Under Control.

chapter fourteen.

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Oblivion. That's what Julian needed.

Not love, just nothingness.

He found it at a bar in the shape of someone unknown — someone who couldn't see him, and who didn't really care to.

He found it, and he took it home with him.

And then, he lost himself.

He let himself fall into the hollow embrace of a stranger and tried not to think about how much less it felt like than it had before, with her. He tried not to look into their eyes. He didn't want to remember them in his bed. So he took oblivion against the wall, took everything they'd give him, and tried to give whatever little was left of himself back in return.

He tried to remember how to do this when it didn't feel right. He made his face into a smiling shape, exchanged empty chatter, and then sent oblivion on their way. He avoided Albert's gaze and the barely concealed judgment that was lurking behind his eyes. And then he disappeared back into his empty bed, sliding between his sheets that still smelled of sandalwood and citrus, of Nora, and fell to sleep thinking about how much he loved her, anyway.

When Julian wakes, he thinks for a moment that he's got it wrong — that he's having another one of those dreams he sometimes has where he's not be able to move and the world is still all hazy and unreal. And he thinks it because of the gentle voices floating on the air down the hallway from the kitchen to his room.

And, because it's not just Albert that he can hear, and not just Fab. But because it's Nora, too.

He considers for a moment just staying where he is. He could just hide, he thinks. Just keep on like he has been. But he has that meeting — another meeting — later, and he needs to shower, and change, and brush his teeth.

He needs to wash last night away, and try to remember how to be a person.

He needs a drink.

Julian emerges from his room to stares from his bandmates, and nothing more. Nora is wearing a makeshift party hat, and staring straight at the wall.

'Looking good, Sleeping Beauty.' Albert says, his eyes shifting nervously between his roommate and his friend. And it's then that Julian realises that he's not the only one who's been caught off guard, here — Al didn't tell Nora that he was home. Because by the look on her face, Julian thinks, she wouldn't still be here if she'd known.

'Have a rough night, Jules?' Fab is sweetly unawares, although how he's managed to stay that way is anyone's guess. 'You fucking reek, by the way — what is that? Mistake, by Calvin Klein?'

All Julian can do is stare at Nora. And even though Albert chuckles along with Fab's joke, he can't stop from batting his eyes between the pair of them, and so Fab catches on eventually, mouths a silent, 'What?', but by then the room is already stiff with tension and there's only one thing anyone can think to do to try and shift it.

'Nora got a promotion,' Albert announces abruptly, watching carefully as Julian's face briefly crumbles. 'We were just celebrating.'

Julian clears his sticky throat, all thick and sour, and then manages to utter his congratulations.

'That's great,' he rasps. 'You deserve it.'

'Thanks,' Nora finally looks over at him then, slipping her paper crown off her head as she turns. There's a beat, a spark, and then she reaches into her bag and whispers a little, 'Here,' just as she pulls a brown-paper wrapped square from her bag. 'I wanted to give this to you before you go, in case I don't see you.'

Albert all but levitates out of his chair he moves so fast then, grabbing Fab by the arm and reefing him with him towards the door. 'We gotta go pick up Nick. You want us to swing back and get you?' He asks Jules quickly, before his roommate has too much time to think. But Julian shakes his head no, and then watches as Al and Fab disappear out the door, leaving him alone with Nora finally, and the funny little parcel he's holding in his trembling hand.

'Nora,' he exhales, his reedy breath taking the shape of her name.

Nora shakes her head and moves to stand, eyeing the gift she's just given him and offering her apologies before he can open it. 'It's silly. Kind of stupid, really. But I guess I just thought, you know, that you might want something to take with you? Like a memento, or something.'

Julian doesn't know it yet, but what she means is something of this place, his home. The gift is a painting miniature, a sunset over the city, the honeyed light creeping through a gap in the buildings that belong unmistakably to New York. Nora had asked a friend to sketch it out for her a few days before she and Julian had changed it all, whatever it was that lived on between them. And at the time, she'd had no idea that she what she was asking, was for a tiny fragment of their first night together to be immortalised in oil paints.

Julian opens it gingerly and then stares at it for a moment too long before he dares to look into Nora's face. He's scared of what he might find when he looks up, and not just of her, but of himself, too.

'Nora,' he sighs, trying to think of anything to say that could ever be enough. But then, before he can, Nora's already there.

'It's fine,' she says. Because, she can see him, just like she's always been able to. And so she knows exactly what it is that he's about to say. 'You don't have to explain. We're not... We're not in a relationship, Julian. You didn't do anything wrong.'

Before he can stop himself, Julian scoffs. It's half disbelief, half that laugh he sometimes does — all hot breath all at once. 'You don't... Nora, come on. I shouldn't have—'

'But you did, though.' Nora won't let herself get too close to him, but she won't let herself be mad, either.

Julian lets his tired eyes rest back on the painting he's still clutching in his hand — the sweetest thing anyone's ever given him, he thinks. 'Yeah, I did.'

His honesty moves something in Nora, and it's only then that Julian is finally able see the little crack that's appeared in her armour. He can make out just a tiny bit of the whole her, again — the version of her that's his, and only his.

'I love you too, you know.' She says it clear as day and with her melancholy gaze fixed on his. Of all the things Julian was expecting her to say, that was not one of them.

'What?' Is all he manages at first, surprised and graceless, before then her name, to stop her from leaving.

'I have to go,' Julian means go away, go on tour. And before he can explain what he's talking about, Nora — like she's proving some point that he can't quite bear to confront — proves to them both again that she knows him, and that she understands.

'I know,' she offers him the tiniest smile, and then gives in and lets him hold her, even if only by the hand. 'So do I.'

'Fuck,' Julian's voice struggles against the weight in his chest, and the storm brewing behind his eyes. 'I don't want to, though.'

With that from him, it's Nora's turn to laugh, all sad sounding while Julian's gentle touch moves to cradle her face.

'You do,' she whispers, hot half-words that are strange and broken, and disappearing into his waiting mouth.

'You're gonna be great, Jules.' Nora lets her fingertips slip over his squeezed-shut eyes, his frowning lips. 'It's gonna be great.'

And then she untangles her body from his and disappears from his hold, his sight, and out the door.

And with her, Nora takes a piece of Julian's heart.

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