Like everything, they said I love you in a mismatched set; Emiliano promising to love faithfully and firmly while Montgomery promised to love wildly and passionately. Each stealing from the other’s nature to promise what they each needed. Stability and chaos. Apollo and Dionysus. Learning to love each other not despite their differences, but for them. And for that Emil thought he loved Monty better than he’d loved anyone and was loved better by him than anyone had loved him before.
It made his toast all the more poetic; the second half of a much earlier chapter in their love affair. A question about hope and trust they’d dashed on the rocks of cold philosophy when it had been asked far too early for either of them to answer with any satisfaction. Because Monty hadn’t learned that hope was good for more than prolonged suffering and Emil hadn’t learned that trust was good for more than selfish manipulation. But timing had never been their strong suit, and so more than anything, he had learned to be patient. To wait until they could speak the same language. To wait for hope to be proven more than just wasted optimism. To wait for trust to come back in the face of so much betrayal. To wait for the calm after the storm of their lives so they could lie beneath the stars and toast to the liquor of their love.
Emil drank it in now, every touch and taste of the man who curved around his body, who looked down at him instead of up at the stars as if there was no better view. Who punctuated his sentences against his lips and wrote new ones with the fingers he carded through his hair. The only man who could make Mr. Pavone sound quite so devious, and he couldn’t help but mirror Monty’s sly grin as he offered him the same gift he’d once extended to him.
“Dr. Lacroix,” he started, teasing his hand down to play with the top button of Monty’s shirt as his other settled behind his own head, stretching out in an exaggerated pose of leisure, “I would love nothing more than to hear what you see when you look at me.”
It was an expected answer, but it still left Monty studying Emil for a moment longer, soft smile on his lips and wondering if there were enough words or any amount of eloquence that could sum up the man beside him. Or the image he presented now, stretched out in an image of lazy decadence, shirt parted loosely, presenting himself for judgement with all the vulnerability he’d claimed was thrilling and Montgomery had claimed was terrifying. And it was still both, it always had been, but this time he didn’t find himself caught up in the urge to be right, to dig up objective truths about a man who defied so many of them. Instead he was hoping only to be kind, to give him something to hold onto in those moments where his reflection looked fractured and he doubted the presence of his own heart.
“I see a man who’s unfairly beautiful,” he started. A compliment he couldn’t give without a coy curve of his lips, because it was familiar, and shallow, and the only place to really begin. “Every piece of him really. The color of his skin against my sheets, the brightness of his eyes, and don’t get me started on the hair.” Fingers threading through his locks again, thumb tracing a line along his temple before his hand pulled back, propping his head up on his knuckles. “And the way he dresses. Sharp and stylish, with a flair for dramatics that... almost rivals my own.” Even pausing for dramatic effect, but for a moment Monty was thinking of the image of Icarus at a masquerade. “He’s enough of a narcissist that he knows how gorgeous he is, but unfortunately for the rest of us, he even wears arrogance well.”
His free hand settled over his chest again, parting the fabric of his shirt to draw slow, careful patterns over his heart. “Of course he looks just as good wearing nothing at all. Probably one of my favorite looks. He’s amazing in bed, good with his hands, a definite praise kink, and a wonderfully filthy mouth. Though I have to say, he’s not the absolute deviant most people tend to imagine him as.” Praise that had the potential to be immediately distracting, so he did his best not to linger, even if his gaze fixated on his lips for a telling moment. “He has a wicked tongue outside the bedroom too. Just as likely to make me blush as it is to make me laugh, and the fact that he can do both so often is a feat in itself.”
The kind of teasing he both loved and loathed, embarrassment he’d tried to hide in the back of his shoulder, but was hard to argue when Emil always looked so pleased with himself for it. “I see a man who’s intelligent and insightful, and so, so clever. I really can’t stress that enough, because he’s quick on his feet and quicker in interrogations. And the idea that anyone could overlook it seems absolutely criminal, because I’ve seen just how damn hard he works. This is a man who can take someone apart just by what kind of drink they favor, a man with a silver tongue who is very good at convincing someone that what they want is to give him what he wants.” It was the kind of thing that would’ve made him hesitate months ago, too much mistrust not to doubt whether he didn’t fall under that category too. But now he simply noted it with vague amusement, still tracing new memories and constellations across the bared strip of skin.
His voice grew softer, as if to lessen any hurt the words might carry with them, when hurt was the opposite of his point. But if he wanted to give him something kind, he didn’t want to leave him with the impression that he was blind to any of his harsher qualities. “I see a man who thinks rules are more of a challenge, at best a suggestion. Someone who’s selfish, and somehow makes that seem like a virtue. Because the thing is, he wants what he wants, but I don’t think he genuinely wants to hurt anyone to get it.” It didn’t mean he wouldn’t, it didn’t mean that he hadn’t, but it wasn’t a point Monty thought he had to make to either one of them. “He doesn’t have any taste for violence, not even for those who might deserve it. He can certainly do plenty of damage with a few well chosen words, because he’s witty, and sometimes it’s subtle, and sometimes it’s absolutely scathing. But most of the time, I’ve seen him use those words to try and put someone back together.”
Montgomery included, gaze wandering briefly at the dock around them as if he could see the ghost of their past selves sitting here all over again. One last question burned to try and seal up the wounds Monty had opened up for him, a confession that had made him ache just saying it out loud, and if he’d pulled back from the gentle hands that had tried to carefully put him back together, he didn’t run from them now. Fingers shifting to trail lightly across the back of his palm and encourage the fingers toying with his buttons as his attention fixated back on Emil. “I see a man who rarely lacks for confidence, self-assured in just about everything he does and what he wants. But every once in a while, I've seen when that breaks. When he doubts himself, and whether it’s enough to be nice, and whether he’s even a good person.”
He let his fingers drift, trailing down the back of his hand and curving lightly around his wrist. Because the first time Emil had tried to open up his chest and show Monty the broken pieces, this was all he’d had. A hand in his, a desperate want to perform a familiar magic trick, to sweep up broken glass and make it something beautiful, but he’d never known how. He still wasn’t sure if he did, but he tried now, trying to press sincerity into every word like flowers on a page. “And in those moments, I see a man who is so much better than he thinks he is. Which is almost funny to say, I know, because most of the time he thinks he’s just fantastic. But when he forgets to play the game, when he forgets to worry about leverage and manipulation, I’ve seen him be effortlessly kind. To his friends, he’s generous and caring, always willing to listen or comfort or find new ways to make someone smile. He remembers their favorite drinks and their birthdays and knows how to make someone feel a little less alone in their own skin. He’s a doting son, who cares about his mother’s happiness more than his own, and loves his family even when they don’t make it easy. And as a boyfriend, I barely know where to start. Because he never needs an excuse to bring home flowers or a cat, or to steal a dance or a kiss. He’s just as happy with an expensive date in Florence as he is laying in a bayou looking at the stars, and somehow he has endless patience for a boyfriend who is nerdier than he expected, always willing to listen to dissertations on cryptids and monsters.”
He couldn’t help but smile at the faintly self-deprecating humor, as if he missed how charmed Emil always looked just to listen to him talk. “I see a man who’s complicated. Occasionally a contradiction. A man who could create different versions of himself for different people, and that used to scare me about him. Because I wasn’t sure who was left underneath every mask he put on, and I desperately wanted to know who that was, who he was.” A subject of his curiosity and fascination, and he’d missed the exact moment that had turned into something so much softer, the kind of love he was willing to let hurt and couldn’t take back. Whether it had been at the bottom of a bottle of whiskey or sitting here on the dock, or maybe just the first moment he saw him, with the same charming smile and the promise of so many secrets hidden behind his eyes. “But I see him now. And he isn’t nothing.”
He smiled faintly at his conclusion, and if Monty thought he could keep going until the sun rose over the waters of the bayou, for now it seemed the only fitting place to stop. “So I’m going to break the rules, and ask one last question. But you tell me; did I finally figure you out?”