Under Control.

chapter thirteen.

+

Julian walks into the rehearsal space with a cigarette hanging from his mouth, an unreadable look spread across his face, and with absolutely zero intentions of explaining where he's been for the better part of the last two days.

'The fuck you been, man?' Nick greets him as he ambles into the makeshift kitchen and makes a beeline right for the fridge, and all the while Albert sits eyeing him warily from his perch on the futon in the corner.

'Yeah, man,' Al utters eventually, but only after Julian already has a mouthful of beer. He wants to get all of his words out before his sullen roommate can fire back, wants to make sure they land just right. 'Where you been?'

All he gets in return though is a shrug. Julian is a hunched over full-stop — he doesn't want to talk about this. Not right now, anyway. And maybe, not ever.

There's an unsteady silence, and then Julian starts casting his avoidant gaze around the room. 'Where's Fab?' He manages, after interrogating with his bleary eyes all the possible places their energetic drummer could be hiding.

It's Albert's turn to shrug, then. They both already know the answer to that question — Fab is with Nora. When he's not here or with them, he's almost always with Nora.

'Fuck's sake, man — we have that meeting,' Julian's usually unwavering voice was suddenly all sharp edges and poison. 'He's gonna be late.'

Albert decides absolutely that he doesn't want to be at the centre of whatever Julian's about to spiral into, and so he gets up to leave. 'He said he wouldn't be,' he offers, before heading off toward the doorway. But before he goes, he pauses for a second, unable to help himself, just in case Julian has decided that he does want to talk after all.

'He's gonna have to choose, at some point.' Julian, though, seems intent on staring at the floor and lashing out at ghosts. 'If this works out? He's gonna have to choose.'

In the end, Fab is not late, and the meeting does go well, and the world does, finally, tilt off its axis.

+++

Julian's world was well and truly upside down now, and so he spends his day — the one that was ending like so many of his did, lately — nothing like the way it had begun — lurching between private pride and a tide of anxiety.

They were on the precipice of being signed and everything — their work, their lives, their time — was about to soar out of their control. It was happening fast, and all at once, and Julian could barely keep up with everything that had been thrown their way in the past few hours. Getting picked up, plans for a tour, a proper release, and bigger gigs in strange new places. But the thing that was weighing on him most of all, was the revelation that in a matter of weeks, the band would be leaving for England.

All of their hard work was finally paying off. And he should have been glad. And, he was. But then amongst the fog of it all he'd remember what he had to loose alongside everything he'd just gained —

Nora.

Julian had woken up this morning in her bed with her sleepy self wrapped around him while his body and heart both took it in turns to ache. He'd managed to successfully resist the urge to run, to slip away while she was still sleeping, which was his usual morning-after move. But, Nora wasn't usual. And what they'd done together last night? That also wasn't usual. At least, not for Julian.

After all of the beautiful ways he'd seen her now, regret wasn't a look that Julian particularly wanted to experience putting on Nora's pretty face. And so, he'd stayed. He'd woken up beside her, kissed her good morning, and then he'd made her coffee while she rushed to shower and dress for work.