Fic: Of Time and Place, RPS: HL/RSL, H/W
Fic: Of Time and Place
Author: Nakanna Lee
Pairing: RPS HL/RSL, H/W
Rating: R
A/N: Yay, I'm so glad I finally worked out another installment of this pairing. Hope you like it! Some parts filled out longer than I expected they would, so the continuation will be coming shortly. Until then, this works as a stand-alone sequel to my previous RPS plotline. Enjoy...
"Because I know that time is always time / And place is always and only place / And what is actual is actual only for one time / And only for one place / I rejoice that things are as they are..." -- T.S. Eliot
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Hugh didn’t know what it was exactly, but ever since he moved in with Robert he noticed things. All different sorts of things. The kind of details that drift right by when you’re living alone, when there’s no one else to care about in the immediacy of the room.
Darkness for one. How bizarre. Nearly every other night, Hugh would awaken in the middle of the bed-a habit he picked up after nearly three years of sleeping alone during the season-with Robert somehow slanted against him, legs curled between his own and the heavy, downy sensation mixing with heat-starved blankets. And it would be noticeably dark in the bedroom, as if light had not merely fled in panic, but it had simply been swallowed into nonexistence. It was the kind of dark that seduced pupils into thinking they were one and the same with it; a blankness that created sounds to make up for the lack of visible stimuli.
To Hugh, Robert was all-encompassing then. He extended into the sightless mass of nothing and Hugh could almost hear the air parting and unfolding for his slumbering body. Hugh would run dappled patterns across his forehead by sheer memory, fingers slipping into his mussed bangs like vagrants searching out a home. Robert talked in his sleep more often than not, and Hugh was always warmly pleased when he was awake to catch itinerant syllables as they languidly rolled from Robert’s lips, brushing against his shoulder.
Then there was the creaking of the floors, chattering with rumbling water pipes that cascaded like suppressed streams within the walls. Hugh listened to the rush, mingling with Robert’s murmurs and surging into an understated midnight chorus. Sometimes Robert would have left the radio on in the living room, or an intermittent flickering of subdued static would hint that the TV hadn’t been turned off, either.
Most times, though, Hugh simply ghosted off into quiet reflection to the tune of Robert’s breathing. Occasionally the sheets would get caught up in the rhythm, collapsing with an inhale and billowing outward with an exhale. Those stray words that untangled themselves from Robert’s sleep floated to Hugh’s ears. He’d lie there and stroke a silent hand through Robert’s hair as if he could touch the syllables themselves, particularly the content and wispy-sounding Hugh that always worked through unconsciousness, making it clear that even Robert’s dreams were quick to have him near.
* * *
“Are you two fucking?”
Hugh had practically spun on his heels, his ankles locking like brakes in the middle of an intersection. Lisa’s voice had screamed red light unexpectedly.
“No,” he snapped defensive and shocked. It wasn’t to deny it, but the accusation had sounded so unfairly harsh and crude when spat like that from the mouth. It was as if the thought was so unpleasant, the tongue had to quickly jettison the word.
The way she said it was odd, like she had heard it second-hand from someone else: someone loitering outside the group and merely casting unfounded observations. Her accusation was not her own to make, just some ragged hand-me-down of Hollywood gossip. She hadn’t said it derogatorily to Hugh because of what it meant-after all, she’d known about Robert’s past, and had hinted to catching their deepening relationship. She’d said it derogatorily because some idiot who didn’t know the first thing about anything had decided to run his mouth about it.
It had started early in the morning during another monotonous latest table read. In the latest episode, number nineteen if Hugh was keeping track correctly, House encounters a bizarre case (“there’s a shock”) where a writer appears to be developing the same symptoms as her lead character in her New York Times’ best-selling novel. Her protagonist, quite troublingly, ultimately dies a painful and grotesque death-one which, House snips midway through the episode, the author apparently wishes she would have spared her poor, innocent character. “Retribution from disgruntled readers,” he comments wryly. “Those reviews come back to haunt you.”
Meanwhile, Cuddy admits that she is pregnant, but refuses to divulge the donor. As usual, though, House has picked up on the change in Wilson’s demeanor, how often he asks her how her day is, how she’s doing, if she needs anything. Jealousy is there, but House’s main feeling, Hugh pictures, is one of insult. Once again, his two closest friends somehow work alternative plans under his nose: first Stacy and Cuddy with the infarction; then hallucinated Cuddy and Wilson with the ketamine; and now, those same two in reality with the invitro.
“It’s none of your business,” Cuddy says neatly and concisely when he enters her office.
“You made it my business,” House retorts. The twice-a-day injections come back to his mind, as well as that strange, almost detached way she’d wandered into his office, coming upstairs to tell him…just thank you?
Cuddy sighs, hands out as her voice banters sarcastically. “I had to. You rooted through my trash and pulled out everything you needed to know. Here.” She gestures to the waste can. “Help yourself. I’m sure it would be easier than having a mature conversation with me like normal people do.”
The episode closes on House confronting Wilson-much of that had been happening throughout the season-about just what loyalties and responsibilities he has to Cuddy. That part of the script had been written, rewritten, and edited again several times, David careful to avoid what could quickly collapse into a soap opera storyline if too melodramatic.
Originally, the scene was three and half pages long, rather convoluted and dense. Hugh pointed out that House, while he liked to poke and pry, would be more straightforward with someone he knew intimately. Robert agreed and said in turn that Wilson wouldn’t try to deny it as much; yes, he could get away with lying to House, but only if House didn’t already know the full story. In this case, he did. Wilson was backed up against the wall, and whenever that happened, he clung to truth like a life raft as if that could redeem his actions.
By the time the script was finished and all the cuts were made, it was under two minutes and tucked neatly into the end of the episode. David changed the scene’s setting to the parking lot instead of the apartment, as if to symbolize that this rift between House and Wilson was a temporary situation; it hadn’t disrupted their life together as it would have seemed if the scene had taken place in their home.
Hugh was grateful for the gesture.
The lights dimmed to signify evening, a kind of artificial slate-smooth gray that always looked better on camera than it did on set. House and Wilson, who had car-pooled on Wilson’s insistence when the other’s leg began acting up again, move in their synchronized gaits to Wilson’s Volvo.
“If you wanted kids, you could’ve said something. Though I wouldn’t be carrying any, sorry,” House mutters.
Wilson looks up, less surprised than House expects him to be. “Cuddy told you?”
“You told me.”
“I didn’t say any-”
“I could tell.” House shrugs simply, returning his attention to his cane so he looks less imposing. Wilson slowly relaxes. “What else does she want? You offer support or money or birthday parties? Accept the role of Soccer Dad?”
“No.” Wilson reaches for the handle of the car door, pausing. “She wanted a donation. That was all. She said she can take care of the rest from there.”
“And you’re going to stay out of it?”
Wilson glances to the side as he opens the door, waiting for House to slide into his seat first. House doesn’t move, keeping their eyes joined in a gaze.
“I don’t think we have to worry about that for a while yet,” Wilson finally says slowly, each word weighed like precious stones before they’re pronounced. House drops his chin to his chest, giving a nod.
Cue music-The Fray, David mentioned to Hugh, something the band released last year-and end scene.
Hugh hadn’t rehearsed it with Robert other than the couple times during the table read. He had somehow pictured it working flawlessly in his head, especially since he knew how close the subject actually was to Robert. He’d mentioned a few times last season about his desire to have children, and back then-before H/W, before ever kissing him-Hugh pictured Robert and Gaby together in New York, with three brown-haired kids running around Central Park.
He wondered how well that picture was holding up. A part of him felt like he was depriving Robert of it. Gaby knew of the mutual attraction between them, but nothing more. She had no real, solid evidence to suspect an affair on the other side of the country.
If Robert wanted that life with Gaby, he should have it, Hugh thought. He tried to analyze his logic: was it sacrificial on the basis of his love, or was it his misery-complex that just wanted to crumple up his contentedness and send it floating off downstream? Well, Hugh knew he couldn’t very well expect him to stay or give up New York and Gaby. It wouldn’t be fair, seeing as if he himself had that life in Britain. Robert should have it, too, if he wanted it.
He wondered what either one of them wanted, or even could want. And he wondered what on bloody earth was finally going to happen come spring, when Gaby was expecting a wedding and neither Hugh nor Robert’s feelings had changed.
When Lisa’s suspicions were voiced discreetly to Hugh right as he was leaving the set, he heard the words reverberating coarsely in his head like an explicit echo.
“Are you two fucking?”
He’d said no immediately. Lisa looked at him calmly, which annoyed him because he felt himself starting to redden, sweat pricking along his hairline. He wondered how she could tell. A subtle touch that wasn’t in the script. Effortless conversation. Their walking that made it seem as if they were extensions of each other, not just separate people.
Maybe it was written on their faces for the world to read. For their families to.
Hugh gathered himself best he could. He couldn’t remember exactly what he said in response, something vague in attempts to sound disinterested, like, “And if we are…?”
Whatever he’d said, it only confirmed the suspicion. He almost wished he’d just kept his mouth shut. Maybe he could have pretended not to hear Lisa from the beginning. Maybe he could just start the entire day over again.
“I’m not going to say anything,” Lisa said after a pause. She waited, and seeing that Hugh wasn’t moving, she asked with softer sympathy, the kind that never sat well with Hugh, “How long?”
“Almost four months,” Hugh replied quietly. Strange. That seemed too brief. It actually felt like forever, as if the beginning had been engrained with the tendrils of time, and it was meant to continue in an unending, reality-negating loop.
* * *
Late that evening, Hugh slid a finger up the ridges of his backbone, enjoying the muffled, voice-cracking moan Robert made at the simple touch in bed. Arching to him, Robert pressed their chests together, as if they were separate parcels he wanted to unwrap and combine the contents.
Hugh’s hand glided across his waist and came to rest at the warm base of his back. He was enraptured by that spot on Robert’s body-firmer and wider than a woman’s-and the way it dipped languorously like a rock-molding tributary. There, Robert’s desire turned it into a throbbing pool of heat.
Hugh guided him to his stomach, shushing his questioning gaze with a reassuring kisses on his shoulders. It was never said aloud, but they both needed to see each other’s faces. Robert had never asked to be the giver in their arrangement; and Hugh was quietly glad that he hadn’t, not confident in his own ability to accept Robert’s penetration.
There was a time years ago-Hugh remembered it with the shocking clarity of young adulthood, when immaturity instated a kind of worldly naivety even children didn’t possess, because children never pretended to be wise. He’d been strolling down to the Thames for an oarsmen’s meet, and Stephen had come along like usual to socialize. On the particular day, though, he seemed insipid and disillusioned even with Hugh’s light chatter, until finally Hugh pressed him as to what was wrong, clearly everything was not well. Stephen emotionlessly recounted the previous night, sparing not a single detail.
Hugh watched his feet mar the damp ground with each step, both of them leaving trails of footprints that the rising sun would swiftly dry and eradicate. He’d known about Stephen’s boyfriend, had met him at a party and seemed like a rather good fellow, two years older than they both were and far more experienced in life and various other subjects: how to sneak in alcohol, which teachers you could dupe, who put out the first date, all the little details that often were essential.
Stephen continued, after hardly a pause, that it had been such a painful night that he couldn’t ever imagine doing it again. Even now, Hugh could hear the strained words battering his skull. Invasion. Splitting. Torn in two. Hugh had felt helpless, offering all sorts of vain consolation. Since then, the fear had built whole avenues through his head, each one redirecting his impulses to give himself to Robert, to feel him filling every crevice that hollowed emptily when they weren’t together. To ask Robert to try, one time, please, just slow.
But the threat of pain always dislocated his nerve. Even the trust he felt couldn’t break the boundary it had put up. Throughout the past few months then, it was Robert straddling him, clinging to his shoulders when they moved together, eyes meeting between every few thrusts with fledgling gasps of encouragement. Hugh was more comfortable with Robert setting the pace and knowing he wasn’t moving too fast, wasn’t hurting him. Robert sensed that and didn’t push for anything more.
Now, feeling Robert tense expectantly as he him laid face-down on the bed, Hugh kept his own legs on the side so as not to give him the wrong idea. He would see him in just a moment; patience, Bobby. He massaged the beguiling, heat-doused space in the low center of his back, hinting as to what his attention was turned. Slowly, dragging his lips down to that square area of skin, his tongue soaked up the radiating taste, salt and soap and the lingering impression of denim. Robert inhaled sharply and moved suddenly to his hands and knees, pushing himself back up against Hugh for further contact. Fresh shocks of desire came in waves between them both, encouraged by the heat flickering against Hugh’s fingers and tongue that had learned each detail to admire, each stroke Robert wanted and communicated in startlingly demure movements or looks.
Later, Robert lost himself behind closed eyes, biting his lower lip as his head fell back, slack and completely exposed as Hugh moved rhythmically within him. Hugh felt the protectiveness then, the overwhelming sensation in the pit of his stomach that expanded into his chest and even deeper into his mind. It was more profound than love. It was the willingness to sacrifice whatever necessary to keep him safe, make him happy.
It was absolutely terrifying.
* * *
Hugh had retained an adapted strategy from childhood: When reality leaves glaring gaps, you create fictitious explanations to suffice and make the picture neat and clean. He’d done it while keeping a journal (self-admittedly dull as the grave) and figuring out how to play a character. You fill in the blanks and use self-invented information to explain the current situation.
He supposed that was also why he was never outstanding in history. Whenever something remotely unpleasant or dissatisfying happened in the textbook, or there came a questionable paragraph that just wasn’t rightly explained, his mind effortlessly rewrote the past to fit more properly. While studying at the Dragon, he specifically recalled a certain essay he’d penned detailing how old King George turned the tables on the American colonies by disguising himself as an Indian and leading the entire Native American population on an underground overthrow of the aspiring-but ultimately doomed-independent democracy.
His teacher failed him. The next day, he came into class complaining that the creativity alone deserved a passing grade.
It was the rare occasion when Robert talked about his past lover, the man he’d met back at Columbia, who had been wrenched from him by a bus accident five years ago. The lover floated by in unsuspected moments, and even then there was barely anything substantial to the comments Robert made-it was like hearing a conversation hovered above while the listener is underwater. Everything was murky and slightly detached, too incoherent to place clearly.
Hugh was interested-captivated was much too strong a word, though it wouldn’t have been entirely inappropriate-by the almost ghostly references to Robert’s lover. He was neither jealous of it nor obsessive, but Hugh did sense the arcane space where that one relationship ended and this one began, the extent of the unknown closed off by a wall and forming unfamiliar boundaries when it came to him and Robert. Unable to peek into the past for a look and far more unwilling to pry and dredge up any painful memories, Hugh had begun pasting up the past-like he did with childhood history classes-to satisfy his curiosity.
The man would have been tall, he figured, since Robert seemed to have an affinity for taller men. (He never said anything, but Hugh could feel the change in Robert’s demeanor in the presence of height; it was not necessarily a sexual attraction, but definitely a physical one, where he seemed compelled to radiate toward any noticeable or impressive figure. It was his sense of grandeur, or the need to command drama somehow. It was similar to why he enjoyed theatre, Hugh had noticed. There was a larger-than-life aspect about the stage; and like Hugh could escape from the doldrums of his life through fiction, so could Robert through wearing another personae for a few hours, a few shows, a couple months a year.)
The man would have dark hair, as it was obvious Robert favored that, too. Robert once told him how it was like dusk had come to rest on someone’s head, framing the face and bringing out all the brimming contours of lighter skin. He’d even developed a liking for House’s scruff, though Hugh was certain his previous over had been clean-shaven.
He worked in Manhattan, Hugh recalled, something to do with business. He would carry himself with a long, agile stride, maybe a bit lanky or gawky at times, but always amiable and approachable, understating himself. He was, Hugh figured, the kind of person who would dress impeccably when need be, but would much rather the nearest comfortable shirt and jeans, same as Robert.
Above all else he’d have to have been funny, or at least with a self-deprecating sense of humor. Robert was more sarcastic than people gave him credit for, and Hugh could imagine he two joshing as effortlessly as if they had written each other’s puns and then exchanged scripts.
It was after a few weeks of adding and building this archetype that Hugh suddenly realized the invented lover resembled, to an extraordinary degree, himself. He’d thought about it for a while, slightly embarrassed and strangely apologetic-to what? To his own lack of creativity? To a man no longer around to offend?
After a while, he supposed the similarities were because he could only picture Robert with one person to begin with, and he was it. Even Gaby was a remnant floating around somewhere, as distant as a flat character from one of Robert’s plays.
What Hugh felt for Robert was not possessive, though. It was only earnest with a kind of desperation, as if Hugh feared that the pages of his life’s handwritten book would fall out like hair on a balding man, and quite suddenly he’d be confronted with the terrible realization that even reality had been conjured up his overactive imagination.
PART TWO: http://nakannalee.livejournal.com/12953.html