Chapter Text
Even now- classroom after conference hall, lecture theatre after auditorium- Arthur still gets nervous. The wooden floor of the raised stage creaks under his lead-heavy feet. He can’t stay still, switching from foot to foot with every passing second. His hands clench and tighten, clawed and ragged fingernails carving red crescents in to cracked palms. Under the heat of a dozen lights, even from behind the thick indigo curtain that separates him from an unaware audience, his forehead glistens, deathly pale with a sickly grey tint. Blown wide and dark, his pupils dart from left to right and back again, struggling to focus from head of messy hair to shoulders rubbing against shoulders. The sound of his lungs heaving and heart pounding against the thin muscle of his chest floods the space, swimming among hundreds of other similarly baited breaths.
They’d had significantly less trouble getting in to the building than they had previously anticipated. Of course, they were far from the only group of students milling around outside the event hall prior to the introduction of the evening’s speakers, a team of representatives from the French Agency for the Fight against AIDS- or as they have become known to Arthur and his peers, ‘Lavettes’. However, they’ve done rather well to create both a name and a reputation for themselves in the past few months, and there’s only so much of the bright pink triangle plastered across their shirts that can be covered by bleach stained denim jackets.
Still, their little gathering waits for the courtyard to clear, and for the sun to bury itself just a little further down beneath the clouds, before sliding in through the stage door around the back of the building, only moments before someone deems it fit to be pulled tight and locked. They crowd in to the first empty room they find, knocking against each other, all skittish with anticipation. Arthur stands by the door, watching the corridor clear person by person, hushing the congregation intermittently.
They wait obediently for him to call it clear, and move to bombard the conference. The walls rattle under the weight of vibrations from amplifiers, sharing greetings and introductions, and notes from a previous summit. It’s not a long walk from the dressing room to the wings of the stage, Arthur knows from sweet experience, but herding a flock of well-meaning students, carrying placards the size of their torsos, down a narrow corridor without drawing the attention of some jobs-worth security guard is an entirely new territory.
Someone different is speaking now. Arthur knows his name, his face, his voice, all far too familiarly. He’s heard these words before, plenty of times, and read them in blocks of monotonous black and white, parading themselves as something akin to intellectual. He doesn’t pretend to know exactly what they mean, but the intent- and downright malignance behind them- has been made explicitly clear to him on more than one occasion.
His jacket feels tight and constricting around his trembling shoulders. A whistle hangs like an iron weight around his neck, the string rubbing the skin under his hairline red raw. The ball rattles with every jolted step in place that he takes, swinging with the same frequency that he swings his restless arms in the little space he’s been afforded.
A polite yet hesitant round of applause circles through the room, and Arthur watches as the speaker is replaced with another just as clean cut, with a well-fitting suit jacket and meticulously shined shoes. His voice drones on once more about diversity and equality with a similarly sinister enthusiastic tone, eyes bright and cheeks stretched wide in to a menacing smile. His hands don’t shake as he gestures along with delicately chosen words, pointing at indistinguishable graphs and charts posted on the board behind him. This is the man they’ve come to see.
They were meant to give him a cue. They haven’t. And once again, it has been left entirely up to Arthur to make sure the evening runs smoothly.
“Fuck it- let’s go,” he mutters, bringing the whistle to rest between chapped lips.
Antonio is still struggling to grasp the concept that it rains far more often in Paris than it ever did in Madrid. And it would just so happen- with his luck, of course- that this fact would manifest itself in the form of him huddled underneath the doorway to the student union building; water dripping from dark, sodden curls to lay trails down his cheeks; and wearing a shirt so soaked that it has almost become see-through. He shivers, despite the ‘generous’ temperature of the evening. Generous for Paris anyway, in his severely limited experience. As such, he had earlier chosen to forego carrying around a spring jacket or light umbrella, much to his own detriment.
It’s already dark, despite the relatively early hour but the streets along the seine and surrounding the university campus still bustle with people, all with their hands in their pockets and their heads hung low. Every café and restaurant is filled with tourists and locals alike, pressed up against windows, foggy with condensation from the heat of their lively breathing and the steam rising from hot coffees.
But there are only two lights on in this building. One, in the entry lobby, paints his stone stoop with stripes of yellow that poke through the slivers of frosted glass. The other illuminates a larger window a few metres away from where he stands, on the ground floor, wrapping itself around the crumpled blind that has been pulled down to obscure the view to the inside.
Every so often, the doorway will be flooded by the lobby’s yellow light as the door creaks open, and small groups of chatting students wrapped up in brightly coloured sports jackets and clashing scarves make their way inside the building, after stubbing out their cigarette butts on the same darkened patch that has dug its way down in to the wooden frame of the entryway.
He’s meant to be meeting someone- someone else, not one of the figures that walk straight past him without even the slightest glance. It’s been over an hour, if his watch is running correctly today, and he’s not entirely sure why he’s still waiting, sat across the green from the designated rendezvous point organised by the woman he’s spent every Monday morning lecture next to for the past seven months. He doesn’t know her name. He doesn’t know their name. He doesn’t seem to know a lot, these days.
“Are you here for the meeting?”
He looks to his right. A woman with auburn hair stands halfway across the threshold, holding the door open with her shoulders and angling her neck around to watch him. Her eyebrows raise, as Antonio realises that he has yet to answer. Something, some higher influence, tells him to nod. A bright smile spreads across her flushed face, and her eyes lighten. She holds out her hand to Antonio, who gladly takes in its warmth and allows himself to be led inside the building. The door slams loud behind them.
He’s dragged down a corridor, dimly lit by the excess light coursing in from the foyer, past several identical, closed doors, until the pair reach one that is held wide open by a doorstop. He can hear a group of people has begun to congregate in there- this must be what is pulling people from the streets, as no other section of the building appears to be occupied in any way. Their footsteps echo against scuffed hardwood flooring, his flat and heavy with the hardy rubber sole of his shoes, hers sharp with the click of her heels in perfect time with each other.
The first thing he notices about the room, is the overwhelming scent of stale menthol and industrial carpet cleaner. The carpet feels rough and scratchy under his feet, and appears to be the hideous yet typical, cheap, flint grey colour so commonly found in classrooms not just in Spain and France, underneath the harsh white light that bathes the room. There’s a chalkboard on one wall, stained with white dust and the remnants of words someone hasn’t bothered to wipe away completely. Opposite it, there are chairs and tables rising up at regular increments, most of them empty, though the row at the very back is far more densely populated. There are three seats, front and centre, that are also occupied, almost forming a perfect quadrant of curious faces and nervous hands.
The woman wraps a friendly hand around his elbow, and guides him towards the fourth seat, thrusting a sparse sheet of paper and pen towards him before he has even truly sat down.
ACT UP PARIS – AIDS COALITION TO UNLEASH POWER
NAME
AGE
GENDER
ORIENTATION
HIV STATUS
OTHER
“Since you’re new here, I’ll ask you to fill in this form, just so we can keep track of demographics. All of the questions are optional, you don’t have to answer any of them if you don’t want, but obviously some of them- like your name- can be pretty useful to know,”
Antonio stares down at the sheet, letting her words wash completely over his head. Her accent is unfamiliar, and stumbles almost clumsily over the flow of French. He can hear the scratch of pencils working fervently around him.
“I’m Elizabeta, by the way. And this is Gilbert, our spokesperson,” she smiles, gesturing towards the man stood beside her, with pale hair and even paler skin. Antonio looks up for a second to meet his gaze, and shake his extended hand.
“Antonio,” he introduces himself politely.
“It’s good to have you here. Though personally, I prefer the term leader,” Gilbert smirks.
“Don’t listen to him, he’s a certified idiot,” Elizabeta rolls her eyes, her voice just about bordering between amusement and resentment.
“I’ll leave you to fill this in. We’ll be starting soon,”
They’re not the sort of questions he’d been expecting when he’d followed a beautiful, lively woman through a corridor in a student building. They’re not the sort of questions he had been expecting at all this evening, date or no date, meeting or no meeting. He answers them anyway, and attaches his contact information to the section at the bottom.
ACT UP PARIS – AIDS COALITION TO UNLEASH POWER
NAME- Antonio Fernández Carriedo
AGE- 22
GENDER- Male
ORIENTATION- N/A
HIV STATUS- Negative
OTHER- N/A
“Alright, everyone, it’s getting late so we’ll get on with it,” Elizabeta’s voice rings out across the room. Antonio glances up from the desk to find that the room has filled out significantly since his arrival. Almost every seat has at least one occupant- some two.
“We have a few new arrivals today, so for their sake I’m going to have to go through the information spiel and house rules again- don’t complain, you were all new once too,"
“You may already know, we’re ACT UP. As a group, we were founded in 1989, inspired by the ACT UP group in New York. We initially started as a queer-led initiative with the intention of defending the rights of people with AIDS. We don’t provide patient support, we’re purely an activist group. I presume that, since you’re here tonight, you’ve seen examples of our action in the media or the press. Those actions, of course, are decided here during our weekly meetings. Same time, same place, every week.
“Now, we have a couple rules for speaking, they’re there to preserve the integrity of the group, and they must be followed- no questions asked. We always have two people moderating debates. You can speak on any topic here, but you need to put your hand up and wait your turn. If you speak for too long, the moderators will have to stop you, so try and keep things concise. Also, to prevent any interruptions, we don’t applaud a point- if we agree with the speaker, we click our fingers, so the debate can continue smoothly.
“Don’t worry, I’m almost done. Please don’t smoke in here out of respect for those of us who may be immuno-compromised or otherwise. You can smoke in the corridor, but please don’t debate there- we’d like to keep discussion in this room so that everyone has the chance to be involved.
“And finally, to join, you need to understand this: As soon as you join ACT UP, whatever your HIV status, whether you’ve decided to disclose that with us or not, you must accept the fact that you will be viewed by the media and the public, including any friends or family that may see, as HIV positive. Simple.
“I think that’s everything- if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask either Gilbert or I at the end of the meeting. And most importantly, have fun,”
“Are you quite finished?” Gilbert scoffs from one of the front corners of the room. Elizabeta shoots him a sour look, eyebrows drawn together in a scowl.
“Good- we’ll get started then. We’ve a pretty full agenda today, so it’d be nice if you all kept quiet unless it’s absolutely necessary that you speak. I reckon we should start with the AFLS debrief, if you don’t mind- Arthur?”
There’s a shuffle of movement towards the back of the room. Antonio turns around in the chair to watch a man with untidy blonde hair, stick thin limbs covered with an oversized green bomber jacket and an angry face stand from his table. Gilbert continues to speak as Arthur makes his way down the steps, to stand in front of the chalkboard.
“In case you didn’t know, the AFLS is a French anti-AIDS agency. Arthur, go ahead-“
“Okay, right. I’ll try to be objective, just this once, but it might be difficult because I’m pretty fucking annoyed by how it all went down,”
He turns to stare at the group of people loitering in the corridor and the doorframe, with an indignant glare that could quite easily rival Elizabeta’s.
“It’d be nice if everyone who took part in the demonstration could also come and take part in this discussion, since you were all so enthusiastic the other night,”
Arthurs voice, stern and undeniably English as it is seems far more comfortable with the loose vowels and tight-lipped consonants of French than Elizabeta and Gilbert had been.
With annoyed groans, the group stub out their cigarettes and trudge in to the room.
“Well, it all began as planned. We had no problem getting in to the conference hall, we listened to the speech for a bit- it was shit, as we had expected,”
Arthur blows in to the whistle, singlehandedly starting a cacophony of other similarly shrill whistle screeches, accompanied by the blare of several air horns, and the confused murmurs of the people sat watching the event unfold. He storms on to the stage with confident steps, quickly flanked by others holding signs up high above their heads, all printed in stark black and white with statements condemning the actions of the AFLS. Shocked, the speaker stumbles back from the lectern, leaving the microphone stand ripe and open for Arthur to take advantage of.
“We are ACT UP Paris. The AFLS was founded over three years ago, yet there still has not been a decent and informative prevention campaign. France has twice as many cases as the United Kingdom or Germany. You’re failing, terribly. There’s nothing for gays, for druggies, for women or foreigners-“
His voice is raspy and scratched with fervent anger and passion, but the suited man still manages to speak over him.
“We’ve done campaigns for homosexuals,” he says, smugly.
“Yes, and the Prime Minister’s office censored the campaign. It was only shown in publications that no one reads. How is that going to help anything, prevent anyone else getting sick?”
“You can’t say things like that,” the speaker interrupts again before suddenly falling silent.
Arthur feels something fly past his ear, and watches as an expanse of thick claret explodes over the man’s chest, instantly staining his white shirt a horrific shade of red. The substance coats one side of his face, and drips down to follow the lines of his lips and chin, creating an almost vampiric image. Arthur would think it oddly appropriate, if his thoughts weren’t frozen with the unexpected turn of events. The crowd falls silent just for a second, before exploding once again in a shocked chorus.
“I get it- I fucked up. I’m sorry,” a hesitant voice calls out from the left side of the room.
“Emil?” Elizabeta questions.
The boy- because he is a boy, much to Antonio’s shock- stands with a sheepish posture.
“It was my fault, I couldn’t see from the back. I couldn’t hear either, so I panicked. I’m human. I heard someone say, ‘It’s you next’, so when I had a window I felt that I had to just go for it- otherwise we might have missed the opportunity,”
“We have made mistakes before, Arthur,” Gilbert sighs, leaning one hand against a desk, and resting the other on his hip “So what if he threw the blood too soon, it isn’t that big of a deal,”
“Fine, no big deal, I just looked like an idiot up there, speaking on my own. No worries,” Arthur scorns.
“Anyway, the real problem came after,”
Within seconds, the hall explodes in to chaos. Neither Arthur nor the representative have dared to move from their positions, but everyone else seems to bustle around them. Two figures, one tall and wheat-blonde with golden skin, the other lithe and pale, leap forward and pull the man towards them with rough, sudden motions. His arms are twisted behind his back, and Arthur hears the click of a metal handcuff around the man’s wrist, before watching him be dragged down to the ground against a stage support pole, and seeing the other cuff be fastened to it. Someone begins to chant. Someone else joins. Arthur can’t tell what they’re saying. A red hand print stains the display of charts, and is projected up on to the wall.
“I don’t know which genius came up with the idea to do that-“
“You know exactly who it was,” a new voice cries out from the back of the room.
“Let him finish, please,”
“Whatever- I think it’s counter-productive. All it did was make other groups mad, instead of making them react for once. We’ve never handcuffed anyone before, you all know that the cuffs should be used on ourselves if the cops ever show up,”
“Can we speak now?”
“Go ahead, Alfred,” Gilbert directs the debate away from an irate Arthur.
“Thank you. Sure, we improvised, but we could tell from the start that the entire thing was screwed. It was a mess, everyone there was thinking ‘Oh, ACT UP’s at it again, but they’ll shut up soon’. Emil’s fuck-up was a major turning point for us. It let them know that we’re serious. They’ve never had as strong of a reaction to something as they did then. We had to seize the opportunity, so we did the first thing we could think of. And I think that we were right. It wasn’t premeditated,”
“Matthias?”
“No one is saying it was premeditated, Alfred. But Arthur’s right, it was really violent,”
Arthur snaps his fingers so hard, that it looks like they’re about to break against his palm.
“Throwing blood is already a lot, but we’ve never handcuffed anyone- it’s mad. It felt like even I was being taken hostage,”
Antonio watches someone else raise their hand.
“Francis, go ahead,”
The man, Francis, pushes himself up from the table in a swift motion, flicking long blonde hair back over his shoulder, and leaning forward on to the table with delicate fingers.
“Why are we debating this?” he begins, his voice smooth and calm, yet somehow still filled with rage. He gestures wildly with one hand as he talks.
“The action didn’t fail. I apologise, but it was actually a big success. Arthur- there was no physical violence,”
“No, just a tiny bit of restraint-“
“Hardly- the guy offered no resistance. And what is the AFLS? An agency founded by the government to shift blame and responsibility. And since then, there has been nothing. We finally got to show exactly how useless they are”
The sound of clicking overtakes the room, and Francis’ gestures become even more frenzied as he continues to speak.
“In meetings, you say‘we agree, but we can’t shock the public, it’d be counterproductive’. And now we have over 6000 new cases a year,”
“Francis,”
“The AFLS campaigns are so abstract, that you forget HIV is sexually transmitted. Nothing on gays, junkies or whores. There’s nothing on those hit hardest by the epidemic!”
“Francis!” Elizabeta shouts, her voice ringing between the walls.
“I’m nearly finished- who cares if the AFLS were humiliated? We’ll keep pissing the state off until there is a real prevention policy.”
Francis falls back in to his seat with an exhausted sigh, and Elizabeta looks relieved that the argument seems to have ceased.
“Alright, can we move on now,” she pleads.
“Wait, this is important, Liz,” Arthur argues.
“I understand your panic, but the world isn’t about to end. Roderich, have any other groups reacted?” Gilbert steps in once again in an attempt to cool the situation, and turns to involve the quiet brunette man sat in the front corner, behind a large stack of papers.
“There’s something interesting in the AIDES communique- ‘AIDES condemns the actions of ACT UP in attacking the chairman of the AFLS, et cetera,” he flicks through the rest of the paper,
“We condemn ACT UP’s brutal and childish methods, despite understanding its impatience with the AFLS’ inertia’. Liberation’s headline tomorrow: Historical and Hysterical break in the fight against AIDS. ‘ACT UP’s actions highlight the authorities’ disregard for French homosexuals,”
Another round of snapping.
“Well, let’s move on, we won’t be done by midnight at this rate,” Gilbert huffs.
“Anyway- speaking of prevention,” Elizabeta begins, “we’ve just printed our new posters. A close up on a bit of anal sex, very tasteful. Post it in the Marais, along the river, in your parents’ homes and your churches. We also have some for our dyke sisters and junkie friends too, Arthur,” she smirks, sticking up three explicit posters that have Antonio sliding back down in to his chair with reddened cheeks.
Arthur doesn’t grace Elizabeta with a reply to her taunt, instead storming back up the stairs to confront Francis, the typical scowl on his face. Antonio can’t hear what they’re saying, but he can’t imagine it’s particularly friendly. Nobody else seems to notice.
“We’ll be setting up commission meetings for all the sub-groups, they’ll be posted to the schedule. We’d like you all to pick an area to focus in, be it prostitutes, junkies- I think the prison commission is running low on members. Anything else, Mattie?”
Another figure moves to stand at the front of the room, ready to address everyone else.
“A few weeks ago we voted for action against the Melton Pharm lab, which still refuses to release the toxicity results of its protease inhibitor. A protease inhibitor is an antivirus molecule, about which we unfortunately don’t know much. They’re holding the information back,”
“It would seem,” Gilbert continues, “that Melton Pharm are waiting for their next conference to announce it, but the next conference isn’t until next year- in Berlin. They don’t give a shit about us.”
“The idea is to get the results from the lab ourselves, and see what they tell us.”
“Put your hands up to give us an idea of who can take part,”
Francis, Alfred, Matthias, Arthur and Mathieu all raise their hands. Antonio raises his hand.
“Even the new guys want to join in,” Elizabeta smiles.
“There should be more of us,” Gilbert raises his hand.
“Even our chairperson will be there! That makes about fifteen of us,”
“We’ll use a phone tree the day before- you call three friends, they call three friends, and so on,” Arthur explains.
“How do we get in?”
“What?”
“How do we get in?”
“The door, Berwald- Christ, it’s not difficult,” Arthur shrugs.
“I’ve been to that lab before- there’s a security lock, and two revolving doors,”
“Revolving doors won’t hurt you, I promise. But you should all bring your identification just in case we get arrested, as well as water and meds, should you need them- they might keep us in custody for a while,”
“Will we be throwing blood again? Because I haven’t been able to shower in a week, my bath is still full of the stuff,”
The meeting soon calms rapidly, but Antonio clings to every word, every movement, with a curious vigour he can’t recall ever having experienced in his entire life. He watches Gilbert and Elizabeta parade themselves across the front of the room with big smiles and spritely steps, catches Francis and Arthur shooting each other the occasional ill-natured expression, while watching them slowly migrate to sit closer to each other. He sees brotherly exchanges between Alfred and Mathieu, and Mathias persistently trying to talk to the man sat beside Emil.
When the hall eventually begins to clear, he almost can’t bring himself to leave. The atmosphere of the room, all hate and anger and hope like some sort of odd Pandora’s Box, envelops him in a way he’s never felt before. He wants to bury his fingers in it, and keep it wrapped tightly around himself.
But Elizabeta wants to lock up more, and so she quickly hurries him out of the building, and back out on to the dark courtyard with a friendly smile.