It’s Been Awhile
Category: Real Person Fic
Characters: Julian Barratt, Noel Fielding
Pairing: Noel Fielding/Julian Barratt
Rating: G
Status: Complete
Length: 1-5k words
Notes: Explanation as I still have no excuses… Listened to kerrang recharged for nostalgic hit and started writing as a displacement activity. Unfortunately I just can’t finish it. So I’ll put it here as stands. Feel free to write your own ending. I can’t.
It’s Been Awhile by sandracarol
As he put the phone down, Noel’s body started to complain at the adrenalin rush and every muscle cramped and burned at the same time. The first thought in his head was to alleviate it in the most efficient way possible. But it was too late.
He had made the call now, there was no going back, and after trying everywhere else, he now knew that the one place he needed to be, was going to be the hardest place to find.
He had done it to himself of course.
He always did.
Oh all his mates were impressed, in the way only total dickheads can be. But then it’s easy to impress pond life and he had taken the easy route one time to many. Actually that wasn’t true. It took concerted effort to fuck up on the scale he normally managed. But he always had company. Disaster in potentia manifests the most attractive ghouls. But it had to be over now, and he wanted to go home.
He had one last shot at this, and the only way he was going to get it to work was by being honest, even with himself.
And it had been awhile since he’d done that
He was late only as a way of not arriving early, and knew as he walked up the path that he was already sabotaging his own chances.
Hard habit to break.
He knocked on the door and tried desperately to hold it together while he waited for someone to answer.
Please let him be in, please let him be up, please let him be alone.
He could feel the tears threatening already, and the temptation was, to just go, before anyone answered, but right now he couldn’t afford to be proud. Pride is what got him here in the first place.
It was the longest wait.
Julian came to the door in jeans, barefoot and dishevelled. He looked like he had just got up and considering it was three in the morning, he probably had.
“Hi Ju, did I wake you up?”
“No, you woke me up two hours ago when you phoned. What exactly is it that you want.”
“Can I come in?”
Julian visibly sagged
“Just don’t fuck me about eh… I’m really not in the mood.”
He stepped back and let noel into the house.
Back into the house to be precise. The last time Noel had crossed this threshold it had been made very clear just how not welcome he would be if he came back. And he himself had made it equally clear that death and hot forks would be involved before he ever considered it.
He was getting used to being wrong.
Julian was shocked at how rough Noel looked when he turned up. He had moved through heroin chic, into, ‘oh my god you are going to die’, even his hair was dirty and sticking up in all the wrong places. Yet still he managed to be alluring. Like a beautiful corps.
This was probably, the wrong way to be thinking.
The phone call had been half expected.
It was obvious that something was going to happen soon.
Mutual friends had kept him informed about what was going on. Although some of the delight shown in their recounting of various horrors, made the word ‘friends’ questionable.
Things had been, by all accounts, spiralling for a while now and guerrilla action late night calling had always been one of Noels specialities. In the past Julian had developed the habit of not answering the phone after midnight, just as a defence mechanism. But tonight, even though he was almost certain who it was, he had answered anyway. He had been almost glad that Noel had called to say he was on his way round. At least it meant he was still breathing.
But the reality of him arriving on the doorstep was a different matter completely.
He just couldn’t afford to get sucked back in. Nobody needed that amount of drama in their lives and he didn’t think he could cope with it all going wrong again.
It wasn’t just that.
Watching someone you love, rip themselves apart while you can only stand by and either nag or offer platitudes, had been soul destroying. He had tried to understand, but to be honest, he just didn’t. He was unable to cope with self loathing on that kind of level, and had been confounded by Noel’s insistence that he could cope, when he obviously couldn’t…
Everything he had done or said just seemed to make Noel worse. He had hated himself for being unable to help, and Noel had hated him for trying.
On the last morning he had snapped and given Noel an ultimatum.
Clean up his act or get out…
Stupid really.
He had known what the answer was going to be before he opened his mouth. But he had still did it, he had to, it was killing him living like that.
It had taken Noel ten minutes to pack, and another ten to give him a piece of his mind.
He hadn’t seen him since.
Noel stood in the hallway unsure of where to go next, after all it. It wasn’t like he lived here anymore.
As he noticed the gentle flicker of candle light coming from the front room, he was struck by his original fear, that Julian wasn’t alone.
Suddenly, he felt terribly out of place, and all the hopes he held for this encounter caught in his throat, before falling into the burning pit that had appeared in his stomach. His immediate wish, was to be anywhere but here. But then he couldn’t be with Julian, and he needed that more than anything right now, even if it meant he had to share his company with someone else… He just hoped it wasn’t someone he knew.
“Look… if you’re busy…”
“That never stopped you before.”
The sharpness of Julian’s tone really hurt. But then he probably deserved it.
“Yeah… umm… sorry ‘bout that…”
“Are you really?”
Sarcasm as well.
Julian was really pissed off with him then. He just hoped he could stop this turning into a fight, he couldn’t take a fight right now, it would be unbearable. Honesty, it was going to be the only way.
“Look, I mean… if you’re like… you know…”
He flicked his eyes towards the living room door, looked at Julian, looked at the ground. tried to visualize the imaginary hole he could drop into. Waited for some help.
“What?”
OK Julian wasn’t going to make this easy for him.
“Look if there’s somebody else…”
He had no idea what to do with the end of that sentence.
If there is somebody else I will burst into tears on the spot
If there is somebody else My life is fucked
If there is somebody else…
Julian raised an eyebrow.
“I can just go.”
A sort of honest.
Julian appeared to think for awhile before putting him out of his misery.
“No… that’s ok… It’s just me and you.”
He cried anyway.
