The Empty World | The Empty World Sequence [complete | rewriting]

Nineteen

Morpheus touched his right index finger to Julien's chin, then waited for his eyes to track. "But it gets better."

Julien laughed lightly. "It does." He sighed.

"You want to come watch movies with the rest of the family?"

Julien shook his head. "I've got work."

"On the holiday?"

He rolled his shoulders, then sitting straight-backed, gestured to the studio about them with digital croquis and racks of sample garments. "Paris Menswear and Couture Fashion Weeks start in January and someone poached a pattern maker from my Paris Office, which, of course, is the one office CCIP cares about. I'm in for this year, but it's just so much drama if I don't maintain employee numbers."

"I can hang out here," Morpheus said, as he took his mobile from his jacket pocket. Steven had said the brushed metal case was a stylish choice, but Ganymede had insisted it needed at least one cute sticker; Morpheus had picked the spiky-haired penguin in headphones. "I want to go watch Gremlins, if they get around to it." He sent a message to Steven telling him to let him know if they decided to watch the movie.

"Why do you do that?"

"Have a gizmo?" Morpheus asked, "You've got one, too."

"How you've been recently. Traveling with Ganymede. Caring if Humans notice you."

"Why do you care about Fashion Week? It's probably the same sort of answer."

Julien didn't answer immediately. He made a slight nod, then took a cigarette case from the inner pocket of his tan blazer. Only after he'd lit the cigarette with a thought, drawn a breath, and exhaled, did Julien speak. "I'll be disappointed if you really have the same reasons."

"I thought fashion was like an art to you," Morpheus said honestly.

Julien laughed softly. "It is. Sometimes. It is also an industry. Like music, maybe? There is an industry behind it."

"Yeah. There is. But I'm not doing it for money. There are easier ways to get money."

"At first, it was as escape," Julien told him. "Something I figured out I knew how to do, helping dress Blade's dolls. A way to alter what I had to look more like what my parents wouldn't buy me. And, realistically or not, I thought, a subject of study and an industry where I had a better chance to be taken seriously."

"Musicians are allowed, even expected, to look strange, so even if it's not the same, it's not that different."

"Those reasons got me as far as school. But that also led me to meet Athen. And that, well, you know." It had led to Psyche revealing herself in an attempt to get Julien to murder Athen, but Julien had turned the knife on himself. Not one of the brighter moments for either soul. "Continuing in school, that was something the others encouraged, to keep our collective cover a while longer. I found a new reason to be as successful as possible in fashion: Vampyre or not, I didn't want to be financially dependent on Athen."

"Really?"

"Really. The fact that you didn't know that worries me, Murph. Seriously."

"Because independence is so valued in American culture?"

Julien laughed. "I'm sorry. Sweetie, I am." He was laughing at Morpheus. "I mean, yes, that's true, but...." He shook his head then took another drag from his cigarette. "The fact that I could be the kept boy of some actual Vampyre was like a horror to me somehow, even though - I know - Joy was very much a kept girl to me. It's not noble, or fair. I just...I wanted to be with someone - with him - but as a boyfriend, or husband, like an equal partner, not something less. And young as he looks, he's ancient and so willful and stubborn. The first time he told me I didn't have to work, I decided I had to not only work, but to be successful. I married him three times, but my money is my money, end of story."