Superimposed

Author: Echo [@ | www]
Rating: R
Pairing: Jude Law, Ewan McGregor
Note: For Contrelamontre show-not-tell-jealousy challenge.

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[existed mostly]

The first time you see him, you think, fuck.

He isn’t supposed to be onset and you know it, you asked, because you didn’t want him here. It isn’t his day. You’ve watched him for years now, your fingers digging into the cheap theatre seats, your veins sticking out of your arms at odd angles like weapons, your mouth dry and dusty.

You didn’t want him here.

You agreed to this movie because he was in it, of course, and because it was a movie, a bloody movie for god’s sakes, something that was actually going to be produced, something that would actually get your face out there in public, might put you on the fast track to fame you were always convinced existed.

Mostly because he was in it, though.

Once you’ve seen him, though, it’s over and you know it. You turn back to the group of people surrounding you, set your shoulders, try to return to the character that was so accessible a minute before.

Looking--

On your cue you look over your shoulder, laughing, right, head thrown back and laughing, and you see Stephen there, forlorn, and grey, and confused, but you’re not really concentrating on Stephen, you’re looking past

Looking--

and your words won’t come out right, won’t press past your lips like they’re supposed to, and you have to swallow hard although you have nothing to swallow, and you’re not looking at him, you’re not

Looking for someone?

and his lips are curling up in the corners, his eyelashes are lowering, and his mouth is dragging open and you think you hear it, you swear you hear it:

Yes.

[because]

You lie awake at night and stare at the ceiling and think about his skin.

His hand is a heavy weight on your stomach, his breath fluttering past your shoulder, and his eyes are closed (closed for the moment and you’re glad, you can’t really take his stare, you can’t really bear him open and liquid and golden and looking, not him looking, him most of all).

You say his name or try to anyway and it comes out like a puff of air, a soft moist breath that accidentally takes the shape of a word and you think maybe you can feel his eyelashes sliding across your skin.

You say, Jude.

You think of all the things you've read about him. You think of his wife and his children and you think of Ewan who you think you might be able to taste on his collarbones. History imprints itself on skin and you know that, you know that you can find the places on yourself that smell or taste like someone else but you never thought you could find them on someone else.

You lay your fingertips on his collarbones.

You try to wipe Ewan away and put yourself there instead.

[you wanted]

When the movie premieres you are not invited and you sit in your apartment and try not to sulk.

You don’t mind, of course you don’t, it’s not like you had more than a bit part, not like you had more than five seconds on screen, but you’d like to consider your part at least a tad influential, at least a tad important, you’d like to pretend any of them even know your bloody name--

He does, of course he does, and he’s there with his wife tonight, and you know it. He told you not to call him, he slid his smoothcold fingers up over the corded muscles of your thigh and whispered hot into the base of your neck, don’t call.

You wouldn’t have called. You never call. You wait for him to call you and pretend not to notice when he doesn’t.

You asked, though you knew you shouldn’t have, you knew and you know now and you’ve always known but you asked anyway, who are you taking? Who’s going with you?

You didn’t listen to the answer. You didn’t feel the sibilant ‘s’ as it snaked out of his mouth and onto your skin, didn’t feel his tongue move to hit the ‘d’ against the roof of his mouth. You didn’t listen because it didn’t matter; all that mattered was that he didn’t say, you.

[it to]

When you first see them together, you think, oh.

It’s all you can think, really. You’ve worked with Ewan now, you know him now, and you can understand. You can see where they fit together, how their palms are the same size, how Ewan’s vowels reflect Jude’s consonants.

You think maybe it hurts. You think maybe this roaring empty red bitter cold seething quiet in your chest and behind your eyelids is hurt. But you wish it wasn’t because you don’t want this to hurt.

You hope Ewan tastes you. You hope Ewan presses his mouth to that spot, that spot tucked away behind the curve of Jude’s left ear, and you hope Ewan feels it and tastes it, feels and tastes you.

They smile and they press close together, close enough together for you to notice and no one else, shoulders and arms and legs just gently touching, in the vicinity of more than touching, even.

You make yourself look away. You make yourself smile like them and look away but they burn a blurry hole in the corner of your eye, a reminder that you will never be them, never be part of them, that they will never taste you on each other and would never notice if they did.

You look away, but you never look away completely, and you hold them in your head, the image of them, nearly touching but never actually, just hovering, hovering and fitting and forgetting you.

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