Fic: (RDJude) part III
The next day Robert isn’t on set. Guy asks if Jude has seen him.
“No, sorry,” Jude says.
He bites the inside of his lip when Guy turns and goes to ask the women. Jude saw him. He saw him this morning, asleep in his bed, hung over from a concoction of things.
Talk travels around set. People in costume, people in jeans. Stunt guys and extras. Anyone seen Robert?
Yes, Jude thinks, this morning with covers half thrown over him. And then it’s here again: Jude checking his pulse, feeling his own slow in preparation for some heroic burst, some frantic action he might have to take.
There it is. Thump. Thump.
Has anyone seen Robert?
And there, on his arm. Jude leans over to inspect. A good doctor finding one tiny needle’s prick.
Anyone?
Robert’s groggy voice coming to out of dreamland. “Jude?”
Some heroic action. Fit for a friend. Fit for-
Did he go out?
-a lover? They never said lover. Funny, Jude reflects. He’s never quite thought it himself, either.
Well shit, he’s got a mobile. Has anyone called his mobile?
“Idiot,” Jude calls him. “Right fit for an idiot.”
Robert closes his eyes as a smile wafts over his face. “And this is the part where you save me…”
Maybe it’s a question. Maybe it’s not.
We’re wasting time!
I know, Jude thinks.
***
A day later Robert’s bouncing around again like nothing ever happened. Jude expected some sort of stern pow-wow to take place, and maybe it has between Guy and Robert, but if it did he was never invited.
Jude has dashed out for a coffee break in Watson’s clothes. He returns to find Susan on set. She’s been busy with other projects. It’s been months since he’s so much as said hello. She catches his eye and the corners of his mouth twitch. She says something briefly to the crew around her, then approaches him.
His nerves go somewhere else-maybe he forces them away, maybe he’s just too well-adjusted to this sort of life, hiding behind other faces-so he hugs her back when she wraps him up in greeting. It’s not been uncommon between them, especially during the first film. Now he glances over her face trying to distinguish concern, but she’s learned the ways of the world, too. The ways of Robert.
“Missed seeing you, Jude,” she says. “How are you?”
“How are you?” Jude returns without answering.
She nods and watches the set be constructed, be rearranged.
“We both love him,” she says. “We can both help him.”
They stand there like that, unspeaking, as props create a world that never quite existed.
***
A few nights pass without improvement. The night before a Sunday free day, Jude is waiting at his apartment, spinning one of Robert’s stray hats around his fingers when the door opens. He’s left it unlocked for them.
Robert looks uprooted and uneasy. Susan is beside him, holding his hand with interlocked fingers, guiding him into Jude’s living room.
“What’s going on?” Robert asks. He looks from Susan to Jude. Jude sees that his pupils are normal, his reaction time quick, though a bit tired.
Jude says nothing. He rises from his seat and takes off the stretch of fabric that had been wrapped around Robert’s hat. Careful not to pull his hair, he wraps it around Robert’s eyes and ties the back in a solid knot.
Robert laughs, begins to say something quick and witty but then Susan kisses him and Jude grabs his hips, pulling him back towards him. All snarky comments drop.
They move down the hallway, and Jude wonders if Susan has noticed Robert’s possessions piling up in odd spots. He had plenty of time to move them out of eye range, but he hadn’t. He couldn’t.
In the doorway Jude slips away from Robert. He can’t do this either. Susan has her hands in Robert’s hair and his hands are gently on her arms. She turns, reaches halfway back to Jude, gives him a questioning look.
Robert is blindfolded but Jude feels as if he and Susan have been stripped of any ability to speak. He shakes his head and she goes to break the silence. He stops her, ducking back in to peck her forehead before disappearing down the hall, through the living room, and out the front door.
Robert has a key. He figures when they’re done he’ll lock Jude’s door on the way out.
***
The door is still open when he returns at eight in the morning. Tired, rumpled from sitting at bars and not drinking, Jude enters to find Robert sitting at the kitchen table, drinking the organic soda he bought weeks ago and hadn’t touched.
“Morning,” Robert says.
“Hello,” says Jude. “Did you, uh, stay the night?”
He nods. “Susan is still sleeping in the guest room. Is that all right?”
“You don’t have to ask,” Jude says. He considers pulling out a chair to sit beside Robert, then instead leans against the kitchen counter. There is crumb evidence of badly burnt toast.
“I’m not bored,” Robert says finally. “Maybe misdirected.”
“Probably.”
“I might always be. At times. Is that all right?”
“Not really.” Jude scratches the side of his nose, sighs. “But you’ve got no one else to be as good at helping.”
Robert hums to himself. Jude almost expects him to promise something, then realizes that’s a hope, not an accurate expectation. It’s just the beginning of fixing things. Still, Robert shifts in his seat, dressed in Jude’s clothes and smelling like Susan, and offers up a smile.
Jude returns it, secure in knowing he keeps everything else.
end.