Under Control.

chapter fifty nine.

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It's still daylight, a searing kind of late in-the-day balmy hue shimmering all around them, and Nora is currently tucked into a far off corner watching Julian stumble though an interview he doesn't want to be giving, Niko to his left, while everyone else around him disappears into heady celebrations of relief.

Because, it was done.

The album being finished was only just the start though, not the end, and that was a part of the oblivion that was stirring. Next would be promotional tours, then tours actual, plus other various doings — all of which would involve Julian and them all being carried far, far away. But here, now, Nora could see the unease that was roiling in Julian from across the way, and she was trying to formulate a plan as to how she might soothe it, even if only for a little while.

Their sudden domesticity was still a shock to her, sometimes. There was something so utterly absurd about how fast they'd run back into each other and a life together, and it made it easy to forget sometimes just how far apart they both had been mere months ago. The idea of this, back then, was unimaginable, and never in a million years would Nora have predicted — despondent and laying on the floor of her husk of an apartment — that she and Julian would ever have managed to get their shit together. Let alone that they would succeed at finding peace in the apartment that was always meant to be theirs, shared, or that they'd end up being kind of good at all the parts of life that togetherness entailed.

And in a way, it made sense. The idea that they would leap from nothing into everything all at once was, somehow, the only thing that seemed sure. Because they'd tried this together so many times now and in so many ways that the only thing that was left, was this — was all in. And for now, it was working. It was good, and it felt real. And that would change, because everything did, but this was unlike all of their tries before.

This time, Nora was determined just to have what she could and to live her life around the inevitability of all of it. Because she knew now what a life without Julian and them all could be. And so if her options were that, or this — a strange existence that made sense to few but could be, at it's very best, loving and honest — then she was always going to pick the latter.

Or, for now at least.

While it felt like it did right this second, under the weight of the heady afternoon sunshine and Julian's steady gaze, this was it.

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Alittle while later, after all of her ruminating had given way to easy chatter, a body dropped down heavily beside Nora's, warm skin pressed against her own bare arm, and she didn't need to even look to know that it was him.

The feel of his skin, of his body beside hers in space — his thigh pressed against the length of her own, the scent of him (her shampoo, soap, cigarettes, and the curiously expensive cologne that he kept beside her alchemical hoard in the bathroom), mixed with the sound of his beating breath — was something Nora knew as an instinct, by now.

Julian is uneasy still, and Nora can tell. So instead of speaking or running the risk of drawing him out of his self-imposed silence and into the rambling conversation that is floating on around them, she just turns to him and offers a little smile, before carding a gentle hand over the mess of his dark hair.

And that's all it takes to bring a smile of his own back to Julian's worried lips.

Another short while slips by — long enough for bottles to have piled up on empty tables and for counting to have given way to a dazed buzz — and somehow, Julian has found himself left as the soberest of them all. But even still, he's lazy in his spot beside Nora, his body slouched comfortably against hers, his fingertips toying with the inseam on her jeans on the leg that's slung over his own under the table.

'You wanna get out of here?' he whispers, a secret meant just for her.

'Sure,' Nora glances at him and grins, her own fingers skimming through the hair at the base of his neck, her eyes dancing at the shiver she manages to send through him with just the smallest of touches.

A handful of words spoken and a few left unsaid is all it takes to draw them up to standing, and then from the cocoon of the bar and out onto the street. And once they're there — back to the relative anonymity of the sea that is the city — Julian grabs Nora by the hand and starts wandering, enjoying being just a boy with his girl on one of those rare city nights that feels like it exists out of time.

For blocks, they don't speak. They just weave through the night, swathed in the honeyed blaze of the setting sun, ducking between people and parked cars. They're heading towards home, but not really. The direction is right, but they've got nowhere they need to be, and so they meander through plaza and park, and stop to look through windows, still without words.

Eventually, they make it to the park nearest to home, and it's there that they find a place to sit on an empty bench, and to be, and to revel in the balmy night.

'We've gotta go out to LA in a couple of weeks.' Julian is fiddling with the leaves poking though the wrought iron behind them while he speaks, his breath whispering though Nora's hair.

'Okay,' She says it softly, gently, in return. But Nora doesn't utter anything except for just that, because she knows Julian has more left to say, and so, she waits.

'I know I can't, just, like — it's selfish. Whatever way you look at it — me going, then coming back and expecting you to just drop everything and pick it back up, again. Or, you coming. That'd be, like, ideal obviously. But I can't ask you to do that, to live like that. I know that.' His eyes are everywhere but on hers, and then they just are, locked on and wide, and brimming with a thousand different questions all at once. 'Historically, we're bad at this part. And I'm a little, you know...'

'Nervous?' Nora meets Julian's gaze unwaveringly, and that alone soothes him, just a bit. But then she smiles to let him know that she gets it, and so they keep on like they are, talking, and being honest.

'Yeah, I mean, kinda.' He says it with a worried chuckle, but then he gleams at her and relaxes a bit more, and tugs her into his side. 'I just don't wanna fuck it up this time, you know?'

'It's not like it was, before,' Nora traces the path of a vein running down Julian's forearm into his hand then settles there, with hers in his. 'We're not like we were, either. We know more, know...this is home, right? You and me, not just here, this place. It's not about the apartment, or the city, even. It's this,' Nora squeezes his hand in hers, then lifts them both up so the tangle of their bodies together is plain in front of them.

Julian takes a breath and nods, then brings the back of Nora's hand to his lips, and waits for her to go on.

'Life is messy, and this is weird — our life, especially. And we know that. I know that. But it doesn't have to make sense to anyone except for you and me. And I can do that. I can make it make sense, Jules. Because you come home to me. So for as long as that's true, I think we're gonna be okay.'

Nora's lips stop moving only just before Julian's mouth is pressed against hers, his breathy giggles pouring into her open mouth, the rumble of his relief in his chest vibrating through them both.

'Yeah?' He manages, between kisses. And then, 'Yeah.' It's a promise, and a statement.

They pave the way back towards home with hungry touches and giddy laughter, and then, while they're waiting to cross the road, Nora finishes the conversation they'd left forgotten.

'I can come-with to LA, if you want. I have to go out there for work at some point anyway, so I can just call it a business trip.' Nora's focus is intent on not getting so distracted by Julian's wandering hands that she walks straight into oncoming traffic, but Julian's own wide eyes are on her, and only her.

'What?' He's almost glowing, his whole face a smile.

'I got a job.' Nora laughs, and then she's off her feet and swept up into Julian's arms.

'You did?' He's murmuring between the kisses he's pressing to the side of her face, and they're both a bit dizzy from the joy of it and the circles they've been spinning in. 'Congratulations.'

It doesn't matter right now what the job is. California doesn't matter, and the tour doesn't either.

All there is, is this — is happiness, and ease, the sunset, and home.

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