Bill notices that his teeth seem really awkward in his mouth, “Left the light saber at home, dude."
New Guys
Pairings: Samberg/Hader with a splash of Fallon/Fey and a cameo by a very pessimistic Seth Meyers.
Notes: Oh, come on. I am predictable beyond belief.
When they first meet, Andy has cream cheese and bagel crumbs on his lip. They make small talk outside Lorne Michaels’ office for ten minutes before Bill tells him so.
“Oh shit.” Andy says, wiping furiously at his mouth with the sleeve of his ridiculous plaid dress shirt, “Good looking out, man. Thank you.”
Bill smiles softly, “I guess this is where I challenge you to a duel for who goes in first?” He jokes, miming the traditional white glove slapping and making his tone light and playful even as the situation closing in on him - them - seems increasingly daunting.
“Nah,” Andy replies, grinning full on. Bill notices that his teeth seem really awkward in his mouth, “Left the light saber at home, dude. Sorry.”
Bill shrugs, “Ah, next time then.”
Andy laughs, “Optimism! Okay.” He says, “Next time then.”
+
Seth comes up next to Bill while he’s pouring gross, barely heated coffee into a Styrofoam cup. His eyes look red rimmed and tired and Bill almost cringes at the anxiety creases in the other man’s forehead. Seth’s a young guy, he thinks and wonders if after a few years in this place his forehead’ll look the same, “Bill, hey. How it’s going?” He says, clamping a hand on Bill’s shoulder to show that he’s called him out for a reason other than small talk.
Bill smiles back as placidly as he can, “Hey, hey. Not much.” He replies, taking a small sip from his cup, “Everything okay?”
“Mm. Yes and no.” Seth tightens the hand on his shoulder, “Come, come. Let’s take a walk.”
Seth takes him outside to Rockefeller Center’s parking lot. It’s about three in the morning and Bill finds it’s almost eerie how haunted and empty it looks now in the fog. Bill pulls his track jacket around himself tighter and Seth leans against a light pole and puts his hands deep in his pockets. “What do you think of Samberg?” He says after a beat. That was definitely not what Bill had been expecting.
“Andy?” He says, which he admits was a stupid question. Of course, he meant Andy, “I like him. He’s funny in a kind of Screech from Saved by the Bell sort of way.” He shrugs, furrowing his eyebrows together. Bad habit, he thinks. Emphasizes the unibrow, “Why?”
“Look,” Seth says and Bill realizes that Seth’s initial question meant nothing. It was just an opening to whatever Seth had already been planning to say, “You’re new and that’s cool and you might think you know how everything works around here but you don’t.” He brings his hands out of his pockets and picks at his fingernails, “My advice is to lay low your first year. Don’t do anything stupid that’ll ruin your…I guess, extended stay.” The last words are strung together in a way that makes Bill think Seth doesn’t believe he’ll be around long. Somehow, he’s not all that offended.
“Hey, man.” He says, putting his coffee cup on the ground and stamping on it out of habit: another stupid habit. Litterbug. “I’m not here to…impose on whatever you do here. I just want to do what I was hired for. Make people laugh.” It’s a complete lie. Bill wants to be famous. He wants to be a fucking star. He wants to drink champagne out of Charlize Theron’s cleavage. For a second, he thinks SNL might not have been the way to go. “I’m not here for competition.”
Seth makes this breathy sound that Bill almost hears as laughter, “No.” He says, “That’s not what I meant.”
Bill grinds his teeth together in the cold. He should be used to this coming from Chicago but the wind on his face is still number three on his list of pet peeves. Number one being that sound that cotton makes when you rub it together and number two being fakers. “Okay.” He says, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah,” Seth says, shoving his hands back in his pockets, “You like Samberg?”
Bill nods emphatically. Maybe this is supposed to be some sort of fucked up competition but he’s not going to try and sell Andy out. He likes to imagine they’re in this together: Andy and himself and maybe sometimes Jason when he’s not being a prick, “I like him.”
Seth draws his lips into a tight line and looks up at Bill’s face for the first time in the whole ludicrous conversation, “How much?”
+
Bill has a recurring dream where he’s sitting outside in the grass of some hippie park with Andy’s head resting on his lap and his hand in Andy’s hair. Even in his dream, it’s greasy and wild like the stylist hasn’t spent two hours running it over with a flat iron. Andy smiles up at him in that way that makes his chin look huge and his mouth look like a straight line of red permanent marker across his face, “What was your life like before you met me?” He asks in the dream and without hesitation Bill answers, “I honestly don’t remember.”
+
Jason tells him that if this were high school, Bill would be that suave, cool kid who lets the weirdo with the obscure sci-fi references follow him around. Bill can see how people would get that. Andy is a little eccentric and a little over the top and a little likely to frighten elderly people and small children. Bill, however, has always prided himself on his control and his ability to master the details and his satisfaction at never having once frightened anything in a wheelchair or a stroller.
Andy’s hair is a mess. Andy often has food in his teeth. Andy drinks carbonated non-diet sodas and talks about weird movies and weird music. Bill owns twelve different types of mousse, always flosses, gave up soda six years ago and enjoys the musical stylings of Journey and Sting.
“He was cooler when he was with the Police, man.” Andy says, flicking his fingers around Bill’s iPod, “His new stuff is just pft.” He makes a spitting sound with his tongue and a thumbs-down gesture.
Bill wrinkles his nose, vaguely uncomfortable with someone else - even Andy - touching his music, “I like his new stuff. It’s relaxing.”
“Relaxing Shmelaxing.” Andy waves his hand in dismissal before his face grows into a look of extreme disgust, “Fuck, man. Journey?!”
Bill frowns, “Okay. You’re done.” He says, plucking the gadget gingerly from Andy’s hands.
Andy puts on a pout, “Do you have any Turin Brakes or Death Cab?”
“Who and who?” Bill asks, wrapping his headphones and shoving both them and the iPod into a little case, “Is that one person?”
Andy gapes at him like he’s just admitted to being an extra terrestrial. His mouth is inhumanly wide, “Dude. Dude! Come on.” He stands, excitedly making for the door, “We’re going to the music store to get you an education.”
+
During a run through, Andy bounds up to him all grins and gangly limbs, shoving a brownie in his mouth as he goes, “Dude.” He says, “Guess who I just saw.” Bill shoots him a look and Andy grins even wider. He has some brownie in the back on his teeth, “No, wait. You’ll never guess.” He pauses, Bill imagines, for dramatic effect, “Fallon’s here and he totally came out of Tina’s office.”
Bill goes to shrug it off but his face betrays his amusement at the situation, “Well, they’re friends, Andy.”
Andy laughs, “Man, you are blind. They’re totally hitting it and I totally called it. Where is my ten bucks, huh?”
“A) Just because he was in her office does not mean they’re hit- having an affair.” Bill says, counting off the letters on his fingers as he speaks, “B) She just had a baby with her, you know, husband.” He cracks a smile, breaking the façade of dutiful annoyance he’d been going for, “And C) Everyone knows Fallon’s totally gay.”
Andy scoffs; using the entire palms of both his hands to push back the Afro of Bob Dylan-esque proportions he’s got going on, “Whatever.” He says, “Where I come from everyone is like, fifty percent gay.”
Bill grins, raising his eyebrows to compliment his mock-incredulous tone, “Really?” He asks, “Because you suck cock like at least a 90% queer.”
“Aw, Hader.” Andy replies as he flutters his eyelashes, taking the finger he was using to scrape away his brownie-teeth out of his mouth and grinning the way he does in Bill’s dream, “You say the sweetest things.”
fin.
Pairings: Samberg/Hader with a splash of Fallon/Fey and a cameo by a very pessimistic Seth Meyers.
Notes: Oh, come on. I am predictable beyond belief.
When they first meet, Andy has cream cheese and bagel crumbs on his lip. They make small talk outside Lorne Michaels’ office for ten minutes before Bill tells him so.
“Oh shit.” Andy says, wiping furiously at his mouth with the sleeve of his ridiculous plaid dress shirt, “Good looking out, man. Thank you.”
Bill smiles softly, “I guess this is where I challenge you to a duel for who goes in first?” He jokes, miming the traditional white glove slapping and making his tone light and playful even as the situation closing in on him - them - seems increasingly daunting.
“Nah,” Andy replies, grinning full on. Bill notices that his teeth seem really awkward in his mouth, “Left the light saber at home, dude. Sorry.”
Bill shrugs, “Ah, next time then.”
Andy laughs, “Optimism! Okay.” He says, “Next time then.”
+
Seth comes up next to Bill while he’s pouring gross, barely heated coffee into a Styrofoam cup. His eyes look red rimmed and tired and Bill almost cringes at the anxiety creases in the other man’s forehead. Seth’s a young guy, he thinks and wonders if after a few years in this place his forehead’ll look the same, “Bill, hey. How it’s going?” He says, clamping a hand on Bill’s shoulder to show that he’s called him out for a reason other than small talk.
Bill smiles back as placidly as he can, “Hey, hey. Not much.” He replies, taking a small sip from his cup, “Everything okay?”
“Mm. Yes and no.” Seth tightens the hand on his shoulder, “Come, come. Let’s take a walk.”
Seth takes him outside to Rockefeller Center’s parking lot. It’s about three in the morning and Bill finds it’s almost eerie how haunted and empty it looks now in the fog. Bill pulls his track jacket around himself tighter and Seth leans against a light pole and puts his hands deep in his pockets. “What do you think of Samberg?” He says after a beat. That was definitely not what Bill had been expecting.
“Andy?” He says, which he admits was a stupid question. Of course, he meant Andy, “I like him. He’s funny in a kind of Screech from Saved by the Bell sort of way.” He shrugs, furrowing his eyebrows together. Bad habit, he thinks. Emphasizes the unibrow, “Why?”
“Look,” Seth says and Bill realizes that Seth’s initial question meant nothing. It was just an opening to whatever Seth had already been planning to say, “You’re new and that’s cool and you might think you know how everything works around here but you don’t.” He brings his hands out of his pockets and picks at his fingernails, “My advice is to lay low your first year. Don’t do anything stupid that’ll ruin your…I guess, extended stay.” The last words are strung together in a way that makes Bill think Seth doesn’t believe he’ll be around long. Somehow, he’s not all that offended.
“Hey, man.” He says, putting his coffee cup on the ground and stamping on it out of habit: another stupid habit. Litterbug. “I’m not here to…impose on whatever you do here. I just want to do what I was hired for. Make people laugh.” It’s a complete lie. Bill wants to be famous. He wants to be a fucking star. He wants to drink champagne out of Charlize Theron’s cleavage. For a second, he thinks SNL might not have been the way to go. “I’m not here for competition.”
Seth makes this breathy sound that Bill almost hears as laughter, “No.” He says, “That’s not what I meant.”
Bill grinds his teeth together in the cold. He should be used to this coming from Chicago but the wind on his face is still number three on his list of pet peeves. Number one being that sound that cotton makes when you rub it together and number two being fakers. “Okay.” He says, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah,” Seth says, shoving his hands back in his pockets, “You like Samberg?”
Bill nods emphatically. Maybe this is supposed to be some sort of fucked up competition but he’s not going to try and sell Andy out. He likes to imagine they’re in this together: Andy and himself and maybe sometimes Jason when he’s not being a prick, “I like him.”
Seth draws his lips into a tight line and looks up at Bill’s face for the first time in the whole ludicrous conversation, “How much?”
+
Bill has a recurring dream where he’s sitting outside in the grass of some hippie park with Andy’s head resting on his lap and his hand in Andy’s hair. Even in his dream, it’s greasy and wild like the stylist hasn’t spent two hours running it over with a flat iron. Andy smiles up at him in that way that makes his chin look huge and his mouth look like a straight line of red permanent marker across his face, “What was your life like before you met me?” He asks in the dream and without hesitation Bill answers, “I honestly don’t remember.”
+
Jason tells him that if this were high school, Bill would be that suave, cool kid who lets the weirdo with the obscure sci-fi references follow him around. Bill can see how people would get that. Andy is a little eccentric and a little over the top and a little likely to frighten elderly people and small children. Bill, however, has always prided himself on his control and his ability to master the details and his satisfaction at never having once frightened anything in a wheelchair or a stroller.
Andy’s hair is a mess. Andy often has food in his teeth. Andy drinks carbonated non-diet sodas and talks about weird movies and weird music. Bill owns twelve different types of mousse, always flosses, gave up soda six years ago and enjoys the musical stylings of Journey and Sting.
“He was cooler when he was with the Police, man.” Andy says, flicking his fingers around Bill’s iPod, “His new stuff is just pft.” He makes a spitting sound with his tongue and a thumbs-down gesture.
Bill wrinkles his nose, vaguely uncomfortable with someone else - even Andy - touching his music, “I like his new stuff. It’s relaxing.”
“Relaxing Shmelaxing.” Andy waves his hand in dismissal before his face grows into a look of extreme disgust, “Fuck, man. Journey?!”
Bill frowns, “Okay. You’re done.” He says, plucking the gadget gingerly from Andy’s hands.
Andy puts on a pout, “Do you have any Turin Brakes or Death Cab?”
“Who and who?” Bill asks, wrapping his headphones and shoving both them and the iPod into a little case, “Is that one person?”
Andy gapes at him like he’s just admitted to being an extra terrestrial. His mouth is inhumanly wide, “Dude. Dude! Come on.” He stands, excitedly making for the door, “We’re going to the music store to get you an education.”
+
During a run through, Andy bounds up to him all grins and gangly limbs, shoving a brownie in his mouth as he goes, “Dude.” He says, “Guess who I just saw.” Bill shoots him a look and Andy grins even wider. He has some brownie in the back on his teeth, “No, wait. You’ll never guess.” He pauses, Bill imagines, for dramatic effect, “Fallon’s here and he totally came out of Tina’s office.”
Bill goes to shrug it off but his face betrays his amusement at the situation, “Well, they’re friends, Andy.”
Andy laughs, “Man, you are blind. They’re totally hitting it and I totally called it. Where is my ten bucks, huh?”
“A) Just because he was in her office does not mean they’re hit- having an affair.” Bill says, counting off the letters on his fingers as he speaks, “B) She just had a baby with her, you know, husband.” He cracks a smile, breaking the façade of dutiful annoyance he’d been going for, “And C) Everyone knows Fallon’s totally gay.”
Andy scoffs; using the entire palms of both his hands to push back the Afro of Bob Dylan-esque proportions he’s got going on, “Whatever.” He says, “Where I come from everyone is like, fifty percent gay.”
Bill grins, raising his eyebrows to compliment his mock-incredulous tone, “Really?” He asks, “Because you suck cock like at least a 90% queer.”
“Aw, Hader.” Andy replies as he flutters his eyelashes, taking the finger he was using to scrape away his brownie-teeth out of his mouth and grinning the way he does in Bill’s dream, “You say the sweetest things.”
fin.