Chapter Text
He walked the first Golden Globes red carpet of his career with beard burn on his inner thighs. François wouldn’t be at the event, but he would be there in other ways. Lingering in the bruises on Connor’s waist, the dull ache in his hips. Connor tried not to let it distract him, he needed to stay present for this moment. This was important, he knew that, this was the beginning of everything and it was happening all at once. However, he could still feel the blunt scrape of François’ nails down his spine and there was not enough champagne to dull that memory whenever a hand brushed against his shoulder, his lower back.
Connor had not been so thoroughly fucked in, god, months? Years? Ever maybe. He held the heat of it in his chest and let it leak out for photographs, let it make him sparkle for interview questions, let it inform the confidence with which he met people that were going to change the trajectory of everything. He held it close, thought about lips and hands and stubble between moments of chaos and glamour. He was New Hollywood, but there was a man in a hotel room waiting for him in West Hollywood and somehow he’d become the most exciting part of this week, the last two months, the last year. Frankly it was insane, with everything waiting out there for Connor, all he could think of was the future that held another person in its shape. He pinched himself. Tried to snap himself out of it, but beard burn lingers differently against designer trousers. His collar brushed against delicately marked skin.
Everyone wanted Connor, the world sat on its haunches and waited to take him, but François desired him, cherished him, protected, worshiped. There weren’t enough words for the look in his eyes when he undressed Connor last night, four doors down from his own hotel room. Connor knew everyone watched them leave together, watched them climb into the back of the same blacked out car under thinly veiled excuses. Connor knew the rumors that were already spreading, videos of lingering gazes and touches that hold too tight or too long. François posted a picture this morning outside of their hotel, wearing lastnight’s blazer, stupid silk shirt tossed easy over his shoulder, like nobody would notice. It was reckless and Connor had been warned, he just couldn’t find it in him to care when he felt this alive.
Making it to his seat felt like a miracle. Hudson is there and thank god because he needed grounding, needed someone to bring him back to here and now.
“This is insane.” Hudson whispered and Connor almost missed it thinking about François’ eye teeth.
“I know. I feel insane.” Which was the truest answer he could give.
“You have to leave early tonight yeah?” Bless Hudson really, for his effort in making casual conversation while they were dressed like this, in this room, with these fucking people. Connor remembered getting dressed for the premiere together, pulling options from each other’s closets. Tonight they’d pinned a $1.7 million broach to his lapel and all he could think about was getting bent in half last night. Maybe he needed to calm down. Maybe he couldn’t.
“Yeah, Krista said 30 minutes tops at Chateau Marmont tonight.”
“We’ll make it worth it.” Hudson smiled. Wide and him. Connor always felt a rush of relief at that smile, like they were still real beneath it all.
Connor would lose that gravity again later, when they got on that stage, when he pulled the clown out of his core to just get through the bit that was written for them. He wondered if François was watching in his hotel. He felt silly for wondering but hoped he was anyway.
They meet Parker Posey at the after party. He put that in his pocket for later, something to say in his next interview. He watched Hudson flirt on command for the cameras and then he kissed him goodbye when his 30 minutes were up. They won’t be in the same room again for weeks and neither of them wanted to dwell on the anxiety of that.
“Tell Franco hello from me.” Hudson was already drunk in the way Connor could not afford to be.
“Shh. Be good Huddy.”
“I love you. Text me.”
“Always.”
Leaving early came with the perk of a quiet exit. There was so much to do before he needed to be at the airport and the panic had started to swell before he could even leave the building. Representatives from Tiffany and YSL meet him at the hotel to collect what had started feeling like a costume hours ago. Connor is relieved to have the weight of its value taken off of his hands. His familiar cargo pants and worn hoodie (stolen from François’ closet weeks ago) feel like armor in a different way.
They drive him to another hotel, where he waited in the car while François came down, two suitcases packed and ready for New York. There wasn’t a reason to travel together, François didn’t need to be there until Tuesday, but Connor hated planes and François loved him maybe. They hadn’t said. Not yet.
Connor grinned when François climbed into the car while the driver packed his luggage into the trunk. It was stupid that this was the happiest he had been all night. Like astronomically stupid. But François smiled back and his chest felt full and fuck it if that made him stupid.
“Hey beautiful.” François barely spared a glance to the driver’s seat or Connor's manager in the back seat before he leaned in and kissed him. It was imperative to the secret that everyone that mattered in this car already knew about this thing that had bloomed between them, but Connor still felt the rush of it.
“Hi.”
“You were magnificent out there.”
“I couldn’t stop thinking about you the whole time.” It was probably too honest for how new this was, but Connor is already thinking about love and a future so what’s the truth going to hurt?
“Do you have a crush on me? That’s embarrassing.”
“Shut up.”
“Never.” They kissed one more time before someone cleared their throat and seatbelts were buckled and the car was pulling out onto the road.
François held Connor’s hand during take off, kissed his temple after he encouraged him to lean against him, strong and solid against the turbulence.
“Sleep Starboy.” He whispered into Connor’s styled hair. “Big day tomorrow.”
“I can’t sleep on planes.” Connor responded and yet, miraculously, with the warmth and sturdiness of François beside him he found that he was able to drift. He didn’t stir until touch down.
“It feels wasteful to have two hotel rooms.” Connor said standing behind François as he fiddled with the keycard to his room. It was dead late or dead early but Connor was wired and awake and François laughed because he couldn’t stop touching him.
“It makes sense for everything but this.” François answered as he pulled him inside and they wasted no time getting naked. They needed to be up and ready only hours from now but somehow touch became more important, the most important.
Connor loved to let himself be kissed, to take it all in like a promise. François kissed him like he was coming home. They kissed, naked in the middle of the room until suddenly all at once the moment became so unreal, so incomprehensible to Connor that he started to laugh, wild and uncontainable.
“What?” François laughed too, tried to keep kissing him through the laughter. “What is so funny Starboy?”
“My life is a movie.” Connor whispered between fits of giggles. “Every dream I’ve ever had is coming true, and I’m the most excited about you kissing me right now.” He laughed again, breathless and chasing François’ toothy grin.
“So embarrassing.” François kissed him again and again after that until the air around them dulled from its wiry hum to something heavier and hotter.
Time moved slower after that. They fucked like honey, François buried between Connor’s spread thighs. The room filled with the sound of sex and skin and rumpled sheets. François ran his fingers through Connor’s pretty award show hair that was starting to curl tighter with travel and sweat he’d have to shower off sooner than he wanted to.
“I think I love you.” François breathed into his neck when he came and Connor was so relieved to hear it come from him first he crumbled apart underneath the weight of it.
“Thank god.”