Fic: Breaking the News, HL / RSL, HL / SF (RPS)
Fic: Breaking the News
Author: Nakanna Lee
Pairing: Hugh / Robert, past Hugh / Stephen, Hugh /wife, Robert / wife
Rating: R
Disclaimer: I own nothing. None of this is real. No harm is meant to anyone mentioned.
Spoilers: House, 6x10.
Summary: Robert expects to meet Hugh in his trailer, but Stephen drops by instead with an important piece of information.
Word Count: 1720
A/N: This is outside my usual HL/RSL RPS universe.
Also: I just kept getting the brilliant image of Stephen “singing” light metal. If you know what I’m referring to, just keep that in mind when reading this. <3
Robert was asleep in Hugh’s empty trailer when Stephen Fry dropped by.
“Oh, I am sorry,” Stephen said, as Robert jolted awake on the couch. Bleary-eyed, he uncrossed his arms and slowly shifted his spine straighter.
“No, it’s fine. Uh. Hugh’s not here.”
“That does seem to be the case.”
Robert frowned. He reached across the sofa for the note beside him and extended it to Stephen.
“They must have snatched me up to cram in a few more scenes,” Stephen read aloud. “Or I’ve found a more interesting distraction for these insufferable days. Don’t complain too much, or I’ll have nothing to do when I return.” Stephen carefully folded the note back up, watching with interest as he did. “I do believe we should be thankful for our small parts in American television that allow us to see the sun before it sinks beneath the skyline.”
“Yeah, I’m usually home by noon,” Robert said. He’d thought about it often during the ten hours he’d been waiting or sleeping. Any other day of the week he’d be at his apartment, in yesterday’s socks, watching Law and Order and eating something out of a bag.
But today Hugh had asked him to wait around the trailer.
“Actually, Hugh requested if I would deliver to you a message,” Stephen said. Robert must have given him a questioning look, because he clarified, “I stopped by the set after Bones and caught him on a water break.”
“Ah-huh,” Robert said.
“He wanted to speak to you in person, of course, but since he’s busy with linguistic acrobatics of the medical and American kind-”
“Right, right.” There was a certain wordiness to Stephen that Robert had never found patience for.
“Yes, well. It’s about the guitar opening of the next episode, your episode. Me colleague wants to use the song ‘Faith.’”
Robert ignored the slight bristle he felt at hearing me colleague. He shook his head. “‘Faith…’”
“By George Michael.”
“Sorry, uh.” Robert shrugged. “I don’t know it. I’m sure it’s fine, it’s Hugh.”
“He asked me to take you through the lyrics, just to ensure that you were fine with the song.”
“It’s not necessary, really. Hugh knows what he’s doing.”
“That’s true, yes. But I also believe he wants you to know what he’s doing.”
“Did Hugh say what time he was getting done?” Robert asked. He liked the way the name felt saying it aloud. Hugh. It felt personal saying it, better than nicknames like me colleague.
“Robert.” Stephen finally sat down on the couch across from him. “I do apologize for waking you, and for interrupting what I’m certain you thought was going to be a stress-relieving tryst between you both.”
“Uh,” Robert said.
“Just because we two have never engaged in this conversation does not mean Hugh and I have not. I make no more claim to the man than you. Certainly as situations are I wholly believe you have the greater part of him, and in this case perhaps rightfully so. Still, at this stage in my life, he is the greatest friend I could ask for and I love him for that and a million other things of endless varieties.”
Stephen paused. Robert kept eye contact, although he felt he was only saving face against Stephen’s deep, slippery analysis of every twitch in his expression.
“He’s not mentioned anything about me, has he?” asked Stephen.
“I guessed,” Robert said.
“Well then, very good.” Stephen waved a hand and sat back on the couch, stretching his legs. “But that was years ago, it was, goodness we were so young and too tall,” he laughed, “Hugh still athletic but gangly and I, well, I’ve never quite tamed this stomach, have I?”
“This… really isn’t my business,” Robert said.
“But of course it is,” Stephen said, almost gleefully. “Curiosity is such an insatiable creature. Deny it and it will eat away at you until you’ve no choice but to call it jealousy.”
There was a long pause between them. Robert assumed he found it far more awkward than Stephen did, since Stephen was smiling-not aggressively, not critically-but with a genuine, respectful distance as if he were discussing things very removed from himself.
Robert thought of the last time he and Hugh had managed to be together. Working during the week with each other surprisingly didn’t make it frequent. Robert had family commitments to balance now. He hadn’t worked out yet how or if he should tell his wife, like Hugh had years ago. The Lauries had an understanding that worked for them. Robert doubted the same arrangement would work for him.
Last month, when Gabby and his daughter went to visit the in-laws on the East Coast, Robert had stayed over in Hugh’s apartment for an entire week. It was the longest either of them had dared to since this began. Robert didn’t know if it was for convenience or if he was really looking to pressure things, force himself to make a decision. He only came to one conclusion: morning sex was good. He’d missed it. But he hadn’t missed the delicate balance of ‘don’t leave until I leave and call you to say it’s clear.’ Or how personal sharing a bathroom was becoming, all those toothbrushes and hand towels. Hugh leaving him hot tea in the morning was nice, though, and he always remembered to make it Lipton and not Earl Grey like Hugh himself drank.
Still. It made House and Wilson’s apartment scenes nerve-wracking, as if they were hints shrieking their secret to everyone within viewing range.
Eventually discomfort won out and Robert went back to Santa Monica. He accidentally left his toothbrush at Hugh’s and, rather than asking for it back, just decided to buy another one. They hadn’t been together since. No late night TV dinners in Robert’s apartment, no stopping by trailers between shooting. Robert thought, fleetingly, of the time he’d straddled Hugh on this same couch he now slouched on.
“Robert?” Stephen asked. He smiled, kindly but probing.
“You only play a psychologist, right? You aren’t one,” Robert said.
“Psychiatrist actually, but yes, I suppose me and my chemically-addled brain are not two to speak, are we? Well then. Shall I leave you be?”
“Sure, fine,” Robert said, not adding that would be great.
“Shall I just go over this song Hugh wished me to then?”
“Oh, ‘Faith,’” Robert said. He waved his hands and fought down a grimace. “All right, go ahead.”
“Yes, now. The first line proceeds as such: I think it would nice...” Stephen smiled, cleared his throat and sat up straighter. “I think it would be NICE, so goes the song, if I could touch your body.”
Robert closed his eyes. “God, no.”
“Oh refrain for just a fraction of a second, wait for it to continue. You know not everybody… has got a body like you.”
“God.”
“And Hugh wishes to add a very decisive Baby to the end of that.”
Robert sighed loudly, rubbing at an eyebrow so hard he could feel dry skin flaking off. “What is he doing to me.”
“Well does it make you feel positively squishy and glorious inside?”
Robert laughed, a short, barking sound. “Not really.”
“Oh, come, come. Don’t you see how brilliant this is? He’s not even here yet he’s found delicious ways to torture you.”
“Do you still want him? You can have him.”
“Oh no, now I wouldn’t do that to you, would I?” Stephen smiled, a wobbly thing of pure pleasure.
Footsteps on the trailer steps interrupted. Hugh popped his head in.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Robert,” he said.
“Hi, I’m going to kill you,” Robert said.
“Oh my. Oh, Stephen. Hello.” Hugh paused, realizing. “Oh.”
“Thank you for including me, me colleague, that was the absolute most fantastic part of my entire visit.” Stephen rose and leaned, extending his hand to Robert. “A pleasure as always, Robert. I do hope you find me, if not amusing, then at least in earnest.”
Robert took the handshake. “I’m trying,” he said.
Stephen turned toward Hugh on his exit, giving him a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Do let Robert be miserable tonight so you don’t have to be.”
Hugh cracked a smile. “What have you done to him?”
“As you’ve wished. Have a lovely night. Hope to see you both again before I take off to New York.”
Hugh looked at Robert as they became the only two people in the trailer.
“Do I have to say anything?” Robert asked. He tried to force his face into a frown, but it didn’t want to stay that way when Hugh walked to him and moved his knees apart with a leg. “Worst song choice in-actually, ever. Worst song choice ever.”
“My attempt at double-meaning had no effect on you?” Hugh asked.
“It was lacking.”
“Really?” Hugh dropped his eyes to Robert’s lap and quirked an eyebrow.
“Aha, clever,” Robert said. “What you should’ve-” He inhaled quickly as Hugh dropped down onto him.
“What was that?”
“We’re going to get caught and-and it’s going to be your fault.”
“Stephen assures me blatancy is the best disguise.”
“And Stephen knows everything.”
“Robert.” Hugh dipped his hand between Robert’s legs and leaned in, kissing him just as he gasped. “I’ll have no allusions to my infidelity towards you. Other than our general infidelities required by marriages.”
“Nice,” Robert said.
“So we try,” Hugh said. “I believe, actually, as a songwriter once wrote, that we gotta have fai-”
“Enough. Stephen was easier to deal with.” Robert grabbed the back of Hugh’s neck, fingers itching from his short hair, and kissed him hard.
If anything worked out at all, he would find some way during the course of the night to convince Hugh to change his mind. Hands there, lips here-he’d been awkward at first but grown more confident. Hugh let him be as left-footed as he himself still was. It was never exactly smooth, but it was relief.
And maybe he could use it to his advantage.
“I’m not changing my mind,” Hugh said, reading his mind, as Robert struggled to undo their pants.
“We’ll see,” Robert said.
He ignored the rare grin spreading across Hugh’s face as he pulled his zipper down.
end