this is too short for ao3 for tumblr can have it:
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There were times where Antoine would find his eyes wandering over to Maxime. Times that had long since increased in frequency. Times that Antoine found himself both looking forward to and despising all the same. There was a sickening sweetness in those moments, wherein the pair of them shed the titles bestowed upon them by the masses and were simply Antoine and Maxime.
In these moments, Antoine would stare. And in these moments, Maxime would not notice; out of kindness, out of obliviousness, out of discomfortβAntoine didnβt know, nor did he want to; not if the answer meant he would have to cease in his quiet observations and slowly growing infatuation with the man.
You, who I only know like God.
Maxime sighed, leaning back in his chair as he brought his quill to his lips, teeth nipping at the soft feathers of the pen. Antoine should be working, he should be writing yet another speech, he should be doing anything but staring at his friend. But it was one of those times, one of those little moments where Maxime was exhausted to the point of carelessness, where he gave up any pretense of courtesy, where he was so irrevocably, undeniably human.
Maximeβs eyes darted over to Antoines. If he were a better man, he would have felt a panic blossom in his chest at having been caught. If he were a better man, he would have cleared his throat and looked away with a shame burning on his cheeks. If he were a better man, he would have turned back to his paper and picked up his quill with ink-stained and calloused fingers once more.
But he was not a better man, and Antoine refused to look away from those green eyes that seemed to haunt his dreams.
Maxime tilted his head the slightest bit, and his lips curled up at the corners with a timidness that struck Antoine as impossibly charming. He swallowed, lifting a hand in an uncalled for wave. Maxime let out a little laugh, a barely there sound that rang across the silent room like honied bells.
βHello.β Maxime said, a pleasant warmth radiating from his voice.
βHello.β Antoine replied, not bothering to tear his eyes away from his friend's face. Maxime held his gaze for barely a second more, a blush overcoming his pale features as he turned to face his work once more, the point of his quill tapping patterns against the desk as he tried to regain his train of thought.
Antoine sighed, finally returning to his paper. There was work to be done, just as there always was.
Those sparse little moments always ended the same; with a hollowness that begged them to be anyone else.
