#claqueleroy

As they look at him, Fauntleroy suddenly doesn’t know what to do with themselves for the happiness swelling in their chest. They reach out, putting a hand on his back and the most wondrous thing is that he merely shifts contently and stays where he is. They no longer need to ask permission, he no longer looks at them presuming they want something when they do this. They can just touch him.

Fauntleroy runs their hand over his skin, up to the base of his neck, down to the edge of his waistband. He’s so warm. They keep lightly touching him, just because they can. By the time they’ve started to carefully trace his spine with their fingertips Sous is clearly losing interest in his game. He lets his phone slip out of his grip and slowly puts his head down, making a low sort of animal noise as he lies down flat with his arms above his head. As the muscles in his shoulders shift, Faun’s eye suddenly catches a pattern in the lines of ink on his back.

Claquesous has only two tattoos. A single letter on the sole of his right foot and a large elaborate shoulder piece. It stretches all across his shoulder blades and down his back and to Fauntleroy it has always looked like a woven structure. Like a piece of rough fabric clinging to his skin perhaps. With ragged edges. But now, turning their head, there is a pattern in the lines that does not look either regular or random. They lean a little closer fingertips grazing the spot.

“Sous?”

“Mm?”

“Can I…” They hesitate.

Claquesous turns his head to look at them. His black eyes search their face for a moment and then he smirks. “When’s the last time I told you no, Bouquetière?”

They huff softly and continue boldly: “Can I ask about your tattoo?”

His expression is neutral. “What about it?”

“Does it— Is it meant to be something?” Even with them Sous rarely shares things about his past, and he has had that tattoo for as long as they’ve known him. Longer than he’s been part of the Patron-Minette even, they believe.

He hums thoughtfully, rolling partway onto his side to look at them more fully. “What I asked for,” he says, with faint amusement around his mouth. “Is a pattern as if there is a woven fabric visible underneath my skin.”

Fauntleroy glances at the ragged edge they can see on his shoulder. They suppose that could be the ragged edge of torn skin instead of a scrap of clinging fabric. It’s not a very nice image though.

They wrinkle their nose without realising and Sous laughs softly. Fauntleroy’s eyes dart to his, caught, but they still feel that odd spark of wonder in their midriff. Hearing him laugh out loud has not yet stopped becoming a novelty.

“What made you ask?”

Fauntleroy makes a soft noise. “I thought I saw a pattern,” they answer. “In one of the…strings, I guess, one of the threads.”

Claquesous gives them an odd sort of nearly smiling look. “Mm. And did you read it?”

They blink at him. “Read it? What do you mean read it?”

He smirks. “Oh never mind, then,” he hums and moves to roll onto his back.

“No!” Fauntleroy protests and they grab him by the shoulder, trying to force him to lie back down on his stomach again so they can see.

Sous struggles, but only barely, so Fauntleroy throws in their weight. They force his shoulder back down, climbing on top of him to sit down straddling his hips, with two hands planted flat under his shoulder blades. Claquesous makes an amused, pleased sound and Fauntleroy feels a spark of heat glow on their cheeks.

“If you wanted a fight you could have asked,” they say sweetly, quickly lifting the pressure of their hands.

“Not nearly as fun,” he says unconcernedly, his voice slightly muffled by the pillow.

Fauntleroy sniffs at him and they softly stroke his skin again as they try to find the irregularity in the lines of ink that caught their eye. They don’t find it. But they find a completely different one. And then another. And another. There is a pattern of thickenings in threads of the woven fabric. Not easily seen from a distance, but this close up it’s clear that the ink is thicker in some places, the lines not as delicate. Almost as if whoever spun the thread was careless in doing it. Except… Fauntleroy traces down one horizontal ink-drawn thread with their index finger. It thickens and thins, thickens and thins.

“…is that Morse code?”

Claquesous makes an approving sound. “Guessing you don’t read it?” he hums.

“Who does?” they demand. “Why would—” Now they know what they’re looking for they can see the pattern of dots and stripes quite clearly. Scattered here and there across the strands, distributed just well enough to blend into the illusion of a woven fabric. There aren’t too many threads that have the code in it. They count no more than thirteen. Maybe fourteen. “Why did you make them put Morse code on you back?”

Claquesous folds his hands under his chin, the movements of his shoulder blades making the tattoo shift. “Because it’s the fabric of my existence.”

Fauntleroy slants their head. The fabric of his existence… “What do they say then?” they ask curiously, their fingers lingering on a cluster of dots. “There can be only a few words here.”

“Not words, dates,” he says. “I don’t really keep stuff, you know. No pictures, mementos— This is something I can’t lose.” His carefully neutral tone of voice wavers for just a second. “I had it done when I left home.”

“Oh, Sous…” Fauntleroy doesn’t quite know what to say. That’s… They smile widely and reach up to squeeze his shoulder.

He makes a half-grumbling, half-fond noise and dislodges a hand from under his chin to tap his spine at the base of his neck. “That’s my birth date.”

Fauntleroy leans in closer. “So that’s one…nine…” That’s a lot of symbols for one number. Their eyes dance over his skin, taking in pattern after pattern and in an impulse they let themself slide off Sous to grab their phone from the nightstand.

Claquesous pushes himself up to turn his head towards them. “What are you doing?”

“No,” they whine. “Keep still.” They sit back down, playfully pushing against his back. “I want to decipher them.”

“Oh I see, and I’m supposed to stay put while you learn a code that has existed for nearly two hundred years.”

“You’re the one that had someone write outdated cyphers on your back,” they chide, scrolling on their phone until they’ve found the list of numbers.

The grumbly noise he makes sounds far too much like a chuckle for them to listen to it.

“You don’t have to tell me what they belong to,” they say, teasingly dragging a finger down his spine. “But I’m gonna read them!”

They do wonder what they refer to, these dates. And also in what order they’re supposed to be. But they do feel like it might be pushing their luck to demand to know. Only, they’ve just seen something that can’t be right. They check again their finger resting under the line on his skin and their eyes darting to their screen and back again.

“This one’s from the beginning of this year?”

Sous doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t move either. They trace the line back. To the month. The day. That’s—

Fauntleroy slides off Claquesous, landing seated sideways on the mattress. “…you still add dates?”

Claquesous turns around and sits up, his hair tumbles forward in a partially dried mess. “Yeah.”

They look at him with the strangest lump in their throat. “And you added the day I asked you out?”

The softness in his eyes is masked immediately with a smirk. “I added the date you crawled into my lap and tried to kiss me.”

Their cheeks burn with heat. “Same thing!” Their heart does a wild beat. “When— when did you—?”

This time his expression is steady and warm. “When I last went home to Toulouse.”

When he last… Fauntleroy tugs at their sleeves, far too full of feelings to still know what to do with their hands. “But that’s months ago.” Their voice comes out very small. “That’s…only a month after?”

He’s smiling, they can only tell because they know what to look for, but he is. “What exactly is your point, Bouquetière?” He doesn’t even manage to keep his voice free of fondness. “As far as I’m aware dates don’t change with the passing of time.”