S&A Fic: Three Vignettes
Title: Three Vignettes
Author:
rosariotijeras
Fandom and characters: Slings & Arrows (Geoffrey, Ellen, Darren)
Rating: R for language and little bits of sexual behavior.
Prompt (and spoilers, if any): No spoilers!
“To be crazy is not necessarily to writhe in snake pits or converse
with imaginary gods. It can sometimes be not knowing what to do in the
morning.”
--Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, New York Times 1977
A ridiculous amount of thanks goes out to
loneraven, for far, far, FAR too many things than can be explored at this juncture (in the interests of time).
Three Vignettes
I.
“I think my grandfather thinks I'm going to be a little crazy later on in life.”
“What the hell does that have to do with anything, Geoffrey?”
“We're drunk, Darren, that's practically a license from the... you know... from the man himself to be a walking non sequitur!”
“Who is 'the man', Geoffrey?”
“You...you know. The guy. Who leads the country.”
“Prime minister? Oh, God, we both need more vodka.”
“Yes, yes, vodka, thank you. Anyway, my grandfather, as he was dying said to me - mmmf!”
Geoffrey and Darren were twenty, usually drunk, and in the theatre, so they had sex quite often. Just sex, though. They had things at each other's dorms, sure, and everyone knew they were off-limits. But it wasn't a relationship by anyone's standards. Sometimes, Geoffrey wanted to talk about himself, his life, about Darren's life, about where they were going to go after graduation; but Darren would kiss him right there, right fucking there on his neck, and nothing else would matter.
Geoffrey wanted to talk so badly, especially tonight, because his fucking grandfather had just died, and his parents didn't seem to care but then again they didn't really care about much of anything but drinking and arguing with each other, but Darren was doing that thing, and Geoffrey's constant inner thoughts had turned into a run-on; Shakespeare would be mortified. But none of it mattered, nothing, because Darren was fucking Geoffrey's neck with his tongue and Geoffrey might just die right there, on Darren's bed.
“Darren, Darren, stop...oh shit...aaah! Stop it!”
In an instant, Darren was on the floor, and Geoffrey was on the bed with bright red lips and tousled hair and his fucking bright eyes. And shirtless, Geoffrey was shirtless, looking like that, and not fucking Darren right this goddamn instant -
Their positions changed again. Geoffrey had escaped as Darren lunged for his knees, and Darren was still on the floor, now clutching his bruised forehead and cursing the metal bed frame. The situation diffused, sex and chaos melting away into something almost like... like.. well, Darren wasn't the sort of man to have a word for this, but if he was, it would be tenderness. Geoffrey laughed and pulled Darren up on to the bed, quite sure the threat of sexual ravishing had passed.
“Am I… am I bleeding? Am I going to die, Geoffrey? Oh, you must dedicate a play to me, you absolutely must, love! ...why are you LAUGHING?” Darren did his best to sound chagrined, but the twinkling eyes and smile were almost enough to get him going again (almost). He couldn't stay mad at someone so utterly fucking gorgeous.
“No, you're not bleeding, and you're not dying, and we're not going to have sex tonight. We are going to lay here and I am going to talk about the fact that my grandfather just died, you are going to be sympathetic because you owe me that for all the fucking incredible sex, and then in the morning we'll talk about you.”
“But darling, despite my injury I'm still quite able, and there's time for talking later, after I've had my fill...” Darren found himself cut off by Geoffrey's now angry eyes. “Damn it, Geoffrey, I don't know how to talk! All people ever want to do is fuck me! How am I supposed to know you're different?”
“I'm telling you so, pissant. I'm not a woman and I don't want to date a woman or be treated like a woman, so don't give me that shit. It's misogynistic, anyway. But I want to talk to you, Darren, I want to know you beyond the bedroom, and I need... support, Darren.”
Darren Nichols was an absolute bastard, and he knew this about himself, but when Geoffrey Tennant is lying half-naked atop you and requesting a relationship, a real one, you don't say no.
You just make sure that all your things are gone before he wakes and change your locks.
II.
Ellen was drunk, very very drunk, but it was okay, because she was graduating soon, with a big fucking seal that said that she was the best fucking Juliet the school had ever seen, and she was so fucking Romeo.
In her dreams, at least.
And there was Romeo, Geoffrey fucking Tennant, drunk out of his mind, standing on the table. And yes, he was in drag, and yes, he was giving the male members of the cast a striptease and enjoying it, but that didn't deter Ellen. It hadn't deterred her from Daniel, Ray, Benton, any of them…
She waited until Geoffrey wasn't wearing much more than a thong, a garter and dollar bills to approach. She was high now, and drunker. Geoffrey was sober by comparison, all over some slender freshmen with calves that existed as their own autonomous sexual being.
Ellen followed them to someone's bedroom and locked the door behind them. They still didn't know she was there. She sat down at the end of the bed, next to Geoffrey. She didn't know what the boy's name was, but judging by the look on his face, it would be in the obituaries tomorrow. Geoffrey was quite literally blowing the poor thing's brains out. It would be a disservice to compassion to let it continue; few things in life were more embarrassing than dying of sexual pleasure, after all.
“Geoffrey,” she whispered before the boy exploded, “I can give you what you want. I know what you want. I know.”
He removed his mouth and sat up, suddenly far, far too close to her, smelling like that fucking boy next to them, whispering, “How can you possibly give me what I want?”
“I can't fuck you,” Ellen whispered, “but I'll love you.”
III.
When I got out, I started smoking. She's sane. She smokes. I haven't settled on a brand yet, but I know I'll smoke lights. Depressives smoke regulars, and manics smoke ultra lights. I am sane. She smokes lights. He smokes whatever someone's willing to bum him. He's sane, but a bastard. She's sane and an angel; I am going to buy my own smokes.
I'm out, but I have to go back. I talk about myself, my life. They like the fact that I'm smoking - fitting in or something. They like that I live downtown and not in the poor or artsy areas. They like that my neighbor across the hall is Canadian, and my neighbor to the left is Japanese, and my neighbor to the right is Russian. They like that my landlady is a landlady and white.
They let me control myself, but only if I let them control me. Pills. Anti-this, inhibitor that, two times a day and don't drive for the first few weeks. The first few weeks are hell, and I start buying by the carton because smoking is sane and the only thing keeping me that way. I think about driving off a bridge, and understand why they made me take this bus pass. They want me to assimilate, to smoke with other people at bars and light their cigarettes and take them home. I do all that, but I won't take anyone home. They don't really like that. They tell me to move on, and I'm starting to forget what I'm moving on from. They like that.
The terror of the first few weeks fades into white, pure and clean and uncomplicated. I bring people home, and settle on Camels. A couch replaces the floor, and eventually, a bed replaces the couch. I have a routine now. They like this, quite a bit. I know I'm sane, and sane people are happy. But this life isn't what I imagined happiness to be like - and I wonder if maybe I just don't know what happiness is. I'm thinking about smoking regulars. They don't like this; they change my pills.
And then I'm okay, I'm good, I'm greatness. It takes me a week to go through a pack of lights, and I'm bringing the same girl home every night. Eventually, she stops leaving in the mornings, and her sheets replace mine. It's around now that she finds out about Ellen and Hamlet and the pills. She frowns frequently, and talks about getting me off the medications. She goes on about someone being underneath my layers, my facade, and that's who she loves. I don't know what she's talking about. We argue now, and she often cries; telling me that she can't love a zombie. I say that we're living together, sharing our lives, making love every night, like everyone else - isn't that love? It just makes her cry harder, and I feel lost. She throws away my cigarettes, and then I cry, too.
Our relationship becomes brittle and I feel lost in the routine of my life. It stops making sense to live this way. I can almost remember before, when everything was painted in different colors, not just this fucking white, and I didn't have to smoke to know who I was. I remember Oliver and wanting to marry Ellen, not just as facts, but my life, myself. I stop going to therapy, and one morning, I flush my pills down the toilet, with the rest of the shit.
My lover, as it turns out, isn't that fond of the me she so desperately dug out; one morning, her things are gone and I'm alone again. She says I'm too passionate, she horribly misjudged me, sorry! Sorry! I couldn't give two shits about it, because I am alive. I am depressed and manic and completely fucked. A little bit dangerous to myself and others. I'm out of control and it is incredible.
I hate myself for sleeping with that girl. It's hard to escape her at night; night was always our time, and as soon as the sun drops I can almost her hear screeching wail of a voice around the apartment. Being in that place at night physically hurts me, so I leave. Some nights, I sneak into university theatres and watch Lear or Macbeth or what the fuck every kids are doing these days. Others, I pass out drunk in the hallway. The super is a glorified slumlord; she couldn't care less.
More often than not, though, I stand on the top of my apartment building and stare down, and I try to think of anything else than her round fucking face and crying eyes. I cry because I know I'm going mad again, I'm losing it again. I wish that the ground would transform into a trap. It never happens, and I stumble back down the stairs, and do it all again the next day. It's too much but I can't imagine living any other way. This is how I'm meant to be. Thinking of the drugs and the therapy just makes me sick. I can't think of the person they created as truly me. It's as if I was living someone else's life.
I may very well kill myself soon, or die of alcohol poisoning, or lose my footing. I'm not fucking sane, and it doesn't matter in the least. Sanity is sterile and emotionless; it is someone other than Ellen. I'm depressed more than I'm happy, but the depression almost makes me happy. I'm feeling, I'm alive, I fucking exist! Not some shapeless shell with my face. Maybe soon I'll pick myself up off the floor and direct a play, or look Ellen up. But whatever I do, I know it's better than going through life sane.