Work Text:
“This is awful.” Hotch turned up his nose.
“What? No. No.”
“Yes.”
“No.” Anderson shook his head. “It’s not.”
“It really, really is. The acting is horrendous. The special effects, and I use that term loosely, aren't very special, and the plot is ridiculous. We’ve been watching this for God knows how many hours and I still have no idea what's going on.”
“You're not paying enough attention.” Anderson said.
“Babe, I don’t think Einstein could pay enough attention. This is bad.”
“I expected more from you than this.”
“You couldn’t possibly have.” Hotch looked at him. He was wearing his ultra-serious face.
“I did. Maybe I shouldn’t have but I did. I mean look at Alexandra Moltke…aren't you at least mesmerized by Victoria’s doe-eyed vapidity? The girls they got to replace her later just never did that look justice. They had to write her out of the show. Just look at her; they say she's the reason Claus tried to kill Sunny.”
“Who the hell is Claus? I was really trying to pay attention but I definitely missed Claus. I don’t think I've ever in my life watched something so intently and still have no idea what's happening onscreen. This is worse than the time that my father thought I’d actually get The Third Man when I was 10. OK, nothing was worse than that but this is close.”
“Claus von Bulow is a real person, Aaron…he's not a character on Dark Shadows.” Anderson said.
“Well at least I know I'm not crazy. I didn’t see a Claus?”
“You didn’t see a Claus.” Anderson shook his head.
“Who's Claus von Bulow?” he asked.
“Are you trying to distract me from the show?”
“Yes and no.” Hotch nodded and then shook his head. “That’s a strange name; I want to know.”
“OK.” Anderson turned off the DVD and ignored his boyfriend’s sigh of relief. He knew it wasn’t easy to introduce people to the stuff he liked but a few of his friends took to it well. Hotch had done that for a few things. Anderson planned to scratch Dark Shadows from the list.
Maybe he would prefer the reboot…it was hard to deny the dark hotness of Ben Cross, circa 1990. “Claus von Bulow was this rich Danish guy raised in Britain. I have no idea why he was rich but he was. He dated hot socialites and models and like in the 50s and all the women wanted him. It must’ve been the accent.
“Anyway, he married Sunny, who was the toast of the New York social scene.” Anderson did a jazz hands move. “She was divorced with two children and issues to spare and the marriage was tough but they kept going and then had another child. And the other kids never liked Claus but whatever because blended families can be the pits so they would just go skiing in Switzerland or back to boarding school when they got peeved. So Claus stepped out and Sunny stepped out and it was like socialite musical chairs and then Claus met Alexandra.
“She was the daughter of Count Moltke of Sweden. Alexandra was gorgeous and Claus was smitten and this time he was gonna leave Sunny. But Sunny was messed up and she did drugs to stay thin and was a hypoglycemic who loved sweets. So she went into insulin shock and ended up in the hospital and people were giving Claus total side eye thinking at the least that he was her drug dealer because his name was on the scripts she used. And then a few months after that, over Christmas of 79 I think but it might be later, Sunny slipped into an insulin-induced coma and never woke up.”
“What do you mean she never woke up?” Hotch asked.
“She stayed in a coma until her death in 2008.” Anderson replied. “Everyone thought Claus attempted to murder her so he could be with Alexandra. If they would’ve been divorced a pre-nup would’ve left him with like $150,000 instead of like $10 million. So he was tried and convicted of attempted murder. He immediately appealed and Alan Dershowitz basically tore the case apart bit by bit and got Claus off on all the charges. He was found not guilty in two more trials.”
“Seriously? He walked?”
“He walked tall. He got the money, he got the girl though not Alexandra because she couldn’t take that kind of heat, and he got the notoriety. People are still debating today whether he was guilty or innocent. Some people think Sunny was her own worst enemy and may have even been trying to commit suicide and messed up. A book and movie was written about the case, Reversal of Fortune. Jeremy Irons won an Oscar for playing Claus. As usual, Glenn Close was overlooked for her role as Sunny…she was phenomenal.”
“Wow.” Hotch was breathless. “I want to know more.”
“I know right? It’s one of the craziest stories ever. If I was a filmmaker, and I wanted to be in my early teens, I would be so peeved that someone made that movie before me. I mean you couldn’t make the insanity up. We can watch the movie together next weekend; it really is phenomenal.”
“Do you have the book?”
“Do I have the book?” Anderson countered his question and laughed. “I only have a ratty copy that I've read six times and an autographed one from Mr. Dershowitz himself. I can let you borrow the ratty copy. I bet you're going to love it. Also, we can watch the Dark Shadows reboot next weekend. I think you'll like it more than the original.”
“Um…”
Anderson laughed again, leaning his head on Hotch’s shoulder. He knew it was going to be a hard sell but that didn’t mean he would give up. When he started kissing Hotch’s neck, his boyfriend squirmed and then sighed.
“It’s darker, sexier, and I'm sure you're going to love it.” He murmured between kisses. “It’s not my favorite but it has some qualities…like Ben Cross with no shirt on.”
“Keep talking.” Hotch whispered, wrapping his arms around Anderson.
“Then we’ll watch The Third Man.”
“No!” Hotch laughed, pushing him away some. “I like Orson Welles just as much as the next guy, I guess, but no.”
“A lot of people think he's the best director ever. Citizen Kane tops at least 20 different lists of Best Film ever made.”
“I think it’s one of those things where people didn’t actually see it but enough people said it’s cool so others jump on the bandwagon.” Hotch said. “Like The Great Gatsby, Pride and Prejudice, and Casablanca.”
“I love The Great Gatsby, but the book not the movies.” Anderson said. “My mother and aunt love Casablanca so much that it made me hate Ingrid Bergman for years. I had to discover her myself in other things to see her awesomeness. That and she had an affair and was ostracized from Hollywood but then instituted her own comeback, which was virtually unheard of in those days. Did you know she died on her birthday? How insanely sad is that?”
“I adore you.” Hotch laughed and kissed Anderson's cheek.
“Thanks.”
“You just know all of these things and you spout them out and every time I hear them I just want to hear more. I wish I knew as much as you.”
“You know things…you're one of the smartest people I know. My stuff is pop culture stuff, derived from a lonely childhood. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”
“You're not lonely anymore.” Hotch said.
“I have my good days and my bad days.” Anderson said.
“My childhood was no great shakes, though I don’t want to compare and contrast. I buried myself in books.”
“For me it was movies and music.” Anderson said. “I loved books too but Amanda and I spent like a year doing nothing but watching movies from writers and directors who were admired by everyone or just by us. We didn’t even understand all of them but we soaked it up like a sponge. All of the places we were going, even the sad and fucked up places, were better than where we usually were in our heads.”
“We’re going to be OK one day.” Hotch turned and looked at Anderson.
They were sitting on the carpet because they knew there was a better chance of actually watching something. Once in bed there was little chance of the couple doing anything but hooking up. Hotch and Anderson liked doing a lot of things together and that included sex. They liked sex a lot; a combination of 18 year old hormones and off the charts chemistry.
“I'm OK right now.” Anderson wrapped his arms around Hotch’s neck. “How are you feeling, Baseball Boy?”
“I really like that silly nickname.” When Hotch smiled, his dimples came out to play. He leaned to kiss Anderson's lips. Anderson straddled his lap. He ran his hands through Hotch’s dark hair. “You don’t have to go home soon, do you?”
“I told my mom I’d be back later. She told me to be back in the house like I had some sense. So I'm thinking sometime between midnight and sunrise. You wanna cuddle?”
“Absolutely, yes, I wanna cuddle.” Hotch nodded.
“You wanna kiss?” Anderson smiled.
“Mmm hmm, I was thinking that would be nice too.”
“You wanna watch one more episode of Dark Shadows?”
“No!” Hotch laughed, his laughter cut off by another blistering kiss. “I have to draw some lines in the sand with you, Mister. Let that be the first one.”
“Let it be the last one for tonight.” Anderson said.
That was perfectly fine by Hotch. His parents were gone for another weekend; off doing whatever it was they did on their weekends away. He loved and hated being alone at the same time. It was much easier when Anderson was there with him even if he didn’t often get to spend the night. Hotch wanted to hold on as long as he could and it felt like, for the first time in his life, that the person he was with wanted to do the same. Of all the feelings Anderson evoked in him that was his absolute favorite.
***