"I missed the taste of you," Louis tells him, a close murmur on yo way to putting his mouth over open punctures. Kissing away the trickles of blood there as Daniel touches him. Aware of the ways they have made a mess of each other, of how much Louis likes that too.

How many years with the taste of Daniel somewhere in the back of his head? Half a memory, something that survived despite how immediately wrecked Louis was, how hard the drugs hit after those first swallows. He had carried that away with him, the way Daniel tasted beneath the bitterness of just so much alcohol and so many hits.

No, there is nowhere else. A certainty. Decades and decades where time and obligations all moved at whatever pace Louis chose, it is no different now. They can stay here, carry in all the papers from the next room, draw the curtains, lounge in bed. (Two weeks. Daniel has two weeks to spare.) He slots his weight into the cradle of Daniel's hips, scrapes a smile across the skin of his throat.

You feel so good, drifts as a murmur between them. Louis wants to bite him everywhere still. He wants him again, wants to stay in this bed as long as Daniel would allow. Louis lets all of this warm the connection between them, as his teeth nip along Daniel's collarbone.