Work Text:
Jessica Chastain is, weirdly enough, the first celebrity Jared bumps into as soon as he arrives at the Golden Globes. He feels a bit nervous and, he'll admit, a bit cranky; he woke up that morning feeling inexplicably old. Jared doesn't react well to old, Shannon would know that. So now here he is, a bit late and still not ready, facing this -this goddess that's smiling at him, gorgeous and a little bit intimidating. Jared doesn't get intimidated at all, but there is something powerful about certain women that makes him feel almost small, sometimes. Jared loves women. Jared would like very much for the world to be ruled by women.
//He remembers a night many years ago, in the desert, Colin and him talking when everybody else had been sleeping. Colin was high and a bit drunk, but he was babbling about his mother and his sisters and how he didn't know anyone that strong. Jared was hanging off his lips, staring at him unabashedly and then piping in with his own thoughts, his admiration for his own mother. He remembers how Colin had grinned, apparently pleased that they shared that feeling, and proceeded talking about women's greatness before tearing off their clothes and celebrating also manhood their own way. It had been a good night.//
Jessica smiles at him, greets him pleasantly, and all Jared can think about when he kisses her cheeks is so, how was filming with Colin?
“You look very beautiful,” he says instead, and she grins at him, “You look very handsome yourself. Love the braid!”
He bows, smiling. “Good luck for your nomination,” he says, the perfect gentleman; she thanks him and begins to walk away, but before he can even register his mouth opening, he's already saying “Can't wait to see Miss Julie, by the way.”
She turns around, apparently surprised, and Jared gives her a faint grin. It is a bit of a common knowledge in Hollywood, how Colin and Jared were, a secret maybe not so well kept as everybody feigns. That doesn't mean everything they do has to come back to that, but, well. Everybody still seems to think so, and Jessica smiles at him, a careful expression on her gorgeous face. “I think you're gonna love it, or at least I hope so.”
Jared sighs internally, because the two hours in which he watches a new movie of Colin's are always both the best and the worst of his year. He does expect a bit more of a sting with this one, because he knows that watching Colin being madly in love with someone else, even if he won't be tecnically Colin, always brings out something ugly out of himself.
He is used to be the one Colin is always mad about, for better or for worse, after all.
They bump into each other, and Colin feels like he's suddenly internally bleeding.
Sacha has just done his hair, and he's now pacing in front of the mirror, squinting at himself and checking his suit. He doesn't want to look bad, but even with his make-up done, there are still visible dark circles around his eyes, and that just won't do. He doesn't need anyone to know that he lost sleep thinking about tonight, because he can just imagine everyone will be as careful as ever with him, like every time he and Jared are in the same place.
Seriously, he loves a lot of people from his work, cherishes lots of his fellow actors, but he certainly regrets them knowing a bit too much from time to time.
Which is why he's firmly set on staying here for no more than two hours.
He suddenly needs a bit of air, so he goes in the hallway, and of fucking course.
Jared is there.
Jared is there, dressed in a white suit, hair tied up in a goddamn braid.
Why can't life be fair.
When his ex lover turns around and sees him, Colin feels his breath taken away from him, and he can't help but look back, feeling suddenly helpless.
Jared's eyes have always been so blue.
He doesn't know what to do with himself, so doesn't move when Jared approaches him. He has a wide smile on his face -he's an Oscar winning actor, of course- but his steps are careful, almost as he doesn't want to scare Colin away.
Too late for that. Colin is scared to death, but his feet seems to be firmly planted to the ground.
“Hi,” Jared says, quietly, eyes so bright.
“Hi.” Colin replies, clears his troath, looks away for a moment. No one seems to be paying attention to them, but he knows better.
“Your suit is beautiful” Jared offers, and Colin nods, “Thank you. Yours, too.” He falters a bit, noticing the red rose tucked on his front. “Very elegant.”
Jared follows his gaze without a doubt, because his mouth eases in a softer curve. “Hey, I meant. You look good.”
Do I? Colin wants to snort, but refrain himself. He knows he looks old and too serious to make some good entertainment tonight. He'll be lucky if he remembers to crack one joke on stage tonight, just to remember everyone that he hadn't always been this pathetic. That there had, once, been a time when he deserved to be loved by them all.
The thought is risking to choke him up, so he gives a sharp nod, then decides he has had enough.
“If you'll excuse me, I was just going outside for a minute.”
The look on Jared's face says that he surely wouldn't want to excuse him, but he offers him another smile nonetheless, murmurs “Of course, I'll see you,” and Colin is off with another court nod.
He certainly does need air now more than he did before.
He doesn't know he ended up like this, pressed up in Colin's space, but somehow there he is.
It is quite a challenge to gain some privacy at the fucking Golden Globes, but he and Colin had always had a knack for that, for shoving each other and locking themselves in every small room available.
A minute prior Colin had found him, eyes wild, and the next here he is, pinning the Irish man against a wall and breathing in his expensive scent.
“Will we ever stop doing this,” Colin laughs, a bit choked up, a bit self-deprecatingly, and Jared fiercely hates when Colin loathes himself, but unfortunately can understand him all too well.
“When you won't want me anymore, probably,” Jared admits, tightening his arms around Colin, because as much as he knows that their current relationship is really something toxic, he can't think of himself not wanting Colin, ever.
Colin gapes at him, looks like he wants to say the same exact thing back to him, but apparently thinks better of it and brings their lips together.
It is, as always, almost to good for Jared's senses, which are suddenly so full of Colin he feels weak at the knees.
Colin's mustache feels funny on his skin, but Jared still wouldn't trade this for anything else in the world. He missed it so much, feeling this man against him, feeling the weight of his body and of his feelings at once.
He feels like Colin is an extension of his body even on his better days without him, but this, this feels like all that soulmate stuff Plato talked about.
He wants both to smile and hide his face in the curve of Colin's neck, cry a little. Everything always seems to fall back to Ancient Greece, between them.
“My love, my love, my love" Jared murmurs, his hands on Colin's cheeks as his lips touch everywhere they can. Colin can't speak, is squeezing his eyes shut while desperately clinging to Jared's wrists, lips slightly parted, breath laboured. "I love you, god" Jared's voice sounds a bit broken, and Colin missed it. Missed every shade of it. Secretely loves that he is the one affecting it so much right now, secretly cherishes how desperate they can only get when the other is involved. "So many people out there," Jared nudges a cheekbone with his nose and Colin cracks his eyes open for a second, "How come the only one I see is still you, after all these years?"
Colin -- Colin whimpers. He's not sure what is happening to him, why he can't speak or look at Jared, but he wants to feel him, is what it is, so he surges forward and captures Jared's lips, and it's not the mouth of a singer, not the mouth of an Oscar winner actor. It's just Jared, isn't it? The man he fell in love with too many years ago.
Jared parts his lips for him, and the inside of his mouth is soft and hot and Colin grips his braid with a hand and pulls a little, fighting the tears he can feel forming behind his eyelids. Jared exhales in his mouth, shaking a little, as affected as Colin is, but Colin can feel the curve of a tiny smile on his skin, and. God, he feels so much for this man. It's like he can't contain it, like he was never able to to begin with, and a tear slip out of his own accord, and then another, and another. Jared is smiling a bit more now, and Colin would snort, would say of course you'd be pleased that I cry for you, but he can just try to fold himself a bit more in Jared's arms.
When his tears turn into quiet sobbing, though, it becomes a different matter.
"Colin, you okay, yeah?" Jared sounds concerned, and well. "I feel so weak" Colin can't help but reply, because if they're going to see each other once a year, might as well be honest on that occasion. Colin swore to be honest with Jared a long time ago. "Why's that, baby?" Jared's voice is soothing, caring, "Just for a lil bit of crying? Don't be silly, it's just me." But that's the whole point, isn't it? Even though Jared is kissing his tears away, he still is the one who put them there. "You make me so vulnerable" Colin whispers, and god, would anyone ever think about their relationship and imagine this.
Jared cracks a smile. "I wish I didn't still consider it the hottest thing ever," he says, right before he kisses him, and it's apologetic, something to say hey, i know, sorry for making you cry. What Jared could never apologize for, though, is affecting him so much. Because it's something Jared always got high on; being an attention seeker by nature, he's used by now to holding everyone's interest wherever he goes. However, there's always been something about Colin, something inside Jared that ordered him to do anything to keep Colin's attention tied to him. It might be the fact that Jared had been completely gone for him from the first time they spoke, but. And sure, seeing the person you love most in the world cry is not pleasant, but their relationship is far from healthy at this point, and Jared is honestly just glad that he is still able to make Colin feel so much.
Colin almost chokes on a sob, when it turns in a laugh, "I want to get you naked so much right now. Like, so much naked." "Sounds like poetry to me," Jared smiles, albeit a bit breathlessly, what with how he's just shoved a leg between Colin's. "We have to go out though," the Irish man says, and it's a marvel how the desperation seems to have left is voice, leaving it soft and gentle, even with how hips move forward for a moment to meet Jared's. "I know," sighs Jared, "let me just," he presses against Colin more firmly and Colin shakes his head a bit but lets him, squeezing his arms around him in a hug that Jared will probably never forget. Not that he's likely to forget anything about Colin, his experience can say.
Trying to greet people and go on with his night as nothing happened is one of the most difficult things Colin ever did.
He managed to get a table that was a bit hidden away, out of the spotlight, and even though everyone around him has apparently decided to leave him be, he still tries to make conversation, if only to be polite and try to shove Jared out of his head.
It's overall a very difficult night, though. He is very tired when the ceremony ends, and he has no plans to stay for the after party.
Jared had left him with the promise of finding him again when it was all over, and Colin had smiled a bit shakily, not believing him and not even knowing if he wanted Jared to do it or not.
After all, this always happens when they see each other. Something occurs, but it's never enough. Nothing ever follows.
So Colin tells himself to control his heart, and goes to the airport. He's very ready for a night of self pity, sleepless hours to feel sorry for himself.
Which is why he freezes when he hears someone shouting his name behind him.
“Jared?” he whispers, turning around, and sure enough, there he is, waving from his car. He drove here. Who even told him where he was? He must have followed him immediately. Somebody honks behind him and Jared pulls a bit more off the road, giving the other driver a middle finger, and Colin feels a smile threaten to take over his face even as he wants to keep looking as surprised as he feels. Not even a little charmed.
“What are you doing here?” he says, voice full of confusion. Looking inside the car, Colin sees that Jared is still dressed in his white suit, whereas Colin had changed into a more casual attire to travel.
“I'm finding you again,” Jared simply says, looking at him with a quiet gaze that says I know why you didn't wait for me, and I understand it. “Get inside,” he says next, and Colin cracks a grin at that, wanting to make an innuendo but choosing to just follow the orders. Jared rolls his eyes at him like he knows what he's thinking anyway, and well, Colin's not surprised.
“Where are we going?” he asks, and if Jared hadn't expected Colin's quiet acceptance, he doesn't show it.
“Home.”
Colin in his house is something that Jared dreams of constantly. Colin in his bed is something that will haunt him day and night, if he doesn't manage to keep him there.
"Remember the beard I had going on for Hephaestion? This is nothing," he says, and Colin honest to god chuckles, pressing his cheek to it, and Jared feels like they are younger again, back then, or even earlier. He feels like a teenager, honestly, and the thought makes him ache. Teenage Colin, dear lord. That would have been such a dream. He doesn't feel old at all, though, when this Colin bites playfully at his jaw, beard and all, saying "Well, yeah, but that was softer, somehow." "Your ass was softer, somehow" he barks, just to say something in return, and Colin's eyes, well. They just sparkle with happiness and mischief, and he is so devastatingly beautiful. Radiant. "I don't think you have something against my arse" he says, just before touching Jared's cock with his fingertips, "but i feel you would like to." Jared groans, "You are the worst," giving out a brief laugh but gripping Colin's neck to attack his mouth nonetheless.
Hours later, Colin is asleep, and Jared is watching him do so. He's not particularly tired, even if his body is pleasantly aching (he would like to thank whoever made Colin decide to do yoga). He knows he has a few texts on his phone, probably Shannon asking about his night, but Jared's right hand is holding Colin's left one and they are facing each other, so close even though Jared still wants to squeeze closer, find his way into Colin's skin and never have to crawl out. There's a dim light coming in through the window, allowing Jared to study his lover's face; he feels almost pathetic with how he doesn't want to close his eyes to drink every detail in. He also hates that moustache infinitely less, now that it has been on his skin.
//"Do you purposely seek an Hephaestion look for everytime we see each other?” Colin had asked him before, and didn't even give Jared a chance to answer; “You don't have to remind me of anything, Jared. Like I don't think about it every day, how good we were.”
Jared had shaken his head, sucked a mark on Colin's throat. “Don't want you to be that good with anyone else” he muttered, almost ashamed with the intensity of his selfishness.
Colin had gripped his air, now loose, and brought him closer to his chest. “You ruined me for everybody else and you know it,” and Jared hears the 'you bastard' that goes unsaid, but is glad Colin decided not to say it, even though he'd have every right to do so.
Jared had been calling him all sorts of sweet things tonight, because he can't believe Colin let him the first time, knows how a simple 'darling' from himself is able to make a crack on Colin's careful façade, and it is a bit addictive, undoing Colin with 'love's and 'sweetheart's.
“I am your love” Colin had murmured matter-of-factly before taking Jared's cock in his mouth, and Jared had almost come to the spot, refusing to stop whispering sweet nothings to him after that.//
“You are,” he whispers now, nuzzling Colin's cheek with his nose, unable to stop watching him. He doesn't know what the morning will bring, but he's never been so certain of anything in his life, has been for longer than ten years now. “You are love to me.”