[cw: domestic abuse mention, CSA mention]
“Internal female problems, huh, Jules?”
It was a frustrated utterance to himself, made between splashes of cold water across his face. He’d made a beeline for the nearest restroom in that stupid television studio as soon as the interview concluded. He thought he was going to vomit there, but staring blankly at his tired, haggard face in the mirror while mentally repeating the most stupid sentences he blurted out in front of cameras minutes earlier, imagining the feeling of his nails digging into his skin, thankfully seemed to have sufficed for punishment (He still had a show in five hours. He couldn’t puke tonight. For any reason).
It was obviously a mistake to do an interview as fucked up as he was, but it wasn’t as though he had a choice. Nobody had told him the band was doing a live interview that day the night prior. Or maybe someone mentioned it at some point, in some off-hand way, while he and the rest of them were already multiple drinks deep and high on the powders of their choice. If he KNEW there was going to be an interview the following morning he wouldn’t have went bar and club hopping that night, after the show. Obviously. Even in a city with as much to do for men like him as New York, even though lately it always seemed as though he was starving for those particular things to do. He was still responsible. Or at least, he tried his very best to be. Even in the desperate, exhausted, increasingly lost state he was in.
But of course there had to be a fucking interview at 10 AM. Maybe Walter or that fucker Jeffrey even told the rest of them and “forgot” to tell Jules. He wouldn’t put it past them at this point. Why would THEY want to see his first time at the reins of a band project succeed? And of course he was hung over, of course a migraine was starting to split through his skull, of course he had no fucking time to change out of his leather or even take a full fucking shower, of course he had to pray three sprays of Antaeus would be enough to cover whatever sex and sweat and whatever else he didn’t have the time to completely scrub off. Digusting disgusting disgusting (the only consolation being-- and it was, admittedly, a very amusing consolation, when Jules had the space to think about it-- that Jeffrey would have to sit in the middle of competing clouds of Jules’s and Nate’s nuclear fragrance fallout).
Part of him thought it would have been smarter to have Jeff do most of the talking. He seemed the least hung over out of the three of them-- more than that, really. Dead sober-- of course, the little goody-goody. “That’s right, Mormons don’t drink at all, do they?”, Jules had quipped as he breezed past him on the way to makeup. “He still thinks I’m Mormon??” He’d heard Jeff ask exasperatedly to Nate, who only giggled in response. “Oh, don’t get your magic underwear in a twist, Jeffrey.”, Jules added before he walked through the dressing room door. Smiled when he heard Nate’s giggles turn into guffaws (good boy). Maybe he wouldn’t let Jeffrey get a word in after all.
--It was a funny idea, and it was funny, at first, interrupting Jeff whenever he tried to make what he thought would be his most profound points about anything. He wasn’t nearly as smart as he thought he was anyway. Nate was doing a good job rolling with jokes of his own, too, and Jules did like the interviewer; had a prior rapport with her. A wonderful queen of an older woman, obviously utterly disinterested in anything “rock and roll” but very amused by it nonetheless, and even more amused with Jules’s… demeanor. She could have done quite a bit to poke and needle at that “demeanor”, and she would, gently, but always with a proverbial wink-and-nod. Jules had been able to charm her and win her good graces, for now, so she was more than willing to play along with him. Jules wanted to do everything to ensure that continued to be true.
He hoped that could’ve been enough. That damn migraine was constantly threatening to split its way across Jules’s skull again, though, even with all the Pedialyte he chugged in the back of that stupid limo. And he knew Nate’s non-joke answers would be fucking stupid, and he knew Jeff’s answers would be more intellectual masturbation, and both of those things annoyed the fuck out of him. HE knew what the fuck he was talking about. --Or at least, he usually did, when he didn’t have a Valium in his system alongside the usual amphetamines and when he wasn’t using a quarter of his mental energy trying to sit as normally as possible in front of Sue and all the cameras behind her and another quarter praying Sue wouldn’t notice anything too off about him, wouldn’t ask anything directly of him, or if she did, that it wouldn’t be anything he couldn’t answer comfortably.
And it was all easy information and light jokes, first. A nice little back and forth of banter with Nathan’s thankful assistance (and Jeffrey’s always somehow embarrassing attempts at the same). At some point, Nate mentioned “good contact with the audience”, a smirk quirked up a corner of Sue’s lips, she joked about whether “contact” meant on-stage or back-stage, they all had a laugh and talked about the lingerie women would toss up on stage. Jules made sure to pipe up about the sexiness of the bras, fantasies of phone numbers on them.
“...Now, there are no women involved at this point…”
“—Not at this point, no!”, Jules had hastily replied.
“Did the group’s… lifestyle… kind of—”
The word “lifestyle” sent a knife of panic through Jules’s heart, made his chest instantly tighten. He knew exactly what that fucking word meant. He heard it often enough from Walter and Jeffrey, and outside of them, from sneering talk show hosts on television or preachers behind pulpits. Don’t you fucking dare do this to me now, Sue.
“—Y’know, that was part of the problem, actually!”, Jules blurted out, “That was keeping us away from each other, y’know, as a band. We had, uh. Some, uh. Internal…”
Internal what. INTERNAL WHAT?? God was that even the right word?? It had already slipped out of his mouth. Was it fine? Was it okay?? Did he already fucking fuck this up? He had to keep going, it was fucking live, but what the fuck could he even say, what was he even trying to say NOW, fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck--
“Female…. Problems… that wouldn’t get along. That wouldn’t let US get along. T-that can-- that can happen, y’know, in bands. And groups. ‘n things like that.”
He hated himself more with each stupid word that left his mouth. None of them were right. He was panicking too much to think about what would be MORE right.
Sue blinked. “...Well… sure! Because the group is a marriage of sorts, and then you’ve got the marriage at home, it’s tough to keep it going…”, She drifted off.
Pushing a smile up his face was like trying to crank open a rusty window awning. “...Right.”
Of course, Jules had never been married and he likely never would be. He covered the hand that would’ve had a wedding ring on it. He had all his leather on BUT his gloves, and that had been fine up until that point. Now even his hands felt naked.
Sue had relievedly moved on shortly after that thirty seconds of hell, but Jules was still stuck in that thirty seconds no matter what he did. He couldn’t keep his stupid fucking mouth shut, either, but at least the rest of Sue’s questions weren’t nearly so obnoxiously loaded. He wanted to bury that thirty seconds under as many other stupid words as possible. Keeping quiet felt worse than accidentally calling Japan a "continent" again. Being geographically challenged was a lot better than other things. Maybe no one noticed. Maybe no one would ever notice.
It didn’t matter to Jules. He wanted to die as soon as he answered that question and he wanted to die just as much as soon as the interview concluded.
Internal female problems. Jesus. What the fuck was that even supposed to mean??
Jules was still staring into the bathroom mirror. Everyone probably thought he was some weird asshole now. Or knew he was a faggot. He didn’t know which was worse. Sue probably DEFINITELY thought he was a weird asshole AND a faggot. He always tripped on his own shoelaces in front of classy, intimidating older women like that, and it was the worst damn thing, because he adored them, looked up to them, always wanted to make them happy, as though they were all rich eccentric aunts he never had. Part of him wanted to find her and apologize for being a weird asshole faggot. The rest of him hoped he’d never see her ever again. He made a mental note to tell Walter not to book anything with her for the next couple years.
He saw the bathroom door swing open in the reflection of the mirror. Prayed for Nathan.
Of course it was that fucker Jeffrey instead. At least that could be Jules’s cue to get the hell out of there.
“Another interview down, right, bud?” Jeff greeted him with a clap on the shoulder. Jules tried his best not to cringe. I am NOT your fucking BUD. --He stared into the mirror as he thought it to make sure he wouldn’t accidentally say it out loud.
The smile he gave Jeff in that moment was even more covered in rust than the desperate one he gave Sue half an hour earlier. “Ha, yep! Always the same stupid questions, huh?”, He said with a forced little laugh while he made a show at fixing his unfixable hair. He was in a foul enough mood that he remembered the name of that fucking barber. Fuck you, ~Ted~.
Jeff stood at the sink next to his, began awkwardly touching his own dirty blond perm (as if any salon facsimile of curls could ever hold a candle to Nathan’s real ones). “Yeah, and what a stuck up bitch that old lady was. You didn’t have to be nearly as diplomatic as you were with her.”
Jules frowned for a moment. “Diplomatic?” He let out another short, questioning laugh.
“I mean, you handled it as well as you could with her breathing down your neck. I could’ve popped ‘er right in the mouth. Ladies like that love having jobs like that, ‘cause they know they can’t get popped in the mouth even when they deserve it. Yanno?”
Jules swallowed thickly. Nausea began to bubble up in his stomach again. Jeff had been like this ever since his divorce. At first, Jules felt an odd amount of sympathy for him. After the divorce, that is. Teri had cheated on him, and really, even before that, just seemed to be using Jeff to try and gain a foothold in a cutthroat industry. Things didn’t work out, so Jeff didn’t either. The opposite of that one Talking Heads song he’d still hear sometimes on the radio. Never for love, always for money. He knew how it felt to get tossed out like trash, so when Jeff called her a bitch through ugly sobs, Jules couldn’t really blame him.
Music was a good outlet for all those feelings, anyway, and Jeff was admittedly VERY good at writing it: in Jules’s eyes, it was always his real saving grace. So Jeff would sob his laments out onto paper or through his piano keys; Jules would help him with the legal loose ends of his divorce and gently (if sometimes absentmindedly) agree with every awful insult towards Teri Jeff hurled out of his usually-eloquent mouth. He was grieving a long relationship; Jules could sympathize with that. He’d lost Ben, a man he'd been with for nearly five years, in awful fashion just months earlier. A particularly stupid, hopeful part of Jules hoped that helping Jeff with his relationship troubles would help him realize that Jules wasn’t so different from him after all, despite his opposite romantic and sexual inclinations, and maybe, finally, Jeff would get the stupid quasi-religious stick out of his ass. Instead, it just became increasingly awkward. Jeff seemed to think Jules really did like him as a friend, this time. The friendlier and more comfortable Jeff got with him, the more he said things like what he said in that bathroom. ~WOMEN~, right? Elbow jab. And Jules would laugh, say whatever he needed to keep things running smoothly, turn things back to songwriting.
Sometimes Jeff would bring up Shannon, Jules’s sort-of-ex-girlfriend. It was harder, then, to fully change the subject back to the matter at hand. Shannon was a bitch. Sometimes. He had been trapped with her, in various ways, and as their relationship progressed it had become more and more difficult for either of them to hide their resentments towards one another. Shann would threaten to out him when she was particularly angry; would keep his amphetamine supply on a tight leash when she was simply annoyed with him. She wasn’t his real girlfriend, she knew it, and she was going to make him pay for it. As if he had a fucking choice. He would tell her she should raise hell with Walt, instead; HE was the one who said Jules had to find a girlfriend to begin with. But Jules was the one that was there, in front of her. He felt trapped by her, she felt imprisoned by him; Jules thought that was completely unfair. Nevertheless, he tried his best to free her (and free himself from her).
“She shoulda been fuckin’ thankful for everything you did for her.”, Jeff would say. He wasn’t the type to swear, usually, but more and more lately, it seemed Jules’s sailor’s mouth was rubbing off on him. If Jules was in a more relaxed mood, he would just shrug, remind Jeff how hard things had been for Shannon. “You made her richer than she’d ever be in her life otherwise. She was just some WAITRESS, right? A literal nobody. You turned her entire fucking life around, just like I turned Teri’s life around. And what thanks did WE fucking get?”
When Jules was in a good mood, it was easier to quip something back like “We’re still a helluva lot richer, Jeff”. When Jules was already frustrated or stressed-- and he was increasingly that way as work on that year’s album progressed-- it could be more difficult to keep a more rational perspective, harder not to get swallowed up by his own resentments and old angers as Jeff stoked them.
“God, she’d whine about being stuck in my house and she’d never actually DO anything to get herself un-stuck. It was like I had to drag her everywhere like some helpless kid.”
Jeff had rolled his eyes, shook his head. His upturned nose gained a new sort of piggish quality when he scrunched up his face in a scowl. “Fuckin’ cunt. And she’d call YOU every name in the book, too.”
"Oh, of course."
“Of course! You were always too nice with her, Jules. Me n' Nate always thought so.”
Jules half-agreed, but even then, a little smirk pushed up the side of his lips. “...I think it was more like I was too nice with everyone.”
Jeff had cleared his throat and laughed nervously at that, and things moved on.
Jeff would still try to hold his own little “bitch” sessions almost every time Jules was over his house for work. Jules would humor them enough for work to get done. It was hard to pay full attention to what he said. Jules had more than enough on his mind, and he had never been in the habit of caring much for Jeffrey or his little troubles. “...Right, Jules?”, He’d hear, and laugh, nod a little, “yeah, yeah”, and keep going. He just had to finish this stupid fucking album. That was all he cared about. If Jeff had to shit on half the human population while they did so, so be it. It would only be for another few months anyway, and grief makes you do funny things. Even Jeff knew that, and really, Jeff was the only one that seemed to give Jules any grace at all that year after his relationship exploded and his mother died. So, Jules could put up with a little extra bullshit from him. It was only fair, as reluctantly fair as it was.
This time, though, in that studio bathroom, Jules could hear Jeffrey a little more clearly. Maybe it was because it wasn’t about Teri this time. Maybe it was because it was specifically Sue that Jeff was fantasizing about hitting like a misbehaving child. At the same time, he knew he couldn’t push back against Jeff too obviously. At that point, he knew he’d turn from “bud” to “fag” again, and he couldn’t afford that. At least, not yet. He still had to perform another 50 shows with the fucker, and everyone else liked Jeff. Meanwhile, Jules always seemed to have a target on his back. Everyone, even Sue, seemed to be anticipating the moment Jules let enough slip to be able to ruin his life with it. Jeff would be first-in-fucking-line. He’d be gleeful. Jules could NEVER give that to him. But, as intimidating as women like Sue could be, he also loved them far more than he could love men like Jeffrey. Even if they never seemed to love him back (or, if they did, it was a suffocating smothering).
In the end, Jules decided to ignore the ugliness again. What else could he do? “Either way, it turned out fine, I guess.”, He finally replied, “Gonna be a good show tonight, too. New York’s always a fun city.” Jeff nodded with a grin. “You got that right, bud!” Another clap on the shoulder.
Jules sighed. “Anyway, Jeff, I’m sure you need to piss or something, and you’re probably embarrassed about your Mormon underwear or whatever. I’ll leave you to it.”, He said. Forced a sly little grin. Swiftly exited the bathroom as Jeff nervously replied with a “Uh, ha, yeah, see ya!”
Internal female problems.
Jules supposed that wasn’t really a lie or an insult, now that he thought about it, even if it was a very awkwardly worded truth, one that would be inscrutable to anyone else.
Internal female problems.
His mother had died of brain cancer less than a year ago. He had no time to think about it. When she was alive, she'd always say he was the spitting image of his father. When he stared at his face in the mirror long enough, sometimes he saw her eyes looking back at him.
Internal female problems.
--He remembered, in a flash, the first time he got caught wearing his mother’s dancing costumes. It was the first time his grandfather purposefully hit him. It would be far from the last. It was with all his force. Jules had instantly toppled to the floor, smacked his head on the hardwood. He was five.
Internal female problems.
He remembered the look of fear that would flash across his mother’s face before his grandfather would hit her; before his own father would drunkenly scream at her, smash things around her, call her a bitch in English and in Portuguese. Jules was so young. So afraid himself. He couldn’t do anything about it in the moment, even though he dreamed of being able to shield her entire body with his. He was stuck frozen and trembling instead. Weak. He would never be enough for her.
Internal female problems.
He remembered, after the divorce, a priest sitting down with his mother. Snippets of conversation as he sat on the floor and doodled pictures of his mother’s costumes, daydreamed about being that pretty on a stage one day, somehow, even though he was a boy. Or, maybe just his own kind of pretty. Still like his Mama, but not. Couldn’t boys be pretty? The priest didn’t seem convinced. God made boys one way, and girls the other, he said. “...Sports, camping, just other physical activities with other boys and good men. Male role models are important. Boys need fathers…”
Internal female problems.
Boys needed fathers but any potential father figure around Jules only seemed to see some girlish thing, or otherwise, saw a boy they could never claim as a son. Plenty of men liked his mother. Those men either couldn’t handle Jules, or liked him more than they liked his mother. Jules was just happy that he was liked at all; at least, at first. He remembered being twelve, half-checked out, his mother shaking him by the shoulders and sobbing, wine thick on her breath, asking him why he wanted to ruin her life. She’d been with that man for nearly two years and all he’d wanted was Jules. Jules had wanted to make it work, for her. He had told Jules to never tell, it was their little secret, and it was all too easy to oblige. He didn’t want to hurt her.
He had anyway.
Internal female problems.
Jules shuddered. Straightened out his leather jacket as he walked; zipped it fully shut. He still liked how heavy it hung over his shoulders. Jeff didn’t touch him-- just his jacket. Maybe it was for the best that he couldn’t change into more “professional” clothing before that damn interview. He felt the need for an exoskeleton more and more these days.
He saw Nate leaning against the building smoking a cigarette as he exited the studio. He was wearing jeans and a ratty old T-shirt-- even less well-dressed than Jules. As gorgeous as usual despite it. Jules felt a pleasurable stirring in his gut. He gave Nate a particular nod. A small but fully unforced smile spread across his lips as Nathan returned it and stubbed out his cigarette.
There were quite a few problems, female or otherwise, that Julian couldn’t afford to think about right now. Nate was allergic to thinking. There were still four and a half hours left before the show tonight. He wasn’t going to fully shed that exoskeleton for anyone, but Nathan could at least be allowed inside, for awhile.
So Jules left the uncomfortable problems on the curb outside that limo. They were piling up, those problems. He’d have to do something about them at some point. He still couldn’t afford to. When could he ever?
At that moment, he felt Nathan squeeze his thigh. Jules looked into his eyes with a hungry smile. He’d deal with the uncomfortable problems in due time. For now, he would leave them in the dust to tend to his favorite problem.