A fluffy continuation of I know, lover, I know for @lesmistransweek . Again, Glorieux is genderqueer and Gueulemer a trans man. Please enjoy this wholesome sweetness!
Content warning for mentions of drinking alcohol and weaponry (which isn’t used).
The winds change, and forgiveness comes slowly.
They see each other around, of course. Both Glorieux and Gueulemer know they’re doing too well in this business right now to give that up for a petty breakup. Besides, there’s a certain tenderness that comes with seeing someone you’ve lost, or who’s lost you; each feels their skin turn to paper, and they remember just how much their hearts can take.
Actual speaking is still difficult, and their words shuffle through empty space a lot of the time. But that smile and god forbid their laugh when it crumbles away from Glorieux’s lips in just that way. Those things are worth any small foolishnesses.
He’s right, though. He doesn’t get over them, and he probably still loves them. Is still in love with them. But he forgives them and eventually himself. His shoulders turn to cotton with the winter – the cotton of the dead, perhaps, but at least it’s soft. Neither of them shakes everything that’s been said between them, and Gueulemer doesn’t forget the breakages in his bones where they left their lipstick-stains.
Perhaps nobody ever does that, really.
He learns to be okay with that, which is more than he ever expected. His hands are stronger now, and when he sees them he waves slowly, once, before he turns away. It’s a little thing and it’s everything.
Soon, it’s dusk again, late in the year, and he’s in his own small flat. The air cracks with the blur of the before night, and he tries not to think about the second mug he’d made habitually, left on the table.
He’s standing by the window drinking baileys from the other coffee mug, slowly. It’s expensive stuff, but this feels like a night which deserves it – the way it glitters smoothly in his throat matches the sky outside. Cold air pants at the windows. He battles it with an interesting variety of blankets strewn everywhere.
The door opens. Before it’s finished clicking, he’s ready with a bat. Knees bent slightly. Feet apart. Face a battleground. There’re a couple of knives on him too, and he knows where-
The door closes again. It’s Glorieux.
Shoulders drop and eyebrows raise. The shock of it paints his face white and his hands red. Moonlight-cool, the mug pinches itself into his hand. The bat swings down, a pendulum through space, and his lips swell into a nervous smile before he can even try to stop it.
They’re nervous, too. He hasn’t seen that before. There’s some kind of sweetness stained at their mouth – he thinks for a moment that they’d taste of strawberries, of honey wine. Purple withers at the corners of their eyes, and it’s beautiful and lonely and kind. They don’t sleep well, though no-one in their business does. Glorieux always says it’s fine because the night is so fun they’d never want to miss it anyway.
“I’m sorry,” they say, and Gueulemer is suddenly aware that he’s shirtless and this is a strange way to visit your ex. “I just wanted to see you.”
“Right.” He watches them step through his flat in that dizzy kind of way you do in dreams. Of course, they’d picked the lock. Glorieux would do that. “Do you- uh, do you want some baileys?”
They smile at that, and take it from the table he points them to. They don’t joke about it, though, and he almost misses the teasing.
“I wanted to apologise, I guess,” they say, and curl themselves into a paper clip at one end of the sofa. Gueulemer sits at the other end, picks a little at the ragged fabric until the threads come apart at his fingernails, then gestures for them to continue. “Just that I always knew you cared, and I didn’t respect that. I made things worse when I should’ve listened.” They tilt their head to sip the whiskey, and their eyes pierce something invisible in the air. “I think you understood me a lot better than I gave you credit for.”
“I did,” he grins at that, and they bark out a laugh and everything turns misty and purple like the corners of their eyes. “But I’m sorry I didn’t trust you enough. That’s not healthy, and it wasn’t fair.” He sets down the empty mug. His hands find theirs in the dust-light. “I loved you, and I knew who you were, but I didn’t believe it.”
Perhaps his hand is a match because in the next moment Glorieux is pressed against his shoulder, and he feels their warm body shuddering against him. They both turn paper again, but this time it’s a blessing. There’s no more space to hide. Honey wine on their lips swims around him all dusky, catching into a zephyr on the air.
Glorieux’s hands turn origami on his chest, light and sharp and tender. He reaches down his head to press a kiss to the nape of their neck, and it sits there the colour of the dying sunlight. No thoughts of blood. No anger. He feels their touch on his bare skin and scars – bullets and knives and top surgery and failed tattoos – and everything he is becomes a moon-sickness.
Moon-sickness that could be love and could be lust and could be I’ve missed you and could be let’s try again, darling. Moon-sickness in purple.
“God, you make me soft, Gueule,” Glorieux pants into the space beneath his chin. “Like I’m ice cream tasting like beer and cherries and it’s a summer that bleeds gold. And I love you so much I melt with it.”
“Glorieux,” he chokes, wrapping his arms around their waist to press tight and fierce, “that’s the sappiest thing you’ve ever said.”
And then he’s lifting them into his lap and laying down, their face nudged against his and they’re giggling and giggling and snorting until he is too.
Shimmering air flecked with hope. “I know this isn’t enough to fix everything,” Glorieux adds, between breaths that still stutter with joy, “but it’s enough for now, I think.”
“Agreed, darling.” He’s interrupted by a shove and a kiss to the shoulder. “You know that all I am blooms for you. You know that all the colours of you are everything I adore-” he catches that purple again, crinkling with a snicker “-and all I want is to be a home for you.”
Glorieux stills a moment, body shrinking into its own shadow. Gueulemer’s grin collapses, and he’s reaching towards them, heart turned thunderstorm until-
They’re kissing him on the lips, breath foggy and stale and perfect and strung out with laughter like lanterns at a festival. Purple shimmers around them. Whiskey and cream flower on their lips. The dusk is gone and night is here, but it just makes them more beautiful.
And whilst love may not always be enough on its own, they have more than that. They have luck and determination and forgiveness and a sense of choice that scatters all fear from his bones, and that is. Gueulemer knows that they’re enough more than anything else.
It’s a cold night, but it’s warm where they are, and the blankets make a shelter for them. All they have to be right now is forgiving and in love. And that’s the most wonderful thing Gueulemer has ever felt.
