Work Text:
It had long grown dark in the studio. A single island of light appeared in the darkness, interrupted only by the outline of the man busy at work.
Frank Lloyd Wright.
He swept away the fresh pencil shavings as he twirled his pencil across the page in great sweeping arcs. The museum of non-objective painting in New York City. It would be its own work of art.
“Are you planning on using concrete there, old man?” A voice whispered over his shoulder.
He started and whirled around. Nothing. There was no one but the darkness around him.
“Perhaps I should end for the day,” Frank said to himself and the drawing on his desk. “It is late.”
He snapped off the lamp that illuminated his workstation and was plunged into darkness. His eyes cast across the space of his studio looking for anything that may have been out of place as he went to retrieve his cape and porkpie hat.
“It almost looks…modern” the voice whispered again. “Almost like mine.”
“Philip Johnson” Frank hissed, “Show yourself.”
A pair of round spectacles flashed in the trace moonlight as Philip turned towards Frank. “My my my, working late I see,” Phillip said strutting towards the much older man. “Anything I might be interested in?”
“Come to steal my work?” Frank said backing up, “You haven’t had an original idea your whole life.”
“Why do you insist on trying to hurt me?” Philip said with a sneer, “You know how much I have always respected you.”
“That backhanded compliment about being the greatest 19th-century architect?” Frank spat as his back made contact with the wall of his studio.
Philips pinned him in, leaving only inches of space between them. “But Frankie darling…the back of my hand is so soft” Phillip cooed as he caressed the back of his hand down the side of Frank’s face.
Frank hated that he had leaned into the last swoop of Philip's hand. Hated that he could feel the desire in his belly like a hot and dangerous snake coiling inside him. Philip was his nemesis, a sworn New Yorker, and everything that Frank hated about the direction of modern architecture.
“No!” Frank insisted, “I will not fall to your devilish tricks.”
“So you’d admit it then?” Phillips said bringing his face impossibly close to Frank’s.
“Admit to what?” Frank whispered, and Philip was so close that he could feel his own breath reflect off the other man.
“That you’re falling for me.”
The words tickled over Frank’s face in the wave of his breath and their meaning sent an electric shock down his spine. The truth zinged around him in an angry swarm of bees and he did the only thing that came to his mind. He closed the gap.
The sensation of Philip's lips on Frank’s felt like it reverberated through his body like when a sledgehammer contacts cement. His nerve endings rang out with the contact, and even in the silence, it was deafening.
Who knew how long it took for Frank to come to his senses but like a hand stilling a rung bell, he stopped reverberating all at once.
“No!” He yelled out, his spine snapping straight. Cold sweat ran down his face and it took him a minute to realize that he was not in his studio but sitting up in bed.
“It was just a dream,” he said, putting a hand over his pounding heart. “It wasn’t real, just a dream”
He laughed to himself and turned to his companion, before thinking better of it. He didn’t have to wake Olga, let her sleep. It had only been a nightmare. They could laugh about it in the morning.
He settled himself back onto his pillow and found himself gazing out at the surrounding woods….Woods? There weren't thickly wooded areas in Scottsdale, and even if there were he should not be able to see them on all 4 sides.
With dawning horror he realized…he was in a glass house.