Author's Note Extraordinaire: B is at it again. I've been writing insane little one-shots for the past age and a half and, given that Lithium Crash is on indefinite hiatus (i.e. I'm tired of it), I needed a chaptered piece to work on. This one is going to be simple - 86 on the metaphor attacks and super-grandiose language. I don't want to write the magnum opus of my life but I hope it'll turn out decent enough. More or less, I need to give myself hope for IS (or, a personal escape from the mindless shit IS is pushing). That and I really want to give into the little voice that wants me to write a T&J fic that's sans misogyny and Pitiful Jude.

Title: Half Fade
Summary: Tommy and Jude happened. Two years later, what happens when you settle for less?
Rating: T; may contain borderline M scenes and language.

Now that all of the preamble stuff is out of the way, let's see where we can take this...

xxx, b

Chapter 1 / This Clock Never Seemed

The perfectly creased cobalt pinstripe suit hung on his cedar hanger in such perfect contrast to the white closet door. A crisp fuchsia silk tie draped over the right shoulder, a startling match for the brilliant magenta rose for the lapel's buttonhole. Butter leather navy shoes lay at the bottom of the door waiting to run away. It was a scaled outline for its owner, Tom Quincy, for the twentieth birthday of a former Jude Harrison-Quincy.

Tommy dragged himself up from the edge of the bed, thinking of how the night would turn out. It wouldn't be a night of rainy kisses or heated passion in rickety elevators or secret trips to Vegas. The night would be sober and sobering, thoughtfully simple in its decadence. Darius, still master and lord of G-Major, had decided on a "closed-set" party: a handful of prestigious paparazzi, family, friends, and the elite amongst the staff only. No carnivals and ice cream cake pictures, it was going to be an over-the-top production honoring the official adulthood and return of the company's still rising star. Cristal would flow by the river-full and dark pink balloons would cover the concrete floor in waves. Tommy couldn't help but scoff at the color choice, remembering Jude to be a girl of black.

He walked to the ivory door and unhooked his suit, trailing to the expansive black granite bathroom. He let his bare feet endure the shock of cold tiling; turning the silver knob and allowing the scalding water to envelop him completely. He leaned into the wall, remembering the last time Jude had returned home. She'd been away to university, studying music to one day become a music teacher. It was April, spring break. He could still recall the scent of daisies in her neatly shortened blonde hair, her arms around his neck when she leaned in to kiss him on the cheek and tell him "hello". He couldn't stop the sparks her tanned hands ignited as they slid over his shoulders and down his chest. They'd been divorced for only three months and he'd known her in every way possible up until that point, but he couldn't help but feel the same things he'd felt some age before. It was as if he hadn't seen her a few weeks before when he'd traveled to her college town for a brief visit.

Lost in his thoughts, he didn't notice the water turn cold until his teeth chattered painfully. He flipped the lever off, stepping out of his glass encasement. He wiped the fog from the mirror, surveying his nude body hunched over the bathroom sink. His fingers ran over the deep blemish on his broad chest, battle scar of the BoyzAttack! variety. He wondered if he was as attractive and vibrant as he had been ten years earlier. He picked at his shoulders, flaking skin from a bad sun burn he'd gotten during his vacation to San Tropez. He adjusted the thin gold chair around his neck, turning his tiny Saint Christopher medal outwards. He went through his post-shower ritual meticulously, finally emerging from the bathroom, leaving a faint aroma of wet moss and smoky eucalyptus in his wake.

6:45; a solid hour left before reunion and masquerades would commence. Tommy smiled sardonically at the clock, grabbing his cell phone and keys from the ebony end table and heading out to meet up with Kwest for finalizing the evening's music. He wistfully hoped that the night would drag on into surprises while falling into the beautiful ecstasy he knew it could very possibly be.