Work Text:
1970
He sat at Lukas’s kitchen aisle, staring, unable to keep the scowl on his face hidden away. The countertop was smooth, polished, cold beneath his skin, but he didn’t feel it. The sun came through the tall windows and coated the room in an orange haze, but he didn’t see it. His mind buzzed softly with the words that had slipped out of Lukas’s mouth moments before. Mathias was numb. He was nothing.
“What?” he whispered to the glass cabinet against the wall.
“Do you want me to say it again?” Lukas asked. He was leaning against the countertop opposite Mathias, spinning a ring or two on his fingers, idly waiting for Mathias to finish processing.
“No.”
Lukas kept quiet, spinning the rings until one fell off and rolled a few feet across the tiled floor. It clanged against the surface as it circled and then lay flat, and silent. Mathias glanced at Lukas’s hands. They were trembling, ever so slightly. That never used to happen before. Was he nervous, or was he high off something? It wasn’t always easy to tell.
“I wanted to tell you before the tabloids did, that’s all,” Lukas stated blandly.
When Lukas invited him over, he thought nothing of it. He expected champagne, or wine, and quiet conversation on the patio. Discussion of their latest projects, jokes of their coworkers or agents. Maybe the opportunity to stay the night, if he was lucky.
He didn’t expect the news that Lukas was now engaged to Natalya Arlovskaya, their wedding date set for late September.
Natayla Arlovskaya, the rising femme fatale and Lukas’s co-star in his next film. She caused an uproar when she first joined the scene about three years ago, if not for her dry and blunt answers to interview questions, then for her strict upbringing in rural Eastern Europe. She knew English well, but refused to be rid of her accent, and often spoke to her assistants in Belarusian. At first, people demanded she not be given roles, but soon enough, she was captivating audiences across America.
She’d been in a few films with Lukas before, playing mostly smaller, less recognized roles. After starring in a few of her own movies, she was back to working with Lukas again, alongside him now. Mathias had nothing against her. She fought hard to get where she was, and she was a damn brilliant actress.
“I don’t understand,” said Mathias.
“What isn’t there to understand?” Lukas asked. “It’s business. It’s for our careers. Besides, I’m getting too old to be a bachelor, and so are you.”
“I’m sorry?”
He sighed, exasperated. Lukas stared down at the countertop, then up at Mathias. There was an unspoken pain behind his eyes, something that Mathias couldn’t decipher. It pleaded with him, and he wanted nothing more than to forget that moment, to go back in time and have none of this happening to him.
“I’m not saying I don’t…love you,” Lukas began, his voice trembling like his hands, “But we have to be careful. We are not as young as we once were. People are beginning to wonder, and I don’t want to be put in that position. I don’t want either of us to be put in that position.”
“And marrying…her is your solution?” Mathias asked.
“Yes! People won’t ask questions if I’m married–”
“Who are these ‘people?’”
“Oh, come on. Don’t tell me you’ve never had your ear to the ground. The media. The writers who see us everywhere together, all the time. The producers who scoff at your name on the cast list and make comments under their breath. That spreads farther than you think.”
Mathias can’t say he’s never noticed these things before, but he never believed it was cause for concern. People accused celebrities of things all the time, and it hardly stopped them from pursuing their daily activities. But what Lukas said was dangerous. It was legitimate. He still couldn’t shake off the facts of the matter, though.
“I understand what you’re saying. Really, I do. But imagine it from my position. Imagine being told that the person you dedicate your entire life to is engaged to another, all so suddenly, without even being so much as asked.”
Lukas stopped toying with his rings and instead began tugging on loose strands of hair, until the ends became knotted and messy. His next words were strained, and Mathias nearly didn’t understand him. “Believe me when I say I don’t want to hurt you. But if they knew anything about us, it would jeopardize everything. They like us for our looks, for our money. If they knew something about us that they didn’t like, we would disappear. It’s a cruel industry. We have to fit into its mold, or else we’re nothing.”
“But we’re already nothing if we let them do this to us,” Mathias bargained. “We can’t just live fake lives forever.”
“I thought you were good at acting,” Lukas spit. In another context, it would have been a joke, but here, it was just cutthroat. “We can’t just give up this life.”
A long moment of silence passed between them. Mathias looked out the window, to the large pool that glistened under the summer heat. “I could,” he said, refusing to look at Lukas. He cleared his throat, determined to not allow his voice to waver. “I would, for you.”
He didn’t have to turn his head to know that Lukas wouldn’t look at him either. He was back to the rings, and Mathias heard the metal rubbing against his skin as he rotated them.
“You do that, then.”
…
A week and a half later, there was a ferocious pounding on his door. It was two in the morning.
Mathias was still awake, having just returned home from an outing with a potential new director. Some up-and-coming big-shot, so he’d heard, although he didn’t quite listen to the stories and proposals and pitches that the guy went on about. It had been dinner and then drinks, with a handful of other stars and big names in the local industry. Frankly, Mathias had forgotten who all was there by his second drink.
He was still in his suit, his bowtie loosened, hair coming undone. And the pounding. It wouldn’t stop, and at first Mathias couldn’t tell if it was all in his head, as the alcohol and sour mood he’d been hiding had been taking turns playing football with his brain.
He blinked, and the room became clearer for a moment, and he sobered up just enough to not trip on his way to the door.
He opened it, and there was Lukas, mere inches away. Expectant. Like he was on their little hiking trip two years prior.
Mathias said nothing, just waited. Lukas’s eyes drifted past him, into his home. “Can I come in?” he asked, his voice softer than he’d heard it in years.
Still, he said nothing, but he moved aside and invited him in with the not-so-swift move of his hand. He couldn’t deny him. They were still friends, or supposed to be friends, at any rate. They haven’t spoken since Lukas broke the news to him, but it would be suspicious if they suddenly stopped talking. Almost as suspicious as…
“Do you want to sit down?” Lukas asked him.
“What do you want?” Mathias replied. It came out bitter, harsh.
“You’re swaying,” Lukas commented, eyeing him carefully.
“I’m fine,” he bit back, grabbing the wall for safe measure. Maybe he was drunker than he thought. “Just an event with some folk. I don’t have a problem, like you.”
He saw how Lukas’s gaze faltered for a second, leaving his eyes and taking hold of the expensive plant in the corner of the room, insulted by the remark. It was rude. Lowly. Malicious, even. He regretted it the second he said it, but it was too late to take it back.
Lukas’s eyes locked back on him almost as soon as they’d diverted. “I don’t have a problem,” he stated plainly.
“Why are you here?”
“Because I ended things with Natalya.”
“What?”
“The wedding is off. I wanted you to know. I’m not getting married.”
“...Hold on,” Mathias told him, and he wavered over to the kitchen, filled a glass with water and chugged it as fast as he could. He couldn’t be drunk for this; he had to hear everything lucidly. In an instance, Lukas was at his side, hand on his back as he watched more water disappear into his mouth, and some escape down his chin.
After three glasses and a coughing fit, he convinced himself that he was back to normal, and he willed himself to speak.
“Why?” he asked.
Lukas looked around the kitchen, the one that he had basically designed for him when he spontaneously decided to renovate his house. It looked very similar to Lukas’s own, with the smooth granite and gilded fixtures. The chandelier was the exact same as in Lukas’s house, and he had intentionally had it installed so Lukas would feel more at home whenever he visited.
“Because I love you,” Lukas said. “And I realize that I was wrong to have gone behind your back and made a decision that impacted both of us so heavily. I never loved her. I never loved anyone besides you. I was just scared, and I tried to save myself, but I only hurt you. It was selfish, and wrong. And I’m sorry.”
It was as if his words had taken his intoxication away, because everything in the room became real again, became normal. He was tired, he realized, but he no longer swayed.
And, with all the energy he could muster, he gathered Lukas in his grasp and kissed him with a similar force as the earlier pounding on the door. And Lukas seemingly melted in his hold, grateful for the easy forgiveness. And he held Mathias’s face in his hands and stood idly in the kitchen with him until the sun was almost ready to rise.
“You should get some sleep,” Lukas recommended, smoothing down his pomade-slick hair and then his wrinkled shirt. He undid his bowtie for him, as well.
“You should stay,” Mathias replied, exhaustion overcoming him quickly.
Lukas gave him a look, apparently surprised the request had to be made. “Of course,” he said, “I’m never leaving.”