.Untitled.
Author: ThreeSidedOrchid
Pairing: Vincent/Jerome
Rating: NC-17
Summary:
Jerome remembering. Approx. 2000 wds. Slashfest round two Answer to Rangergirl's request: “Vincent/Jerome, Oh god… anything, really. The chemistry with those two was unbelievable. Perhaps an extension of the Vincent/drunk!-Jerome scene? “
Warnng/Spoilers/Disclaimer: Might give away the ending if you haven't seen the movie and still understand it. Pretty much requires knowing the movie to really get what's going on… (I think anyway). Don't own them, just messing with them.
Jerome looks at his lover and knows that he is one of the lucky men in this world. Irene - acceptable likelihood of heart failure aside - is everything the modern man could want in a woman. She is charming, beautiful, intelligent. Most of all, she accepts his flaws. And for Jerome, that is no small feat.
And yet.
And yet there are those moments when it becomes too much, and he finds himself, like now, drawn to the leather box in his bedroom. Beneath the watches and cufflinks, beneath tie-tacks and money clips, is the plain white card.
For a while it smelled like him, like them. But time, and the inevitable power of his new life, has exorcised what scent remained, so that it no longer smells like anything at all.
His hair is still there, carefully preserved in the same neat curl as when first opened.
It never ceases to remind him, that first sight of brown strands, that to the world it is him inside this card. His body, his self .
“It's odd,” he says one morning, “putting on someone else's identity.”
"At least you have an identity to put on -- one too many, at times.” Eugene answers, and if Jerome cannot help but notice the bitterness in his voice, he says nothing.
He puts the card back and lies down on the bed, wrinkling the perfectly made comforter. For a man who wanted nothing more than to escape from his body, Eugene's hours had become remarkably devoted to it. The days he spent creating the vials and pouches that kept Jerome the darling of his supervisors and peers, or maintaining the physical peak he had worked so hard to get his body to. His evenings were devoted to the body in an entirely different manner.
Eugene hands the boy his money with the grace of much practice, and pulls him down for one last kiss. He turns to Jerome with the half-smirk that used to drive him nuts.
“Jerome will show you out, won't you, Jerome?”
Jerome does. He always does. On the brief walk from bedroom to front door he glances sideways at the boy, as if he could find the imperfections on his skin. Boys like this do not come from society's best. They are, like him, the genetically undesirable carving themselves a neat, illegal nitch in life.
He had, of course, been shocked that first time. Well-bred men like Eugene weren't supposed to do that sort of thing.
“Second best isn't the only thing Jerome Morrow was never meant to be.” Eugene had said to him, with that cool expression that made it seem as if you were the one on the spot and not the other way around.
Until that moment, that first time, Jerome had never bothered to consider his own interests. With his attention on the stars, and the constant worry of discovery, there wasn't a lot of time for more carnal matters. He assumed he liked women, and he did. Apparently, though, his tastes were not as limited as he'd imagined.
When, exactly, things had changed for him he didn't know. Looking back, there had always been little things -- the times he listened to Eugene's heartbeat, the sound of his voice with certain turns of phrase -- these things drew his attention, held a richness he could feel like a warm drink in the dead of winter.
Every boy he saw Eugene with, every evening they spent together, seemed to push him further. He became hyper-aware of the other man. At times he even imagined he could feel Eugene in the DNA so carefully placed on his fingertips.
Half-dozing with the sound of Eugene's heart in his ears, Jerome startles, opening his eyes, at the feel of fingers brushing against his cheek. Even were he not so sensitive to the other man the touch would have startled him. He cannot recall the last time someone touched him, skin to skin, it is so rare that it borders on rude.
Eugene is in front of him, leaning forward so that they are almost breathing each other's air. He looks, though the expression is one new to Jerome, a little lost.
“We're done,” Eugene says at last, “you fell asleep.” His words lack their usual laughing tone, and Jerome only nods in response.
That had been it, the moment things had begun to change between them, and not just for him.
Turning on his side, Jerome curls up in the bed.
It scared him, the constant vibration of desires that he had always been told one shouldn't have. Proper, productive members of society didn't lust after their own gender. Eugene, who had no reason to refuse his own wants, teased him; timing his encounters so that Jerome came home earlier and earlier into them, recounting them over dinner in almost obscene detail, coming too close, and all with that same teasing, inviting smile, as if he could see straight into Jerome's desires.
He smiles to himself; Eugene had almost driven him insane.
Then there was Irene. Irene who, at the time, seemed the perfect counter to Eugene.
“To Titan.” Eugene holds up his glass again.
“We've already toasted it three times.”
“Oh, well, pardon me. Have you got something better you'd like to drink to?”
He laughs and glances at the dance floor, hesitating only briefly whether to broach the subject or not.
“I may have met someone. At Gattaca.”
Eugene stops mid-sip and looks at Jerome before setting his glass down carefully. In the pause before he speaks Jerome becomes aware of all the little sounds in the restaurant -- the clatter of silverware, above all, rings jarringly in his ears.
“I see. Are you going to tell me her name, or shall I guess?”
“Irene.”
“Irene. Isn't that lovely.” His voice drips with sarcasm, “With a name like that you could write her poetry; I once met a girl named Irene --”
“Stop it.”
“Stop what?”
“You're --” he stops, suddenly aware of what he was going to say. Until now he had told himself it was all a game, that none of the looks, none of the teasing meant anything.
“I'm…”
“You're acting like a jealous lover.”
“Am I.”
It should have been a question, but it wasn't, and Jerome suddenly finds himself unable to meet Eugene's eyes.
“People will expect me to date.” He says eventually, trying to sound logical.
“And more.”
“Yes.”
“And what is it you plan to tell her when she has you sequenced from that nice juicy kiss or, better yet, after she's had your -- “
“I can explain, if she loves me…”
“Oh. Love. I suppose we'll be one big happy family then, won't we. What do you imagine, a little three-way in the evening and then you and she can go off to work together while I scrape myself away, bit by bit, for you?” He reaches to lift the bottle of wine but Jerome's hand wraps around his before he can.
“Please don't.”
“What is it you want from me, Jerome?”
“I,” The question catches him off-guard. He means to lie, but the words fail and the truth won‘t come, leaving him stuttering out something in between, “I don't know.”
Eugene studies him silently a moment. “No. Of course you don't.”
“I'm sorry.”
“Don't apologize,” and the anger is gone from his words, he looks more tired than Jerome has ever seen him, “just let me have my drink. And make a bloody decision; flip a coin if you have to.”
Everything came together and fell apart so quickly after that. Jerome curls up tighter in the bed, shutting his eyes against the grayish-purple light of the coming evening. He did make a decision.
Eugene doesn't seem surprised to see him, two days later, standing in the doorway of his room. Before he has finished setting his book on the side-table Jerome is beside him, leaning down and pressing their mouths together.
It's almost too hard, this first kiss. Eugene's head bangs against the headboard before Jerome brings one hand up to hold his neck and pull him forward. There is something like swimming in it, the feeling that if he just pushes a little harder, lasts a little longer, he'll break through to some new, unknown surface. Eugene gives in first with a noise that might be a moan and might be a protest. They part, slightly, breathing hard into each others mouths for a moment before plunging in again.
There is nothing slow about their coupling, and Jerome knows there will not be even as he is climbing onto the bed to straddle Eugene. Hands go to the hem of his shirt while his own work to unbutton Eugene's. His is off first and Eugene runs his fingers over his chest, rough and quick, as if searching for a way in.
Jerome grinds his hips in silent celebration when he finally gets Eugene's shirt off. The press of their erections together elicits a moan from Eugene, so he does it again, and again, moving in slow circles. He leans forward, kissing down the curve of Eugene's neck, over the puckered ridge of one nipple, and across the sloped plane of his stomach until he reaches the barrier of his boxers. He backs off, pulling them with him, then looks up to see the man he has claimed to be for so long.
Eugene was right, all those years ago, not to believe Vincent could ever be him.
He shucks off his own pants almost as an afterthought, then crawls back up to kiss the other man again. Their bodies press together and it's not enough, not nearly. He can feel Eugene's heartbeat beneath him, surely going faster than he has ever heard it. They're both hot, a sheen of sweat beginning, but the heat seems locked somewhere beneath the roughness of their skin, no matter how hard they press together.
“I want you inside me.” Jerome pants, when it becomes too much and he feels like he's going to drown.
“Sit up” Eugene answers immediately, as if he's been waiting for it. Hands against Jerome's hips he guides him up, until Jerome is high on his knees, hands against the headboard.
There's a clatter and squeak of wood as Eugene reaches over to retrieve the oil from the bedside table. He smiles up at Jerome, promising, and leans forward to run his tongue along the bottom of his cock even as he's pouring the oil onto his hands.
Eugene teases him, running his tongue around the tip of his cock, flicking it lightly against the slit. Jerome watches him, hands gripping the headboard hard to keep from thrusting into the warm mouth. One hand coated in oil, Eugene brings it back to part Jerome's cheeks, pushing gently against his opening.
Reaching down, Jerome tangles his hand in Eugene's hair. It seems all the prompt Eugene needs to stop the teasing and wrap his lips around Jerome's cock. He pushes in at the same time, stretching the tight ring of muscle with his finger.
It doesn't take long, matching the tempo of his hand and mouth, slowly adding more fingers, before Jerome can no longer control himself and begins thrusting. Whether he is thrusting into Eugene's mouth, onto his fingers, or both is unclear.
He comes to his senses when he gets close to the brink.
“Eugene,
“Eugene,” he tugs the hair between his fingers, “not like this.”
Eugene stops, pulling off and out, hands moving to guide Jerome down, mouth moving to suck and tease at his stomach. He lowers Jerome slowly, positioning him carefully over his cock and then down, in torturous inches that are a teetering mix of pleasure and pain. Jerome holds his breath and looks down to find Eugene looking up, watching him.
“Fuck” Jerome breathes, and Eugene smiles and kisses him.
He leans forward, forcing Eugene back against the headboard, and raises his hips a bit before lowering them again. Though he means to move gradually, it seems no time has passed at all before Eugene is moaning beneath him, hands gripping his hips, and he is fucking himself on the other man's cock.
“Oh, God,” he whispers, because it's too much and he's suddenly overwhelmed with the certainty it's too intense, and if he comes now he'll lose some vital part of himself. So he leans down, forcing their lips together and crying his release into the other man's mouth. It shakes through him, and when he feels Eugene come inside him it seems as if, for a moment, every atom in his body is suspended in place, frozen, before falling back into motion.
They slump together and it is a while before either summons the energy to separate and move beneath the covers.
How different things would be if he hadn't followed Eugene's advice the next morning. How different if he hadn't listened to the “see her, tonight, maybe she'll understand.” He should have known something would go wrong. He did know it wasn't what Eugene actually wanted, merely a concession to post-coital caring.
How different things would be if he hadn't gone after her, that morning in the apartment when she found out, if he hadn't shown his hesitation.
“I'm going on a trip too,” Eugene had said, so casually taking the decision out of his hands.
He couldn't deny that at the time part of him had been grateful not to have to risk his life's work more than usual. And he loves Irene, he does.
But there are times, like now, when every cell in his body seems to ache for their namesake. Times when he lays curled in the dark, listening to the distant clatter of pots and pans for dinner, wanting nothing more than what are, to most of the world, his own arms around himself.
End.
