This is Me Trying
For a long moment, he scanned the trees and bushes, through the sidewalk, up and down. Satisfied it was empty, or reasonably so, he stepped back from the window and drew the curtains slightly, allowing a few lances of sunshine through.
As he turned to scoop up the electric kettle, Julian said from the counter, “It’s fine, don’t worry. No one followed me or saw me.” He never even looked up from the drink cupped in his hands.
Oz just smiled faintly as he poured hot water over the teabag in his own cup. “You gotta admit, there’s no way to really be sure when it’s someone of your caliber.” He walked over to the kitchen island and took the seat across the corner from his unexpected guest.
Julian didn’t answer. Oz gave him a few charitable moments of contemplative quiet as he steeped his own tea. He took the bag out with care, adding sugar generously, before reaching over to take his guest’s cup and swapping it with his cup. “This looks like it’d be better for you. You’re expecting too much out of your coffee from the way you stare at it.”
“What is this?” Julian asked with a mild grimace when he took a bracing sip.
Oz was pleased; getting some emotion out of him was good. “It’s herbal. Supposed to calm you. I wouldn’t know, I don’t drink it a lot.”
“Like you need any more calming…” Julian snorted and took another sip. “Thanks.”
“No problem,” Oz replied, setting down his own drink. “So...are you...going to tell me what brings you to San Francisco?” He smirked slightly before taking another sip. “Without even a call to warn me that I was going to have an Oscar nominee sitting in my kitchen?”
“Don’t be like that,” Julian made a face at him. “That never mattered to you.”
“You’re right…” Oz laughed, hoping it was contagious enough to crack a smile from the other boy. He looked around again. “...but seriously, you need to tell someone where you are. You didn’t even bring a bodyguard?” He looked at Julian with a furrow on his brow. “Given what happened...I’d expect you’d have your own Secret Service at this point.”
Julian’s hands tightened around the cup as he stared into it. “...yeah, my handler thinks I’ve gone to see Berkeley.”
Oz lit up at that. “Are you? Did you change your mind? You’re going to college?”
“Do I look like I have time to go to college…?” Julian retorted, barely moving.
“You never know,” Oz replied with a smile. “You always make time when it matters to you.” He paused before adding with a sigh, “Which is why...I know there has to be a really good reason you’re sitting in my kitchen right now.”
The pause felt heavy, and Oz wasn’t used to that with this particular person. He remembered how Julian used to laugh in the same way light reflects from glass; it would scatter in echoes on the walls and you didn’t have a choice but to smile. Because he seemed so...young.
And looking at this boy, sunglasses on his messy chocolate-colored crown, oversized merch sweater from the last Haven tour, flushed from the sunny outdoors but heavy-lidded, and lashes smudged dark onto his cheeks--he looked younger than ever.
“I just...thought I’d come by.” Julian whispered.
It sounded like a secret. Like everything about this visit. Like everything about the two of them.
“...you look tired,” Oz remarked quietly. “You haven’t been sleeping well?”
“...sometimes I think I sleep too much.”
“Not back to work yet, are you?” Oz asked, concerned. “You don’t look to be in any condition to go back work the way you do.” That, and nothing in the news and gossip rags suggested that Julian Larson had ever even stirred out of his house. At least not from what Oz knew.
“I want to…” Julian sighed, stirring the cup as though the dredges would answer him. “...it’d be something to do. I don’t want to be inside anymore. Like…” The way he stared out to the sunshine outside made it seem like he was looking through worlds. “...I want to be somewhere else.”
There was a pause, and then Julian looked at him with a faint smile. “You were the first person I thought of.”
At that, Oz had the humility to blush as he looked away from that familiar smile. He remembered back when he was free to kiss it when he wanted, but never really took advantage of the fact. Now it just felt like something glimmering in the distance that he could admire and not touch. And he was alright with that.
What he wasn’t alright with was the reason it was here again. “I’m flattered, J. But...I’m just more worried about you than ever now.” He sighed. “Everyone’s heard about what happened to you, and then not much about you since.”
“You’ve kept tabs on me?”
“Hard not to,” Oz smiled. “You left an impression.”
“And what did you hear everyone say about me?” Julian asked, almost sarcastically.
“That you were healing, that your manager said that you’re resting, that your mother is looking after you, that rumor has it you’re going to a spa in the Netherlands for therapy, that you’re going to be okay…” Oz leaned back with a smile. Then he was serious again. “But you’re not okay.”
“I’m not,” Julian admitted. He hesitated for one more moment, and then maybe his internal walls started to crack, as it all came rushing out. “I can’t stay home and...watch my mother worry about me. Stare at me with that look on her face. I can’t eat another plate of aggressively healthy organic recovery food. I can’t...deal with cameras with the telephoto lenses around the corner down our street. Watching for me. I don’t...know how they knew where I go for physical therapy and I want to throw my phone every time there’s an update about an in-depth interview request or...or…an appearance at Oprah or...or…” He let out a shaking breath. “They said this was all in my head, it’s all up to me about getting “better” or that I’m so talented that I shouldn’t waste it and I need to get better, all that, but everyone’s doing things around me and looking at me and expecting me to do...something... It’s just…” He closed his eyes and pressed his hands to his temples.
He looks so young.
Oz smiled sadly. “...it’s too much noise, huh?”
“It’s...everyone wanting a piece of me.” Julian braced his elbows on the counter and stared into the distance again. “...I don’t even know if I want me. Or if I can be the me that everyone wants right now.”
“Nobody has the right to demand that of you,” Oz replied softly, after charitable consideration. “You shouldn’t be made to feel like you owe them anything.”
“Is that why you quit…?” Julian asked.
“I never quit,” Oz bristled back at him, and for the first time, that familiar laugh scattered onto his walls. “I’m just not as intense about my filmography as you. I do still work, you know.”
“S’not what your IMDB page says.”
“You’ve kept tabs on me?” Oz teasingly mimicked him. But he smiled. “I do theatre these days. You should try it. You’d be amazing at it.”
“What’s college like?” Julian asked with a soft smile at him. “Do you like it?”
“It’s alright,” Oz laughed, indulging his need to change the topic. “I’d rather be on the stage. But having a degree is an important part of my fallback plan, and it’d make my parents feel better, so I trudge through it.” He smiled warmly at Julian. “You don’t need a backup plan, though. You’ve always known what you wanted and where you wanted to be.”
Those beautiful brown eyes just stared at him, looking big and a little haunted. “...do I?”
“You do,” Oz replied firmly, taking his hand and giving it a firm squeeze. “You always have. And if you don’t yet...well… you’ll figure it out.”
“I’m trying,” Julian’s voice started to waver, his hands cold and they shook. “I’m trying so hard but…I can’t see it yet.”
“You will,” Oz replied, staring back at him. “Julian, you… You know, you’re literally the weirdest kid I know? I have never in my life met anyone like you. When we were...when we were still a thing, I was intimidated by the fact that you had such a clear, definite goal in front of you. And it was a crazy stupid goal too, a freaking EGOT by age twenty-one, like—” he paused for a moment when he heard Julian let out a laugh, “—seriously, like in what universe does someone your age, my age have that insane goal with a refusal to accept any other outcome, and you were so intense about it that you were literally within reach of it, huh? And there was just me, like, happy to just get another casting…Hell, I could’ve done Youtube and been happy. I kept asking myself, who are you, why is this person going out with me, like…?”
He smiled as he waited for Julian to wipe his eyes. Then he added, “...you’re a freak in the way that… you figure it out. All the time. Like how a cat always lands on its feet. I mean I’m not going to say all your choices are great, but…” He shrugged. “You get there. And I know you’ll figure it out when you give yourself the chance to.”
“Cat…” Julian smiled faintly, looking as though he were remembering something. It was a pause before he suddenly said, “You know my mom got me one? Like...supposedly he’s an emotional support cat but I think she just got him for me for...companionship purposes.”
“Always good to have a friend,” Oz replied with a grin. Then he blinked in realization. “...is that why you came to me?”
“...I didn’t know if you’d care, if I dropped in without telling you,” Julian gave him an almost apologetic smile. “But I just...needed someone away from...all that.”
That was big. Bigger than Oz had expected. Julian Larson was not someone he knew to really need anyone. Even when they worked together in Something Damaged, it was like the show needed Julian and not the other way around. He even knew everyone’s lines better than they did.
“I’m just...trying to get better,” Julian whispered, reminding Oz that he’d gone quiet. “I thought...going to someone away from all this would help.”
Oz smiled and squeezed his hands reassuringly. “See…? I told you you’d know where to go.” He received a small smile for that. “Screw what everyone wants you to do. What do you want to do? Where do you want to be?”
It was like the question frightened him. Julian’s eyes were wide and he looked like he was looking for an answer. But was it really the question that worried him, or the answer?
Softly, Oz said, “Forget their expectations of you. And forget what you’re expecting of yourself. You haven’t let anything or anyone down. All this...it’s...just a setback. You’re getting back to your feet, that’s what it is. So… if there’s someplace you want to be, just for right now, or the immediate future… You should be there. Like when you picked to be here suddenly.”
He gave Julian an intent stare. “When you think of where you want to be...where’s the first place you think of…?”
Julian was very quiet as he stared back at him. But Oz knew, behind those brown eyes, he was seeing something or someone. A place or a person. Something. Like he was seeing an instant flashback. Julian did know where he wanted to be. He always did. Oz knew that well.
But wherever it is… it may not be a place he can be in just yet.
So he smiled instead. “Hey. You don’t have to go there this second. You don’t have to look so afraid. I’m not going to throw you out my door to go. You’re welcome to stay for as long as you like.”
“...I guess not.” Julian managed to smile.
“Well, if you’re not going anywhere for a bit, then…” Oz poured him another cup of tea, beaming at him and trying to lighten the mood. “So...tell me about your new cat, and I’ll tell you about theatre.”
“I would like that.”
~~~