#crypto au

It’s not like Charles hasn’t worn a suit before.

Shit, he’d been in one the other weekend for his brother’s engagement party—all loud laughter and smiles, a big celebration of the youngest of his family getting married to the girl of his dreams the way everyone always knew he would. It had been a fun evening. Charles was comfortable, happy the whole time. He does know how to wear clothes to a party, after all, even if he does have a cohort of sleazy regulars who would probably say the opposite.

But standing here in the lobby of White Oaks Rehab, waiting on his appointment to be confirmed by the very nice lady at the front desk, he just can’t stop fidgeting with the cuffs of his shirt—like he’s at his first school dance and not a respectable adult. It’d started as a quick adjustment to his cufflinks when he’d first arrived and told the receptionist that he was a coworker of Pierre’s, but the burn of fraudulence had caught up with him quickly. There are a few other people in the waiting area with him, focused entirely on their phones or with their heads buried in the magazines left out, but Charles feels like they’re all staring at him as if they know.

Which—they can’t know, can they? That he’s not a business man, that he doesn’t work in finance, that these cufflinks are ones he’d snagged from the Lost and Found back at home base from a client who’d left them behind ages ago. He hadn’t even said anything to the receptionist to try and prove his fake identity. Yet the white walls, plain as they are, feel almost suffocating as he sits in one of the corner chairs and fiddles with his stupid shirt. (He’s glad he decided to leave the blazer where it was—it doesn’t even feel like the air conditioner is on right now, and he desperately hopes he put on enough deodorant before to avoid looking like a nervous kid swallowed up in his first suit.

“Mr. Leclerc?” The woman at the front desk calls across the room. Charles practically jumps to attention, all the nerves of this brash trip he’d successfully tamped down before now surging back. She must be able to tell—with a friendly smile, she gestures for him to approach the desk, a clipboard nestled in her free arm. “Mr. Gasly will see you now. If you’ll just sign this waiver form right here, I can take you right to him.”

He doesn’t even read what he’s signing off on before he goes for it. All he can hear is the blood rushing in his ears at the thought of this—of seeing Pierre again after weeks of being apart and thinking that this, whatever has been happening between them, had ended before Charles even knew it had begun. It’s exciting.

It’s absolutely terrifying.

The woman nods at him, smile still measured and calm like she can read all of Charles’ anxieties clear on his face, and then sets the clipboard back on the counter. “Am I going to meet him in a room?” The question bubbles out of him before he has a chance to think it through.

She laughs, soft. “Mr. Leclerc, this isn’t prison. I’ll be taking you to his room, and from there, the two of you have free reign of our entire rehabilitation campus.” From the way her expression seems to soften with understanding, it’s clear that she can tell he’s starting to get antsy about visiting. “Don’t worry. It’s much scarier for you right now than it is for your friend. Come with me, I’ll take you right to him.” And, with a quick nod of her head, they’re off—her in her remarkably tall heels clicking across the tiled floor, him trying his damnedest not to trip over his own two feet in these clunky dress shoes.

The nerves from before seem to double in size with every step they take. This was a stupid idea, he thinks frantically as they turn a corner. Impulsive, thoughtless, stupid stupid stupid. He’s only been hooking up with Pierre at parties that his company literally hires him for. He’d quite literally been paid to spend the night in Pierre’s lap, pressed in his side, encouraging him to indulge and indulge until he couldn’t indulge anymore. It benefitted him to be there, to do this, to be Pierre’s playboy bunny or whatever.

And, sure—Charles likes him. A lot. The number of fantasies he’s had lately that end with Pierre liking him back are too embarrassing to count. But Charles is also self-aware enough to know he’s an attractive guy, and that he’s very good at his job. The version of himself that Pierre has known all these months is one who’s always drenched in glitter and only wears shirts that match the colors of his thongs. In so many ways, Pierre only knows Charles in the dark.

There’s no dark here whatsoever. Quite literally, too, considering the enormous skylights built into the ceiling that are spilling sunlight onto the olive-colored carpet without remorse. Charles doesn’t have the fallback of his job to lean on if this goes south. He doesn’t have the dark, or the clothes, or the music or anything—it’s only him, and this definitely insane decision to visit his kind-of client at rehab. Rehab. He shouldn’t have done this, he shouldn’t have gone this far—

“Right here, Mr. Leclerc.” The woman stops at door 1016 and knocks, once. Then, leaning towards it more: “Your guest has arrived, Mr. Gasly.”

“Fantastic,” Pierre’s muffled voice comes from behind the door, and oh this is suddenly very real. Charles can’t imagine the amount of sweat that must be pouring off him right now. He glances at the receptionist, practically pleading for her to take him back, but she just nods once and turns back the way they came, somehow managing to glide away fast enough to leave Charles entirely by himself when Pierre opens the door.

He looks…good. Not that he ever didn’t, really, but it’s been a little over a month since Charles had actually seen him last, and it definitely hadn’t been this clearly. He looks like he’s put on weight—muscle, sure, but just plain weight, too, enough of it for Charles to realize, correctively, that he must’ve really been wasting away at those parties night after night with all the booze and the substances he’d been indulging in. Cocaine is a hell of a drug.

“Pierre,” he starts, but then loses the nerve to continue. I wanted to check in on you sounds too much like he’s family. I missed you feels clingy. You look good seems—well, it seems appropriate—

“You clean up nicely, Charlie,” Pierre murmurs appreciatively, eyeing him up and down once before opening the door to his apartment space a little wider. “Come in, come in.” His hand comes to rest on Charles’ shoulder, big and warm the way it always is, and the feel of it burns right through his dress shirt. Fuck.

“Thank you,” he manages as he allows Pierre to guide him inside. The room is—sparse. It’s not exactly luxury apartment living, nor is it anything like the hazy memory Charles has of the one night Pierre had actually brought him home to his place. But the light is bright, and things are clean, and Pierre’s smile is still vibrant as ever even in this context, so he probably shouldn’t be comparing too heavily. “You look good.”

“Yeah?” That crooked smile twitches across his face, contagious as ever. “I was worried you would not like what you saw in daylight, you know.” He turns around before Charles can protest more aggressively that, no, there’s no way that could happen because he’s pretty sure he’s on the precipice of falling in love. (Not that he’d say that out loud, but—but—) “Water?”

“I—I’m good,” Charles says. Pierre hums in acknowledgment, then grabs the glass sitting on his countertop and walks towards the refrigerator, where he pours a glass for himself. When he saunters back over, he settles down on a dining room chair and gestures for Charles to join him. Wordlessly, he does. Then: “You shouldn’t.”

It comes out of his mouth on its own volition, sounding more like a blurted confession than an actual, normal statement. Pierre raises a confused eyebrow at him. Charles feels the blush starting to crawl up his neck at a steadier pace. “Worry, I mean. About me not liking what I—you know. I do.” A glass of water seems like a nice option right now. Stupid. “I—daylight doesn’t, um, change much for me.” It’s about as collected as he knows how to be right now.

Pierre, who had been sipping on his drink, sets it down onto the table before him. “Really?” He sounds…different, like this. Maybe it’s the wide-open space. Maybe it’s the absence of something bass-heavy thudding through the floorboards. There’s something in his voice, now, that Charles can hear is—human. Nervous, or maybe self-conscious? Neither of those things apply to the Pierre he’s spent so much time with.

But this Pierre is different than that one, Charles knows. Even from here, this one is healthier. This one is figuring his shit out. “Yeah,” he manages in reply, choking a little on his too-heavy tongue. “Yeah, no, you—daylight suits you, mon petit.”