Fanfic: The Smoke That Roams Looking For a Home [Do Começo ao Fim]
Title: Smoke That Roams Looking for a Home
Author: Kinkerbelle13
Pairing: Thomás/Francicso
Rating: Hard R
Notes: This movie is the first in a very long time that I have instantly written fic for. I guess we'll see how it goes. Comments and feedback very welcome.
Summary: In four parts, an exploration of how Francisco and Thomás come to be as they are by the end of Do Começo ao Fim.
Being able to surrender to someone else… is the best thing in life.
They go through a stage, for five or six years, where, as Thomás likes to say: They were simply moronic over each other. Around when Thomás turns eleven, and then until he turns sixteen, he knows implicitly that to kiss Francisco on the mouth is out of the question. They have reached the age where it is more frowned upon than fawned over, and with their usual level of synchronicity, they stop. They resign themselves to other forms of affection. That is not to say that they pretend to not be what they are to each other, that is to say: everything, but there needs to be a line somewhere, for the sake of other people, and that is where it has to be.
Sometimes, when Thomás really needs to be grounded or calmed, Francisco will come in from the side with a quick peck to the lips. Always in the privacy of their room, though, and nothing beyond that.
School is a strange trial every day. They’re close enough to be together in their off moments, and often are, but there seem to be, in other’s eyes, a limit to how much time they can really spend together, and the ways in which they can spend it. No one ever voices that anything is out of the ordinary between them, per se. And even with the limits they place on their time together, there is still the tacit understanding throughout the student body that Thomás and Francisco are close.
At any rate, they both find ways to cope. Francisco throws himself into studies and Thomás throws himself into water. Swimming has always been a great passion of his, ever since it had been a great passion of Francisco’s. Thomás has always yearned to share passion with his brother.
When Thomás is fifteen Francisco brings a girl home with him from study group. Her name is Ana. Thomás can’t deny for a second that she is incredibly lovely and that she frightens him. Francisco is charmingly appropriate in how he portions his time between his brother and his new girlfriend, but Thomás is still unsettled and unable to name a reason as to why.
At breakfast one morning Thomás sees Francisco sending a covert text message under the table and before he really knows it, he’s speaking out loud. “Are you seeing each other exclusively?” He asks.
Francisco looks up at him in confusion and then darts a glance to their mother and Alexandre in distress. “I… yes. I mean, I’m exclusive. I’m sure she is too.”
“Oh.” Thomás replies, feeling ill. “That’s nice. Are you two fucking?” He says, despondently pushing his quiche around his plate.
Their mother stifles a laugh and Alexandre sighs, mouth quirking in a smile. “Tom Tom, always with such bold questions.” His mother says, smiling into her glass of fruit juice.
Thomás shrugs at her in half-apology and turns an expectant look on Francisco, who still appears a little stunned. His phone vibrates in his hand and he doesn’t even realize. “No. We’re not fucking, Tom Tom.”
“Oh.” Thomás says, breathing out perhaps a little too deeply. “Well that’s a pity for her, eh?” He finishes quickly, swallowing his last mouthful of quiche.
“I’m going to the pool to swim laps early. Before school. I love you, Papa.” He kisses Alexandre’s temple. “And you, mother.” He swoops in and gives her the same treatment.
He catches Francisco’s hand before he’s really thought about it. He doesn’t know how he forgot there was a phone in it. Thomás bends to kiss the inside of his brother’s wrist anyway. As if on cue the phone vibrates and Thomás stills entirely. He drops his brother’s hand and for the first time ever, feels uncomfortable in having just touched him.
Thomás clutches at his stomach involuntarily, feeling uneasy, his feet still rooted to their spot on the dining room floor. He flounders for something to say. “Have a good day, Curro. Meet me for lunch?”
Francisco smiles and says that he will. Thomás feels so relieved that he thinks for half a moment he just might cry with it. Once Francisco drops his eyes back to his phone Thomás feels he regains the power of movement and hurries off to collect his things.
~
In the water that morning, Thomás resigns himself to how truly terrible he is at sharing Francisco with anyone who was not, in fact, Francisco. When it comes down to it, he supposes, he’s even pretty bad at sharing him with their parents as well. But in his defense, he thinks as he switches to the butterfly stroke, Francisco has always been pretty spectacularly bad at sharing Thomás as well. Maybe some things change, he thinks, and powers through the tight seizure in his chest by switching to breast stroke and setting a brutal pace for himself. When he gets to school that morning Francisco is holding hands with Ana in the courtyard. Maybe some things have to, he thinks, and hurries to his first class.
~
Thomás finds himself out of the house for much of the time after that. He learns how to sneak in and sleep after Francisco has long since fallen asleep, he learns to leave for the pool far before his brother gets up. He learns to each lunch with people who aren’t Francisco, and joke and laugh with people who are not Francisco. He learns to trust people who are not Francisco. He finds ways to converse that are not made of inside jokes and shared history.
In a way, Thomás is proud of himself. He’s proud of himself for discovering a world that is not turning on the axis of his brother. Proud… if not happy. Because chief among his discoveries is that although these things may exist, that in no way means that they are as good, as fulfilling, or as incandescently beautiful. Some things, Thomás thinks, might be too good to hold on to forever.
~
On the evening of Thomás’s sixteenth birthday, their parents take Rosa out for drinks after the family dinner. Thomás tries not to feel spurned. They don’t know that he and Francisco have been… well, to quarrel they would have to be spending time around each other and Thomás has been doing his flat best to cut that down to far below what is strictly necessary for him.
Francisco practically leaps on him the second their parents’ car leaves the driveway. Literally, actually. Thomás is forced back into his mattress under his brother’s weight. Francisco wraps his arms around Thomás tightly. He almost forces the breath out of him. He fits his face into the column of Thomás’ neck. Thomás can feel him smiling. The beginnings of adult stubble scratch and Thomás finds it hard to focus or breathe. After so long going without him, it’s like he’s drowning in Francisco.
“My Tom Tom!” Francisco says, sounding happy. “It’s been so long. I’ve missed you! I feel like we’ve hardly been around each other. What gives? My baby boy turned sixteen and I missed it. I tried to stay up for when it turned into your birthday but you were out so late and… and I just thought if I closed my eyes for a minute, but obviously that didn’t work out as I planned.”
Thomás can feel Francisco’s smile against his throat and his voice vibrating all the way into his spine and collar bone. He can feel his arms crushed up and under and around him, their denim clad legs pressing thigh to thigh and rubbing calves. It feels so good Thomás is practically alight with it. So good he can’t help but hold on. Francisco laughs joyously when Thomás hugs him back.
“Meu amor! I’ve missed this.” Francisco’s voice lowers to a soft plea. “I thought for a while that you were terribly angry with me. But I couldn’t really imagine that. Was I wrong?”
Thomás feels the first of the useless scraps of armor he’s tried to build up around himself fall away. He puts his fingers into his brother’s soft hair and tilts his face up. He’s already denied himself enough for a lifetime, and so he leans in and presses his lips to Francisco’s. His kiss lingers perhaps longer than was necessary, but Thomás is giving himself a birthday present, so he forgives that bit of selfishness. He pulls back and fits his nose in the space beside Francisco’s.
“No, Curro, no. I wasn’t mad at you. I just… you had Ana. I didn’t want to… uh, interrupt.”
Francisco stills on top of him. “You didn’t want to interrupt what? Tom, we broke up weeks ago. I’ve been trying to tell you.” Francisco barks out a laugh. “For this you stayed away?”
Thomás chokes on his own laughter, which is driven by equal parts disbelief and mild hysteria. He could have had his Curro back weeks ago. He tries not to think about it. Instead, he grips tighter.
Francisco squirms happily in the embrace, rubbing himself all over Thomás. They both sigh happily and it ends in a very soft moan. They both ignore it. It’s to be expected after so much time apart. To be with each other like this is nothing short of rhapsody and it’s not as if they’ve been indulging themselves as of late. Francisco is still laughing softly, Thomás can feel it echoing in his chest.
“What’s so funny?”
“You. Your absurdity.”
“What?”
“Interrupt.” Francisco says the word with no small amount of smug relish, they same way he did when Thomás named the dog Basta. Fond and yet totally confident in his supreme grasp of the precise way in which his little brother was being a doofus this time around. “As if you even could.”
“I… I could have!” Thomás protests.
“How, when you are a part of me? I can’t interrupt myself and you can’t intrude on me.” Francisco kisses Thomás’ neck with unfettered reverence. “Now, stop being ridiculous, Tom Tom.”
Thomás feels a cool balm spread and bubble thick inside the part of him that had been chafing at being kept apart from Francisco, self imposed as it clearly was. His hands slide from Francisco’s hair to both sides of his face as he took another kiss for himself.
Francisco kisses back, though. New. He bends and twists his body on top of Thomás’ as he kisses him. Thomás knows that it’s about feeling close to each other, about regaining or rebuilding that connection. But it feels so amazing. It feels like a thousand things he can barely put labels on and twice as many that he won’t even try to name. His legs are spread and welcoming, his lips are tingling. His skin and muscles and bones all feel pulled toward Francisco in unique and blissful ways. He is so, so very hard.
Francisco, on top of him, is lost in kissing, not entirely conscious of his hips moving slowly and rhythmically into Thomás’. They’re both straining against their zippers, panting and sighing into each other’s mouths. Either Thomás shifts or Francisco rearranges himself, but their cocks slide together sharp and sweet and perfect between their jeans. They groan loudly in the relative quiet of the empty house. That barrier broken, they stare at each other for a moment.
Francisco leans down and bites his brother’s lip, small as markings go, but enough to start Thomás’ hips moving in earnest. They both undo the button on the other’s jeans with eyes locked. Francisco pushes the faded jeans down Thomás’ legs and wiggles down his own quickly. Through their thin briefs, they can feel each other’s heat. Thomás whines high in his throat and hears himself whisper “Please, please, please.”
Francisco moves on top of him faster and harder and Thomás almost feels himself coming unglued. Francisco pumps his hips and that spark hot friction makes Thomás respond in turn. Their arms wrap around each other tightly.
“I love you.” Thomás mutters, searing kisses into the place where Francisco’s neck meets his jaw. “I love you, Curro.”
He knows that he’s going to come soon, he’s made himself come before in the shower and in his bed sometimes at night. But this isn’t his hand by himself, this is Francisco grinding against him, pushing with his hips and hands and mouth to make him come. Thomás moans. He feels it building higher and higher, feels his stomach clench up and his cock throb hard. He feels himself give up all that half-assed armor against his brother. He doesn’t say You are my calendar of days, every moment I am is yours. He just gives it to Francisco as best he can in moans and kisses and movement.
When he lets it all go, moans “Francisco,” needy and wanting, he comes so hard that his vision goes blurry and his throat feels horse with yelling.
He watches Francisco’s face as he comes a minute later, funny in its contortion. Thomás laughs at him, but fondly. When they’ve stripped the rest of the clothes, changed underwear and returned to each other, still post-coital, and rearranged themselves with Francisco’s head on Thomás’ chest, they don’t speak much.
When Francisco says “I have so many books I want you to read, Tom Tom.” Thomás is too tired to answer. He doesn’t say I have so many whispers I want to give to the shell of your ear because he’s sleepy and now he can settle for doing it.
Thus ends their moronic phase.
True love starts then, in this unconditional giving.
When Thomás goes to Russia, Francisco is at a complete loss. That’s to be expected. Their balance (previously preserved almost perfectly since Thomás was born) is tipped and thrown off. What is somewhat unexpected is his urge to go out and get someone. Not someone new. Not someone who isn’t Thomás. Francisco, once he had Thomás that way, has never wanted anyone other than Tom Tom.
But, Thomás has instilled in him the habit to take what he wants when he wants it. Thomás giving freely is an accepted fact for Francisco. He doesn’t realize the scope of just how much he’s in the habit of taking until Thomás is no longer the source. He tries to explain this to Alexandre over coffee, but fails miserably. He gets as far as “I miss him” before he loses words for what it is that his body, and his heart too, does now without consulting his mind.
He goes out on the prowl, trying gay clubs first to no avail. The ones he goes to are purely about sex. There is no chase, no opportunity to slowly drag out what he wants; made all the more complicated by the fact that Francisco hardly knows what he wants. He tries straight dance clubs next, and those are more successful. The pull is longer, more drawn out. He can back away at the very last minute and go home having done something in the face of all his wide, static loneliness.
Sometimes when he drinks, his equilibrium returns. His lowered inhibitions are an excuse to smile big and wide and be goofy in love with Thomás. He enjoys talking about his love with the people he meets. They smile indulgently and write it off as drunken exuberance. It’s acceptable, then. But he takes too much with that one girl, the lovely one with the dark hair and bright smile. She comes back to their house, his and Thomás’ house. She drinks with him and crawls between his arms and gives him her lips on his. She tastes wonderful, she smells good, and she feels entirely out of place on top of him.
He can’t take what he needs from her. He holds her like he might Thomás and she doesn’t like it. When he realizes that he can’t give her what he would give Thomás, he knows that the game is truly over. She leaves and he stares at his ring and twists it around his finger while he finishes both their martinis. Francisco stays up far later than he should coming to terms with what he’s been struggling with this entire time.
That taking is just the flipside of giving.
That you cannot play for keeps if blood is never drawn.
That it’s impossible to truly own someone unless you belong in equal measure to them.
That he has a year’s worth of love stored up and he can give it only to the one who needs it, to Thomás. He hops a plane the next day.
Personal life is only worth it when you believe.
Years later, when Ivan has found out… after, of course, he falls out of touch for a while, Ivan takes Thomás out to lunch while Francisco is at work. He looks nervous. Over pastries Ivan plucks up the courage to dance around the question of how they came to be as they are.
Thomás finds that he rarely has to actually think about the origins of this part of himself. So he does Ivan the courtesy of really tracing it back. It was not after his mother’s funeral, and it was not that night he turned sixteen; those had been nights of revelation between them, but neither the beginning of their bond. He supposes if Ivan is asking for the first moment of true clarity between them, in regards to their feelings for each other, it must have been when Francisco broke his leg. It must have been lying in bed beside him and hearing his heart beat, muffled and sure and strong, in his chest.
Thomás remembers fearing so thoroughly that Francisco would be taken from him, altered in some way unfathomable. Made incomprehensible to him. Impossible, he knows now, but these things take on whole alternate universes at such a tender age.
He remembers sitting on the cot nearby, his brow contracted in one tense muscle, feeling the worry spike inside his veins. He has the memory of his tiny hands leaving sweaty fingerprints on the sterile, clean metal; of lifting his mother’s stethoscope for no real reason, only that it was something of hers and would give him comfort when she had to leave the room. He recalls with perfect clarity lying down next to Francisco and telling him what his fears were. He also remembers the way Francisco only smiled, and pulled him in to listen to his heart for himself.
Francisco taught him then to listen to what he knows, not what he fears, and to believe in it. For his first lesson, there are many times that he forgets it, in crucial moments even. But part of the balance of belonging to someone, and especially someone like Francisco, is that the reminder was in his skin, in his hair, in his scent, in his lingering and nearly ever-present touch. And to be near him is to believe in what Thomás knows, and not in what he fears. That lesson is branded into him every morning and every night. Learning it every time anew is no less exquisite than the first.
Ivan seems unnerved to hear this, but not surprised.
It was like that for me and Francisco.
Francisco likes telling the story of Thomás and his teacher. He has told all their family, all his work colleagues, all of their mutual friends and certainly all the men that Thomás has trained with over the years. He finds sneaky little ways of bringing it up. If they’re talking about education it’s practically a given. Thomás reacts the same every time. The audiences have reactions that range from fond, to confused, to terribly awkward. Francisco doesn’t care. He loves it.
And he loves the story, because of its absurdity. Because anyone who hears that story looks at how embarrassed Thomás gets and knows why. It’s written all over his beautiful face. He’s embarrassed to have thought, even for a moment, even at such a young age, that he could ever love anyone who was not Francisco. Thomás has of course more than made up for his singular moment of doubt in all their time together.
He never questions Francisco’s brief girlfriend in their younger school days. He doesn’t bring up Francisco’s indiscretion with the brunette from the club (which he confessed to mere days after arriving in Russia). That’s because it’s Thomás’ job to believe in them, and he does it as beautifully as he swims. Francisco has faith in Thomás’ faith. When they’re together, that’s really all he needs.