Eight weeks in paris, p.17
Eight Weeks in Paris, page 17
Nicholas closed his eyes with a groan. “What a mess,” he croaked.
Madalena’s cool hand came to rest on his forehead. “You’re very hot.”
“I know.”
“Cheeky. Here.”
She helped him drink a tall, cool glass of water, and he levered himself up enough to swallow a couple of tablets. It was enough to exhaust him all over again; he sank back down, shivering hard. Madalena gathered the blankets about him, gentle as with a kitten.
“I haven’t felt this terrible in...years.” Nicholas kept his eyes shut: the light itself was painful.
“You’ve been running yourself ragged.” Madalena’s voice was quiet. “You don’t take care of yourself, Nicholas. I don’t like to think what could have happened if Chris hadn’t brought you home. What would you have done: come to set and fainted in front of the whole crew? Where is your responsibility to The Throne?”
That seemed wildly unfair. “My responsibility is in showing up.”
“Showing up doesn’t help a soul if you collapse.” She sighed, and her hand fell on his, lacing their fingers together tightly. “I worried. When Chris called me, I thought you’d been taken into the ER.”
Nicholas squeezed her hand with as much strength as he could muster, which wasn’t much. “Shouldn’t. I’ll be—” he sneezed, so violently it must have taken years out of his life “—alright.”
“Obviously,” she said dryly. “Get some more sleep. The doctor said you’d be out for twenty-four hours, and it’s not been ten since he saw you.”
“Doc—?” Nicholas said drowsily.
“Came this morning. You swore at him.”
“Did I,” Nicholas murmured, but already the long tendrils of sleep were trailing into his bloodstream, and the bedcovers were becoming very, very heavy indeed.
* * *
He woke with a clearer head, though his throat burned, and he had a pounding migraine. He had no idea how long had passed—it could have been a year as easily as a second—but Madalena was gone, and the light had all but faded. A lamp was turned on in the window corner; the rest of the room was darkening into slow, tender, blue shadows. Chris was sitting where he had sat the night before, cross-legged underneath the lamp. The light cast the gentle slopes of his features in bright contrast, his grey eyes clearer and paler than they had ever been. There were still dark circles under his eyes, but he was wearing reading glasses.
Nicholas made a caveman-like grunt, and Chris looked up, smiling quickly. “Hallo. You’re awake.”
“Perceptive,” Nicholas said huskily.
“And rude. I’ll chalk that up to your feeling better.” He had been reading; he put the book away now, and crossed the room. He was wearing a loose sweater, the long sleeves falling over his wrists, and a pair of grey, baggy sweatpants. It was, in fact, the most underdressed Nicholas had ever seen him. Even his hair looked a mess. A fuzzy, soft-looking mess.
His brain-to-mouth filter must be broken rather badly, because he said: “You look—good.”
Chris’s eyebrows hiked up. “I’m afraid I can’t say the same. You look horrible.”
Nicholas winced. “Mince your words, won’t you.”
“Sorry.” He didn’t sound sorry at all. “Sick and sweaty isn’t a good look on anybody. Can you sit up?”
He could, though with some difficulty. Chris helped him to the bathroom, where Nicholas took a much-needed piss, and then looked with some dread at the shower. The need to be clean weighed heavily against the effort it would take to get there. Still, though, it would have to be worth it; he couldn’t abide the feeling of the t-shirt stuck to his back and armpits.
In the end, the shower was not the dragon he had feared: the worst of it was getting out of the cubicle, when his head swam into white and he had to sit heavily down on the toilet seat. Chris had tactfully left new clothes on the rack, warm from the dryer, and very soft. Sweatpants. A black t-shirt, which was a little snug on Nicholas, but felt amazing against his sensitive skin.
“You hungry?” Chris asked, when Nicholas emerged, wet-haired and weak-limbed but happy, from the bathroom.
Nicholas’s stomach quivered. “Let’s not tempt fate. I’ve managed not to vomit yet.”
Chris gave him a look. “I can think of something,” he said, and brought him warm milk, something Nicholas hadn’t had anybody do for him since he was eighteen. Warm milk and honey, and crumbling shortbread, buttery-sweet and perfect. They ate together in complacent silence, as the rain doubled down on the windows and the sky darkened to the purplish brown of a bruise. Nicholas watched Chris, who was absorbed in thought, his cheek resting against his fist.
When Chris caught him staring, he gave him a quick, wistful smile. “I have to admit,” he murmured, “when I thought about you in my bed, this wasn’t quite the scenario I imagined it would be.”
Nicholas’s laugh was a rasp. “Lusted for me, did you?”
“Badly,” said Chris, very seriously. “Every night.”
Nicholas’s mouth quirked in a rueful smile. A confession was on the tip of his tongue. Yeah. Me too. He reached out and touched Chris’s hair. It was exactly as soft as it looked.
Softer.
“What are you doing.” Chris stayed still, though, letting him touch. When Nicholas cupped his cheek he smiled, and leaned into it, covering Nicholas’s hand with his own. He glanced up at Nicholas through his eyelashes.
“You’re lovely.” Nicholas brushed his thumb against his cheekbone. “Have I told you that?”
“Not in so many words.”
“I should have told you many times.” Nicholas was conscious, suddenly, of a sadness, rising and rising within him. “I’ll miss you when you’re gone.”
Chris, looking stricken, ducked his head to kiss his palm. “Where am I going?”
“Anywhere. You’ll be a star after this. You’ll take Hollywood by storm.”
“What makes you think I want to?” Chris said quietly.
“Don’t you? I thought you must.”
“You and everyone else.” Chris sighed. He took Nicholas’s hand between his own, rubbing his fingers against his palm. It tickled. “And sometimes I do too. I hardly know what I want, Nicholas. The Throne feels like an opportunity. What comes after...comes after.”
“An opportunity,” Nicholas echoed.
“Yes, perhaps. A chance to be real. More real, I mean, than I am when I post pictures of myself online, or act in the small-bit soaps you think so materialistic, so vain. I feel myself becoming vain and materialistic. There’s no writing in it, no real chance to act. When I had a chance to audition for The Throne, I thought I had that one shot. Strange, isn’t it? I feel brilliant when I am next to you. I don’t feel unreal. It’s not something I’m used to—like I own my own body for once.”
Nicholas squeezed his hand. “Come here.”
Chris bit his lip, but let himself be tugged over against Nicholas’s side. “You’ll make me sick.”
“Don’t care.”
He laughed. “Isn’t that my line?”
“Shhh.” Nicholas petted his hair, threading his fingers through the fine curls. With a sigh, Chris tucked his face against his neck, and closed his eyes. Nicholas felt the brush of eyelashes against his skin. “How much did you sleep last night?”
“Not very much,” Chris admitted. His breath was cool against Nicholas’s heated skin. “I thought someone ought to keep an eye on you. Madalena was worried. She would have come in at two in the morning, if I’d let her.”
“She’s protective.”
“As are you.” Chris’s fingertips rubbed against the collar of his t-shirt, where it met his skin. “You’ve been carrying the weight of The Throne on your shoulders for weeks. Took a fever to take you down.”
“Stop speaking nonsense.”
“Alright. Then...” Chris pushed himself up and captured Nicholas’s mouth with his own.
Nicholas made a very soft sound, and kissed him back, opening his mouth, tracing his teasing teeth with the tip of his tongue. Chris cupped his jaw and stroked the line of his brow down to his ear. “Hang on,” he murmured, and moved over to straddle him, resting his weight carefully atop him: his knees on either side of Nicholas’s hips, his hand braced against the pillow. He kissed him again, lightly. One kiss, then two, lips barely parting. He tasted of honey and butter and milk.
“Whatever happened to not getting sick?” Nicholas asked against his mouth.
“I had a cold in April.” Chris nipped at his lip, then kissed it. “I’ll risk it.”
Nicholas laced his fingers in his hair, took a good grip, and pulled him down.
* * *
Chris curled up again on the window seat that night, when they managed to separate long enough that sleeping became an option. Nicholas yawned in the middle of a kiss, and Chris leaned back, laughing, and booped him on the nose.
No one had booped Nicholas’s nose since his little cousin’s kitten. He’d been ten at the time.
“No, really,” Chris said, removing himself demurely to the window seat with a blanket and a book. “You have fever sweats. I’d rather be uncomfortable than clammy hot.”
That was fair enough. Nicholas didn’t like it any more for it, though.
“You look distressed.”
“Hardly.”
“Proud, too.” Chris turned on the little lamp and sat in its halo, running a hand through the hair Nicholas had thoroughly messed up. It floofed like spun gold. “It’s a good look on you.”
“Everything is a good look on me.”
Chris hid a smile. It showed, though. There was something brilliant in his face, in the circle of light around it, that took Nicholas’s breath away.
Then again, it might be the light-headedness. Nicholas lay down, bringing the duvet up and over his shoulder, and propped himself up on one elbow, looking at Chris. “Tell me something.”
“What?”
“Why did you start modeling?”
Chris traced a finger down the spine of his book, looking thoughtful. “I was approached by an agent. I was...oh, sixteen. And I liked fashion—I liked the stylishness of it. I loved it for a while. The posing. Framing my body in different ways. Then Dior booked me as a main, and...” He made a slightly helpless hand gesture. “That was that.”
He leaned his head back, looking at Nicholas through half-lidded eyes. “It took me a long time—years—to recognize that the industry is...rotten, where it matters. I still love fashion. But I loathe its lack of body diversity and its racism. Most models I know, especially women, suffer from eating disorders. Most models of color can’t get a break in the industry. There’s no space for LGBT representation, either, except when it’s hot to have two girls embracing on a magazine spread. That’s why I—after a while, I switched from mainstream fashion to more niche spots. I’d gained enough clout that I could make choices. I worked with photographers who wanted different body types, different skin colors. Trans people. Disabled people. Photographers who show beauty in everyone...” He took a breath, and gave Nicholas a wry smile. “I can get passionate about this.”
Nicholas thought about it, with a little flush of shame. He was conscious that he had, early on, imagined Chris as shallow, petty, and trivial; someone who was not capable of such thoughtful commentary on his own career. Nicholas had been the shallow one in truth. A dull sense of admiration and culpability pounded through him. “I’m guilty of stereotyping, I know. You called me out on it the day we met.”
“Yes, well. I’m used to it. When I moved into acting, most of the commenters thought the same way.”
“Still. You shouldn’t have to deal with that.” He added: “I’m sorry.”
Chris’s eyes softened. “You don’t have to apologize.”
“I believe I do.”
They were silent for a moment. Chris was touched, he could tell; but the thread of the conversation was lost.
“I wish you were with me,” Nicholas murmured, a little helplessly.
“I am with you.”
“In bed, Chris.”
Chris’s smile essayed a return. “I wish that too. Maybe later.” He glanced out the window, and the light fell on his hair, his eyelashes, his cheek. His profile, limned in gold. “I love storms. Everything is heightened during a storm.”
“Larger than life.”
“What a strange saying.” Chris’s lips curved. “Does fame make you larger than life? Is that what happened to you?”
“No. I was always like this.”
“I wish I’d known you then. Before.”
Nicholas rolled over onto his back. “You might know me now,” he said, meaningfully.
Chris laughed. “What happened to taking it slow? Or—well, not taking it at all?”
Nicholas had no reply to this. It was true that, until the very second he’d collapsed in Chris’s bed, he’d not intended to take their...their shared emotions...anywhere closer to what he could very tentatively term a relationship than they had been before. But Chris was so soft, so lovely, so lonely, and the bed was so large and so very, very warm. It was a shame to be alone in it, when kissing him was sweeter than honey. The weight of his body against Nicholas’s —the brush of his hands against Nicholas’s chest—the touch of his fingers in his hair—his mouth opening under Nicholas’s mouth—it had all felt like a mere expansion of who they were. They had been set on a path, and they had found each other in the journey.
Chaudhuri never had to know. Whatever happened, he was certain of this. Neither Chris nor he were so inexperienced that they would make the mistake of hurting their respective careers with a short-lived affaire. But they had this moment. This night, with the lamp burning and the sound of the rain. These short few days until filming started again.
“What are you reading?” he asked, instead of answering.
Chris’s expression flickered. “Rebecca.”
“Ah. Appropriate, of course, to the occasion.”
Lightning struck, illuminating Chris’s face.
There was something bleak in Chris’s eyes. He looked away. “Go to sleep, Nicholas.”
Chapter Sixteen
[RPF Thread]—#50
REMINDERS! READ THIS BEFORE YOU POST
NO VIOLATING ANYONE’S PRIVACY.
we mean it. no doxxing. don’t look up actors’ homes. don’t FOLLOW them home. DON’T LEAVE GIFT BASKETS ON THEIR DOORSTEPS.
seriously, just don’t. you will be banned.
remember that fiction =/= reality. tinhat and theorize all to your heart’s content, but a) at the end of the day, you don’t know these people, and b) you are not allowed to interfere in their lives.
don’t body-shame. anyone. ever.
content warnings for triggery material are appreciated.
weekly discussion posts roundup [here].
be civil and courteous to each other, mods will delete if appropriate.
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[page 8 of 18]
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immortaldeath
So...about that The Throne vid...
Madden/Lavalle, y/y?
aimeesays
So much yes. I’ve kept it to myself in the LavalleNation thread, but I’ve been calling it for WEEKS.
immortaldeath
I’ve been following Madden for literal years and I’ve never, ever seen him act like this with a costar. I mean. He was smiling? Like, genuinely happy-style smiling??
mme999
it’s kinda sad that this is so rare
immortaldeath
Tbh it adds to his mystique.
peacefulnewt
imo no. lots of costars act like that.
sika11
Madden doesn’t, though.
peacefulnewt
not convinced. come at me when you don’t stan an asshole
babydata
lol don’t even bother peacefulnewt HATES madden
peacefulnewt
so? lmao you sound so triggered that someone doesn’t like ur fave
sika11
I was just trying to have a conversation............
aimeesays
Fwiw sika11 I agree. Madden is notoriously standoffish with his costars, but with Chris he lights up. It’s like the good timeline version of him.
I can’t wait to see this movie, y’all! They look so good together in real life, what are they going to be like onscreen?
unautrejour
same same SAME. Have you seen what Chris has been posting on insta?
video of him and Madden in his(?) trailer
pic of Madden in the makeup chair
Madden on set before shooting
immortaldeath
Oh my god
babydata
Welp, I shipped it before but now I’m ready to tinhat. Who approved this??
smolder
oshit i see it lmao
unautrejour
Ahhhhhhhh *chef’s kiss*
* * *
Chris woke at six with a light heart and a crick in the neck.
He slipped out of the bedroom without waking Nicholas, who had burrowed underneath the duvet and now slept on, uncaring of the world. An odd change from the Nicholas of two days ago, who had raged and fumed against the universe; an odd change from the Nicholas of two months ago, who had resented Chris’s very existence.
Chris had a shower, long and cool, and then very thoroughly went about his hair care routine. He needed the distraction. The familiarity of each step and each pause gave him a certainty, a steadiness of thought he’d sorely lacked the last few days. Madness, to bring Nicholas home. He should have taken him back to his hotel and entrusted him to Madalena’s care. Madness to have Nicholas in his bed, to hear his low, sensual voice speaking to him quietly in the dark, to see the shape of his body just barely touched with light. Chris had slept lightly and badly, and wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed with him.
