Re: Gotham: Jake & Clem
[His home hadn't smelled like perfume over the South but Chanel No. 5 was being small enough to hug his momma's knees tight and inhale the way it clung to her clothes and the South, that was all being raised up by his grandma, the snap of clean linen underneath the magnolias. There hadn't been no place in between other than Clem and Jake inhaled like the oxygen were better when it came flavored that way.
Clem's arms were warm knotted around his shoulders and her smile was sunshine, full on summer. His shoulders felt like steel wire under her fingers, and he hugged her, rough and maybe a little too cling-tight for a grown man but the kiss brushing up against his temple was too far, too much and he pressed back against the couch cushions, because the sweat stinging his eyes threatened to make them smart and that was all it was, even if maybe it looked too close on tears.
He smiled, lopsided but real and he shrugged when she said he'd grown big, shrugged like it had been a long time between now and then. She hadn't grown at all, except if you could grow down, she didn't look any closer to thirty than she had last time he'd seen her.]