booshslashhaven | i'm going to hell, i'm going to hell, i'm going to hell....

Title: Admiration
Summary: Admiration makes you do strange things
Pairing: Julian/Tim Minchin
Wordcount: 2,982
Rating: 15
Warnings: Excessive internal monologues and things done with bootlaces that shouldn't be
Disclaimer: Lovely though it would be to keep them in a cupboard I don't own them. If the releveant parties ask for this to be disapered it will be.
A/N: Written as a semi request for W0ndd3rl4and & Sxcbaybee123 ( but not obeythebunny because she doesn't read rps;) ) Also ignore the time frames, the roundhouse gig was the weekend and yet Julians sons havn't been born, it was meant to sort of follow on from Quite Interesting. Just, ignore it. Oh and sorry those so much exposition or whatever you want to call the start, this was difficult to write. And now I've put you off, here's the story :)

He thought that the gig had gone okay; the songs had gone down well although the YouTube lament had been a right royal cock-up. Perhaps he might have gotten away with it if he hadn’t acknowledged it, but it was a quick way to say hello to the forumers in the front row and no doubt elsewhere, make them feel special, and to prove to himself that he was abysmal at the talking bit. Hell it had taken him the best part of 5 minutes to get back on track. But he had managed it somehow, finished the show and possibly made half the audience cry with the encore. He had survived the frighteningly long signing queue, perked a bit at the end by the forumers who, for the most part had done the fan girl thing and were there just to say hi, and now even they had been kicked out and he was sitting in his car going nowhere.

It wasn’t that the traffic was bad; he just hadn’t started the engine yet, preferring to sit in silence and lean his head against the steering wheel. He wasn’t in the mood to go home yet, so he dragged his phone out and rang Sarah: “Mind if I go for a drink?”

“Tim, you’ve just woke me up, do what you like.”

“Thanks love, see you in the morning.”

“Night.” He sat looking at his phone for a few moments, who could he ring for a drink? Adam was out of town and most sensible people would be asleep, he scrolled through the contacts until he alighted on one, letting it flash gently in the dark car, Julian Barrat nervously, he hit call.

“Hello?”

“Tim?”

“Yeah, shit, sorry did I wake you?”

“Not at all, you tend to adjust to stupid times on tour.”

“Hah, yeah...”

“So, what did you want?”

“Remember that offer of a pint? Up for it?”

“Sure, whereabouts?”

“I’m in Camden, End of the World?”

“Sure, see you there.”

The dial tone shook Tim out of his reverie, assuming Julian would either have to drive or get a taxi that gave him plenty of time to walk slowly down through Camden, kill some time and it wouldn’t kill him to walk to the Roundhouse later for his car. So he gets out, locking the door and heads off through the dark.

It didn’t take him as long as he anticipated to get there, so he selected a quiet table and settled down with a Jim Beam and cola, a taste of home, teenage-hood it made him calmer. Breathing deeply to calm himself he watched the door, waiting to flag Julian when he came in. It was barely 10 minutes later when the man himself came through the door, looking dishevelled and much as though he had slept in his clothes. Tim raised a hand and Julian returned the gesture before pointing at the bar, Tim gave him the thumbs up and settled back in his chair whilst the other man ordered a beer and came over to take the other seat. Both men sat for a moment, sipping their drinks whilst hunting for something to say. Julian was hardly renowned for his talkative nature and Tim was less confidant that he appeared. Eventually it was Julian who broke the quiet. “So what brings you to call in the offer of a drink?” This, Tim deal with, standard chat although he wasn’t too sure of the answer. He shrugged before he spoke, “I cocked up a few times tonight, figured if I just went home Sarah would be flat out and I’d sit on the sofa all night beating myself up and drinking beer alone so I might as well go out.” This elicited a returned shrug from Julian, clearly he knew the feeling, “So what did you do?”

“Well,” Tim began, “Don’t laugh but....”

And so they drifted into an easy kind of chat, times they had messed up with Julian admitting that the stage crew had taken to putting a poster in his and Noels dressing room that said “Your name is Julian Barrat, today is... the city is ...” Because he had got it wrong. This cheered Tim up considerably, Linzy had of course assured him that the YouTube thing was funny, but he was still uncertain, and so talk turned to work. More drink was consumed and observations were made. “You know,” Julian said, “I don’t think I ever told you what my first impression of you was.” Tim laughed, “What, putting my own makeup on in the mirror?”

“Yeah, you reminded me of a weird cross between Noel and Russell.” Tim laughed, pushing his hair back from his face, “That’s a new one, and then again, you reminded me of Shakespeare.” He responded, making Julian laugh and push his own hair back of his face ruefully, “I did get told a lot that Howard’s haircut was very Shakespearean, but it looked okay so I never bothered to change it.”

Later Tim would never know how the conversation had got them there, but they had stumbled back to Tim’s car to retrieve his guitar, and now they were sitting playing, passing the guitar back and forth like a shared cigarette, laughing and talking. Idly Tim plays a few bars of “I love Jesus” to himself before saying, “Kinda stupid really, i write songs about bumming whereas you get stories written about you bumming.” Tim went quiet suddenly, thinking that he had probably said the wrong thing, but to his relief Julian just smiled, “Sounds about right, some of the stuff is bloody scary though.” And then they both laughed, as Julian said, “I suppose we do kind of invite it though.” Tim smiled softly, ever intuitive.

“I guess you do a bit, but then kissing in public isn’t what you’d call subtle.” Now it was Julian’s turn to laugh, slumping back into the car seat. “But then from what I hear you’re some kind of monogamous monster?” Now the both of them are laughing helplessly, slumped against one another. “Marrying the woman you lost your virginity to is pretty depressing.” Tim laughs, and the two of them descend into hopeless giggles again.

The night is clear so they get out of the car and head towards the lock taking the guitar with them, walking close together so that they fall on one another whenever the ground is bumpy, which is about once every few minutes until they nearly fall into the canal and settle on a bench. Julian plays for a while, Tim watching somewhat entranced. He wishes he had a piano to hand, because then he would be in his element. “You know,” he says vaguely, “I’ve always thought that musicians marry other musicians because you can’t help but admire them...” He lets his thought hang in the air, because his brain has gone to jelly and he’s past being able to think properly. Without stopping Julian nods and makes a noise in the back of his throat. “Admiration makes you do stupid things.” Tim thinks he nods in agreement, but is more distracted to find that he is slumped against Julian with his eyes half shut and perfectly comfortable to as Julian weaves them into a cocoon of half silence, delicately plucked guitar notes dancing in the cool night air around them. Surrendering he closes his eyes and lets it flow around him, it’s a beautiful and sad little melody, that half wants words but would be better with another tune, a question without an answer. He is about to say so when it stops, starting him from his reverie.

Becoming more aware of himself he realises one foot is gone dead where he has sat on it, but he can’t quite find the compulsion to do much about it because the tune has stopped and this is the most important and pressing problem at the moment. Turning his head to tell Julian so he finds himself face to face with the other man, so close that their noses are all but touching. “You know what I said about admiration?” Julian begins, and Tim nods before sticking out his tongue to lick the tip of Julian’s nose with a giggle, it is about this point that he begins to wonder quite how much he had to drink, but then Julian has captured him with a delicate kiss and matters like alcohol all go out the window. The kiss itself is almost chaste, but Tim finds himself enjoying it, strange and different from kissing Sarah; then it is suddenly over and Julian is on his feet and dashing off down the canal side. Tim remained still for a moment, pressing on hesitant finger up to his lips, before grabbing his guitar from where it has been left, swinging it onto his back and running after Julian.

Julian might have the head start, but Tim has blind stupidity on his side, and he catches him up underneath a bridge where it is dark and quiet and cold, and water drips with a musical sound. “Julian,” he breathes, catching hold of his elbow, “Julian wait, turn around.” And Julian allows himself to be wrenched around but doesn’t lift his gaze from the floor. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles, “Shouldn’t have done that, you’ve got a wife, a daughter.” Tim laugh’s hollowly, because he doesn’t need to think about that right now, so for an answer he pushes Julian’s head gently up with his finger tips to kiss him again. This time it’s different, hesitant and restrained, but as hands begin to roam, to brush through hair it deepens with a strange kind of intensity. Only breaking when Tim thinks he might faint from lack of oxygen. “Are you sure about this?” Julian asks suddenly, and Tim shakes his head. “If I was sure I wouldn’t be here.” He is treated to a rare smile, as Julian drags his fingers over the strings of the guitar, still strapped to Tim’s back making a discordant jangle that echo’s beneath the bridge. Almost reverentially he removes his own jacket and lays it on the floor, then lifts the guitar up over Tim’s head, laying it on the jacket and wrapping it up safely.

He is considerably less tender when he grabs Tim’s wrists, forcing them together behind his back and pushes him against the wall for another more intense kiss where they both fight for dominance and Tim looses, but somehow that’s better, it fits. And having his hands pinioned tightly behind him heightens the experience. Julian squeezes them a little tighter and Tim’s breath hitches in his throat, something Julian evidently notices because he smirks in a slightly scary manner. “You like that?” and there is something in the inflection that makes Tim half afraid and half embarrassed when he nods, but Julian simply reaches down and pulls one of his shoe laces free with a smile. He reaches down to nip at Tim’s collarbone as he binds the shoelace tightly about his wrists, still resolutely keeping their bodies apart. For this Tim is temporarily grateful, because he finds himself slightly aroused by it all and knows that he probably shouldn’t. Then Julian brings them close together and all coherent thought is gone. He doesn’t think he could articulate the single syllable of his own name if he wanted to, let alone the three that form Julian’s, so he settles for profanity instead and chokes out a stream of swear words.

A cold hand under his shirt pauses, fingers tucked just under the waistband as Julian says again, “Are you sure about this?” Still reasonably sure he may in fact have swallowed his tongue Tim just nods vaguely and bites his lip hard. The cold hands run up under his shirt again, touching and exploring before undoing the buttons to expose his skin to the cold night air. Almost involuntarily Tim arches his back when teeth fix themselves on his skin and he makes a peculiar noise, somewhere between a whimper and a gasp. It’s at about this point he shuts his eyes tightly, it makes things a bit easier. The roaming hands reach the button of his jeans and Tim slams his head back against the wall opening his eyes and swearing again.

There is something strangely familiar and yet horribly so about having a male hand exploring its way into his underwear, because the sensations are the same, but it isn’t his hand. And that’s odd and strangely pleasant and all kinds of wrong. All the same Julian has pushed Tim’s trousers and underwear down, and he’s fighting with his own buttons, whilst Tim’s finger’s twitch reflexively behind his back. He is heading dangerously close to coherent thought, then a very warm mouth places itself about his cock and he slams his head back into the wall again, arching his back so far as to make his shoulders crack. Tim reflects that Julian is much too good at this not to have done it before, doing obscene things with his tongue that caused him to make undignified and unmanly noises. But then, as Tim suspected all along it stops when it’s getting nice as Julian rises to height again, he allows himself to be pulled into another kiss and then finds himself enjoying it more than he really ought to. But there is of course the matter which is currently poking into his thigh and he isn’t sure how to broach the matter, entangled as he is with shoelaces.

As it is Julian brings up the matter instead, clearly aware he needs to take a more dominant stance against Tim’s internal monologue. Already his hands have been roaming south of Tim’s waist, so when he speaks it is hardly a surprise. “May I?” and so what the hell, Tim thinks, in for a penny, in for a pound. He immediately curses himself for this particular mental phrasing because Storm will be going round his head, but he blanks it out and says, “Yeah sure.” noticing that his voice has gone very Aussie and high pitched. Julian twist’s him carefully so that his back is pressed to Julian’s chest, but he venture’s no further than kissing for a few moments clearly trying to calm him. Briefly Tim feels like a startled horse when Julian’s hands begin to roam again, some half remembered piece of information from childhood that if there isn’t space to get out of a horses kicking distance when you go behind him you should keep a hand on his rump so he knows that you’re there. The thought makes him want to laugh, then a careful finger breaches him and he gasp’s in surprise instead. A second finger follows the first, before crooking and inducing a sensation Tim has never come across before and thinks he will never experience again.

The fingers are removed quite suddenly with a noise that makes Tim want to retch and cry out at the same time, but he instead settles for biting his lip and pushing a shoulder into the wall to brace himself. He can feel the stretch as Julian starts to push into him, and sucks his breath in because it hurts, but in a good way. Julian starts to quicken his rhythm which knocks Tim’s shoulder against the wall increasingly hard but he ignores it and instead concentrates on the pleasant feelings around his waist area, because Julian’s hand has snaked back ‘round and it feels nice. In the end they come within moments of each other, Tim swearing and Julian making an incomprehensible noise. After he has pulled out and both men have pushed themselves up a little more upright Julian suddenly remembers the bootlace, he unties it with a strange tenderness all things considered; rubbing softly at the red raw patches on Tim’s wrists. Tim himself is more interesting in crunching his shoulders back into place after which practicalities like draggin up trousers and doing up shirt buttons seem more important. They stand for a moment facing each other, Julian has put his jacket back on and Tim has put the guitar back over his shoulders.

“I guess this is goodbye, for now”. Julian begins, and Tim nods, they exchange a brief, manly hug and then walk their separate ways. As he walks Tim begins to shake, almost as though going into shock, he takes out his phone and writes a message to Sarah. “I Love you. xxx <3” and then one to Julian, “Maybe another drink sometime? Just a drink mind, no offence.” Because frightened and filled with self disgust he might be he isn’t the type to lose a friend over nothing. And despite the shaking and the spinning of his head he is soon back at the car, putting the guitar in the back and collapsing gratefully into his seat. Putting the key in the ignition he sits for a minute, he might not legally be sober enough to drive but he feels okay and so he switches the engine on, before he can drive off however his phone buzzes, Sarah. “I love you too you great wally, come home? Up with Vi xxx” he smiles softly. He will explain one day, but for now he wants to go home to his wife and daughter, and feel normal again. His phone buzzes again in his hand after he has fired off the message, “on my way”, Julian this time. All it says is, “Agreed.