HEE
KINKMEME PEOPLE THIS IS FINALLY DONE OMG.
Title: Seems You Set It Free
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Judesie is in denial. A bit.
Warnings: first time writing porn, some of which was written under the influence because I am a wimp. Also REALLY FUCKING LONG. and swears enough that Guy is probs pleased. without knowing why. I hope. Wherever he is. Also you might want to get the cast listing up so you know who I'm talking about. Also: RPS. And there'll be editing and notes added when I'm less exhausted.
EDIT: NOW BETAED by the amazing brightredday
RDJUDESIE: you know it's hot that ppl write porn about you, don't sue me please.
Seems You Set It Free
Right, so Jude feels that it is imperative that this is clear, here, right from the beginning:
He isn’t homophobic.
It’s just a lot different to be like: ‘fine, hypothetically people place genitalia in various orifices and kiss other men or women and do all that,’ and to think to yourself, ‘by golly I’d like to stick my genitalia up his orifice, if you catch my rather explicit drift.’ It’s different. And it doesn’t happen - much - in his brain.
I mean, this isn’t to say that he isn’t interested in aesthetics. One doesn’t become an actor without having a good appreciation of all the arts; at least, not the worthwhile sort. He’s always known how to inhabit his eyes, slip into that place where the world is boiled down to the simplest of shapes and build from there. He’d gained that, at least, from the hours spent on his sister’s bed as she filled the air between him and her easel with her thoughts about the cast of the light and the way to create black without any black at all-no Jude, you need to stay still.
He learns quickly, and it was easy to shift his appreciation for words: sketched perfect in the silence with each pause, dwelling gently on vowels, dipping low to cup feelings in the palm of his voice. This is how he sees paintings, and people. The colors of a stroke, the smile of a pretty girl, they can be caught by language, extolled upon the stage. He gets them, better than he understands the progression of a sum, or the intricacies of an engine.
So he appreciates a good pair of legs just like any other man, and he’s found most women appreciate him in turn. If he looks at men, it isn’t because he needs to take them right that second, it’s because he learnt objective appreciation early and it’s a hard thing to shake.
Wilde wasn’t just a gig to get his name out there; he did his research and he thought for a bit. But then, one is allowed to have a flexible sexuality - most therapists believe that sexuality is organic and can change a little, yeah? They also acknowledge that sexuality is determined by the individual. So even if he thought he was bi or a bit queer there for a while, he isn’t, because that is not what he identifies as. He identifies as one-fucking-hundred percent straight. He has legions of women and an ex-wife and progeny to support his case.
-
If he thinks Robert is good looking for a guy, then it isn’t anyone’s business but his own.
-
Of course, this all becomes a moot point - as far as everyone else is concerned - when Guy calls him up after dinner and says, “you and Robert have some fantastic chemistry.” Which really was a warning - one he feels, as he gets to know the man better, he should have taken to heart. So when he turns up for the read-throughs with the ‘tache already darkly shadowing his upper lip, he should have expected the atrocious acrostic poem serenades that happened: Guy with his mug shot face perfectly serious as he told Jude that his character’s name reveals - well, the ‘w’ alone reveals, apparently, homoerotic daydreams about Robert, and the rest elucidates on Guy’s ability to twist the English language into a wretched, wretched source of torture.
And then he has to try and read a scene with Kelly and Robert with the one clueless and the other breaking into mad giggles every second line. Kelly, of course, is an absolute darling: droll and pretty with bright, intelligent eyes that trace him casually. It’s just hard to make an impression when Guy keeps interrupting and explaining that Watson is being pulled in two directions and his desire to have a normal life is conflicting with his ‘natural tendency’ towards Holmes and the dangers of their shared lifestyle.
Kelly catches on within a few hours and by the end of the reading sessions and preproduction everyone has joined in on debates about who the doctor will end up with and how the loser should get to watch and Guy is an ass so suddenly the script reads Dr. Hotson for his parts and then gambling happens and badly photoshopped pictures and just. Seriously. Jude wishes his immediate reaction wasn’t to laugh and blush because people get the impression he thinks it’s funny. Which it isn’t.
-
So yeah, it doesn’t fade away once they begin working because he and Robert really get on. They talked over the phone all through pres about that American bloke who knows everything about Doyle, and how the allusions to physicality could be Watson’s way of dealing with the violence and his past experiences with the army. It’s all-out character analysis and the respect Jude had from the beginning, not simply for Downey’s talent but for his life and demeanor, grows rapidly the better acquainted he gets with the brain that accompanies them.
Then there’s some fight between Robert and Guy about how to deal with the cocaine and Robert calls him up - not giving a bollocks that it’s night for Jude - and vents the shitstorm in his head. Jude is no stranger to drug abuse, it comes with the industry, but the passion and something darker, something sickly and raging, has always been wrapped in shadows before this. It’s dirty and horrible and he’s pretty sure Robert is crying for some of it, but it’s also the sort of conversation that bonds two people together. It isn’t just about colleagues anymore and he feels wretched, even when Robert sounds brighter when he hangs up.
He doesn’t sleep though, and sends Downey a Paddington bear with a bit of his carpet stuck on as a mustache on express mail. It’s a couple of days before they start filming, and it beats him only by a day, but it sits on Robert’s makeup counter for the entirety of the shoot. By the end it has a little “my name is: Hotson” sticker, and the makeup girls think it’s hilarious.
So yeah, he and Robert spend a lot of time together during filming and on days off, which doesn’t help things in terms of defending his heterosexuality. Mostly they begin with chatting about work and spiral into personal conversations or political commentaries. It isn’t the usual anecdote-rich sort of dialogue of the usual on-set friendships; more something Jude remembers from when he was younger and more pretentious, or perhaps only less qualified to be pretentious. They don’t worry about Hollywood politics and the petty shit that can fuck up a good thing, because Robert is completely open about his disillusion with it and worrying about it in the face of such scorn is daunting.
-
Robert doesn’t help things along, either. He’s one of those people that’ll talk it straight and he has no shame about being affectionate. The people he likes can be clearly determined by how carefree he is with bodily contact. So yes, even though he’ll make a big show of snogging his wife, he also turns around - this was the first day of shooting, mind - and says to Jude “your turn my dear.”
It’s a challenge, Jude can see that straight off - and it’s only his competitive spirit, in the end, that saves him from getting a mouthful of Robert Downey Jr. - he grins and makes a show of kissing Robert sloppily on the cheek and groping his ass, which - okay - is actually a very nice ass. The stubble burns his lips, a little, and they have to redo the first shot because Jude gets distracted by his saliva still shining on Robert’s cheek.
Which is only really the beginning - or maybe they’ve passed that point already - of a long fucking spiral.
-
But that doesn’t make their relationship queer. Jude likes the man, can appreciate that he’s attractive, or charming, or charismatic, or whatever word you want to use. But he’s spent his whole life feeling like everyone just thought he was pretty or had a nice voice or any other shallow compliment that makes him feel all he has to offer is superficial.
So yeah, okay, right. When you film on the schedule they have been you get tired and no one’s a saint when they can’t remember the last time they’d slept more than four hours. And they’re standing in what’s meant to be the sewers of London but is really just a very cold, very damp studio and they’ve had to redo the scene over and over because the lighting’s all wrong. So when Robert turns to him and says, “Buck up, Hotson!” he loses his shit.
He tries to keep it dignified: a withering glare at Downey and he turns on his heel and leaves, leaving Guy to giggle with fucking twisted glee or whatever the fuck and Rachel to get her hair blow-dried because she slipped and fell in the puddles that are everywhere.
He’s halfway to the bathroom before Robert catches up, his face tired and lined in the stark lighting of the hallway. “Jude," he growls, slipping from the English back into an American drawl halfway through; grabs his arm and shoves him into the wall even as he tries to get a fist in. “Calm the fuck down, will you?” he hisses, sending a furtive glance down the hallway. “You want to piss off one of the crew and have the tabloids laugh at your hissy fit?”
“Stop being a wanker and-“
But Robert cuts him off, the hand that had been resting on Jude’s shoulder, more the wrist so the man could still gesticulate, turns into a fucking vice, his face is old and a little condescending and he shoves it close so they’re sharing breaths. It’s way too camp for Jude to even really process whatever else he was going to say, let alone utter it.
“Good boy,’ he says and the man must have a death wish: pinning a guy to a wall and near on dirty talking would not rate as something Jude considers sane. “You are going to take a leak and compose yourself. We will discuss what’s set you off, and then we’ll deal with it and you’ll sleep tonight and we’ll all be chummy again tomorrow.”
So Robert follows him into the bathroom and smudges a smiley face onto the mirror as he listens to Jude try and explain that he expects someone like Robert, who knows him well enough to be aware that he’s more than a pretty face - they don’t bother with modesty when it’s just the two of them - should at least try and act like that’s not all he has to offer.
“God, Hollywood fucks us up,” is all he offers in acknowledgement.
He calls Jude ‘Judesie’ from then on though, even once he gets over it. The glow at the nickname, warm for all the humor behind it, washes out the pointed comments Guy sends their way about how long they’ve taken and how relaxed they’re both suddenly looking.
The fucking bastard.
-
They strike a plateau - of a kind - after that. Filming hits its rhythm and they all start working around each other with far more grace. Jude’d be embarrassed that his tantrum set it off, but knowing that one of the stunties will call him up - thanks to an unnamed tipoff - and let him beat the shit out of them in the name of practice when he’s feeling wound too tight; knowing how to stay quiet and careful when Kelly’s spine stiffens and stiffens till she’s the definition of vertical; learning Guy’s ticks and tastes; all of it makes any sore pride seem worthwhile.
It’s just. Right, shallow confession and all. But Jude isn’t getting any. He’s tired, so it’s not like he wants a harem, but he wouldn’t be punching quite so enthusiastically if he had other means by which to expel his energy. Robert thinks it’s hilarious, or something, and makes a point of foiling any attempt in increasingly frustrating and amusing scenarios. So he’s got no hope from that end. Which is also the end which is apparently fucking with womankind anyway.
It’s a perfectly logical conclusion he's reached as follows: Jude has almost ceased to be informed he’s some variation of ‘cute’ without his name placed in conjunction with Robert’s; Guy refers to them exclusively as the ‘lovebirds’ and won’t let a take pass without cracking a joke about homosexuality. Also it is apparent - according to several rather horrific stick-figure illustrated polls - that he hypothetically bottoms. Which is just. You know. Not On. He feels that he needs to make it explicitly clear that he is a man. He is a man who is and has always been interested in a lot more sex than he’s been getting recently. With women. Which is the only sex he’s interested in anyway. Mostly.
So he makes a list - a hypermasculine list that he wouldn’t be ashamed at the moment of someone finding if it’d stop the fucking rumors - and decides Rachel is the way to go.
It’s just. Kelly told him that she was about as interested in having a relationship with someone that would fuck up fifteen years of avoiding the paps as she was in shagging the Queen. It’s hard to even think of hitting on her afterwards without some rather brutal mental images, so he finds himself with a hot girl friend whom he has never and will never shag. With her off the list, the next best way to confirm his masculinity is hit on the other female lead.
He examines Rachel carefully from afar; he doesn’t have many scenes with her, so they’re less familiar. He decides that she’s smart and pretty and definitely worth a bit of bad publicity; besides, she’ll enter this with the same idea as him: either it’s a good one off and all the crew members with the right genitalia will suddenly remember he’s available, or they’ll have a fling for the duration of filming. No big deal. He gets hetero sex either way. Hetero actual sex, rather than hypothetical gay sex. Which isn’t really his thing. On either count.
So, he works on his smile - it feels weird with all the fucking facial hair - and corners her during the scene with all the voodoo on the floor.
“Rachel,” he moans like they’re already friends, “no one will shag me. Is it the ‘tache? Am I horrendously ugly all of a sudden and no one told me? Did Robert spread an untrue rumor about any venereal diseases?”
“Oh my God,” is her reply, face pained, “you’ve already got a beard.” Yes, people on set did have a habit of referring to Kelly as such. No, Jude didn’t think it was funny. “Don’t bring me into this.”
And yeah, he knew that there was plenty of talk - a humongous amount considering the fact that Susan is working here too - but he’d hoped it was just talk. And then she raises her eyebrow and he turns, she’s got an expression face and he’s good at cues, to see one of the worst gossips on the crew walking passed and whispering madly to a friend.
He hates Rachel. She is an awful person. Worse than Guy. He tells her this.
“Don’t be a misogynistic jerk with compensatory lists that you leave lying around the set,” she suggests. “And stop staring at Robert all the time. See how that goes for your sex life before you come and use me for a bit of a reputation boost.”
Which he maybe deserved - a bit - but still. Ouch.
“I don’t stare at Robert.” She raises a brow, and he amends “much.”
-
Desperate times call for desperate measures, though, and Jude Law isn’t afraid of taking those measures. Especially when his lady-to-hand ratio is looking so bad.
“Susan,” he begins, “Everyone thinks your husband and I are having some massive affair. I just wanted you to know that I’d never undermine you or your relationship and that I, with your help, will endeavor to crush the rumormongers.”
He thinks he’s delivered it well, but Susan doesn’t look up from the script she’s studying. It’s covered in Robert’s scrawl and Jude thinks it could be anything from analysis to a love letter. At last she sets it aside and looks at him, eyebrow canted.
“We’re poly.”
Jude blinks. He takes a moment to think this through: poly is most likely a referral to the term polyamorous. He’d had a couple of fuck buddies who preferred the term ‘open relationship,’ knows something about how that can get extended to multiple lovers, especially in the gay world. It’s a bit blurry - he’d done the research for Wilde a long time ago. But he’s always prided himself on being worldly.
“Like, ‘orgies every second Tuesday’ poly?”
She laughs at him, which is okay, he’s smart enough to know when to make a joke to disguise ignorance. There’s real affection in her voice when she answers, which is weird considering how little they’ve actually spoken. He could admit - were he feeling generous - that he can see the ghost of a mirror in his own behavior to that of Holmes’ in regard to Mary.
“No. I just know Bob well enough that marriage was a commitment about life and truth, not fidelity. He doesn’t like the idea of love as a finite source - it scares him.” She sounds a bit like a therapist, like maybe she’s researched a lot. “I mean it when I say he’s bighearted. He loves people, and I’ve learnt that that doesn’t mean he loves me any less.”
Okay, shit. This is way too much info at once. He’s missing stuff, her manner: it all connects. He gets that. Gets that she’s kind of giving him permission. Not that he wants it. But still.
“Oh God,” he says, “suddenly that interview the other day about sharing him in the boxing scene isn’t funny.”
“Yes it is,” says Guy from no the fuck where.
Susan only laughs, but he catches on, now, to how someone like her could be as beautiful as Robert soliloquizes on when drunk and horny.
-
He leaves the room before he remembers that his heterosexuality isn’t any better off for the conversation.
-
In his defense, he’s drunk when he talks to Robert about it. He hadn’t meant to, neither grow inebriated nor acknowledge the situation. It’s just. He’s really good at wine, right? Likes it deep red and tart and strong. He can do any variety, but he likes that sort of pinot best, likes the way it stains your lips, catches people off guard, half wanting to scull it because it’s so good and to savor it for the same reason. He’ll waste a lot of fucking money on a good wine.
So he wasn’t expecting moonshine when he came over to Guy’s flat. Robert’s sitting cross-legged on the couch, chatting excitedly about some Doyle quote and how it fits in with - what sounds like - the costuming. One of the designers is blushing to his left and Guy is motioning at him like he’s wanking - which is just inappropriate enough to be accurate. So he pours himself a glass from the grange bottle and blinks at the clear liquid that comes out, turning in time to catch Guy whispering in Susan’s ear and her pulling a pained expression in reply.
It is horrendous. It tastes like hospital grade bleach. It very nearly ends up spat all down the front of Kelly, which is the only reason he swallows it. She has a very low-cut top on, and Jude appreciates a nice pair of breasts.
“Why am I being poisoned?” he rasps - god this is really embarrassing - and fumbles for something, anything, that’ll kill the desire to cough and cough and gag and splutter for the rest of eternity. She hands him her glass and he swallows it in one go, ignoring the girly pink of its contents, and brushes the back of his hand across his mouth.
“I could kiss you,” he says, because she’s looking like she wants to laugh but thinks it’ll hurt his feelings.
She does laugh then, kisses his cheek preemptively and links arms with Rachel like some horrific teen chick flick or a bad porno. They run off to chat and he’s pretty sure he hears “venereal diseases” but he’s too busy realizing that he’s had two strong drinks on an empty stomach to complain. “Fuck,” he says and runs off to eat all the chips and vinegar before they’re cold and he’s labeled a lightweight for the rest of his life.
It’s later, when he’s tried every drink in the house and settled, finally - because he really, truly won’t put himself through anymore of whatever disgusting brews Guy has lying about - on a generous glass of Malibu and creamy soda (the pink kind), with a very large helping of Vodka judiciously added as an afterthought. He made Kelly mix one for him about 5 minutes ago, feeling a little ill with chips and bad beer and liquor. He’s since made himself two more and is waiting for someone to dare him to have another: too gone to refuse a drinking challenge.
Well, to be honest, he had been waiting for the challenge, but he’d gotten bored and trailed out into the spare room, leaning out the window to look at the dimly lit street below. He jumps and spills a little of his drink on someone beneath when Robert comes in calling his name. He looks less drunk than Jude, which is an affront for reasons unknown.
“Dude,” says Jude, trying to make what he says next sound like a fantastic idea, “you should totally see if you can do seven vodka shots. In a row. Or some shit.”
“I think not,” snorts Robert.
When he comes closer he turns them so he’s closest to the window: one hand balancing Jude around the waist and the other shutting the window. Jude sort of forgets to breathe a bit. He lets himself slump against the man the way Guy always insists Holmes lean on Watson: languid and loose-limbed. If he were a girl it’d be a very come hither sort of slump, but he’s way too manly for that connection to form in Robert’s mind.
“Fuck, man,” he mutters, catches the slight stiffening in the smaller man’s frame - a voice crows smugly somewhere in the back of his mind. “Your name is way too fucking long. I know it’s only got two sybaluls. Shit.”
“Yes,” agrees Robert, “you did just mispronounce syllables. Would you like me to take that glass away?” Jude nods, keeps his face pressed up against the older man's head, cheekbone to the crown, mouth ghosting near the ear. He is way too horny to be having this conversation.
“Right then,” continues Robert, “let us sit” - here he sidesteps so Jude drops gracelessly to the floor - “and have a chat. We haven’t said anything worthwhile to each other in far too long.”
“’s because you’re letting people assume we’re fucking. Don’t like it, so ‘m, you know. Angry or some shit.”
Robert’s face has changed, shifted to guarded and cautious. “Evidently,” he drawls. There’s a long pause, Robert sips a bit at the drink, chuckles and sets it aside. “For someone that has been defending their heterosexuality so vigorously the past,” he pauses and pulls a thinking face, “eight weeks, you dress and drink pretty camp.”
“Metro,” Jude singsongs, “it’s a way to get around. Pun intended and rebuke ignored.”
Robert laughs his happy, warm laugh that folds him in two so that his face is resting on a body part of his nearest friend. He lands on Jude’s stomach and pauses, presses a kiss there quick as a blink before sitting back like nothing had happened.
“I want that tattooed on my heart,” he says, ignorant of the way he’s stolen Jude’s breath.
In response Jude grabs for the drink and sculls it.
-
The rest of the night is more a blank void than anything else; he thinks he remembers chanting “sorry” as he sicks all over Guy’s toilet and Kelly saying “I’m not cleaning it up, so don’t worry baby. You’ll be okay.”
-
Jude has the next day off so Robert can dick about with Strong, so he calls up his sister. He yells a lot and cries a little and ends up promising to visit once filming’s through. He ends up sitting in Robert’s trailer and reading through Hamlet, sketching out a diagram of emotions and causes that’s gotten too complex, as he waits for him to come back.
“This has to stop,” he says, before Robert has a chance to do anything other than shut the door and notice his presence, or he to lose his nerve. “I don’t share. I don’t play the boytoy. I don’t want to screw up one of my closest friendships and best filming experiences because we started presenting elements of our characters. Or whatever.”
“Okay,” says Robert, like he’s just agreed to go out to dinner, like the concept is a triviality. It pisses Jude the fuck off. “And I assume we will just completely ignore my side of the argument and live happily as macho friends that don’t have to think about the way they feel for each other because that requires self-analysis and makes you uncomfortable.”
“What?” splutters Jude, because he’s suddenly in unknown waters. They were just meant to move on, and Robert’s acting like that would be stupid, unrefined.
Robert remains still a moment - studies him silently - before shifting into action and pulling a chair over to Jude, straddles its back so they’re facing each other. He twists his mouth down and rests his chin on a hand, like he’s thinking; naturally slipping towards parody, gentle teasing.
“You have had how many serious relationships, Jude,” first name: he’s being serious, “that have worked out?”
Jude stiffens, chooses his words carefully because if they’re going to dissect his past intellectually then he won’t give Robert the upper hand and let his emotions blind him to the argument.
“If we’re going to approach it this way, I’d like your definition of ‘serious’ and why you think you have the moral high ground; Susan’s working out for now, sure, but how do you know that you’ll be in the same boat three years from now?”
“Jude,” Downey says, like he’s been pulled too tight, strained and frustrated and pitying. He sighs, and when he talks next he’s calmer, more earnest. “You like me because we’re honest.” He holds up a hand when Jude tries to argue down ‘like’. “You like it because you’ve spent most of your life acting, even when people don’t pay you to, because it’s easier to be liked for who you aren’t than disliked for who you are.”
Jude feels sick, wants to shut him up, but he can’t move, can’t hardly breathe.
“So you smile for the cameras and do what your parents want and date all the pretty girls because it’s Hollywood and there’s got to be perks, right? And then you call me up and gush about how you got Hamlet and the influence Shakespeare’s had on our culture and how it reminds you of a poem by someone I’ve never heard of, because you don’t know who else to call. Have you done that with any of those girls?”
Yes. Yes he has, but then they’d smile indulgently and Jude’d fuck them because he’s not a little kid, okay? He tells Robert this.
The man’s response is to growl, “This isn’t working,” into his linked hands and contort himself so that he’s sitting cross-legged with his ass half off the chair, rubbing at his lips as he sifts through some new and wonderful approach.
“Sometimes I tell you shit I wouldn’t tell Susan,” he begins, in the silence between them. And Jude feels a kind of illicit glow at the thought, “because I know she wouldn’t get it, or its significance. It’s not because I don’t love her. Or that I’m belittling her. It’s because I know that what we have is limited by our personalities, and regardless of our faults we love each other,” his voice sounds scratched raw.
Jude shifts in his chair, gets up and starts to pace. This feels too open, he’s just been stripped bare, and now Robert’s laying himself open too. He doesn’t know where to turn because this is exactly the sort of thing that gets you hurt.
“And when I see you get excited about the way Doyle’s caught some emotion that you connect with, or you read an article that you like, and you bounce and grin and you’re fucking incandescent without any clue” - here he bites his bottom lip, his gaze more than dark - “God, man. It’s better than all the pornos condensed into one moment: you’re letting me see you, honest to God, and I want to see you in every moment, want to see how else to make you glow. Want to see if there’s words that’ll get you like that in bed, if you like words like that, if you could get off if someone just kept breathing them into you, or smeared them across you.”
They’re both breathing quicker now. “And for all that, you’re scared of having anything like that because people might think ill of you. You don’t want to hear it, don’t want to be put in a position where you’re open and rejected for it.”
Jude already knows that, everyone feels that way. Who wants to be treated like refuse because of who they are?
“If I were to ‘like’ you, I don’t want to be defined by that. Who the fuck would?” he retorts, letting it run with the bitterness of weeks and weeks of uncertainty and frustration. “You know what they’ll all say, yeah? Smartass shit about a ‘bromance’, think they’re all funny. You don’t get it, I can’t fucking breathe without them all hypothesizing on its implications on my love life. You think I want to give them any fodder? Let them call Sadie, or Sienna, or Sam beards, just because it got fucked up? What about the kids? You think they need anymore shit shoveled on them just because I-”
He cuts himself off with a harsh breath. He hadn’t fucking meant to say all that. It’s just, Robert’s sitting there, acting like all that’s standing between them is Jude being too prudish. Offering him something with one hand and shunning him with the other. He flops, tired and too raw, back onto his seat; mutters “bastard,” with all the shit running hot through his veins, tries to convey it in the single word.
Robert looks sad, but lighter too. There’s less tension now, like they’ve just pulled through a hard weights session and are sharing the high afterwards.
“Am I less a ‘man’ for liking you?” He doesn’t give Jude a chance to reply, keeps it rhetoric like maybe he’s a bit scared of the answer too. “You think I haven’t faced all the shit you’ve got going on? What I--” he purses his lips and meets Jude’s gaze, eyes steely, “--we want challenges the ‘social norms’, or whatever the fuck they’re being called now. I’m an addict and you’re a manslut; we both play dress-up for our profession. We aren’t normal by average constructs. And I want to fuck you, regardless of the repercussions. I want to keep fucking you, I want to spend the rest of my life fucking you. It might not work out. We might screw up. I still want to, because I’m pretty sure I love you, and all of your issues, and if you have a problem with that, then get the fuck out of this trailer.”
Jude doesn’t move, he honestly can’t.
Robert holds his gaze, stands up and walks over. He says, “Okay,” and “Okay then,” and then “shit,” smudges the muck the makeup girls have scrubbed all over his hands across Jude’s jaw as he cups it, kisses him. The angle strains the fuck out of Jude’s neck and it’s more his mouth closed and Robert’s just open enough to breathe damply on it, stubble and ‘tache in the way, than a kiss. It isn’t good, but it’s also amazing: nerves blasting madly in his chest, telling him he’s got fucking butterflies swarming his stomach, fingers tingling, ankles locked to stop himself from launching at the man.
He’s freaking out, not so much that they’re kissing, or that he’s kissing a man - it’s not new, exactly - but he isn’t good with this. He can’t - there aren’t words, really. He came in here because he wanted to get back to uncomplicated sex with women who have nice breasts. Not start some fucked up relationship with a man. A married man. His friend. He knows some of what is going on in his head is leaking out his mouth, feels the shift in his own jaw as he mumbles denials and panic into Robert’s mouth, even as he locks his hands at the back of his head just to keep him close. He just can’t hear any of it; like the blood rushing in his veins, the thoughts flying through his mind have built to a blinding cacophony that drowns everything but sensation out.
And then Robert jerks his head back and sits on his lap, maybe at something he’s said. He isn’t sure though, he can’t really place any one sentence that he’s spoken. It’s uncomfortable, too, with Downey perched where he is, he isn’t light no matter the weight loss, and the edge of the chair is digging into his thighs. And for all that, he lets his head rest on the older man’s shoulder, shudders a little when this earns him hands pushed through his hair. There’s spit smudged beneath Jude’s bottom lip and it’s cooling the air, even though the kiss wasn’t much more than platonic.
“This isn’t just sex,” he says into Robert’s shirt. And he knows he’s being a cock, he isn’t the one who’s put himself out there with a declaration. It’s that, he’s beginning to recognize, more than anything else, that is scary. It’d be fine if it were just a bit of fun. Casual sex with a guy wouldn’t hurt the rep at all, make him more alluring in most cases. It’d be one of the best ways to make himself look worldly, if he got caught with a married man because he was just that good.
But it isn’t and he can’t and fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
“Yeah,” says Robert, dry and warm and still his friend, still who Jude’s always got on with, still familiar and bright and charming. “It isn’t.” Another pause, and Jude’s waded enough out of himself by now that he can feel the sharp rise and fall of Robert’s shoulders, sees that this is so much more than just him. Sees, now, the vulnerability, finally, of Robert’s lifestyle, his decision to push for this. “That’s a yes, yeah?” He’s trying for casual.
“If it doesn’t work?” Because Jude hasn’t spent this long as a protectionist not to tread carefully here. He knows that they’ve got enough ammunition as it stands to hurt each other badly; he doesn’t think he could stand the idea of Robert leaving him behind, walking away like people tend to when they realize what a fucker he can be. Not that Robert’s blind to it, he just hasn’t had it condensed, hasn’t faced the thought of spending the rest of his life with it, or whatever they’re promising. Off the bat. Like a couple of fucking virgins.
In reply Robert growls, hooks his hands back under his chin and bends to bite his bottom lip, hard, soothing it with four lush licks when Jude jumps back and grunts in pain. When he pulls back he can’t really keep his eyes off it, and Jude can feel the heat of swelling already. He thinks: shitshitshitfuckmarkedshit before Robert answers proper.
“Wouldn’t give you the satisfaction. Now answer, please. If you’d be so kind.”
“Okay,” Jude manners, feeling foolish. ‘I do’ hovers smartass on the tip of his tongue, only to stumble over it and spread half-joke between them at the sight of Robert’s smile: open and something akin to joyous, wild with relief. His pupils are already blown wide, like every possibility is running through his mind and he wants to try them all now.
“Good boy,” which - shit - “now I have to go have a chat with Suzie. And we’ll work out details from then.”
And with that he stands, pats Jude affably on the thigh and wanders out.
Part II
Title: Seems You Set It Free
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Judesie is in denial. A bit.
Warnings: first time writing porn, some of which was written under the influence because I am a wimp. Also REALLY FUCKING LONG. and swears enough that Guy is probs pleased. without knowing why. I hope. Wherever he is. Also you might want to get the cast listing up so you know who I'm talking about. Also: RPS. And there'll be editing and notes added when I'm less exhausted.
EDIT: NOW BETAED by the amazing brightredday
RDJUDESIE: you know it's hot that ppl write porn about you, don't sue me please.
Seems You Set It Free
Right, so Jude feels that it is imperative that this is clear, here, right from the beginning:
He isn’t homophobic.
It’s just a lot different to be like: ‘fine, hypothetically people place genitalia in various orifices and kiss other men or women and do all that,’ and to think to yourself, ‘by golly I’d like to stick my genitalia up his orifice, if you catch my rather explicit drift.’ It’s different. And it doesn’t happen - much - in his brain.
I mean, this isn’t to say that he isn’t interested in aesthetics. One doesn’t become an actor without having a good appreciation of all the arts; at least, not the worthwhile sort. He’s always known how to inhabit his eyes, slip into that place where the world is boiled down to the simplest of shapes and build from there. He’d gained that, at least, from the hours spent on his sister’s bed as she filled the air between him and her easel with her thoughts about the cast of the light and the way to create black without any black at all-no Jude, you need to stay still.
He learns quickly, and it was easy to shift his appreciation for words: sketched perfect in the silence with each pause, dwelling gently on vowels, dipping low to cup feelings in the palm of his voice. This is how he sees paintings, and people. The colors of a stroke, the smile of a pretty girl, they can be caught by language, extolled upon the stage. He gets them, better than he understands the progression of a sum, or the intricacies of an engine.
So he appreciates a good pair of legs just like any other man, and he’s found most women appreciate him in turn. If he looks at men, it isn’t because he needs to take them right that second, it’s because he learnt objective appreciation early and it’s a hard thing to shake.
Wilde wasn’t just a gig to get his name out there; he did his research and he thought for a bit. But then, one is allowed to have a flexible sexuality - most therapists believe that sexuality is organic and can change a little, yeah? They also acknowledge that sexuality is determined by the individual. So even if he thought he was bi or a bit queer there for a while, he isn’t, because that is not what he identifies as. He identifies as one-fucking-hundred percent straight. He has legions of women and an ex-wife and progeny to support his case.
-
If he thinks Robert is good looking for a guy, then it isn’t anyone’s business but his own.
-
Of course, this all becomes a moot point - as far as everyone else is concerned - when Guy calls him up after dinner and says, “you and Robert have some fantastic chemistry.” Which really was a warning - one he feels, as he gets to know the man better, he should have taken to heart. So when he turns up for the read-throughs with the ‘tache already darkly shadowing his upper lip, he should have expected the atrocious acrostic poem serenades that happened: Guy with his mug shot face perfectly serious as he told Jude that his character’s name reveals - well, the ‘w’ alone reveals, apparently, homoerotic daydreams about Robert, and the rest elucidates on Guy’s ability to twist the English language into a wretched, wretched source of torture.
And then he has to try and read a scene with Kelly and Robert with the one clueless and the other breaking into mad giggles every second line. Kelly, of course, is an absolute darling: droll and pretty with bright, intelligent eyes that trace him casually. It’s just hard to make an impression when Guy keeps interrupting and explaining that Watson is being pulled in two directions and his desire to have a normal life is conflicting with his ‘natural tendency’ towards Holmes and the dangers of their shared lifestyle.
Kelly catches on within a few hours and by the end of the reading sessions and preproduction everyone has joined in on debates about who the doctor will end up with and how the loser should get to watch and Guy is an ass so suddenly the script reads Dr. Hotson for his parts and then gambling happens and badly photoshopped pictures and just. Seriously. Jude wishes his immediate reaction wasn’t to laugh and blush because people get the impression he thinks it’s funny. Which it isn’t.
-
So yeah, it doesn’t fade away once they begin working because he and Robert really get on. They talked over the phone all through pres about that American bloke who knows everything about Doyle, and how the allusions to physicality could be Watson’s way of dealing with the violence and his past experiences with the army. It’s all-out character analysis and the respect Jude had from the beginning, not simply for Downey’s talent but for his life and demeanor, grows rapidly the better acquainted he gets with the brain that accompanies them.
Then there’s some fight between Robert and Guy about how to deal with the cocaine and Robert calls him up - not giving a bollocks that it’s night for Jude - and vents the shitstorm in his head. Jude is no stranger to drug abuse, it comes with the industry, but the passion and something darker, something sickly and raging, has always been wrapped in shadows before this. It’s dirty and horrible and he’s pretty sure Robert is crying for some of it, but it’s also the sort of conversation that bonds two people together. It isn’t just about colleagues anymore and he feels wretched, even when Robert sounds brighter when he hangs up.
He doesn’t sleep though, and sends Downey a Paddington bear with a bit of his carpet stuck on as a mustache on express mail. It’s a couple of days before they start filming, and it beats him only by a day, but it sits on Robert’s makeup counter for the entirety of the shoot. By the end it has a little “my name is: Hotson” sticker, and the makeup girls think it’s hilarious.
So yeah, he and Robert spend a lot of time together during filming and on days off, which doesn’t help things in terms of defending his heterosexuality. Mostly they begin with chatting about work and spiral into personal conversations or political commentaries. It isn’t the usual anecdote-rich sort of dialogue of the usual on-set friendships; more something Jude remembers from when he was younger and more pretentious, or perhaps only less qualified to be pretentious. They don’t worry about Hollywood politics and the petty shit that can fuck up a good thing, because Robert is completely open about his disillusion with it and worrying about it in the face of such scorn is daunting.
-
Robert doesn’t help things along, either. He’s one of those people that’ll talk it straight and he has no shame about being affectionate. The people he likes can be clearly determined by how carefree he is with bodily contact. So yes, even though he’ll make a big show of snogging his wife, he also turns around - this was the first day of shooting, mind - and says to Jude “your turn my dear.”
It’s a challenge, Jude can see that straight off - and it’s only his competitive spirit, in the end, that saves him from getting a mouthful of Robert Downey Jr. - he grins and makes a show of kissing Robert sloppily on the cheek and groping his ass, which - okay - is actually a very nice ass. The stubble burns his lips, a little, and they have to redo the first shot because Jude gets distracted by his saliva still shining on Robert’s cheek.
Which is only really the beginning - or maybe they’ve passed that point already - of a long fucking spiral.
-
But that doesn’t make their relationship queer. Jude likes the man, can appreciate that he’s attractive, or charming, or charismatic, or whatever word you want to use. But he’s spent his whole life feeling like everyone just thought he was pretty or had a nice voice or any other shallow compliment that makes him feel all he has to offer is superficial.
So yeah, okay, right. When you film on the schedule they have been you get tired and no one’s a saint when they can’t remember the last time they’d slept more than four hours. And they’re standing in what’s meant to be the sewers of London but is really just a very cold, very damp studio and they’ve had to redo the scene over and over because the lighting’s all wrong. So when Robert turns to him and says, “Buck up, Hotson!” he loses his shit.
He tries to keep it dignified: a withering glare at Downey and he turns on his heel and leaves, leaving Guy to giggle with fucking twisted glee or whatever the fuck and Rachel to get her hair blow-dried because she slipped and fell in the puddles that are everywhere.
He’s halfway to the bathroom before Robert catches up, his face tired and lined in the stark lighting of the hallway. “Jude," he growls, slipping from the English back into an American drawl halfway through; grabs his arm and shoves him into the wall even as he tries to get a fist in. “Calm the fuck down, will you?” he hisses, sending a furtive glance down the hallway. “You want to piss off one of the crew and have the tabloids laugh at your hissy fit?”
“Stop being a wanker and-“
But Robert cuts him off, the hand that had been resting on Jude’s shoulder, more the wrist so the man could still gesticulate, turns into a fucking vice, his face is old and a little condescending and he shoves it close so they’re sharing breaths. It’s way too camp for Jude to even really process whatever else he was going to say, let alone utter it.
“Good boy,’ he says and the man must have a death wish: pinning a guy to a wall and near on dirty talking would not rate as something Jude considers sane. “You are going to take a leak and compose yourself. We will discuss what’s set you off, and then we’ll deal with it and you’ll sleep tonight and we’ll all be chummy again tomorrow.”
So Robert follows him into the bathroom and smudges a smiley face onto the mirror as he listens to Jude try and explain that he expects someone like Robert, who knows him well enough to be aware that he’s more than a pretty face - they don’t bother with modesty when it’s just the two of them - should at least try and act like that’s not all he has to offer.
“God, Hollywood fucks us up,” is all he offers in acknowledgement.
He calls Jude ‘Judesie’ from then on though, even once he gets over it. The glow at the nickname, warm for all the humor behind it, washes out the pointed comments Guy sends their way about how long they’ve taken and how relaxed they’re both suddenly looking.
The fucking bastard.
-
They strike a plateau - of a kind - after that. Filming hits its rhythm and they all start working around each other with far more grace. Jude’d be embarrassed that his tantrum set it off, but knowing that one of the stunties will call him up - thanks to an unnamed tipoff - and let him beat the shit out of them in the name of practice when he’s feeling wound too tight; knowing how to stay quiet and careful when Kelly’s spine stiffens and stiffens till she’s the definition of vertical; learning Guy’s ticks and tastes; all of it makes any sore pride seem worthwhile.
It’s just. Right, shallow confession and all. But Jude isn’t getting any. He’s tired, so it’s not like he wants a harem, but he wouldn’t be punching quite so enthusiastically if he had other means by which to expel his energy. Robert thinks it’s hilarious, or something, and makes a point of foiling any attempt in increasingly frustrating and amusing scenarios. So he’s got no hope from that end. Which is also the end which is apparently fucking with womankind anyway.
It’s a perfectly logical conclusion he's reached as follows: Jude has almost ceased to be informed he’s some variation of ‘cute’ without his name placed in conjunction with Robert’s; Guy refers to them exclusively as the ‘lovebirds’ and won’t let a take pass without cracking a joke about homosexuality. Also it is apparent - according to several rather horrific stick-figure illustrated polls - that he hypothetically bottoms. Which is just. You know. Not On. He feels that he needs to make it explicitly clear that he is a man. He is a man who is and has always been interested in a lot more sex than he’s been getting recently. With women. Which is the only sex he’s interested in anyway. Mostly.
So he makes a list - a hypermasculine list that he wouldn’t be ashamed at the moment of someone finding if it’d stop the fucking rumors - and decides Rachel is the way to go.
It’s just. Kelly told him that she was about as interested in having a relationship with someone that would fuck up fifteen years of avoiding the paps as she was in shagging the Queen. It’s hard to even think of hitting on her afterwards without some rather brutal mental images, so he finds himself with a hot girl friend whom he has never and will never shag. With her off the list, the next best way to confirm his masculinity is hit on the other female lead.
He examines Rachel carefully from afar; he doesn’t have many scenes with her, so they’re less familiar. He decides that she’s smart and pretty and definitely worth a bit of bad publicity; besides, she’ll enter this with the same idea as him: either it’s a good one off and all the crew members with the right genitalia will suddenly remember he’s available, or they’ll have a fling for the duration of filming. No big deal. He gets hetero sex either way. Hetero actual sex, rather than hypothetical gay sex. Which isn’t really his thing. On either count.
So, he works on his smile - it feels weird with all the fucking facial hair - and corners her during the scene with all the voodoo on the floor.
“Rachel,” he moans like they’re already friends, “no one will shag me. Is it the ‘tache? Am I horrendously ugly all of a sudden and no one told me? Did Robert spread an untrue rumor about any venereal diseases?”
“Oh my God,” is her reply, face pained, “you’ve already got a beard.” Yes, people on set did have a habit of referring to Kelly as such. No, Jude didn’t think it was funny. “Don’t bring me into this.”
And yeah, he knew that there was plenty of talk - a humongous amount considering the fact that Susan is working here too - but he’d hoped it was just talk. And then she raises her eyebrow and he turns, she’s got an expression face and he’s good at cues, to see one of the worst gossips on the crew walking passed and whispering madly to a friend.
He hates Rachel. She is an awful person. Worse than Guy. He tells her this.
“Don’t be a misogynistic jerk with compensatory lists that you leave lying around the set,” she suggests. “And stop staring at Robert all the time. See how that goes for your sex life before you come and use me for a bit of a reputation boost.”
Which he maybe deserved - a bit - but still. Ouch.
“I don’t stare at Robert.” She raises a brow, and he amends “much.”
-
Desperate times call for desperate measures, though, and Jude Law isn’t afraid of taking those measures. Especially when his lady-to-hand ratio is looking so bad.
“Susan,” he begins, “Everyone thinks your husband and I are having some massive affair. I just wanted you to know that I’d never undermine you or your relationship and that I, with your help, will endeavor to crush the rumormongers.”
He thinks he’s delivered it well, but Susan doesn’t look up from the script she’s studying. It’s covered in Robert’s scrawl and Jude thinks it could be anything from analysis to a love letter. At last she sets it aside and looks at him, eyebrow canted.
“We’re poly.”
Jude blinks. He takes a moment to think this through: poly is most likely a referral to the term polyamorous. He’d had a couple of fuck buddies who preferred the term ‘open relationship,’ knows something about how that can get extended to multiple lovers, especially in the gay world. It’s a bit blurry - he’d done the research for Wilde a long time ago. But he’s always prided himself on being worldly.
“Like, ‘orgies every second Tuesday’ poly?”
She laughs at him, which is okay, he’s smart enough to know when to make a joke to disguise ignorance. There’s real affection in her voice when she answers, which is weird considering how little they’ve actually spoken. He could admit - were he feeling generous - that he can see the ghost of a mirror in his own behavior to that of Holmes’ in regard to Mary.
“No. I just know Bob well enough that marriage was a commitment about life and truth, not fidelity. He doesn’t like the idea of love as a finite source - it scares him.” She sounds a bit like a therapist, like maybe she’s researched a lot. “I mean it when I say he’s bighearted. He loves people, and I’ve learnt that that doesn’t mean he loves me any less.”
Okay, shit. This is way too much info at once. He’s missing stuff, her manner: it all connects. He gets that. Gets that she’s kind of giving him permission. Not that he wants it. But still.
“Oh God,” he says, “suddenly that interview the other day about sharing him in the boxing scene isn’t funny.”
“Yes it is,” says Guy from no the fuck where.
Susan only laughs, but he catches on, now, to how someone like her could be as beautiful as Robert soliloquizes on when drunk and horny.
-
He leaves the room before he remembers that his heterosexuality isn’t any better off for the conversation.
-
In his defense, he’s drunk when he talks to Robert about it. He hadn’t meant to, neither grow inebriated nor acknowledge the situation. It’s just. He’s really good at wine, right? Likes it deep red and tart and strong. He can do any variety, but he likes that sort of pinot best, likes the way it stains your lips, catches people off guard, half wanting to scull it because it’s so good and to savor it for the same reason. He’ll waste a lot of fucking money on a good wine.
So he wasn’t expecting moonshine when he came over to Guy’s flat. Robert’s sitting cross-legged on the couch, chatting excitedly about some Doyle quote and how it fits in with - what sounds like - the costuming. One of the designers is blushing to his left and Guy is motioning at him like he’s wanking - which is just inappropriate enough to be accurate. So he pours himself a glass from the grange bottle and blinks at the clear liquid that comes out, turning in time to catch Guy whispering in Susan’s ear and her pulling a pained expression in reply.
It is horrendous. It tastes like hospital grade bleach. It very nearly ends up spat all down the front of Kelly, which is the only reason he swallows it. She has a very low-cut top on, and Jude appreciates a nice pair of breasts.
“Why am I being poisoned?” he rasps - god this is really embarrassing - and fumbles for something, anything, that’ll kill the desire to cough and cough and gag and splutter for the rest of eternity. She hands him her glass and he swallows it in one go, ignoring the girly pink of its contents, and brushes the back of his hand across his mouth.
“I could kiss you,” he says, because she’s looking like she wants to laugh but thinks it’ll hurt his feelings.
She does laugh then, kisses his cheek preemptively and links arms with Rachel like some horrific teen chick flick or a bad porno. They run off to chat and he’s pretty sure he hears “venereal diseases” but he’s too busy realizing that he’s had two strong drinks on an empty stomach to complain. “Fuck,” he says and runs off to eat all the chips and vinegar before they’re cold and he’s labeled a lightweight for the rest of his life.
It’s later, when he’s tried every drink in the house and settled, finally - because he really, truly won’t put himself through anymore of whatever disgusting brews Guy has lying about - on a generous glass of Malibu and creamy soda (the pink kind), with a very large helping of Vodka judiciously added as an afterthought. He made Kelly mix one for him about 5 minutes ago, feeling a little ill with chips and bad beer and liquor. He’s since made himself two more and is waiting for someone to dare him to have another: too gone to refuse a drinking challenge.
Well, to be honest, he had been waiting for the challenge, but he’d gotten bored and trailed out into the spare room, leaning out the window to look at the dimly lit street below. He jumps and spills a little of his drink on someone beneath when Robert comes in calling his name. He looks less drunk than Jude, which is an affront for reasons unknown.
“Dude,” says Jude, trying to make what he says next sound like a fantastic idea, “you should totally see if you can do seven vodka shots. In a row. Or some shit.”
“I think not,” snorts Robert.
When he comes closer he turns them so he’s closest to the window: one hand balancing Jude around the waist and the other shutting the window. Jude sort of forgets to breathe a bit. He lets himself slump against the man the way Guy always insists Holmes lean on Watson: languid and loose-limbed. If he were a girl it’d be a very come hither sort of slump, but he’s way too manly for that connection to form in Robert’s mind.
“Fuck, man,” he mutters, catches the slight stiffening in the smaller man’s frame - a voice crows smugly somewhere in the back of his mind. “Your name is way too fucking long. I know it’s only got two sybaluls. Shit.”
“Yes,” agrees Robert, “you did just mispronounce syllables. Would you like me to take that glass away?” Jude nods, keeps his face pressed up against the older man's head, cheekbone to the crown, mouth ghosting near the ear. He is way too horny to be having this conversation.
“Right then,” continues Robert, “let us sit” - here he sidesteps so Jude drops gracelessly to the floor - “and have a chat. We haven’t said anything worthwhile to each other in far too long.”
“’s because you’re letting people assume we’re fucking. Don’t like it, so ‘m, you know. Angry or some shit.”
Robert’s face has changed, shifted to guarded and cautious. “Evidently,” he drawls. There’s a long pause, Robert sips a bit at the drink, chuckles and sets it aside. “For someone that has been defending their heterosexuality so vigorously the past,” he pauses and pulls a thinking face, “eight weeks, you dress and drink pretty camp.”
“Metro,” Jude singsongs, “it’s a way to get around. Pun intended and rebuke ignored.”
Robert laughs his happy, warm laugh that folds him in two so that his face is resting on a body part of his nearest friend. He lands on Jude’s stomach and pauses, presses a kiss there quick as a blink before sitting back like nothing had happened.
“I want that tattooed on my heart,” he says, ignorant of the way he’s stolen Jude’s breath.
In response Jude grabs for the drink and sculls it.
-
The rest of the night is more a blank void than anything else; he thinks he remembers chanting “sorry” as he sicks all over Guy’s toilet and Kelly saying “I’m not cleaning it up, so don’t worry baby. You’ll be okay.”
-
Jude has the next day off so Robert can dick about with Strong, so he calls up his sister. He yells a lot and cries a little and ends up promising to visit once filming’s through. He ends up sitting in Robert’s trailer and reading through Hamlet, sketching out a diagram of emotions and causes that’s gotten too complex, as he waits for him to come back.
“This has to stop,” he says, before Robert has a chance to do anything other than shut the door and notice his presence, or he to lose his nerve. “I don’t share. I don’t play the boytoy. I don’t want to screw up one of my closest friendships and best filming experiences because we started presenting elements of our characters. Or whatever.”
“Okay,” says Robert, like he’s just agreed to go out to dinner, like the concept is a triviality. It pisses Jude the fuck off. “And I assume we will just completely ignore my side of the argument and live happily as macho friends that don’t have to think about the way they feel for each other because that requires self-analysis and makes you uncomfortable.”
“What?” splutters Jude, because he’s suddenly in unknown waters. They were just meant to move on, and Robert’s acting like that would be stupid, unrefined.
Robert remains still a moment - studies him silently - before shifting into action and pulling a chair over to Jude, straddles its back so they’re facing each other. He twists his mouth down and rests his chin on a hand, like he’s thinking; naturally slipping towards parody, gentle teasing.
“You have had how many serious relationships, Jude,” first name: he’s being serious, “that have worked out?”
Jude stiffens, chooses his words carefully because if they’re going to dissect his past intellectually then he won’t give Robert the upper hand and let his emotions blind him to the argument.
“If we’re going to approach it this way, I’d like your definition of ‘serious’ and why you think you have the moral high ground; Susan’s working out for now, sure, but how do you know that you’ll be in the same boat three years from now?”
“Jude,” Downey says, like he’s been pulled too tight, strained and frustrated and pitying. He sighs, and when he talks next he’s calmer, more earnest. “You like me because we’re honest.” He holds up a hand when Jude tries to argue down ‘like’. “You like it because you’ve spent most of your life acting, even when people don’t pay you to, because it’s easier to be liked for who you aren’t than disliked for who you are.”
Jude feels sick, wants to shut him up, but he can’t move, can’t hardly breathe.
“So you smile for the cameras and do what your parents want and date all the pretty girls because it’s Hollywood and there’s got to be perks, right? And then you call me up and gush about how you got Hamlet and the influence Shakespeare’s had on our culture and how it reminds you of a poem by someone I’ve never heard of, because you don’t know who else to call. Have you done that with any of those girls?”
Yes. Yes he has, but then they’d smile indulgently and Jude’d fuck them because he’s not a little kid, okay? He tells Robert this.
The man’s response is to growl, “This isn’t working,” into his linked hands and contort himself so that he’s sitting cross-legged with his ass half off the chair, rubbing at his lips as he sifts through some new and wonderful approach.
“Sometimes I tell you shit I wouldn’t tell Susan,” he begins, in the silence between them. And Jude feels a kind of illicit glow at the thought, “because I know she wouldn’t get it, or its significance. It’s not because I don’t love her. Or that I’m belittling her. It’s because I know that what we have is limited by our personalities, and regardless of our faults we love each other,” his voice sounds scratched raw.
Jude shifts in his chair, gets up and starts to pace. This feels too open, he’s just been stripped bare, and now Robert’s laying himself open too. He doesn’t know where to turn because this is exactly the sort of thing that gets you hurt.
“And when I see you get excited about the way Doyle’s caught some emotion that you connect with, or you read an article that you like, and you bounce and grin and you’re fucking incandescent without any clue” - here he bites his bottom lip, his gaze more than dark - “God, man. It’s better than all the pornos condensed into one moment: you’re letting me see you, honest to God, and I want to see you in every moment, want to see how else to make you glow. Want to see if there’s words that’ll get you like that in bed, if you like words like that, if you could get off if someone just kept breathing them into you, or smeared them across you.”
They’re both breathing quicker now. “And for all that, you’re scared of having anything like that because people might think ill of you. You don’t want to hear it, don’t want to be put in a position where you’re open and rejected for it.”
Jude already knows that, everyone feels that way. Who wants to be treated like refuse because of who they are?
“If I were to ‘like’ you, I don’t want to be defined by that. Who the fuck would?” he retorts, letting it run with the bitterness of weeks and weeks of uncertainty and frustration. “You know what they’ll all say, yeah? Smartass shit about a ‘bromance’, think they’re all funny. You don’t get it, I can’t fucking breathe without them all hypothesizing on its implications on my love life. You think I want to give them any fodder? Let them call Sadie, or Sienna, or Sam beards, just because it got fucked up? What about the kids? You think they need anymore shit shoveled on them just because I-”
He cuts himself off with a harsh breath. He hadn’t fucking meant to say all that. It’s just, Robert’s sitting there, acting like all that’s standing between them is Jude being too prudish. Offering him something with one hand and shunning him with the other. He flops, tired and too raw, back onto his seat; mutters “bastard,” with all the shit running hot through his veins, tries to convey it in the single word.
Robert looks sad, but lighter too. There’s less tension now, like they’ve just pulled through a hard weights session and are sharing the high afterwards.
“Am I less a ‘man’ for liking you?” He doesn’t give Jude a chance to reply, keeps it rhetoric like maybe he’s a bit scared of the answer too. “You think I haven’t faced all the shit you’ve got going on? What I--” he purses his lips and meets Jude’s gaze, eyes steely, “--we want challenges the ‘social norms’, or whatever the fuck they’re being called now. I’m an addict and you’re a manslut; we both play dress-up for our profession. We aren’t normal by average constructs. And I want to fuck you, regardless of the repercussions. I want to keep fucking you, I want to spend the rest of my life fucking you. It might not work out. We might screw up. I still want to, because I’m pretty sure I love you, and all of your issues, and if you have a problem with that, then get the fuck out of this trailer.”
Jude doesn’t move, he honestly can’t.
Robert holds his gaze, stands up and walks over. He says, “Okay,” and “Okay then,” and then “shit,” smudges the muck the makeup girls have scrubbed all over his hands across Jude’s jaw as he cups it, kisses him. The angle strains the fuck out of Jude’s neck and it’s more his mouth closed and Robert’s just open enough to breathe damply on it, stubble and ‘tache in the way, than a kiss. It isn’t good, but it’s also amazing: nerves blasting madly in his chest, telling him he’s got fucking butterflies swarming his stomach, fingers tingling, ankles locked to stop himself from launching at the man.
He’s freaking out, not so much that they’re kissing, or that he’s kissing a man - it’s not new, exactly - but he isn’t good with this. He can’t - there aren’t words, really. He came in here because he wanted to get back to uncomplicated sex with women who have nice breasts. Not start some fucked up relationship with a man. A married man. His friend. He knows some of what is going on in his head is leaking out his mouth, feels the shift in his own jaw as he mumbles denials and panic into Robert’s mouth, even as he locks his hands at the back of his head just to keep him close. He just can’t hear any of it; like the blood rushing in his veins, the thoughts flying through his mind have built to a blinding cacophony that drowns everything but sensation out.
And then Robert jerks his head back and sits on his lap, maybe at something he’s said. He isn’t sure though, he can’t really place any one sentence that he’s spoken. It’s uncomfortable, too, with Downey perched where he is, he isn’t light no matter the weight loss, and the edge of the chair is digging into his thighs. And for all that, he lets his head rest on the older man’s shoulder, shudders a little when this earns him hands pushed through his hair. There’s spit smudged beneath Jude’s bottom lip and it’s cooling the air, even though the kiss wasn’t much more than platonic.
“This isn’t just sex,” he says into Robert’s shirt. And he knows he’s being a cock, he isn’t the one who’s put himself out there with a declaration. It’s that, he’s beginning to recognize, more than anything else, that is scary. It’d be fine if it were just a bit of fun. Casual sex with a guy wouldn’t hurt the rep at all, make him more alluring in most cases. It’d be one of the best ways to make himself look worldly, if he got caught with a married man because he was just that good.
But it isn’t and he can’t and fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
“Yeah,” says Robert, dry and warm and still his friend, still who Jude’s always got on with, still familiar and bright and charming. “It isn’t.” Another pause, and Jude’s waded enough out of himself by now that he can feel the sharp rise and fall of Robert’s shoulders, sees that this is so much more than just him. Sees, now, the vulnerability, finally, of Robert’s lifestyle, his decision to push for this. “That’s a yes, yeah?” He’s trying for casual.
“If it doesn’t work?” Because Jude hasn’t spent this long as a protectionist not to tread carefully here. He knows that they’ve got enough ammunition as it stands to hurt each other badly; he doesn’t think he could stand the idea of Robert leaving him behind, walking away like people tend to when they realize what a fucker he can be. Not that Robert’s blind to it, he just hasn’t had it condensed, hasn’t faced the thought of spending the rest of his life with it, or whatever they’re promising. Off the bat. Like a couple of fucking virgins.
In reply Robert growls, hooks his hands back under his chin and bends to bite his bottom lip, hard, soothing it with four lush licks when Jude jumps back and grunts in pain. When he pulls back he can’t really keep his eyes off it, and Jude can feel the heat of swelling already. He thinks: shitshitshitfuckmarkedshit before Robert answers proper.
“Wouldn’t give you the satisfaction. Now answer, please. If you’d be so kind.”
“Okay,” Jude manners, feeling foolish. ‘I do’ hovers smartass on the tip of his tongue, only to stumble over it and spread half-joke between them at the sight of Robert’s smile: open and something akin to joyous, wild with relief. His pupils are already blown wide, like every possibility is running through his mind and he wants to try them all now.
“Good boy,” which - shit - “now I have to go have a chat with Suzie. And we’ll work out details from then.”
And with that he stands, pats Jude affably on the thigh and wanders out.
Part II