#c: tim laughlin

[jbaileyedits]

The Intimacy of a Dance parallel between The Normal Heart (2014) and Fellow Travelers (2023)

[bethccassidy]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TIMOTHY DAVID LAUGHLIN! ▶ June 6, 1930 | in/sp/ira/tion + spotify template

[fellow-travelers-fic-recs]

Fellow Travelers Fic Recs | Hot July

It’s the middle of summer and the mercury’s rising… Why cool down now? Here’s a long list of hot and steamy fics to keep you busy for a while. A variety of kinks for all persuasions–BDSM, Dom/sub undertones, Father Skippy fantasies, student/teacher sexy times, getting off at the office, Rehoboth Beach bondage and spanking and so much more. One thing’s for sure, they’ve all earned their E rating. Crank up the A/C and check them out!

The list starts with the top ten highest rated NSFW fics in the fandom, followed by everything else in no particular order.

Happy Reading!

Looking for more recs? Check out the FTFR fic register. Not quite what you're looking for? Tell us what you had in mind, here! → 💌

✨ Show the authors plenty of love with your comments and kudos on the fics you enjoyed after reading! Likes are lovely, but please reblog to share this content with your mutuals! ✨

🍑 sacred word, bind me [E, 8K] By brokendrums | @brokendrums Tim takes a vow of silence, Hawk vows to break it.

🍑 We are tragically meant to be [E, 1K] By Fuddlewuddle | @fuddlewuddle He looks softer in his sleep, Hawk muses; fingertips lightly skimming over the ridge of Tim’s cheek bone, the curve of his ear feeling the small indent from where the frames of his spectacles rest whenever he’s awake.

Part 1 of Fellow Travelers

🍑 Teacher's pet [E, 11K] By ascandalinpink | @ascandalinpink Tim’s first class for today is his first class ever in this particular elective. It’s a foreign affairs course taught by professor Fuller, whom Tim has never met, but he’s heard about him. All high praise, which leaves this course highly sought after.

As the professor enters the classroom and the chatter around him dies down, Tim understands perhaps why this course is so popular. And it might have nothing to do with the curriculum itself.

Or, Tim starts sleeping with and develops feelings for his college professor.

��� Mad about the Boy [E, 5K] By redmyeyes | @redmyeyes “Tell me,” Hawk said, tilting Tim’s head back to give his forehead a quick kiss, “what does my boy want for his birthday?”

“Am I still? Your boy?”

Part 4 of Fellow Travelers

🍑 More. [E, 2K] By redmyeyes | @redmyeyes Tim wants more. Hawk obliges.

Part 2 of Fellow Travelers

🍑 Feeding on chaos and living in sin [E, 2K] By Fuddlewuddle | @fuddlewuddle Tim doesn't expect Hawk to call. And even when he does, the call doesn't go as Tim expects. But then he should probably stop trying to predict what Hawkins Fuller will do.

Part 2 of Fellow Travelers

🍑 I Guess I've Got The Christmas Blues [E, 5K] By captainquint | @jesterlesbian Tim Laughlin stood in front of Hawk, one hand still raised as if to continue banging on the door, his tweed jacked dotted with snowflakes. Water droplets were trapped on his glasses, maybe from melted snow. But with how red-rimmed his eyes were, there might have been teardrops on his glasses as well.

Hawk’s slightly intoxicated reflexes took a moment to spring into action upon seeing Tim. “Skippy,” he grinned, “what, did you miss me that much? I’ll still be here after New Year’s."

Tim’s face screwed up in a look of righteous fury that Hawk knew meant an argument was coming. And before he could react, Tim was shoving Hawk backwards and into the apartment, slamming the door behind them.

“You absolute ass!”

Or, Tim confronts Hawk about his being investigated by the M Unit.

🍑 the thrill of your sweet embrace [E, 4K] By redmyeyes | @redmyeyes 1957 anthology series. Standalone chapters of missing/extended scenes from 1957.

Part 7 of Fellow Travelers

🍑 Love [E, 2K] 💠 By Ikharys "It's going to be okay," Hawk whispers. Something in Tim's eyes makes it clear that he doesn't believe it, but he's not willing to argue. Or, the cabin scene, but a little different.

🍑 Lost Somewhere [E, 1K]💠 By Anagrrl Humming to himself a little, fingers digging into his palms briefly, Tim leans forward.

🍑 Can I? [E, 3K] By mailboxbutterflies | @mailboxbutterflies The kink is consent. The kink is open communication. (But also the kink is praise).

Or, taking the "Is this alright?" line from Ep1 and running with it.

🍑 Who Do You Belong To? [E, 2K]💠 By mrschesapeakeripper “That’s my good boy.” All those years later and the praise still made him blush. Or, the missing scene from the mutual masturbation episode. None of that "no touching" nonsense.

🍑 You taste divine [E, 1K] By nightfall_in_winter | @carnivalrow Hawk joins Tim in the shower in episode 6 because he wants to kiss him...there!

🍑 Love Is An Angel Disguised As Lust [E, 2K] By ConsumingLove (Bluebellstar) | @bluebellsinburbank Hawk's eyes darkened, from outshining the daytime sky to rivalling the night. His lips curved into a wicked smirk. If Tim didn't know better, he might suspect he'd just played right into Hawk's hands. "Educate me." That wasn't exactly what Tim had intended. But, his attention caught by the glint off Hawk's wedding ring, Tim decided he could work with that. Or, the edging fic that's probably sixty percent soft.

🍑 I want you to fuck me [E, 2K] By nightfall_in_winter | @carnivalrow THAT scene from Episode 8 but slightly different. :) Chapter 1 is Hawk's POV, Chapter 2 is Tim's POV.

🍑 Educate Me [E, 13K] By fullerthanskippy | @fullerthanskippy A Hawk x Tim AU in which the timelines jump from 2012 to 2014 to present day 2024. When present day Tim receives an invitation to the 10 year reunion of his Georgetown graduating class, he is filled with both hope and dread that he will run into one particular professor.

One man who was the through-line of his two years in grad school. The man who taught him more than he could have ever learned in the classroom.

When Tim is re-acquainted with Professor Hawkins Fuller, he immediately flashes back to 12 years prior, when he first encountered the man that he had no idea would be the greatest love and loss of his life.

Or, tons of garbage filthy smut sprinkled in between pining, angst, and fluff. Contains explicit material including but not limited to the likes of top!hawk, bottom!tim, top!tim, bottom!hawk, dom!hawk, sub!tim, bratty!tim, and much, much more. Enjoy!

Part 1 of Educate Me

🍑 you’re a gas leak and i’m a woodhouse [E, NR, 2K] By Anonymous “I want you to treat me like one of those bathhouse boys.” Part 2 of we do have reputations, we keep it secret

🍑 Rail me until I can't stand [E, 4K] By nightfall_in_winter | @carnivalrow Various missing scenes from episodes 1 and 8. Chapter 1 is Hawk's POV of their last time before Hawk's betrayal. Chapter 2 - Tim's POV of the same scene. Chapter 3 is a missing scene from Episode 1. Hawk is Tim's first because Skippy never went all the way with Bob...

🍑 After Hours [E, 1K] By ConsumingLove (Bluebellstar) | @bluebellsinburbank “That’s it,” Hawk praised, petting through the soft strands of Tim's hair. “Good boy.” Tim moaned softly around him, swallowing him deeper into the blissful pressure of his throat. Or, The office sex fic that no one asked for.

🍑 I Belong to You [E, 2K] By Cyantific | @beyondxmeasure This isn’t even close to how he saw their night ending, but here they are, and if Tim wants it rough, who is Hawk to deny him? Or, the ‘Hit me.’ scene… but a little different. In which Hawk still hits Tim, just not where you think.

🍑 in the still of the night [E, 1K] By thewindyoubargainedfor | @thewindyoubargainedfor Tim stayed up, waiting for Hawk to call. Hawk made it worth his while.

🍑 Only Himself To Blame [E, 1K] By ConsumingLove (Bluebellstar) | @bluebellsinburbank An evening out leads to some fun on the floor.

🍑 All Tied Up With Nowhere To Go [E, 2K] By captainquint | @jesterlesbian “Are they too tight?” Hawk asked, tugging on Tim’s wrists.

Tim’s wrists were, at that moment, bound to the headboard of Hawkins Fuller’s bed by some carefully knotted neckties. Tim was struck by the thought of Hawk wearing one of these ties to work on a later day, becoming distracted in his office thinking of what they had done with them on this night. His mouth twitched up at the corner.

“Hey, are you listening to me?” Hawk placed a hand under his chin and tilted Tim’s face towards Hawk’s own. “This is important. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Tim rolled his wrists and wiggled his fingers to show they were fine. “I’m not made of glass, Hawk, you don’t have to treat me like I’ll break.”

Hawk teases a tied-up Tim Part 2 of FT Valentine's Day 2024

🍑Shut Up and Drink Your Milk [E, 4K] By bre_thomas | @bre1995 ConsumingLove (Bluebellstar) | @bluebellsinburbank It all started with Hawk's "shut up and drink your milk" and then whispering how he wanted Tim to "fuck him". With those words alone, Tim doesn't hesitate. An extension of the Episode 8, '57 sex scene.

🍑 they said beware (lord hear my prayer) [NR, 2K] By Anonymous Tim’s eyes strayed to the windows, what lay beyond them—who lay beyond them.

🍑You're an Angel, I'm a Dog [E, 2K]💠 By spiffyyy He was never that good. “Father, forgive me for all the times when I fall short of your standards…” He took a breath and watched the ceiling fan rotate once, then twice. “And I’m sorry for this. It was what you gave me.” Tim picked his phone up and swallowed dryly before tapping on the notification to open Grindr. Or, the unlikely pairing of religious trauma and a Grindr hookup.

🍑Control and desperation [E, 3K] By mailboxbutterflies | @mailboxbutterflies Now Tim was really confused. "H...Hawk I really need to pee—" "I said no. You want to be a good boy for me, don't you, Skippy?" Tim nodded slowly as he started to put the pieces together. "Then hold it," Hawk repeated coolly. Tim saw a familiar fire behind Hawk's eyes. The kind that suggested he would be rewarded if he obeyed. "Okay, fine." And then, "Or at least I'll try." Or, Hawk makes Tim wet himself and then rewards him with shower sex.

🍑 Bloom [E, 2K] By hot_hellboy | @hot-hellboy Hawk fists Tim for the first time.

🍑 Fetch [T, 1K] By Deputy_Buck | @deputy-buck Hawk was consumed in drafting a small speech for a function Senator Smith had organized —something about acknowledging McCarthy's threat to the State Department but encouraging diplomacy— when Tim showed up on his doorstep looking like a kicked puppy. His boy promised that he would be quiet and that all he needed was to be somewhere safe while he felt this way.

🍑 Forgive Me Father [E, 2K]💠 By Loopygrove Hawkins lets Tim finish.

🍑 I want you to fuck me [E, 2K] By nightfall_in_winter | @carnivalrow THAT scene from Episode 8 but slightly different. :) Chapter 1 is Hawk's POV, Chapter 2 is Tim's POV.

🍑 Like Other Couples [E, 4K] By palfriendpatine66 | @palfriendpatine66 After the trip to Rehoboth Beach in ep 3 “Hit Me”, Hawk takes another shot at giving Tim the romantic dinner he wanted, this time opting for a more private affair.

🍑 Have You Ever? [M, 1K]💠 By Cozy_coffee “Has anyone ever licked that cute little ass of yours?” A fic in which a bold Hawk introduces a somewhat shy Tim to the pleasures of rimming.

🍑 hell is empty, and all the devils are here [E, 4K] By alorchik | @alorchik Hawk Fuller, a committed skeptic, spends his summers in a country house, living a solitary bachelor's life. His routine is disrupted when he unexpectedly encounters a young local priest who now constantly occupies his thoughts.

🍑 Our Little Remedy [E, 2K] By captainquint | @jesterlesbian A pinch of teeth at his neck made it known that Tim had heard him. He seemed restless tonight, rowdy in a way he got when too worked up about something. And it usually ended in one of two ways. Either an explosive argument that ended with one of them storming out, or fucking until they both lay exhausted, sweaty and sated. He could work with that. “Skippy, are you trying to ask me for something?” Or, bathroom blowjobs at the Cozy Corner.

🍑 all of my fighting done [E, 1K] By startagainbuttercup | @startagainbuttercup How he spent four weeks not kissing him, Hawk would never know. He doesn’t want to ever, ever stop, as he presses Tim to the door and gently licks into his mouth, touching his face and his solid body under him.

🍑 Chain of Command [E, 2K] By ConsumingLove (Bluebellstar) | @bluebellsinburbank Corporal Laughlin and Sergeant Fuller have some fun together.

🍑 'Home' [E, 4K] By bre_thomas | @bre1995 Hawk comes to visit Tim after a rough visit with his parents. And then spends the next morning with Tim. Filler/Missing Scene from Episode 2 'Bulletproof' The "It doesn't matter, I'm home now," kiss.

🍑 Two Can Play At That Game [E, 7K] By bre_thomas | @bre1995 ConsumingLove (Bluebellstar) | @bluebellsinburbank Hawk and Tim spend a very enjoyable morning together.

🍑 Got It Bad, Got It Good [E, 4K] By ConsumingLove (Bluebellstar) | @bluebellsinburbank Tim is in training for a marathon. Hawk thinks his Skippy ought to stop teasing him so much.

🍑 I Wanna Be a Cowboy's Sweetheart [E, 3K] By captainquint | @jesterlesbian Hawk tipped his hat politely towards Tim, the way he always did when he rode back into town and stabled his horse at the Liberty Bell, where Tim worked as a stablehand. The pay wasn’t much, but it was steady work, and the off-chance of spotting Hawkins Fuller in leather chaps astride a horse sweetened the pot considerably.

Hawk flashed Tim the look that he understood meant “Meet me around the back,” so Tim dawdled for a few moments more, trying in vain to wipe off as much dirt and muck as he could from his shirt before oh-so-casually strolling to behind the stables, where it met the treeline and provided just the right amount of cover.

🍑 Don’t Pull Your Love Out [E, 5K] By Cyantific | @beyondxmeasure Hawk visits Tim in prison, and it stirs up a lot of feelings, and a lot of memories. Part 4 of Man's Second Best Friend

🍑 It's Rude To Speak With Your Mouth Full [E, 1K] By ConsumingLove (Bluebellstar) | @bluebellsinburbank Hawk was playing with fire, he knew, but the minute Tim had walked into his office, eyes lighting up just from the sight of him, Hawk had been powerless to resist. Whatever his boy wanted, he would have. And when Tim stepped between Hawk's legs, dropping to his knees with the grace of a lifetime of devotion - well, there were definite perks to working late.

Yet another office sex fic.

💠 Authors: If your tumblr (or other socials) isn’t linked, and you'd like it to be, let me know and I'll be happy to add it. Or, if you are linked, and you'd rather not be, please contact me to remove it.

[jbaileyfansite]

Interview with The Telegraph (2023)

We all know what is meant by McCarthyism. It ­popularly refers to the first half of the 1950s, when Senator Joseph R McCarthy led a ruthless ­campaign to hound suspected communists out of the US government. What’s less well-remembered than the Red Menace is the Lavender Scare: by an executive order from President Eisenhower, McCarthyism also targeted gays and lesbians. “If you want to be against McCarthy, boys,” the senator once told the press, “you’ve got to be either a Communist or a c--ksucker.”

Thus gay men and women, living closeted lives as they worked for the state, were targeted by sinister-sounding bodies: the FBI’s Sex ­Deviance Investigations Unit, ­Washington DC police’s Sex ­Perversion Elimination Program and the Department of State’s M Unit. All sought to identify ­government employees deemed to be security risks vulnerable to blackmail.

Popular culture lost sight of the Lavender Scare until it was brought into the light in the US by Thomas Mallon’s 2007 novel Fellow ­Travelers. Set mostly in the early 1950s, it told of a tangled romance between two men; Hawkins “Hawk” Fuller, a handsome war veteran and political fixer who steers clear of emotional attachment until he meets Tim Laughlin, a sweet young Catholic newcomer to DC whom he nicknames Skippy and sets up in the office of a Republican senator.

The novel was not published in the UK. But now it has been adapted for television, and one piece of ­casting in particular feels ­calculated to get the attention of audiences beyond the US: Laughlin is played by British actor Jonathan Bailey, best known as the Regency heartthrob Anthony, 9th Viscount Bridgerton.

His co-star is the American Matt Bomer, who, like Bailey, professes ignorance of what the New York Times, in its review of the novel, referred to as “the Lavender Hill mob”. “It’s a chapter of LGBTQIA history that I was completely ­unaware of,” he says.

This is not the first time the novel has been adapted – it was staged as an opera in Cincinnati in 2016. By then it had already caught the attention of Ron Nyswaner, who laboured over bringing the book to the screen for the best part of a ­decade. Best known for his script for Philadelphia, the 1993 Aids courtroom drama which earned Tom Hanks his first Oscar, it was his stint as a producer of Homeland that persuaded Showtime to fund an expensive eight-part decades-spanning drama. “I’m still in ­disbelief that we were able to tell this story on the scale that we were able to tell it,” says Bomer, who is also an executive producer on the drama.

The scale is considerable. The period detail of 1950s Washington, in both corridors of power and gay demimonde, is lavishly recreated. And as the story progresses it parts company with the novel, which opens with Hawk looking back at the closure of his career as a ­diplomat in Tallinn in 1991. Nyswaner’s script expands to take in other pivots in modern US ­history: the Civil Rights movement, the Vietnam War, and the spread of Aids in the 1980s, when the now-married Hawk and the dying Laughlin meet for a final reckoning.

I met the drama’s two stars in London earlier in the summer, before the actors’ strike in ­Hollywood put a stop to such encounters. It was the first time they’d seen each other since the end of the shoot. Bomer, though just off the plane and heavily jet-lagged, exudes a chiselled, blue-eyed intensity. Bailey fizzes with puppyish energy. Both are themselves gay and Bailey in particular sees their casting as a sign of ­progress. “We would not be playing these parts five or 10 years ago,” he says. The highlights of his CV are mix and match. He has played mainly straight characters on ­television in the likes of Broadchurch, Crashing and W1A, and gay characters on stage in the Sondheim musical Company and Mike Bartlett’s play C--k in the West End. 

The career of Bomer, 10 years his senior, looks a little more linear. His most high-profile film role is as an object of ladies’ lust in male-strippers drama Magic Mike and its sequel. But in 2014 he won a Golden Globe playing a closeted journalist in HBO’s adaptation of Larry ­Kramer’s play The Normal Heart. In 2018, he made his Broadway debut as part of an exclusively gay cast reviving The Boys in the Band, a ­portrait of gay life in 1960s New York. 

Earlier on the day we met, ­Stanley Tucci had said on Desert Island Discs that he doesn’t see why straight actors shouldn’t play gay characters. “I think it’s incredibly complicated and nuanced,” says Bailey with a sigh. “You just want to make sure that everyone feels there’s enough space at the table. Everyone who is panicking that they’re never going to be able to play outside their own experience is wasting their energy.”

Bomer counters that it ought to cut both ways, that gay actors should be allowed to play straight. He speaks darkly of movie ­producers who “wouldn’t hire me because of who I was”, of gay actors who “weren’t even given a shot. A lot of it boils down to opportunity. Was ­everyone given the opportunity for the role? There is something about seeing the most authentic version of who you are represented on screen. It gives you hope.”

In Fellow Travelers that ­authenticity is portrayed most unswervingly in the bedroom, which the plot requires Hawk and Laughlin to visit often. “I haven’t necessarily really seen gay intimacy in a way that I would want to,” says Bailey. I gently remind him of Linus Roache, who plays a senator in ­Fellow Travelers but, back in 1994, starred in Jimmy McGovern’s Priest as a Catholic priest struggling with his sexuality – graphically so in a central scene with Robert Carlyle. “Oh yeah, that’s true,” he says. “I looked to that a lot.” 

As is on trend for male actors ­nowadays, both leads look ­impeccable with their shirts off in low honeyed lighting. “Hawk is ex-military and he also wants to appeal to people in bathroom stalls,” ­reasons Bomer, who did period-appropriate Royal Canadian Air Force drills and looks no less ­pneumatic than he did in Magic Mike.

Bailey concedes that Laughlin, who orders milk the first time we meet him, boasts the body of a Greek god for the simple reason that the shoot overlapped with Bridgerton (yes, he confirms, the newly married Anthony is back for the third season). “There’s no way Tim would have had a Bridgerton body, but what can you do if you’re commuting? I was like, I really want to lose weight to tell Tim’s story, but I lost fat and just got really ripped.”

How resonant is the history ­portrayed in Fellow Travelers to today? It’s easy to play six degrees of separation between now and then. For instance, McCarthy’s ­closeted sidekick Roy Cohn is a lead character (played here by Will Brill). A ferocious prosecutor of both communists and gays, he would go on to be Donald Trump’s lawyer, before dying of complications from Aids. It was Trump’s three appointees to the Supreme Court who this summer enabled a 6-3 ruling releasing businesses and organisations from the obligation to treat same-sex couples equally. The landmark ruling occurred just days before I met the actors, and has been widely interpreted as a ­profound attack on LGBT rights.

“There is an entire generation of men and women who suffered and struggled and loved under a ­government that felt that its morals were more important than their personal freedoms,” says Bomer. “And that’s exactly what we see happening today. Whether it’s McCarthy or the current Supreme Court justices, are morals more important than freedoms?”

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