[fic] Jaywalking [france/england] - i
Title: Jaywalking.
Pairing: Francis/Arthur (France/England)
Rating/Warnings: NC-17. Snogging. Sex. Lots of both, really. Also boys being unnaturally stupid.
Word Count: 20,000 words OH GOD MY LIFE
'Verse: Human AU.
Summary: Arthur had always been rather alarmingly British, and so he made tea. Listened to Francis' thick voice announce Leonard Cohen and the Kinks over Earl Grey at seven-thirty one morning, and bought a portable radio the next, to take with him when he was on his early shift. Made more tea. He fell into a routine.
Notes: Written for the current challenge cycle at what_the_fruk, to this prompt. When fireblazie put it up, I mentioned in that endless double conversation she and I have got going that I was probably going to spin an AU to it, and that if it ended up as an interminable monster, she was to take all the blame ever, and also bake me macaroons. (Oh, alright, so I just added in that last clause.) A month and a half and 20,000 words later, here we are, and the dear little thing has been torn apart, mangled, trampled, entirely rewritten, and split in two. I blame her, still. Also, tumblr.
i saw a film today oh boy
the english army had just won the war
a crowd of people turned away
but i just had to look
having read the book.
i'd love to turn you on.
- a day in a life
(un.)
(Some nights, just some nights, Francis wakes up rather earlier than he was prepared to, at one, two in the morning, and Arthur is sitting cross-legged at the foot of the bed, turned sideways, laptop on his knees. He'll have his headphones on his ears and his glasses on his nose, and he'll be typing, sometimes smoking. It's the smell of Francis' own sweet cigarettes, packet on the pillow.
Most times Francis pretends not to notice. Their usual guards fall away, at night, and he burrows back into the duvet with a sigh and a whimper of pleasure: they're both hedonists, in their way, and Arthur's pleasure lies in writing songs in the middle of the night. Francis enjoys sleeping. It is a remarkable invention, this thing sleep, and so he tucks his feet neatly under the slope of Arthur's thigh, tucks his face into the pillow with a whimper of affection.)
Booooooonjour, Londres!
He wakes up at seven. Every day, with the radio switched on, rapid-fire French strewn in ringlets around his brain, boldly mixed with English, a blasphemous mixture of both languages that makes the Channel shake. The universe ends every morning; paradoxes stand up and walk; and a Frenchman welcomes London to its breakfast.
London is a muddled man with impressive eyebrows and far too much work, this morning. This morning likes it here: the kettle is warm and red and good, and the tea is spicy, boiling. It wraps around Arthur's legs as he pads about the countertop, fetches sugar in a half-asleep daze, grapples for his jam.
Arthur picks it up and puts it down - next to the milk - makes his first cup of tea. This is the first cup of tea: very hot, spoonful of sugar, next to no milk. He drinks it slowly, sluggishly, fingers resting over his portable radio. He listens to Francis butcher British vowels over the radio waves, and thinks the morning coils around the windowsill like a great cat, purring at the music.
And zis is the perfect way to begin the week, and a treat for zose of us who do not understand much of your very treacherous English: zis is for Jean of Liverpool, who is feeling very French today and would like to 'ear songs of 'is home country. I do not blame 'im. You are all barbarians. Jean, ceci est pour toi, un peu d'Edith Piaf to begin the day beautifully…
In reality, Francis speaks very nearly perfect English, many years of university studies having paid off more than Arthur imagines; he remembers the way the French Boy used to mangle his beautiful words, thought of beating him over the head with his old partition book. Great fantasies, bringing Francis to his knees, but never quite picturing his life as he sees it now: waking to terrible accents over the radio, drinking tea in a blanket, preparing for leaving to Edith Piaf's gorgeous syllables. This is contentment in a neat ribboned box; it's quite possibly madness also.
Then there's the bus trip. Arthur likes buses, he rather does. There is a certain enjoyment to be driven from its brusque stops and brutal braking; it is somewhat akin to roller-coaster fun, in a very much diminished way. He is always lurching to pieces, and that's a lot like being on a ship, which Arthur quite adores. It is rather easy to forget all the sour faces and prodding elbows that surround him, his earphones murmuring to him where nobody can hear.
There're songs, most often, when Francis is not too busy making utterly distasteful jokes in a purposefully horrible accent. British and French. People call him sometimes - and then the arse is laughing, at and with them, and Arthur is two-thirds jealous, fingers curling around his suitcase.
Alfred's very first word of the day, wedged in in between a cinnamon croissandwich and his intrepid thwarting of the coffee machine, is: "Artie!"
He gesticulates wildly from behind the windowpanes. Arthur does contemplate, from time to time, inflicting a heart attack on the boy by simply walking past without stopping; but Madeleine appears to unhook her brother, waves deprecatingly - and Arthur never kicks puppies. He braces himself against the storm and walks in the café.
Alfred's smile is a brilliant one, large and honest and so boyish he might be ten instead of twenty-two.
So Arthur asks, "What's today, then?" and Twins' implodes very quietly, both kids running about for his order. It will be his third year of café breakfast and he has yet to be displeased - dear children, they are, sweet-faced, with their shining eyes and quick, sure hands. There's enough constant spontaneity about them to make each of Arthur's mornings a little newer than the last, which is a luxury he isn't quite ready to give away just yet.
"This looks good," he says, half to his ginseng tea and half to Madeleine, who glances back at him from behind the counter and then grows rather warm in the cheeks. "What's with the. Fancy jumper - thing?" he asks, flapping a hand as he takes his first sip, and the boy's flush spreads downwards into his open collar.
"Maddie's got a daaaaaaaaate," Alfred sings, having finished putting up Arthur's tray, and sweeping past behind his back on their electric floormop. Morning cleanliness, very good. Alfred spreads his arms like a flying Superman, dancing on the wet porcelain tiles with his Gene Kelly smile.
Madeleine, looking pink and determined, ignores the issue. "White chocolate chip strawberry roll," she states, sliding said biscuit on a white plate towards Arthur. And looks embarrassed, although with terrible timing; Madeleine is as close to bakery genius as anyone can ever hope to get. "New recipe. Tell me what you think?"
"Can do," Arthur assents, divesting himself of his trenchcoat to sit. And this is the second cup of the day: warm and bitter, cooling by the window, prepared by most two excellent kids. As the first few patrons trickle in one by one, he nibbles at the strawberry roll (not bad; wee too sweet), and lets Francis' stupid, stupid jokes wash over him. Carefully. In the early streetlight.
Zis was Francis Bonnefoy; it is now eight-thirty, February ze tenth. 'ave you all a wonderful day, my darlings!
"You look gorgeous," Francis tells him, quite sincerely. Arthur stares, and then smacks his hand into Francis' chest, which hurts.
"You look late," he says, proceeding to drag him down the street; they're up for a long evening, judging by the state of his mood, and Francis waves at the near-identical twins who stand in the doorway of the café, wishing he'd had a shot of their most excellent cappuccino before Arthur tore him open for being a paltry fifteen minutes late.
Arthur's fingers are tight as a vice around his wrist, his palm icy with February wind - his neck is pale between two folds of his scarf, a long cold stretch of skin, and Francis thinks of licking it, nudging the creases of fabric aside with his nose and pressing their bodies together, in the middle of the street, against a brick wall. It's good to dream after a long day.
"I really - you are such a - " Arthur has energy shining out of his eyes, out of his cheeks - he works himself up into a frenzy, ranting louder with every step he takes. He looks like a very very angry, very very red locomotive, and the scarf isn't helping matters. It flies. It's slapping Francis in the face.
They manage not to destroy London by the time they reach Arthur's door. It is a minor miracle, happens three evenings per week. They never stop, the miracles, in Francis' memory; they have a history of two years of not stopping. There is one, right here, in the soft crease of Arthur's nose when he turns the key in the lock.
Francis is slanting his mouth across it as soon as the door closes - shuts him fast against it, folds him into angles. "Ah, yes. There you are," he says, pressing his face to Arthur's neck, inhaling sharply. "Long day?"
"Very," Arthur growls, pulling him down to his mouth. His arms wrap around Francis' neck, the embrace thick and uncomfortable with their coats on, and Francis trails his hand downward, unhooks every clasp as one of Arthur's hand tangles into his hair.
"Me too," Francis murmurs, biting rapid kisses down Arthur's jaw. "Long day."
"What did you do, listen to music all afternoon - jesus christ do that again - forgive me if I don't cry bitter tears for you," he mutters, between short, wet presses of his mouth against Francis' ear. "Don't stop. Don't."
"Not. Hello." Francis drags his hand over his thigh - curves around the soft of it, pulls their hips closer with a sharp jerk. "Mmn. Ahh, merde. It is rather complicated to put up an entire one hour and a half show in an entire afternoon, you know."
"Crying, Bonnefoy. Crying."
"You could listen to the broadcast once in a while," Francis whispers, sulking, digging under the heavy furrows of the coats until they stand chest to chest, shirts in the way, feeling the brisk staccato of Arthur's heart against his ribcage. He smiles, slick and soft over his throat, and Arthur trembles, and everything is quiet necking against the door for the next few minutes.
"I. I don't." Arthur closes his eyes, once. "I don't know why I put up with you," he says, and opens his hand over Francis' chest, fingers absently skimming over his expensive purple shirt. Their mouths are inches apart, noses brushing, his hand warm and heavy in Francis' hair.
"I am very good in bed. Oh, very," he breathes, nuzzling. Here's sweat and starch and a hint of glitter.
"That you are," Arthur mutters, in that warm affectionate tone he will forever pretend is bullish stubbornness, and something unfolds in Francis' chest that was very tight these last two days. His smile is smooth and warm into his cheeks: he feels it so, pressed to Arthur's jaw, until he pushes it back against his mouth. And this is gorgeous, then. Arthur's thighs bracketing his hips, Arthur's arse firm under his hands. The scrape of teeth. They've not enough air between them to breathe, and so they share it, trading it like smoke, until neither of them has any left at all.
Drunk nineteen year olds do worse than have sex and do drugs and down too much booze at parties. They grow up, beyond the stage of pleasant long-limbed teenagers and fast into adulthood, which is exactly what Arthur did, at such a speed that it whizzed past him undetected. There isn't much he remembers about his first university year, but the bits he crumbles into meaning generally hold Francis' warm figure, the dainty cafeteria where they met and their giggly excitement when they had a one-off in the shower, tube stations electric with dirty yellow light and crackling neons. It was glorious, a full electric arc stretched over months, and Francis' mouth was obscenely hot against his throat, tongue lapping away at streaks of sweat. And the parties, the nightclubs vivid with colour and brilliance. All the music beating against Arthur's temples, and he fell a little in love then, twice over.
In comparison, his second year was calm as a mountain. He worked for the most part, and played the guitar, and gave gigs with his university band in pubs. And these were great, these were magnificent, in among all the lectures and essays to turn in in the morning. Sex wasn't bad either, even without Francis and the remarkable eccentricities he took to bed.
By then Francis'd graduated and gone on home to Paris, being two whole years older than Arthur; he didn't come back until Arthur had moved on from the glitter and leather trousers and gotten a small flat. A charming, sophisticated Frenchman on the British radio - the country fell in love within a span of six months. Resisted Napoleon and fell head over heels for a radio speaker. It never stood a chance.
Arthur had always been rather alarmingly British, and so he made tea. Listened to Francis' thick voice announce Leonard Cohen and the Kinks over Earl Grey at seven-thirty one morning, and bought a portable radio the next, to take with him when he was on his early shift. Made more tea. He fell into a routine, morning and tea and Francis and music inextricably tangled.
The world went on quietly. Francis, being Francis bloody Bonnefoy and everything Arthur very much did not need in his life, walked into Twins' one afternoon in a red scarf and shades, and ordered a latte. And this was the way of Arthur's life, the universal law that regulated every splitting atom in his body: a blond, walking Murphy's Law, standing in the middle of Arthur's favourite coffeeshop with a very surprised look on his face.
"You do not look very different," he said one quarter of an hour later, seated at one of the round tables upstairs, and Arthur harrumphed, sipped at his green tea. "You look like a proper English gentleman."
"I am a proper English gentleman," Arthur protested, cheeks heating. Francis grinned at him, crooked and fond, and gently nudged his foot between his underneath the table.
"This is good," he murmured, swirling his spoon in his latte. Arthur winced at his licking it.
"Of course it's bloody good, you wanker. This coffeeshop's the best place in London."
"Last I recall, you had a kitchen explode with nothing more than boiling water," Francis reminded him. "You will excuse me if I did not expect you to know anything about fine cuisine art."
"I didn't expect you back in England at all," Arthur hissed, lying through his teeth and as bitter as he felt. "Paris not good enough for you, anymore?"
"Paris is plenty good, thank you very much. No." But he looked angry and annoyed, and his foot slipped away from Arthur's.
"Ah, right, so it's like -" Arthur sucked in a breath, comprehension smoothly dawning. "In France you're just a regular man, are you, just the ordinary bloke, maybe the one who dresses just a bit better than the others on the boulevards. Here, though. Here you're a Frenchman in London, a regular drama queen, and everybody looks at you. And you love that, don't you. You've always loved that."
Francis' resulting smile was brilliant, unabashed. "No my long lost love, I missed you so, mon Arthur?"
"I haven't missed you at all, you narcissistic pansy. Now get your arse out of my café."
"Ridiculous man," Francis chortled, laughed so hard he nearly toppled over his drink. "You have. You absolutely have, you are so red-" And he dragged him into bed that night, because he was worse than an itch, this man, and Arthur hadn't forgotten the lines of his stomach, the diagonals of his pelvis, the sharp curve of his hipbones. And it began again, this thing they had. In the shower in the evening, and on the kitchen table, and in dark cinemas, and sometimes in bed, which is Arthur's, Francis' skin dragging hot and damp across his, mouth jaggedly bitten. It's fantastic sex, which is more than Arthur has had in years, and he has a job and money enough to live on, and a few friends. Enough to live on. Francis leaves at five in the morning, on those few nights when he stays, to go record today's show, and because sex is sex is sex and a warm bed is very warm, Arthur rolls over and goes back to sleep.
He wakes up to Francis' voice and music to live on for the day. That's good. That's excellent. He doesn't tell Francis - the man's ego is the closest thing to a dirigible airship: ever-growing and full of gas.
(After that first time two years ago, Francis sauntered back into the café within the week, and Madeleine, being a little unassuming devil in a reindeer jumper, asked, "Where did the two of you meet, then?" - scrubbing her hand against her red nose, caught a cold last week, poor girl. Arthur felt no sympathy, not an ounce.
"We met briefly back in college," he said.
"We had sex on the tube," Francis translated, and the earth was shoved off of its axis, spiraled into chaos.)
Arthur, back when he was sane enough, used to say that university was a galaxy in its own right. It had its own constellations, its own laws, and its own bodies, moving blindly - mindlessly - along the corridors and lecture halls, scrabbling for breathing air, tiding on strange shores. In all this Francis was a black hole - he swallowed whatever might happen to pass him by and never gave it back.
Arthur studied acoustics and sound engineering, and wrote songs for his band on the outskirts, and played the guitar on these Saturday nights when they got a gig. Francis sat around and looked pretty; admittedly he did follow courses on art and music history, but Arthur never once did see him work. He saw him drink and flirt, and invade Arthur's room with his easy ways and shameless innuendoes - for a full year he sprawled on Arthur's bed, skimming through Arthur's first-year textbooks and making snide remarks at the state of his handwriting. And then he was just - just gone. A magician's spoof of a trick.
Sound engineering is a particularly good career choice, in Arthur's opinion. - He is good at his job. His ear is excellent. The work itself is special, and has its good people. He's done enough concerts and musicals in five years to know exactly how good at his job he can be; the West End is slightly too coloured and bright for his tastes, but here, at least, is light for everyone.
(Sometimes, when Arthur feels very British indeed and has done enough teamwork for the day, he sits at the back of the audience hall, chin on his knees, listening more than he watches. There're surprising pleasures to be derived from songs you hear every night.)
By the time Francis walks back into his life, he has ranked up enough to have most of his evenings free; he does the premières and the early weeks, and most of the rehearsals during the day, and that's a good schedule, one he enjoys. The café is still open at six, Alfred and Madeleine only a little down for wear after the long shifts, gratefully sitting up with him for a hot drink.
And this is the third (fourth, fifth, sixth sometimes; but these are unofficial) cuppa of the day, then: sweet and warm, between his palms. Madeleine details her latest findings, explains the intricate workings of brown sugar and processed milk. Alfred laughs at Arthur's day, loud and tired, with both his feet put up on the edge of their table. And that's it, then, the end of the day, for a while.
And zis is one of last year's most promoted singles, performed by one of ze most talented artists of ze current musical industry -
Funny thing is, Arthur is entirely different in and out of his flat. Funny thing. Out in the street he is crisply dressed and crisply-faced, choking himself with narrow ties and narrower waistcoats and all Francis can think of thinking is Kinky, that. All of his clothes fit to his skin, the point of perfect waistlines, obscenely slender legs; smart shoes and terrible trenchcoats make a little universe. He carries his suitcase like a weapon, fingers clenched in eternal distrust. This is where Francis ponders tearing them off him, making a mess of such ordered refinement - have him gasping and red under his hands with fine trousers dangling off his ankles, shirttails torn in fly-away strands, fluttering over his hipbones.
Inside his flat, Arthur sinks. There are cardigans. There are jumpers three sizes too wide and t-shirts two sizes too small, sticking to damp skin on his way out of the shower, jeans pooling around his toes. This is where Francis thinks of peeling them off his body with slow, tender fingers, kissing every inch of skin thus uncovered. He thinks of the adorable drag of fabric, making love to discovered elbows and knees, making Arthur murmur in pleasure, half-asleep, back arcing.
He thinks of this until he loves it, loves it until he can't keep his hands off Arthur. In those days, the long line of Arthur's spine is enough to make him cry; he'll be thought hysterical, again, but his fingers drum up the pale length of it, and all he can imagine is pressing his mouth, there, where the first bump of vertebra touches his nape. He does, and it's a little like dying. Very way inside. Sighing with pleasure.
And by the time he does it so, it is just a little too late.
"You did what."
"I said, I played some Bénabar -"
"You did what."
"That is what I said, yes."
"Bénabar?"
"What is wrong with that?"
"You played them that tripe? On the radio?"
"It's a perfectly respectable song!"
"It's rubbish."
"Oh, heavens, you can talk - you like Pete Doherty."
"There's nothing wrong with Pete Doherty!"
"Right, please, that ridiculous hat -"
"As if - it's, right, like this, on a scale of one to ten, Doherty might be a three, but Bénabar is a one and Raphael -"
"I did not even mention him, don't start that again."
"Raphael, the slick-haired little prat, is a minus minus one point five."
"Yes, well. Do not get me started with your horrible, horrible Robbie Williams."
"I don't even like Robbie Williams, you arse."
"Nevertheless, he is British."
"Yeah, and Mireille Mathieu is French, and her singing shatters windows in freaking Atlanta."
"Arthur -"
"And what about Johnny bloody Hallyday, who changed his hairdresser name to sound more rock 'n roll -"
"Oh now that's not fair, your singers have antonyms instead of actual names -"
"MIKA is not a bloody antonym, you pea-brained flatwad!"
One afternoon, in late February, they both fall asleep. They sprawl across the bedsheets, never touching, until Arthur rolls over and drops out of bed - bumps his head on the carpet and curses heavily, squinting in the bright light. He puts on jeans, ruffles his hair, looking down at Francis' curling, sleeping form. His long arms are embracing the pillow, and he frowns in his dreams.
Then: tea-making. And when Francis wakes as well, it's to a whistling kettle and Arthur's off-key singing from the kitchen. He barely bothers with the trousers - too formal, but briefs are very nice, and the altogether is better - and by now Arthur is swinging around the counter, dancing in a half-awkward sort of way: he looks ridiculous, with his arms over his head and his hips swaying, cocked as sharp and cheeky as a gun. The kettle sings.
Were it yesterday, or possibly tomorrow, Francis would step in - would grasp him across the waist and dance along with him, and taste his blush all over his cheeks. But now Arthur is immersed in the music; he isn't conscious of anything beyond the kitchen counter and his future cuppa. It's a little embarrassing and somewhat stunning too.
He thinks, Here you are. Look at you, in the middle of your kitchen and dancing. You're not even aware I'm up, and watching. You look very ridiculous. I could possibly eat you, hoist you up on the counter and snog you whole. You'd have your legs around my waist.
And then: I want you, I want you, I - I want you like a blind man who's never seen the colour green.
Arthur wrote his first song when he was sixteen. It was, for lack of a better word, a ballad.
He continues. All the knights of his childhood. Some weekends he only ever plays old records, and writes furiously, in ways no one he works with and for would believe if they were told; he sits up in jeans and faded t-shirts, cross-legged, headphones over his ears. He's the old sort that sneers at contemporary pop singers but falls in love unexpectedly with an indie band nobody knows; he adores the Beatles almost as much as he does Bowie, prefers classic rock to electronic, has a secret stash of punk CDs behind the classical in the shelves. Heavy metal, not so much, unless he's wasted enough not to mind the walls shaking.
He writes songs about people who love well and people who don't, and people who don't love at all. They're never those he knows by heart. Alfred and Madeleine are the healthiest persons he knows; Francis is possibly the least healthy - and he's not quite close enough to the crowd he works with to write anything about them at all. He writes songs about Twins', and London, and evenings he remembers from university; tube stations drenched with neon lights, concerts packed with loud and sweat, green hangover mornings. He writes one long, soft number on buses at dawn. Writes about music, beauty put to song - that's what he knows best of life, the only thing that's never failed him yet.
Quite right, Amelia - what a lovely voice, let me buy you a drink sometime - zat was indeed Belle&Sebastian, which is a terrible name, I thought zey were French, what deception - and now, for Amelia, one of our favourite pop-rock singers of the new year, oui -
Last December.
It's the moment Arthur will remember, later, many many months after today, as utterly new - suddenly crossing paths with them, suddenly jumping forward in the encyclopedia to the following entry, maybe another letter altogether. They were naked, and in a bathtub, and he was soaked and Francis was soaked too, laughing in his neck, and that was very quietly beautiful. So very new, this, he thought, head lolling. It never did happen before.
They were both naked, except Arthur didn't start out that way, and neither did Francis - technically; he never did see that. Francis shimmers from the clothed to the unclothed and skips entirely the untimely stages of undressing, the caught-on socks and poking elbows. He's always lounging, the petty fucker, on every surface available, grinning and fine like a dubiously charming cat. Arthur came home to a Frenchman in his bathtub, last December, and stood frozen in the doorway, staring.
He was tired and aching and raw, and so he slipped out of his clothes, jeans pooling on the bathroom tiles, and the water splashed over the sides as he clambered in. Francis' laugh huffed breathily out of him and their thighs slid together, knocked together, knees bumping sideways. It was a very small bathtub, it still is a very small bathtub, and even sitting opposite with their feet crisscrossing in the middle they couldn't avoid all the bumping, not really, not with Francis' toes curling and teasing between his legs. Arthur thought of another reason to make them curl, another occasion, and promptly splashed him with a vengeance.
"Very well," Francis laughed, five minutes later, the bathroom a carnage of water and drenched towels, and pushed his dripping hair out of his eyes with long fingers, in an idiotically idiosyncratic gesture that caught the breath in Arthur's lungs. "Come here. Arthur, come here."
They rearranged themselves. Knees knocking again where the sun don't shine, but Francis' chest was grounding behind Arthur's back in a strange reenactment of sex, except entirely different, and so that didn't matter, the slight awkwardnesses. It felt remarkably good, better yet when Francis extended a long pale foot to smoothly swap the hot water on, and Arthur cradled his own face in Francis' warm throat, smelling in soap and shampoo. They were too tall for the bathtub, and here Arthur's skinniness didn't matter: the water was still splashing over, and the bathtub was going to sink, overflow all over Arthur's flat, and on the ledge their hands were getting so tangled together they would never be able to find a way to take them apart.
They both remember that Francis dug his nose in Arthur's neck, which hurt, one arm tight around his waist; his mouth was tender in the ways of long days, red with the heat. They didn't have sex here in the bathtub, and they were both so tired that when they did get out they crumpled on the bed in various assortments, still giggling like they were nineteen and drunk all over again, but then naked and wet. They made the sheets heavy and warm, the two of them still so damp, and then it didn't matter if they didn't have sex; Francis' hand did stray haphazardly over Arthur's belly but he was asleep before it reached its destination, and to this day Arthur does not remember stretching over his head to turn off the bedside light, though he did. What he does remember is warmth, and far too many blankets, and the cool pillow against his face.
In the morning Francis was gone and on the radio, and returned three days later with a bottle of Bordeaux 1978 to shag the daylights out of Arthur on his own coffee table, but there it was, then: December, like a lantern, an evening taken from the status quo. It lingered on through March, and if now Arthur sometimes catches something curious and soft at the corner of Francis' eyes, he at least knows where it comes from, and what brought it on.
The universe likes its sarcasm. It's assigned Arthur to The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg, of all musicals, and Francis laughs his way through an entire evening after he wrangles the truth out of him. Promptly buys himself a seat, one morning. He comes around in a fine suit, and flirts with the usherette atop the stairs during the entr'acte, and generally deplores the butchery of French the actors are making upstage.
But the London crowd make musicals the way no one has since Offenbach, surely; and that is enjoyable enough. He wonders if it'll rain onstage when the girl cries, when the boy goes away to war.
Afterwards, he foregoes the applause, slips away from his seat; he seeks out the technicians' entrance, where the world he's just witnessed coming into life must be deconstructed, overwrought, in the calm and rational manner that befits the British.
But backstage is chaotic and fantastic. Girls run past him in high skirts, boys in raincoats - some in various states of undress, skipping under decoys, bumping into his shoulders. He circles round to watch them go, very charming lot, and promptly walks into a whole team of technicians.
"Pardon - pardon!" he tells them, grinning, and they giggle and pass by, half of them looking back. With both his hands buried in his suit pockets, he shrugs, winces a charming wince at them, and continues, dodging decors.
Arthur, when he finds him, is biting someone's head off over a earphone. The tie is terrible, but the shirt is new, and green, and suits him perfectly. Staff members are fluttering in a loose circle around him, exchanging a lot of horribly complicated technical terms, until Arthur snaps the mic down, chews them out for making too much noise, snaps the mic back up. It's beautiful. They are all looking up at him and he is putting them all down and it is beautiful.
Francis curls his hands into his pockets and finds the exact moment Arthur catches sight of him - his hand falls by his side, and his eyes grow very wide, very green.
"What the -"
"Ohmigawd, are you, like, Francis Bonnefoy?"
Seconds later, the entire backstage is a swarm, and Francis becomes a full-blown celebrity, which was only to be expected. Arthur makes faces at him from afar. It's an entire half hour before he can get to him, haphazardly shrugging his jacket on again, smoothing his hair back - Arthur smirks at him, part grimacing and part weary, one thumb rubbing circles over his temple, his other hand raised halfway. A little deprecating, too, with that smile catching at the edges of his mouth.
"So what are you doing here." (It's barely a question; Arthur looks tired but happy, the way he usually only does after sex - and if this is the effect of stage endorphins on this ridiculously lonely man Francis would like to see more of it.)
"I thought I would."
"You thought you would."
"I was wondering what kind of mess you were making of your daywork, yes."
"Aw, sweet. Sod off."
"I was hoping I'd take you home," Francis laughs, and everyone hears him. There's a hush - Katyusha, the lovely curvy girl, blushes quite red from the closeness of it. Arthur butts his head hard into his chest, which somewhat hurts and fairly huffs the entire breath out of him, but his fingers catch onto Francis' belt loops. This is very nice. Hello there.
"I hate you all," Arthur mutters, muffled into Francis' white shirt. "Oh god I am so tired. Take me out of here, Bonnefoy, I can't breathe and they're all idiots."
Are you quite sure you are doing this, Francis thinks, peering. Arthur's head is heavy on his left shoulder, his cold nose digging unpleasantly into his collarbone. When Francis' mouth feathers over his temple, he twitches; but it's the unhappy twitch of a very long day turned even longer. He thinks, Alright. Alright. and curls his hand around Arthur's shoulder, takes him by the hand and leads him to the door, with his jacket slung over his arm, much the way he would with a tired child.
(Arthur nods off in the cab way back. The night lights are streaking past on the windowpanes, smearing - red and blue and golden flares, smudging on his cheeks. Francis presses him close, coat to coat.)
(Some nights, Francis rumbles awake to Arthur sitting cross-legged on the duvet, laptop on his knees, and he drags himself raggedly into a sitting position, curling around Arthur's back, chin on his shoulder. Arthur adjusts, and doesn't look up, but his back shifts against Francis' chest, shoulders melting backwards; Arthur's body language is a thing of beauty, a constant equation. Francis nuzzles, sleepily. The laptop backlight makes everything look blue.
"Is this truly necessary," he mutters, voice coarse with sex and sleep and French, nose buried in Arthur's neck, below the hairline. His ths zigzag into zs. Every breath he takes he watches across Arthur's skin, the shivers that skitter down to the slope of his shoulder. Arthur snorts, which is little in the way of a correct answer, but his typing fingers never slow.
So Francis smoothes his fingers down his spine, soft, brushes his curled knuckles to the small of Arthur's back, and Arthur shudders, which is the next best thing. He shudders like a damp animal, and his glasses, Francis sees them, over his raised shoulder, slide an inch down his nose. Arthur never wears glasses but during those nights, the bedroom an ocean of laptop light, and he shudders again, grouses, "Don't-"
Francis doesn't.)
un | deux | trois | coda
Pairing: Francis/Arthur (France/England)
Rating/Warnings: NC-17. Snogging. Sex. Lots of both, really. Also boys being unnaturally stupid.
Word Count: 20,000 words OH GOD MY LIFE
'Verse: Human AU.
Summary: Arthur had always been rather alarmingly British, and so he made tea. Listened to Francis' thick voice announce Leonard Cohen and the Kinks over Earl Grey at seven-thirty one morning, and bought a portable radio the next, to take with him when he was on his early shift. Made more tea. He fell into a routine.
Notes: Written for the current challenge cycle at what_the_fruk, to this prompt. When fireblazie put it up, I mentioned in that endless double conversation she and I have got going that I was probably going to spin an AU to it, and that if it ended up as an interminable monster, she was to take all the blame ever, and also bake me macaroons. (Oh, alright, so I just added in that last clause.) A month and a half and 20,000 words later, here we are, and the dear little thing has been torn apart, mangled, trampled, entirely rewritten, and split in two. I blame her, still. Also, tumblr.
i saw a film today oh boy
the english army had just won the war
a crowd of people turned away
but i just had to look
having read the book.
i'd love to turn you on.
- a day in a life
(un.)
(Some nights, just some nights, Francis wakes up rather earlier than he was prepared to, at one, two in the morning, and Arthur is sitting cross-legged at the foot of the bed, turned sideways, laptop on his knees. He'll have his headphones on his ears and his glasses on his nose, and he'll be typing, sometimes smoking. It's the smell of Francis' own sweet cigarettes, packet on the pillow.
Most times Francis pretends not to notice. Their usual guards fall away, at night, and he burrows back into the duvet with a sigh and a whimper of pleasure: they're both hedonists, in their way, and Arthur's pleasure lies in writing songs in the middle of the night. Francis enjoys sleeping. It is a remarkable invention, this thing sleep, and so he tucks his feet neatly under the slope of Arthur's thigh, tucks his face into the pillow with a whimper of affection.)
Booooooonjour, Londres!
He wakes up at seven. Every day, with the radio switched on, rapid-fire French strewn in ringlets around his brain, boldly mixed with English, a blasphemous mixture of both languages that makes the Channel shake. The universe ends every morning; paradoxes stand up and walk; and a Frenchman welcomes London to its breakfast.
London is a muddled man with impressive eyebrows and far too much work, this morning. This morning likes it here: the kettle is warm and red and good, and the tea is spicy, boiling. It wraps around Arthur's legs as he pads about the countertop, fetches sugar in a half-asleep daze, grapples for his jam.
Arthur picks it up and puts it down - next to the milk - makes his first cup of tea. This is the first cup of tea: very hot, spoonful of sugar, next to no milk. He drinks it slowly, sluggishly, fingers resting over his portable radio. He listens to Francis butcher British vowels over the radio waves, and thinks the morning coils around the windowsill like a great cat, purring at the music.
And zis is the perfect way to begin the week, and a treat for zose of us who do not understand much of your very treacherous English: zis is for Jean of Liverpool, who is feeling very French today and would like to 'ear songs of 'is home country. I do not blame 'im. You are all barbarians. Jean, ceci est pour toi, un peu d'Edith Piaf to begin the day beautifully…
In reality, Francis speaks very nearly perfect English, many years of university studies having paid off more than Arthur imagines; he remembers the way the French Boy used to mangle his beautiful words, thought of beating him over the head with his old partition book. Great fantasies, bringing Francis to his knees, but never quite picturing his life as he sees it now: waking to terrible accents over the radio, drinking tea in a blanket, preparing for leaving to Edith Piaf's gorgeous syllables. This is contentment in a neat ribboned box; it's quite possibly madness also.
Then there's the bus trip. Arthur likes buses, he rather does. There is a certain enjoyment to be driven from its brusque stops and brutal braking; it is somewhat akin to roller-coaster fun, in a very much diminished way. He is always lurching to pieces, and that's a lot like being on a ship, which Arthur quite adores. It is rather easy to forget all the sour faces and prodding elbows that surround him, his earphones murmuring to him where nobody can hear.
There're songs, most often, when Francis is not too busy making utterly distasteful jokes in a purposefully horrible accent. British and French. People call him sometimes - and then the arse is laughing, at and with them, and Arthur is two-thirds jealous, fingers curling around his suitcase.
Alfred's very first word of the day, wedged in in between a cinnamon croissandwich and his intrepid thwarting of the coffee machine, is: "Artie!"
He gesticulates wildly from behind the windowpanes. Arthur does contemplate, from time to time, inflicting a heart attack on the boy by simply walking past without stopping; but Madeleine appears to unhook her brother, waves deprecatingly - and Arthur never kicks puppies. He braces himself against the storm and walks in the café.
Alfred's smile is a brilliant one, large and honest and so boyish he might be ten instead of twenty-two.
So Arthur asks, "What's today, then?" and Twins' implodes very quietly, both kids running about for his order. It will be his third year of café breakfast and he has yet to be displeased - dear children, they are, sweet-faced, with their shining eyes and quick, sure hands. There's enough constant spontaneity about them to make each of Arthur's mornings a little newer than the last, which is a luxury he isn't quite ready to give away just yet.
"This looks good," he says, half to his ginseng tea and half to Madeleine, who glances back at him from behind the counter and then grows rather warm in the cheeks. "What's with the. Fancy jumper - thing?" he asks, flapping a hand as he takes his first sip, and the boy's flush spreads downwards into his open collar.
"Maddie's got a daaaaaaaaate," Alfred sings, having finished putting up Arthur's tray, and sweeping past behind his back on their electric floormop. Morning cleanliness, very good. Alfred spreads his arms like a flying Superman, dancing on the wet porcelain tiles with his Gene Kelly smile.
Madeleine, looking pink and determined, ignores the issue. "White chocolate chip strawberry roll," she states, sliding said biscuit on a white plate towards Arthur. And looks embarrassed, although with terrible timing; Madeleine is as close to bakery genius as anyone can ever hope to get. "New recipe. Tell me what you think?"
"Can do," Arthur assents, divesting himself of his trenchcoat to sit. And this is the second cup of the day: warm and bitter, cooling by the window, prepared by most two excellent kids. As the first few patrons trickle in one by one, he nibbles at the strawberry roll (not bad; wee too sweet), and lets Francis' stupid, stupid jokes wash over him. Carefully. In the early streetlight.
Zis was Francis Bonnefoy; it is now eight-thirty, February ze tenth. 'ave you all a wonderful day, my darlings!
"You look gorgeous," Francis tells him, quite sincerely. Arthur stares, and then smacks his hand into Francis' chest, which hurts.
"You look late," he says, proceeding to drag him down the street; they're up for a long evening, judging by the state of his mood, and Francis waves at the near-identical twins who stand in the doorway of the café, wishing he'd had a shot of their most excellent cappuccino before Arthur tore him open for being a paltry fifteen minutes late.
Arthur's fingers are tight as a vice around his wrist, his palm icy with February wind - his neck is pale between two folds of his scarf, a long cold stretch of skin, and Francis thinks of licking it, nudging the creases of fabric aside with his nose and pressing their bodies together, in the middle of the street, against a brick wall. It's good to dream after a long day.
"I really - you are such a - " Arthur has energy shining out of his eyes, out of his cheeks - he works himself up into a frenzy, ranting louder with every step he takes. He looks like a very very angry, very very red locomotive, and the scarf isn't helping matters. It flies. It's slapping Francis in the face.
They manage not to destroy London by the time they reach Arthur's door. It is a minor miracle, happens three evenings per week. They never stop, the miracles, in Francis' memory; they have a history of two years of not stopping. There is one, right here, in the soft crease of Arthur's nose when he turns the key in the lock.
Francis is slanting his mouth across it as soon as the door closes - shuts him fast against it, folds him into angles. "Ah, yes. There you are," he says, pressing his face to Arthur's neck, inhaling sharply. "Long day?"
"Very," Arthur growls, pulling him down to his mouth. His arms wrap around Francis' neck, the embrace thick and uncomfortable with their coats on, and Francis trails his hand downward, unhooks every clasp as one of Arthur's hand tangles into his hair.
"Me too," Francis murmurs, biting rapid kisses down Arthur's jaw. "Long day."
"What did you do, listen to music all afternoon - jesus christ do that again - forgive me if I don't cry bitter tears for you," he mutters, between short, wet presses of his mouth against Francis' ear. "Don't stop. Don't."
"Not. Hello." Francis drags his hand over his thigh - curves around the soft of it, pulls their hips closer with a sharp jerk. "Mmn. Ahh, merde. It is rather complicated to put up an entire one hour and a half show in an entire afternoon, you know."
"Crying, Bonnefoy. Crying."
"You could listen to the broadcast once in a while," Francis whispers, sulking, digging under the heavy furrows of the coats until they stand chest to chest, shirts in the way, feeling the brisk staccato of Arthur's heart against his ribcage. He smiles, slick and soft over his throat, and Arthur trembles, and everything is quiet necking against the door for the next few minutes.
"I. I don't." Arthur closes his eyes, once. "I don't know why I put up with you," he says, and opens his hand over Francis' chest, fingers absently skimming over his expensive purple shirt. Their mouths are inches apart, noses brushing, his hand warm and heavy in Francis' hair.
"I am very good in bed. Oh, very," he breathes, nuzzling. Here's sweat and starch and a hint of glitter.
"That you are," Arthur mutters, in that warm affectionate tone he will forever pretend is bullish stubbornness, and something unfolds in Francis' chest that was very tight these last two days. His smile is smooth and warm into his cheeks: he feels it so, pressed to Arthur's jaw, until he pushes it back against his mouth. And this is gorgeous, then. Arthur's thighs bracketing his hips, Arthur's arse firm under his hands. The scrape of teeth. They've not enough air between them to breathe, and so they share it, trading it like smoke, until neither of them has any left at all.
Drunk nineteen year olds do worse than have sex and do drugs and down too much booze at parties. They grow up, beyond the stage of pleasant long-limbed teenagers and fast into adulthood, which is exactly what Arthur did, at such a speed that it whizzed past him undetected. There isn't much he remembers about his first university year, but the bits he crumbles into meaning generally hold Francis' warm figure, the dainty cafeteria where they met and their giggly excitement when they had a one-off in the shower, tube stations electric with dirty yellow light and crackling neons. It was glorious, a full electric arc stretched over months, and Francis' mouth was obscenely hot against his throat, tongue lapping away at streaks of sweat. And the parties, the nightclubs vivid with colour and brilliance. All the music beating against Arthur's temples, and he fell a little in love then, twice over.
In comparison, his second year was calm as a mountain. He worked for the most part, and played the guitar, and gave gigs with his university band in pubs. And these were great, these were magnificent, in among all the lectures and essays to turn in in the morning. Sex wasn't bad either, even without Francis and the remarkable eccentricities he took to bed.
By then Francis'd graduated and gone on home to Paris, being two whole years older than Arthur; he didn't come back until Arthur had moved on from the glitter and leather trousers and gotten a small flat. A charming, sophisticated Frenchman on the British radio - the country fell in love within a span of six months. Resisted Napoleon and fell head over heels for a radio speaker. It never stood a chance.
Arthur had always been rather alarmingly British, and so he made tea. Listened to Francis' thick voice announce Leonard Cohen and the Kinks over Earl Grey at seven-thirty one morning, and bought a portable radio the next, to take with him when he was on his early shift. Made more tea. He fell into a routine, morning and tea and Francis and music inextricably tangled.
The world went on quietly. Francis, being Francis bloody Bonnefoy and everything Arthur very much did not need in his life, walked into Twins' one afternoon in a red scarf and shades, and ordered a latte. And this was the way of Arthur's life, the universal law that regulated every splitting atom in his body: a blond, walking Murphy's Law, standing in the middle of Arthur's favourite coffeeshop with a very surprised look on his face.
"You do not look very different," he said one quarter of an hour later, seated at one of the round tables upstairs, and Arthur harrumphed, sipped at his green tea. "You look like a proper English gentleman."
"I am a proper English gentleman," Arthur protested, cheeks heating. Francis grinned at him, crooked and fond, and gently nudged his foot between his underneath the table.
"This is good," he murmured, swirling his spoon in his latte. Arthur winced at his licking it.
"Of course it's bloody good, you wanker. This coffeeshop's the best place in London."
"Last I recall, you had a kitchen explode with nothing more than boiling water," Francis reminded him. "You will excuse me if I did not expect you to know anything about fine cuisine art."
"I didn't expect you back in England at all," Arthur hissed, lying through his teeth and as bitter as he felt. "Paris not good enough for you, anymore?"
"Paris is plenty good, thank you very much. No." But he looked angry and annoyed, and his foot slipped away from Arthur's.
"Ah, right, so it's like -" Arthur sucked in a breath, comprehension smoothly dawning. "In France you're just a regular man, are you, just the ordinary bloke, maybe the one who dresses just a bit better than the others on the boulevards. Here, though. Here you're a Frenchman in London, a regular drama queen, and everybody looks at you. And you love that, don't you. You've always loved that."
Francis' resulting smile was brilliant, unabashed. "No my long lost love, I missed you so, mon Arthur?"
"I haven't missed you at all, you narcissistic pansy. Now get your arse out of my café."
"Ridiculous man," Francis chortled, laughed so hard he nearly toppled over his drink. "You have. You absolutely have, you are so red-" And he dragged him into bed that night, because he was worse than an itch, this man, and Arthur hadn't forgotten the lines of his stomach, the diagonals of his pelvis, the sharp curve of his hipbones. And it began again, this thing they had. In the shower in the evening, and on the kitchen table, and in dark cinemas, and sometimes in bed, which is Arthur's, Francis' skin dragging hot and damp across his, mouth jaggedly bitten. It's fantastic sex, which is more than Arthur has had in years, and he has a job and money enough to live on, and a few friends. Enough to live on. Francis leaves at five in the morning, on those few nights when he stays, to go record today's show, and because sex is sex is sex and a warm bed is very warm, Arthur rolls over and goes back to sleep.
He wakes up to Francis' voice and music to live on for the day. That's good. That's excellent. He doesn't tell Francis - the man's ego is the closest thing to a dirigible airship: ever-growing and full of gas.
(After that first time two years ago, Francis sauntered back into the café within the week, and Madeleine, being a little unassuming devil in a reindeer jumper, asked, "Where did the two of you meet, then?" - scrubbing her hand against her red nose, caught a cold last week, poor girl. Arthur felt no sympathy, not an ounce.
"We met briefly back in college," he said.
"We had sex on the tube," Francis translated, and the earth was shoved off of its axis, spiraled into chaos.)
Arthur, back when he was sane enough, used to say that university was a galaxy in its own right. It had its own constellations, its own laws, and its own bodies, moving blindly - mindlessly - along the corridors and lecture halls, scrabbling for breathing air, tiding on strange shores. In all this Francis was a black hole - he swallowed whatever might happen to pass him by and never gave it back.
Arthur studied acoustics and sound engineering, and wrote songs for his band on the outskirts, and played the guitar on these Saturday nights when they got a gig. Francis sat around and looked pretty; admittedly he did follow courses on art and music history, but Arthur never once did see him work. He saw him drink and flirt, and invade Arthur's room with his easy ways and shameless innuendoes - for a full year he sprawled on Arthur's bed, skimming through Arthur's first-year textbooks and making snide remarks at the state of his handwriting. And then he was just - just gone. A magician's spoof of a trick.
Sound engineering is a particularly good career choice, in Arthur's opinion. - He is good at his job. His ear is excellent. The work itself is special, and has its good people. He's done enough concerts and musicals in five years to know exactly how good at his job he can be; the West End is slightly too coloured and bright for his tastes, but here, at least, is light for everyone.
(Sometimes, when Arthur feels very British indeed and has done enough teamwork for the day, he sits at the back of the audience hall, chin on his knees, listening more than he watches. There're surprising pleasures to be derived from songs you hear every night.)
By the time Francis walks back into his life, he has ranked up enough to have most of his evenings free; he does the premières and the early weeks, and most of the rehearsals during the day, and that's a good schedule, one he enjoys. The café is still open at six, Alfred and Madeleine only a little down for wear after the long shifts, gratefully sitting up with him for a hot drink.
And this is the third (fourth, fifth, sixth sometimes; but these are unofficial) cuppa of the day, then: sweet and warm, between his palms. Madeleine details her latest findings, explains the intricate workings of brown sugar and processed milk. Alfred laughs at Arthur's day, loud and tired, with both his feet put up on the edge of their table. And that's it, then, the end of the day, for a while.
And zis is one of last year's most promoted singles, performed by one of ze most talented artists of ze current musical industry -
Funny thing is, Arthur is entirely different in and out of his flat. Funny thing. Out in the street he is crisply dressed and crisply-faced, choking himself with narrow ties and narrower waistcoats and all Francis can think of thinking is Kinky, that. All of his clothes fit to his skin, the point of perfect waistlines, obscenely slender legs; smart shoes and terrible trenchcoats make a little universe. He carries his suitcase like a weapon, fingers clenched in eternal distrust. This is where Francis ponders tearing them off him, making a mess of such ordered refinement - have him gasping and red under his hands with fine trousers dangling off his ankles, shirttails torn in fly-away strands, fluttering over his hipbones.
Inside his flat, Arthur sinks. There are cardigans. There are jumpers three sizes too wide and t-shirts two sizes too small, sticking to damp skin on his way out of the shower, jeans pooling around his toes. This is where Francis thinks of peeling them off his body with slow, tender fingers, kissing every inch of skin thus uncovered. He thinks of the adorable drag of fabric, making love to discovered elbows and knees, making Arthur murmur in pleasure, half-asleep, back arcing.
He thinks of this until he loves it, loves it until he can't keep his hands off Arthur. In those days, the long line of Arthur's spine is enough to make him cry; he'll be thought hysterical, again, but his fingers drum up the pale length of it, and all he can imagine is pressing his mouth, there, where the first bump of vertebra touches his nape. He does, and it's a little like dying. Very way inside. Sighing with pleasure.
And by the time he does it so, it is just a little too late.
"You did what."
"I said, I played some Bénabar -"
"You did what."
"That is what I said, yes."
"Bénabar?"
"What is wrong with that?"
"You played them that tripe? On the radio?"
"It's a perfectly respectable song!"
"It's rubbish."
"Oh, heavens, you can talk - you like Pete Doherty."
"There's nothing wrong with Pete Doherty!"
"Right, please, that ridiculous hat -"
"As if - it's, right, like this, on a scale of one to ten, Doherty might be a three, but Bénabar is a one and Raphael -"
"I did not even mention him, don't start that again."
"Raphael, the slick-haired little prat, is a minus minus one point five."
"Yes, well. Do not get me started with your horrible, horrible Robbie Williams."
"I don't even like Robbie Williams, you arse."
"Nevertheless, he is British."
"Yeah, and Mireille Mathieu is French, and her singing shatters windows in freaking Atlanta."
"Arthur -"
"And what about Johnny bloody Hallyday, who changed his hairdresser name to sound more rock 'n roll -"
"Oh now that's not fair, your singers have antonyms instead of actual names -"
"MIKA is not a bloody antonym, you pea-brained flatwad!"
One afternoon, in late February, they both fall asleep. They sprawl across the bedsheets, never touching, until Arthur rolls over and drops out of bed - bumps his head on the carpet and curses heavily, squinting in the bright light. He puts on jeans, ruffles his hair, looking down at Francis' curling, sleeping form. His long arms are embracing the pillow, and he frowns in his dreams.
Then: tea-making. And when Francis wakes as well, it's to a whistling kettle and Arthur's off-key singing from the kitchen. He barely bothers with the trousers - too formal, but briefs are very nice, and the altogether is better - and by now Arthur is swinging around the counter, dancing in a half-awkward sort of way: he looks ridiculous, with his arms over his head and his hips swaying, cocked as sharp and cheeky as a gun. The kettle sings.
Were it yesterday, or possibly tomorrow, Francis would step in - would grasp him across the waist and dance along with him, and taste his blush all over his cheeks. But now Arthur is immersed in the music; he isn't conscious of anything beyond the kitchen counter and his future cuppa. It's a little embarrassing and somewhat stunning too.
He thinks, Here you are. Look at you, in the middle of your kitchen and dancing. You're not even aware I'm up, and watching. You look very ridiculous. I could possibly eat you, hoist you up on the counter and snog you whole. You'd have your legs around my waist.
And then: I want you, I want you, I - I want you like a blind man who's never seen the colour green.
Arthur wrote his first song when he was sixteen. It was, for lack of a better word, a ballad.
He continues. All the knights of his childhood. Some weekends he only ever plays old records, and writes furiously, in ways no one he works with and for would believe if they were told; he sits up in jeans and faded t-shirts, cross-legged, headphones over his ears. He's the old sort that sneers at contemporary pop singers but falls in love unexpectedly with an indie band nobody knows; he adores the Beatles almost as much as he does Bowie, prefers classic rock to electronic, has a secret stash of punk CDs behind the classical in the shelves. Heavy metal, not so much, unless he's wasted enough not to mind the walls shaking.
He writes songs about people who love well and people who don't, and people who don't love at all. They're never those he knows by heart. Alfred and Madeleine are the healthiest persons he knows; Francis is possibly the least healthy - and he's not quite close enough to the crowd he works with to write anything about them at all. He writes songs about Twins', and London, and evenings he remembers from university; tube stations drenched with neon lights, concerts packed with loud and sweat, green hangover mornings. He writes one long, soft number on buses at dawn. Writes about music, beauty put to song - that's what he knows best of life, the only thing that's never failed him yet.
Quite right, Amelia - what a lovely voice, let me buy you a drink sometime - zat was indeed Belle&Sebastian, which is a terrible name, I thought zey were French, what deception - and now, for Amelia, one of our favourite pop-rock singers of the new year, oui -
Last December.
It's the moment Arthur will remember, later, many many months after today, as utterly new - suddenly crossing paths with them, suddenly jumping forward in the encyclopedia to the following entry, maybe another letter altogether. They were naked, and in a bathtub, and he was soaked and Francis was soaked too, laughing in his neck, and that was very quietly beautiful. So very new, this, he thought, head lolling. It never did happen before.
They were both naked, except Arthur didn't start out that way, and neither did Francis - technically; he never did see that. Francis shimmers from the clothed to the unclothed and skips entirely the untimely stages of undressing, the caught-on socks and poking elbows. He's always lounging, the petty fucker, on every surface available, grinning and fine like a dubiously charming cat. Arthur came home to a Frenchman in his bathtub, last December, and stood frozen in the doorway, staring.
He was tired and aching and raw, and so he slipped out of his clothes, jeans pooling on the bathroom tiles, and the water splashed over the sides as he clambered in. Francis' laugh huffed breathily out of him and their thighs slid together, knocked together, knees bumping sideways. It was a very small bathtub, it still is a very small bathtub, and even sitting opposite with their feet crisscrossing in the middle they couldn't avoid all the bumping, not really, not with Francis' toes curling and teasing between his legs. Arthur thought of another reason to make them curl, another occasion, and promptly splashed him with a vengeance.
"Very well," Francis laughed, five minutes later, the bathroom a carnage of water and drenched towels, and pushed his dripping hair out of his eyes with long fingers, in an idiotically idiosyncratic gesture that caught the breath in Arthur's lungs. "Come here. Arthur, come here."
They rearranged themselves. Knees knocking again where the sun don't shine, but Francis' chest was grounding behind Arthur's back in a strange reenactment of sex, except entirely different, and so that didn't matter, the slight awkwardnesses. It felt remarkably good, better yet when Francis extended a long pale foot to smoothly swap the hot water on, and Arthur cradled his own face in Francis' warm throat, smelling in soap and shampoo. They were too tall for the bathtub, and here Arthur's skinniness didn't matter: the water was still splashing over, and the bathtub was going to sink, overflow all over Arthur's flat, and on the ledge their hands were getting so tangled together they would never be able to find a way to take them apart.
They both remember that Francis dug his nose in Arthur's neck, which hurt, one arm tight around his waist; his mouth was tender in the ways of long days, red with the heat. They didn't have sex here in the bathtub, and they were both so tired that when they did get out they crumpled on the bed in various assortments, still giggling like they were nineteen and drunk all over again, but then naked and wet. They made the sheets heavy and warm, the two of them still so damp, and then it didn't matter if they didn't have sex; Francis' hand did stray haphazardly over Arthur's belly but he was asleep before it reached its destination, and to this day Arthur does not remember stretching over his head to turn off the bedside light, though he did. What he does remember is warmth, and far too many blankets, and the cool pillow against his face.
In the morning Francis was gone and on the radio, and returned three days later with a bottle of Bordeaux 1978 to shag the daylights out of Arthur on his own coffee table, but there it was, then: December, like a lantern, an evening taken from the status quo. It lingered on through March, and if now Arthur sometimes catches something curious and soft at the corner of Francis' eyes, he at least knows where it comes from, and what brought it on.
The universe likes its sarcasm. It's assigned Arthur to The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg, of all musicals, and Francis laughs his way through an entire evening after he wrangles the truth out of him. Promptly buys himself a seat, one morning. He comes around in a fine suit, and flirts with the usherette atop the stairs during the entr'acte, and generally deplores the butchery of French the actors are making upstage.
But the London crowd make musicals the way no one has since Offenbach, surely; and that is enjoyable enough. He wonders if it'll rain onstage when the girl cries, when the boy goes away to war.
Afterwards, he foregoes the applause, slips away from his seat; he seeks out the technicians' entrance, where the world he's just witnessed coming into life must be deconstructed, overwrought, in the calm and rational manner that befits the British.
But backstage is chaotic and fantastic. Girls run past him in high skirts, boys in raincoats - some in various states of undress, skipping under decoys, bumping into his shoulders. He circles round to watch them go, very charming lot, and promptly walks into a whole team of technicians.
"Pardon - pardon!" he tells them, grinning, and they giggle and pass by, half of them looking back. With both his hands buried in his suit pockets, he shrugs, winces a charming wince at them, and continues, dodging decors.
Arthur, when he finds him, is biting someone's head off over a earphone. The tie is terrible, but the shirt is new, and green, and suits him perfectly. Staff members are fluttering in a loose circle around him, exchanging a lot of horribly complicated technical terms, until Arthur snaps the mic down, chews them out for making too much noise, snaps the mic back up. It's beautiful. They are all looking up at him and he is putting them all down and it is beautiful.
Francis curls his hands into his pockets and finds the exact moment Arthur catches sight of him - his hand falls by his side, and his eyes grow very wide, very green.
"What the -"
"Ohmigawd, are you, like, Francis Bonnefoy?"
Seconds later, the entire backstage is a swarm, and Francis becomes a full-blown celebrity, which was only to be expected. Arthur makes faces at him from afar. It's an entire half hour before he can get to him, haphazardly shrugging his jacket on again, smoothing his hair back - Arthur smirks at him, part grimacing and part weary, one thumb rubbing circles over his temple, his other hand raised halfway. A little deprecating, too, with that smile catching at the edges of his mouth.
"So what are you doing here." (It's barely a question; Arthur looks tired but happy, the way he usually only does after sex - and if this is the effect of stage endorphins on this ridiculously lonely man Francis would like to see more of it.)
"I thought I would."
"You thought you would."
"I was wondering what kind of mess you were making of your daywork, yes."
"Aw, sweet. Sod off."
"I was hoping I'd take you home," Francis laughs, and everyone hears him. There's a hush - Katyusha, the lovely curvy girl, blushes quite red from the closeness of it. Arthur butts his head hard into his chest, which somewhat hurts and fairly huffs the entire breath out of him, but his fingers catch onto Francis' belt loops. This is very nice. Hello there.
"I hate you all," Arthur mutters, muffled into Francis' white shirt. "Oh god I am so tired. Take me out of here, Bonnefoy, I can't breathe and they're all idiots."
Are you quite sure you are doing this, Francis thinks, peering. Arthur's head is heavy on his left shoulder, his cold nose digging unpleasantly into his collarbone. When Francis' mouth feathers over his temple, he twitches; but it's the unhappy twitch of a very long day turned even longer. He thinks, Alright. Alright. and curls his hand around Arthur's shoulder, takes him by the hand and leads him to the door, with his jacket slung over his arm, much the way he would with a tired child.
(Arthur nods off in the cab way back. The night lights are streaking past on the windowpanes, smearing - red and blue and golden flares, smudging on his cheeks. Francis presses him close, coat to coat.)
(Some nights, Francis rumbles awake to Arthur sitting cross-legged on the duvet, laptop on his knees, and he drags himself raggedly into a sitting position, curling around Arthur's back, chin on his shoulder. Arthur adjusts, and doesn't look up, but his back shifts against Francis' chest, shoulders melting backwards; Arthur's body language is a thing of beauty, a constant equation. Francis nuzzles, sleepily. The laptop backlight makes everything look blue.
"Is this truly necessary," he mutters, voice coarse with sex and sleep and French, nose buried in Arthur's neck, below the hairline. His ths zigzag into zs. Every breath he takes he watches across Arthur's skin, the shivers that skitter down to the slope of his shoulder. Arthur snorts, which is little in the way of a correct answer, but his typing fingers never slow.
So Francis smoothes his fingers down his spine, soft, brushes his curled knuckles to the small of Arthur's back, and Arthur shudders, which is the next best thing. He shudders like a damp animal, and his glasses, Francis sees them, over his raised shoulder, slide an inch down his nose. Arthur never wears glasses but during those nights, the bedroom an ocean of laptop light, and he shudders again, grouses, "Don't-"
Francis doesn't.)
un | deux | trois | coda