isn’t sure how to recognise dawn, though. The sky here glows orange at night, as though the sun is constantly sitting on the edge of the horizon. Rimbaud has seen light pollution before, in the form of cold LEDs on buildings the size of mountains competing with the sky. Orange is rarer. He guesses that the noteworthy buildings must be lit up at night, since the city lacks skyscrapers and neon skylines.
The orange lights bring quiet with them. Not many people drive within the city in the first place, and he wonders how many are still wandering the streets. His watch tells him that it’s 3AM. It might be safe to go out, he thinks.
With a shake of his head, he dismisses the idea. After years, why does he want to linger and take it all in? It makes little sense to him to change his mind about things so suddenly. But then again, he can’t consider himself the most rational person at the moment.
His fingers touch his lips again, despite not being able to replicate the feeling at all. That shouldn’t be the goal, he tells himself. Verlaine met him halfway, he’s still showing that he cares. He closed his eyes to kiss him.
His mind goes over it again and again. He immediately reconciled with the fact that the kiss is something that happened and that he wanted. The only thing in his way is how quickly Verlaine pulled away before they both went silent. The drive felt indefinite, and by the time he exchanged a few words with the receptionist, his voice sounded weird. Like he either hadn’t used it in months, or screamed for hours.
Talking to Verlaine is the logical next step. However, Rimbaud can’t deny that a part of him doesn’t want to talk about it. He wants it to remain a memory with a degree of thrill to it, maybe something that can happen again if they want it to. Rimbaud wants. He can’t even begin to deny that part.
As for Verlaine, he’s unsure. From observing him, Rimbaud figured that Verlaine isn’t as transparent and easy to decode as Rimbaud wishes to think. He’s a spy with an indescribable origin, so getting a read on him will be impossible for most, but even to Rimbaud’s trained eye and with having spent the majority of their time together since they met, he can’t always read him for certain.
Maybe Verlaine regrets it? Rimbaud can’t be sure.
His partner turned his head towards the window and didn’t allow the other to see his face, so it could’ve been anything. In turn, Rimbaud wonders how much of him Verlaine can read. It seems unfair of Verlaine to be better at such things—in reality, he knows that it’s not, but he’d like them to be equal.
The shower stops. Rimbaud didn’t waste any of his time thinking about what to say to Verlaine since planning his words is futile when it involves feelings. Or Verlaine. One is less predictable than the other and in combination, Rimbaud is sure he’d get lost without getting a single sentence out.
Furthermore, he was taught to discard what’s useless. But Rimbaud has always been sentimental.
Whenever there’s a noise, the spy holds his breath. Everything could mean that Verlaine is about to step out of the bathroom and they have to face each other again. And Rimbaud will have nothing to say. His partner won’t either. Whatever this was and what it could be will have to be buried like the body of their next victim. A futile effort, as it will stay alive and live inside both of them until they take it to the grave. Only then will it die.
Maybe Rimbaud can make it disappear, he thinks. Maybe not acknowledging it at all doesn’t require death to make it stop.
He knows he’s lying to himself immediately when there’s a pain in his chest and he wants to hold onto it. He fears such loss, almost akin to grief and yet so different. He’s not losing Verlaine, but not feeling this way anymore might just be that.
Rimbaud rubs his hands over his face. Another noise makes his ears crack like he’s anticipating an attack. Movement from the bathroom has become less frequent and Rimbaud is starting to fear that Verlaine is purposefully dragging this out so he doesn’t have to face him.
His suspicion is confirmed when the hair dryer starts.
Dropping his hands, Rimbaud leans his head back and closes his eyes. Verlaine can’t face him. Maybe it’s a loss, no matter what he chooses to do.
All is blurry in his mind as he circles around what happened, and what to do.
The only thing that’s certain is that he enjoyed kissing Verlaine. He never allowed himself to think about it much, although that doesn’t mean that he hasn’t known for a while that it’s something he would like to happen.
He’d like it to happen again. But voicing that might end in loss.
Protecting himself by not acknowledging it and going back to how things used to be is a loss as well, he knows that.
The hair dryer stops. Rimbaud realises that minutes pass much faster now, making him run out of time. He scrambles on his bed, hands searching the mattress and sheets while his eyes frantically look around the room. There’s nothing he could possibly be looking for. The sheer fear in his veins tells him he’s looking for a gun (although, even if he wanted to shoot either one of them, it would be useless). His mind tells him he’s looking for an answer, but there is none.
When the door opens and Verlaine steps out, Rimbaud freezes like a deer caught in the headlights. He’s staring at his partner—in a royal blue bathrobe, his golden hair falling down in freshly dried curls and framing his face.
Just for a moment, their eyes meet. Verlaine immediately tears his away, too fast for Rimbaud to make out any emotion inside them. He turns his body towards the wall as he folds his clothes and places them on the chair in the corner.
“Paul…” Rimbaud isn’t sure how the word comes out, let alone how he wanted it to sound in the first place. No matter what it ended up being, it makes Verlaine freeze in his tracks for a moment. It’s not a voluntary acknowledgement while his partner continues to fold his laundry—a useless effort. This suit is ruined and they’ll have to dispose of it where nobody can ever find it. Still, Verlaine handles it with much care.
He finishes and straightens out the neat pile with a sigh. When his shoulders drop, a few of his curls slip off of them and fall down his back into place. His shoulder blades stretch apart for a moment, before he tries to relax them again. They remain stiff, though.
“I don’t want to talk,” his partner says.
Rimbaud is unsure what feelings Verlaine put into the utterance. His voice sounded disguised as neutral, or even buried deep underground years and years ago. It was a carefully constructed murder. One that will never be discovered.
Except, he left a trail that only Rimbaud can see—as his partner, who knows him and is closest to him.
“Will you sit down with me?” he asks. Rimbaud would be lying if he said that his words didn’t tremble. His murder is less than perfect but that’s not his intention, after all.
Verlaine hesitates for a moment before finally turning around and complying. With his head slightly lowered, some hair falls into his face: a poorly hidden trail.
The stride he walks with is barely comparable to what Verlaine tends to present, as his steps are slow and hesitant, even careful. He usually exudes sheer power and a presence that takes up the entire room. Verlaine has always had such an aura of self-confidence, which has now been stripped away.
The mattress shifts when his partner sits down with his feet remaining on the floor.
He brushes his hair behind his ear. Long, bony fingers with prominent knuckles remain there for a moment. He places them in his lap and folds his hands.
Eyes finally settle on Rimbaud’s. They blink away the last drops of water caught in his lashes.
They both look at each other, maybe waiting for something to happen or for the other person to make the first step.
Slowly, it all dawns on Rimbaud: why he’s here, how he got himself into this mess, and where they want to go from here. Not with words like he assumed, however. ‘What remains unspoken can’t exist’ is fundamentally wrong, but Rimbaud feels like it offers a sliver of comfort for his fast-beating heart.
He stares into his partner’s eyes, still looking for direction.
They’re not blue, though, Rimbaud now thinks. More grey. Not like smoke obstructing the sun, but rather a grey like the stormy sea. His left eye has a brown spot that Rimbaud never really got to look at much. It’s a speck of land that won’t yield in the storm, maybe a place of refuge—only to be seen by those Verlaine allows to look closely. Only to be seen by Rimbaud.
Grey eyes look into his so intently, studying him much like he’s studying them. And yet, Rimbaud wants them to close.
There’s something in between them that doesn’t let him. And he can finally put a name to it. Many names, in fact. It’s his job, it’s his very nature, it’s the life he’s living. It all comes together in one single thing, though.
“I’m scared,” he admits in a whisper.
The muscles on Verlaine’s forehead twitch to barely raise an eyebrow. “You’ve been scared before, Arthur.”
Rimbaud grabs Verlaine’s face and kisses him.
Their breaths mix, both equally surprised at the sudden action following an admission that rather goes in the opposite direction. But exactly that makes the action much more sensible.
They’re less careful now, so Rimbaud can fully register and feel what’s happening. He concentrates on the contact, and slowly goes over what he’s sensing. Verlaine smells of the hotel shampoo. There’s a set rhythm to how their lips brush against each other. And he finds a healing cut on Verlaine’s lip that tastes of iron still. But all of this is secondary right now. What Rimbaud feels, is warm.
He wants that feeling to linger, so he kisses Verlaine again. It comes from his chest, he thinks. It glimmers there before growing into a flame that spreads through his entire body with his bloodstream. It’s as essential as oxygen, and as powerful as life itself.
His fingers find his partner’s face, then bury themselves in the golden curls. The light tug gets a short sigh out of Verlaine.
Maybe not all is lost. Maybe there are things to be gained.
Verlaine kisses him like it’s the only thing he was created to do. His hands are on Rimbaud’s waist, then slip around to his back to pull them closer to each other.
Verlaine’s hands, created to kill, form fists around the bathrobe’s thick fabric as he clings onto Rimbaud.
The storm of kisses slows down and eventually leaves their foreheads leaning against each other with their noses touching. Rimbaud opens his eyes but he can barely focus them on how close his partner is. He makes out his fluttering lashes, twitching as he concentrates on keeping his eyes closed while they restlessly move beneath his eyelids—savouring the moment and taking it all in without visual distractions. Rimbaud wants to see him, though. He wants to see the cut on his lip and the way his cheeks are slightly flushed. He could easily excuse that with the warmth of the shower and blow dryer, but that would be a lie.
A single strand of hair is in his field of vision, next to Verlaine’s right eye. Rimbaud brushes it behind his ear, feeling once again the softness of it.
In response, the fabric on his back is released and Verlaine eases himself into drawing lazy circles with his fingers.
It’s quiet, Rimbaud realises. They barely exchanged words this evening, and that hasn’t changed, but the silence feels new. It’s his thoughts that are quiet. He can still hear his heart beating out of his chest, as well as their breaths and the rustling of fabric. But it’s truly quiet now.
Even when Verlaine speaks, hushed, it’s silent. “Are you still scared?”
Rimbaud hums in affirmation, even though his thoughts don’t fully reflect it at this time.
A soft, lingering kiss is pressed to his lips and Rimbaud closes his eyes. It’s his turn to feel now, without distractions: the hands holding him, still on his back; the iron of the healing wound; how Verlaine’s lips are a bit chapped but still so gentle with him.
He keeps them closed when his partner pulls back and cups his face, only stopping shortly to brush some hair out of Rimbaud’s face. His hands remain tender as well.
They let it happen again. Without words, only with mutual intention. Rimbaud’s lips twitch into a smile and even though he can’t see Verlaine, he’s sure that he’s smiling as well.
It’s almost unimaginable how his partner might see him—not as something useless to be discarded, not as someone who lost his purpose with a lack of trying, and not as a weakness for indulging in feelings or being Verlaine’s indulgence. They’re both deeply hypocritical, but aren’t human minds always like that?
“Do you want to go outside?”
Verlaine’s breath fans over Rimbaud’s cheeks, leaving him shuddering when the question is asked in the language that feels the most familiar and foreign at the same time. His French is clear, a dialect from the northeast—from home—with a hint of something undefinable.
Rimbaud leans forward and captures the piece of home to use for himself as well. It’s a short kiss, ending in a breathed ‘yes’ against Verlaine’s lips.
Now, he’s sure that his partner is smiling as he feels it right under his skin. He wants to see it, so Rimbaud pulls back just to look. The eyes that usually only stare at him with sorrow and anger barely show traces of that now, although his own worries are still mirrored in them.
However, there’s a different glim in them as well. Something that Rimbaud wants to keep safe. He wants to observe it from all different angles and under different lights. The hotel room lamps don’t offer much, but the outside does. The golden light, that shines on buildings so people can marvel at them even during the night, would be perfect. Under the unnaturally orange sky, Rimbaud is sure to find something truly wonderful.
“Then let’s go,” Verlaine whispers.