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“How was your day, sweetheart?” Willem asks as he brings food in from the kitchen. He’s feeling playful. It has been a good week for the two of them. Jude is already seated at the table, looking wan today, but hasn’t Willem seen him paler, weaker, sicker?
Jude barely holds back a flinch. Willem feels his playfulness evaporating. Had Jude had a bad day? Usually when he gets home from work, he is at his calmest, his happiest.
“We got the Blackthorn suit thrown out. I’m a little disappointed it didn’t go to court, but that just means my team did well.” Jude shrugs. Willem can tell he is trying to play off his earlier reaction.
They eat dinner, chatting about their respective days, and their upcoming trip. Jude seems alright, and by the time they finish dinner Willem’s playfulness is back. Jude stands by the sink, washing dishes. And isn’t that a miracle? That Jude can stand in one place without pain? That he doesn’t need the wheelchair hardly ever nowadays.
Willem wraps his arms around Jude’s waist from behind, feeling that special swell of awe in his chest when Jude leans back into him. That after all Jude has been through… that he can still trust anyone. The pride that Willem is one of those people sometimes overwhelms him.
“What’s on the agenda tonight, sweetheart?” Willem kisses Jude’s shoulder.
He can’t miss the way Jude’s whole-body tenses, not pressed up against him like this. Willem wonders if it’s the affection, that maybe Jude doesn’t want to be touched today, but he thinks back to Jude’s earlier flinch. It’s the nickname, though sweetheart seems innocent enough.
“Willem…” Jude doesn’t pull away, but the way he sighs… he wants to say more, but is worried how Willem will react. Willem knows it’s selfish, but he wants to keep things light, to joke around with his partner. Sometimes Jude’s sense of humor is keen and bright, so quick Willem must work to keep up, keep escalating the jokes.
He just wants them to have a nice night, wants to call Jude his sweetheart, because he’s so much more than that. Just calling him Jude, or Judy doesn’t seem enough to communicate how Willem feels. He is always trying to tell Jude how much he means; how much Willem loves him just as he is.
“What about honey then? Like, honey I’m home~” Willem sing songs.
Jude stays tense, not quite pulling away, but he is trapped by the sink. Willem lets go of him, steps away, so Jude doesn’t feel caged. It only makes Jude hunch in further on himself. Willem doesn’t know what the right move is.
“You can call me whatever you want, Willem,” Jude says, his head down, hands still working in the sink.
Willem definitely doesn’t like the sound of that. There are little alarm bells going off at the back of his mind. He knows better now, the unspoken things that Jude is saying. Jude’s doublespeak.
“Hey… look at me for a second.” Willem says. Jude glances over his shoulder. Willem waits for Jude to turn around, slowly, he keeps his eyes on his hands as he dries them on a blue dishrag.
“Jude,” Willem says softly.
Jude finally looks him in the face, wary and stubborn.
“If you don’t like nicknames, that’s alright. I just- it’s a way to be closer, to tell you I care in shorthand.” Willem takes Jude’s hands gently, rubs his thumb over Jude’s knuckles. “What if we just try a couple, and see if there’s anything you like?”
Jude’s shoulders unknot just a little. He looks to the side, unable to hold Willem’s gaze. He doesn’t know what Jude sees that makes him look away, but Willem hopes Jude can feel his utter adoration. This hopeless, helpless feeling of awe.
“You can call me nicknames too, hopefully nice ones,” Willem says. A small smile curves Jude’s lips. The night is still salvageable.
“Alright,” Jude says.
They go through a litany of pet names over the next month. Some of them with better results than sweetheart. Willem calls Jude cupcake (earns a laugh and a shake of the head), darling (a stiffness of his shoulders that won’t leave the rest of the night), dear heart (Jude just quirks an eyebrow and Willem knows that’s a weird one), sweet cheeks (“absolutely not”), my dear (“am I the Watson to your Holmes? If anything, it would be the other way around” Jude was feeling prickly that day, and Willem should have known better, but ouch). Willem calls Jude my love, and the initial reaction isn’t terrible, Jude just gives Willem a bewildered look. That one lasts almost a week before Jude says, “please don’t, Willem.” As if every time Willem says it hurts him.
Jude calls him muffin soon after the cupcake incident and they both laugh, he’s not serious in his trying of nicknames. Jude calls him elk heart, and sweetie, and once even baby doll, which weirdly makes Willem’s heart flutter, like Jude is a 1940’s detective and Willem the hapless girl who’s fallen in love with him. Willem knows Jude is over this nickname experiment, but he can’t stop. He wants to find just one that fits, one endearment that hasn’t been ruined.
They’re at a play one night when Jude touches his elbow and says “Willem, darling, would you get me a drink?” Willem feels his knees go a little weak, and damn, isn’t he too old to be this fluttery and overwhelmed? Jude could have asked Willem to chop off his own hand and Willem would have done it in a moment if Jude asked like that. If Jude notices Willem’s reaction he doesn’t say.
Their experiment comes to a head when Willem calls Jude baby. It seems innocuous, he just lets it roll off his tongue. Babe had been alright, Jude had made a face, and shaken his head. But when Willem stands from the couch, holds out a hand and says, “Let’s go to bed, baby,” the reaction is… catastrophic. Jude’s breath hitches and his whole body locks up, except his hands, which begin shaking. Willem doesn’t know what to do, guilt and horror open a roaring void in his brain.
Willem drops to his knees in front of Jude, afraid to touch him. “Jude, Judy, it’s okay, I’m sorry. You’re fine, we’re fine, it was just a mistake.” Willem tries to take Jude’s hand gently, but Jude pulls away, his whole body trying to shrink away from Willem.
“Don’t- Don’t touch me,” Jude gasps the words out, squeezing his eyes closed.
Willem sits back on his heels, tears gathering on the edges of his eyelashes while he watches Jude try to pull himself together. He did this. He caused this. The guilt is all consuming. Maybe the nickname in another situation wouldn’t have caused this, but he’s such a fool to have said it the way he did. The things Jude must have been called, the things those men had said, and Willem hadn’t been able to fathom why Jude had an aversion to nicknames. Of course, Jude would just want to be called by his name, would want Willem to say his name at every chance to keep him grounded. They were Jude and Willem, not cupcake and muffin, not darling and sweetheart. Jude and Willem linked since college.
Jude slowly comes back to himself, his hands stop shaking, but little tremors move through his body. He blinks open his eyes, focuses on Willem’s face.
“Oh Willem,” he says softly. Jude reaches out and brushes away the wetness from Willem’s cheek. He hadn’t realized he’d begun crying in earnest.
“I’m sorry, Judy. I should have listened, I’m so sorry,” Willem says. He wants to fold Jude in his arms and never let go, but he’s afraid to touch him still.
Jude looks tired now, and sad, probably not even on his own behalf, sad that he caused Willem pain. Jude runs a hand through Willem’s hair, leans forward and kisses his forehead.
“It’s okay,” Jude says. And isn’t it fucked up that Jude is the one comforting him? Willem swallows thickly, trying to get himself under control.
“It’s not okay, Jude. I’m sorry. No more nicknames.” Willem says. Jude nods, stands up, and offers Willem a hand.
He takes Jude’s hand and groans as he gets off his knees. He’s too old to be in that position. Willem can’t shake the guilt, the black hole of shame that has opened inside him. He pushed Jude too far, and now he’s hurt him, something Willem never means to do.
They curl together in bed in their pajamas, Jude fully covered tonight, though Willem expected nothing less after that episode. He holds Jude close, the two of them curved like a quotation mark. Jude is still tense, and as Willem drifts he knows Jude is just waiting for him to fall asleep.
Willem wakes in the middle of the night to an empty bed. As always there is panic first, and then the anger that comes with the knowledge of what Jude is doing in the bathroom. This time though, shame follows. Would Jude have needed to cut himself tonight if not for Willem’s carelessness?
He climbs out of bed and presses his ear to the bathroom door. His fear is that one night he will wake, not check on Jude, and will find his body the next morning, bleeding out in the tub. Willem opens the door just a crack and sees Jude pressing gauze to his arm, his face calm and wiped clean of emotion. Relief and nausea fill him. Jude is fine, he is safe another night. Willem closes the door quietly and gets back into bed, exhausted.
They don’t talk about it the next day, or the day after, but by Sunday Willem knows he has to address it, has to apologize properly.
They’re on the couch together, Jude reading a book, leaning against Willem with his legs stretched the length of the couch. Willem is angled against the corner of the armrest and the back, one arm along Jude’s side, the other flipping through pages of a new script in his lap. He’s not taking anything in though.
“Jude?”
“Hmm?”
“I’m sorry about the other night.”
Jude looks up at that, attention fully drawn away from his book. “I know, Willem, it’s alright.”
Willem sighs and lets the script he was reading slide to the floor. He gently pulls Jude closer, so his back is against the armrest and he’s fully in Willem’s lap. Jude goes with it, a little tense, then relaxes with Willem’s arm resting across his thighs. Jude is calm today, maybe even content? They went out to brunch with Malcolm and Sophie, did some shopping for the week, and it had been so wonderfully domestic.
“It’s not alright, you tried to tell me pet names were a bad idea and I didn’t listen.” Willem touches Jude’s arm gently, where he knows there is still a band-aid. “This one is my fault, and I’m sorry. I should listen to you.”
Jude’s face is unreadable. Willem watches as Jude makes the heroic effort to let his walls down, blinks his eyes, and lets Willem see some of his pain, and exhaustion. The bottomless depth of sorrow and trauma Jude carries every moment of every day.
“You couldn’t have known. Some of the nicknames were funny, sugar lips.” Jude quirks his mouth slightly.
Willem huffs a surprised laugh, tangles his fingers with Jude’s. “Yeah? I did like baby doll, though.”
Jude chuckles. “Baby doll, really?” Willem shrugs, feels a blush heating his cheeks. “I like the way you say it.” Jude hums and seems to ponder that.
“But are you… alright? Do you want to talk about it?” Willem offers. Part of him wants Jude to tell him the exact memory he triggered, wants to know every excruciating detail to flog himself with later. And part of him wants Jude to keep his silence, that Willem has enough of an idea to guilt himself with.
“Let’s not, just- not today. It’s been such a good day,” Jude says, lightly pleading. Willem nods, says okay, and Jude gives him a small smile, reopens his book.
Willem doesn’t have the energy to readjust so he can read his script, so he rests his cheek on Jude’s shoulder and mindlessly skims the pages of Jude’s book. Their hands are still linked, and Jude has the book propped against Willem’s forearms, so it’s a good angle for them both. The book is something with science-fiction, Shakespeare, and some sort of apocalypse, but it’s gentle and beautifully written. Willem isn’t really paying attention, he’s just enjoying Jude’s closeness, enjoys being tangled up in him so innocently.
“Willem?” Jude’s voice breaks the spell, and Willem feels drowsy with their shared body heat.
“Mmm?” Willem lifts his head from Jude’s shoulder to look at him. Jude smiles at him fondly.
“You were sleeping, but I didn’t want you to get a crick in your neck. Why don’t you go take a nap?” Jude makes a move to get up, but Willem tightens his grip. “No, I’m fine, I want to be here with you.” Willem yawns.
Jude is breathtaking when he smiles. Jude leans up slightly, presses a kiss to Willem’s mouth, soft, sweetly, lingering. It’s so rare for Jude to initiate their kisses. Willem doesn’t deserve such trusting sweetness.
“I like saying your name, Willem,” Jude murmurs.
It knocks him off his feet, how Jude can be so romantic without realizing. How gentle and sweet he remains; despite the cruelty he has seen in the world. Willem has had monologues in films that weren’t as meaningful or loving as that.
Willem worries he’ll ruin the moment by saying something stupid, so he says the only thing he can.
“I love you, Jude.” Willem squeezes Jude’s hand gently. He kisses Jude back, not wanting to hurry the slide of their lips, or push it into something wanting. He doesn’t want anything Jude doesn’t want. All he wants is this moment forever. The warm weight of Jude in his lap, the drowsy delight of Sunday afternoon sunlight turning everything gold, the taste of tea lingering in Jude’s mouth. He will think of this afternoon during lonely nights when he’s on location, missing Jude with all his heart. He feels a slight ache at the thought of being away from Jude, missing him when he’s still here. Willem pushes that thought away.
“I love you too, Willem,” Jude breathes the words when they part for air, their lips still only a breath apart. Jude’s eyes are languid, dazed.
Willem wants to kiss Jude until they’ve both melted together. Until there’s not a thought between them, just their lips, their bodies, this heat, their love holding them together in the moment; until they’re no longer human-shaped just this strange muddle of limbs and breath and understanding.
Later, they will return to their separate human selves, disentangling lips, limbs, and thoughts. The room will darken, and they will fix dinner, sit in separate chairs; the space between them growing, as it always does. Willem will leave for a shoot, or Jude will travel for work. Oceans will lay between them.
But now there is only them, Willem and Jude, with all the time in the world, and all the space is filled with each other. Nothing bad can touch them here, in this moment, not the past, and not the future.