Chapter Text
It wasn’t instant. Hugh had buzzed at the thought of having Mads on board with the project, and he remembered the fun they’d had on the set of King Arthur, but it had been a long time since they’d spent time together. In fact, their reunion had been less than smooth, an awkward faltering dance between them as they figured out whether to shake or hug. After the ‘heys’ and ‘good to see yous’ had passed, they got to work, knowing their commitment to the show would soon work out any difficulties.
There were good days and bad, Canada was a long way from home, and the hours were long. But everyone on set was great and if you really let yourself play with the story it was fun to shoot. While people suggested that the dark material of the show might follow them back to their hotel rooms, that was never a problem. What was a problem was how well the scripts were put together.
“Hugh!” Mads jogged over to him as he spotted him going for a walk.
Hugh turned, never getting tired of hearing the melodic tones of Mads’ accent.
“Have you read the new pages?”
Hugh smiled and glanced to the ground. He knew exactly the problem Mads was having.
“It’s a wonder anyone hangs out with the man.”
“I never shut up!” They were walking in lock step now, Mads clearly having no qualms about joining the walk, and Hugh for some reason not caring.
“Never shut up.” He agreed. “Do you want to run lines tonight? We could let Bryan know if anything doesn’t feel right.”
Mads nodded his approval for the plan, before fumbling in his pocket. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one, taking a long drag. In the twilight of the day he could see its embers dance for a second near his lips, devouring everything in their wake.
“You know you should quit right?”
How many times had he watched friends smoking and not said anything. He wasn’t one to dish out unsolicited advice, wasn’t one to judge the choices others made.
Mads grinned again, no hint of guilt. He didn’t seem to mind that Hugh had felt the need to embroil himself in his affairs.
“Want some?”
He wasn’t offering Hugh his own cigarette, he realised. It wasn’t the behaviour of mates in the pub garden, come to commiserate with each other about work and kids. It felt intimate; their fingers brushing against each other as they passed the tobacco from one to another. Hugh liked thinking about his mouth puckering around the place where Mads’ had just been, like if there was some temporal fault they could have been there together.
Nothing happened that first season. They were cooped up together for months, playing a pair of men trapped in a twisted love affair with each other, that was so intimate it almost felt illicit to rehearse. They didn’t take home the more unsavoury aspects of Will and Hannibal, but of course a bond was going to develop between them. What Hugh found difficult to reconcile was that he didn’t want Mads in the same way that Will wanted Hannibal. He didn’t want to test him, or to probe his mind like a surgeon. He didn’t want anything really but to spend time with him. Intellectually, he could put that down to them being close friends, but to express it in those terms didn’t feel right.
He found himself drawn to classics, novels that he’d read at Oxford that waxed lyrical about the nature of love. They talked about its fragile, imperceptible nature, and as he kept turning pages, about that platonic connection between two men. There was no river on which to punt, no balls, nor portraits hidden from sight, but he knew what he was feeling was the same.
Hugh was in love.
He knew he was in love as he traced circles across his wife’s skin, and when they walked through Central Park together, and when she tried on outfits for red carpet events.
Hugh loved Claire.
———
Hugh wasn't really certain when Mads and he had started regularly conversing through text. Neither of them were particularly good at it, and it was only a shadow of their real personalities, but Hugh found he was disappointed when a message wasn’t from Mads.
‘New carpet for your collection. Think it looks like ducks riding each other?’
‘I’m not entirely sure you know what a duck looks like. What I am certain of is that you mean what one does with a horse.’
‘You don’t know what I do with horses’
‘I do not know what to do with that information.’
It was like that between them; mischievous and deliberately filthy, and so, so easy.
The days got longer and New York, as New York was want to do, turned into a furnace. Hugh took to lounging about like a lizard, so tired and content with the sun streaming through the large windows of his brownhouse, that often all he could do was close his eyes. Behind the pink-orange glow of his eyelids he wondered how Mads, in his hoodie and trainers, coped with the heat. He pictured him leaping with wild abandon into pristine lakes, using the barbecue so often that he’d start to taste of smoke and carnal desire.
He knew that Mads had gone with Hanne to Italy and that as committed as he was to his family, he would probably be out of reach for a while. It felt dirty that a little part of him wanted some evidence of his being there: browned skin contained beneath trunks that had stuck in all the right places. He was still plagued with romantic notions but these were much easier to deal with, and in the sticky, grimy heat of the city it felt alright to fantasise.
The texts and calls eventually plateaued, and Hugh felt like it was only right to allow them to settle. They weren't of a generation that spent all that much time on their phones, and something about Mads’ verve and spontaneity was lost through the screen. He took time to focus on Claire, feeling somewhat guilty about his wandering mind. They were going to start trying for kids soon, and while he had never felt their relationship was in jeopardy, it didn’t sit well with him that he should have devoted so much energy to a juvenile crush.
When they got the news that Hannibal had been renewed for a second season someone floated the idea that they should get together to celebrate. America was a long way to come for a drink but Mads already had ‘people’ that he had to see in LA, and so, surprisingly for adult friendships, a date was set.
A new restaurant had opened in the city that everyone had been meaning to go to, and so Bryan booked a table. The energy inside was frenetic, buzzing with conversations across the room. Wine and bold combinations of flavours passed freely past their lips as they laughed and reminisced. Bryan told them all about the shows he had been watching, dissecting them with hilarious insight as Claire faux winced and told them all their tastes were too macabre. She told them about their plans to start a family and Mads both relaxed and worried them with stories about when his children had been young. As they talked about late nights and first steps Hugh looked from one to the other, musing on how different but simultaneously perfect each was. Bryan might have caught him staring but said nothing except to say how he’d likely traumatise a child just from the posters on his walls.
With the evening over, they hopped in the first cab that was heading in the right direction and Hugh contemplated his choices. Claire was resting her fingers lightly on the hand that laid on his thigh, the pads of them moving the skin millimetres closer to her. For a moment, if no one were to say anything, everything that was right would stay perfectly balanced in the safety of the cabin of the car. But then the door opened at the hotel, and the shock of the outside sent him falling away from her and into treacherous waters.
“Nightcap?”
He was stepping out of the cab now and god his legs were so long, were they always that graceful? Claire squeezed his hand, “I’m going to go to bed, but you should stay.”
So, against his better judgement, he got out.
There was a palpable tension between them as they made their way to the room. It was heady, and scary, and just a little bit exciting, being alone with him after so long apart. Hugh didn't think about what he was doing, just let his body move on autopilot down some predetermined path. Who knew what lay at the end of the road when they opened that door, but he was caught in Mads’ thrall. Like Icarus, he would keep going and face his regrets later.
They settled at the headboard for a while, watching the light from the city change in tone, as though the whole world was theirs. Mads wondered aloud how many people were having sex right now in the windows they could see and Hugh laughed so hard that he choked on his drink. A hand patted his back but didn’t leave and, all of a sudden, everything seemed so quiet.
Hugh was still, letting Mads take the tumbler from his fist to place it on the side table. A trickle of deep brown liquor trailed down the glass, creating a ring around its base. Evidence that they were there.
Mads placed a hand on Hugh’s thigh, sure but not presumptuous.
“It’s really good to see you.” He said earnestly.
“It is.”
They sat for seconds that seemed to stretch into eternity like this, holding each others gaze, moving imperceptibly closer to each other. Hugh felt like he could drown in everything he was feeling, but that it would be ok. His lips were parted and he’d let all his features go soft, no shred of tension left in his body.
He knew this feeling.
He knew this feeling.
Hugh tilted his head down, his eyes glistening with tears.
“I’m not going to cheat on Claire.”
For a moment they stayed like that, and Hugh wondered if he wanted Mads to challenge him. When he didn’t, or maybe before he’d given him enough time to, he swung his legs over onto the floor and collected his jacket. He couldn't look at him again, couldn't let himself think about whether he'd made the right choice. He just had to go back out into the world that was once theirs.