[fic] Jaywalking [france/england] - coda.
if i was a sculptor
but then again, no
or a boy who makes potions in
a traveling show
i know it's not much but
it's the best i can do
my gift is my song and
this one's for you
- your song
coda.
The end, when it arrives, arrives three weeks later. And really, it's not the end at all. They've come home after dinner, and made love, and washed afterwards - which is morse code for shower and shampoo, drawing telegraphic messages on the dripping glass walls, red hearts of the French persuasion. And Arthur does not quite dislike being taken for a pillow, now. Francis sprawls, lounges all over him with long pale limbs everywhere, comfortably heavy.
Later tonight, Arthur thinks, he won't be able to sleep - and he'll crawl over and pull his laptop out from under the bed, after they've turned the light down, after they've petted and giggled their way into rest, after. He'll sit up, and write music. For a hour. Maybe Francis'll wake, and put his hand to the small of his back, for seconds, falling away to his rear afterwards. It'll be good.
But here's an end, then:
"You did know, when you came back, two years ago," he tells him, hushed. "That I'd listen to your show. That I were listening to your show, bloody hell." He grins against the crown of Francis' hair, hoping some of this smell - peach-scented soap, the invasion thereof, in his own bathroom - some of it will catch on to his hair, to his skin, smear over him like ink. "Christ but you're a prat."
"Do n't be ridiculous," Francis mumbles into his chest. "You would go red and pretend you did not know what I w's talking about, it was so very lovely. I quite enjoyed having an explosion on my hands, and you never knew it."
Arthur smacks him. He snickers, drawing long circles over Arthur's pectorals, trading kisses. One to his jaw. One, here, to the soft of his neck, where he buries his nose.
"I liked it," he says, halfway to sleep. "I left in the morning and you'd be listening, four hours later."
"Hmm. Oh, just sleep, now," he tells him, and Francis does. He does just that.
(In June, Arthur will turn twenty-eight. In June he will be still working early shifts and taking shelter in Twins', loving tea and songs for a living (perfect) and coming home to write music for pleasure; he will take a bus to work every morning, the warm square shape of a radio settled in his pocket, against his side. In June he'll be in love, and on the Eurostar train for a holiday weekend in Paris, holding hands between the seats, Francis' mouth pressed against his ear. But now it is still April, and still twelve-thirty at night, and Francis is quiet, the warm weight of his body stretched across Arthur's ribs. The bedroom is golden, warm. They have got some five hours and a half before Francis leaves for the studio.
For a moment there Arthur is terrifyingly happy, an immense joy rising incomprehensibly inside his lungs. But Francis turns his head on his shoulder, mumbling. His stubble rasps and burns against Arthur's skin, match-hot and brief, and Arthur closes his eyes and shivers, all over.)
(And later tonight, Arthur can't sleep, and so sits up with his laptop on his knees, writing music, for an hour. When Francis mumbles himself up into awareness again, at some two-odd in the morning, it's to a turned back and a blue shoulder, where the backlight curls around it, where it paints Chinese shadows over his ragged t-shirt.
It'll become tradition, he thinks, all coiled up in the duvet. It'll become tradition, waking up to Arthur. Years in the future he'll become used to drawing his knuckles down the long thin line of his spine, surely; to the tender skin, here, the small of his back, the raised edge of his hips - not so sharp in later years, when Arthur puts on a little weight, when he becomes softer, mellower, and takes to embroidery the way he now takes to music. It's something to look forward to, when they're no longer young and stupid, but older. They'll know each other inside and out. For a minute, it's a certainty, and just a few decades away.
For now, though. For now. He sits up. He draws his head heavily on Arthur's shoulder, and becomes impertinent, when Arthur grins against his jaw. His forehead falls into the crook of Francis' neck, where he settles, and never seems to want to move again; and Francis pulls up the duvet over both their heads, cocoons them in, and snuggles himself against Arthur's side, into Arthur's arm around his waist. They balance the laptop on their knees.
"Song-writing again," he whisper, giggly, like a secret. Their usual guards fall away at night; they're both hedonists, in their way, and Arthur's pleasure lies in writing songs, in the middle of the night - Francis' is in keeping close, keeping warm, distracting him, when he can, from the violin and the guitar, and the threat of a clarinet. In the dark, they can very nearly see each other, and it's like being back under the blankets, where their hands explore and their noses brush and they can't quite help themselves from laughing, sometimes.
"You could listen," Arthur mumbles, sounding all jumbled up. "You could -"
"I could," Francis agrees gravely. He thinks of all the ways to have this music take an entrance into bed - song-writing all amidst the bedsheets, all between their chests, Francis mouthing kisses up this pale back and into his neck, revelations in full sun bursts until Arthur can't write, can't think, can't breathe.
"Shh." Arthur presses his lips to the corner of Francis' own, presses an earphone between his fingers where he can't see. "Listen. Listen."
So Francis does.)
fin.
(LONGEST) End Notes (EVER):
• the Edith Piaf song mentioned in this is Milord, and basically FrUK put to music, but she is better known for such songs as Non Je Ne Regrette Rien or Padam… Padam… She was a French singer known under the nickname of la môme, particular for her raspy, unique voice, and died in 1963.
• Bénabar, Raphael, Mireille Mathieu and Johnny Hallyday are French pop and rock singers - Bénabar and Raphael fairly recent ones (i.e., the 2000s), but Mireille Mathieu and Johnny Hallyday have been around for several decades. Tastes… differ.
• Robbie Williams and Pete Doherty are both British singers; The Kinks was a British band around the same period as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.
• Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg) was originally a French musical film directed by Jacques Demy, best known for his Peau d'Ane (Donkey Skin) and Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (The Young Ladies of Rochefort), both of which starred (a very, very young) Catherine Deneuve. Recently, it's been turned into a stage musical in London, which has begun in early March, and so was fairly fitting to the chronology of this story. It features a triangular love story between a young girl of Cherbourg (which is a town in Normandy, by the way) and her two lovers - one poor and taken away at war, the other charming and rich. The original movie is especially well-known for making everybody cry a river by the time it's over; I have absolutely no idea whether they've changed this or not in the stage musical.
• the most fabulous and gayest English band of all time is a reference to Queen. I was planning on giving their songs a rather important role in this, but they've been eventually surpassed by the Beatles (for no reason whatever beyond my having far too many Beatles CDs on my shelves). Among the songs mentioned in passing in this, Body Language is one of theirs.
• Vivaldi, Puccini, Chopin, and Mozart were all classical composers. Vivaldi was Italian, in the 18th century; Puccini, also Italian, in the 19th; Chopin was French-Polish, 19th Century; Mozart was Austrian in the 18th.
• Offenbach was a famous stage musical composer in early 20th century France, whose best known works are Orphée Aux Enfers (Orpheus in the Underworld) and La Belle Hélène (Beautiful Helen), both of which feature a comical, caricatural version of the old mythical Greek myths (and mythology). The very famous ending scene of Orpheus In The Underworld has the Greek gods dancing the cancan.
• David Bowie, Louis Armstrong, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrixs are American singers and composers; they are generally considered as unique and leading musicians.
• Axelle Red is a French pop singer, who has translated and sung several of her best known songs in English and in Spanish.
• Je T'Aime Moi Non Plus is said to be the best-known and most infamous song of Serge Gainsbourg's in England; sung by himself and Jane Birkin, it is basically sex on music. Just listen to it. Go on.
• The Lion King is a Broadway Musical inspired by the Disney movie of the same name, including several songs specifically written for it by Elton John. (For the anecdote, there is a corresponding musical entirely in French in Paris, which is currently on its last few performances.)
• Coeur de Pirate is the pen name of a folk singer from Quebec, whose best-known songs are Comme des Enfants (Like Children), Pour Un Infidèle (For An Unfaithful Man - in the sense of adulterer and not unbelieving) and, amusingly enough, Francis.
• George Brassens is an extremely famous (in France) folk singer whose best-known songs include Les Bancs Publics (Public Benches) or Les Copains D'Abord (Friends First). He died in 1981, and the thirtieth anniversary of his death is currently spawning biographies and anthologies everywhere.
• Elton John is a veeeeeery famous English singer, who, along with his lyric writer and partner Bernie Taupin, has produced some hundreds of songs (and still continues, unless I'm mistaken). Among these are Candle In The Wind, Your Song, Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting and Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word.
• The Beatles - actually, if you don't know the Beatles, where the hell have you been living? everyone knows the Beatles, all the time, ever. Among the songs mentioned and quoted in this story are Michelle, Hey Jude, The Fool On The Hill, Within You, Without You, A Day In A Life, and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
un | deux | trois | coda