Chapter Text
June 2004
A warm apartment in the middle of June. The sun hasn’t risen yet, but Fabrizio has already woken up with a certain craving.
He gets out of bed and fumbles over his nightstand looking for a pack of cigarettes he purchased the night before. He struggles finding them because he’s still half-asleep.
“Shit! Where are they?” Fabrizio yells to himself.
He keeps searching for a minute until he finally feels a paper box. He opens it and pulls out a cigarette. As he lights it and takes a drag, he thinks about his recent tour with his band, and about his bandmates. His thoughts linger on Julian.
Julian and Fabrizio go all the way back to their high school days. Fabrizio had always thought of Julian as someone who is beautiful and cool, he almost worships him like a god. He was constantly in awe of Julian. To him, Julian is this beautiful, alluring, feminine—yet—masculine creature that everyone adores, including himself. With his long, dark hair and fluttering eyelashes, while also being masculine and tall, standing at 6’2. Fabrizio was particularly jealous of the last fact because he is 5 '11, and he’d wished that he’d grow to 6' 0, which clearly never happened.
After high school, they played music together and eventually formed The Strokes, which made them closer than ever. They were always together and would do things normal friends wouldn’t. Fabrizio always chalked it up to Julian’s alcoholism, believing Julian could never truly commit to anyone. He always saw him as a free spirit.
Julian would regularly kiss his bandmates under the influence and Fabrizio would enjoy it when it was him, but found himself feeling jealous when he would kiss Albert or Nikolai. After all, he and Julian had a stronger bond than the other members, and that being that they’d done more than just kiss, even if Julian was drunk every time.
He took another drag of his cigarette while looking out of the balcony by his bed. The sun was just beginning to rise, and seeing this, he recalled that he had plans with Julian that day. They were going to go to a mall because Julian needed new clothes. He hadn’t gotten any in a while and he thought that Fabrizio could help him find something cool. Fabrizio, of course, thought this was dumb because he thinks Julian has a particular sense of style that is already cool.
Fabrizio finishes with his cigarette and puts it out. He flings the butt out onto the street. Now that it’s not in his apartment, it isn’t his responsibility.
He adventures to the kitchen, and once he gets there he checks the fridge to see what’s inside.
I always think that it’ll miraculously fill itself up, and it never does.
The only things in the fridge are a half-empty gallon of milk and some tomatoes, which have been rotting in there for two weeks. He’s too lazy to clean them out.
“I’ll get to those eventually,” he says under his breath.
When he sees that he has no food, he goes to the bathroom to brush his teeth and wash his face.
He walks back to his bedroom to change his clothes, which he takes from one of the various piles on the floor. The clothes are clean, he just didn’t feel like putting them away. He couldn’t be bothered to actually organize anything.
He quickly dresses himself, he slips into the first things he sees; some skinny blue jeans and a white t-shirt.
He leaves his bedroom and makes it to his front door, where he contemplates what to do once he leaves. He twists the doorknob and walks out of his apartment.
I need to find something to eat.
He makes his way downstairs and by the time he makes it to the front desk, he gets a text.
“What time are you coming?”
“Around 1. I have some shit to do.”
“Make sure you’re on time today.”
“I’ll try.”
He scoffs. Julian’s usually the one who’s late.
How is he gonna rush me? I’m always on time. That dumbass is the one who’s always late.
He continues on and leaves the building, scanning his surroundings to find the coffee shop he frequents.
What direction is it in?
He eventually finds his way there, it was towards the left of his building. By the time he got there, an hour had already gone by.
He opens the glass door of the coffee shop and walks in.
“Fab?!” A familiar voice yells from across the shop.
“Jules? What are you doing here so early?”
“I couldn’t sleep last night, so I thought I’d come here early in the morning. I knew I’d be tired if I didn’t get some coffee,”
Fabrizio starts walking towards Julian, pushing through the people in the morning coffee rush, he notices that Julian looks visibly exhausted, much more than usual.
“I’ll pay for your coffee,” Fabrizio says, “You look like, fatigued, dude,”
“It’s not that bad. I’ve been worse,”
“You look like you need it,”
Fabrizio settles down and chats with Julian. They make small talk for a while. Eventually, they get their coffee. Fabrizio got a coffee with cream and sugar and a bagel with cream cheese. Julian got black coffee, and nothing else.
“That’s gross, Jules.”
“How? It’s just coffee.”
“It’s gonna taste bitter, dude.”
“I don’t care, why do you?”
“I don’t.. it just won’t taste good.”
As they’re chatting, Fabrizio looks at Julian and realizes he looks a bit red.
It’s probably nothing. He always looks like that.
Their conversation continues.
“I don’t care about the taste, I’ll have something sweeter soon.”
“What?”
“You’ll see.”
Fabrizio’s mind wanders.
What does he mean by that? Is he trying to do something to me? I mean I’d hope so—I mean not.
The shop starts to empty up and the pair continue with their coffee and food. Once they finish, Fabrizio heads to the bathroom. He goes to the sink to wash his hands. He stands there alone with his thoughts.
I can’t think about him like that. I said I’d keep that in the past. I don’t want to ruin the dynamic of the band. I’ve been doing so good the last few months.
Suddenly, Fabrizio sees a figure walk into the bathroom, which is Julian. Julian rushes into a stall, which makes Fabrizio anxious. He went to knock on the stall.
“You good?”
There’s no answer. All he can hear are a few odd noises, which alarmed him. He knocked on the stall, to which Julian opened the door. Inside, there was a Julian on his knees, staring straight into the toilet bowl. He turns to face Fabrizio. His breath reeks of alcohol.
“You’re drunk, Jules. It’s nine in the morning and you’re drunk.”
“I’m not drunk, I barely drank anything.”
“I can smell it on your breath, dude. And you’re hunched over a toilet.”
“It’s nothing. I told you I couldn’t sleep, so I drank a beer or two.”
“So instead of sleeping you drink?”
“I had nothing better to do, Fab, look, don’t judge me.”
“Jules, this isn’t healthy, like you need help.”
They pause. Fabrizio crouched down to get to eye level with Julian. He wanted to have a real conversation, but he got distracted.
Fabrizio scrutinizes Julian’s face. He has his long, dark, messy hair covering parts of it, though his doll-like brown orbs are still visible. Fabrizio gazes into them and notices his long eyelashes batting with every blink. He thinks about previous times they’ve made eye contact like this.
He recalls one time, a few months ago, where the tension between them was high. The pair had been playing a show on their tour, and the first members backstage were themselves, and Julian had drunkenly stumbled onto Fabrizio and fell. When Fabrizio helped Julian up, they made that same intense eye contact. The kind that’s passionate. Julian immediately kissed Fabrizio. Just a minute later, the other bandmates came backstage and they also got drunk and all kissed Julian. The most passionate kiss Julian had all night, though, was with Fabrizio.
This eye contact however, felt even more intimate. It was as if the world around them had paused, and the only ones able to move were Julian and Fabrizio. It didn’t help that the bathroom was completely empty. They were utterly alone in the coffee shop bathroom.
In this silence, Fabrizio noticed things about Julian he hadn’t noticed before. How he gets shy when close together and breaks eye contact, and how beautiful they are, those brown orbs, and how his shirt fits him just loosely enough to be able to see his chest, how his messy hair takes the shape of his head and wraps every curve, his lips and how rosy and chapped they are, how sharp his nose looks from the front, how pretty and girly he is.
The older boy gets his face closer to the younger one. As if he was doing the same thing as the curly-headed boy, analyzing Fabrizio’s face, noticing new things he’d never seen before. He keeps getting closer until their lips meet. This surprises Fabrizio, but he can’t pull away.
All of the doubts Fabrizio had earlier about his thoughts washed away, because he finally had a feeling of reciprocation from Julian. This was the first time he had felt genuine feelings from Julian through a kiss.
The younger boy pulled Julian closer, almost as if it was an attempt to merge their bodies. He gripped on Julian’s t-shirt like he was hanging on for dear life. He gripped him so hard that it started to leave marks. Julian began to move down, kissing his bandmate’s neck. He made sure to not kiss too hard, or he’d put hickeys on his neck. Fabrizio tries not to moan for fear of others walking into the bathroom.
He pulls away for a second.
“J-Jules, we’re in a public restroom.”
“I know. It’s empty.”
“I’m scared, Jules. What if someone sees us?”
“We’re in a stall. I’ll just close the door.”
“What if they hear us?”
“It doesn’t matter, just let me kiss you-”
“Julian, can we do this later? Somewhere more private?”
“Come on, Fab. It’s just for a few minutes, I promise.”
“Fine then. But if I tell you to stop, you have to stop.”