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Coming in from the pearlescent winter outdoors, Tarrou’s brows raise in gentle recognition. The light coming in reflects the street lamps’; still half an hour before they turn off the lights. The office is stenched in drugs and damp cloth, though by this point he's grown used to the scent, and doctor Rieux is sitting at Tarrou's desk. Any thought of rest buried under medical records.
He kicks the snow off his boots, discarding the jacket and hanging it up on a wooden hook.
“There you are! …Have you been here all day between shifts at the ward?”
“Tarrou,” The doctor clears his throat, “go home without me tonight. I still have paperwork; busy day, this one.”
His tone’s light, laced with a tease:
“Ah, but I shan't drink these all by myself, doctor.”
Rieux hums, eyes snapping upwards to regard Tarrou, who'd been smiling all the while, grin only widening once Rieux looks–two bottles of wine in hand.
“I… indeed, wouldn't assume you of gluttony. But where did you get wine? Don't tell me Cottard indulged in one of his… performances of kinship, again.”
The stocks have been low, bars resorting to diluting alcohol, common folk desperates to fill their basements with gallons of fermented grape juice. Cottard, however, otherwise wrapped up in selling inferior liquor and poorly rolled cigarettes, has some goods stashed away. For what he calls desperate times – that is, to be in someone's good books. With Tarrou it renders easy; he adores a good book.
He gestures vaguely with his free wrist. “Connections, you see. Many friends in many crevices of town.”
Rieux has already put his pen down.
“It's a poor choice.”
“Not very much so,” Tarrou quips, pointingly dismissive of the doctor's intention. “Quite costly, in fact. Is white or red of your preference?”
He scratches the side of his neck, considering. “White. Though I can't allow myself to put the work away for a later hour. I need hardly tell you that the plague does not anyhow aim to be convenient.”
“You could come back to sorting through these,” Tarrou tilts a paper by its edge to have a better look: some man, in his prime really, reported dead despite marvelous health. In such times the unexpected has become expected. “But only once we’re done having a drink.”
And Rieux's will has succumbed in many instances, each one planting a seed of shame in his chest, but this one… he can't think of it as shameful – self-indulgent as it is – to share a moment with Tarrou.
“Tempting a helpless man such as I, what has happened to your rhetoric?" he asks, already standing up.
“Many-a-saints have strayed from the path once. Indulgence in pleasure is a comfortable excuse, don't you think?”
They end up resting on the floor just so they can sit next to one another.
It begins with taking tentative swings from respective bottles, then exchanging, critiquing and praising the liquor as if they're in any position to judge. The wine gets the job done: their bodies feel warm and flushed, in contrast to the chilly weather outside.
Rieux notices, dully, how even the faintest tick of the clock’s blurred in favor of sharp focus on Tarrou's frame draped against the wall.
“You a lightweight, doctor?”
Rieux flexes his tongue in his mouth before he is confident words can be formed, and even then he elongates his vowels unnaturally.
“I haven't drank much since… university. It's only fair I'm out of shape.”
Tarrou makes a faint whistling sound with his lips, it lazily turns to a chuckle.
“You're laughing,” Rieux deadpans, “at me?”
“You amuse me. I really enjoy you.”
His poise stutters.
“Were you a party-goer? Wouldn't assume you as the type.”
“You'd assume correctly. Lots of reading, is what I recall from those days. Always proving I deserved the spot. Always doing too little…” he trailed off. “Feels as if all my efforts are futile, though in the grand scheme of things, hopefully they are not so. Even though that is rather abstract of a wish to make.”
“Don't be absurd; you're worked off your feet. Let us celebrate, if only for an evening.”
The bewilderment on Rieux's face’s indescribable. What possibly is there to celebrate, in the midst of suffering and struggle?
He voices the concern: “Celebrate?”
Tarrou lightly clanks his bottle against the one in Rieux's grasp.
“To friendship.”
He shifts closer, close enough that their knees knock. None of them budge.
The liquid in their bottles goes down. Tarrou continues softly giggling through it. That is what he aimed for: a nice, slow night where the morning doesn't feel like impending doom. They converse, and he stashes the information away somewhere safe, nagging himself to remember despite fog surrounding coherent thought.
“Not a gross choice, I agree,” Rieux says a little bluntly, when Tarrou goes on about good liquor, how this might be one of his favorites. “Tasted much worse.”
“I’d say… cheap beer in Hungary was the worst. I appreciate the cuisine, but their alcohol–” He gestures unceremoniously. “It led people, hotheaded people, to awful things. Though I suppose any alcohol can cause such.”
“Then you have not been a young fellow in Oran. You’ve no idea what nasty liquor... The lengths some would go to in order to get their hands on it…”
“Would you? Were you a rebel, Rieux?”
“Me? Not really, no.”
Tarrou nods solemnly. “Making up for it now.”
He begins pondering, quietly, if what they have now is enough for all they've lost. Years of the doctor's life Tarrou has not seen and will not ever get to witness, almost akin to fairy tales. Rieux replies something slurry; it does not reach Tarrou, not where he's wandered. Mistaking proximity for connection – is that what they have been doing? Clutching onto one another. Makeshift anchors. They'd both sink.
Tarrou blurts out: “Do you truly want this? This friendship?”
He blinks at him, dumbfounded. “Why wouldn't I?’
“Ah, merely wondering… upon different circumstances, if it would still blossom.”
“You've become far more than a coworker to me, Tarrou. No one compares,” Rieux confesses, the tips of his ears going pink. “I doubt I could imagine a post-plague Oran without you.”
Tarrou tilts his head so it rests on Rieux's shoulder and smiles, regardless of Rieux not being able to see. They stay like this, shoulders relaxing and feeling the other's chest rise.
“I always thought of drunks as incredulous, but my mind feels lightened and weighted concurrently,” he says, “and even then, it's a nice weight. Perhaps this is one way, a primitive one, of achieving peacefulness.”
“Through getting drunk out of your mind, is what you're saying?” Rieux grins wryly, rubbing at his eyes to try and return his vision to normal.
“Intoxication has been historically recorded in many rituals. The scholars, or the worshippers for that matter, might have been right, that's my point.”
Rieux cannot argue, when the warm liquor embraces him, burning down his throat; the pressure reminds him of their sea-bathing, the vast black waves holding them in its capture until the coldness turns to a pleasurable lukewarm. This abstraction they'd found themselves in, violent break from reality in a bubble of brutality raining down from heavens above. With Tarrou here, heaving slow breaths and looking at him contentedly, no storm seems frightening. It scares Rieux how easily he slips into distraction.
But then Tarrou turns, and is brushing the hair away from Rieux’s forehead. It has unusual length and falls awkwardly, he’s never kept it quite this long.
“Your eyes,” he says.
“My eyes?...”
Black dilated pupils like a water’s reflection nearly completely obscured the otherwise warm brown iris. Tarrou's always adored them, adored the crown of lashes around them, but to take a moment and truly appreciate… It felt entirely too deplorable to include amongst the plethora of details in his journal pages.
“You've got them from your mother; they're beautiful,” he quite ordinarily says.
Rieux's throat goes dry. He croaks out a broken thank you.
“How far do you think,” Tarrou pauses, gaze rigid all over Rieux’s face. “How far, do you think, a heart rate can leap until a saint gets taken away with it–up and above?”
He winces. His friend all of a sudden seems pale despite wine-drunk blush across cheekbones.
“Feeling uneasy, are you?”
Tarrou smiles, tells him not to worry.
“Nervous, is all.”
His trembling fingers take the doctor’s calloused hand and press it flat below his throat. It jogs an irregular pattern, like an animal trying and failing to flee from the inevitable caught, drumming against Rieux’s fingertips. He stares back up at him, a serene expression. Inviting, welcoming.
“Calm me, yes?” Tarrou prompts softly.
And Rieux is a devoted man, an obedient one.
“Yes,” he replies, absent-minded, leaning down to taste the wine off of Tarrou’s lips.
It's not perfect by any means, completely misses its mark and their noses bump, teeth clank. It's clumsy. A warmth sprouts between them both anyway. Over sooner than it began. Rieux moves back, only the tiniest bit to let each other breathe.
A quick press is all it has been yet Tarrou stares at him with gray eyes like stars – fallen, already gone, already plummeted headfirst.
And Rieux whispers against Tarrou's lips: “This isn't… Tarrou, we…”
“No, no, wait–” he stammers, “Come back?”
He does. He returns for another kiss, delicate, a slow secret shared between. Eyelashes fluttering, Tarrou's hand slowly raises to tenderly cup the side of Rieux's jaw. The stubble there scratches at his palm.
An uprush of an emotion, half-stagnant and swapped for a foggy lethargy, comes over Rieux.
Where his hand lies over Tarrou's heart, he can feel the beat pick up and the sharp rise of his chest as he struggles to calculate when to resurface for breath. Rieux wishes there was not any material in the way of his palm and the sharp pulse. So he goes to adjust that.
He's unbuttoning the man's shirt, and Tarrou, experimentally, swipes his tongue over Rieux's bottom lip, satisfaction sparking as his composure stumbles. His lips part beautifully, but Tarrou simply kisses the corner of them, relishing in the softness.
Hands everywhere, Tarrou feels Rieux's hands everywhere, below his collarbone and around his waist.
He's everywhere, and Tarrou can't get enough.
Rubbing circles where his throat bobbles, pulse furnace-hot and loud in Rieux's ears. He runs tentative fingers through dark hair, and Rieux really, truly yearns he'd get a solid grab already. Ground him with a pull, if he must, just get on with it.
Rieux kisses like he's starving, going impossibly further, desperate to drink up as much of Tarrou as he allows.
Tarrou breathes in through his nose, quick and keen to not leave the other waiting. The doctor's cologne melts into the static around them, warm and humming, breaths mingling. He's mulled over this before – Query: How contrive not to waste one's time? Answer: By being fully aware of it all the while. – and right then, Tarrou has never before been so aware of his body. Where his skin grazes Rieux's, their mouths locking together again and again, finding a rhythm.
Rieux, also, has a body, burdened with duties far too big for a man to handle, yet he perseveres – but the doctor's sense of justice, as warm as it gets Tarrou to think about, isn't all that's offered. He is strong arms and toned legs and arching into the touch where Tarrou's hand finds uncovered skin. And all of it is capable of grabbing him and turning them over so Tarrou would be the one under with little to no struggle; he nearly shivers as it merely passes his consciousness.
They've got these fragile vessels, and a world entirely outside of them that seems like it might end any moment, a ticking bomb with a timer restarting everyday. The awareness of how improper this gets would've stopped them, except Tarrou and Rieux have expanded further. Not only limbs tangling, but their essences, something otherworldly. Tarrou wants to hold Rieux's soul, compare it to his own, let both combine, flourish. Or so he ponders.
His breath catches on the next kiss. The room swims with it, Tarrou nearly topples over. He steadies himself by gripping at Rieux's arm. Then, his hands slither further, to the soft patch of overgrown hair on the nape of the doctor’s neck.
He is thinner than Rieux recalled, the image of Tarrou from before the plague momentarily burns in the back of his eyelids. Surging in for more, as if trying to get time back, the hand on Tarrou's back brings him closer.
A lewd, thick whimper fills the gap between them. Sweat forms on Rieux's forehead. Suddenly burning all over.
“Not very saintly, now…” he growls, a low register.
Tarrou gasps, an unexpected taunt–then giggles, warm breath slipping past Rieux's lips and down his cheek, then below his jaw, leaving small pecks behind.
“Your pulse,” Tarrou murmurs. His voice rings in the doctor's ears like a church's bells’ toll. “You must be unwell, doctor. It's racing.”
Before Rieux can reply, his thoughts get interrupted by a short-circuit. Tarrou presses a wet kiss above the furious vein, licking. His head flies back, slamming against the wall, as he fists Tarrou's shirt–and a thigh lands between his legs. He bucks into it before he can consider what he's doing, coming to a sudden halt when he realizes.
“Oh,” Tarrou gasps softly. “Oh, Rieux.”
Rieux gulps. A silent second stretches; he cracks an eyelid open. Tarrou looks dazed, drunk on something other than the wine.
“Let me take care of you, alright?”
He moves his knee so he can freely fiddle with the zip of Rieux's trousers–
He questions him with a raised brow.
“Is this all right, doctor?”
“Yes,” he utters, throat closing around the cue; it comes out much quieter than he wants it to be, but it makes do.
–Once pulled down, Tarrou traces, light as a feather, barely even a brush of fingers, the bulge through boxers. It strains against the sheer fabric. He peers from under a dark gaze at the doctor; Rieux shudders deliciously.
“Well,” Tarrou begins, “someone got excited.”
Rieux’s mouth opens, but all that comes out is a weak noise of defeat. Tarrou watches a tendon jump at his neck. He glances down, notices how Rieux’s skin must be flushed far below the hem of his shirt.
“I could help.”
He nods eagerly at the suggestion. Tarrou tries not to laugh, though a giggle slips anyway. Rieux lifts himself up so the pants come off alongside boxers, leaving him exposed, vulnerable.
Tarrou can't stop staring.
Rieux's cheeks scorch, first drops of slick sweat appearing at his forehead. Tarrou sits between his legs, lodging his knees under Rieux's own. His thighs spread wide until the sole of his shoe hits the desk with a dull thud, giving Tarrou full access, and he makes the most of it.
He begins moving in a rhythm of slowness that renders nearly painful, relishing in each jerk Rieux's body gives when his fingers venture to particularly sweet spots.
The wine makes seconds stretch like hours, or maybe Tarrou purposefully prolongs it. He swipes a thumb over the slit, gathering pre-cum so his hand can slide comfortably. That is, until he takes his glorious fingers away.
He's about to question it, but then something's circling his opening – and pushing in.
“Tarrou–!”
Rieux wants to scream. Instead he puts a hand over his mouth, biting down where the flesh thickens. Tarrou frowns and smacks it away, his finger relentlessly pushing in and out. That same hand goes to wrap around his length, Tarrou now fully occupied. Rieux needs him deeper, he thinks drunkenly, and tries his best to make the sober self speak.
“Tarrou, there's–oh, people in the building, still–there are…”
He counters. “But I wish to hear you. Talk to me, doctor.”
“Curse you calling me doctor,” Rieux warns, though with no venom to it as he writhes closer into Tarrou's palm. “as if it doesn't arouse you just to say it.”
Hot breath against Rieux's ear now, he’s leaning forward. “Be nice, or else I won't be.”
Teeth finding themselves a nice spot at Rieux's throat, sucking and biting – and Rieux makes such a pretty noise Tarrou could bottle it. Torn between hoping it carries down the corridor so everyone knows, and having it only to himself.
“You bit me,” he rasps out, but it becomes an elongated moan when Tarrou thumbs the leaking head. Circling, circling… and lodges in a second finger.
Rieux, all senses forgotten, thrusts into Tarrou's grip messily, all uneven stammers. Tarrou helps. He speeds up, going up and down again, until Rieux is muttering swears under his breath and holding Tarrou flush and close. His index just about brushes against Rieux's prostate; he whines, because yes, gosh, finally. It's good, so, so good and all words get clogged at the back of his throat as something hot twists in the low of his stomach, so close, and so good.
And then, Tarrou stops, pulls away.
“Why–” Rieux nearly sobs. “I was– Tarrou…”
“You were what?”
“I–” his mouth clasps. He opens it, struggles for any decent wording. “I was… close.”
“Close,” Tarrou parrots, tasting the word, grimacing like it's bitter.
“Need you,” Rieux explains further, trembling from the inside out. “Need your hands, your touch. Please, let me. Have me.”
“Have you?”
“Anyway you want, Tarrou.”
He hums, Rieux's pleadings a melody he has strung. The corners of his lips lift, and with it a hand sneaks up Rieux's thigh again.
It's even better somehow, long unfaltering caresses, going slow–like he's studying Rieux, anticipating each twitch of muscle.
Once he's sated with the pretty picture, Tarrou endures in adoring the other's neck, sucking red marks between shy brushes of teeth. He mouths at Rieux's earlobe, whispers praise between puffs of hot breath.
When a third finger joins the rest, Rieux helplessly thrusts forward. It's obscene, the combination of his moans and the wet slide of Tarrou's digits inside and around him. He could faint, he realizes somewhere at the back of his mind, from how hot he feels.
He nearly yelps when his prostate gets what little stimulation it can, going to chase that high.
Tarrou's hands halt, and Rieux swallows a whine, salt pooling in his eyes and streaking down his cheeks.
“Oh, my sweet,” Tarrou coos at him, amusement dancing in his gaze. “You really need it, don't you?”
Rieux nods. He's panting, stubbornly staring somewhere over the other's shoulder to try and dismiss how raw he feels, how much he aches for release.
Tarrou wipes his hand on his pants, raises it to wipe the tears from Rieux's face, and goodness gracious, he's glowing, so pretty and his, only Tarrou's, in that stuffy room, not belonging to the plague or anyone else. Not a doctor, just a man, unraveling beneath Tarrou's touch.
The lamp at his desk basks Rieux in a half-light, one side warm glow, the other gray shadow. His hair's a mess, sticking to his forehead, and his lips swollen in rawness. Tarrou watches him, eyes turning darker, or maybe it's just the lighting. He watches the curve of Rieux's clavicle, how his jaw cuts a sharp line and how all of the exposed skin has been played with.
He smiles. Rieux shivers under him, makes a small pleading noise like he's lost language.
“I want you to observe yourself come undone for me–” He gently guides the doctor's chin so his fuzzy eyes can dip down, and–he’s a starking, burning red in comparison to Tarrou's pale fingers, which the man wraps around the length once more.
“–on my tongue.”
Tarrou dips down to elbows on the floor, and makes good on his promise: a quick, wet lick to Rieux's slit before swallowing the head.
He feels empty, but not for long, because Tarrou is efficient. Delicious pressure builds up in the low of Rieux's stomach, a reward he's been begging for.
He fights against the instinct to buck into Tarrou's pink, hot lips. He imagines it, imagines him choking on the length, of the hot cum dripping down his chin. His hips awkwardly jerk upwards; Tarrou slides a wet stripe up the underside.
Gray eyes look up at Rieux’s focused expression.
“Oh,” he breathes, impossibly hot against Rieux's skin. “You're holding back. Why are you holding back?”
“Don't want you to stop.”
Tarrou expression is fond, almost lovestruck. He kisses and sucks on the side of Rieux's length tenderly, marvelling in the sight of precum leaking down.
“I won't choke,” he says, and then: “I want to have you, all the way.”
He goes to stroke with one hand, twisting just right so Rieux can't help but jolt up, and takes it back into his mouth. It is odd, but also good, Tarrou decides, tongue swirling around the girth. His head goes fuzzy, though that appears all right, too. He likes it, knowing Rieux is pleased because of him.
Rieux whimpers, trembling fingers travelling to Tarrou's hair and he hums contentedly. His hips start moving nearly on their own, grinding into the deep warm of Tarrou's taking throat. He makes a small gagging noise–but doesn't flinch, no, only takes it in further. Rieux groans, fingers gripping at the tuft of mousey hair. Tarrou sees bright dots, mouth going slack, tongue rolling out.
“Jean,” he murmurs frenziedly, “Jean, Jean.”
Tarrou feels as the soft locks at the base of Rieux's shaft tickle his nose, as the doctor's grip loosens and how unstable each thrust becomes. He returns to taking the length up and down, sliding fingers in and out.
It doesn't take much.
He sucks–and his vision goes bright. Rieux groans over him, slides into the heat. He clenches around Tarrou's fingers.
Hot, liquid pressure paints the back of his throat white. Tarrou's own stomach flutters. He swallows to his best attempt, though when he moves away there's sticky droplets spilling from the corner of his lips.
A sigh escapes Rieux, fingers fidgeting uselessly where they lay by his sides, untangled from Tarrou's hair now.
Tarrou's head drops to rest on top of Rieux's thigh. He heaves deep breaths, but his used mouth stretches in a self-satisfied grin. He feels the doctor's thumb wipe away at his lips.
“Wonderful,” Rieux says. Tarrou feels something within him tug. “Come here?”
He raises to his knees with a grunt, lips meeting Rieux's lazily. Rieux embraces him, soothing hands running down his back, massaging. Tarrou laughs, short and honey-sweet, going to mouth at Rieux's neck for one final encore.
He moves to straddle Rieux's thigh, hissing when his crotch slumps.
It takes a second for Rieux to catch up in the post-pleasure haze. His palms slither down to Tarrou's waist, squeezing to avert his attention.
“Hm?”
“Move your hips for me, love.”
A small, calling pulse in the low of Tarrou's stomach betrays him.
He emerges from Rieux's neck with a wet pop, a string of saliva trailing after. Uncertain, he considers it with furrowed brows, before balancing on the soles of his feet. He inches forward–
“Ah, ah…”
He drops an elbow against the wall, to the side of Rieux's cheek. He's flushed from the request and want both, eyelashes wet. The doctor’s own anticipation twitches, though spent.
“Are you certain? Rieux, I don't need to…”
“I want you to.”
Tarrou's certain, he could ruin his trousers instantly if Rieux kept on talking, no friction needed. Therefore he backtracks instead, sighing as the ache between his legs gets a little tending to.
Rieux watches, mouth agape.
“Would you like to undress?”
He can't–handle the roughness of Rieux's voice, the echo of his needy noises etched between them; Tarrou shakes his head heatedly, holding onto Rieux tighter. He can't, doesn't want to decide, or wonder anything at all. So he simply starts moving to quiet what's creeping up: clarity, dread.
Going up again, then down–it’s tiresome and his thighs start to hurt where the muscles clench.
“Shall I guide you?”
Hesitantly, Tarrou agrees. Rieux's fingers hook the man's belt loops. His own land on the doctor's shoulders.
He rolls his hips how Rieux lets him, slow and firm. The alcohol coursing through his veins makes him wobbly. His gut twists with need, it hurts.
Throbbing, he focuses on inhaling, then exhaling, and tells himself this is ridiculous. He’s riding Rieux’s thigh, and is decidedly getting too worked-up at the realization. Grinding down, whimpering like he's a virgin, seventeen again, humping a pillow to achieve a little release.
Rieux secures his hold on Tarrou's waist, has him go faster.
“Go on. Speak up, tell me your thoughts.”
“I'm–” Tarrou hesitates, “I'm trying to–is this all right? Want you to… to tell me…”
“You're doing so well for me,” Rieux says, like it's obvious. “So good.”
Tarrou's seeing stars again, his skin tingling.
“Yes, yes, oh my–”
Trembling, he dully registers how Rieux can probably feel it. Gooseflesh runs up his forearms. His fists clench; gravity pulls down on him, makes him heavy, all movement feeling too slow. He slumps, sliding feverishly to show just how good he can behave.
“I've got you. That's it, that's my Jean.”
He's tugging at Rieux's hair. Rieux's nose is pressed to his cheekbone; he can hear him panting, swallowing roughly when Tarrou grinds down.
He babbles, “Rieux, Rieux…”
“Just like that,” he affirms, noticing how Tarrou’s forehead scrunches. “Getting there?”
A buzz is all he can hear, that and a faint ringing at the back of his skull. Tears well under his shut eyelids, swallowing the saliva that collected in his mouth, or maybe it's how he's drenched in sweat, but waves of unwavering humming engulf him just like when they went swimming, how his ears clogged with water, body moving to survive – now, too, he moves like he needs it to live. And he starts talking, desperate to stay coherent even as his mind fails him.
“Should've taken you–oh, oh goodness–somewhere…” He loses the point, eyes glossing over. “Somewhere more… suitable… comfortable. A–bed, or… ah, even the car…”
“We'd get the seats dirty,” Rieux reasons. “Had you come in with the intent for this, then?”
Tarrou grunts at the image, then at the insinuation of letting himself indulge in lusting prior. “No. Wish I had.”
They kiss like death's knocking at the door and they're trying to catch up, to steal one more hour, one last moment to something blissful and true and a little guilty.
“Tell me to stop,” Tarrou gasps, grinding harder.
“Don't,” Rieux supplies, “you’re doing so well, now.”
He sulks his head into the dip between Rieux's neck and shoulder, entrapping the whine at the back of his throat. And he's thinking, wondering if his journal would be tainted by the description of something so lewd – but it's the best feeling he's ever experienced, this euphoria, when his hips buckle down.
“You always do, Jean. I notice how you unburden me to your best abilities. So kind, so good for me. Like that, keep it steady.”
He's lost it now, limbs feeling like sand and every movement too much and too little at once. Thump, thump, thump inside his chest threatens to burst. He needs to crawl inside the heat between his legs, needs Rieux to tell him this isn't wrong.
It's all body, but the soul is there in how they move in unison. Tarrou could fly, possibly, from the elevated state of consciousness he's entering. He does not, because doesn't want to depart from Rieux.
He's almost there, getting close, so close it aches, and he's going to come and wants to tell Rieux, but there's no point – Rieux knows, he tells him to, wants him to, and oh, goodness, he's moaning, rubbing harder, faster.
Tarrou's breath comes shallow, hips stuttering and a guttural sound escaping him – and then he lets go. A serene expression returns to clothe his features. He moves forward, then back, few more times, each one accompanied by a low whimper. His eyes stay shut, sweat has plastered hair to his forehead.
“There,” Rieux kisses where his jaw meets throat. “So good.”
“Bernard.”
He nuzzles Tarrou's cheek. “Yes?”
“Wait, I…” he breathes, making space between them to look at him. Rieux's disheveled and beautiful. “I should've asked sooner. It is not something you'll regret, is it? Once we sober up?”
“Never.” He leaves a small peck on Tarrou's cheek, chaste and sweet.
“All right.” Tarrou sighs, slides off him, bones made of cotton. “All right. Me neither.”