I’d tell you I love you, but…
Noel watches the sun rise through a gap in the curtains. Dee is lying flush against him, her arm draped across his chest, Noel’s not sure whether its protecting him, or claiming him. It’s all tangled limbs and stupid smiles and then peaceful silence when he’s with Dee. It’s a humorous contrast to what she’s like in the act, then it’s all teeth and tongue and claws.
Noel finds it easy to keep from saying it during sex, purely because it’s so wild. ‘I love you’ doesn’t seem the right thing to say when her hands are yanking his hair and her teeth are on his neck. It’s now, moments like this, that Noel finds his guilt. Moments of peaceful quiet when the world is asleep, and Dee is lulling in and out of consciousness, a silly little smile on her face, tracing little patterns on his chest while he plays with her hair.
I’d tell you I love you, but I’m cheating on you.
Neither one of them has said anything for about ten minutes. Noel is playing with his pens on a spare page, but only half-heartedly. He’s really watching Julian toy with his guitar, pluck at two or three strings before ending up playing something he’s already written. Julian doesn’t seem to need to say anything, so Noel’s trying hard not to interrupt the silence. The walls are covered in his stupid drawings, and pages of script in various stages of completion and Julian’s sheet music lay scattered all over the place. It’s their own little cave, the Boosh Cave. Beyond the door there’s his flat with his paintings, and his cds, and his notebooks. Every single one of those objects beyond that door is lacking, because they’re his, not theirs.
Its times like this he wants to say something, anything, just so Julian will look up and he can put his feet back on the ground, because sometimes, here in the Boosh Cave, Noel feels like he’s lost. He needs Julian to ground him. He figured it out in his bedroom, when he’d stumbled in at half three, too tired to sleep, tossing and turning and thinking of Howard and Vince and the Boosh and Julian. He’d figured out just how much he needed the Boosh, how much he needed Julian, when he crept into the Boosh Cave and fell asleep almost instantly, leaning against the wall.
Two hours of comfort in bed were nothing compared to this, whatever this is.
He knows what he wants to say, he wants to say it, but he doesn’t want to ruin this silence. This comfort. Noel knows it’s a stupid thing to say. So he doesn’t.
I’d tell you I love you, but you’d just laugh at me.
Mike looks down on him and Noel can see the disappointment in his younger brothers eyes. He knows he’s hit the bloody bottom, knows he’s really fucked up good this time when his kid brother looks at him the way Mike is now. Noel shifts, bringing his knees up to his stomach, wrapping his arms around himself; he knows Mike is still looking at him, but he can’t look up. Mike’s words are still ringing in the air.
“That’s pretty bloody low, Noel,” and Noel knows it is. Its just hard, Mike doesn’t understand, neither does Dave or Rich or Dee or anyone. No one can. But regardless of what he’s said, Noel is so bloody grateful that Mike is still here, with him. After what he said, Noel knows he’s lucky anyone is there - Mike made that very clear. Julian has just had his entire world changed, and all Noel can do is think about himself. He feels sick, right to his stomach.
He looks up, meets his brothers eyes. He opens his mouth, ready to say it, but he can’t. Not now. The words are meaningless in moments like this. They’re as pointless as ‘I’m sorry’ because the disappointment is already there, it’s not going to disappear instantaneously with three little words. So he shuts his mouth, but the look in his eyes is enough, it says everything Noel needs to say, except the one thing he was going to.
I’d tell you I love you, but you think I only love myself.
Noel only misses booze sometimes. It’s only times like this, when he sees Julian so loose and carefree that he misses the freedom alcohol offers. He doesn’t miss the taste, though sometimes he misses the warmth, just letting him know he’s alive. He doesn’t miss being sick, he doesn’t miss the hole in his wallet. But he does, as he reflects often enough, miss the freedom; misses the total lack of caution when Julian’s easy with affection. But Noel hasn’t drunk in months, and every time Julian reaches out and touches him, leans down to speak into his ear, grab at his hands, Noel can’t help but wonder where this might end up if he was as drunk as Julian is now. But he’s stone cold sober, and he’s responsible for his friend, who barely knows where they are anymore, let alone how many glasses he’s been through. It would be abusing his trust if Noel took advantage now. But when he thinks about it, hours later, curled on the couch because Julian has his bed, he knows the real reason he won’t say it.
I’d tell you I love you, but you’re drunk and you won’t remember.
Noel hates hospitals, they’re huge and white and mechanical and smell foul. They seem to sap the creativity from him, drain it from his bones as he sleeps. He doesn’t like the pity and concern in people’s eyes when they come and see him either. It makes him feel like some caged animal, like he’s just some attraction in a zoo. He writes that down in his notebook, but it doesn’t go much further, most of the pages are empty, and he hates it.
Dave has come in almost every day, bringing Noel something new, to do, to think about, to feel. He says he won’t come in the next day, but he does – with a bag of tricks he’s thought up since he left the day before. Noel can’t help but grin; they make his stay easier to withstand.
Every day he’s come in Noel’s thought about saying it. He hates hospitals, hates how they make him melancholy and existential, but they do. He almost says it, but never does. He never asks for anything Dave brings in, he thanks him, but he can’t say three words he desperately wants to, because in his head they’re not enough. Because in places like here, they only prove how much you’ve been thinking about how close you were to losing everything.
I’d tell you I love you, but I don’t want to tell you I was scared.
Julian laughs and reaches for his beer again. Noel watches as his hand closes around the bottle, thinking, soon enough that hand will close around a different type of bottle, take it to a different mouth. Noel knows that soon enough Julian won’t have time for things like this, nights out that meant nothing just nine months ago, nights out that have to have a purpose now, and nights out Noel knows will almost cease to exist soon. Some nights, when his eyes finally close and his brain shuts off long enough for sleep to claim him, Noel dreams that he’s Frodo Bloody Baggins and he’s looking into the Galadriel’s pool. He’s looking into the future and there’s no more Julian and Noel, no more Boosh; there’s just Arthur and Walter, dressed in matching coats and holding their father’s hands – there’s no longer any room for Noel, no spare hand to clutch.
He looks into the future and the Boosh is dry and shrivelled and there’s no more nights out, no more celebrations and stories and dinners out together. There’s just, nothing. Noel wants to reach out and grab Julian’s hand now, take it, desperately, hold it close and just tell him. Tell him and make him understand that he means what he’s saying, he’s not just letting him know, friendship wise, not just congratulating him or something equally warped. Tell him how much he means to him.
But he can’t do it; he knows that if he opens his mouth now, if the words rush out, he’ll lose him forever. Because Julian Pettifer is a father now, and that’s who is sitting across from him now, Julian Pettifer, enjoying a night of freedom, celebrating the birth of the rest of his life. If Noel tells him, then Julian Barratt will disappear forever.
I’d tell you I love you, but I’m scared you’ll run away.
Noel falls against Julian, letting Julian’s broad shoulders keep him from introducing his face to the pavement. He can hear Julian laughing, that deep throaty rumble. Noel presses his body against Julian’s, listening to his breathing, listening to his laughter, and listening to his heart.
“Come on Little Man,” Julian says, laughing again.
“M’ok Ju,” Noel says, which only makes Julian laugh louder, but he is. His body is wasted, he knows it is, he can barely stand straight, but his head is so fucking clear.
He never believed Chris when he told him about it, surely absinth wasn’t that much of a mind fuck, but it is; it’s fucking glorious.
One series down, he still can’t believe it. They’ve bloody well done it, made their mark. Now everything is left to the public, all their insanity, all their genius, all their hard fucking work backing the most ridiculous banter they could contrive; it’s all left to the world. Julian’s arms wrap around his waist and hoist him a little higher, move him a little straighter. Noel smiles, the entire world could be coming down around him, the fucking apocalypse could arrive right now, all their work could collapse, they could lose the two season deal, but it wouldn’t fucking matter, because Julian’s holding him up, holding up the world. Julian is the world.
He wants nothing more than to just say it; lean in and just tell Julian, tell him everything he means, everything he is. Tell him, but again, he doesn’t.
I’d tell you I love you, but I know you won’t believe me.
He’s never seen Julian this in love, this totally consumed by one person. Its all encompassing, the consistency at which he talks about her, followed only by long silences, where glazed eyes tell Noel Julian’s far away, thinking about Julia, rather than being here, with him. He should have known from the start, when they went out that night, and Julian said nothing when he was asked what he’d been up to. Gone out, he’d said, and no pressing got any more out of him. Julian blew him off five times before he mentioned to Noel he was actually doing something else, seeing someone else. It had been a nice surprise to find out, he had to admit, that Julian and Julia were getting along so nicely. It was nice in the beginning; it only began to grate when Julian started to block him out, and now, now Julian’s so enamoured there’s no hope.
He can feel himself being pushed to the side, shoved to the back of Julian’s subconscious. He’s almost sure that ‘work’ and ‘Noel’ have no difference any more. That he’s no longer Julian’s best friend, or even a friend at all, just a co-worker. That thought hurts quite a bit. Dee’s asked him more than once if he and Julian are fighting after these rare nights out, when he comes home, desolate and quiet. They’re not, only it feels like they are. She holds him, and his heart swells, he feels wanted and loved, but it’s not really the same.
I’d tell you I love you, but it won’t make a difference.
“Don’t you walk out on me Julian!” he yells, his voice cracking, or tearing or something. Julian stops, still and forcefully silent. He doesn’t turn around, but he stops, and that is enough. The flat is heavy with the sounds of tortured breathing, of words left unsaid, of insults thrown and wounded pride.
“You have no right to throw this in my face and then walk away!”
“Why should I stay, Noel? Why should I have to stay here, and listen to you telling me how everything is wrong when it’s half your fault? Why? Why do I put up with you? I don’t know where we’re going any more. Don’t know where we’re standing, I don’t even know if I’m on your platform anymore, Noel. So please, tell me the reason I am still standing here, when I should be at home with my boys? I have to go. There’s nothing to say.”
Noel watches as Julian heads towards the door again, leaving him in the remnants of their Boosh Cave, with the broken script and staring faces, wanting to say it, but knowing it’s selfish. There’s a lot to say, Noel just can’t.
I’d tell you I love you, but only to make you stay…
Julian grins and Noel feels his heart swell. They haven’t actually written anything down, but the ideas are so massive, so intense he knows he’ll never forget a single detail. He’s never felt so alive, and yet they’re lying on the floor, neither has moved for the last half an hour. Noel can hear the rise and fall of Julian’s chest, he can hear the preceding rumble as Julian speaks again and starts laughing mid sentence. He can hear the rustle of Julian’s clothes as he draws in the air, shaping something unusual out of nothing, something only he can see, but that he’s trying desperately to show to Noel, describing with words and boundless half drunk enthusiasm.
Noel smiles, laughs and tousles his hair. The air moves and Noel knows that Julian’s turned to look at him again. He meets Julian’s gaze and the air catches in his throat. The words are there, sitting on his tongue, the actions loaded, ready in his brain along with the instinct to reach over and brush Julian’s hair out of his eyes. It’s getting long again, and he doesn’t bother to style it, so it’ll do anything as it grows out, he’s just too lazy to cut it. Noel likes it though, makes him look ruffled, as though he’s just escaped some cupboard encounter. He wants nothing more than to reach out and run his hands through it. But he doesn’t. Like the words ready on his tongue, he stops and pushes the urge away.
I’d tell you I love you, but I’m too insecure to know for sure.
Julian is putting his shoes back on; he’s avoiding eye contact again. Noel hates that Julian never has the heart to meet his eyes after they’ve done this. Outside a car rumbles past, it’s the only thing that breaks the silence between them. Noel is where Julian left him, leaning against the headboard, half wrapped in the mussed sheets. Out in the hall the clock chimes, once, twice, then nothing. Julian stops when the flat falls back into silence.
“We can’t do this anymore.” He says it every time he comes, every time they end up like this, but all the same, Noel still feels his heart flutter painfully. He looks down, away from the back of Julian’s head. He’s sick of staring at it, sick of tracing the draping sweat mussed hair, sick of imagining Julian will turn and look him in the eyes, when he knows it won’t bloody happen, because Julian’s fucking ashamed of it all. Ashamed of the one thing Noel’s been dreaming of for ten years.
He says it every time he comes, every time he leaves his boys and his perfect woman, every time he comes over with a six-pack of some stupid mid brand beer. Every time he finds some way of reducing Noel’s determination that this time, this time he won’t be used. He says it after he closes his eyes and pretends he’s anywhere but where he is, fucking his best friend, he always says it has to stop, but it never does.
“I know,” Noel says, just like he always does. They’re not the words he wants to say, but he knows he can never say them.
I’d tell you I love you, but I know you won’t ever say it back.
Noel stares up at the stage, he can tell Dave is looking at him rather than the act; looking at his large, lopsided grin. Noel knows Dave wants to laugh at him, at how entranced he is, and Noel can’t help but think he probably should. He doesn’t know Julian Barratt; he’s never met him. Before tonight all he knew was what a friend of Nige’s had said; that Julian was almost as weird as he was, that he was doing a gig on Friday and that he should go and see him.
It’s Friday now, and Noel is seeing Julian Barratt, and he is all consumed. He’s looking up at the stage, staring with an intensity that could almost foretell the years he’d spend with the enthralling comedian.
As he sits in the audience, watching Julian for the first time, Noel could say years later he’d felt fate or destiny or something pulling at him, except it’s none of that. It’s something deeper, something right.
It was only years later that he figured out what that was.
I’d tell you I love you, but I don’t know how…
I’d tell you I love you, but the words aren’t enough…
I’d tell you I love you, but I want to show you instead…
I’d tell you I love you, but I don’t think I need to…
I’d tell you I love you, but you already know.
I hope.
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el_gardner for my Beta job. You're a gem. I think something wrong may come out with the formatting, I can't see anything wrong from here, but the preview goes weird, let me know if it messes with it, and I'll try and fix it. Somehow, :-/
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Date: 2009-03-15 12:12 pm (UTC)