WHO: Hugh Christian & Zee Larsen WHEN: Last Wednesday, evening WHERE: Hugh's Lakeside Mansion. SUMMARY: Hugh gets a surprise visitor from his past. WARNINGS: None, other than maybe language, I don't think.
Zee was leaning against the doorframe of the car, elbow resting against the arm rest, with her thumb resting underneath her chin and her lips pressed against forefinger. For the majority of the trip, she'd kept her eyes fixed upon the landscape as they passed, feeling as though it was going to give her the best indicator of what to expect when she arrived. Anxious feelings about a trip to see Hugh were against the norm but was there even a norm to judge against anymore? They'd gone so long with seeing one another, and she'd felt so incredibly uninformed in every conversation she had about him leading up to this, that perhaps the notion of a norm with them was nothing but nostalgia. Perhaps this would be a mistake and she'd leave hours after arriving.
Wouldn't that be the worst outcome?
Having put in all of this effort, coming out to simply find him, to be met with a distance that couldn't be bridged and a need to call an Uber back out to take her away. A heavy sigh escaped her as she turned her head away from the greenery of the landscape, looking at the GPS of the driver in the front seat. Ten minutes to destination. Well, she wasn't going to have to fret about it much longer. And she supposed if this did end poorly, with a "Well it was nice of you to stop bye..." nudge towards the door, she could always find the nearest hotel. She didn't necessarily need to grab an Uber the same night.
And if that happened, well, she could go out to Kentucky while still state side. But did she want to Dale to know she was coming, metaphorically licking her wounds, after he'd expressed discouragement of this whole quest?
She didn't know.
As they pulled up, she blinked. "Are you sure this is the right house?" Mary had said it was a big house but this felt drastically undersold to her as far as a concept. Big wasn't a good enough description. "It is according to Google," was the answer she was met with as they came to stop in the drive way. Shifting to pull out cash for the tip, she held it out for the man before sliding out of the vehicle entirely. Her eyes remained fixed ahead of her as he got her bag and she took in a breath. No more worrying about what might come next. No.
Now it was time to see what would happen.
It was the right house, but anyone who had known Hugh Christian before when his entire life had fit neatly into a 400 square foot studio apartment in downtown Seattle or been familiar with the comfortably middle-class mid-century home he'd grown up with in Bellevue would look at the house on Lakeside Drive and wonder. And anyone who had known him very well knew that the film he'd been in certainly hadn't had that sort of paycheck attached.
Still it was the right house, and Hugh had just returned from taking Heart out for her walk around the lake after he'd returned from the Capital. They were about to start tech week, and then performances, and his life would be at once a little more sane, and a little more crazy. By this time everything was muscle memory - in a manner of speaking, and so the work itself became more sane. But the weekends were tighter, and there was the pressure of reviews, which Hugh always tried to pretend he didn't care about - but he inevitably did.
He poured a half portion of gin into a glass and started a soft pop hits playlist on Spotify for background noise about the time that the doorbell rang.
Heart gave one bark, ears alert as she practically slid across the floor to stare down the hall towards the front door. She stood, alert, waiting for Hugh to join her.
"It's probably just FedEx or something," Hugh told her, settling his hand behind the chocolate labrador's ears as he headed towards the front. "Maybe it's your bed we ordered, hm? Sit," he told her, as he pulled the door open.
With Theodore's departure, there weren't many people who were likely to just drop by - yet - that was something he was maybe working on, but it also wasn't as if Lakeside Drive was exactly a place you just happened to be near and popped in on. You definitely had to be intending to get out there. And whomever he was expecting, it wasn't the woman who stood on the other side of the door.
For several heart-beats, perhaps a few longer than was socially acceptable, he was struck dumb. It was definitely her, and he was suddenly very aware of all the ways he might have changed since she saw him last. From the obvious - the stubble he was currently carefully allowing on his face - to the less obvious. And as he recovered his senses, half aware of Heart's tale thumping against the floor - the dog very keen to meet the new person - he managed to find his voice: "Zee? How in the world? How did you find me?"
Zee couldn't fault him for the seconds of silence. She'd come unannounced, she'd not spoken to him in far too long, and it wasn't as though she'd done her typical when he'd pulled open the door. In the past, even if her arrival had been a surprise, she'd have been more likely to toss her arms around him the moment the door was pulled open or to slip into an immediate recollection of a story he just needed to hear immediately. But on this afternoon, with uncertainty fueling some of her response, she'd matched his silence.
And she was just about to force this to end when he'd spoken. Her gaze hadn't moved from him since the door had been pulled open, her face projecting her uncertainty on whether this would go well. Hearing his voice? It seemed to have a jump starting effect on her. Brows came together and she gestured towards his face. "What's this then? Professional necessity or desire? Definitely a look, Hugh," she said, completely sidestepping the actual questions presented to her.
She glanced down to his side now, acknowledging the other soul who came to greet her, and she gave a smile towards Heart. "Well hello," she said, before looking back up to Hugh.
"I'm going to wait another ten seconds for you to invite me in or I'm just going to step over the threshold," she informed him before giving a shrug of her shoulders, "And with a vast amount of effort is how I found you. Were you trying to make it as difficult as possible? Actually -- no. No need to answer. We both know you were."
She tilted her head in his direction, with a very 'Well' sort of look. If this was going to go poorly, it would be in his next move, but she hoped it wouldn't and instead she'd be pulled into a hug.
'A look'.
It wasn't often that Hugh was caught off guard, and he honestly tried to minimize all of those times down to being as few as possible, because generally? He hated it. But right then and there, a smile spread across his face, and he laughed.
"For fucks sake, come in, Zee, get your ass in here, I wasn't expecting… just come in." And he emphasized this by pulling the large wooden door open to reveal the ridiculous entryway beyond. This started Heart dancing, wanting to move but not having been told that she could, it was one that mostly stayed in place, but her hind legs made movements as if she'd love nothing more than to jump up. But Hugh didn't really give either woman or dog the chance to move much, before he reached out his hand to grab hers, and pull her across and into a hug.
Maybe he ought to have been worried that she wouldn't want one, or was mad at him. She sounded upset, but he didn't think she could be too upset if she was here. If she'd found him, surely it wasn't just to come and yell at him, even if, well there was the possibility that he deserved it, but even if.
The number of people he could hug without thinking about it had dwindled to nothing and maybe she'd changed, but if this had, he might legitimately cry.
He knew she'd probably changed - he had, in ways that were maybe more numerous than he could even think about right off - but this seemed familiar, and he was momentarily so fucking grateful for her showing up, whatever her reasons. Someone that he knew, that knew him, even if not all the things that had changed? He closed his eyes, swallowed back a lump in his throat, helped by the feel of a wet nose against his thigh.
He laughed again, and pulled back. "Heart, Zee," he wasn't quite ready to let go of her hand so he didn't. "Zee, this is Heart." He kicked the door closed. "And when you say it's a look... " eyebrow punctuated this question.
Oh, thank God.
An equal smile spread across her face with the invitation as she watched him open the door. It felt like permission to step right back into his atmosphere and that just made her smile grow further. She'd taken mental note of the excited labrador but there wasn't much time to give her more attention before her hand was taken and his arms were around her.
It wasn't difficult to follow suit now, with her arms wrapping around him in kind. Her head pressed down, finding a resting spot against his shoulder, and for a moment she just let herself relish this. She didn't need to express the minor anxiety to him. It could be pushed away completely now.
Lifting her head when she sensed him beginning to pull away, she followed suit and finally let her attention drift back to Heart. She let her free hand turn over, extending out to Heart for her to sniff and rub against should she please, "Well she's simply gorgeous, isn't she?" She commented, giving Hugh's hand a squeeze as she said so.
"And, yes, a look." She pressed her tongue between the gap of her teeth, flashing him a cheeky grin, before shifting to stand on the tips of her toes to plant a quick kiss to his cheek. "New and unexpected but not poorly received."
Any anxiety that might have been lingering melted with the kiss, and he responded by shifting his arm to her waist and pulling her in for a quick hug before releasing her altogether and taking a slight bow. "Fantastic, I don't have to blame it on a role, it's entirely my own thing. I…" Hugh waved a hand and for a second it held in mid-air as he tried to figure out how much of what to dump on her at this particular moment. "Stuff's been shitty and I needed a new look," he finally settled on. Even if things had arguably been a bit better, that was still the underlying motivation.
Heart stepped in, wagging tail, sniffing nose, checking out this new person and Hugh stepped back slightly to give her some space, his eyes on both - even though Heart was literally the most friendly dog he'd ever met, and he was pretty certain that she and Zee were going to be best friends.
"I wasn't hiding from you," he told her. "I'm sorry, things went to fucking hell, and then I just didn't want to see anyone - which, for the record, terrible idea, and never let me do that again, cause me and being a hermit are like the most non-mixy things to ever attempt to mix. Fuck, I can't believe you're here. Where have you been? Like…" It occurred to him that they could be doing this with a drink, and he beckoned her further in, heading straight for the bar cart near the windows. "Mojito? Or I've got bourbon, if you'd rather. I literally just poured myself a gin and tonic."
She leaned into the quick hug easily before taking a step back. She gave an amused smirk in regard to the bow but it fell off when he hesitated and did the wave of his hand. Eyes focusing in on him, she gave an understanding nod. She had gotten enough context from trying to reach out to him to surmise that things had been indeed 'shitty.' "Well consider it Zee approved," she chose to say, though she made a mental note to return to the underlying implications later, in due time.
Positive it would be received kindly, Zee took another step forward, letting her fingers slide along Heart's coat in a gentle display of affection. While never much of a dog person herself, she was generally kind to any she met. She moved her hand up to scratch at the back of her ears.
Turning her gaze back to Hugh, she nodded her head. "I didn't think it was relegated solely to me. Or I don't know," she amended with a shrug of her shoulders. No point in allowing some honesty in that her mind had gone there at one point, before logic had stepped in to assist. "If I'd have known you were doing that from the get go, I'd have put a stop to it." Coming to a stop with her pets, she stood up completely. "Mostly Europe but it's been awhile so, you know."
She reached out, snatching the handle of her luggage. It was shoved away from the door and she closed it behind her with no issue, before following him towards the bar cat. "Depends. You have bourbon Martin would approve of?" She flashed him a cheeky grin at this before stuffing her hands in her pocket and moving to look around the room they'd come to occupy. "Mojito will do for now."
There was a normality to something being 'Zee approved', that loosened something that Hugh hadn't even entirely realized was tense. And she got a flash of a smile as he reached the cart. "Darling, I've got everything," he waved at the cart. And he hadn't even been running through it at an alarming rate of recent, so there was growth. But he didn't bother to explain that as he reached for white rum.
Hugh waved her to the sofa nearest him, as Heart wandered between the two of them, not entirely certain where she should be taking up residence, and Hugh poured, and shook, lime juice, rum, sugar how he remembered Zee liked it. Turning attention to the drink allowed him to stop for a moment, an uncharacteristic silence falling in as he worked, as he half realized that he was going to have to explain… a lot. They hadn't talked since before he and Em had broke up, before the filming, before the murder or the trial, and certainly not since before Repose. If she had said she'd put a stop to it - then it hadn't been purposeful, had it? With some of his friends, Hugh had wondered. And to be fair, he hadn't exactly reached out, but it had felt like lots of them simply hadn't known what to say, or maybe hadn't wanted to at all - maybe they believed some of the things. Whatever the reason, he'd more or less lost all of them. And Zee might be an old friend, but she hadn't walked through most of this with him, which meant she knew as much as any other person that he talked to recently.
No, that wasn't true, he added ice to the shaker before he sat a lid over it, and he glanced over. She knew him, at least, better than probably anyone at this point other than his mother. He wasn't starting from scratch with Zee. He shook up the drink, and poured it out, adding a couple of fresh ice cubes, and then picking up both his gin, and her Mojito, he crossed the room to hand her drink over.
He swallowed, eyes meeting hers as he held it out, uncertain despite the confident shoulders and easily mixed cocktail. "It's really good to see you. You're staying for a while, right?" He half glanced back into the hall she'd had a - yes. She did. "You've got things with you."
"Oh, but you know how particular he can be about these things," she reminded him as she cast an eye to the cart. She had no doubt that what Hugh had would have passed any silent test her cousin might have given him. And perhaps, after a drink or two, she'd shift towards a straight bourbon. It really depended how the rest of the evening went, if she was being honest.
And in the sake of honesty? She was looking forward to a drink to hold and use to help guide her through conversations.
She looked to the sofa but didn't immediately move to sit. Instead, she took in the decor. Her memories of time with Hugh were of a very cozy but cramped studio apartment. She didn't think she could be creative enough to fill a space like this and it was simply one room. She had let her eyes wander, not registering the silence at first, until it did dawn on her. She turned, looked to Hugh, and simply focused on him for the moment.
There was so much of her that wanted to barrel through this and discover everything she'd missed. She knew that wasn't how this going to be. But there was a fond expression as she watched him at work by the cart. She held the gaze for a moment longer before turning to take a seat on the sofa. "Are you allowed up here?" She addressed to Heart, hand moving out to rub her neck while she waited, the labrador indicated that yes she was by hopping up on the sofa next to Zee.
When the mojito was offered, she looked to Hugh. "Bless you," she praised, taking it in hand. She immediately moved to take a sip from it, letting it give her a second to think over the question, before she lowered it and rested her elbow on the arm of the sofa. "I'm winging it. I figured, if nothing else, I could see what the closest Motel 6 looks like," she teased. "Unless you've got a better suggestion?"
Hugh took a sip of his own drink, and settled down at the other end of the sofa, moving Heart's tail out of the way so he could pull one leg up and sit facing Zee. Near enough to be in her vicinity without crowding, and the dog was between them, seemingly in heaven with having two people who were interested in her. He gave Zee a shake of his head, and a mock alarm look. "No. God no, you do not want to see what the closest Motel looks like. The bed & breakfast is, decent I think, if haunted, but I have like six bedrooms," he waved a hand at the balcony above them. "And you are welcome to any of them, for as long as you want." He'd be afraid it sounded like begging if it wasn't something he'd told her a hundred times before, although admittedly that had usually been his bed, or the couch in his studio apartment, not a whole bedroom.
Another drink, and he swallowed, putting it down on his knee and he took a breath. This shouldn't feel awkward, it was Zee, but there had been so many things. He hesitated. "I guess, you um, saw the news."
"You realize you just made it sound like a challenge, don't you?" Zee could manage in the worst of accommodations so long as there weren't infestations. She had her limits. "And a haunted bed and breakfast is a selling point in many places, Hugh." Of course her eyes shot up to look at the balcony above. Six bedrooms. "I wasn't fishing for an invitation but since you've offered, I might as well take you up on it. Do I get to try out each and every bedroom?"
She didn't need to but it was just the kind of thing she was accustomed to saying. And it was easy to fall back towards previously established norms.
But she had a feeling in the pit of her stomach what was coming when he took in the breath. She shifted, setting the glass down on the closest coaster, and pivoted her body towards Hugh, waiting. She shook her head. "No. Dale told me." There was a sadness here that she couldn't cover up. For a moment, she hesitated. "You didn't call."
"I know the guy who runs it, he's really cool," Hugh offered. He didn't think Noah would mind having last minute booking at all, and Rey worked there, but maybe he'd been so ready to not have just a dog and two cats in his house, he didn't really want her to take up that challenge. "You can try out all the bedrooms," he waved his hand, it occurred that probably sounded like an open invitation to his, even if it had been years, really.
He took a drink. And then he took another one. And then he turned his glass in his hand for a moment.
"Yeah, I … didn't." This came out uncomfortably, with the awareness that he'd probably owed her a call. He could come up with a half dozen reasons for why he hadn't, but he wasn't certain they made sense. He swallowed and pulled his gaze up to meet hers. "I um…" And all he could really come up with were things that felt like excuses. Fuck. "I'm sorry."
She watched him closely. She'd known about it for months before she'd made her way here. She could use excuses, too. He hadn't exactly made it easy to find him, after all, but there was always the thought in the back of her mind. 'Call Mary.'
And she'd held off on that herself, until it simply couldn't be postponed any longer.
She shifted, reaching across the labrador that was between them, resting her hand on his arm. A soft smile was offered. "It seemed like a lot," she ventured. It wasn't an outright dismissal to state that it was okay but it was understanding. "And we don't have to talk about that right now," she offered as well. "Unless you want to."
She could wait a little longer for the story told in his words.
In retrospect it seemed obvious. He’d felt so alone at that point in his life. His mom, obviously and the new-found father, but Em had left him, a lot of acquaintances from Seattle had gotten weird, he hadn’t been able to work, because of the trial and the publicity around it, and he’d never been close to his siblings. And it felt obvious now, but at the time it had seemed anything but. She was traveling and she wasn’t there, and Hugh had always been rubbish with relationships that weren’t right in front of him, but beyond that he hadn’t wanted to ruin her trip. And it occurred to him only now really, that by changing his number, scrubbing his social media, and changing his address, he’d become all but unfindable not just for the press, but for his friends.
“There’s a lot,” he offered haltingly. “Em dumped me, the murder happened, I got caught up in that. Everything was a mess. I’d get these comments on my social media that were just…” he pulled in a breath, and he moved his hand, slipping it so that he could slide his into hers. “My um, so my biological dad bought me this place so I could get away from all of it and I tried to be a hermit, and made some fucking idiotic choices, and finally got myself back in stage again, and I did an Indie thing last fall and I’m doing Burn This over in the capital and it’s better now?”
He shrugged, eyes saying there was so much more but the so much more needed so many more drinks. Or at least one or two more drinks, enough that he could lean into that rather than sitting here working through it still mostly sober.
He lifted the gin with the hand that wasn’t in hers and he took a sip before looking over at her. “How did you find me?”
"There usually is," she said gently, but she knew it wasn't like the previous visits where they spent hours into the early morning recounting everything one another had missed over the months. A light nod was given. Mary hadn't come out and directly said it but it was implied that Em was no longer around. "That explains why I couldn't find you on Facebook."
A pause.
"Please note, I tried. You know how I hate that hellhole," she was trying to get a smile with this, but it accentuated a point. She had been looking. But then something clicked in her mind from his words. "I'm sorry -- your what?"
She raised her hand and shook her head. "That's so much to uncover, Hugh." She exhaled. "Okay. Okay. Information overload. Let's...focus on the good for a second. Burn This is a pretty big one, right?"
She picked up her drink, took a sip, and then chose to answer. "I called Mary and Isaac." A pause. "Desperate measures and all."
"Wait, you called Isaac?" Hugh looked over at her. Calling his mom, well, that seemed within reasonable realms, but the fact that she'd said Isaac at all implied that she'd called him and he shook his head. "I'm so sorry," he managed, looking somewhere between amused and abashed. "Like, what did - you know, never mind I can imagine."
He took a breath and glanced down at the gin in his hand. He downed the rest of it, and stood up again to go get a second. "Yeah, so there is a lot." And thankfully, his bar cart was really readily stocked.
He went for scotch this time, and brought it back, taking a sip before setting it down on the coffee table, just a little difficult to reach for as if that might make him drink it a little slower - but it was there as something he could reach out for if he needed to. "Yeah, I don't have the leading role, but I'm so not Pale. Could I pull it off - maybe? But," he waved a hand as if to suggest that it would probably be the death of the play. "I'm playing Larry, best friend of the leading lady, gay, advertising type, here for snark and sass, said leading lady is a delightful woman and it's been fabulous working with her, and I've loved every moment of rehearsals and performances start this weekend so we'll see how those go too, but yeah - it's big enough? It'll run for about a month in the Capital, Thursday - Sunday, which is basically about as good as you can hope for in professional theatre here." It wasn't New York or LA after all.
He didn't reach for scotch even though he wanted to and he looked over at her. There was the whole biological dad thing which he hadn't touched in there, but she'd said focus on the good so he stopped there. They could get around to the other.
"I called Isaac," she reaffirmed, with amusement, even though she'd actually been less than thrilled when she'd picked up the phone to dial Hugh's father. She'd been incredibly grateful once the phone was passed to Mary. It was always easier maneuvering through a conversation with his Mother. She didn't feel immediately judged when speaking with her. She gave a little laugh and nodded her head. Hugh's imagination would likely be on target.
She watched as he rose from the couch for a moment, eyes following his path to the cart, before she downed the rest of her mojito. The glass was set down on the coffee table and she shifted to fold her hands in her lap. "This weekend? Good timing on my part then. It's been...entirely too long since I've gotten to see you up under lights."
But there was the lingering statements still hanging in the air, despite her request they focus on the good. "We need more alcohol for the rest of that," she said, even though he'd easily made that possible. And so she shifted, taking the bottle herself, and though it were sacrilegious to do, she splashed some into the martini glass and tossed it back.
Then there was another pour before she turned her gaze back to him. "Let's start at the top..."
Hugh raised an eyebrow, giving her a look that said he was certain she was the bravest person in the world to have dealt with Isaac, but it softened as she talked about seeing him under the lights. Some people had come to see his performances here, but it had been years since Zee had seen one, and she knew where he'd been - and what he had done in the past - and she would know how much he'd grown.
"I'll get you a ticket for Friday," he assured her, reaching his hand out to squeeze hers gently. "I'll see what the best seat is that hasn't been sold, and it will be yours."
He pulled his leg up, Heart shifted, and with her shifting, he pulled his other leg up on the sofa, extended in Zee's direction, but not so far as to actually end up in her lap, even if historically, she'd have no problem with it being there. He pulled in a breath. It wouldn't get easier. "Alright, well..."