TRAITEUR

MULTI-MUSE BLOG FOR CHASING_GIVENCHY. Start here. I don't buckle. I swashbuckle.

[swashbuckling1x1]

outofwcrk‌:

It’s not that Jennifer likes to be “handled.” It’s just that she doesn’t know how else to get the attention she so desperately and constantly needs. Really, she’d like to be self sufficient. There has, as long as she can remember, been an alternate version of herself whose life plays parallel to reality in her head. 

The Other Jen is grounded and successful and she doesn’t need to call her agent in the middle of the night, and she’s sure as hell not a 50 year old woman who still bites her nails like a teen. 

Even in spite of such a rousing speech – a speech worthy of a smile, at least, if not a hearty cheer – Jennifer’s brows do their best Botoxed impression of anxiety.  “I don’t know…” Under the low light in the kitchen Alan looks old and she wonders, fleetingly, not even long enough to really register it as a thing she’s thinking, how much of it is her fault. Is she the reason he got kind of fat? 

“No, I mean – I do know,” she takes her thumb out of her mouth and nods. “You’re right. I know you’re right. You always are.” And she says that purely to fluff his ego but Jennifer isn’t even self aware enough to register her manipulations as such. She thinks she’s being nice. 

“I just feel so lost. They sent me this scene with her kid and it’s like – she’s just so awful to him. Like I feel like it would have been better if she’d have just eaten him on his way out of the womb like Tasmanian Devils do, y’know? I just – I can’t relate.” She puts a hand up, as if protesting her own flood of trite cliches. “I can figure it out. I think running it against someone will help.” 

When she looks at him it is with an overeager nervousness. “Thank you for coming,” Love me, love me, love me. Something in her chants it all day long. Alan doesn’t even think she’s a good person. She does charity work and she’s a good mom but all Alan has ever seen is – the bad parts of her. “What were you doing when I called? I hope I didn’t – tear you away from anything important.” She offers him a sweet smile that worked better to charm when she was 30 years younger but it’s still got a little glow to it. Even tipsy, even in the middle of the night. 

The vast and endless kitchen was all kinds of quiet in the aftermath of the Big Speech. It was kind of what happened when the heroine didn’t fall into the hero’s arms, or the camera didn’t cut away. Alan picked a butter knife out of the wooden rack, turning it over between his fingers, just to have an excuse to look away from the tiny, hopeful smile Jen was giving him. He could feel the point of the fish hook searching for purchase in his skin, a soft place to pierce.

She never did anything outright. It was always all apologies and helplessness, those thin white arms waving in the air like she needed someone to pull her out from the quicksand. He knew that if he got any closer, she’d wrap those arms around the back of his neck and draw him down with her.

Jen was addicted to drowning. She was just terrified of being alone.

“I was at a studio party. It’s the usual. You know how it goes.” The lid of the jam jar twisted off with a pop and skittered a few inches down the counter. He didn’t brush away her question, or say no, nothing important. He wanted her to know he’d been on the clock, working, and he’d come anyway. He wanted to drive it in that this wasn’t some quiet, sleepy hollow: the talent got up at four in the morning, the management never slept. The new Netflix show was nothing unless they had her next thing lined up. “Judd and Paul’re doing another movie soon, we could break you into comedy.” The bread knife flashed as it went into the jam. It left uneven smears on the sliced bread, a layer that Alan concentrated on smoothing out. “We’d have to balance it with Cold Blooded, of course, but the last thing we want is you to get pigeon-holed into drama…

“Oh shiiit. You were saying something about Laura. Not being able to relate.” He smacked a palm to his temple in a seamless doy gesture, as if it had skipped his mind what she’d been saying. “Sorry. Sorry, my bad.” It spun the conversation around from Jen being on the back foot. No more room for Jen to be the distraught, self-involved one. Because, really, if she turned those oh-mama-I-did-a-bad-thing Bambi eyes on him for a second longer, he was not going to be responsible for his actions. In the morning, some daytripper would find him collapsed on the highway: Hollywood agent to the stars tries to walk all the way home, dies tragically and greatly mourned.

“Where’s the script?” he asked. “C’mon. You’re right. Let’s do it. Let’s run lines.”

[swashbuckling1x1]

outofwcrk‌:

Bad jokes and disinterested affect aside, the most infuriating thing about Alan was that he did not love her as Jennifer so desperately wanted him to. He should to love her after all these years, shouldn’t he? They’ve spent so many nights like this together and he always comes. He’s one of the few people she can always count on to come but she knows, deep down, that he does not come because he loves her and she does not know how to make him do that. 

She doesn’t want him to love him in the romantic way. Of course not. There’s been a long string of women – friends who were just a little too close, who Jen loved a little too much – with whom Jen has been in often unrequited love with but she’s never loved a man. 

Alan may not love her but she’ll settle for a soft touch. Predictably, she melts into him. She’s always yielded easily to his guidance. He must know how badly she craves it, otherwise he wouldn’t give it. “I’m sorry,” He probably saw the apology coming too. She is always so, so sorry! Really, and truly. It’s never an act. 

“I didn’t mean to –” She sighs. Their faces are very close until she untangles herself from his embrace. Albeit, reluctantly. “I’m not the golden girl, anymore, Alan.” She settles on one of her barstools. She won’t stop him from making a snack because she doesn’t want to say out loud that she can’t eat it. There’s something too humiliating in admitting it. “I know that. This is a long shot.” She self soothes like a child, touching her face and mouth, making herself small. 

“Everything’s got to be perfect. You know, they have Gillian Anderson coming in to read for Laura, too? She just did that show on West End. And that Netflix thing. And she’s so like – I mean, in person she looks sort of shellacked, now if you ask me. I think she went a little bit overboard,” She raises her hands as is the habit when she’s saying something particularly awful about another woman. Surrendering to an unseen feminist firing squad lined up along the fourth wall. “But, on camera she looks great. She’s got that delicate thing. I just don’t know. Maybe I’m miscast. Do you think I ought to ask to read for Theresa instead?” 

If he had to hear that apology one more time, Alan was going to stab himself in the leg with a fork. Maybe then for five blissful seconds, it wouldn’t be all about Jen. The cult of Jen. The last recorded sacrifice of Jen—until the next one came along, of course. He stuck his head into the fridge, wincing at the lack of options. If her wattle collapsed on her and she went out on the red carpet looking like Naomi, their publicity earnings would shrivel up like post-menopausal libido.

Behind him, she was still going into hand-wringing anxieties about the new pilot. Alan was having too hard a time finding a second slice of bread to go with the first—

Should I read for Theresa instead?

—He turned around so fast that he crashed back into the fridge door. “Jesus, no!” he nearly yelled, taken aback too much to regulate his indoor voice. After all the gymnastics he’d done to ensure Jen would get Laura... The ghost nearly left his body.

“Absolutely not,” he repeated, calmer and firmer this time. “Theresa dies in the first act. Theresa doesn’t get to come back in Season 2. Theresa has one plot line, tops, and a girlfriend.” He plucked a sorry looking pot of jam from the fridge and rounded on Jen. “Laura, on the other hand, is cutthroat. She’s pathological; she’s unlikeable. Laura’s a villain. And villains—“ He punctuated it by twisting the cap off the jar—“are memorable. Gillian gets one shot at Best Supporting Actress. But you, sweetheart, you’ll have chance after chance. You’re gonna make Laura into the Cersei Lannister of this goddamn generation.”

Don’t give up on me now, he was thinking through every second of the guns-blazing speech. Not after nearly twenty years. Not when it was past one in the morning and he was so far from home. Jennifer Kelley was baggage like the beat-up suitcase he’d put in the back of his second-hand car and driven out from Wisconsin. He still hadn’t thrown that thing out. He kept his passport in an inside pocket to make sure he never would.

[swashbuckling1x1]

outofwcrk‌:

Half-hearted as the touch is, it’s warm and it’s comforting and it’s the only human contact Jenny’s had all day outside of holding up the line talking to the cashier at Gelson’s while she was buying Smooth Move (she has an audition coming up, after all). The girl had a fat, sort of flabby face but she was warm and smiley and when she handed Jen her change their hands had touched and it had reached Jen even through a manic and hungry haze. 

As always, with Alan, Jennifer is comforted until the moment he opens his mouth. She’s sensitive, easily riled, very defensive. She had an Acting Coach back in the 90′s named Dwayne who had warned her that she runs a little hot. And that sometimes what she thinks is happening isn’t really happening and so she doesn’t react in proportion to the truth of the scenario. He also suggested that she might try listening to the other person when they talked. This was good advice that she has never chosen to apply to either her acting or her life. Her refusal to do so is probably the reason she has never actually managed to maintain a relationship or win an Emmy. 

“It’s not spiders, Alan.” Sharply. She pulls away from him and aims that bony, neuroses at him like a gun; and on the hip, eyes narrowed. “You’re the one who got me the audition.” There’s a strange assumption made, always with Jen, that the other person ought to be able discern out of the sky the source of her upset. She turns her back on him and walks into the house, it is presumed that he will follow if led (he usually does, anyway). 

She’s never grown up. Forever a teenager, gawky and insecure and woefully melodramatic. “Just forget it. I’ll get you an Uber home. I shouldn’t have called. I just thought that, you know, you might be willing run lines with me. If you were up. I shouldn’t have called.” The only thing more glaringly obvious than Jennifer’s unchecked Martyr Complex, is the fact that she’s at least a little drunk. 

So his wallet was lighter and he’d passed up a convoy of Jeeps headed for the desert of plenty, but at least there were no spiders. Everything’s coming up roses, Alan thought to himself.

“I’m up now!” he called uselessly after Jen as she stormed off into the interior of the house. The odds were high that she was going to fetch her script, not pick up the phone for the Uber she’d promised. “I’m here now,” he said, a little softer, closing the door behind him.

It clicked about as noiselessly as the spiderweb made when the fly walked into the parlour.

The house felt as cavernous and miserable as the inside of Jen’s heart, but Alan dutifully flipped on the light switches and nudged tossed-around cushions out of the way. Jen’s martyred huff hadn’t taken her too far, so he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her along in the direction of the kitchen.

“Fetch your script in a minute,” he told her, stepping smoothly into the role of friend, philosopher, agent and guide. “I’ll fix us a midnight snack, and then we can run lines on the patio.” He drew back just to beam at her, not letting his grip on her slacken for a second. “C’mon. You’re the golden girl. We’ll knock this out of the park.”

[outofwcrk]

swashbuckling1x1‌:

Alan Holt rested his forehead against the headrest of the car seat, closing his eyes for a moment of brief respite. “Trade you,” he mumbled to the man sitting in front. “I’ll give you fifty bucks right now to switch places with me.”

The Uber driver raised his eyes to the rearview mirror. “Is that included in the fare you owe me, or is that an extra for my trouble?”

“Fuck you, man. Where’s your sense of empathy.”

The driver’s gaze slanted sideways to the house sprawled out on Beachwood Canyon. Prime real estate that this punter was visiting after midnight. Alan shoved a handful of bills at him and stumbled out of the car. He had to resist the urge to kick one of Jennifer’s potted plants as he went past.

He was distinctly aware of the Uber lingering in the street, watchful, as Alan slumped against the front door and leaned on the bell. To think he could have still been at Ibiza. Hell, he had one foot in a car going to Vegas. He could be throwing away his memories of his lost youth and stirring debauchery with a—

The door flew open, revealing America’s sweetheart, Jennifer Kelley’s silhouette.

“Hey kid,” said Alan wearily. “You rang?”

It’s not so much that she wants to see Alan as it is that she needs to see someone. Sometimes the need is so urgent, so pressing, it makes it hard to think about anything but. The house is so empty now without Honey in it; crushingly so.

Were Honey here, she’d not have needed to call Alan and she certainly wouldn’t have spent as long as she did out on the deck, standing in the middle of the deck with her script pacing maniacally and muttering to herself under the dim, dim, light of 8 to 12 stars and the bright, bright glow of all that light pollution.  

“Fix Mama another drink, will you? Fix Mama another drink, will you? Fix Mama another drink, will you?”

Alan Holt has been her “someone” for – well, longer than she’d ever admit to out loud because she only started lying about her age 5 years after she met him. So, he knows, exactly how old she is and exactly how long it’s been. That frightens and comforts her in equal parts. Sometimes, she worries he is the only friend she has.

America’s Sweetheart? In order to be considered America’s Sweetheart America would have to consider you sweet and hold you close to their heart. Maybe, however long ago, she’d been that. She’d even managed to worm her way back into the viewer’s hearts after they’d turned on her, viciously, as a result of the overexposure pushed by the studios. Maybe she could be again. That’s what she was trying to win back. That’s why Alan was here; because if she could reclaim her title, he could buy another boat.

“Oh, I’m so glad you’re here.” She hugs him with a frantic sort of desperation. As if she hasn’t seen anyone in months. As if she’d been worried he was dead. As if he were a long lost brother. Maybe, one of the reasons people tolerate her is because she has an uncanny knack for making others feel so wonderfully important. Like the only person in the world she’d ever want to see. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry that I bothered you so late. Come in.” She ushers him in, hand on his shoulder. “You’re tired. You hate me. I didn’t wake you up, did I?”

[swashbuckling1x1]

“Mmpf—“ Smothered in Jennifer Kelley’s arms, Alan patted her on the back in a there, there sort of way. Half his mind was on the studio party he’d abandoned, the other half was dreaming of the bed he longed to faceplant into. Her apologies washed over him like a soft murmuring tide, and he rode it out until she invited him inside.

That was the point when he abruptly disengaged, cocked his head and just stared quizzically at her. It was the middle of the night for fuck’s sake. His Jen-antennae began to quiver with suspicion. Propping one palm against the door frame (as if that would hold out if she decided to press-gang him indoors), he asked:

“Why?” It came out a tad more warily than he liked. “If it’s the spiders again, you’re supposed to call the reservations desk at the Four Seasons.” Sage advice that he remembered dispensing when he rushed out of the neighbour kid’s bat mitzvah. “And you know I don’t do indoor plumbing.”

[swashbuckling1x1]

Alan Holt rested his forehead against the headrest of the car seat, closing his eyes for a moment of brief respite. “Trade you,” he mumbled to the man sitting in front. “I’ll give you fifty bucks right now to switch places with me.”

The Uber driver raised his eyes to the rearview mirror. “Is that included in the fare you owe me, or is that an extra for my trouble?”

“Fuck you, man. Where’s your sense of empathy.”

The driver’s gaze slanted sideways to the house sprawled out on Beachwood Canyon. Prime real estate that this punter was visiting after midnight. Alan shoved a handful of bills at him and stumbled out of the car. He had to resist the urge to kick one of Jennifer’s potted plants as he went past.

He was distinctly aware of the Uber lingering in the street, watchful, as Alan slumped against the front door and leaned on the bell. To think he could have still been at Ibiza. Hell, he had one foot in a car going to Vegas. He could be throwing away his memories of his lost youth and stirring debauchery with a—

The door flew open, revealing America’s sweetheart, Jennifer Kelley’s silhouette.

“Hey kid,” said Alan wearily. “You rang?”

[swashbuckling1x1]

NASTY, BRUTISH AND SHORT

[swashbuckling1x1]

niklasdahl:

The corner of his lip twitched, the traitor; if a concept existed that not even the famous mask of cold composure à la Niklas could defy, that Dahl family legacy passed on by his father as soon as he had been old enough to tie his own boots, it was the idea of drop-kicking the Yellow Monster to the moon and beyond. (There’s a huge difference between being blond and being yellow, thank you very much.) Perhaps his right leg had never been as deadly as his left had once been (Robben who?) but for that at least, it would do. Just imagine.

Insufferable or not, Jeremy still knew how to tempt him.

“Sounds like a plan.” The smile Niklas cracked on the inside manifested as a shrug. “You can bet I’ll be having a word with her, too. As soon as I see her. Perhaps not that exact one, but just in case she ends up setting me on fire, make sure you’ve contacted Pastor Lewis in the meantime.”

He paused to finally, finally taste the single-malt, and, in a heartbeat, the knot in his chest began to loosen. There, they’d solved the matter, and if anything was worth a celebration, it was settling a matter with Jeremy without entering the realm of Pygmalion-level melodrama.

“No shrinks, though.” Another sip. How easily they slid after the first. “She may be out of control, but she’s not crazy.”

If Jeremy had walked into this with the upper hand and/or the moral high ground, he nearly dropped it at the sight of the valiantly suppressed smile threatening to break out across Niklas’s mouth. Sure, Jeremy was watching Niklas kick that urge into submission, but it had almost happened.

And it left him deeply unsettled.

Fucking Nik. Lassie, he’d meant. Lassie, not Nik. Always knew how to bring on the psychological warfare. He picked up his tumbler of scotch, contemplating tossing back the half that remained. He nearly didn’t regret saying that alcohol was his only way of being able to tolerate the man he’d once loved.

Face it, it’s mutual anyway.

The silence was starting to stretch between them. It was bordering dangerously on ‘companionable’. “Well,” said Jeremy at last, “this didn’t—” Take as long as I was afraid of. Become half as shitty as it could have. Turn into a nostalgia fest—“go up in fucking flames.” Raising his glass in a mock-toast, he added, “Go us.”

A beat.

“By the way,” he said, “that Barbie musical concert’s coming up next week.” Not that Lexie was allowed to attend anymore. There was no question of throwing the dog a bone and asking if Niklas wanted to take her. (Lexie, he knew, would trade one dad for another in a heartbeat.) The two candy-pink tickets in their gold-filigree envelope were still sitting in the locked drawer of his desk at work. Jeremy leaned forward, the bitter scent of liquor fresh on his breath, seeking out Niklas’s gaze. Without the Ray-Bans, looking the guy in the eye was borderline blinding. “You know how much I hate going to that shit alone.”

[swashbuckling1x1]

LIVE IN THE MIDST OF RUIN

[swashbuckling1x1]

verbiscruenta:

Usually there would have been some quip or protest on the driving end, if not blackmail of the lewdest kind. I can’t give you attention if my hands are on the wheel. Leon was a mysterious man, but these things Julian had all figured out by now. 

But this time, he simply shoots him a look and takes the driver’s seat instead. A motion that says, You did enough.

Leon would argue that there was no need to guide him inside once they’d reached his – their – apartment, but Julian doesn’t wait for approval as he snakes a hand behind Leon’s back and hooks it around his waist, firm enough to serve as support but casual enough that to a passing stranger they might just pass for your typical honeymoon-handsy couple. Nothing for he, National Hero Leon Solis, to be ashamed of. 

(Unless his co-workers, too, were blunt copies of Marcus Langley. But one Marcus Langley was enough for a world already this rotten.) 

If Julian’s face hadn’t shown offence off of Marcus’ unfortunate comment, was because none had been taken. He was in his thirties now, and kissing boys for more than half his life. Those were seventeen years with no struggle in acceptance, and even less with dealing with people like him. Beyond that, he’d too been different for all his life; and too ethnic wasn’t an insult original to his co-worker, either. 

But Leon in the seat next to him changed everything. It wasn’t a blow to just himself or his career (which hurt more than the former), but also to the one he was with. That, and your lifestyle choices are… He’d looked right at Leon, then. Leon. And continued: Questionable. 

Whatever Marcus meant by it — beyond the transparent bigotry — Julian didn’t know, but he knew he deserved the pain that came with it.   

“See?” Julian says as he closes the door behind him, tone of voice all too similar to that of an all-knowing mother. In his case however, it was drenched in irony; even the smile he sported now hid something behind it. “Was that so bad?" 

As they staggered over the threshold of Julian’s apartment, Leon reluctantly disengaged himself from the grip that had been keeping him upright this far. Locks, he figured. Someone needed to do the locks on the front door. His legs had gone rubbery under him, and he just barely managed to collapse into the couch. The adrenaline high of the evening was starting to fade, leaving him with the realisation that he’d just hit a guy. In a crowded restaurant. In front of his wife.

For Julian.

And he had liked it.

Judging by the way the invisible smile was radiating out of Julian, they both had.

He was still trying to catch up to that one.

“Bad?” Leon repeated, sounding slightly shell-shocked. “Were you at the same dinner party as me?”

The beer bottle they’d taken out earlier was still sitting on the living room table, but it had gone noticeably warm. And there was still no bottle opener. Discomfited, he ran a hand through his hair, surprised to feel it stand up in wet spikes. The air conditioner had been working fine in the car on the way here…

“Jude,” he said, turning his head so he could watch Julian walk around the room. His apartment, his rules. Most importantly: his evening. The white-hot rage had passed, leaving Leon acutely aware of the conversation they’d had before they’d walked into the bar. This had been Julian’s chance to cinch the ambassadorial posting. The one that Leon wanted (and also didn’t want) him to get. Knocking Marcus Langley to the ground couldn’t have Julian any favours, and Leon didn’t want to think any of that had happened on purpose.

Why did you hit him, asked the beady voice at the back of his head.

Shut up, he whispered back, knowing the thought must have occurred to Julian long ago. It was the right thing to do.

It had been the only thing to do. His attention kept getting snagged on Julian’s mouth, which was always on the verge of curling up in a smile when he saw Leon. Those eyes, as dark as caverns made of ice, that pressed closed in ecstasy under Leon. Julian would forgive him for what had happened; he knew that much. After that, forgiving himself wasn’t much of a stretch for Leon.

Don’t go, he thought. He was too drunk to realise he was saying it aloud. Don’t leave. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.

[swashbuckling1x1]

LIVE IN THE MIDST OF RUIN

[swashbuckling1x1]

verbiscruenta:

The words were ready on the tip of Julian’s tongue, threatening their way out without the usual minute of mulling over their meaning, impact, and upcoming retaliation. And he would have said them, no thinking necessary— had Leon not beat him to it.

You know what, pal? and Julian is looking to his left, following the locking of Leon’s jaw as he leans over, practically spitting the sentence out on Marcus. Even then, it was too much sympathy when dealing with a man who deserved none. Leon was — had been, all night — holding himself back, and although Julian had pretended not to notice, it was all out and transparent now, for himself and all others to see. Julian’s hand reaches out, wrapping his fingers lazily on the hook of Leon’s arm. It isn’t so intense as though he could hold it in place; but again, he doesn’t really want to.

When Leon and Marcus collide, even he can’t tell whether or not that had been on purpose. Julian leans forward, instinctively— for Leon’s sake only. Even if he doesn’t need the support now, Julian’s hands come around him just the same, his hands holding Leon both up and closer. 

In a similar but almost pathetic gesture, Rebecca is kneeling over Marcus, repeatedly asking if he’s okay— though failing miserably at any attempt to help. Not that it’s her fault. Marcus is mumbling if that, because whatever incoherent thing he’s managing out can’t be ruled down as talking. But he’s angry — his eyes say that better than his words could —, and in result she is, too. 

But as Marcus’ breathing fails him, concern wins out. 

“Will any of you just fucking call an ambulance, please?” Both the words fucking and please sound too out of place when spoken by Rebecca Langley, especially together. As she turns to face them, Julian can see tears; and he would feel bad, if it hadn’t been Leon Marcus had used as target. 

Julian reaches for the phone on her side of the table then, reluctantly. He dials the three digits, and as it rings, he hands it down to Rebecca with clear and cold instruction: “You were reaching over the table to grab the bottle, lost your balance, and accidentally hit your husband when you fell.” Rebecca’s eyebrows raise, but she still listens with care. “You feel terrible, but glad— because of all things, an elbow to the stomach is not the worst that could happen.”

The worst that could happen was a last resort, nothing else. But hell if Julian hadn’t considered it already,

Her eyes are still, glossy, and unblinking up until a voice comes out of the other end, prompting an emergency. When the shock wears off, Rebecca recites back: “My husband,” she starts, anxious. “He’s in a lot of pain and he can’t breathe. I—I fell and hit him by mistake. On the stomach, I think. He’s really not okay.”

The call goes on, and as Rebecca drifts into details and guiding to their location, Julian’s attention is back to where it belongs: Leon. He takes his face in between his palms, considers the beautiful chaos that it is, and kisses him. Not in the too-intense carnal way he had before, and not with the lewd touch that came naturally with the act. The softness with which Julian’s lips touched Leon’s contradicted what went on around them, and the sirens that could already be heard at a distance. 

Like it or not, he’s thinking as he tastes him, I’m taking you with me.

“Astronaut and knight in a shining armor,” he murmurs as they part. “You should at least try to give other guys a chance." Taking a step backwards and away from the scene, Julian starts to pull Leon with him. "Come on. I’m sure you’re dying to get home.”

It was incredible how the sensation of Julian’s hand on his arm could make Leon feel like he was ten feet tall. It was from a great height that he watched it all—Marcus crumpling out of his seat, his wife’s panicked blazing fury, the clinical precision with which Julian stepped in and procured a phone, smoothing over the situation like he’d scripted it, and now he was scripting the resolution.

When Leon looked down at Marcus, for a second, he wanted to smile.

Do that again, he wanted to say. Mouth off about Jude one more time.

Too late Leon remembered who he was. Who Julian was. They weren’t the bad guys. They were the household names and the trailblazers. They had reputations to uphold. Moving like a man in shock (funny, because he wasn’t the one writhing on the floor), Leon beckoned a waiter, apologising for the ‘accident’. (“He could use a cushion, our friend here. Call the manager, would ya? Maybe find a soft fainting couch for him.”) If other diners were turning to stare, they’d be rest assured by the sight of three people busily fretting and fussing over one maggot limp on the ground.

Just as Leon heard Rebecca give the dispatcher their address, he felt Julian turn him away. The kiss caught him off-guard for a second. He didn’t know who had it worse—Bush administration golden boy or national hero, role model for children everywhere—who had more to lose from kissing whom. But if this was a point Julian was making, Leon, as always, was caught in his sway. The world seemed to slow down and melt away (or was that only Leon’s heartbeat in his chest), everything liquid honey like the tenderness with which Julian kissed him.

Kodak-moment perfect. Was that what he’d been going for?

The appreciation in Julian’s eyes, however, was as genuine as anything Leon had known. Was this why knights got on their chargers, because there was someone on the ground who looked at them like this?

He followed Julian out, keeping his face averted so that the Langleys couldn’t see it. Kissing Julian had been like throwing a lit match into gasoline. You did good, it seemed to say. In some dark part of Leon’s psyche, the theory of action and reward had rearranged itself.

Out in the cold air of the parking lot, he blew into the cup of his hands, grimacing at the alcohol breath that wafted back at him.

“So,” he said, glancing at Julian out of the corner of his eye, not wanting to face that told you so look head on, “you look like you’re good to drive.”

[swashbuckling1x1]

LIVE IN THE MIDST OF RUIN

[swashbuckling1x1]

verbiscruenta:

There’s no denying to the spark of pride that rises up under Julian’s skin, fogging up just as it reaches his chest. He never really bragged about Leon – for no reason other than he didn’t think it necessary; Leon was a big deal all on his own, outer-space backstory or no. Even if he didn’t want to be there, Leon still excelled at fitting into the public image that went with his never-fading title of National Hero. His presence, even if not as sharply-cut as Marcus or Julian’s, demanded attention. It was what had drawn Julian in in the first. He almost feels jealous then, but deems it possessiveness instead. 

This was his own justification to accepting Leon as the recluse he now was; to not minding if he wanted to see no one else in the world but him. If there was anything Julian was ashamed of was liking it that way. Keeping him to himself was, after all, only but a companion to keeping him there. 

But he’d never claimed not to be selfish.

Julian shoots Leon a look when ordering, though their eyes don’t meet; and to the waiter, he shrugs, “Designated driver.” 

The evening drags on, with talks of work that bore even Julian– and so Leon must be surely wanting to rip his own head off. Congress, embassy, and so on. Nothing quite as glamorous as the stars. This translates to his drinking, which happens broadly and frequently; this, something which Julian would have noticed all the same any other day, but more-so now that he has to chase Leon’s wrist around, taking the glass in his own hands and setting it down on the table himself, as Leon would surely rank up the bill on the amount of broken glasses alone. 

Not to be trusted with fragiles, Julian reminded him every morning with a kiss, hands already reaching for the last mugs they couldn’t afford losing. 

Marcus Langley is the asshole he always is, but double. Julian smiles through the jabs, unaffected. He smiles through the jokes, too, amused more by Marcus’ failed attempt of any true humour. He squeezes in languages, too– replying to Leon’s question in German because… well, because. Marcus, whose tricks came down always to intimidation and my dick is bigger than yours, did well to name drop his way into every sentence; every question. Bush’s was so present in the conversation Julian had to double-check to see if he wasn’t really there, squeezed between the inexistent space between Leon and him. 

Of course he noticed the tension, and the way it changes Leon. The conversation rollercoasters through tension and harmless fun, but his expression only darkens, no matter if off a threat or punchline. When Julian catches his eye, he almost shivers. 

Should he say, I think you’ve had enough? Or should he say, Do you want another?

A good boyfriend would go for the former. A good boyfriend would put his partner’s well-being before his own. A good boyfriend wouldn’t look at Leon’s clouded gaze and think, Jackpot.

(It was good to remember then, that Julian was not his boyfriend. Nor was he good.) 

“So Bush called me up and said–” There it was. The name again. “ ‘Don’t worry Marc’ – Did I mention he calls me Marc? – ‘You totally got it. The only way you ain’t getting the job is if either you or I die.’ And I mean, JFK was what, 40 years ago? You don’t have two assassinations in less than 50 years. That’s a political fact.” 

“And you have to speak Italian,” Rebecca adds. “Almost no one speaks Italian. Do you speak Italian, Julian?”

He nods, “I do.” It comes out as matter-of-fact as it does smug. Marcus’ face dampens only if a little, as if only then seeing the competition which sat across from him. At that, Julian smiles, “So, really, it could be either of us.”

“God,” Marcus laughs nervously. “You’re just breaking my legs here, Berkeley. I mean, no offence, but he wouldn’t pick a guy like you for this job. 

"I have the same experience you do,” Julian says. “I speak Italian. Why wouldn’t he?”

“You know why.”

Julian raises a brow at that and not-so-kindly demands, “Why?”

“You really gonna make me say it?" 

Julian’s expression is never-changing; his chest hardly rises in his breathing, his lips don’t twist in expectance; even his blinking is sparse. Marcus glances back at his wife, seeking back up— but even she, now, has recoiled a little. 

When Rebecca gives him no aid to rely on, Marcus turns back to Julian, though there’s a moment of silence before he’s able to continue: "You’re too— ethnic. And there’s no quotas in government.” He shrugs, “That, and your lifestyle choices are…” Marcus’ gaze diverts to Leon for a second, then back at Julian. What he meant suddenly becomes painfully tangible. “Questionable. I don’t see it that way,” – which only really meant that he did – “but Bush would. It’s just the truth.”

The silence at the table was suddenly ghastly.

The air of forcible cheer and uncomfortable joviality had been snuffed out in one second. Marcus Lickspittle blinked, lounging like an invertebrate in his seat, one arm draped around the back of his wife’s chair. His smile was as open as a book.

Even Rebecca looked stunned under her veneer of My Husband Is Always Right. Her smile seemed as practiced as the sweep of her eyeliner, but it had become much more brittle. And Julian? Julian had gone rigid under Leon’s hand which lay carelessly on his leg. Julian felt drawn tight as a bowstring. Julian—Julian who was always quick-witted, biting and unforgivable, Julian who seemed lost for the words to defend himself with.

Leon leapt to his feet or to Julian’s defence, he couldn’t be sure which. The pleasant buzz induced by scotch had tinted the corners of his world black. It made pinpricks in the cold emptiness of Leon’s gaze, hollowed out the corners of his ever-present smile.

“Hey, you know what pal?” His words should have sloshed together from side to side, like fish in a barrel on a boat. Instead, each syllable came out sharp as a baited hook. Leon’s eyes were narrowed flat, his vision reduced to simply Marcus sitting self-satisfied in front of him. You know what—this man, this guy, is ten times what you’ll ever amount to. This guy has what it takes. In the innocence of Marcus’s benign, above-reproach look was everyone who had slammed a door in Leon’s face. Told him he was too brown. Not brown enough. Too easy to pass as white. Just white enough to make do. It was the one thing he never talked to Julian about—it was the one thing he wasn’t ready to hear Julian say. Me too, Lee. Guess what? Me too. The gut-squeezing white-hot rage that lashed through Leon made his shoulders shake. In that second, he could have broken the tumbler of whiskey over Marcus Langley’s phrenologist-approved head.

(His lifestyle? You slimy, smug—)

But Leon didn’t. Swaying slightly on his feet, he stepped around the table as if he had to head for the john. On the way, he kept one hand on the table for balance, reaching for Marcus’s shoulder to prevent himself from tripping.

“You know what,” he said, towering over Marcus, as friendly as the force with which he dug into Marcus’s skin, “ain’t no quota for cunts either.”

The line had the desired effect, breaking the uncomfortable spell that had fallen over the table. Rebecca recoiled like Leon had announced he was flamingly gay, and Marcus immediately smacked Leon’s hand off himself.

Bad move. Marcus had ostensibly been the only thing keeping a mostly drunk Leon upright. Robbed of the support, Leon buckled into Marcus, the point of his elbow driving into Marcus’s solar plexus.

The snake-wearing-a-diplomat’s-hide doubled over, letting out a grunt of fury and pain. Leon watched him for a second, silently simmering, and then his gaze flickered to the one person who mattered.

“Whoops,” said Leon to Marcus, not taking his eyes off Julian. “Clumsy me.”

[swashbuckling1x1]

LIVE IN THE MIDST OF RUIN

[swashbuckling1x1]

verbiscruenta:

It’s with the expected incredulity that he regards Leon now, dark brows drawing just a portion closer together, while his lips part in preparation to a response he can’t quite force himself to give yet. Sounds great was what Julian wanted to hear, but the delivery drowned him in more doubt than he had before taking the plunge and deciding to ask. It felt like a stupid move now; too much, too soon. In his head at least, an invitation to tag along — whatever that might entail — sounded better than a stark goodbye to something he couldn’t let go of yet. 

His career was everything, and then there was Leon. He shouldn’t be made to choose. 

Still, Julian can pretend. He’d always been good at it, the one talent he’d gotten in whatever genetic lottery ticket gave you music or math skills. He got persuasion, acting, and no morals to stop him from whatever the former might achieve. All things combined and you got either a very good diplomat, or a very bad man. Perhaps both. 

With his good diplomat suit and bad man stance, Julian licks his lips into a smile— easy and almost genuine, though it does a good enough job as passing as such. He pretends to believe; anything else was of no use now. 

Julian welcomes back the closeness from Leon’s arm around him and returns it, placing a hand on his waist as they walked. He laughs and shakes his head; Langley, he wants to correct, but doesn’t. If Marcus or his last name were of any importance at all, then perhaps Julian wouldn’t see him as so easily disposable. Well. Mirroring Leon’s move, he brings himself closer as to whisper back: “He’s not the one I want to do that to.”

From a distance, sat on the outside tables, Julian sees him: smug, candid, and infinitely annoying Marcus fucking Langley. His grip on Leon grows firmer, both in a way to tell him, It’s on, and in a way to tell everyone else, He’s mine. Not that Marcus or his wife cared for that matter (he’d soon take something else which they wanted, rest assured)— but he’d do it with or without the audience. 

He greets them, polite and inconspicuous. Trusting, even. It’s only when both Langleys stare at Leon, expectant, that Julian realizes he hadn’t yet introduced him to anyone prior to this; not properly, anyways. Even his friends only got the stories and whatever came up on television. Hell, even he got that most times. 

“This is Leon,” he says, and hopes they will fill the blanks themselves. Crosses his fingers for no request of further explanation, no Who proposed? because they were many years and a galaxy away from that, which was painfully literal, and not a mile close to whatever came before the wedding bands. Julian couldn’t even call him boyfriend and he was already inviting him to move countries together because that felt more appropriate than not. This was probably were Leon’s hesitation came from and well, he couldn’t exactly blame him for it. “Leon, this is,” — Asshole One and Asshole Two — “Marcus and Rebecca Langley.”

Marcus’ face shifts into shock, then softens as he says, “Oh.” His eyes dart between Julian and Leon, and back over. “I didn’t know you had someone.” And to Leon, “He’s never mentioned you before.”

Julian bites the inside of his cheek along with a retort. Because you’re irrelevant to me, he’s thinking, and his jaw hurts from all that he’s holding back. Not because he is. He can only hope Leon knows him — them — well enough to know this. 

But sure, the hand on Leon squeezes him tighter, make him angry. 

See where that gets you.

Getting annoyed would be a stupid move. Leon knew that. He wasn’t five years old on the playground, master of all he surveyed from the top of the jungle gym. You’re an adult, this is important to me, keep your cool, was what Julian seemed to be telegraphing to him, his arm vise-tight around Leon’s waist.

It wasn’t that Leon minded Julian hadn’t used some socially accessible term to describe him. My boyfriend. We’re going out. Something that didn’t make him just a Leon.

(It wasn’t that Leon was relieved. It wasn’t like boyfriend had enough strings attached to strangle the two of them, and to him, nothing was better than a Julian in his life, someone who came home to him.)

Marcus and Rebecca… Langley didn’t see things their way. To Leon’s eye, they were a mismatched couple (she immaculate and as untouchable as frosting on her own wedding cake, him looking like he’d be more comfortable in a tattered robe and with a scythe in hand.) Next to them, Leon looked like he’d washed up on shore from the wreckage of a space shuttle. Standing next to Leon must make Julian look like he picked trash off a highway for a living. Right. Any residual reluctance he had about being here vanished like smoke.

“That’s okay, buddy,” said Leon, his grin running roughshod over Marcus’s two-folks-with-one-stone rudeness. “I just came back from a long work trip. National secrets and all. Jude’s good at keeping them. We’re all government employees here, right? Him working for the president. Me for these folks called NASA. You might’ve heard of them. Sometimes they send a guy like me on the moon.”

Still smiling, he shook Marcus’s hand, did the old-fashioned thing and leaned in and kissed Rebecca’s in greeting. She wanted the cherry of cushy diplomatic postings for her hubby? Tough luck. They were both going to have to pry it from Julian’s living, clenched fist.

To their credit, the Ludlums had gotten a nice out-of-the-way table in a quiet corner of the bar with a good view. Diplomat perks. Did all these guys have that skill in their blood? Leon unapologetically made his first dick move of the evening by claiming the aisle seat of the booth from Julian. He covered it up with laughter, and under the table, he slid his hand down the inside of Julian’s thigh, pushing Yup, sorry, in the stroke of his hand. He just didn’t trust himself not to need three ‘bathroom breaks’ as the night dragged on, during which he'd have to suppress the urge to fling himself off the roof of the building. His intentions may have been betrayed anyway by his decision to ask for whiskey (neat) when the waiter came for their orders.

Julian, incredibly enough, had the straightest face in all of Creation as he conducted the evening. He was enviably at ease like his three drinking companions were trained lions in his private circus. His loose crack from the parking lot—He’s not the one I want to do that to—stayed with Leon, who wanted to laugh every time he thought of it, didn’t want to dwell on the way liquid heat pooled slowly to his groin. It was easier to think of Julian, Leon’s fingers tightening involuntarily where they were, than to smile and nod and pretend this was small talk he liked making.

Do it anyway, he snarled at the part of his brain that was fed up of all of this. There was no or else.

He laughed at Julian’s punchlines, smiled but in a faintly incredulous way at the Langleys’ stories, asked inane questions about their lives and their jobs, dug his free hand into the leather of the booth every time Marcus took a verbal swing at Julian. The level of scotch in the tumbler kept going down at an alarming rate. Do it. Keep going. Do it or there won’t be a Julian for you to come home to ever again.

[swashbuckling1x1]

LIVE IN THE MIDST OF RUIN

[swashbuckling1x1]

verbiscruenta:

If Julian were to tell the truth, he would really rather stay inside tonight. Be it quiet and tangled with Leon on the couch, only the TV’s blue-tinted light as referencing point, or warm beside him on the bed. Leon’s blissful and exhausted — his lips always parted in that way that was somewhere between a sigh and a smile, but never quite committing to either — was a much better view than the ghoulish face of Marcus Landley. 

Too pale, too serious, and too fucking skinny, the diplomat looked as much like the real-life personification of Death as a human would ever. However he managed to charm their superiors into thinking he was good ambassador material was beyond Julian; but then again, that was exactly why wining and dining him was just necessary. 

Something about keeping your enemies close.

If that were true, his thoughts wonder, then what was Leon? 

On the car ride there, Julian finds himself reaching for Leon’s hand whenever it was away from the wheel. There was tension there, which is what made the contact a necessity; it was crutch more than anything. 

It’s me against this fucker, he’d told Leon, but with little detail. And even with little detail, he had complied in being his company for the night. It said something about them, he knew— but was too pessimistic to use the word compromise. Trust was even worse. Commitment they’d both laugh at. Still, it felt only fair to elaborate.

As the car slows down into the previously empty parking spot, Julian doesn’t move. He knows for a fact Leon was waiting for his signal while hoping he would change his mind at the last second. Let’s just go home were the magic words. But those words don’t come. 

“Word is that Bush is soon making a decision on an ambassador position,” he says quietly. Even with his hand atop Leon’s, his eyes remain focused somewhere through the glass and on the street outside. “Overseas. Probably Italy or Germany. Maybe Portugal. It’s all very vague.” He bites the inside of his cheek as he mulls over his thoughts. It’s such simple, shallow information he doesn’t even know why he pushed back telling Leon about it in the first place. Why he pushed back inviting him along. While Julian wishes he knew him better than he does now, he still knows Leon well enough to assume he’d be too possessive as to willingly allow him out of the country; out of his reach. Was it speculating too much that he would get in the way? 

You allowed him out of the fucking planet. He owes you that much. But only because he couldn’t take you with.

“Point is,” he turns to Leon then, gaze forcefully settling onto his. Much as Julian feared whatever reaction was bound to unfold, he’d always rather stare at it straight on. It was either brave or smart. “I want it.” No Lee to soften the blow, or pretty words around it. Just greed, plain and simple, followed by the kind of assertiveness that only ever came out in moments like these, “And I’m gonna get it.”

He sighs and commands his eyes to stay where they are; locked into Leon’s. Yes. Brave. “You could come.”

It was a nice bar. Not too glitzy, just upscale enough. The engine of Julian’s car idled, the stereo softly playing the music crammed into his phone. It was so quiet that Leon had to strain to pick up anything louder than the thud of his pulse when Julian looped his fingers through Leon’s hand and left it like that. Just casual contact leashing Leon to where Julian was.

C’mon, he thought impatiently, eyes ready to roll back in his head. Say it. Say the words. Say you changed your mind. And: I did my good deed, where’s my reward?

But it wasn’t coming, and he knew it. Leon might not even be here in this car, sitting next to this guy, if Julian was the kind to give up on his ambition. His ruthlessness was ever-present; it was as palpable as sweat on his skin.

That impression only intensified as Julian started to explain just what this was about. It was a nice touch. A way to make Leon an equal partner in this evening he clearly wanted no part of. He relaxed in the passenger-side seat, running his thumb lazily over the back of Julian’s hand as he listened to the stakes. His hooded eyes showed little of his discomfort. It didn’t betray the way his stomach plummeted to hear the simple confidence with which Julian said I’m gonna get it.

Maybe you shouldn’t have started fucking a diplomat, then, sniped the voice at the back of Leon’s head. What did you mistake him for, Icelandic Ambassador to the United States? It was easier to be the one doing the leaving than to watch Julian walk away from him.

Julian was looking right back at him. Hunger lurked at the corners of his expression, smoothed over by his perennial quintessential Julian charm. That little sigh was perfectly timed. A little twinge of hesitation that sold the line when Julian said: “You could come.”

Something stopped beating in Leon’s chest. Was this even an option for him? He didn’t know. Did his shock show in his face, plain as day? He had no clue how to hold it in. Did Julian realise what he was asking? Most damn likely, but Leon’s hand snapped closed around Julian’s as he tried to figure it out.

“Sounds great.” Leon had tried to make those words sound natural. Didn’t work. “Plum posting,” he said, trying again. “Better Lisbon than Lagos.” He loosened his death grip on Julian’s hand, slipping out a firm, pleased smile. Go get it, killer. “Better you than Marcus fucking Langley, right?”

Langley? Was that that even the name? Leon felt light-headed. What would moving even entail? He could always fly down to Houston for training. He was nearly forty—how many years of spaceflight did he have left?

Family, he thought weakly. I have some in America. His parents were too self-sufficient to need him around anymore.

“Come on,” he said, drowning the sound of his fears. He fumbled unseeingly for the lock on the car door. “The future ain’t going to come to us if we stay on our asses.”

The truth behind his hesitation was looking him unflinchingly in the eye. Leon blinked and turned away, stepping into the brisk night air outside. He was already losing it from trying to get through one day in Julian’s empty apartment. How was he going to make it in a new city, in an unknown part of the world, no job, no safety barrier between himself, Julian and the possibility of this relationship not being enough? What was he going to do, couch-surf while Julian went out and made his dreams happen?

He recovered some semblance of his usual careless stride when he came around to Julian’s side. Slung his arm around Julian’s shoulders with exquisitely timed carelessness, and brought his lips close to Julian’s ear and murmured: “We’ll see about stamping my passport after we make this Ludley your bitch tonight.”

[swashbuckling1x1]

LIVE IN THE MIDST OF RUIN

[swashbuckling1x1]

verbiscruenta:

Off the new sight of Leon, the scowl dissipates completely. Even if the shirt sported just enough wrinkles that told the world exactly where it had just been (stuffed somewhere deep inside a travel bag), Leon still looked far nicer than any of the men Julian was forced to see on the daily and all the others he’d considered seeing more of when he’d been away. Looking at him now, that kind of thought seemed so ridiculously unfounded that it had no place inside a diplomat’s mind. 

He sighs, infatuation and an unbearable sense of pride prickling in his chest. Julian had worn such an expression before, sixty eight days ago, upon first seeing Leon in his NASA spacesuit. In that moment, he’d looked like he could conquer the whole world; this one and whatever other he stopped by along the way. Julian smiled, made some joke-infused compliment, and kissed him good luck, and then good bye. 

“You tell me,” he says. “Most people haven’t even seen me dressed down. Not even my friends.” Which makes Leon either very lucky or very unlucky. 

Julian’s hand had come up to Leon’s hair, which he brushed backwards as to tame any left rebel stay-at-home hairs, but Leon suddenly moves even closer then, and still now this act alone doesn’t fail to get him powerless. It’s just a hand on his tie, just a distance that’s no longer there– but if Leon could get his head dizzy from millions of miles away, this was an advantage that was far from fair. Yes, is the word that comes to Julian then. Fuck it. Julian’s hand lowers to the nape of Leon’s neck and brings him forward, Julian’s lips meeting his half-way in a hunger-fueled kiss, all feral and desire, with no signs of the gentleness from before. His other hand comes around Leon’s hip, traveling downwards and groping him firmly and ruthlessly. The feeling of Leon under on his tongue and under his palm is enough to almost get him to drift away completely.

When Julian parts, it’s only because he has to. “I want that,” he says, pressing the words into the edge of Leon’s jaw, “But it’s me against this fucker, Lee. I can either get recognition or he can. I gotta see what he’s made of,” – he plants a kiss on Leon’s cheek, – “Come with me?” – and then another. “I’ll make it worth your while. However many times you want; whatever, wherever you want.” 

Leon wanted to say, Lucky we’re not friends then. He wanted to be glib, to brush this off as not important. But it was too late for that. Julian already knew he meant something pretty damn big. There were no secrets between them about that, and that knowledge underpinned the intensity with which Leon returned his kiss. One hand tightened at the back of Julian’s neck, to tether Leon as his knees nearly buckled, or to hold Julian in place, he had no idea. The bruising hardness with which Julian made it clear this is simple, I’m entitled to what’s mine made Leon gasp into Julian’s mouth. Empty apartment. Unused bedroom. Julian’s hand down the front of his pants. He nearly bucked into Julian’s palm.

“It’s between me and that fucker, Lee,” said the voice in his ear, and he just had to put it like that. Cushioned the blow as Julian slowly pulled away. The loss of hot, slick contact was like a slap of cold water. Disappointment dragged between Leon’s teeth in a groan that was almost a plaintive whine.

“Okay,” he said, and involuntarily, he thumbed at the spot on his cheek where Julian’s lips had been. He wasn’t sure if, in his head, he was comparing it to the imprint of lipstick or savouring the tiny unthinking affection Julian was always full of. “Yeah. I get it. ‘Course I do.” The words were unfocused, his attention somewhere else. His gaze kept slipping downward, and it had to be forcibly yanked back up to Julian’s face.

However you want. Whatever, wherever you want. The promise rang through Leon’s head like temptation he couldn’t shake off. All he had to do was say something—God, he nearly did. If Leon said no, I’m not here to tag along, Julian wouldn’t force the issue. He’d understand because that was the kind of guy he was. He understood Leon’s obsessive boundary lines and need for space, and that his desire was for Julian and Julian alone. Julian unencumbered by other people. But this was Julian’s career—how could Leon not understand that?

Leon said, “You look great,” and his whole tone and tenor had changed. Decisively, he raked his gaze up his somewhat-boyfriend who was very dishevelled, lips bitten red. “Hot, even. Definitely dangerous. You got that lean and hungry look in your eye. C’mon, let’s gut that sucker.”

[swashbuckling1x1]

LIVE IN THE MIDST OF RUIN

[swashbuckling1x1]

verbiscruenta:

The fact of Leon wearing Julian’s college hoodie and not having something as simple as a shirt to accompany him outside only perpetuated the only thought which comes forward now: Just go buy something, if you’re gonna stay over. Fly back to Florida and come back with a suitcase full; clothes, shoes, everything you have. But he wouldn’t be the one to say it. Not now. Not first.

“It’s just dinner,” Julian is saying, but soon the door cuts him silent. In a moment not too far from a children’s cartoon, he stares at it dumbfounded, as though trying to figure out its origin; a reason other than my boyfriend is insane for it being there. After a moment, he manages, “What? You don’t want me to see you naked?” That’d be a first. 

Still, he leans against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest as he waits. Now, hearing only the shuffling of Leon’s bag inside, Julian could only think of how surprisingly easy he had been to convince. Julian had just talked an entire country out of a war, yes, but Leon had always been harder. He couldn’t say he didn’t like that.

As per request, he swings open the door, and Julian was sure the look on his face was enough of an answer. “I’d prefer if it didn’t.” And he was the one difficult to brag about. “But if that’s all you got. I might have to dress down, though." 

Like hell it’s ‘just dinner’, thought Leon behind the privacy of the door. There was nothing ‘just’ about the people Julian knew—Leon had seen them elbowing each other behind their smiles and banter, always jockeying for an advantage. Having his bets on Julian didn’t mean Leon was ready to be sucked into that world. He didn’t belong amid their bespoke suits and the ease with which they treated foreign ministers and members of Cabinet like salt and pepper shakers on a dinner table.

It was to laugh at Julian’s quip, but Leon also found himself reaching for his best shirt in the tiny confines of the duffel bag anyway. The duffel bag he kept stashed in the guest room because Julian’s bedroom was… someplace that didn’t need a reminder that Leon wasn’t going to be a permanent occupant. Not in the long run, probably. There’d be a day when Julian would figure that out. Probably to stave off that day, he turned towards the sound of the door opening, dressed in a reasonably acceptable blue buttondown that was light-coloured enough to show how many wrinkles it had. Catching sight of the long-suffering look that Julian was about to give him, Leon promptly began tucking the ends of the shirt into his jeans. (They were black; they could probably pass for legitimate trousers in the dark.)

“There,” he said, throwing up his hands in a gesture of mock-surrender, “no sweats from the Gap. Would anyone even recognise you if you dressed down?” Smoothing down the front of his shirt, Leon took a step forward. In the proximity of the barely-used room, the scent of Julian’s cologne lingered close to his skin. He lifted the tie, letting the silk of it skim between his fingers. “In fact, you’re dressed plenty nice.” The smallest smile quirked up the corner of his mouth as he tilted back his head to regard Julian. “Any chance we can say ‘fuck it’ to this…work thing you have?” He lowered his voice, more suggestively this time, and added: “Promise to make it worth your while.”

[swashbuckling1x1]

LIVE IN THE MIDST OF RUIN

[swashbuckling1x1]

verbiscruenta:

With Leon’s hand on his knee and him suddenly this close, Julian can’t help but feel this is his own try at convincing. Leon should know by now how his presence alone weakens him, much as it was a fact Julian himself couldn’t bring to admit. He’s already breathing lighter now, the up and down of his chest following the rhythm of Leon’s newly found soft – too soft, too uncharacteristic – tone. You should be a politician, he had told him once. You have this thing where you can get anyone to believe whatever bullshit you’re trying to sell. All you have to do is look at them. Julian would like to think it didn’t work as well on him as it did others, but he too wasn’t immune to the charms of Leon Solis. It’s what got them here in the first place, wasn’t it?

Julian wants to stop himself then, but when he notices it, he’s already smiling again. All he had to do was look at him. 

“You don’t have to say that,” Julian tells him. He wanted to believe this; that when he was away, he was what Leon thought and talked about. It was a nice idea, went well with his fantasies of this affection being mutual. But it was also a lot to ask, lest the other person offered. He shakes his head, “Okay, but have you tried telling people you’re dating an astronaut? ‘Cause no one believes that.”

I’m not saving the world, he wants to say. But maybe Leon would find him less interesting then.

To that, Julian simply nods. Where he should be thankful for his pride, Julian just thinks it’s owed. After what he did— it was the least he could get from the man taking residence in his bed. He moves his hand to rest on top of Leon’s, “Okay,” he says. Off his suggestion, an idea strikes— a risky one at that. “What if you traded the incognito hoodie for a nice shirt instead? I have a work thing,” – he admits – “but it’s casual enough that you could come with me. I haven’t had an opportunity to show you off yet.”

What could Leon have told Julian then? That he liked saying he was ‘with’ a diplomat, and letting people draw their own inferences? That he liked the shape of Julian’s name in his mouth, and the way it made him smile? He liked Julian’s mouth on him more, the way they could go sixty-three days without real contact and Julian still felt like home.

Leon’s expression had been magnanimous and expectant of an evening alone with Julian, just good whiskey and the two of them curled in a booth at the back of a bar. It was a place where he could kiss the line of Julian’s neck and no one would notice. No one would care who they were. They’d get away with it—the textbook picture of a romantic couple—right under everyone’s nose. The very mention of a ‘work thing’ made Leon’s magnanimity slip. He scrambled to recover it; he didn’t curl his lip and ask do I have to? By all accounts, he was in an adult relationship. (Jesus, he was forty, and he couldn’t handle being single and adrift at forty.) Compromise—he could do it.

Just think of how happy it’d make him.

Close your eyes and think of America.

“Sure,” agreed Leon, giving Julian’s knee a squeeze before getting to his feet. He hauled Julian up with him. “I’m sure I have a quote-unquote nice shirt somewhere. Too bad I can’t borrow something from you. Otherwise, what I got is a crapshoot.”

Julian had a wardrobe one could shave with, but the sleeves of his shirts always pulled up short on Leon.

Heading for the guest room where he had deposited the one duffel bag of clothes he’d brought, Leon paused to add: “You’ll have to excuse me. I wasn’t expecting too many of your work things. I’m an average joe; international nights of intrigue are new for me.”

With a wink and a laugh, the bedroom door swung shut after him.

And then, five minutes later, through the door— “Hey, Jude? Give me a hand here. You think I can be shown off in something that still has THE GAP written on it?”

[swashbuckling1x1]

LIVE IN THE MIDST OF RUIN

[swashbuckling1x1]

verbiscruenta:

Julian does a double-take and raises both hands, palms toward Leon in weak defence. He didn’t know what to say here. His goal had never been to be someone’s bragging subject, so it was even harder coming up with a reason and selling it as to why he should be. His looks were fine, and certainly subpar if compared to any of Leon’s previous partners, and also his. Julian’s job was prestigious by all standards otherwise, but suddenly it felt small in comparison to Leon’s. On Earth, diplomat is about as high as you can get. But astronaut crushed it with little effort.

“I don’t know what to say to that,” he says, surprisingly honest with his words. “You’re the one that picked me, idiot. If there’s anything to brag about, then you should know.”

What about getting some from the Ambassador to Italy?, he should have asked. Or Germany? Which do you like better?

Instead of following him into the kitchen, Julian settles for the couch, taking the spot where Leon had once been. Typically, he would be tugging at his tie now, loosening it until it was off, same for the rest of the sharp office clothes; tonight, however, it would just be a waste. Of effort, of time. He hadn’t yet told Leon he would be out again soon (the evenings were reserved for just the two of them, ideally), because he knew the reaction that would come with it. Someone else would have just invited him along — surely the other diplomat’s spouse would be there too, as it was meant to be casual, not work —, but he would be lying if he said he didn’t fear how the evening would unfold then.  

One would need to be blind as not to notice the clear change in Leon’s behaviour, especially if you’re the one with him every day and every night. It was like the man he had known before just dipped in darkness, in a kind of unshakeable anger he hadn’t ever seen him wear before Casimir I. Julian had seen it straight away; he just had given Leon the courtesy to not bring it up yet.

You can buy stuff yourself, you know, is what he should have said, but doesn’t. He knows how that would go, too. So instead he goes, “I’m sorry I haven’t been around.” And how ironic those words sounded to the face he hadn’t seen in sixty three days. “You decided to stay here in a very… peculiar time.” Yes, peculiar was the word. “I need to work hard,” — and play dirty, he adds inside his head — “if I’m to give you something worth bragging about.”

He regards Leon for a long moment; he finds himself doing it now, more often than he should. Two thoughts come to him then: one, it had been a long time go to without seeing that face, and two, he needed make sure it didn’t happen again. 

“I’m here now,” he says with a half smile. “If you wanna get the scotch.”

Leon’s hand instantly slackened around the fridge door, the other hand going to the nape of his neck. His hair, razed shorter than it had been when he’d known Julian pre-flight, was always a good reminder that it hadn’t been just yesterday that they’d seen each other, but it hadn’t been years either. He shouldn’t have forgotten how to do this, to be something-like-Julian’s-boyfriend in just over sixty-three days.

Still, Julian’s unexpected defensiveness (for lack of a better word that Leon was still scrambling for) was a gut punch. Where had it even come from? I was kidding, he meant to say. Except if Julian thought it was a joke, he wouldn’t have barricaded himself with a sofa set. Leon had to bat aside the urge to make a wisecrack and move on from the subject. Instead, he picked up the lone beer from the fridge and went over to where Julian sat.

Only a beat too late did he realise he hadn’t gotten the bottle opener.

“Hey,” he said, fitting himself sideways on the couch, one foot on the floor. He put one hand on Julian’s knee because he couldn’t bring himself to touch Julian anywhere else. Not when he felt like he was skating on such thin ice. “You know before I turned into a recluse that lives in your kitchen, you know what my go-to line was? I mean, more than Houston, we have a problem, which is actually something I’ve never said.” Thirty million dollars for each component of the space shuttle, and they were going to announce they had a problem? His grip tightened on Julian’s knee, his body involuntarily leaning in closer as if he could, through sheer willpower, convince Julian. “People are sick of me saying, ‘Oh yeah, Jude ain’t coming tonight. He’s got a dictator to depose, a world to save.’ I need more pictures of you than that one where you look like you’re twenty-five, because no one believes we’re still together.”

Sometimes, I have a hard time believing we’re...

“And that’s why,” went on Leon, moving his palm in long, firm strokes over Julian’s thigh, “I’m getting plenty second-hand credit at your expense. But yeah, I watch the news. I’m a cultured guy with a CNN subscription. What you did? What I think I you did, if we’re being straight—plenty proud of you too. So, let’s get that scotch. I’ll fetch my ‘going incognito’ hoodie.”

[swashbuckling1x1]

LIVE IN THE MIDST OF RUIN

[swashbuckling1x1]

verbiscruenta:

The past sixty-eight days had been difficult in more ways than just one. It had started before that, even, weaks prior. When you’re dating someone (even if dating wasn’t an officiality they had yet), you don’t expect them to hit you with the news of space missions like they were dinner plans. Good morning, babe. Breaksfast’s ready and oh– See you in two months when I’m back from space.

Freaking. Space.

Space meant no further contact than a shaky voice over the speaker, or an image on his screen that seemed too far away. That’s cause it is, dumbass. He wondered if that’s how every other partner of his had ever felt, with impromptu trips across the world and an empty apartment to come home to. Maybe this was payback– universe’s way of getting him to pay his dues. 

Two months alone had been a new strike on sleeping alone, and every night seemed like an eternity if he were to reach his moral goal of fidelity. He wasn’t sure if it was Leon exactly that he missed, or just a warm body by his side when he dozed off at night; someone to talk to besides the walls. His friends had joked, You won’t make it a week, because they knew him as well as he did. And what was Julian trying to prove, exactly? That he could be alone? That he could wait? 

Or that he could wait for him? 

This, he believed, had only added on to the reasons which made him snap. Problems needed solving – the world’s problems, his problems –, and playing nice felt too much like a burden to even try at it. 

The surprise of coming home to Leon – in the flesh, not a sad attempt at cross-planet communication – had been just that. A surprise. Was it too pessimistic of him to have assumed he didn’t care enough to visit? Julian knew the day of the scheduled return, and even if he didn’t follow it too closely, the news report reminded him that the astronauts of Casimir I had safely landed back on Earth. 

Across the country, that was. Not on his fucking doorstep. 

When Julian arrives back home – with the confirmed expactance to find Leon there –, it’s with the same look that he regards him then. He really should check if deprivation hadn’t made his mind imagine him there. “Might have?” He asks, feigning offense. He locks the door behind him, leaves the briefcase in the hallway and starts towards Leon. “How did I ever land such a charmer?” 

He bends down and kisses him, because after sixty three days away, like hell he wouldn’t do it at every chance he got. He pulls away and his eyes catch sight of the red and yellow of what he’s wearing, the embroidered USC logo seeming too out of place across his broad chest. Julian snorts, “You almost don’t look like such a nerd wearing that.” 

There was an easiness to grabbing Julian’s tie in his fist, to savouring the sensation of Julian kissing him. Being deprived of human contact was one thing, but when he was in space, Leon had known only one of the ways in which Julian cared for him. (The way that had made him feel guilty, when other people should have been ecstatic that someone as mercurial as Julian Berkeley cared enough to make the effort to stay in touch despite gruelling exhaustion, international disasters, and government-regulated personal time on a precarious Internet connection. All of Leon had wanted to be there with Julian, beside him on the sterile and starched hotel room sheets, and in the empty-looking apartment in San Francisco, but he could have never reciprocated the same kind of yearning with which Julian looked back at him.) This, however—kissing a real, firm, warm Julian was different. What was sixty three days compared to feeling like this?

Reluctantly letting go of Julian, Leon climbed off the couch. He tugged at the sweatshirt, covering up the university logo out of loyalty to his own alma mater, Stanford. He pretended to grimace at the tiny and wild idea that even twenty years earlier, the two of them had gone to school in the same state, so close that they’d been separated by a distance that was invisible from space.

“Like your major was cool.” Leon rolled his eyes and added, “You’ve no idea how hard it is to brag about you. I had to tell the guys at Houston that I was getting some from the future Secretary of State of the United States.”

There was a question buried under the joking when he looked at Julian, eyebrows raised, head tilted quizzically. Are you? was what he didn’t ask aloud. How much of you changed while I was gone?

“Not that anyone knows what a lousy roommate you are.” Walking into the kitchen, Leon flung open the fridge door and pointed accusatorily at the diminished stock of beer. (Most of that was because of him, but what else was there to do when Julian was gone all day?) “Practically doesn’t live here anymore and tells me not to finish his good scotch without him.”

[swashbuckling1x1]

LIVE IN THE MIDST OF RUIN

After sixty three days in Casimir I, examining the effect of zero gravity on microbial mutation, everything in Julian Berkeley's apartment seemed larger than life. Had his LED flatscreen always been that big? Had his mail always come in long white envelopes with plastic windows?

Boredom had worked fast to make Leon Solis better-acquainted with Julian's furniture (right down to the ding of Pop Tarts in the toaster) than Julian himself. Like hell this was what he'd had in mind—flipping channels on Friday evening, volume turned up as a fuck-you to the neighbours—while Julian was somewhere else, clawing for a place in the diplomatic corps, living his life. Was this how life was going to be if Leon decided to stay longer on Julian's couch than a surprise visit to San Francisco? Was the high of the first shock of seeing Julian in the flesh, his breath real and warm on Leon's cheek after sixty three days of a computer screen, going to wear off this fast?

After all, he hadn't come down to sunny California for his health. The world was in the space between the two ends of Julian's smile when he looked at Leon.

Timing, Leon had to admit, could've been better. What was Casimir I thinking, landing on terra firma just days after the news were all about the embassy crises in foreign countries and the skyrocketing of gas prices? Every morning, Leon, who got up at six out of sheer habit, had to resist the urge to turn off Julian's alarm to keep him in bed for just an hour longer. Maybe a couple of hours. Even a day. Like that would be so bad. The sight of Julian, hair sleep-tangled and trapped in bedsheets he shared with Leon, was enough to make the rest of the reality go fuzzy at the edges. Wake up, he always wanted to whisper. Life's too short and I'm bored.

With Property Brothers turned up so loud, Leon missed the sound of the lock turning in the door. The uncanny sensation of no longer being alone in the room prickled at the back of his neck. Twisting around on the couch, he was smacked with the all-too-welcome view of Julian having dragged himself home. Even then, he was in stark contrast to the size-too-small trackpants and college sweatshirt Leon had borrowed from the closet. Julian was immaculate as ever. Dapper, even, made more so by his permanent air of self-assured satisfaction.

One arm flung around the back of the couch, Leon pushed down the impatience to physically reach for Julian. "There you are," he said, unfurling a slow smile. "Any longer and I might have started to miss you."