Fic: Disarray, Part I (RDJude)
Fic: Disarray (3 parts, completed)
Author: Nakanna Lee
Pairing: RDJude, RDJude/ofc, Robert/Susan and mentions of Jude/Siena
Rating: hard R
Disclaimer: I own nothing, and none of this happened.
Warnings: Drug use
Word Count: 4,000
After weeks in New York, in the cold sun that sits in the sky like a stone in a frozen sea, London is strange. It’s wetter than Jude remembered. There’s a persistent mist layering his jacket, making him swish no matter how subtly he moves. The clouds hang low as if ready to touch the Thames. From one bridge to another the skyline drifts to gray. His scarves are for fashion, accessories witless against the brisk turn of winter. So it would be like this then.
Sometimes he drifts in and out of Hamlet. He remembers the fast pretzels on the streets of New York. Indulgence. He sifts a hard American accent around on his tongue. He stretches vowels and whispers them between his teeth. He liked watching Robert do this. He liked watching sounds change on Robert’s tongue, molting, sinking, dying, then rising again, some verbal phoenix cast from his mouth.
Walking through West Side Jude sees how the posters have changed. His own face is gone, the words of Shakespeare having faded from these streets. It was harder than he thought to leave that character. He thought Hamlet would be a well-worn skin. Of course becoming him would be personal-it would have to be, it would be the sum of who he was as a man and son and father and actor laid bare, preparing to unravel. And yet he thought it would be easy to step away from that.
The problem, though, was Robert.
The problem was always Robert.
Robert comes to New York once to see the play. Jude remembers the exact date, the exact show, the exact seats where he and Susan sat. On stage Jude tries to avoid eye contact, but even in the dark the presence of Robert swells, makes the air thick and static-as if Jude is snagged beneath some sweater the size of a circus tent, and as he whirls and drags himself about blue electricity jolts across his skin. His hair stands on end.
The script words come as they always come. They are packaged and memorized, ancient and as momentous as dropping a pin, waiting for sound that never came.
At the end of the night Robert greets him in the dressing room, his suit perfect black and white. Jude stands in the middle of undressing. His jeans are on, rooting him to the floor, Hamlet refusing to let go, refusing action. His shirt is thrown on a nearby chair, his chest open and flushed.
Robert kisses him there, trailing a biting path along his jawline. His hands press against Jude’s chest and fingers tug at the hair. It’s just enough to cause a pang of pain.
But Susan is in the theatre somewhere and Jude knows it, so he doesn’t ask about flats or hotels or even a cab or limo, where things could be arranged. Where things could be done.
“Tomorrow,” Robert hisses in his ear. Jude reaches between them and palms Robert roughly through his black pants, imagining him detailed in shape and length. But none of it feels real. None of it ever does.
It is all too fast, too rushed. It all has to be. And they tell each other this is fine, it is awful and it can work.
***
London steals away into summer. The rain continues, growing grayer in warmer temperatures. There’s something sticky about the air. Jude wears his v-necks and notices the sweat that sometimes gathers beneath the dip of his collarbone.
The filming for the second movie has started and there’s a sick spin in Jude’s stomach whenever he wakes, walks, eats, breathes. He’s missed being around Robert. He’s missed feeling humorous, missed the euphoria of making him laugh. He recalls now that prickly, giddy feeling. It’s not even an effort. It’s natural, entirely without pressure. He’s never been more himself.
Until now he hasn’t seen Robert in months. How that happened, he’s still not sure. There was Iron Man 2, yes, which did incredibly in theatres. A worldwide tour went along with that. Jude called Robert’s mobile often and once caught him at an obscene hour in a hotel room in Japan. According to Robert there were glass statues and chocolate manikins of Iron Man around the place. There was a tray of exotic fruit that Robert could not identity. The walls were fusia and gold, both fluish colors.
“Busy, you are,” Jude said. At the time he was sitting on a couch in his flat, toeing silver heels Sienna left behind the night before.
“Time for me to keep you that way,” Robert said. His voice revealed as much as he wanted it to, which in this case, Jude knew, was everything. Jude closed his eyes and let his head fall back, imagining Robert’s hands shoving down his jeans.
“Listen,” Robert said between harsh inhales, “are you listening?”
***
The first week back, now all Jude does is listen. At least it feels that way. Both he and Robert have been preoccupied with filming and interviews and family. When he sees Robert wandering about on set it’s almost an illusion. Jude is hyperaware of Robert’s body, where his hand rests on his shoulder just like always, where he stands in proximity to him, what direction his waist favors. It’s maddening. There is an overabundance of detail and keeping it all straight is beginning to drive Jude-
He stops. Not crazy. He watches Robert work around the props department, examining the sheen of Victorian necklaces and the spider-like lightness of doilies sprawled over oaken dressers. No. Not crazy. But a heightened sense of reality, perhaps, one that constantly has to be reaffirmed as true.
They have sex nearly every night, usually at Jude’s flat. There’s no sign of any female presence. If Robert notices-Jude almost wishes he would-he doesn’t say anything. How Robert works around Susan, Jude doesn’t know, but says nothing, too.
Robert leaves various personal things all around Jude’s place. There are watches and sunglasses and hats and boxers and belts and the smell of him everywhere. Jude lets things be where he finds them. The whole place is decorated haphazardly by Robert’s forgetfulness, his purposefulness.
Jude thinks of the pistol Sherlock persistently forgets. Jude skims his fingers over Robert’s left-behind items-a hat here, thick-rimmed fashion glasses there-and almost smirks, having no intention to return them. That’s not the point.
He’s nearly certain people know. The women on set do. Of course the women do. Perhaps Guy. Perhaps Robert has even said something. But Robert’s blunt honesty is his greatest disguise, because he knows full well that the most unlikely things are never taken with full seriousness. He hides things right out in the open.
Jude never speaks of it, not knowing why. There’s a tiny lurking fear somewhere in his brain, some aggressive voice he dreads that can never be shaken free.
He doubts Robert has that voice. One rare lazy afternoon neither is needed, Jude laughs and leans back against his fridge while Robert dances around the kitchen’s geometric linoleum doing a self-deprecating striptease.
“How can Susan tolerate you?” Jude laughs. Only after the words hit the air does he realize what stone he’s overturned.
Robert seems oblivious, untouched. “She’s a remarkable woman. You’re a remarkable man.”
Something heavy surfaces in Jude’s chest. It is sudden. Still smiling, he raises his chin feeling defiant, selfish, almost petulant.
“We’re only even then?”
“Get naked. I want to see you.”
“Answer me,” Jude says. He steadies his shoulders as Robert approaches him, unbuttoning his shirt in that controlled, cocky way Jude loves replaying over and over again. He pauses as Robert’s fingers work the plastic discs through the material. “Does she know?”
“She allows it.”
“Does she. I’m an allowance?”
“You’re a man. Men are different.”
“Are they?”
“She doesn’t care. It doesn’t matter.” Robert finishes unbuttoning his shirt and shrugs it off. Jude’s eyes jump to the tattoo on his right shoulder. Robert holds up his hands, palms showing empty, unencumbered.
Robert is free, almost unhinged.
Only later, when the falling apart begins, does Jude realize how much so.
PART II