Under Control.

chapter fifty seven.

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Living together brought with it a series of tiny revelations, one of which is the fact that while Julian is working himself sick trying to finish the new album, he very literally makes himself sick. And he does that, in the form of some particularly vicious insomnia.

It manifests in other ways too, the stress of it all. But the thing Nora notices the most is just how much he does not sleep. There's nowhere to hide in their apartment — no other place to go to at the end of a day to avoid one person noticing the ebbs and flows of the other. And so when Julian disappears from the bed in the middle of the night, after he's waited for Nora to fall asleep before he slips away, she notices, and she keeps track, and she worries.

Since she's moved in, she's noticed the drinking Julian had mentioned he'd curbed while he was writing picking back up as they edge closer to being done. It's more of a hum than a crash-bang of oblivion — a buzz to take the edge of, not a mad dash toward numbness — but still, it's there. He'll disappear of an afternoon, off to the studio, into the darkness. And he'll stay there until he can't anymore, or until everyone else has packed up and left him with no one to play with. And then he'll come home and crawl into bed, and Nora can usually tell if it's been a good day or a bad day just by how woozy he is the morning after.

If it's been a good day, he'll come home excited and hungry. He'll ramble, words spilling from him in an almost shapeless way. Nora knows the rhythm of it, now — of him, always — and so she sits and she listens and she lets him drag her into his lap when he's done, and then kiss her until they're both out of breath, and words don't matter anymore.

If he's not disappearing into melancholy or beer, Julian revels in losing himself in Nora, and she knows this. He doesn't always allow himself the joy of it — of them, together — because, some days, he doesn't feel like he's earned it. But on others, he does. And on those days — on those long, heady nights — Nora is all there is.

He'll kiss her until they're both drunk with it — with love, and wanting. And then he'll ruin her on the couch, or the table, the bench top, or the wall between almost-there and the bed.

Some nights, he'll take her to bed and they'll stay there, loving and living. They'll come together lazily and snack in between rounds, or recharge over Conan. And then he'll take her with him into sleeplessness, their bodies together chasing the dregs of the night until the morning sun breaks over the wreckage of them that's left behind. And then, they'll sleep, until it's time to emerge into the real world again.

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Nora doesn't like showing up to the studio.

Julian invites her to come, and Cat is always offering that they swing by after a dinner or whatever else they've been left to do alone together while their other halves disappear into sound booths and dark corners of their slap-dash recording spot made anew in their old-familiar rehearsal space. But, every time she shows up there — Nora alone, or together with Cat — she gets a hint of the internal catastrophe that Julian has been wrestling to keep away from her and their home and togetherness, and it unsettles her.

She knows he's been trying — trying to keep to his word, and to make up for all of the hurt and the mistakes that they both have made in their iterations of trying that came before. And Nora believes him. What worries her isn't that. Instead, it's the fact that he's so clearly spiralling into a panic about what this album is — what it means, and what he wants it to be — on top of the mad rush and all of the outside pressure, as well.

But when Cat suggests that they drop by after dinner on this night, a week out from their mixing deadline and two days into a bender of Nora not having seen much more of Julian than a blur swirling around the living room looking for notes, she agrees. And it surprises Cat, such has been Nora's now-notorious determination to leave well enough alone. But tonight feels different. And so, they go.

Albert rushes up to greet them first, and at the sight of his wobbly self and his vacant eyes hiding behind a big, loopy smile, Nora can feel the heartbreak she sees flit briefly across Cat's face. But before she has time to say anything about it, let alone the right thing — as if there is such a thing — Nora gets bounced along the line of them that leads to the lair, all velvet curtains and stress, and with each one of them she greets, the worry in the room gets a little more palpable.

Niko is silent but stony-faced, and that says it all. Nick is chain smoking and gluing up a split finger where he sits next to an overflowing bucket of cigarette butts. And Fab is less characteristically bouncy and more plaintive, still smiley, but with an air of weariness about him that Nora hasn't quite seen, before. She gets a chorus of head nods pointing in the direction of the control room and so on she goes, under the watchful gaze of a room full of people who hope she can work some magic and make the manic, blitzed man who's lurking just out of sight bearable to be around, even if only just for a minute.

Nora rustles the curtain that hangs between her and him, and as soon as she does, a waft of ripe smoke hits her square in the face, and it's all she can do to just keep going and not turn on her heel and disappear back from whence she came. But there's a peek of her, and Julian sees it, and so before she has time to make a choice he's already crossing the room with his hand outstretched and with his eyes fixed on hers.

'Hey,' he coos, and it's a sound that would be reassuring if he didn't look like he hadn't slept for a week and was running on fumes. 'What're you doin' here?'

Julian kisses Nora quickly before she has a chance to answer him, and then he's dragging her gently back across the room with him to his seat and pulling her into his lap so that he can keep her and keep working, both at the same time.

'Cat and I had dinner. We brought some by. Thought you be might be hungry.' Julian is watching Gordon fiddle with buttons and knobs, but still, he's listening to her.

'Thank you,' He sighs with a small smile, then lets his head rest on Nora's shoulder for just a beat before he forces himself upright back to attention, again. 'They eating?' He nods in the direction of the now-empty space just beyond the window, and Nora nods back then bites her lip, and they both know that the unspoken thing between them in this moment, is Albert.

'How's it going?' Nora tries to shift the immovable weight of worry from around them, but all she really manages is to move the burden around from one problem to another. 'So, cold bed again, tonight?'

Nora tries to be cute but it's not her strong suit, and they both know as much. So what she manages instead, is to send a ripple of guilt and something dark aside glowering across Julian's face.

'Not much longer — we couldn't get them to give us any more time.' Julian forces a smile and finishes off his beer before reaching around Nora again to slam a button that Gordon has pressed, stopping whatever it is he meant to start. But then, before Nora has too much time to ponder what he's just done, Ryan appears from behind the curtain, and he's only got eyes for Julian.

'You still good for that thing in the morning?'

'Yup.' Julian nods but doesn't look back, and that's enough for Ryan, who swiftly disappears again and with no added context. So, Nora figures she's going to have to ask. But before she can, someone else does it for her.

'Regina?' Gordon pipes up from beside them, out from behind his cloud, and Nora thinks first that it's the most monosyllabic she's ever heard him be. But then her brain catches up with her.

Julian utters a noncommittal, 'Mm-hmm,' from behind her, but Nora knows better. She knows there's more. So she glances back at him, and when he avoids her gaze the first time, she keeps looking until he looks back.

'She's good. Gordon played me a few of her demos — super weird. Super, like, skilled. I just made a few calls, got a few people to listen to her stuff. Maybe something with the tour? Dunno yet.' Julian's not being evasive, but he's not fully present, either. And Nora wants to believe that it's because of the way things are — madness, and deadlines, and self-imposed pressures.

But even like she is, wrapped up Julian's arms with his chin resting on her shoulder and his heart beating steadily against her back, there's still a part of her that wonders.

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