Under Control.

chapter fifty eight.

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'I'm not jealous, you know.' Nora says it like a statement, out of the blue and standing in the kitchen a few mornings later while she's waiting for the coffee to get done.

It's not a question, this thing she's just said. It's fact.

'W—what?' Julian was in slightly more desperate need of caffeine than Nora, woozy under the pressure he'd mounted on himself and everything he'd done last night to try and push it aside. And so when she speaks, he startles slightly, and it takes him a second thereafter to gather his bearings.

'The other day at the studio? With Regina? You seemed worried. But, don't be? You don't have to be. You're allowed to hang around with people. I don't need an explanation every time, or whatever. It's fine.' Nora's been sitting with this thought for a while, Julian can tell. It's well formed and her eyes are fiery, even through the fog of morning.

'It.. is?'

Things have been really good between them, lately — calm, even. And he's needed that. Being able to come home at the end of the day to their place and to her, to be safe enough ignore the brewing storm that lived next door to them or the riot of panic and doubt that inhabited the studio and Julian's own self, had become somehow essential to him. He whispered it sometimes, quietly and afraid, into her mouth while they came together in the shadows, or against her sleep-softened skin of an afternoon that would-be morning. He'd been trying to tell her things, to not keep secrets. But the thing with Regina had been a sticking point, and that was only because Julian didn't know how to shape it into words.

'Yes, Julian.' Nora lets him organise his bleary thoughts for a beat before she speaks again, and then pours them each a coffee when she does. 'You come home, right? Here, to me. So, it's fine. Make friends, be merry. I really don't...it's not a big deal.'

Nora was all sureness right up until the end, when a tiny splinter showed up in her armour that she let Julian see.

'Yes, yeah,' Julian doesn't trust his legs just yet or the ebbing pressure behind his eyes, and so he drags her gently towards him across the kitchen and kisses the coffee from her lips, instead.

'It's nothing. She's not you.' He lets her up for air only briefly, waits for her to take a sip, then steals another taste from her mouth. 'No one is,' he murmurs reverently, half to himself and half to her, and then he says, 'Thank you,' and drinks up her soft laughter before he takes them both and their mugs, too, back to bed.

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'You busy today?'

Days blurred, lately. Late mornings ran into late nights. Things happened, good and bad, and they all felt unreal and so does everything — almost.

'Um, no? Not really. Why?'

Julian was sprawled on the bed, the one he'd just helped to make and was currently un-making, with unspoken words brewing behind his eyes. They were finishing the album. It was, for all intents and purposes, done — today was it. There was no more time, despite best efforts, and so all of the world that existed outside of this room — their bedroom — was spiralling.

Nora was still getting ready, fussing with a concealer stick and waiting patiently for the thing left unsaid that she'd been expecting to spill from Julian's pouty lips for the past two days, to finally bubble over. She wasn't sure exactly what it was that he'd been wondering, but she knew it was something — because, she knew him. And so she knew what it looked like on him now, definitively, when he was trying to shape thoughts into words.

'You wanna, um, come by the studio later? Or you could come, you know, with me. If you — not if you're busy. But yeah, whatever, if you want.' Julian was fiddling with the hem of the shirt Nora had yet to put on, half mindlessly and half because he liked her just the way she was — in a bra and jeans, and clad in the late morning sunshine, instead.

He was nervous, because he wanted her there, beside him. But also, he still wasn't great at this part of their togetherness, yet — at the asking, and being vulnerable.

Julian knew in his heart of hearts that he could trust Nora — and he did trust Nora. Which was why he'd managed to find the balls to say anything about anything in the first place. But life was strange, and this place, their place, was the only space he felt solid in, lately. And so shifting between here and there — outside, or upstairs, or the hell that was other people — left him feeling motion sick, even when he wasn't hungover.

'Jules,' For her part, Nora had been hoping that something like this would turn out to be what the unspoken thing was that'd been hanging over them. So often the ghosts that crept up on them lately were shaped like upcoming tours, or meetings, or Albert and Albert's various doings, or Cat and her tether which was nearing it's end. Or, it was Regina-shaped, which was it's own wondering. But this — a murmured request bundled in a run-on of rambles for a little bit of hand holding? That was one thing that Nora knew she could definitely handle. 'I'd like that.'

'You — yeah?'

Nora liked surprising Julian, and particularly by doing nothing more than showing up for him. And so the look on his face, all innocent shock and awe paired with his quirked eyebrows and the hint of a smile on his lips, was enough to earn him a kiss, and a bit more reassurance aside.

'Of course. You've met me, right? I'm a nerd. I like seeing the technicalities of all this stuff.' Nora finally managed to snag her shirt from Julian's fiddling fingers, but only after paying the toll of getting him to give it up by pressing another quick peck to his grinning lips.

'A very pretty nerd,' Julian chuckled, then gleamed.

He liked the idea that she liked this, even if there was still a part of him that worried about how they were going to manage to live their lives like this once the outside world finally snuck back in, again.

But, that was a problem for later. For now, there was a studio to get to and a hand to hold, and one waiting to hold his, too.

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