Work Text:
Tobias hates meetings. The very word “meeting” is a lie. People don’t want to meet - that takes literally seconds. A meeting should be something brief, wordless even! When people organise a “meeting”, they mean a ‘talk’. Most people don’t say anything interesting, even if they had it in them, if they really tried.
He feels the ‘meeting’ invitation before he sees it, specific haptic feedback from his watch to notify him that his calendar has been edited. Jack and the hangers-on in New York set all this up for him, after the sixth time he got lost on the way to JFK. Most times they just reschedule his flight, but that day a winter storm was coming in, something about “an apocalyptic front” (note to self: mood for first phase of next project?), so the whole company were escaping to Milan for their residency ahead of schedule. Somewhere in Alphabet City he was trying to buy a replacement charger, took a wrong turn, managed to hail a cab, but found the seat covers so appalling he bailed before they got on the ramp for the Williamsburg bridge. Snowflakes just starting to settle. So now, ‘meetings’ appear in his calendar and a linked map route automatically directs him where he needs to go and when.
The little brr goes off just as he’s leaving the commissary. He’s had a good morning, not perfect, but workable. Piece 5 wasn’t solid yet, but running with Gabin’s suggestion he use a female soloist hadn’t turned out horribly. It had certainly made things easier for them. Gabin’s been given a small solo in Petrushka which has been taking up most of his time, but he could slot in to hoist Mishi for Tobias whenever he was needed, better than anyone else, in half the rehearsal time. Tobias knows it’s taken the heat off them both, not that he cares. But it has helped. That Gabin was generous enough to raise the idea made Tobias feel small and proud and loved. They’re not a demonstrative couple (at work), they’ve never made an announcement or become ‘official’. If you didn’t know better, and in Tobias’ experience most people did not, Gabin just looked like a teacher’s pet, and he looked like a choreographer with a muse. So far, so ballet.
Geneviève has booked him in, in five minutes time, for something mysteriously titled ‘cloud chat’. The lack of punctuation and capital letters tells Tobias she’s made the link herself, as Lucien is as fastidious about grammar as he is about stationery. There’s no point in delaying the inevitable and he’d rather just get it done stat so he can get back to rehearsals. Besides she’s always in her office, just about ten feet away from her shoes. The door’s open and Lucien is obliviously stacking things, half inside a filing cabinet.
“Hey, so. What’s the matter?”
Geneviève’s on the floor - not unusual. But she’s face down. Her phone is lying somewhere under the window, also prone.
“Do I need to, like, call someone? Does 911 work here? The last time I tried that in Europe some firemen did arrive, but something in the cut of their pants told me they were not employed by the local government.”
She lifts her head just a fraction. Winces.
“Tobias. You’re early. Will you close the door?”
“I really don’t want this to take longer than a few seconds. Just tell me how the board wants it and I’ll tell you how it’s not possible and then we can be done.”
“This can’t start until you close the bloody door. I mean it Tobias!” She seems… more strung out than usual. Tobias sighs, makes a show of closing the door, picks a seat by the window, so he can hear the rain falling in the street, and crosses his legs.
Gingerly, she moves to squat on the balls of her feet, back to him.
“So… are you mad about the weather then or what? Sure, Paris hasn’t been having the spring awakening I’d have hoped for, but we can’t have everything we dreamt of as little girls watching Funny Face, now can we?”
“What?” she hisses, spinning and rising in the most graceful way he’s ever seen her move. She should be … whatever she is now, more often.
“My watch said something about clouds.”
“Tobias,” she tiptoes over to him and stands opposite, hands on her face, “we have your iCloud details.”
“My what?”
“Your phone storage. Your watch and phone and laptop. It’s all on a cloud.. Thing.”
“Right, I have wireless storage. How else can I patch my music into the studio?”
“It works for pictures too.”
“Naturally Geneviève, it’s the modern way apparently.”
“Tobias, we have your cloud. ”
He blinks. Something clicking.
“You can access my stuff? Like my phone stuff?”
She throws herself back into the armchair, a wisp of rage in hosiery and black crêpe.
“Oui Tobias. How else do we send you meetings and cars and track you down when you get lost on the way to Versailles?”
“That mall was very inappropriately named…”
“Listen to me. For your safety. And our sanity. We have access to your phone. Everything.”
He’s still. Silent.
“And just now, the costumier was asking me - what is Tobias thinking for Piece 5? I thought, he’s rehearsing, I won’t interrupt. Mustn't stop the genius at work. But I thought it would help things along if I looked up your … moodboards, I don’t know, whatever you creative people have to track down your ideas. So I..”
“You looked at my photos.”
“Yes Tobias.”
“So. You saw.”
“Yes.”
“Oh. Shit.”
Although he works in the arts, Tobias has never been one for photography. Something pitiful about the way a still image tries to capture reality, motion. For years his camera roll has basically just been about a million accidental Apple Wallet screenshots he never gets round to deleting, and abstract monochrome line drawings that to anyone else look like a toddler got let loose on the iPad, but to him chart the conception of a piece in the most beautifully simple way.
Then, Paris. Then, Gabin. Things start cropping up. A studio timetable. Email confirmation of tickets to a Degas exhibition at the Musée d'Orsay. A pile of laundry, needing to ask whose socks were whose. A photo of black cat with a grumpy face, eyes closed, and a Maine Coone prodding it in the ear, forwarded with the caption - us? And then, more recently, as Gabin’s been busier and they’ve had less studio time together, some… other photos.
Gabin being an exhibitionist is news to exactly zero people, and his love for a photoshoot has been extensively documented in print and digital media. But he’s recently taken to sending Tobias a picture whenever he finishes a particularly gruelling rehearsal. He’s always sweaty. Always toned and taut. And mostly, he’s nude. Gabin seems to get a kick out of imagining Tobias, hard at work, seeing Gabin’s picture flashing up on his watch and having to keep his face poker straight until he can face the wall and start counting. Tobias can’t say he’s told him to stop.
And yes, fine, he’s taken one or two of his own. Is that a crime? They’re both consenting adults. Tobias likes to think he considers the lighting in his more thoughtfully, matching curves with right angles and hard with soft. He’s a Kandinsky and Gabin’s a Soutine. They both get the job done. Boy, do they.
The silence stretches on. Unbearable.
Geneviève cracks first.
“Tobias, I know it’s an invasion of privacy. Accidental, yes, but unacceptable. I’m sorry. And I’m so glad you’re… happy.”
Tobias watches her without moving his head.
“I also know I’m not your mother, God bless her soul, but I do feel responsible for you. I brought you here and it’s up to me to keep you here, not let you get trapped in a windmill or carried away by the circus when you meant to go to Carrefour Express .”
Not saying a word. Thinking, actually, about leaving.
“All I’m asking Tobias is you think about some sort of organisation. If we didn’t have your passwords we’d lose one of our brightest stars. But if I come across those,” she swallows, closes her eyes, “ sorts of things again, I am going to find it difficult to look you in the eye in company class. Just make a folder. S 'il vous plaît.” All the wind gone from her sails.
“Can I go?”
“Please do. And ask Lucien to bring me some ice on your way out.” She walks to a low, round cabinet in the back corner, and Tobias has already left by the time she chooses a bottle.
Gabin can’t unpick why Tobias is quite so tense that evening, as they share noodles and fat gyoza out of cartons in Tobias’ apartment. Initially figures it must have been a tough day in rehearsals. Or good old-fashioned pining - Gabin got tied up after class giving Tristan some dating advice and missed their usual discrete shared smile in the queue for coffee. He’s absolutely none the wiser until -
“Where do you keep my dick picks?”
Gabin nearly chokes on an edamame.
“Qu’est ce à dire que ceci? What the fuck are you talking about mon cher?”
“Can anyone just see them? Like if they had full access to your phone? What if you were hacked? Am I going to wake up one morning and see my own ass on the cover of Le Monde?”
Gabin places a soft hand on Tobias’ back.
“I think the press have bigger fish to sauté than little Gabin here. But Tobias, who has access to your phone?”
“Geneviève. Jack. Whatever Geneviève’s helper man is called, the one who got me out when the lock jammed. Lucien probably. Nicholas definitely . Probably not Crispin. I literally can’t even consider that possibility.” He slumps forward, forehead flush with the table.
“Have you been on the absinthe Tobias? Are little green men telling you stories about someone watching you?”
“Gabin!”
“Ok ok, so what, did Geneviève come across some of my masterpieces while snooping? She’s French, it’s no big deal here.”
“She’s my boss, Gabin.”
“I say again - she’s French! If you liked women, you’d probably already have slept with her.”
“That’s misogynistic and homophobic.”
“Oh là là, ce n'est pas juste! I only mean who could resist you, mon amour? ”
Gabin can tell Tobias is serious and drops it.
“Do you want me to stop? Sending them, I mean.”
He doesn’t lift up, but Tobias clearly shakes his head. Dips his shoulders.
Muffled by the table - “Do NOT stop sending me those pictures.”
It’s still raining gently outside as Gabin clears the empty cartons, then sits to show Tobias how to create a hidden folder on his phone. Password protected - a new one they set together. Gabin promises with schoolboy sincerity not to laugh but fails as Tobias types out ‘genevievedonotopenimeanit’.
Gabin is feeling generous.
“You can also mute notifications if you want. During specific appointments. Or rehearsal times.”
Tobias, sleepy, curled beside him. “No thanks. You give my work an edge.”
Gabin’s edge playfully pokes into Tobias, but they’re both half asleep, drifting somewhere separately, and somehow, still together.