~disclaimer~

Moulin Rouge belongs to Baz, Satie belongs to history; apologies to both for mangling their characters.

~warning~

Here be slash. As in male/male interactions. Don't like it, don't read it.

He woke up trembling. It was no surprise. Anything did it now—a voice murmuring through the walls, a draft, a beam of moonlight spearing through the tattered curtains. The same thing, every night for over a week. Satie was beginning to wish the whole show was over and done with, if only it meant he would sleep well again. At present, that option seemed impossible.

The state of affairs had reached a fever pitch, tension heightening offstage as well as on. Satine and Christian were still pursuing their affair as though it were a game, almost playfully dodging just out of the Duke's awareness, not seeming to realize the threat of discovery loomed larger than ever.

It was the thought that jolted him awake night after night: Not now, not when so much is at stake. If only it had happened earlier, before Zidler fully committed to the production, when there was less to lose, less cause for anxiety, less of Christian throwing everything to the wind for a passing fancy with the Sparkling Diamond. More likely than not, things could have been smoothed over and the show still could have pulled through successfully.

But no, the tryst had prevailed and there was no telling where the ramifications would lead. Satie would wake up, sweating and out of breath, from dreams of the possibilities—failure, destruction, loss, the Duke seizing people and property alike in his wrath. It was the electric sensation of where dreams met reality that unfailingly threw him into a sitting position so forcefully he nearly fell to the floor. Left him to sink back against damp pillows, to toss back wine with shaking hands, to wait endlessly in the hope that the drink would dull his senses enough to make sleep possible.

It never did. Night after night he would make his way outside, the blissfully cold air stinging his flushed face. Sometimes that was enough; other times, when the dreams were particularly vivid, he would dress and stay out until daybreak.

This was to be a night of the second variety. Thin fingers fumbled in the darkness, finding coat, glasses, scarf. Agitated footsteps tapped along the hall, down the stairs, through the door, into the street, searching out any hall or bar that was still open.

The one he found himself inside housed only one other patron, someone with long legs stretched elegantly over the table and a notebook propped on one knee. Rapid motions and distinctive shadows indicated he was writing with what appeared to be an ostentatiously feathered quill. Satie squinted through the dim lamplight. "Audrey?"

"Look, it's the little composer." The sardonic drawl more than sufficiently answered the question of identity. Audrey motioned to the seat beside him and Satie took it. "However is the show coming along?" 

A weary sigh. "Just go on and laugh. It's useless to try and tell you what's happening; you'll be scornful no matter what. You can snicker about it all you like now that you're no longer involved."   

Even in the murky half-light he could tell Audrey was pouting facetiously. "That's not a fair judgment," chided the poet, twirling the quill between his fingers. "There's no need to vent your frustration on me just because the new-fangled, revoltingly talented, sickeningly amiable writer I warned you against from the very start is bedding the star…"

Satie sighed again. "Does the entire city know about the behind-the-scenes intricacies?"

"Naturally," Audrey replied, a bit too brightly for Satie's comfort. "Everyone but the people it would most affect, that is. Zidler and the Duke, at least, have no idea, and everyone else thinks it's a grand secret to have to keep. Word travels fast here, you should know that by now." 

"Good God…" Satie dropped his head onto his arms.

"No need to tear out your hair over it."

Satie gave him a pained look.

With an annoying air of cheerfulness, Audrey rose. "­You look like a dip into something would do you good. I was about to go home when you came meandering in here. Coming?"

Satie looked doubtful.

"I've a better store there anyway," Audrey added, drawing a frown from the bartender.

Smiling faintly, Satie pushed back from the table. "Why does it seem like you're enjoying my suffering far too much?"

"I'm only offering assistance to a friend," came the innocent reply.

"Oh, if that's the case…"

Audrey's flat was a few minutes' walk from the bar and nearly as disorganized as Toulouse's. Satie had visited it several times before and was unsurprised to find the walls plastered with sloppy sketches and pages crammed with Audrey's spindly handwriting, punctuated every now and then by hints of the writer's garish apparel that poked out of wardrobes and drawers like anxious birds. Pens, ink, crumpled papers, and various bits of frippery Satie couldn't identify littered almost every available surface. Deliberately, he perched on the edge of the bed, which seemed relatively clear.

Audrey gathered a few bottles from various unseen places before kicking off his shoes and sprawling beside him. They drank in silence for a minute, Satie sipping dreamily, Audrey regarding him with impatience.

"Dear God," the latter finally muttered, draining the contents of his glass. "Stop sitting there with that martyred look on your face, for heaven's sake. Whatever's going on with the godforsaken play, it can't be that horrible."

Satie carefully relaxed a bit, as if the act physically pained him. "You want to know what's truly happening? Everything?"

"Naturally. I didn't invite you here entirely out of the considerable goodness of my heart." Audrey smiled, which made him look remarkably like a gossipy shopgirl. "Do tell."

"All right. But no interruptions or 'I told you so's, please." At Audrey's mocking nod, he continued. "There's not much you don't already know, probably. But it's different for the people who are so closely involved with it. It's not just some amusing story to us—it's real and it's…dangerous, really. Christian seems so oblivious to what he's gotten himself into. He doesn't think of pleasing anyone but Satine, and it affects everything else. The Argentinean, for one, he punched a hole in one of the dressing room walls the other day after Satine and Christian cut another rehearsal short to go 'rewrite a scene.' We spend our days trying to prepare everything for opening night and praying it won't all fall apart before that time comes." He shook his head and drank deeply. "This is a pivotal production even without the added dramatics and there's so much that could go wrong."

"And I suppose you'll tell me now that it's keeping you up at night. That you're having terrible dreams about the whole thing failing and everyone going home disgraced. Things that keep your fragile aesthetic psyche shuddering under the covers at night. Am I right?"

Satie flushed, drawing a smugly amused look from the other man.

"The problem with you is that you spend all your time worrying. Give your mind a night off. Go out and have one of the girls. Get a fuck," carefully painted lips sneering around the word. "All I've ever seen you do at parties is contort and talk about the weather. It's no wonder you're such a melodramatic bundle of nerves."

"I'm melodramatic? Look at the company I keep. It's hard to be otherwise, Monsieur 'I'm throwing a tantrum and storming out if I can't write the show my way'…"

Audrey gave him another bottle. "You know, I think we'll both feel better if you talk less."

Satie hesitated before speaking again. "I know you don't care what goes on in regard to the show unless it's something that gives you a chance to prove us right about letting Christian participate. You're right to think that, I suppose. You'd have done a wonderful job of it if we'd left you alone."

"Of course I would have. But you're making unfair judgments again. I don't mind as much as I used to—it is nice, in a way, to have a break from all the insanity Toulouse cooks up. And I do sympathize, really, but can't say I don't feel at least mildly satisfied. If you'd kept me as your writer, rest assured I never would have succumbed to Satine's charms." He sighed wistfully. "The Duke, now, that's another matter."

Satie choked. "Please tell me you're joking."

"Just wanted to see if you were paying attention. Not the Duke, no. I'm not a courtesan; I can have standards."

"This isn't a joking matter," Satie said firmly. "I can't just throw my fears aside and leave it all to fate."

Audrey pressed another glass on him. "D'you think I don't know how seriously you take…oh, everything? Here. Shut up and calm your nerves for once, if that's even possible."

Satie tremulously emptied the rest of the bottle before accepting the proffered glass. "I'd like to make it possible, believe me. Anything to start me thinking of better things."

"You're starting to sound like you're talking underwater. Not too long now."

Satie was going to make some comment about how Audrey was growing steadily more unintelligible himself, but established there were far too many words involved. Instead, he muttered a vague, "Maybe not," and ­found his head dropping onto Audrey's shoulder.

It was a comfortable enough position, and after an indefinite period of time he hazily perceived a hand was running smoothly over his head as a voice noted with some satisfaction that he didn't seem quite so tense anymore. "Really?" he mumbled.

"Let's see…" the voice continued, deliberately calculating. And then trailed off in order to deliver a kiss that was anything but calculating. Without thinking, Satie reached out to grasp the poet's arm and pull him closer, and Audrey moved back with a laugh. "Yes, really. Didn't that give you something more pleasant to focus on?"

"Is that what that was?" Satie said, idly wondering where his glasses had gone. If they were off, he couldn't tell; everything was blurry anyway.

"Only trying to help a friend," sanctimoniously.

"I've heard that before…" he muttered, fairly certain he had.

"Am I doing a good job of it?" 

The fingers of one hand were creeping up the back of his head; the other moved with painful slowness along his jaw line and down his neck to rest at the base of his throat. Satie tensed and reached up to hold it in place. Audrey smiled triumphantly. "I suppose so, then." He brought his face close to the musician's long enough to whisper "Keep focusing," before closing the distance between them once again.

The remedy truly was effective. When Audrey's lips began following the trail his fingers had traced along the composer's neck, the show was the last thing on Satie's mind. Not worth concentrating on, not then—nothing worth concentrating on at all, for that matter, save catching his breath. It was enough of a trial as it was, with Audrey—tasting, inevitably, of wine—seemingly doing everything in his power to obstruct such efforts.

A few failed attempts later, Satie gave up and essayed instead to simultaneously arch his back and lean into the kisses. After a moment of indeterminate clutching, his hands met in the middle of Audrey's back. When he maladroitly lifted one to tangle in the writer's sleek blue-black hair, Audrey broke away to breathlessly expel the words, "Mind the coiffure." The warning left Satie caught somewhere between surprise and disappointment, but he obediently settled his arm around Audrey's shoulder nonetheless.

"You really would make a horrible courtesan," he whispered, which earned him an ironical, if unsteady, look and a nip on the neck.

"Aside from the obvious, that's why I write."

"So, that is to say—"

"You're talking again. You shouldn't be."

And they resumed, Satie again falling dumb as one manicured, ink-stained hand began fiddling with the buttons on his shirt, sliding along soft skin, lips leaving crimson prints behind. His own hands faltered along back, neck, shoulders, before one of them plunged into the labyrinthine lace at Audrey's collar in search of the fastenings. Audrey traced a biting path down one side that left him breathing harder than one of his nightmares, then paused as if he had all the time in the world. "You haven't been eating much either, have you?" idly running a hand over the other man's abdomen and smirking at the inefficiently smothered groan the movement prompted.

The sudden question took forever to permeate Satie's muddled senses. "This is not the time to start lecturing me about nutrition," finally acquiring enough presence of mind to answer, and, before he could lose it again, to pull the shirt over Audrey's head. "And no more of this 'coiffure' nonsense, please," grasping a handful of it to steer Audrey's head back down.

More than adequately diverted, undeniably. Not a word, not a shiver, nothing that might belie a hint of lurking unease, even when Audrey made a crack along the lines of, "And they gave the name Legs-in-the-Air to Nini…" Normally, thinking of Nini would make Satie think of the dancers, the dancers of the show, the show of…and then he would be off again, good for another interrupted night. But this time, all he did was mildly tell Audrey to shut up and get back to the matter at hand.

So there was victory in the end, at least this once. There was no way of telling if Spectacular Spectacular would end the same way, but for once Satie didn't compulsively begin tearing himself to shreds over the possibilities. Instead, he stretched, mused that having something else to think about wasn't at all a bad sensation, and fell asleep under the weight of an arm that was slung over his waist.

He did not wake up again that night.