Fic: It's Always a Gamble
Title: It's Always a Gamble
Rating: PG13
Genre: AU. Significantly so.
Pairings or Characters: Peter/Claude
Warnings: Kind of angsty. Slash, lightly implied sex. Shameless ripping off of a certain movie. I don't even know.
A/N: Written for the "Occupation" challenge over at heroes_contest, expanded upon from an old 10 word fic. Also, what the hell is with me and Paris lately?
Summary: Paris, 1940: Claude wore blue, and Peter waited in the rain.
The first time is a mistake.
They’re desperate, they’re lonely, Peter’s drunk and Claude’s…Claude’s a whole host of motivations and desires and world views that Peter has neither the time nor the energy to work through. He’s just about convinced himself of that when there’s a second time.
By then he can’t really lie to himself anymore. Can’t deny that there’s women a plenty and not just for cash, just for something to cling to a little longer. Can’t deny that he hasn’t chosen women, he’s chosen Claude, he’s sought the man out and, well, at least Claude doesn’t ask him to. To deny anything. To say anything.
It’d never…he’d never…been like that at home. But it’s all right, it’s the war, the war makes all sorts of things normal, makes normal irrelevant and it doesn’t matter that he’s not a soldier, doesn’t matter that neither of them are (although he can’t really be sure about Claude, can’t ever be sure about anything), it’s a pervasive miasma of relative morality contaminating the Western world, or so he's read.
And then there’s a third time, and Peter stops counting, stops justifying.
Because it’s just what is. The world falling apart around them, his dispatches getting shorter every day, locations and grim adjectives. Claude disappearing more often, for longer.
Returning tense and uneasy and Peter wonders, a little, but doesn’t ask and Claude doesn’t tell, because the time not spent anticipating is spent remembering that it’s May.
May and the unease rippling through the city like a breeze from the north can’t stop that, can’t stop sun-warmed walls being the best places to get pushed against, can’t stop the world and the war and everything that isn’t them from disappearing among the trees at le Jardin du Luxembourg.
And then it’s June and it’s not so much a breeze anymore as a gale, gusting newspapers with harsh type around increasingly empty streets. His landlady kicks him out in June, the Italian passport he’d been using no longer offering much security. At least not here. At least not now.
It doesn’t matter. June is blue.
The shade in Claude’s apartment making it heaven when the blinds are up, the sea when they’re down and it’s night. The hue of the shirt he spills champagne on, gone darker where it clings to Claude’s chest, darker still when it’s discarded onto wooden floors.
Blue in a world that’s increasingly grey.
The smoke from the train is grey. The clouds are. Won’t be for long, at the rate the rain’s coming down. The skies’ll be blue again soon, he's sure. He’s just not as sure he’ll still be there to see them.
He was getting out, Claude said. Trains would be crowded, but it’d be easier with two.
Peter had smiled, pretended that made sense, bought his ticket. Gotten there on time. Gotten the note too late.
Go on ahead. I’ll catch up when I can.
Simple words, black on white, blurring to grey.
*
And there is a sequel.
Rating: PG13
Genre: AU. Significantly so.
Pairings or Characters: Peter/Claude
Warnings: Kind of angsty. Slash, lightly implied sex. Shameless ripping off of a certain movie. I don't even know.
A/N: Written for the "Occupation" challenge over at heroes_contest, expanded upon from an old 10 word fic. Also, what the hell is with me and Paris lately?
Summary: Paris, 1940: Claude wore blue, and Peter waited in the rain.
The first time is a mistake.
They’re desperate, they’re lonely, Peter’s drunk and Claude’s…Claude’s a whole host of motivations and desires and world views that Peter has neither the time nor the energy to work through. He’s just about convinced himself of that when there’s a second time.
By then he can’t really lie to himself anymore. Can’t deny that there’s women a plenty and not just for cash, just for something to cling to a little longer. Can’t deny that he hasn’t chosen women, he’s chosen Claude, he’s sought the man out and, well, at least Claude doesn’t ask him to. To deny anything. To say anything.
It’d never…he’d never…been like that at home. But it’s all right, it’s the war, the war makes all sorts of things normal, makes normal irrelevant and it doesn’t matter that he’s not a soldier, doesn’t matter that neither of them are (although he can’t really be sure about Claude, can’t ever be sure about anything), it’s a pervasive miasma of relative morality contaminating the Western world, or so he's read.
And then there’s a third time, and Peter stops counting, stops justifying.
Because it’s just what is. The world falling apart around them, his dispatches getting shorter every day, locations and grim adjectives. Claude disappearing more often, for longer.
Returning tense and uneasy and Peter wonders, a little, but doesn’t ask and Claude doesn’t tell, because the time not spent anticipating is spent remembering that it’s May.
May and the unease rippling through the city like a breeze from the north can’t stop that, can’t stop sun-warmed walls being the best places to get pushed against, can’t stop the world and the war and everything that isn’t them from disappearing among the trees at le Jardin du Luxembourg.
And then it’s June and it’s not so much a breeze anymore as a gale, gusting newspapers with harsh type around increasingly empty streets. His landlady kicks him out in June, the Italian passport he’d been using no longer offering much security. At least not here. At least not now.
It doesn’t matter. June is blue.
The shade in Claude’s apartment making it heaven when the blinds are up, the sea when they’re down and it’s night. The hue of the shirt he spills champagne on, gone darker where it clings to Claude’s chest, darker still when it’s discarded onto wooden floors.
Blue in a world that’s increasingly grey.
The smoke from the train is grey. The clouds are. Won’t be for long, at the rate the rain’s coming down. The skies’ll be blue again soon, he's sure. He’s just not as sure he’ll still be there to see them.
He was getting out, Claude said. Trains would be crowded, but it’d be easier with two.
Peter had smiled, pretended that made sense, bought his ticket. Gotten there on time. Gotten the note too late.
Go on ahead. I’ll catch up when I can.
Simple words, black on white, blurring to grey.
*
And there is a sequel.