Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It is the middle of the day, in the middle of summer, in Paris, that Julian the janitor realizes he just might be in love.

The door to John Cameron’s dressing room--where Julian has found himself, for one reason or another--swings open, and in strides its titular inhabitant, depositing a dull white coffee cup on the counter of the vanity. It wobbles precariously, threatening to tip over and spill whatever contents John may have spared for the time being.

“Julian,” he says airily, and Julian all but jumps to attention. “Have you---”

“Yes, Mister Cameron?”

John pauses, an amused expression making its way across his face.

“A mind reader and a hypnotist?”

As if he hadn’t noted his delayed reaction and filed it away under “Failed Social Interactions With The Host Of The Orbiting Human Circus”, Julian lets out a half-sigh half-laugh in return. But John Cameron smiles and sits down on the other end of the fainting couch that Julian is seated on; he stretches one leg out across it, like the subject of some Romantic painting, and begins to roll up the cuffs of his pale gold button-down.

“Anyway, what I was going to ask--though stop me if you’ve heard this one--the black suit jacket, I had it on the chair there. Have you seen it?”

“Oh,” Julian finds himself pulling at the buttons on his sweater sleeve in an absentminded mimic of John. “I, uh, I put it in your closet. Didn’t want it to get wrinkled.”

In one fluid motion, John swings his leg over and rises to his feet, smoothing out the wrinkles in his vest (black, to match the jacket he inquired about). Julian busies himself with listening to the click, clack of his shiny maroon shoes as he trots to the closet; how does he keep those shoes so pristine, day after day?

He watches out of the corner of his eye as John rustles through his closet, the sleek black velvet jacket sliding off its hanger and onto his arm in the manner of some dark theatre curtain draping itself over him.

Now, he comes to lean over the back of the couch, almost nose to nose with Julian, whose better judgment tells him to lean back a bit--which, of course he does not. John smells of cinnamon, and the strength of it makes the heat rise to Julian’s cheeks.

“You wouldn’t know where my gloves are, would you, Julian?”

And the janitor barely hears him, but nods still, shakes himself off, and gestures towards the top vanity drawer. John smiles and goes to rummage through the drawer, a task that Julian hopes to never again have to undertake himself.

They go on like that for a while, John seeming to have little clue where his own possessions lay, Julian acutely aware of where he placed them upon his last cursory cleaning. And it is comfortable, especially as John smiles behind his hand following every direction Julian provides. Tie pin, cufflinks, hat--

“I’m going to have to ask you not to interrupt the show,” he says after a while, almost reluctantly as he fixes his silver paisley tie in the mirror. “Do you think you can do that for me, just for tonight?”

Julian catches his eye in the reflection, catches another smile gracing his well-defined features. He’s handsome, in a bizarre, delicate way: high cheekbones and thick but meticulously groomed eyebrows that now raise just so, giving his green eyes a sense of knowing--knowing what, exactly?

Julian smiles back, perhaps a bit nervous at how frank Mister Cameron is being with him. He thinks, however briefly, of the boy who wore the polar bear suit that his great-grandfather had introduced him to all those years ago and feels his stomach twist. But, as if one of the photos and flyers pasted along his vanity mirror were a written stage cue, John Cameron grabs and holds Julian’s indirect gaze through the glass.

And Julian the janitor feels like the only other person in the tower, in all of Paris, on that late summer day.

It is under the sweltering stage lights of the Eiffel Tower’s ballroom, under the milky evening sky of a Parisian summer, that John Cameron--host of the Orbiting Human Circus--realizes he may very well be in love.

They’ve found themselves a juggling dog to showcase on tonight’s show, a stray that-- of course --Julian had pulled inside during a rainstorm. It had promptly broken into the prop closet, but the stagehands could hardly be mad when they found it passing around and balancing the trinkets out of an old cardboard box (that and Stagehand Jacques’s insistent love of dogs and all things dog-like).

The little mutt does well, tossing around the glass ornaments with a certain canine grace. Whatever grace a canine might have, anyway; John has always fancied himself more of a bird person, if anything. Upon finishing its quaint little act, the dog circles his feet in time with the applause before dashing offstage into Jacques’s waiting arms.

“Norma, the Juggling Terrier, everyone!” Norma , who first decided to call it that? Probably Julian, again...who is now standing at the back of the house, leaning against the gilded doorframe with his hands resting upon the handle of a broom.

John has never claimed to have keen eyesight, but he can see Julian tilt his head and smile at him, clear as day.

And he realizes it’s been, oh, four seconds too long since the applause died down.

He clears his throat and begins to cross the stage as he moves onto the next attraction:

“A-and it is my pleasure, ladies and gentlemen,” He sees Leticia peering at him from offstage, a quizzical look in her eye. “To introduce our next feature--just recently recovered from the belly of the late and great Twenty-Foot Crocodile of New South Wales…”

Julian shifts, leans forward on the broom, positively enthralled. His dark eyes sparkle with an almost childlike wonder at the very mention of a twenty-foot crocodile. Sparkle . Like John has just announced that he’s personally rediscovered the lost city of Atlantis . Like John has just taken his hands in his and sat him down to present to him some lost Shakespearean manuscript. Just to him.

“The--the, ah, the p-personal diaries--” Diaries? No, that doesn’t sound right. They had found recordings in the crocodile’s stomach, best not to call them diaries. “Tapes! Tape-diaries of the renowned field herpetologist Sir Keir Knothe-Quackenbush detailing his decade-long search for the Twenty-Foot Crocodile of New South Wales.”

At that, the lights dim and the speaker sparks to life.

Or rather, it should. In the dark, he hears first the vague, amorphous murmur of the crowd. Then, the stagehands scrambling to insert the cassette among muffled mentions of “don’t know what happened” and “you sure he ain’t feeling off?”

The glowing ember of a newly-lit cigarette illuminates Chief Stagehand Leticia Saltier’s face as she shoves the shadowpuppet shape of Pierre out of the way to turn the tape around. In the orange light of her cigarette, she glances at John and raises an eyebrow. All he can do is attempt to shrug before the tape takes and the Australian accent of Keir Knothe-Quackenbush, Esquire crackles over the speakers.

John Cameron pads over to the chair beside the stage and drops into it, ignoring the creak of protest it emits. Wiping his forehead, he scans the crowd, maybe in the hopes of catching sight of the janitor. But Julian is nowhere to be found, probably having gone off to do his job for once. Or possibly sitting somewhere in the crowd where the host can’t see him, can’t meet his eye. And some stupid thing inside John Cameron’s brain hopes that the latter is true, because for all the people in the audience, there’s a certain equally stupid sense of isolation creeping up his spine.

“I’ve some good news, bad news, and a question,” Leticia Saltier says to him after the show is over and the audience has trickled out. John lets his head loll over the back of the chair to look at her groggily.

“Hit me.”

“Aren’t you supposed to tell me which you’d like first?”

“You didn’t ask.”

She takes a drag on the sad bit of her cigarette that’s left.

“Touche. Which would you rather hear first, Monsieur Cameron ?”

John puts a hand to his still-hot cheek, inhales through his nose, exhales through his teeth.

“Good, question, then bad, if you will.”

Leticia gestures for him to stand, and with some difficulty he does. He follows her backstage, watches as she takes a pencil out of her curly hair, which then cascades over her face and shoulders. Sliding the cassette tape onto the pencil by its reel, she leans against the wall to face him.

“Good news,” she says. “Is that Jacques has a new friend.”

“The dog?” John places his hands on his hips. “That’s your good news? He’s not going to bring it home and back here every day, is he? I don’t think I could deal with that.”

Leticia gives the tape a spin and rolls her eyes.

“You are being so dramatic. I don’t know what he is planning on doing with it for the moment, but I would think you’d be happier for your employees.”

“I--yes, of course, I am happy for him and his little...mop...thing…”

John fiddles with the cufflinks on his jacket.

“Your question, Leticia?”

“Ah, oui .” She reaches for the protective case on the table behind her and snaps it shut over the now-rewound cassette. To John’s annoyance, she then opts to gather her thick curls into a bun, taking her time to do so before sticking the pencil back into her hair to secure it. A few stray curls lay across her face, fair against her brown skin; she doesn’t bother to try tucking them behind her ear and evidently remains oblivious to the rapid tapping of John Cameron’s foot. “The question.”

“Yes, the question,” he grits.

“What, exactly, happened out on stage tonight?”

“I--” Somewhere in the back of his mind, John knew that would be her exact question yet was still woefully unprepared. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Mm.”

“I don’t! I have no idea what you’re referring to!”

“ Jean ,” Leticia says, her voice just a bit too soft as he looks him dead in the eye. “You are such a bad liar. What had you so distracted?”

What, indeed. John’s face warms anew thinking of how Julian had gazed up at the stage from his perch by the theater doors. Just...the stage, of course. The whole setup. Himself included, he supposes.

“The janitor did not seem inclined to interrupt tonight,” observes the chief stagehand. John opens his mouth to say something, but his mind has neglected to prepare a response. “It couldn’t be that you were distracted by that ? If anything I would think you might be relieved--”

“He was in the back.”

Leticia is quiet. He winces, every nerve in his body screaming at him for blurting out something like that.

“In the back?”

“Yes. Back of the house.”

“What was he doing there?”

“I...I don’t know Leticia, he was just listening, I guess!” Then he adds: “To me.”

It’s entirely unnecessary. Perhaps it is more for his own edification, but he continues:

“It was...distracting. I just kept looking back at him and--don’t you tell a soul, Leticia. Don’t you dare. Especially not him.”

He is certain he’s redder than the scarlet curtains of the ballroom now. Leticia puts a hand over her mouth, and for a moment he expects her to call him something rude he doesn’t fully understand.

But, no. She instead lets out a wheeze of laughter behind her flattened hand, turning away for a moment in an attempt to regain composure.

“ Leticia .” He feels like a schoolkid admitting a crush--which he can tell himself all he likes that that is absolutely, undoubtedly not what this is--while Leticia laughs at him. Laughs at him.

“ Je suis desole ,” she breathes. “ Je suis... I’m sorry John. I cannot believe it, though...even when he doesn’t manage to find his way to the stage, that janitor...he still manages to meddle with the show.”

“Yes, I suppose so…”

“You like it when he listens to you? But you have an audience of millions?”

John can’t argue with that, but it’s even harder to argue with the way Julian had smiled at him from across the room. Just at him.

“Well,” he sighs. “What’s the bad news then? How bad could it possibly be?”

“Ah. Well, the president of the Perpetual Broadcasting Corporation called. He requested you meet with him at your earliest convenience.” Leticia glances off to the side. “By which he means--”

“Oh, yes, I know,” John groans. “Immediately.”

It’s a couple nights before the janitor manages to catch up with the Circus’s host again--not literally, catch up, of course. Julian has never been much of a runner, nor has he ever fancied chasing the object of his affections down a hall to speak to them. (“Fancied” being the key word, as he’s painfully reminded of his humiliating pursuit of the polar bear boy. It’s all about retrospect, really.)

But, still, as he rounds the stairwell that brings him to the gated edge of the Eiffel Tower, his heart leaps halfway to his throat at the sight of a tall, slender figure outlined against the twinkling Paris skyline.

Julian puts his half-filled soap bucket on the ground, letting it clang just loudly enough against the steel panel floor to alert John Cameron to his presence. The only acknowledgment he receives is a heavy sigh, but he walks forward anyway, joining the host by the tower railing.

Another sigh.

“Is...is everything alright, Mister Cameron?”

And it’s as though John was all but waiting for Julian’s voice to break the balmy night air. He turns, one eyebrow quirked into a black shadow as the shallow golden light from the city and the stories of the tower so far below bathe his pale face in their hazy glow.

“Alright?” he asks, and a sharp pang of guilt smacks Julian in the chest; of course, the show had gone on without any janitor-related hitches--to his knowledge--but John had tripped up on stage nonetheless, distracted and off-time. “Is everything alright ? I--I…”

Julian waits to be berated for his question, feels a fool for how eagerly he asked. But it never happens; John sighs, defeated, and leans on the railing.

“The Perpetual Broadcasting Corporation was...far from impressed with this past week’s show. They want something more , something other than, than juggling dogs and quirky little animals. And they want it yesterday .”

With a shaky hand, he extracts a cigarette from one pocket of his slacks and starts to fish around in the other for a means to light it.

And Julian? Well, Julian stands beside him, close enough to smell a faint hint of his cologne (he smells like amber today) and feels just terrible. For what little knowledge he has of the PBC and Augustus Plumb, his rather slow-burning temper begins to spark at the way they run John Cameron ragged. He, for one, had been mesmerized by the show, having had enough time to sit and watch the way John articulates, breezes his way across the ballroom with the grace of a dancer.

“I’m sorry,” he says. John loses a hold of his cigarette, which tumbles down into the lamp-lit night below them.

“Don’t--” he snaps, sounding nearly desperate. “I...you didn’t do anything. You don’t have to be sorry.”

Julian shrugs.

“I just feel bad. I wish there was something I could do to help you.”

John laughs, seems grateful for the sentiment. And it's a while before either says anything more.

Wispy clouds dapple the night sky, floating in and out of the full moon’s blue-silver light. One by one, the little lights across the dark silhouette of Paris blink out, giving up in the wake of the clouds leaving tiled roofs exposed to the shimmering moon. Julian knows it’s well past two in the morning, but the quiet and the slow oscillation between the city’s glow and the beacon that is the moon hanging low in the sky makes his heart swell; he could stay out here for the whole night, if John asked him to. The night is pleasant, the breeze that winds its way around the furthest reaches of the Eiffel Tower more humid than usual, entertaining the idea of rain. As a grayish watercolor splotch of cloud drifts idly across the moon, Julian says:

“W-wouldn’t it be something to get the moon on the show?”

John cocks his head.

“...What?”

“The moon.”

“Yes, I heard you. I don’t think I follow.”

Julian rubs the back of his neck, now aware of how silly it sounds.

“It was...just a thought.” But John Cameron is clearly intrigued by his idea regardless of how implausible it seems, because he appears not to notice that the two are shoulder-to-shoulder as he leans in close to listen. (He’s...warm. And now Julian can smell his cologne’s citrusy overtones, and resists the temptation to lean into him.) “If it...if it were something that could fit into the ballroom, I mean. I’d like to think the moon would have a good time, that it would, oh, make people happy? I don’t know.”

He really doesn’t; he knows he’s rambling now.

“It’s just something out of the ordinary.” As if any act on the show is ordinary . “Something that--that a lot of people, uh, love. Maybe. I know I love it. Looking at the moon.”

His face is so stupidly hot. He glances from John to the moon and back to John, and finds he’s still looking at him, no less attentive.

“That was...no help at all.”

“I know,” Julian mutters.

“I rather enjoyed it.”

“I kn--wait, what?”

John’s face shifts, and for a moment he looks to be considering a particularly difficult question. He draws back and turns so his silk-clad back presses to the tower railing.

“As much as I hate to admit it, you’ve got some strange sort of...affinity for theatrics.” Did...John Cameron just tell him he had potential? Julian grins, presses his face down far enough for his chin to touch his chest, far enough to maybe hide how ecstatic the begrudging compliment has made him. “Don’t you dare tell anyone I said that, Julian. I don’t want them to think I’m about to let you run the show.”

He doesn’t know whether John is trying to be caustic, trying to dishearten him, but there’s something playful in his voice that makes flimsy that facade.

“And Julian?”

“Hm?”

“Thank you.”

Leticia has not told the janitor a word, that much is true. For how long can Mister Cameron really pretend that he feels nothing? She thinks. ( Pas de longtemps , she responds to herself. Il est un mauvais menteur .)

She tells the stagehands, though, of course.

“He--he WHAT?” Jacques cackles and has to lean on Fran çois to steady himself. “Oh my god...you ain’t serious. You can’t be, you gotta be pullin’ our leg.”

“ Tais-toi , I tell you this in confidence, you cannot be so loud.”

“Oh, yeah, well I bet Mister Cameron’s perfectly fine with me bein’ so loud, seeing as he entrusted you to deliver this information to us.”

Leticia huffs, at a loss.

“Now, lemme get this straight.” Jacques pulls himself back up to his full height (still significantly shorter than Leticia) and claps François on his skinny arm. “Mister Cameron, he was so jittery a couple nights back because the janitor was in the room? Seriously? It’s not like he’s, y’know, falling onto the stage every other damn time, what gives?”

“I do not think it is so simple,” Leticia states matter-of-factly. François scoffs.

“‘Course not. Never is.”

“I think...something about him watching made Mister Cameron feel...ah, comment dit-on ? Special?”

A snort from Jacques.

“Special?” he asks, leaning down to pet the terrier that has scrambled out of a nearby closet, cleaning rag gripped tight in her mouth. “Leticia, I swear you’re just out here takin’ us for a buncha fools--”

“Oh, no, Jacques. I know you are a bunch of fools.”

“Hah, real funny. But he’s got hundreds ‘a thousands ‘a people listening to him every night when we broadcast. What’s one lousy janitor to him?”

“Sounds like love to me,” remarks Pierre from across the room. He scribbles something down on the crossword he has open. Jacques, who has sat down on the floor to allow Norma the Juggling Terrier to crawl into his lap, scrunches up his face.

“You’re in on this too, Pierre?”

“Why the janitor, then? Why Julian?” wonders François. Leticia crosses her arms, a sly, pleased smile on her lips. The other stagehands pause upon noticing, looking to her in anticipation.

“He likes his spirit, I can tell. He likes how he can single him out in the crowd, and how Julian looks back at him. It all feels very... destiné .”

The three burst out into laughter, Pierre chuckling into his crossword, Jacques jostling Norma around, and François nearly doubling over.

“Leticia…” Jacques wheezes, dropping a hand heavy onto the Norma’s scruffy rump. “That’s...Leticia, you sound like Julian when you talk like that!”

“So you do not believe me?”

“Oh, we believe you. I do, anyway,” sighs François, wiping his eye. “Never took you or Mister Cameron for a hopeless romantic, though.”

“It’s like Jacques said,” Pierre pipes up. “Always thought it would be Julian telling one of us that he feels like it’s his desteenay to kiss the host of the Orbiting Human Circus or somethin’.”

“ Destiné , Pierre,” says Jacques, very seriously. Leticia cannot help but feel a bit of pride at his correction. “It’s an adjective ‘ere, not a noun. Doofus.”

Norma whistles through her nose as if in agreement, and munches on her piece of cloth.

Chapter Text

The Parisian metro is an excellent place to think; it only serves this purpose, however, when one can keep his mind on the task at hand.

And John Cameron is failing miserably.

Part of him wishes the ride from his apartment in the thirteenth arrondissement was longer; another wishes it was shorter so he does not have to sit and stew in his fruitless show ideas another minute; yet another wishes there were actual show ideas to think on, rather than the soft voice of the janitor as he mused on about the moon.

John swallows in an attempt to push out the memory of how sincerely he spoke of it, how his warm brown eyes darted out over the city and back to him.

He could have kissed him then, if he wanted to; he was certainly close enough. It would have been, well, picturesque--kissing someone on the top of the Eiffel Tower on a summer night lit by the moon and the fading lights of Paris. John feels his stomach turn at the very thought.

He puts his head in his hands with a low moan; there's no use in him even trying to keep his thoughts on the show anymore. He likes being around Julian far too much for his own damn good. And why? Because it seems like Julian likes it just as much, if not more than he does? Because he's never really had the pleasure of anyone feeling like that? God, that's sad, he thinks. And completely speculative, at that.

He drags his hands down his cheeks, just enough to catch sight of the young woman standing across from him raise an eyebrow before returning to the silken handkerchief in her hands. She's wearing a pair of sky blue gloves--a fashion choice he can get behind--and passes the cloth leisurely from hand to hand. It billows through her fingers like a wave, flowing practically of its own accord before she  clasps her gloved hands together and obscures it from view. When she opens them again, there sits in her palms a perfect little bird--not a real one, but one made of the handkerchief she had in her hand just moments before. But then, it shivers, shakes its shiny little head and flaps a pair of petal-like silk wings.

He's never seen anything quite like it. Never outside the ballroom, anyway. It's incredible, it's otherworldly, it’s--how Julian must see the acts, must see the people and the animals behind them. John feels a hint of pride.

The girl lifts her ochre eyes from the silk bird to meet John Cameron's stare. He swears he can hear a tiny coo from the bird.

"What...is your name?" he asks. He realizes that they seem to be the only ones on the train, which is odd for a Thursday afternoon.

"Selene," she replies in a low voice. Anxious, she shifts the handkerchief-bird to one palm and brushes off her silver skirts.

"Selene," says John. "How do you fare in front of a crowd?"

In Montmartre, it has begun to drizzle.

Julian the janitor stands under the overhang in front of a cafe beside a fiery-haired musician in the process of tuning her viola. Up above, a gaggle of fat pigeons sit on a gutter, oblivious to the raindrops.

By now, Julian has realized that his newest talent is finding himself in the last place he needs to be; really he should be back at the tower cleaning, but a walk to clear his head turned into a trek across the city. And now he is to be stuck in the rain.

It's not his fault, really--Mister Cameron hadn't needed to lean so close to him the other night. Julian is the furthest thing from a bitter young man but he begins to feel like John's mission is to make both of their jobs that much more difficult.

He sighs. No, no, John Cameron's job is hard enough already. He really does wish that he could be of some help, and wonders if John has ever taken to heart his hunch as to how he gets his acts that he had offered many months ago. He hadn't seemed fond of the stray dog, but Jacques...Jacques had fallen for the little juggling dog the moment Julian brought her through the door. Maybe that was enough, he thinks. Maybe as long as there's someone out there who believes.
He leans back against the wide cafe window, wishes it was a little colder out so he had an excuse to go in and get a hot chai tea.

To his left, the street musician draws her bow across her crimson-stained instrument. It let's out a high but pleasant note, and the pigeons on the gutter begin to stir. He watches for a while, and though few people who pass by stop to listen to her, the musician amasses a crowd of birds before her in but a few songs: crows, grackles, sparrows...but mostly pigeons, orb-eyed and dappled with teal and white. They land in a semi-circle on the sidewalk, on the awning above, even along the arm that draws the bow in a languid line across the viola. They seem to sway and bob in time with the music, every so often ruffling their feathers against the light rain.

She puts down her instrument and the birds take off at once, a cloud of chittering blue and gray.

"At least they listen to me," she remarks, possibly to Julian, though maybe to no one in particular. "I get up with the sun to play for people and my audience winds up with feathers. Figures."

He feels for her; she's very talented and deserves to be listened to. She glances over at him.

"You're a pretty good listener. Thanks."

"Me?" Of course you, Julian. "Oh. Of course."

"Do I know you?"

"I...I don't think so?"

"Ah, no." She waves her bow in his direction. "I know your voice. You're the janitor. From the radio."

The janitor from the radio? The recognition strikes Julian stronger than a stage floor to the face--she really remembers him, falling onto stage, remembers him running in in a half-clothed panic after the catastrophe with the hypnotist? Something in him drags the memory of John admitting his "strange affinity for theatrics" to the forefront of his brain, and his heart skips a beat.

"I...wow. Thank you.”

She moves a lock of red hair off her face.

"It's Julian, right? You do all of that stuff on purpose? Like...off a script?"

"Hah, uh, well...no."

She laughs, but it feels sincere, like she really truly enjoys what she's heard on air.

"That's great, I like it." The musician kneels down on the damp sidewalk, begins to put her viola away in its case. "Good to meet you, mister janitor. I'm Dawn."

He nods, and then something reckless makes its way out of his mouth:

"Dawn, would you--and the birds--want to perform for us?"

She props an elbow up on her knee, placing her chin on her hand as she looks back up to him.

“But can you manage to get me--get us on air, that’s the question.” A challenging smile twitches at the corner of Dawn’s mouth. Julian feels a sense of indignance bubble up in his chest. He knows he can’t mess this up; he wants to help, needs to help. He's in too deep and is torn as to whether it's for his love of the show or his love for…

Well. He supposes that in some sense it's still to differentiate because no matter how he looks at it, he's in love.

He beams back at her.

“You want to borrow...what now?”

“The Orchestral!”

Stagehand Jacques cannot believe what he is hearing. Julian stands in front of him, a broom that has likely not seen contact with the floor in days clutched in one hand as he rocks back on his heels. As he asks to show some musician the Orchestral.

“You're crazy kid.” Jacques shakes his head and slides a new newspaper into the birdcage where the Orchestral sleeps with its beak tucked into its puffed up wing, unaware of Norma staring curiously--dare Jacques say hungrily--up at it.

“Noo, no Jacques c’mon!” The janitor clasps his hands together and the broom clatters to the floor. The Orchestral opens one round yellow eye halfway. “It's for--”

“I know, I heard ya the first three times, it's for an act. Well lemme tell you, that ain't possible. Mister Cameron's already got an act.”

Julian cocks his head, blue cap dancing with the motion. He looks almost like Norma when he does it, and Jacques has to stifle a snort.

“Wh...what do you mean he's got an act?”

“I mean , he came in yesterday morning real cheery 'cause he found someone to showcase for Sunday night.” Jacques adds: “Had a real big smile on his face like he just became king of the universe or something.”

He sees Julian smile at that. So that's how it is, then, he thinks. Cute. Real cute.

“Seemed pretty keen on the fact that he'd found 'em all by himself.” Julian fiddles with a loose string on his hat. “Some girl who can make little silk birds. Ones that can fly, even.”

Julian stops, raises his eyebrows.

“Birds?”

“Uh-huh.”

A grin breaks out across his face, and Jacques swallows; this can't be good.

“Oh, Jacques that's perfect! That's amazing! Oh, Mister Cameron is going to be so happy !”

Okay, that's kind of sweet. Jacques closes the Orchestral’s cage and Norma snaps out of her trance, padding over to sniff at Julian's blue rain boots.

“Is he now? Glad you think so, he seemed pretty stoked before, can't imagine what you've got in mind to make him much happier.” Then Jacques decides to humor the kid; what could it hurt, really? “Unless it's seeing that face of yours.”

Julian goes stock still, eyes wide at Jacques. Slowly, he presses his hands to his olive cheeks, without a doubt burning up now.

“Y-y-you really think--”

“Just an educated guess, kid.” He whistles for Norma, and the two walk off to the other end of the ballroom, leaving Julian and his reddened face and his shy grin and his fallen broom backstage.

It is Friday evening when Julian comes to John Cameron with his idea: pair up the acts they've both found independently. Leticia watches them from afar, looping extra string lights into neat piles while the janitor gesticulates with enthusiasm at the host.

John's reserved expression gradually turns into one of complete and total elation. It's quite amazing, really--he looks like a kid on Christmas morning as he listens to Julian, and Leticia can't remember the last time she's seen him smile so wide. She chuckles and looks down at the tangle of lights she's currently working on.

“Julian, that's...that's fantastic!” John exclaims. “You...why I daresay you've come up with something amazing!”

Leticia glances back up; in a fit of excitement, John has grasped Julian's hands in his. At the contact, the world seems to stop in the space between them. Julian appears to be stifling a smile while John stares down in disbelief at their hands. Doesn't let go, though. Leticia waits, soft clinking of the lightbulbs in her hand the only audible sound in the whole ballroom.

John nods, opens his mouth as if to say something before Julian interrupts him, setting the flow of time back on track.

“I'm--I’m really glad you, uh…” He seems to be searching for the words that refuse to surface in the host’s face, of all places. “Y-yeah. I have to, um. I should mop? The halls?”

“You should?” John loosens his grip on Julian's hands almost begrudgingly before correcting himself. “I mean--you should! Yes! Have an excellent time doing that!”

John lays an awkward pat on the janitor’s shoulder and waves him off. He can't see, but Julian wears the most gleeful smile Leticia has ever seen on a janitor as he shuffles away.

Drawing a forearm across his brow, John walks over to Leticia, who pretends not to have seen the whole thing.

“I just almost did a very stupid thing,” he says.

“Oh?”

“Do you have a cigarette? I need a smoke.”

“Was the stupid thing not buying your own?”

He gives her a withering stare. She gives him a cigarette out of the tin in her back pocket.

“Now, what was this stupid thing?” As if she doesn't already know. She pulls a twist tie around the coil of lights and sets it on the floor.

“Oh,” he says through the cigarette and the hand he holds a lighter in. “Well, you saw how close I was to the janitor.”

“Don't tell me you can't even talk to him now, John.”

“I almost kissed him, Leticia. For the second time.”

She raises her eyebrows.

“So you two have--”

“No! Almost , Leticia. I've almost kissed him twice now.”

He sticks the cigarette back in his mouth and takes a drag, averting his eyes. She sighs.

“Then just do it.”

“Oh, no no no.”

“Why not.”

He hesitates, and Leticia decides she's had enough of...whatever this is.

“You have said it yourself, you like the way he listens. You like the way he thinks. You like him , so what is the issue?”

“He doesn't deserve me.”

She lets out a guffaw at his half-assed reply. John crosses his arms, a wry half-smile on his face at his own statement.

“It is you who does not deserve him . No one else will listen to you like he does.”

Coyly, “I know.”

He lets out a puff of smoke as Leticia picks up the last string of lights and loops it around her hand. She eyes him, watches as the smoke curls around his head like a lost thought.

“So?” she says.

“So,” he replies carefully. “I ought to set up that joint act we’ve been discussing; President Plumb will regret ever threatening to take this show off the airwaves.”

John waves her farewell as he saunters off, before she can say anything more. Smoke from the cigarette held lazily between his right index and middle finger still wafts into the air, wisping over the curtained rafters and low-lit lamps of the ballroom as clouds do over a harvest moon. Leticia cannot help but scoff at him.

Chapter Text

“What do you mean they’re ‘not going on’?” John Cameron asks through gritted teeth; with every word he hears his voice raise another octave. Jacques and Leticia glance at each other.

“They...they say they can’t,” Leticia tries to explain, but John, who swears he can feel his stage makeup flaking off, interrupts her:

“ Can’t go on? Can’t go on!” He lets out a bark of laughter. “It’s--it’s Sunday night! We’ve got an hour before they’re scheduled to go on stage and perform they can’t just quit !”

He’s going to faint. Oh, god, he’s going to faint. John puts a hand to his temple, breathes in with a shudder.

“I...I’m real sorry Mister Cameron,” says Jacques, rubbing his upper arm in discomfort. “Julian just told us--”

“ Julian ?” John snaps to attention. “ Julian was the bearer of this? I never--I never should have trusted him to help, I should have expected something like this from him, I-I…”

It hurts as soon as it comes out of his mouth, and Leticia and Jacques look wounded, but unconvinced. Hell, he’s anything but convinced; it’s just another lie to make himself feel better--not that it does.

“It’s over,” he hisses, removing his black top hat. “I haven’t got anything prepared. I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

He shoves the hat into Leticia’s hands, adjusts his saffron tailcoat, and rushes off towards the dressing room.

“ Jean !” John clenches his gloved fists; not now , he sobs internally. The panic feels like a part of him now, unrelenting and unwilling to make compromise, and for the love of god if he starts to cry right now -- “ Jean get a hold of yourself! Please!”

He can’t bring himself to answer; he throws his hands in the air, shakes his head, and listens to the sound of his own boots clicking on the hardwood floor all the way to the dressing room.

Leticia lets out a growl, tosses the hat to Jacques and turns towards the stage.

“Well,” she says. “We have less than an hour. Time to see if there’s anything Monsieur Cameron can do that I cannot.”

Julian has chased down Selene and Dawn to the outer doors of the theater, where they stand side by side, watching him catch his breath.

“I...why--hold on…” He takes a deep breath, straightens up to meet their nervous stares. He tries to form a proper question, but all he can do is stutter at the pair; Selene, however, seems to understand.

“I’m sorry,” she says softly. “It wasn’t meant to be.”

“But I don’t...I don’t understand.” Julian feels like a child as he puts his hands out in candid bewilderment. But he sees Dawn’s hand brush Selene’s and deep down, he does sort of understand. Behind him, the frantic footsteps of François and Pierre thump across the carpeted floor.

“Hell’s the deal?” snaps François. “We’ve got under and hour, they goin’ on or what?”

Julian shakes his head. He’s messed up. Again. Gone and stuck his nose into the workings of the show and made a complete wreck of everything.

Of course, he could never have seen this coming, but that doesn’t matter to Julian right now; as his would-be performers and stagehands François and Pierre stare him down, he feels like he’s failed himself, failed Mister Cameron, and failed the show. And then Selene walks over to him.

“I realized,” she says. “I still have...I still have the costume I was supposed to wear on stage.”

She lays the clothes draped over her forearm in Julian’s hands--blue, shimmery, like the moon on a clear night.

“It looks like it would have been a bit big,” Julian notes. Selene nods, and behind her Dawn smiles. Selene quickly reaches into one of the folds of the costume and extracts a white handkerchief; she turns it over in her hands and all of a sudden there sits a little silk bird. It takes wing, floating with ease over to Dawn, who catches it with a gentle hand.

“Goodbye, Julian,” Selene says, following the bird over to Dawn and taking her hand. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he replies. The costume brushes over his fingers like water as he unfurls it to get a better look. Over the cerulean jacket collar, he meets Dawn’s eye.

“So long, Mister Janitor.” She grins, and ducks out the doorway.

Pierre shifts.

“Now what?” he asks. “Mister Cameron’s probably in the middle of a breakdown, we still ain’t got an act, we’ll probably all be out of work by the end of the night if we can’t scrounge somethin’ up in, oh...thirty-five minutes.”

Julian is still staring at the costume; it’s almost jester-like in design, with a blue chiffon belt adorned with little silver bells to boot. And sure, it would have been baggy on little Selene, but he’s got more than a few inches on her…

He takes off his beanie and shoves it in the oversized pocket of his cardigan.

“I’ll go.”

Silence. He can feel Pierre and François gawking at his back.

“Julian, that’s...you can’t go out on stage, that’s impossible.”

He starts to loosen the costume’s collar.

“I wouldn’t know the meaning of the word.”

The janitor marches, jingling, up to chief stagehand Leticia Saltier, who stands in exasperation outside of host John Cameron’s dressing room. She eyes him suspiciously.

“What...are you wearing?”

“It’s a costume.”

Pierre and François come running up after him, out of breath.

“We tried to stop him--”

“He was too fast--I’ve never seen anyone change so quick…”

Leticia rubs her temples.

“Tried to stop him from doing what, exactly?”

“I’m going out on stage,” says Julian. “To perform.”

From behind the door, a muffled and nasally “WHAT?”

“ Julien est notre acte ce soir, Monsieur Cameron .”

“F-f-for the love of god, Leticia, you know I can’t understand you!!”

Leticia throws up her hands in defeat, puts her back to the wall beside the door, and exhales hard.

“ Alors , you let him go on out or you don’t have a show. Because I will not do your job any further tonight. Thank god the commercial break came so soon.”

John says nothing, so Julian leans against the door. Part of him wants to imagine that Mister Cameron is pressed against the other side.

“Mister Cameron?” he asks. “...John?”

“ Yes , Julian?”

“You really...can’t speak French?”

John sniffs.

“No, I can’t. And I hardly think that this is the time for you and Miss Saltier to make fun of me for it.”

“We’re not.” Julian sees Leticia roll her eyes. “I’m not, anyway. I was just...I’m sorry, John. I messed things up. But I can fix it!”

He hears the host blow his nose loudly and let out the deepest sigh he’s ever heard.

“...Don’t be sorry. You’re making me feel bad, Julian.” A pause. “I can’t stop you from going on stage at this point, though, can I?”

“N-no, I don’t think so.” Julian shuffles a bit, wrings his gloved hands together. “I’ve got, like, five minutes before I go out.”

“And just--” John sniffs again. “Just what are you going to do out there?”

“I have, um...a story to tell.”

“Mmh. Don’t we all.” He sighs, and Julian hears him shift. “Well, best of luck to you.”

“Thank you, Mister Cameron.”

“I’m sorry you had to see me like this, Julian.”

Julian laughs, despite himself. He’s seen John Cameron in much worse states; he’s asked Julian to push him off the Eiffel Tower, for heaven’s sake!

“I can’t even see you right now.”

“Ah, lucky you.”

Leticia has made her way back out onto the stage, now announcing a “very special last-minute guest, certain not to disappoint...

“ Mesdames et messieurs , please put your hands together for our very own Julian, janitor of the Eiffel Tower!”

One of the stagehands pushes Julian out into the spotlight and into the curious roar of the crowd’s applause.

“I--” The microphone screeches in his face, and he leans back, waiting for it to settle. In the front row, the rotund, white-haired figure of Augustus Plumb crosses his arms. “Evening, everyone. I know...that we typically have a recorded story to end off the show but tonight, um...here I am!”

He smiles nervously, and a number of audience members smile back. An equal amount turn to their partners to whisper something that Julian imagines is less than savory, though. He swallows, and continues:

“But anyway, I wanted to tell you all a story that my great-grandfather once told me. See, my great-grandfather, he was this amazing performer, he was a stage hypnotist and I...I wanted to be just like him.” Julian laughs. “I still do. It gets me into trouble, sometimes. Especially with Miss Saltier and...and Mister Cameron. I think it goes without saying that I haven’t tried my hand at hypnotism in a long time.”

He brushes his dark hair out of his eyes; the stage lights are hot, almost unbearably so in the shiny silver-blue costume. To the left of the stage, the Orchestral preens itself before settling into a low musical hum to accompany him.

“Well, that aside, I lived with my great-grandfather for a while, here in Paris. I ran away from home, actually, to come find him and--god, it was one of the best periods of my life. I would come to shows with him, I’d watch him perform from backstage and sometimes before bed he’d, well, he’d tell me stories. Honestly, he wasn’t great at actually taking care of kids, he’d forget about me sometimes but even so he would always, always let me know that he cared.”

A small, sympathetic murmur from the back of the crowd.

“Sorry, I’m kind of...going on and on,” Julian says, tugging at the frilly collar of his jacket. “But...the story that he told me, the one that really stands out in my mind even now, it was about the Sun and the Moon. The thing about the Sun and the Moon is that they really like each other’s company. That’s why when you see the Moon glowing at night, it’s actually borrowing the Sun’s light, you know?”

He hears a jovial chuckle from offstage; the stagehands have come to watch him.

“I like that,” whispers Pierre. Letitica nods, and Julian grins gently.

“They’re...stubborn, though, the Sun and Moon. The Sun loves to put on airs and sometimes overlooks the Moon, while the Moon’s painfully shy. Sometimes too shy to even speak to the Sun. That’s why it only comes out at night.”

(Jacques says: “Should I go get--”

“ Ouais .”

The sound of booted footsteps moving further backstage.)

“...And because of just kind of who they are, the Sun and the Moon, even though they like to be together...they're not together very often.

“But there are some days--like eclipses, you know--where they'll be very close to one another. They set aside their differences and just... they just talk. They just spend time together.” Julian lets out a soft laugh. “And it's really nice. My great-grandfather used to tell me that they both really like the theatre. So when I was little, and he would talk about the Sun and the Moon, they'd always be talking about the shows they had seen. I sometimes wondered if they talked about his show.”

Julian licks his dry lips and glances up at the hot white lights above the stage; he blinks, hard, and continues, his voice echoey and practically alien through the microphone:

“And, see, eclipses and times like that...those aren't the only times they're together. You can see the Moon during the day, can't you?”

He waits for a second, and a number of audience members nod and titter affirmatively.

“That's because the Moon likes to see the Sun perform. It sits there really quiet and just watches. And at night, when the Moon comes out to see the now-empty stage that the Sun usually faces, the Sun's right there by it.”

(Jacques’s boots click-clack back to the waiting stagehands. There's another sound too, but the janitor is far too engrossed in his story to acknowledge it.)

“Now I...if you'll let my interrupt myself again, I never knew my great-grandfather's wife.” Julian sees the inquisitive expressions spreading through the crowd and assures them: “This is--it’s relevant, I promise. Almost every time he'd tell me that story, he'd mention her. She was a train conductor. They met while he was traveling around Europe when he was young and...he just thought she was the most wonderful woman in the world.”

He can't keep himself from smiling now. He had never met her, that was true; but Julian had always imagined her to be tall, taller even than his great-grandfather in his youth. She had a severe expression and dark eyes--the only one on that side of his family with dark eyes. (Besides him, of course. His great-grandfather always told Julian that he had her eyes.)

“She wasn't a showperson. She was quiet, disciplined, not suited for a stage, but whenever she could she would accompany him to his performances. She never went up as a volunteer to be hypnotized but she was always there and that, that meant the world to him.” A low “aww” from the crowd--and an incoherent French expletive from Leticia Saltier as a shiny saffron-coated figure puts a hand on one of the ropes at the stage’s edge (and withdraws it just as quickly).

It's John Cameron, adjusting his burgundy tie as he stares in amazement out at the stage...no. At Julian. He's still holding back tears despite the fact that black cobwebs of mascara have already stained themselves into his cheeks. But they don't necessarily seem like tears of distress, Julian thinks as he glances over and catches the host’s reverent gaze.

“I…” It takes Julian a second to collect his thoughts as he pulls his eyes away from John. “He would explain to me that she was kind of the Moon to his Sun. They were so different but they...found this great connection with one another. And that stuck with me for a long time. I always thought 'maybe I could find the Moon to my Sun!’ But it didn't quite work out that way.” He laughs, thinks once more of the boy in the polar bear costume, who wouldn't even give him the time of day after a while, and then lets his eyes wander back to John Cameron. It’s as though the audience isn’t even there, as though it’s just the two of them under the stage lights that feel warmer than usual on that summer night. Only Julian has always been so used to being the one looking on from backstage; it’s so strange that...whatever this is should play out like this. John grips his black velvet suit collar in a gloved hand, lowers his eyes as the smile on his face grows less and less tearful.

“I'm more like the Moon, really.”

Julian lets go of the microphone, and the audience gives him a round of ecstatic applause. Without a hint of hesitancy, he bows. And John, John tears across the stage and grabs Julian, pulling him into a tight embrace.

“Thank you, Julian.”

Muffled, into the host’s shoulder: “Mmhmm!”

And then John does the unthinkable. He pulls back just enough to take Julian's face in his hands, and presses their lips together. He tastes like peppermint and cigarette smoke and smells like vanilla and oh, Julian could cry (but John's done enough crying for the both of them today). He can barely hear the crowd anymore, and it's all too soon that John breaks away, presses his forehead to Julian's before leaning over and taking the microphone.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he says, not a trace of hysteria in his voice. “Julian, the janitor of the Eiffel Tower!”

The applause rises into a near-deafening crescendo; even Augustus Plumb is clapping. John wipes his face in an attempt to regain some semblance of professionalism and takes Julian’s hand, their gloves squeaking against one another. With his free hand, Julian touches John’s face, beckoning him to turn back to him. His fingers trail down to the host’s lapel, where he wraps his fingers in the material and tugs him in, pulling both arms up to wrap them around John’s shoulders.

John laughs into his mouth, a muddled, faux-scandalized “Julian!” escaping his lips before they part again to look back out at the crowd. To their left, Jacques whistles, clapping his hands in the air. It begins to sink in then, for Julian, that he just kissed the host of the Orbiting Human Circus (of the Air) in front of, well...all of France. It’s not just the two of them. They’re on air. If his face wasn’t already burning from the stage lights, it certainly is now. His heart flutters against his ribcage, from astonishment or infatuation he cannot tell. And just as the realization begins to settle like a fat bird on a telephone wire:

“This is John Cameron, dear listeners, and from all of us here at the Orbiting Human Circus to all of you--have a wonderful night.” He squeezes Julian’s upper arm, a lopsided and kiss-drunk grin on his angular face. The beat inside his chest intensifies again and oh, yes , thinks Julian. It’s love, isn’t it? “Say goodnight, Julian.”

“G-goodnight, Julian.”

Chapter Text

“--was absolutely fantastic, how did you think to risk putting him on? The emotion --!”

Host John Cameron places the phone and receiver down on the table beside the sofa as he reclines against the armrest. It’s not even nine-thirty and President Plumb has woken him with the intent of lauding him for last night’s show--a complete success, as luck would have it. He lets Plumb go on for a while, his blustering loud enough to warrant leaving the phone on the table well away from his eardrums.

“...And, well, the kiss was certainly a controversial move but the people simply loved it! Absolutely sen sational , John!”

“Mmh, I agree,” John sighs under his breath. The kettle goes off several feet behind him, and a few seconds later he hears a pair of socked feet scrambling to reach it in time.

“What was that?”

“Oh, some birds outside. They’re rather boisterous at this hour.”

“Is that so?”

John hums in affirmation. He’s not normally up this early on days he doesn’t need to be, and his eyelids droop as the president of the Perpetual Broadcasting Corporation rambles on. At least he isn’t rambling about how John messed something up.

Just as his vision begins to go blurry and he swears Augustus Plumb in the flesh is dancing around his apartment, a hand touches his shoulder.

“John?” He shakes himself to attention, and looks up at...oh, right, of course--Julian. The janitor has on one of his old button-downs, a midnight blue one that he hasn’t worn on air in ages. When did he put that on? Not that he minds, Julian looks very comfortable in it; it’s a little long and sits crooked on his shoulders, open to just below his olive collarbones--

“Y-yes?” Oh, god. He’s got it bad. John covers the speaker of the phone with his hand.

“What kind of tea did you want?”

“Tea? Oh, um...it’s fine. I can make myself coffee in a few…”

“I can do it!” Julian beams at him and John swears he’s going into cardiac arrest.

“You don’t--you don’t need to, you’re the guest…”

“But I want to?”

He feels himself smiling back, albeit much more tiredly than Julian, who bounds back into the kitchen before the water can cool.

Beneath his hand, the phone buzzes.

“--John! John? Are you listening to me?”

“Yes,” he lies. He’s watching Julian sift through the cabinet for a mug he finds pleasing; he settles on one with a dull pink flamingo painted against blue ceramic and drops a teabag into it. “Our ratings?”

“Ah, yes! Higher than they’ve been in a month, it’s spectacular! That janitor of yours, he has a certain... je ne sais quoi about him. People really do love him! Bravo to you for taking that leap of faith.”

Julian, having put a pot of coffee on, pads over and leans on the back of the sofa, cup of tea in hand. Over the line, Plumb grumbles something. John yawns and rolls his eyes.

“Mister President, I really do appreciate your call and everything, but I have...some...matters to attend to so I’m going to have to let you go.”

“Ah, John--”

“Have a good day, Mister President!” And he slams the phone back onto the receiver, sighing. “He can go on and on and on… ”

“And on?” asks Julian from behind his mug. John nods. “...You have a very nice apartment.”

“Thank you, Julian. I’m glad you like it.” He eyes the janitor, taking small sips from his tea (which surely has not fully steeped yet) while perched awkwardly on the back of his couch. “You can, er, sit down, you know. With me.”

Like a rather hesitant stork, Julian straightens up and walks carefully around the sofa, as if trying not to dirty the carpets. He plops down right next to John, sidles up against him and takes another sip of tea. (It definitely hasn’t steeped enough.)

With another yawn, John stretches and drapes an arm over Julian’s shoulders.

“D’you always get up so early?” he asks into the janitor’s bedhead. Beneath his nose, Julian nods. “That’s admirable.”

“It’s not that early,” Julian points out. John, who has not woken up before ten in the last year unless threatened by his head stagehand, huffs.

“Says the one who kept me up.”

“I--!” Julian sputters, pulling the collar of his borrowed shirt up over his cheeks with his free hand. “You wanted to know--”

“Oh, it’s fine.You were a welcome distraction.”

He relaxes a bit, face still ruddy with embarrassment as he leans back against John’s side. And John, suddenly very aware of the janitor pressed up against him, messy-haired and smelling faintly of earl grey tea, asks:

“Julian, can I...kiss you?”

Julian in turn tilts his head back to better look at him, a curious expression crossing his face. John knows it’s almost hypocritical to ask now, now that the janitor has spent the night lying in his bed as he explained to John how the two young women who ran off from the show together told him that it simply was not their destiny.

And now he sits comfortably on his couch, in one of John's old shirts at that. But it’s just the two of them now; there’s no audience before them, no president on the line, no performers bidding them their best wishes as they walk out the door--and in the morning quiet John feels far too self-conscious for his own good.

“You didn’t ask last night.”

John’s face is hot all of a sudden.

“I don’t...suppose I did.”

“Why are you asking now, then?”

He’s so sincere about it that John is at a loss for words for a solid minute and a half.

“Because...well, Julian I suppose it’s because I...like you. A lot.”

It comes out far lamer than he had hoped. Julian is quiet for a while, and John worries for a moment that he said the wrong thing--oh, how could he have? He’s a showman, for god’s sake he should know how to talk--

“I like you a whole lot too, John.”

“Well, that’s a relief. I was worried I might have to turn my affections to some other member of the Eiffel Tower staff who’d be bold enough to try and commandeer my show and have the audacity to be good at it.”

He jokes, but it’s a genuine concern.

“So like...Jacques?”

“You really think Jacques would be good in front of a crowd?”

Julian shrugs, failing to suppress a chuckle at the thought of Jacques attempting to host the Orbiting Human Circus. His laughter rises and it's soft and lilting, like chimes almost, and John finds himself drawn into laughing with him.

“And, um. Yes,” says Julian.

“What?”

“You can kiss me. If you want. Since we like each other so much.”

John regards him carefully; black, wavy hair falls across his face, framing the smile that works its way across his features, and the smile itself warms the host’s heart. It’s the nearest thing to a promise, if a promise can be made without words. And John swears it’s like he’s never felt loneliness in his whole damn life, the entire forty-some-odd years of it, because of the way Julian’s looking at him.

He leans in, presses his lips to Julian’s temple and pulls him closer. Julian hums gently, setting the mug of tea down to balance on his lap. John huffs against his dark cheek.

“If you spill that on my couch--”

“I know, I’ll have to pay for it.”

John reaches over with his free arm, plucks the likely lukewarm cup of tea off the janitor’s legs, and sets it on the side table. In the kitchen, the coffee machine clicks.

“Do you want that?” Julian asks.

“Maybe later,” says John, now with both arms around Julian, chin resting atop his head. “Thank you, Julian.”

“For what?”

He opens his mouth, and closes it again because he can’t really say for what. He looks out the window, at the fat little sparrows that have seated themselves on the wires outside, small winged shadows against the cornflower blue of the cloudless sky.

Julian shifts against him, raising his head to brush his nose against the underside of his chin. And he’s warm and very much real.

“Just...thank you, I suppose,” says John.

“Oh,” Julian murmurs, settling in his arms. “Well, then thank you too.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Sure you did, you--you believed in me.”

“...Present tense, love.”

Julian turns over, looks back up at him.

“Believe,” John continues. “I believe in you. Currently am believing in you. It’s...like you said. It’s how you look at things. If you...really love something. ‘S how you can find out if a--if a mouse can foxtrot.”

“Tap-dance.”

“Well, yes.”

“Or if a janitor can host a radio show.”

John smiles again, resting his forehead against Julian’s.

“Yes. Just like that.”

And there’s a silent agreement that neither the host nor the janitor really cares much if the coffee in the kitchen burns or not.

Chapter Text

At the promise of a dropped bit of bread, Norma the juggling terrier wriggles under the cafe chair for a proper investigation. Chief stagehand Leticia Saltier watches her endeavor from across the table in bemusement.

“I was thinking about it,” says her fellow stagehand Jacques as he gives the little dog's leash a gentle tug. “And would it have been, ya know, immoral to take bets on the two of 'em?”

The next table over, François interjects:

“That woulda been kinda mean.”

“I was asking our superior , Franky,” Jacques quips. Leticia snorts into her espresso, still watching Norma explore below the table.

“Tell me, vraiment , Jacques, would there be much of a point?” The three stagehands shrug at one another, conceding the point for the most part.

“If anything,” continues Leticia. “You all would be paying me anyway.”

“What makes you so sure of that?” asks Pierre.

“Did I not tell you all that they liked one another far too much to keep from making a move?”

“Mmh, you said it was destiny , Leticia.”

“ Destiné ,” she corrects, leaning over as Norma makes her way over and curls up by her ankles. “Was I wrong?”

“What, you a fortune teller now?” Jacques asks. In some attempt to coax Norma back to him, he drops a handful of sandwich bread onto the sidewalk at his feet. No response from the dozy terrier.

Leticia shrugs, perhaps just to entertain the idea, and takes another sip of her drink.

“Try that trick out on the show sometime,” suggests François, taking the joke and running with it like a robber out of an improv club. “Though you might hafta compete with Julian from here on out.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it,” she laughs, waving a hand. “ Monsieur Cameron will be the one who must share the spotlight now.”

“Awh, Tish,” Jacques says. “You mean you’re never goin’ out on stage to host ever again?”

“ Malheureusement, non , I am not paid quite enough to do that for our dear host.”

“You was pretty good out there!” Pierre adds.

“You all are too kind to me. But no, I leave that up to John and the janitor, if he would have him.” She hears François and Jacques murmur something about John “having him indeed” and rolls her eyes at their crude joke. “I, for one, think there could be worse fates for all of us. Julian included.”

“He did make quite an impression, huh?” says François.

“Yeah,” admits Jacques. “Real nice to listen to. And I gotta say, awful nice to see him ‘n Mister Cameron all cheerful-like like that.”

A mirthful chorus of “softie!” from the other two stagehands echoes in the wake of Jacques’s statement, but Leticia just grins again and glances down at Norma, who is now fast asleep despite the bustle of the cafe and the noise of the street.