fic: but if you close your eyes does it almost feel like (2/2)
but if you close your eyes does it almost feel like
“So Lottie’s threatening to shave her head, texting me about how she’s ‘misunderstood,’ and my mum’s ringing my mobile and crying and asking how to get Lottie out of the toilet, where she’s apparently locked herself, and meanwhile--” Louis interrupts himself to drain nearly half his Carlsburg in one go, setting it back on the wooden tabletop with a thunk -- “Mr. Smith’s yelling in one of my ears, Veronica’s yelling about him yelling in my other, and the computers in the finance department are still down and no one’s got any e-mail, and somehow literally all of these things are my fault, and it’s just...” He trails off, dragging his finger around the rim of his pint. “It’s a lot of things to deal with all at once, especially when you’ve been up half the night panicking about how you’ve forgotten to pay your heating bill again.”
“Wow,” Marcel says, and he means it. He hasn’t got any idea how Louis can handle so many things at once and only wind up looking mildly perturbed -- if it’d been Marcel he’d have locked himself in a cupboard and refused to come out. “Is that -- is it usually like that?” he asks.
“Pretty much,” Louis says, shrugging. “Usually mum and the girls don’t give me quite as much of a headache, or at least they wait until I’m off work to do it, but apparently this was dire, so.” He rolls his eyes, and even through it Marcel can see how fond he is of his family. “Mum gets so stressed, though,” he continues. “And I try to help, but I’m so far away, and whenever I send money she returns it, but she needs it, and I just--” He cuts himself off again. “Sorry, this must be sickeningly dull for you to hear about.”
Marcel goggles a bit. Louis could literally read the dictionary out loud, he thinks, and it’d still be fascinating, because everything Louis does is, somehow. And this -- Marcel might not have any insight or advice to offer but it’s still wonderful to hear Louis talk to him like he might, like he wants Marcel to see these little pieces of himself.
“You could probably never be boring,” Marcel admits, cheeks flushing even as he says it. “Even if you tried.”
“I could so,” Louis protest, a smile in his voice like he’s taking it as a challenge. “Absolutely I could. Would you like to hear extensively about the filing system I’ve implemented at work? It involves a lot of cross-referencing. And color-coding.”
It intrigues Marcel anyway, even though it’s meant to be a punchline. “Sure,” he says, “go on.”
Louis makes that face again, the one Marcel is starting to recognize as the one Louis saves for him, a bit baffled and pleased all at once, like he’s struggling to balance an equation but inexplicably enjoying the process.
-
After two more pints that Louis pays for, they stumble out of the pub onto the street, which is dark and shimmering as a thin sheet of cold rain comes down on them.
“I always forget my umbrella,” Marcel says idly, more to the air around them than anyone in particular.
Louis makes a noise like tsch, something scolding and fond, and unfolds his jacket and pulls it up over them, leaning in close to Marcel and tenting it over their heads, the rain tapping out a staccato on top of it. Marcel swallows heavily, the pints sitting heavily in his stomach, and pulls at his collar, because it feels close and sweet and lovely this close to Louis, hidden from the rain, and he can’t bear to think of moving, but isn’t sure how to stay there, either.
“Where shall we go?” Louis asks with a smile, and Marcel tries not to feel crushed under the weight of the possibilities.
-
Louis lets himself into Marcel’s flat. It isn’t surprising, really, because Louis had let himself into Marcel’s office as well earlier that day, not bothering to knock, and just his life in general, never waiting for an invitation. It’s probably a good thing, because Marcel knows he probably wouldn’t have invited him, no matter how badly he tried to pluck up the nerves to do it -- something about Louis has always made it even harder for him to arrange words, even more difficult to sort out the tangle of what he means and how to say it, which is usually enough of an ordeal.
So Marcel is grateful that Louis is the one who lets them in, plucking Marcel’s keys out his hand with a laugh at the front door, grateful that Louis was the one to suggest they go there after the pub in the first place. He’d said it easily, huddled under his jacket in the rain -- “Is your place near here?” -- like it’s something they do all the time, and when Marcel had nodded, nervously but still sure enough to nearly send his glasses flying of his face, Louis has smiled and hailed a taxi in seconds, rattling off Marcel’s address to the driver as Marcel whispered it to him like he was translating something from a foreign language. He’d opened the door himself like he’d done it a thousand times before, and now he’s in Marcel’s flat, and Marcel never wants to let him out again, even if he feels a bit like being sick with nerves at the same time. It feels like lightning, like if Marcel blinks it’ll all be gone in a flash, and the conditions will never align properly for it to strike the same place again.
“Do you, um,” Marcel starts, shutting the door behind them and shuffling into the kitchen. He feels suddenly out of place even though he’s in his own home. “Do you want tea? Or, gosh, are you hungry? I’m sorry, I haven’t got much --” He cuts himself off and casts around a bit frantically. There’s got to be something he can offer, but ridiculously, the only thing he can think of is offering to let Louis use the toilet, and that seems like it’s probably not the sort of thing you offer to new houseguests.
“Nah, I’m alright,” Louis says brightly, either totally unaware of how Marcel’s twisting himself up or just ignoring it. Whichever it is, it loosens the tightness in Marcel’s just at least incrementally. “Just too knackered to get a train yet,” he says, and he kicks off his shoes and pads in his sock feet to the sitting room, flopping on the couch and helping himself to the remote. He puts on a football game between two teams Marcel can’t identify, even with the three-letter abbreviations in the corner of the screen.
“Oh, wicked,” Louis murmurs to himself, “didn’t get to see this one. Want to watch for a bit?” He glances up at Marcel from his own couch, face wide and open and happy. Marcel tells himself he can do it -- if Louis is this comfortable, there’s no reason for him to be knotted up so tightly. He nods jerkily and then leans down to untie his own shoes, setting them carefully in a line next to the door before walking slowly over to the couch and sitting down, leaving a full cushion’s worth of space between the two of them.
Louis immediately hauls his legs around and tucks his toes underneath Marcel’s thighs. Marcel thinks his heart stops beating for a moment.
“I like your flat,” Louis tells him, looking halfway at the game and halfway at Marcel. “It seems like you.”
Marcel glances around, feeling a small frown crease his forehead as he tries to see what Louis does. It just looks like -- like his flat, like normal, like nothing. There’s the sofa and the telly and the small kitchen, all neat and uncluttered and in perfect order. There are two pictures in frames, one of his mum and one of his sister, and more books in neat stacks, and that’s about it.
“If you say so,” he nearly whispers, and tries not to focus on the soft flex of Louis’ toes wiggling idly happily underneath his thigh as the match goes on.
-
Marcel wakes an hour later, and he hadn’t even realized he’d fallen asleep until he does. His glasses are shoved off the end of his nose, dangling weakly by the one arm still tucked behind his ear, and when he shoves them back on properly, he nearly has a heart attack, because Louis is curled up beside him, his chin tucked up on his knees as the postgame prattles away on the television.
“Hi,” he says to Marcel. “Nice nap?”
Marcel feels himself flush. “Oh my gosh, I’m sorry. You probably want to go, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have fallen asleep,” he babbles, the surrealness of Louis Tomlinson still being in his flat, sitting easily on the couch, not a dream or hallucination at all sending him into a tailspin. He’s probably been waiting around for ages for Marcel to wake up, wanting to leave but being too polite to sneak out while Marcel sleeps pathetically next to him.
“Nah,” Louis says, shaking his head. “I mean, if you want me to go--”
“No, you could, uh. Stay,” Marcel says carefully. There’s a twinge in his neck and his right hand is tingling, pins and needles from sleeping with it at a strange angle. “If you want. Please.”
“Then I’ll stay,” Louis says, quietly. He’s closer to Marcel now than when he’d fallen asleep, perched on the next cushion, and there’s something so lovely about the sight of him, lit up in the soft yellow of the lamp as the rain taps away outside, that Marcel can’t stop from smiling.
“Something funny?” Louis asks, smiling back.
“No,” Marcel says, quiet and firm around the smile he can’t swallow down. “It’s, uh. I’m glad you’re here. It’s nice.” It feels like a risk to say it, but in the unfamiliar, thrilling sort of way that he’d nearly forgotten about.
“It is, isn’t it?” Louis asks. He’s leaning nearer, at that, letting his fingertips creep slowly across the sofa toward Marcel, cautious but purposeful like he’s trying not to spook a wild animal. Marcel could shift, just an inch, just incrementally, and Louis wouldn’t be able to reach him, but he doesn’t. He stays put, and lets Louis trace over the knee of his trousers for a moment with his fingers, leaning in nearer and nearer until he can feel the soft puff of Louis’ breath on his face. And then Louis can’t lean in any closer, because he’s kissing Marcel, not tentative at all, just steadily, happily, and it’s the easiest, most terrifying thing in the world for Marcel to lean into it and kiss back.
“Okay?” Louis asks, pulling back after a moment. He’s so near but they aren’t touching anymore, and that feels like a loss, so Marcel nods fervently, and then gathers himself up and crosses the small distance between them himself so they’re kissing again.
Louis makes a soft noise of surprise against Marcel’s mouth, but then redoubles his efforts, pressing more firmly into Marcel, opening him up underneath him. He repositions himself in Marcel’s lap, kneeling against the slim line of his thighs and kissing, all soft lips and sharp teeth and his insistent tongue, but after a bit he pulls away, and he looks a bit frantic in the eyes, sort of undone.
Marcel can’t put much effort into trying to name the expression on Louis’ face, though, because his mind is spinning, frantic, worried that Louis might stop, worried that he won’t.
“Here, c’mere,” Louis whispers, shoving off Marcel’s lap a little unsteadily and standing above him, offering a hand. His shirt is askew, uncharacteristically rumpled, and Marcel does as Louis says, gives him his hand and follows his tugging hand towards the back hall of his flat.
“Bedroom?” Louis asks, the circle of his hand tight around Marcel’s wrist as he guides him through his own flat. Marcel’s not sure if he’s asking for directions to the right door or for something more nebulous, something like permission, but it feels like both.
Before he can overthink it, before the doubtful voice in the back of his head that he’s so, so tired of can chime in and second guess it all, he nods firmly, pressing into Louis’ hand and aiming them towards his bedroom door. As soon as he does he feels lighter in an instant, and while his heart doesn’t stop pounding madly, he feels calmer than he has in ages.
Louis is on him more insistently as soon as the door closes behind them, kissing into Marcel’s mouth more frantically, fitting his warm hands under the hem of Marcel’s shirt and jumper, untucking them from his trousers. “Is this--?” he asks breathily, gripping at the edge of Marcel’s stomach, dragging frantically over the planes of it.
“Yes, um, yes please,” Marcel agrees, nodding his head a bit wildly. Louis sighs happily and leans in, pulling off Marcel’s jumper and carefully starting to work the buttons of his shirt from the bottom up.
Marcel’s hands move forward on their own, and before Louis can undo half the buttons on Marcel’s own shirt he’s mimicking the movement, tugging at the hem of Louis’ shirt. “Can -- off?” he asks, blushing a bit at how incomplete it comes out. But Louis nods hastily and drops Marcel’s shirt to pull his own off in one swift motion, so when he drops it on the carpet around their feet his hair is mussed a bit. As if he’s caught in the momentum of it, Louis moves his hands down to the fly of his trousers, hesitating for just a moment before he works them open, wriggling them down his thighs and stepping out of them. He straightens up when he’s finished, standing in just his pants with his feet firmly planted in the carpet, glancing up at Marcel through his mussed fringe like he’s waiting to see how Marcel reacts.
Marcel doesn’t mean to stare, it seems impolite, but Louis is -- he can’t even name it. Breathtaking and golden and nearly glowing, even in the dark. It leaves Marcel absolutely speechless, which isn’t so unusual, but Louis is quiet as well, and that is, a bit. Marcel expects him to say something, but he just smiles almost shyly, which is possibly the most perplexing part of it all. Before Marcel can sort it out, though, Louis is pulling him back in by the untucked ends of his shirt, kissing him again as he finishes undoing the buttons with his deft fingers.
Marcel feels Louis press his open shirt off of his shoulders, letting it pool around their feet with Louis’ clothes, and then he pulls back for a moment. Marcel waits, expecting Louis to lean in and kiss him again, but Louis is suddenly frozen.
“Oh my God,” he whispers, pulling back from Marcel’s chest to look at him, really look, peering at the lanky stretch of his chest in the moonlight that’s coming through the window. Marcel immediately knows what he’s looking at, and wants to hide his face.
“There’s more?” Louis asks disbelievingly. He reaches out tentatively with his forefinger, and then he’s softly tracing the organic curves of the tattoos on Marcel's chest, the moth and the birds and the scrawled letters and waving banners. Marcel can’t think of what to say, his insides gone all gummed up in an instant, so he says nothing.
“Like,” Louis breaths out carefully. “A lot more.”
His hand falls away and then he’s just looking, staring and not trying to disguise it, and it makes Marcel feel like an insect, like he’s been pinned wings open and he’s being examined.
“D’they mean anything?” Louis ask quietly.
“Um,” Marcel says. His chest feels tight, and he thinks of his inhaler resting in the cabinet in the bathroom like a lifeline. “Some of them. Mostly just, like, um.” He doesn’t know how to explain it, because he’s never had to before. “Things I like. Things I want to remember.”
Louis stays silent, just gazing at him, his hips still bracketed up against Marcel’s as he leans back to look.
“No one’s seen them,” he croaks out after an interminable minute, just to fill the conspicuous silence. He instantly regrets it -- he doesn’t know why he’s told Louis that. There’s no reason that’s something he needs to know, but there it is. He wants to cover himself back up again.
Louis leans back and peers at him curiously, a frown tugging at his eyes and his lips. “What?”
“I mean, um,” Marcel hedges, because he wants to end this conversation before it goes anywhere else. He can’t figure out how, though -- he can only plow forward and hope a rogue asteroid hits London suddenly and interrupts them. “Like, I’ve seen them, obviously,” he says.
“Obviously,” Louis agrees, sounding distracted.
“And the bloke who did them,” Marcel says desperately, hoping to stumble on the right words himself. “But that’s... that’s it, I guess.” He shrugs, hunching his shoulders in like he can hide that way.
“That’s a shame,” Louis whispers softly, and then his finger is back, tracing the lines again like he’s not sure what to make of them.
“What--” Marcel starts, pushing his glasses up his nose for something to do while Louis touches him, light as a feather.
“I know they’re like, uh, a lot,” he gasps out. If Louis wants to go, if this is too much, Marcel wants to make sure he’s got an out for it. “If you don’t like them--”
Louis’ finger is still. “Don’t like them?” he repeats, his voice sounding strained.
And Marcel is about to say something else, anything, because why would Louis, why would he like them at all, he should’ve known, but then Louis is shoving Marcel backwards on his bed, onto his pale blue pillows and hospital corners tucked in tightly, and it’s the same place he sleeps every night but all of a sudden it’s foreign, like he’s having an out of body experience, like he’s floating off somewhere new, because Louis is crowding him up near the headboard and his mouth is on him, hot and pressing kisses down the line of his throat and onto the tips of the birds.
“What even are you?” he feels more than hears Louis mumble into his chest.
“I don’t -- I’m just me?” he whimpers, confused and too hot and too cold all at once under the press of Louis’ mouth and fingers.
“You’re not just anything, all right,” Louis says, biting down a smile. “You’re --” He leans down and kisses at Marcel’s ribs, thin skin that Marcel hadn’t known was so sensitive. “You’re strange and lovely --” He punctuates it with more biting kisses, half sharp teeth and half soft lips, one after the other. “And surprising. And Jesus, you’re fit.” He’s got his face buried in Marcel’s hip now, hands clutching at the bend of his waist, and then he’s reaching down to undo the buttons on Marcel’s trousers, the ones he’d pressed this morning so carefully.
“I like you,” Louis continues, pulling slowly at Marcel’s waistband so it folds over, sliding down his belly, “quite a lot.” As he speaks he edges off the bed, pulling Marcel with him by the waist so that Marcel is sitting on the edge of his bed, and Louis is kneeling in front of him, naked except for his tight black briefs.
Marcel physically bites down on his tongue, because his trousers and pants are going to slip off his hips at any moment if Louis keeps pulling at them, but also because he can feel himself starting to ask why, and thinks he oughtn’t. Even if he doesn’t quite understand, something stops him from asking, so instead he tentatively reaches out a hand and carefully cups the sharp cut of Louis’ jaw where he’s still pressing his lips against his hip, letting his thumb catch on it. He’s already kissed Louis, already put his hands across Louis’ chest and now Louis is perilously close to his obvious erection, but this feels like more, close and intimate in a way that’s sharp and a bit breathtaking.
“Me too,” he says honestly. “I like you too, I mean.”
Louis smiles up at him at that, nearly beaming in the dark, and Marcel can’t fathom why his face lights up with it. People must tell Louis that always, every day, because how could they not? Louis is bright and funny and beautiful -- he’s got to know it.
“I’d really, really like to suck you off now,” Louis says. It hits Marcel in the stomach like a punch, and he thinks he must whimper, because Louis taps once at his hip, softly, like he’s reassuring him. “If that’s alright with you,” he adds.
“I -- you don’t -- you don’t have to,” Marcel stammers, although now that Louis has said it, it’s opened a floodgate of desperate want in him, crawling across his skin like a fever.
“I want to,” Louis insists, and he pulls one more time at Marcel’s waistband, hard enough that when Marcel lifts his hips up just an inch his trousers and pants both slip down so that his cock is freed, thumping hard and pink against the contracted muscle of his stomach. “Do I have to beg?” Louis nearly purrs.
There’s a strong possibility that Marcel blacks out for a moment, because it’s so -- it’s absurd, absurd for Louis Tomlinson to be offering to beg to suck his cock, absurd he’s here and real in the first place, absurd that he’s currently twisting the fingers of his free hand around Marcel’s, tugging it down and pressing it against his own dick, thick and straining in his pants.
Marcel curls his hand against the length of Louis’ cock instinctively and he shudders in response, his eyes going hazy and purposeful. Marcel thinks he must nod, then, although he doesn't remember meaning to do it, because Louis breathes out sharply through his nose as if in relief, and then leans in close and slowly, carefully wrapping his mouth around Marcel’s dick.
He tries to keep still, but his hips still jerk up to meet Louis’ mouth despite his effort. Marcel starts to apologize, but Louis is humming around him, drowning out the words and sending a vibration through his cock like an electric shock. Louis’ fingertips dig in sharply to the top of Marcel’s knees and he bobs up and down easily, enveloping Marcel in his mouth and his throat, and Marcel thinks he’s never felt anything so extraordinary, not ever.
He loses track of time so that he can barely fathom how long it’s been before he feels a tightening in his stomach, although he distantly suspects it’s probably not long at all, and he tentatively reaches out a hand to thumb Louis on his jaw, accidentally grazing over the seam of Louis’ lips stretched around him as he does. Louis moans at the touch, and that’s nearly it for Marcel.
“I’m, um,” he tries to warn, but Louis just lets his eyes flutter shut, sucking Marcel down even more feverishly. He groans again when Marcel comes, and it nearly drowns out the sound of Marcel’s gasps as he shoots hot down Louis’ throat, his brain fuzzing out. It takes several long moments after that for Marcel to hear anything except the beating of his own heart.
“Jesus,” Louis gasps when he finally pulls back onto his heels, resting his forehead against the inside of Marcel’s thigh. “You’re fucking -- Jesus,” he repeats.
Marcel just nods, kicking absently so that his legs come free of his trousers tangled around his ankles, because he can’t remember how to say any words at the moment.
Louis takes another audible breath and then clambers shakily to his feet, somehow managing to shove Marcel backwards by the shoulder so that he flops onto his back and pull off his own underwear at the same time. As soon as he kicks them free he’s climbing onto the bed next to Marcel, wrapping his arms around him and pulling him flush against him with a contented noise.
Marcel feels boneless and wrung out and blissfully simple, and for a rare moment he’s not thinking about anything, can’t even begin to think about anything besides the shuddery feeling beneath his skin and curling against Louis, getting him as close as possible. He could stay like this for ages, forever, the panicky chatter of his brain drowned out by how blissful he feels.
But he can also feel Louis shifting against him, and he’s naked and hard and that in itself is too glorious for Marcel to let slip through his fingers. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, doesn't have a plan or a strategy or anything to guide him, but he forces himself to peel away from Louis’ side and prop himself up on his elbow, looking at Louis spread out next to him on his back. Louis smiles up at him, and if it’s possible to be flirtatious after you’ve just sucked someone’s cock, that’s what he is. He stares up at Marcel, long eyelashes casting a shadow in the dim orange light of the streetlamp that’s filtering in through Marcel’s curtains, and then wraps a hand around his own cock, stroking himself at a rhythm that Marcel can’t quite follow, teasing and deliberate all at once.
Marcel bites down on his lip, and Louis lets out a small whine, thrusting up into his own fist a bit more forcefully. Marcel can’t fathom that he’s the one having this effect on Louis, but -- he can’t think of any other explanation.
“Louis?” he asks tentatively, not sure where to put his hands, or if he’s even allowed to. He thinks he probably is, but doesn’t want to presume. “Can I--” He lets his hand skirt close to Louis’ cock, close enough that their knuckles brush as Louis wanks himself, and at the contact Louis’ hand stills, although his chest keeps heaving a bit as his breath comes in sharp little gasps.
“Have you ever--” Louis starts to ask.
Marcel feels his shoulders draw up a bit self-consciously at the question, but he forces himself to look at Louis, nodding truthfully.
“Oh,” Louis says, and his eyes flutter shut for an instant. “I mean, you still don’t have to -- if you don’t want,” he says.
But Marcel does want to, desperately, and he’s not even worried about getting it right, for once, because he just wants, wants to do for Louis what Louis has done for him, in every possible iteration.
“I want to,” he says, and it comes out a whisper, aimed at the patch of bedsheets between them. “I want.” He waits, too unsteady to look over at Louis where he knows he’s gazing up at him. “Do -- do I have to beg as well?” he asks.
Below him Louis makes a noise caught between and hiss and a laugh, and Marcel looks up at that. “Was -- was that a joke?” Louis asks dazedly. Marcel feels himself blush wildly, but somehow he’s smiling as well.
“Um,” he says. “Maybe?” As soon as he says it, though, he realizes it’s not, not really -- he’d do it if he had to, beg Louis no matter how red his cheeks went, because he wants, more than he thought he’d been capable of.
“Yeah, God, yes,” Louis whimpers, and he jerks himself hard several more times before he pulls his hand away, seemingly with a bit of effort.
Marcel flexes his hands nervously but then carefully gathers himself up and repositions himself around Louis’ legs, running his palm experimentally over his cock. Louis gasps. “Jesus,” he rasps out. “I’m -- won’t take long, probably.”
As Marcel leans in and flattens his tongue to lick up the length of Louis’ cock carefully before sucking him down properly, he thinks that’s probably a good thing, because the taste and feel of Louis in his mouth is almost too much to bear. He closes his eyes and lets himself shut down in increments, everything besides Louis, Louis’ cock and his hands and the breathy noises punching out of him, falling away.
When Louis eventually tenses up and pulls out of Marcel’s mouth, shooting off over his collarbones and his chest with a gasp like nothing Marcel’s ever heard before, Marcel thinks he can almost feel it as well, somewhere down in the marrow of his bones.
-
When he wakes up the next morning he’s hot, hotter than usual. His alarm is going off at six o’clock on the dot like it does every day, even during the weekend, because he likes to keep to a schedule -- it’s the best way to keep orderly, he finds, best way to keep structure.
Except everything is out of order when he opens his eyes, because Louis is there, pressed into Marcel’s side, the source of all the extra heat that’s wrapped around Marcel. Louis’ mouth is scrunched against the wiry line of Marcel’s arm, slack in sleep, and he’s got one small hand resting protectively on Marcel’s torso, splayed over the moth like he’s trying to smother it. His legs are kicked out across the rest of the bed, tan skin taking up space that Marcel hadn’t even realized was open until Louis had filled it effortlessly, just like everything else he does.
Marcel blinks once, carefully, trying to sort out the thread that had got them to this place.
After he’d sucked off Louis he’d curled around Marcel like an octopus, only allowing him off the bed to fetch a flannel to wipe them down with. Somehow, Marcel’s heart had only started beating faster when he’d come back to the bed, and it’d taken him an absurdly long moment to convince himself that he was allowed to get in, allowed to snuggle up against the warmth of Louis’ skin. Once he had, though, Louis had just burrowed in closer, pulling the sheets up around them and mumbling that he was staying the night whether Marcel liked it or not. Marcel wouldn’t have been able to protest even if he’d wanted to, and he really, really hadn’t.
But now, in the gray light of morning, he feels the familiar clutch of worry, because this is the part he doesn’t know. He hasn’t got any idea how it’s supposed to go now, now that they’ve -- now that they’ve had sex. Marcel forces himself to think it, because he ought to be able to, ought to be able to at least think the words if he’s had Louis’ cock in his mouth not seven hours ago.
Marcel tries to lay very still, partly because he doesn’t want to disturb Louis, but partly because he’s not sure what to do next, either. Should he -- he could make breakfast, maybe? He’s not a good cook, in particular, but he could scramble an egg at least. Or he could run the shower, in case Louis wants to have a wash, or -- or he could pretend to be asleep in case Louis wants to slip out, or he could ---
While he’s figuring out all the things he could do, Louis’ eyes open, and he smiles sleepily up at Marcel. “Hey,” he says, voice gravelly from sleep.
“I was trying not to wake you up,” Marcel blurts out desperately, and he knows it comes out a bit panicked, but Louis just smiles and presses closer to Marcel’s arm. It’s nice, Marcel thinks absently through the wave of his distraction, the way Louis fits up against him so well.
“Would’ve had to eventually,” Louis mumbles. “Work, y’know.”
Marcel’s spine straightens a bit unconsciously. “Work, right.” He’d actually sort of forgotten. That hasn’t happened -- ever. Not once.
In the end Louis lets Marcel make him tea but no eggs, and then presses up on his tiptoes to kiss the hinge of Marcel’s jaw softly before he leaves to go back to his own flat and change clothes. “See you soon, yeah?” he asks. Marcel is still nodding dumbly as the door closes behind him.
As he’s coming up the elevator at work an hour and a half later, he tries not to panic, because it’s a lot to navigate all at once, how he should wave at Louis, or smile, or not smile but wave or maybe the other way round, all while trying to make his feet walk in a straight line. He wants to get it right, wants Louis to know he’s happy about what happened (because he is, he startles himself a bit by realizing, fairly desperately), but give him room if he wants it. He just wants to react -- normally. He’s not sure what that means.
As the lift dings, he resolves to just follow Louis’ lead, whatever it is. At least Louis seems to know what he’s doing.
Louis isn’t at his desk, though, which is curious enough, because he’s almost always there, especially in the mornings when employees and clients are arriving. Marcel frowns, hoping he hasn’t made Louis too late by keeping him around his flat all night, forcing him to take the bus back home before coming into work -- it’s probably mucked up his commute. It would if it was the other way around -- Marcel’s own trip to work is carefully timed.
But as he walks past he notices Louis’ computer is on, humming away, and there’s a mug of tea at his desk and his jumper -- the same one he’d had at Marcel’s last night -- is slung over the back of his chair. So he’s there, he’s just not -- there.
Past the reception area there’s a smaller area for clients to wait in, and as Marcel shuffles past it, puzzling idly, he hears voices coming from it, louder and more strained than they ought to be, especially for so early in the morning. Maybe it’s because he’s done so many things he usually wouldn’t recently, but instead of looking down and hurrying away, he stops, glances down the hall into the small sitting area.
It solves the mystery of where Louis is, at least, because he’s there, and for a moment he’s so lovely that Marcel can’t notice anything else, too distracted by the curve of Louis’ back in the oversized red jumper he must have put on at home. So it takes Marcel a moment to realize that Louis and the shouting voice are all part of the same discordant scene.
There’s a large man in an incredibly expensive-looking suit looming over Louis, and he’s obviously the source of the noise. Louis is holding a cup of tea between them, one he’d obviously brought for the man, but now it looks more as if he’s using it as a barrier, holding it tightly between the two of them. Marcel can immediately see the strain on Louis’ face and in the line of his shoulders as he struggles to smile politely while this man leans in close to his face, still shouting.
“--if it’s such a struggle for you to do your job properly they should find someone who can manage it,” the man is sneering. He’s the picture of absolute disdain, looking at Louis like he’s an insect. “I’d imagine any twat could manage to schedule a bloody meeting, although apparently the ability is beyond your particular talents.” The absolute wrongness of it nearly sends Marcel reeling, because it’s such a foul way to treat anyone at all, but -- but especially Louis, who’s still trying to smile through it even now.
Before Marcel can comprehend what he’s doing his feet are marching him forward, and in an instant he’s beside them, bringing a hand up to Louis’ arm, which is positively vibrating with the strain of trying to keep his composure. “Hey,” he says, trying to pitch his voice to sound assertive even though his heart immediately begins beating a frantic rhythm inside his chest. “Is there a problem?”
The man turns to him and sighs exaggeratedly, pulling a face like he’s found someone to commiserate with. “Your secretary--” he starts, voice dripping in condescension.
“Louis,” Marcel interrupts, the sound of his own voice surprising himself. “His name’s Louis.”
The man gives him a look like he can’t possibly understand what to do with that information. “Right, well, apparently the idiot’s gone and canceled my meeting without bothering to inform me about it. It takes me an hour to get in, do you realize that?” He directs this last part at Louis again. “That’s sixty minutes of my time you’ve wasted, and another on the way back.”
“Sir, we called and rescheduled last week,” Louis says, his voice sounding frayed and on edge. “I apologize if there was a miscommunication, but I did speak to your assistant. Several times.” He doesn’t sound like himself, all the easy confidence Marcel’s so used to gone from him. Instead he just seems frustrated and embarrassed, like he can’t tell if he wants to shout or disappear through the floors.
Marcel knows what that’s like, intimately, and it turns his stomach to see it written on Louis’ face.
The man doesn’t bother responding to Louis, turning to Marcel instead. “I haven’t got time for his excuses, so if you’d be so good as to find--”
“No,” Marcel interrupts, and the forcefulness of it startles him. “If Louis says the meeting was rescheduled then I’m sure that’s the case. It sounds like you’ll want to speak with your assistant, though.” He desperately wants to reach up and slide his glasses back up his nose, but crosses his arms across his chest instead, hoping it comes off stern instead of terrified.
The man’s expression goes from exasperated to steely, and Marcel can tell he’s about to start shouting at him as well, so he cuts him off before he gets the chance.
“I think -- I think you’ll want to reconsider the way you’re speaking to the staff here,” he says boldly, willing himself not to stutter. “Our President, I think you’ll find she’s rather big on respectful working relationships, and I would hate to inform her that we’ve run up against a problem in that capacity.” He thinks distantly of Veronica, and her foul mouth and tendency to make interns cry, so like, it’s perhaps not strictly true, but he still thinks she’d be murderous if she knew how this arsehole was treating Louis, and the knowledge of it bolsters him slightly, tamps down at least a bit on the panicked, sick feeling that’s creeping up his spine.
He thinks he must have taken the man by surprise because he doesn’t respond, only gapes, a bit fish-like.
“Louis, if we’re done,” Marcel manages to get out, nodding towards the rest of the office, buzzing away behind them.
Louis just stares at him a bit dazedly, like he hasn’t processed what’s going on, but after a moment he nods.
“You can see yourself out, I assume,” Marcel says to the man, and then turns, leading Louis away from the lounge, his feet only a bit unsteady underneath him.
He guides Louis briskly away, further into the office so it looks like they’re heading somewhere with purpose. He wants to glance back, check and see what the man’s doing, but he just keeps walking them forward determinedly until they wind up as far as they can go, in the small kitchen towards the back of the office. When they get there he slumps against the counter, his mind reeling as he tries to sort out what he’s just done.
Louis stands across from him and stares at him silently, a wondering expression on his face. “Where did that come from?” he finally asks.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean--” Marcel apologizes. He feels shaky with adrenaline, and he hopes Louis isn’t upset with him. He hadn’t meant to barge in, and Louis is more than capable of defending himself, it’s just -- he hadn’t really been able to stop himself, really. He’d been on autopilot, acting entirely on instinct, because apparently his instincts now all orient themselves toward Louis.
Louis’ expression goes even more perplexed. “Are you actually apologizing right now?” he asks, baffled. Marcel just shrugs, and then all of a sudden Louis bursts into laughter, actually bending at the waist at the force of it. Marcel looks at him for one bewildered moment and then unexpectedly starts to laugh as well, his tangled-up nerves exploding out of him as he giggles a bit hysterically.
“Jesus, c’mere,” Louis says through his laughter, grabbing Marcel by the wrist and tugging him towards the door to the nearby supply closet.
“Oh my God,” Marcel says as the door closes behind them, laughing so hard his chest is starting to feel tight. “Oh my God, I’m going to be sacked,” he wheezes, and Louis only laughs harder, pressing them up against a wall of metal shelves as he giggles, leaning his forehead in to rest lightly against Marcel’s shoulder. Marcel’s hand finds Louis’ elbow by instinct and he clutches on as he laughs.
“I can’t believe you just did this,” Louis gasps out.
“I -- me either,” Marcel admits, trying to swallow down his laughter. He feels hysterical and a bit unmoored, and underneath the slight need to be sick there’s something light and pleased, something feeding off the happily dazed way Louis is looking at him.
“Thank you,” Louis says forcefully, and as soon as he says it, both of their laughter trails off at the same time. Marcel is suddenly acutely aware of how close Louis is to him, standing just between Marcel’s feet, angled into him, the smell of his cologne unexpectedly familiar. It all comes back in a rush, then -- Louis’ hands on his skin the night before, tracing his tattoos, Louis in his flat this morning, all of it, everything filling up his chest with something buoyant and strange in the loveliest way.
“I -- of course,” Marcel says, because it somehow feels that perfectly simple.
“Really, though,” Louis says, softer. “Thank you. People don’t usually -- most people wouldn’t...” He trails off, winds one of his arms around Marcel’s neck and presses up onto his toes to fit them closer together, pressing a soft kiss against Marcel’s lips that’s somehow the most breathtaking thing he’s done yet.
Distantly, before his brain fuzzes out and he starts gasping into Louis’ mouth, Marcel thinks that he usually wouldn’t, either, but -- but he somehow feels taller, feels like stretching out his arms and reaching into the sky to pull down the sun if that’s what Louis wants. Of course, he thinks again, kissing Louis harder, feeling bold in a brand new way. Of course.
“So Lottie’s threatening to shave her head, texting me about how she’s ‘misunderstood,’ and my mum’s ringing my mobile and crying and asking how to get Lottie out of the toilet, where she’s apparently locked herself, and meanwhile--” Louis interrupts himself to drain nearly half his Carlsburg in one go, setting it back on the wooden tabletop with a thunk -- “Mr. Smith’s yelling in one of my ears, Veronica’s yelling about him yelling in my other, and the computers in the finance department are still down and no one’s got any e-mail, and somehow literally all of these things are my fault, and it’s just...” He trails off, dragging his finger around the rim of his pint. “It’s a lot of things to deal with all at once, especially when you’ve been up half the night panicking about how you’ve forgotten to pay your heating bill again.”
“Wow,” Marcel says, and he means it. He hasn’t got any idea how Louis can handle so many things at once and only wind up looking mildly perturbed -- if it’d been Marcel he’d have locked himself in a cupboard and refused to come out. “Is that -- is it usually like that?” he asks.
“Pretty much,” Louis says, shrugging. “Usually mum and the girls don’t give me quite as much of a headache, or at least they wait until I’m off work to do it, but apparently this was dire, so.” He rolls his eyes, and even through it Marcel can see how fond he is of his family. “Mum gets so stressed, though,” he continues. “And I try to help, but I’m so far away, and whenever I send money she returns it, but she needs it, and I just--” He cuts himself off again. “Sorry, this must be sickeningly dull for you to hear about.”
Marcel goggles a bit. Louis could literally read the dictionary out loud, he thinks, and it’d still be fascinating, because everything Louis does is, somehow. And this -- Marcel might not have any insight or advice to offer but it’s still wonderful to hear Louis talk to him like he might, like he wants Marcel to see these little pieces of himself.
“You could probably never be boring,” Marcel admits, cheeks flushing even as he says it. “Even if you tried.”
“I could so,” Louis protest, a smile in his voice like he’s taking it as a challenge. “Absolutely I could. Would you like to hear extensively about the filing system I’ve implemented at work? It involves a lot of cross-referencing. And color-coding.”
It intrigues Marcel anyway, even though it’s meant to be a punchline. “Sure,” he says, “go on.”
Louis makes that face again, the one Marcel is starting to recognize as the one Louis saves for him, a bit baffled and pleased all at once, like he’s struggling to balance an equation but inexplicably enjoying the process.
-
After two more pints that Louis pays for, they stumble out of the pub onto the street, which is dark and shimmering as a thin sheet of cold rain comes down on them.
“I always forget my umbrella,” Marcel says idly, more to the air around them than anyone in particular.
Louis makes a noise like tsch, something scolding and fond, and unfolds his jacket and pulls it up over them, leaning in close to Marcel and tenting it over their heads, the rain tapping out a staccato on top of it. Marcel swallows heavily, the pints sitting heavily in his stomach, and pulls at his collar, because it feels close and sweet and lovely this close to Louis, hidden from the rain, and he can’t bear to think of moving, but isn’t sure how to stay there, either.
“Where shall we go?” Louis asks with a smile, and Marcel tries not to feel crushed under the weight of the possibilities.
-
Louis lets himself into Marcel’s flat. It isn’t surprising, really, because Louis had let himself into Marcel’s office as well earlier that day, not bothering to knock, and just his life in general, never waiting for an invitation. It’s probably a good thing, because Marcel knows he probably wouldn’t have invited him, no matter how badly he tried to pluck up the nerves to do it -- something about Louis has always made it even harder for him to arrange words, even more difficult to sort out the tangle of what he means and how to say it, which is usually enough of an ordeal.
So Marcel is grateful that Louis is the one who lets them in, plucking Marcel’s keys out his hand with a laugh at the front door, grateful that Louis was the one to suggest they go there after the pub in the first place. He’d said it easily, huddled under his jacket in the rain -- “Is your place near here?” -- like it’s something they do all the time, and when Marcel had nodded, nervously but still sure enough to nearly send his glasses flying of his face, Louis has smiled and hailed a taxi in seconds, rattling off Marcel’s address to the driver as Marcel whispered it to him like he was translating something from a foreign language. He’d opened the door himself like he’d done it a thousand times before, and now he’s in Marcel’s flat, and Marcel never wants to let him out again, even if he feels a bit like being sick with nerves at the same time. It feels like lightning, like if Marcel blinks it’ll all be gone in a flash, and the conditions will never align properly for it to strike the same place again.
“Do you, um,” Marcel starts, shutting the door behind them and shuffling into the kitchen. He feels suddenly out of place even though he’s in his own home. “Do you want tea? Or, gosh, are you hungry? I’m sorry, I haven’t got much --” He cuts himself off and casts around a bit frantically. There’s got to be something he can offer, but ridiculously, the only thing he can think of is offering to let Louis use the toilet, and that seems like it’s probably not the sort of thing you offer to new houseguests.
“Nah, I’m alright,” Louis says brightly, either totally unaware of how Marcel’s twisting himself up or just ignoring it. Whichever it is, it loosens the tightness in Marcel’s just at least incrementally. “Just too knackered to get a train yet,” he says, and he kicks off his shoes and pads in his sock feet to the sitting room, flopping on the couch and helping himself to the remote. He puts on a football game between two teams Marcel can’t identify, even with the three-letter abbreviations in the corner of the screen.
“Oh, wicked,” Louis murmurs to himself, “didn’t get to see this one. Want to watch for a bit?” He glances up at Marcel from his own couch, face wide and open and happy. Marcel tells himself he can do it -- if Louis is this comfortable, there’s no reason for him to be knotted up so tightly. He nods jerkily and then leans down to untie his own shoes, setting them carefully in a line next to the door before walking slowly over to the couch and sitting down, leaving a full cushion’s worth of space between the two of them.
Louis immediately hauls his legs around and tucks his toes underneath Marcel’s thighs. Marcel thinks his heart stops beating for a moment.
“I like your flat,” Louis tells him, looking halfway at the game and halfway at Marcel. “It seems like you.”
Marcel glances around, feeling a small frown crease his forehead as he tries to see what Louis does. It just looks like -- like his flat, like normal, like nothing. There’s the sofa and the telly and the small kitchen, all neat and uncluttered and in perfect order. There are two pictures in frames, one of his mum and one of his sister, and more books in neat stacks, and that’s about it.
“If you say so,” he nearly whispers, and tries not to focus on the soft flex of Louis’ toes wiggling idly happily underneath his thigh as the match goes on.
-
Marcel wakes an hour later, and he hadn’t even realized he’d fallen asleep until he does. His glasses are shoved off the end of his nose, dangling weakly by the one arm still tucked behind his ear, and when he shoves them back on properly, he nearly has a heart attack, because Louis is curled up beside him, his chin tucked up on his knees as the postgame prattles away on the television.
“Hi,” he says to Marcel. “Nice nap?”
Marcel feels himself flush. “Oh my gosh, I’m sorry. You probably want to go, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have fallen asleep,” he babbles, the surrealness of Louis Tomlinson still being in his flat, sitting easily on the couch, not a dream or hallucination at all sending him into a tailspin. He’s probably been waiting around for ages for Marcel to wake up, wanting to leave but being too polite to sneak out while Marcel sleeps pathetically next to him.
“Nah,” Louis says, shaking his head. “I mean, if you want me to go--”
“No, you could, uh. Stay,” Marcel says carefully. There’s a twinge in his neck and his right hand is tingling, pins and needles from sleeping with it at a strange angle. “If you want. Please.”
“Then I’ll stay,” Louis says, quietly. He’s closer to Marcel now than when he’d fallen asleep, perched on the next cushion, and there’s something so lovely about the sight of him, lit up in the soft yellow of the lamp as the rain taps away outside, that Marcel can’t stop from smiling.
“Something funny?” Louis asks, smiling back.
“No,” Marcel says, quiet and firm around the smile he can’t swallow down. “It’s, uh. I’m glad you’re here. It’s nice.” It feels like a risk to say it, but in the unfamiliar, thrilling sort of way that he’d nearly forgotten about.
“It is, isn’t it?” Louis asks. He’s leaning nearer, at that, letting his fingertips creep slowly across the sofa toward Marcel, cautious but purposeful like he’s trying not to spook a wild animal. Marcel could shift, just an inch, just incrementally, and Louis wouldn’t be able to reach him, but he doesn’t. He stays put, and lets Louis trace over the knee of his trousers for a moment with his fingers, leaning in nearer and nearer until he can feel the soft puff of Louis’ breath on his face. And then Louis can’t lean in any closer, because he’s kissing Marcel, not tentative at all, just steadily, happily, and it’s the easiest, most terrifying thing in the world for Marcel to lean into it and kiss back.
“Okay?” Louis asks, pulling back after a moment. He’s so near but they aren’t touching anymore, and that feels like a loss, so Marcel nods fervently, and then gathers himself up and crosses the small distance between them himself so they’re kissing again.
Louis makes a soft noise of surprise against Marcel’s mouth, but then redoubles his efforts, pressing more firmly into Marcel, opening him up underneath him. He repositions himself in Marcel’s lap, kneeling against the slim line of his thighs and kissing, all soft lips and sharp teeth and his insistent tongue, but after a bit he pulls away, and he looks a bit frantic in the eyes, sort of undone.
Marcel can’t put much effort into trying to name the expression on Louis’ face, though, because his mind is spinning, frantic, worried that Louis might stop, worried that he won’t.
“Here, c’mere,” Louis whispers, shoving off Marcel’s lap a little unsteadily and standing above him, offering a hand. His shirt is askew, uncharacteristically rumpled, and Marcel does as Louis says, gives him his hand and follows his tugging hand towards the back hall of his flat.
“Bedroom?” Louis asks, the circle of his hand tight around Marcel’s wrist as he guides him through his own flat. Marcel’s not sure if he’s asking for directions to the right door or for something more nebulous, something like permission, but it feels like both.
Before he can overthink it, before the doubtful voice in the back of his head that he’s so, so tired of can chime in and second guess it all, he nods firmly, pressing into Louis’ hand and aiming them towards his bedroom door. As soon as he does he feels lighter in an instant, and while his heart doesn’t stop pounding madly, he feels calmer than he has in ages.
Louis is on him more insistently as soon as the door closes behind them, kissing into Marcel’s mouth more frantically, fitting his warm hands under the hem of Marcel’s shirt and jumper, untucking them from his trousers. “Is this--?” he asks breathily, gripping at the edge of Marcel’s stomach, dragging frantically over the planes of it.
“Yes, um, yes please,” Marcel agrees, nodding his head a bit wildly. Louis sighs happily and leans in, pulling off Marcel’s jumper and carefully starting to work the buttons of his shirt from the bottom up.
Marcel’s hands move forward on their own, and before Louis can undo half the buttons on Marcel’s own shirt he’s mimicking the movement, tugging at the hem of Louis’ shirt. “Can -- off?” he asks, blushing a bit at how incomplete it comes out. But Louis nods hastily and drops Marcel’s shirt to pull his own off in one swift motion, so when he drops it on the carpet around their feet his hair is mussed a bit. As if he’s caught in the momentum of it, Louis moves his hands down to the fly of his trousers, hesitating for just a moment before he works them open, wriggling them down his thighs and stepping out of them. He straightens up when he’s finished, standing in just his pants with his feet firmly planted in the carpet, glancing up at Marcel through his mussed fringe like he’s waiting to see how Marcel reacts.
Marcel doesn’t mean to stare, it seems impolite, but Louis is -- he can’t even name it. Breathtaking and golden and nearly glowing, even in the dark. It leaves Marcel absolutely speechless, which isn’t so unusual, but Louis is quiet as well, and that is, a bit. Marcel expects him to say something, but he just smiles almost shyly, which is possibly the most perplexing part of it all. Before Marcel can sort it out, though, Louis is pulling him back in by the untucked ends of his shirt, kissing him again as he finishes undoing the buttons with his deft fingers.
Marcel feels Louis press his open shirt off of his shoulders, letting it pool around their feet with Louis’ clothes, and then he pulls back for a moment. Marcel waits, expecting Louis to lean in and kiss him again, but Louis is suddenly frozen.
“Oh my God,” he whispers, pulling back from Marcel’s chest to look at him, really look, peering at the lanky stretch of his chest in the moonlight that’s coming through the window. Marcel immediately knows what he’s looking at, and wants to hide his face.
“There’s more?” Louis asks disbelievingly. He reaches out tentatively with his forefinger, and then he’s softly tracing the organic curves of the tattoos on Marcel's chest, the moth and the birds and the scrawled letters and waving banners. Marcel can’t think of what to say, his insides gone all gummed up in an instant, so he says nothing.
“Like,” Louis breaths out carefully. “A lot more.”
His hand falls away and then he’s just looking, staring and not trying to disguise it, and it makes Marcel feel like an insect, like he’s been pinned wings open and he’s being examined.
“D’they mean anything?” Louis ask quietly.
“Um,” Marcel says. His chest feels tight, and he thinks of his inhaler resting in the cabinet in the bathroom like a lifeline. “Some of them. Mostly just, like, um.” He doesn’t know how to explain it, because he’s never had to before. “Things I like. Things I want to remember.”
Louis stays silent, just gazing at him, his hips still bracketed up against Marcel’s as he leans back to look.
“No one’s seen them,” he croaks out after an interminable minute, just to fill the conspicuous silence. He instantly regrets it -- he doesn’t know why he’s told Louis that. There’s no reason that’s something he needs to know, but there it is. He wants to cover himself back up again.
Louis leans back and peers at him curiously, a frown tugging at his eyes and his lips. “What?”
“I mean, um,” Marcel hedges, because he wants to end this conversation before it goes anywhere else. He can’t figure out how, though -- he can only plow forward and hope a rogue asteroid hits London suddenly and interrupts them. “Like, I’ve seen them, obviously,” he says.
“Obviously,” Louis agrees, sounding distracted.
“And the bloke who did them,” Marcel says desperately, hoping to stumble on the right words himself. “But that’s... that’s it, I guess.” He shrugs, hunching his shoulders in like he can hide that way.
“That’s a shame,” Louis whispers softly, and then his finger is back, tracing the lines again like he’s not sure what to make of them.
“What--” Marcel starts, pushing his glasses up his nose for something to do while Louis touches him, light as a feather.
“I know they’re like, uh, a lot,” he gasps out. If Louis wants to go, if this is too much, Marcel wants to make sure he’s got an out for it. “If you don’t like them--”
Louis’ finger is still. “Don’t like them?” he repeats, his voice sounding strained.
And Marcel is about to say something else, anything, because why would Louis, why would he like them at all, he should’ve known, but then Louis is shoving Marcel backwards on his bed, onto his pale blue pillows and hospital corners tucked in tightly, and it’s the same place he sleeps every night but all of a sudden it’s foreign, like he’s having an out of body experience, like he’s floating off somewhere new, because Louis is crowding him up near the headboard and his mouth is on him, hot and pressing kisses down the line of his throat and onto the tips of the birds.
“What even are you?” he feels more than hears Louis mumble into his chest.
“I don’t -- I’m just me?” he whimpers, confused and too hot and too cold all at once under the press of Louis’ mouth and fingers.
“You’re not just anything, all right,” Louis says, biting down a smile. “You’re --” He leans down and kisses at Marcel’s ribs, thin skin that Marcel hadn’t known was so sensitive. “You’re strange and lovely --” He punctuates it with more biting kisses, half sharp teeth and half soft lips, one after the other. “And surprising. And Jesus, you’re fit.” He’s got his face buried in Marcel’s hip now, hands clutching at the bend of his waist, and then he’s reaching down to undo the buttons on Marcel’s trousers, the ones he’d pressed this morning so carefully.
“I like you,” Louis continues, pulling slowly at Marcel’s waistband so it folds over, sliding down his belly, “quite a lot.” As he speaks he edges off the bed, pulling Marcel with him by the waist so that Marcel is sitting on the edge of his bed, and Louis is kneeling in front of him, naked except for his tight black briefs.
Marcel physically bites down on his tongue, because his trousers and pants are going to slip off his hips at any moment if Louis keeps pulling at them, but also because he can feel himself starting to ask why, and thinks he oughtn’t. Even if he doesn’t quite understand, something stops him from asking, so instead he tentatively reaches out a hand and carefully cups the sharp cut of Louis’ jaw where he’s still pressing his lips against his hip, letting his thumb catch on it. He’s already kissed Louis, already put his hands across Louis’ chest and now Louis is perilously close to his obvious erection, but this feels like more, close and intimate in a way that’s sharp and a bit breathtaking.
“Me too,” he says honestly. “I like you too, I mean.”
Louis smiles up at him at that, nearly beaming in the dark, and Marcel can’t fathom why his face lights up with it. People must tell Louis that always, every day, because how could they not? Louis is bright and funny and beautiful -- he’s got to know it.
“I’d really, really like to suck you off now,” Louis says. It hits Marcel in the stomach like a punch, and he thinks he must whimper, because Louis taps once at his hip, softly, like he’s reassuring him. “If that’s alright with you,” he adds.
“I -- you don’t -- you don’t have to,” Marcel stammers, although now that Louis has said it, it’s opened a floodgate of desperate want in him, crawling across his skin like a fever.
“I want to,” Louis insists, and he pulls one more time at Marcel’s waistband, hard enough that when Marcel lifts his hips up just an inch his trousers and pants both slip down so that his cock is freed, thumping hard and pink against the contracted muscle of his stomach. “Do I have to beg?” Louis nearly purrs.
There’s a strong possibility that Marcel blacks out for a moment, because it’s so -- it’s absurd, absurd for Louis Tomlinson to be offering to beg to suck his cock, absurd he’s here and real in the first place, absurd that he’s currently twisting the fingers of his free hand around Marcel’s, tugging it down and pressing it against his own dick, thick and straining in his pants.
Marcel curls his hand against the length of Louis’ cock instinctively and he shudders in response, his eyes going hazy and purposeful. Marcel thinks he must nod, then, although he doesn't remember meaning to do it, because Louis breathes out sharply through his nose as if in relief, and then leans in close and slowly, carefully wrapping his mouth around Marcel’s dick.
He tries to keep still, but his hips still jerk up to meet Louis’ mouth despite his effort. Marcel starts to apologize, but Louis is humming around him, drowning out the words and sending a vibration through his cock like an electric shock. Louis’ fingertips dig in sharply to the top of Marcel’s knees and he bobs up and down easily, enveloping Marcel in his mouth and his throat, and Marcel thinks he’s never felt anything so extraordinary, not ever.
He loses track of time so that he can barely fathom how long it’s been before he feels a tightening in his stomach, although he distantly suspects it’s probably not long at all, and he tentatively reaches out a hand to thumb Louis on his jaw, accidentally grazing over the seam of Louis’ lips stretched around him as he does. Louis moans at the touch, and that’s nearly it for Marcel.
“I’m, um,” he tries to warn, but Louis just lets his eyes flutter shut, sucking Marcel down even more feverishly. He groans again when Marcel comes, and it nearly drowns out the sound of Marcel’s gasps as he shoots hot down Louis’ throat, his brain fuzzing out. It takes several long moments after that for Marcel to hear anything except the beating of his own heart.
“Jesus,” Louis gasps when he finally pulls back onto his heels, resting his forehead against the inside of Marcel’s thigh. “You’re fucking -- Jesus,” he repeats.
Marcel just nods, kicking absently so that his legs come free of his trousers tangled around his ankles, because he can’t remember how to say any words at the moment.
Louis takes another audible breath and then clambers shakily to his feet, somehow managing to shove Marcel backwards by the shoulder so that he flops onto his back and pull off his own underwear at the same time. As soon as he kicks them free he’s climbing onto the bed next to Marcel, wrapping his arms around him and pulling him flush against him with a contented noise.
Marcel feels boneless and wrung out and blissfully simple, and for a rare moment he’s not thinking about anything, can’t even begin to think about anything besides the shuddery feeling beneath his skin and curling against Louis, getting him as close as possible. He could stay like this for ages, forever, the panicky chatter of his brain drowned out by how blissful he feels.
But he can also feel Louis shifting against him, and he’s naked and hard and that in itself is too glorious for Marcel to let slip through his fingers. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, doesn't have a plan or a strategy or anything to guide him, but he forces himself to peel away from Louis’ side and prop himself up on his elbow, looking at Louis spread out next to him on his back. Louis smiles up at him, and if it’s possible to be flirtatious after you’ve just sucked someone’s cock, that’s what he is. He stares up at Marcel, long eyelashes casting a shadow in the dim orange light of the streetlamp that’s filtering in through Marcel’s curtains, and then wraps a hand around his own cock, stroking himself at a rhythm that Marcel can’t quite follow, teasing and deliberate all at once.
Marcel bites down on his lip, and Louis lets out a small whine, thrusting up into his own fist a bit more forcefully. Marcel can’t fathom that he’s the one having this effect on Louis, but -- he can’t think of any other explanation.
“Louis?” he asks tentatively, not sure where to put his hands, or if he’s even allowed to. He thinks he probably is, but doesn’t want to presume. “Can I--” He lets his hand skirt close to Louis’ cock, close enough that their knuckles brush as Louis wanks himself, and at the contact Louis’ hand stills, although his chest keeps heaving a bit as his breath comes in sharp little gasps.
“Have you ever--” Louis starts to ask.
Marcel feels his shoulders draw up a bit self-consciously at the question, but he forces himself to look at Louis, nodding truthfully.
“Oh,” Louis says, and his eyes flutter shut for an instant. “I mean, you still don’t have to -- if you don’t want,” he says.
But Marcel does want to, desperately, and he’s not even worried about getting it right, for once, because he just wants, wants to do for Louis what Louis has done for him, in every possible iteration.
“I want to,” he says, and it comes out a whisper, aimed at the patch of bedsheets between them. “I want.” He waits, too unsteady to look over at Louis where he knows he’s gazing up at him. “Do -- do I have to beg as well?” he asks.
Below him Louis makes a noise caught between and hiss and a laugh, and Marcel looks up at that. “Was -- was that a joke?” Louis asks dazedly. Marcel feels himself blush wildly, but somehow he’s smiling as well.
“Um,” he says. “Maybe?” As soon as he says it, though, he realizes it’s not, not really -- he’d do it if he had to, beg Louis no matter how red his cheeks went, because he wants, more than he thought he’d been capable of.
“Yeah, God, yes,” Louis whimpers, and he jerks himself hard several more times before he pulls his hand away, seemingly with a bit of effort.
Marcel flexes his hands nervously but then carefully gathers himself up and repositions himself around Louis’ legs, running his palm experimentally over his cock. Louis gasps. “Jesus,” he rasps out. “I’m -- won’t take long, probably.”
As Marcel leans in and flattens his tongue to lick up the length of Louis’ cock carefully before sucking him down properly, he thinks that’s probably a good thing, because the taste and feel of Louis in his mouth is almost too much to bear. He closes his eyes and lets himself shut down in increments, everything besides Louis, Louis’ cock and his hands and the breathy noises punching out of him, falling away.
When Louis eventually tenses up and pulls out of Marcel’s mouth, shooting off over his collarbones and his chest with a gasp like nothing Marcel’s ever heard before, Marcel thinks he can almost feel it as well, somewhere down in the marrow of his bones.
-
When he wakes up the next morning he’s hot, hotter than usual. His alarm is going off at six o’clock on the dot like it does every day, even during the weekend, because he likes to keep to a schedule -- it’s the best way to keep orderly, he finds, best way to keep structure.
Except everything is out of order when he opens his eyes, because Louis is there, pressed into Marcel’s side, the source of all the extra heat that’s wrapped around Marcel. Louis’ mouth is scrunched against the wiry line of Marcel’s arm, slack in sleep, and he’s got one small hand resting protectively on Marcel’s torso, splayed over the moth like he’s trying to smother it. His legs are kicked out across the rest of the bed, tan skin taking up space that Marcel hadn’t even realized was open until Louis had filled it effortlessly, just like everything else he does.
Marcel blinks once, carefully, trying to sort out the thread that had got them to this place.
After he’d sucked off Louis he’d curled around Marcel like an octopus, only allowing him off the bed to fetch a flannel to wipe them down with. Somehow, Marcel’s heart had only started beating faster when he’d come back to the bed, and it’d taken him an absurdly long moment to convince himself that he was allowed to get in, allowed to snuggle up against the warmth of Louis’ skin. Once he had, though, Louis had just burrowed in closer, pulling the sheets up around them and mumbling that he was staying the night whether Marcel liked it or not. Marcel wouldn’t have been able to protest even if he’d wanted to, and he really, really hadn’t.
But now, in the gray light of morning, he feels the familiar clutch of worry, because this is the part he doesn’t know. He hasn’t got any idea how it’s supposed to go now, now that they’ve -- now that they’ve had sex. Marcel forces himself to think it, because he ought to be able to, ought to be able to at least think the words if he’s had Louis’ cock in his mouth not seven hours ago.
Marcel tries to lay very still, partly because he doesn’t want to disturb Louis, but partly because he’s not sure what to do next, either. Should he -- he could make breakfast, maybe? He’s not a good cook, in particular, but he could scramble an egg at least. Or he could run the shower, in case Louis wants to have a wash, or -- or he could pretend to be asleep in case Louis wants to slip out, or he could ---
While he’s figuring out all the things he could do, Louis’ eyes open, and he smiles sleepily up at Marcel. “Hey,” he says, voice gravelly from sleep.
“I was trying not to wake you up,” Marcel blurts out desperately, and he knows it comes out a bit panicked, but Louis just smiles and presses closer to Marcel’s arm. It’s nice, Marcel thinks absently through the wave of his distraction, the way Louis fits up against him so well.
“Would’ve had to eventually,” Louis mumbles. “Work, y’know.”
Marcel’s spine straightens a bit unconsciously. “Work, right.” He’d actually sort of forgotten. That hasn’t happened -- ever. Not once.
In the end Louis lets Marcel make him tea but no eggs, and then presses up on his tiptoes to kiss the hinge of Marcel’s jaw softly before he leaves to go back to his own flat and change clothes. “See you soon, yeah?” he asks. Marcel is still nodding dumbly as the door closes behind him.
As he’s coming up the elevator at work an hour and a half later, he tries not to panic, because it’s a lot to navigate all at once, how he should wave at Louis, or smile, or not smile but wave or maybe the other way round, all while trying to make his feet walk in a straight line. He wants to get it right, wants Louis to know he’s happy about what happened (because he is, he startles himself a bit by realizing, fairly desperately), but give him room if he wants it. He just wants to react -- normally. He’s not sure what that means.
As the lift dings, he resolves to just follow Louis’ lead, whatever it is. At least Louis seems to know what he’s doing.
Louis isn’t at his desk, though, which is curious enough, because he’s almost always there, especially in the mornings when employees and clients are arriving. Marcel frowns, hoping he hasn’t made Louis too late by keeping him around his flat all night, forcing him to take the bus back home before coming into work -- it’s probably mucked up his commute. It would if it was the other way around -- Marcel’s own trip to work is carefully timed.
But as he walks past he notices Louis’ computer is on, humming away, and there’s a mug of tea at his desk and his jumper -- the same one he’d had at Marcel’s last night -- is slung over the back of his chair. So he’s there, he’s just not -- there.
Past the reception area there’s a smaller area for clients to wait in, and as Marcel shuffles past it, puzzling idly, he hears voices coming from it, louder and more strained than they ought to be, especially for so early in the morning. Maybe it’s because he’s done so many things he usually wouldn’t recently, but instead of looking down and hurrying away, he stops, glances down the hall into the small sitting area.
It solves the mystery of where Louis is, at least, because he’s there, and for a moment he’s so lovely that Marcel can’t notice anything else, too distracted by the curve of Louis’ back in the oversized red jumper he must have put on at home. So it takes Marcel a moment to realize that Louis and the shouting voice are all part of the same discordant scene.
There’s a large man in an incredibly expensive-looking suit looming over Louis, and he’s obviously the source of the noise. Louis is holding a cup of tea between them, one he’d obviously brought for the man, but now it looks more as if he’s using it as a barrier, holding it tightly between the two of them. Marcel can immediately see the strain on Louis’ face and in the line of his shoulders as he struggles to smile politely while this man leans in close to his face, still shouting.
“--if it’s such a struggle for you to do your job properly they should find someone who can manage it,” the man is sneering. He’s the picture of absolute disdain, looking at Louis like he’s an insect. “I’d imagine any twat could manage to schedule a bloody meeting, although apparently the ability is beyond your particular talents.” The absolute wrongness of it nearly sends Marcel reeling, because it’s such a foul way to treat anyone at all, but -- but especially Louis, who’s still trying to smile through it even now.
Before Marcel can comprehend what he’s doing his feet are marching him forward, and in an instant he’s beside them, bringing a hand up to Louis’ arm, which is positively vibrating with the strain of trying to keep his composure. “Hey,” he says, trying to pitch his voice to sound assertive even though his heart immediately begins beating a frantic rhythm inside his chest. “Is there a problem?”
The man turns to him and sighs exaggeratedly, pulling a face like he’s found someone to commiserate with. “Your secretary--” he starts, voice dripping in condescension.
“Louis,” Marcel interrupts, the sound of his own voice surprising himself. “His name’s Louis.”
The man gives him a look like he can’t possibly understand what to do with that information. “Right, well, apparently the idiot’s gone and canceled my meeting without bothering to inform me about it. It takes me an hour to get in, do you realize that?” He directs this last part at Louis again. “That’s sixty minutes of my time you’ve wasted, and another on the way back.”
“Sir, we called and rescheduled last week,” Louis says, his voice sounding frayed and on edge. “I apologize if there was a miscommunication, but I did speak to your assistant. Several times.” He doesn’t sound like himself, all the easy confidence Marcel’s so used to gone from him. Instead he just seems frustrated and embarrassed, like he can’t tell if he wants to shout or disappear through the floors.
Marcel knows what that’s like, intimately, and it turns his stomach to see it written on Louis’ face.
The man doesn’t bother responding to Louis, turning to Marcel instead. “I haven’t got time for his excuses, so if you’d be so good as to find--”
“No,” Marcel interrupts, and the forcefulness of it startles him. “If Louis says the meeting was rescheduled then I’m sure that’s the case. It sounds like you’ll want to speak with your assistant, though.” He desperately wants to reach up and slide his glasses back up his nose, but crosses his arms across his chest instead, hoping it comes off stern instead of terrified.
The man’s expression goes from exasperated to steely, and Marcel can tell he’s about to start shouting at him as well, so he cuts him off before he gets the chance.
“I think -- I think you’ll want to reconsider the way you’re speaking to the staff here,” he says boldly, willing himself not to stutter. “Our President, I think you’ll find she’s rather big on respectful working relationships, and I would hate to inform her that we’ve run up against a problem in that capacity.” He thinks distantly of Veronica, and her foul mouth and tendency to make interns cry, so like, it’s perhaps not strictly true, but he still thinks she’d be murderous if she knew how this arsehole was treating Louis, and the knowledge of it bolsters him slightly, tamps down at least a bit on the panicked, sick feeling that’s creeping up his spine.
He thinks he must have taken the man by surprise because he doesn’t respond, only gapes, a bit fish-like.
“Louis, if we’re done,” Marcel manages to get out, nodding towards the rest of the office, buzzing away behind them.
Louis just stares at him a bit dazedly, like he hasn’t processed what’s going on, but after a moment he nods.
“You can see yourself out, I assume,” Marcel says to the man, and then turns, leading Louis away from the lounge, his feet only a bit unsteady underneath him.
He guides Louis briskly away, further into the office so it looks like they’re heading somewhere with purpose. He wants to glance back, check and see what the man’s doing, but he just keeps walking them forward determinedly until they wind up as far as they can go, in the small kitchen towards the back of the office. When they get there he slumps against the counter, his mind reeling as he tries to sort out what he’s just done.
Louis stands across from him and stares at him silently, a wondering expression on his face. “Where did that come from?” he finally asks.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean--” Marcel apologizes. He feels shaky with adrenaline, and he hopes Louis isn’t upset with him. He hadn’t meant to barge in, and Louis is more than capable of defending himself, it’s just -- he hadn’t really been able to stop himself, really. He’d been on autopilot, acting entirely on instinct, because apparently his instincts now all orient themselves toward Louis.
Louis’ expression goes even more perplexed. “Are you actually apologizing right now?” he asks, baffled. Marcel just shrugs, and then all of a sudden Louis bursts into laughter, actually bending at the waist at the force of it. Marcel looks at him for one bewildered moment and then unexpectedly starts to laugh as well, his tangled-up nerves exploding out of him as he giggles a bit hysterically.
“Jesus, c’mere,” Louis says through his laughter, grabbing Marcel by the wrist and tugging him towards the door to the nearby supply closet.
“Oh my God,” Marcel says as the door closes behind them, laughing so hard his chest is starting to feel tight. “Oh my God, I’m going to be sacked,” he wheezes, and Louis only laughs harder, pressing them up against a wall of metal shelves as he giggles, leaning his forehead in to rest lightly against Marcel’s shoulder. Marcel’s hand finds Louis’ elbow by instinct and he clutches on as he laughs.
“I can’t believe you just did this,” Louis gasps out.
“I -- me either,” Marcel admits, trying to swallow down his laughter. He feels hysterical and a bit unmoored, and underneath the slight need to be sick there’s something light and pleased, something feeding off the happily dazed way Louis is looking at him.
“Thank you,” Louis says forcefully, and as soon as he says it, both of their laughter trails off at the same time. Marcel is suddenly acutely aware of how close Louis is to him, standing just between Marcel’s feet, angled into him, the smell of his cologne unexpectedly familiar. It all comes back in a rush, then -- Louis’ hands on his skin the night before, tracing his tattoos, Louis in his flat this morning, all of it, everything filling up his chest with something buoyant and strange in the loveliest way.
“I -- of course,” Marcel says, because it somehow feels that perfectly simple.
“Really, though,” Louis says, softer. “Thank you. People don’t usually -- most people wouldn’t...” He trails off, winds one of his arms around Marcel’s neck and presses up onto his toes to fit them closer together, pressing a soft kiss against Marcel’s lips that’s somehow the most breathtaking thing he’s done yet.
Distantly, before his brain fuzzes out and he starts gasping into Louis’ mouth, Marcel thinks that he usually wouldn’t, either, but -- but he somehow feels taller, feels like stretching out his arms and reaching into the sky to pull down the sun if that’s what Louis wants. Of course, he thinks again, kissing Louis harder, feeling bold in a brand new way. Of course.