Work Text
Le MistralThe wind, roaring down the chimney, made the only sound. The eternal wind, the horrible, mind-scouring endlessness of it, the damned mistral that went on and on and on. He imagined himself an old man, years from now, lying on his deathbed in some smoke-dark room and reminiscing: remember that summer, how hot it was at night…and the women in the brothel, fanning themselves by lamplight…remember how we drank until the sun came up, we were young in those days.He broke the handle off the absinthe spoon. Not deliberately, of course, but he’d been fiddling with it, passing it from hand to hand, holding it up to his eyes so he could peer through the myriad tiny holes. The world’s better this way, shattered into pieces. It’s so much easier to assign meaning when all the parts are roughly the same size and shape. The broken absinthe spoon is easier to understand than Paul, who shouts and raves at him, who storms in and out, slamming doors, calling him by other names than his. This last irritates him most of all. This isn’t the army. Stop calling me that. He is more than satisfied with the name his parents gave him, even if it means he is the reluctant successor of his dead older brother, a mere hand-me-down.They talked about it late into the night, sitting on the floor in front of Vincent’s bed, the fire to one side of them, a candle burning on the table, the quiet night outside the windows. No wind, not then. Only the purest silence, their voices dropping into the midst of it like water.
He died before I was born, you see. I suppose my mother liked the name.
Doesn’t it strike you as a bit morbid?
It strikes me that this name can never truly belong to me.
Later Paul went out and then came home again and there was a frightful argument, as there so often is these days. What he’d hoped for in the beginning isn’t happening; the utopia he planned upon won’t come together and it’s frustrating, embarrassing. They fight about everything. They fight about nothing at all.Stop staring at me. I’m not staring at you. You’re nothing worth staring at.
That’s what your mouth says but your eyes say something different.
Really? What do my eyes say?
They say you want.
I do want. You’re right about that. This argument goes round and round, returning after an interval to the exact same place. Let’s not fight, mon frêre! Don’t call me that. I don’t want to be…that.
What do you want?
Here, at last, is the nub of it, the truth that sits between them like a stain.
I want you.
I want you.
I want your hands on my shoulders, pulling me into you. I want your mouth on mine.
I don’t want to be your brother, dammit. I want to be your lover. I’ve always wanted it.
The first kiss was awkward, fumbling, until they figured out the essential pulse and rhythm of it, until they gave themselves to it entirely, a slippery bliss. Gauguin, groaning as van Gogh’s teeth fastened on his neck, his collarbone, the hard point of a nipple. Bodies straining together, hands struggling with fastenings and buttons, they fell onto Vincent’s bed, skin against skin. The strong mistral wind rumbled down the chimney while Gauguin brought him slowly and irrevocably to orgasm, hissing through his teeth, his face contorted with a pleasure beyond all others. And then the rasp of the Dutchman’s stubble against Gauguin’s inner thighs, the burning clasp of his mouth around the head of his cock, the tip of his tongue working, working.
Good Christ, you’re killing me…Vincent, for the love of God…would you just….
Bright colors streaked behind his closed eyelids as he came, the release so violent it was almost painful. He clasped his hands around Vincent’s shaven skull, fingers caressing, holding him, wanting everything to stay exactly as it was, without interruption. They lay together, bodies wrapped around each other, naked skins damp with tepid sweat, kissing slowly, luxuriating in it, lost. Van Gogh lying underneath him, reaching to draw him close as his desire rose again, blood hot and hard as steel, and they rocked together, each seeking essential friction from the skin of the other, drawing out their pleasures willingly.
I wish—
No, don’t say anything. A brush of fingertips against his lips. We’ve no need of words. You realise, Paul, this changes everything. A little smile, more felt than glimpsed in the faint light from a guttering candle. It changes nothing, my love. He caressed van Gogh’s cheek, leaned to kiss him gently, fondly. I was always yours. The sound of it, the rhythm of the words, this will stay with him forever. I was always yours. I will always belong to you alone, my love.
Arles, 1888