January 20 : Chess, Part 2
Prompt for January 20:
Picture prompt!
Chess, Part 2
I had given my best friend a key to my flat almost out of necessity. The decision for me to stay in London rather than return home to San Diego was because I was negotiating for Bond 22, and he was about the only person I knew in the entire country. I wanted to know somebody had one in case of emergency, and I trusted him with my life, so a key to my flat was sort of just par for the course at that point. I had expected Daniel to use it for good and not for evil.
Up until that point, the only thing he'd used it for was to sneak up on me while I was making lunch and singing selections from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Starlight Express. At that moment, however, he was sitting on my living room couch plotting his attack.
"You're home early," my boyfriend commented from down the hall, before he rounded the corner and promptly just stopped and stared. If you'd given my boyfriend a thousand guesses, I don't think Kiefer could have ever imagined that Danny was going to be who was waiting for him. No one had to tell him what the score was either. Usually, when your girlfriend's best friend turns up unannounced, especially after you've just been sprung from jail, the writing is already on the wall. Still, he was going to play it cool: "I didn't know you were stopping by. Brittany's at lunch with one of her friends."
"Yeah, I know, she mentioned it to me this morning." Danny fixed him with an even gaze. "I came because I think you and I need to talk before this thing goes any further."
Knowing that there really was no right answer, my boyfriend just nodded slightly and deposited himself in my living room chair. "All right, what do you want to talk about?" he said, trying not to sound edgy. My boyfriend is equally as assertive as my best friend is, but he had more to lose. Showing up and decking my best friend wasn't going to end well for him.
On the other hand, while I wouldn't be thrilled with my best friend hitting my boyfriend, I would be more inclined to forgive him because he was only looking out for me.
The two of them shared a very uncomfortable look before Daniel said, "How about we start with what the hell you think you're doing, before you end up hurting a perfectly good young woman, and then I have to hurt you."
He paused just long enough to let that sink in, not letting Kiefer get a word in edgewise. "Let me explain something to you. I've known her for eight months. And in those eight months she has become one of my dearest friends, because I've watched her go through so much. Good and bad. I've seen her on top of the bloody world and I've seen her take a fall. I've seen her fight through pain and fight, period. It's impossible not to get close to someone when you're there for their defining moments, and I learned that she really is the sweetest, toughest woman I think I've ever met. I brought her here. I convinced her to stay. I'm supposed to look out for her. And after all of this I'll be damned if I see you walk in here and screw it all, which is exactly what you seem to be doing to everything else."
My boyfriend just stared at him, not very happy with that monologue. "You don't know a damn thing about me," he retorted, "and I'm not going to let you sit here and tell me that I'm going to ruin the woman I love--"
"--Then you'd better start telling me who you really are." Daniel just stared back at him. "Because I don't have to tell you shit. I've seen it over the last forty-eight days. So start bloody talking."
****
James and I were in the middle of lunch, reminiscing over the way things had used to be. This was fairly ridiculous, if you consider that we had worked together only about two years earlier. But for the both of us, with how far we'd come, it seemed a lot longer than that.
I was busy laughing at just how much of a ponce I'd been through the whole couple of months.
"You can't blame me!" I exclaimed, giggling despite myself. "I wrote half the damn thing. I'm not supposed to be acting in it! I couldn't even get a part in my fucking high school play, for Christ's sake!"
"Just means there aren't any embarrassing grade-school stories to be told about you." He gave me a sly look. "You would've been in there anyway. You know it. Jon would have put you in as an extra. After all of that? You deserved it."
"I don't know about deserved. I was just doing my best to get my creative vision on the big screen. That was good enough." I shook my head. "To be honest, I'd love to get back to writing someday. But the acting is the thing that's working out so I'm going to stick with that right now. My hope is that if they kill me off 24 I can beg to stay on as a writer instead."
"Always have a backup plan." James chuckled. "It'd be hard to kill off the girlfriend of the star."
"Better that, than me just getting the part because of it. Look at The Unit. Both of the series creators cast their spouses. I'm sure there are some people who will assume I got the part because of it, but I know that's not true." I shrugged. "I didn't even get this part. Danny suggested my name, but I still had to audition for it. I'm sort of proud of that. That I'm not here on anyone else's success. But also that my friends think well enough of me to recommend me."
"Why wouldn't we? You fell asleep on your script."
"Because I didn't know what I was doing!" I retorted, laughing again. "I wasn't going to let any of you down. Hello. Guy that had a cult TV show."
He just snorted, "And you have a piece of film history."
"In the background!" I protested.
James just kept looking at me. I could only look innocent for about thirty seconds at a time. I cracked.
"...okay, I get to do some stuff."
He grinned, letting the fact that he'd gotten me to tell hang in the air, before he said, "And who told you two years ago that you were going to be great?" with entirely too much mirth in his voice.
He had me there.
****
My boyfriend wasn't in the most advantageous position, either. Yet he had experience on his side, if not necessarily the good kind: twice divorced and once dumped just before his wedding, he'd been through this kind of thing before. And he was starting to lose his patience.
"First of all, I didn't know how hurt she was going to be, because I'd just met her that night and I had no idea I was ever going to see her again," he pointed out, an edge starting to creep into his voice. "By the time we actually became involved, it was October, and we didn't go public until November. What was done was done. I give her a hell of a lot of courage for standing by me, but I can't take responsibility for side effects I never saw coming!"
"I'm not talking about that, I'm talking about the ones that are still coming," Danny retorted, holding his gaze. "I'm talking about months or years from now when this happens again and this time you know damn well what's going to happen to her. You have a problem. You're not getting help for it. You could have killed someone, and I don't want to have to bury my best friend when she's not even thirty."
Playing the 'she could be dead' card was a dangerous thing to do. It was not something either of them wanted to have happen. If they were honest, they had a lot in common: they were close to the same age, both in iconic franchises, both with teenage daughters and divorces in their past. But for as much as Danny enjoyed having fun, and I'd been with him in a few pubs in my time, he knew where to draw a line. That was the difference.
That was what he needed to know that Kiefer knew before he would be okay with the two of us as a couple. He knew I loved the man too much to be this firm. If he didn't do it, chances were I never would.
The two of them glared at each other for a long moment before my boyfriend looked at the floor. "How do you know what I'm not doing?" he finally said.
"You didn't do it yet. And you've got a daughter and two ex-wives already." Danny had done his homework. "So why should I believe this is any different?"
"Because I've never spent time in jail before." Kiefer's voice was quiet. "And I've got mandatory counseling to complete." He swallowed. "I'll tell you what I told her. I don't know if I can change. It's not that I don't want to. I just don't know."
"You have to try." Daniel let out a long, slow breath. After another moment, he continued, "She's not going to get a new best friend or a new boyfriend. It's not fair to her to make her choose between us. So you and I, we have to find a way to get along. And for me, the only way I'm going to look at you and learn to trust you is if I know that you're trying. For her sake, for yourself...you have to fucking grow up."
He sounded like he'd gotten that speech before.
The two of them looked at each other. I wasn't going to be able to choose between them. But if they couldn't work together, it wasn't going to be much better. There had to be something there. That much was absolute.
****
I was poking at the fortune cookie, debating whether or not to open it. I enjoy eating them, but I rarely believe anything they say.
"Going to psychically divine what it says?" James asked me, giving me an amused look. "Developed X-ray vision since the last time I saw you?"
I stuck my tongue out at him. "Shut up, you once recorded a song about being David Letterman."
"You listened to it, so what's that make you?" he replied, laughing a little. Then he glanced at me seriously. "Something on your mind?"
My lips curled in the faintest hint of a smile. "No matter what I do, I feel so damn young."
"You're turning twenty-nine this year, aren't you?" he said, and when I nodded, he chuckled. "Shit, now I feel old."
"Shut up," I retorted, laughing a little.
"You realize I'm turning forty-six this year?" he replied, "And that I have a son who's going to be twelve?"
I facepalmed. That didn't help me, considering that my boyfriend was forty-one with a daughter who was going to be twenty this year, and a best friend who was going to turn forty with a daughter who was a teenager. If you started counting my other friends, Jon has been married for years now with two kids, and Cole is engaged with a son of his own. Everyone I knew was at least into their thirties, many of whom were married or in serious relationships, and almost all of whom had children. Instead of feeling liberated by being under thirty and childless, I just felt like I was growing up fast.
"That doesn't help," I muttered, before I glanced at him. "It's just...two years ago I was going to go to graduate school in Florida. I was just another ordinary twentysomething trying to be famous. Now here I am, on this big-ass film, with my best friend and my boyfriend, who are huge, and who by the way I happen to have followed for most of their careers, and I haven't done shit, and what the hell am I really doing here?"
James just glanced at me for a moment. Then he smiled. And a moment after that, he wrapped an arm around me.
"You know," he said, squeezing my shoulders, "you said almost the same thing to me, two years ago."
I looked at him. "Did I?"
"Yeah. Except you were talking about me. And I fell in love with you anyway." A pause, and he laughed. "Obviously not in a romantic way," he corrected, chuckling to himself, as if he thought his girlfriend was somehow hearing the entire conversation. A small smile. "I think you don't realize, for all the people who care about you, how much you give back to all of us."
"Is it worth it?" I asked, randomly.
"Completely."
****
End Part 2
****
Picture prompt!
Chess, Part 2
I had given my best friend a key to my flat almost out of necessity. The decision for me to stay in London rather than return home to San Diego was because I was negotiating for Bond 22, and he was about the only person I knew in the entire country. I wanted to know somebody had one in case of emergency, and I trusted him with my life, so a key to my flat was sort of just par for the course at that point. I had expected Daniel to use it for good and not for evil.
Up until that point, the only thing he'd used it for was to sneak up on me while I was making lunch and singing selections from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Starlight Express. At that moment, however, he was sitting on my living room couch plotting his attack.
"You're home early," my boyfriend commented from down the hall, before he rounded the corner and promptly just stopped and stared. If you'd given my boyfriend a thousand guesses, I don't think Kiefer could have ever imagined that Danny was going to be who was waiting for him. No one had to tell him what the score was either. Usually, when your girlfriend's best friend turns up unannounced, especially after you've just been sprung from jail, the writing is already on the wall. Still, he was going to play it cool: "I didn't know you were stopping by. Brittany's at lunch with one of her friends."
"Yeah, I know, she mentioned it to me this morning." Danny fixed him with an even gaze. "I came because I think you and I need to talk before this thing goes any further."
Knowing that there really was no right answer, my boyfriend just nodded slightly and deposited himself in my living room chair. "All right, what do you want to talk about?" he said, trying not to sound edgy. My boyfriend is equally as assertive as my best friend is, but he had more to lose. Showing up and decking my best friend wasn't going to end well for him.
On the other hand, while I wouldn't be thrilled with my best friend hitting my boyfriend, I would be more inclined to forgive him because he was only looking out for me.
The two of them shared a very uncomfortable look before Daniel said, "How about we start with what the hell you think you're doing, before you end up hurting a perfectly good young woman, and then I have to hurt you."
He paused just long enough to let that sink in, not letting Kiefer get a word in edgewise. "Let me explain something to you. I've known her for eight months. And in those eight months she has become one of my dearest friends, because I've watched her go through so much. Good and bad. I've seen her on top of the bloody world and I've seen her take a fall. I've seen her fight through pain and fight, period. It's impossible not to get close to someone when you're there for their defining moments, and I learned that she really is the sweetest, toughest woman I think I've ever met. I brought her here. I convinced her to stay. I'm supposed to look out for her. And after all of this I'll be damned if I see you walk in here and screw it all, which is exactly what you seem to be doing to everything else."
My boyfriend just stared at him, not very happy with that monologue. "You don't know a damn thing about me," he retorted, "and I'm not going to let you sit here and tell me that I'm going to ruin the woman I love--"
"--Then you'd better start telling me who you really are." Daniel just stared back at him. "Because I don't have to tell you shit. I've seen it over the last forty-eight days. So start bloody talking."
****
James and I were in the middle of lunch, reminiscing over the way things had used to be. This was fairly ridiculous, if you consider that we had worked together only about two years earlier. But for the both of us, with how far we'd come, it seemed a lot longer than that.
I was busy laughing at just how much of a ponce I'd been through the whole couple of months.
"You can't blame me!" I exclaimed, giggling despite myself. "I wrote half the damn thing. I'm not supposed to be acting in it! I couldn't even get a part in my fucking high school play, for Christ's sake!"
"Just means there aren't any embarrassing grade-school stories to be told about you." He gave me a sly look. "You would've been in there anyway. You know it. Jon would have put you in as an extra. After all of that? You deserved it."
"I don't know about deserved. I was just doing my best to get my creative vision on the big screen. That was good enough." I shook my head. "To be honest, I'd love to get back to writing someday. But the acting is the thing that's working out so I'm going to stick with that right now. My hope is that if they kill me off 24 I can beg to stay on as a writer instead."
"Always have a backup plan." James chuckled. "It'd be hard to kill off the girlfriend of the star."
"Better that, than me just getting the part because of it. Look at The Unit. Both of the series creators cast their spouses. I'm sure there are some people who will assume I got the part because of it, but I know that's not true." I shrugged. "I didn't even get this part. Danny suggested my name, but I still had to audition for it. I'm sort of proud of that. That I'm not here on anyone else's success. But also that my friends think well enough of me to recommend me."
"Why wouldn't we? You fell asleep on your script."
"Because I didn't know what I was doing!" I retorted, laughing again. "I wasn't going to let any of you down. Hello. Guy that had a cult TV show."
He just snorted, "And you have a piece of film history."
"In the background!" I protested.
James just kept looking at me. I could only look innocent for about thirty seconds at a time. I cracked.
"...okay, I get to do some stuff."
He grinned, letting the fact that he'd gotten me to tell hang in the air, before he said, "And who told you two years ago that you were going to be great?" with entirely too much mirth in his voice.
He had me there.
****
My boyfriend wasn't in the most advantageous position, either. Yet he had experience on his side, if not necessarily the good kind: twice divorced and once dumped just before his wedding, he'd been through this kind of thing before. And he was starting to lose his patience.
"First of all, I didn't know how hurt she was going to be, because I'd just met her that night and I had no idea I was ever going to see her again," he pointed out, an edge starting to creep into his voice. "By the time we actually became involved, it was October, and we didn't go public until November. What was done was done. I give her a hell of a lot of courage for standing by me, but I can't take responsibility for side effects I never saw coming!"
"I'm not talking about that, I'm talking about the ones that are still coming," Danny retorted, holding his gaze. "I'm talking about months or years from now when this happens again and this time you know damn well what's going to happen to her. You have a problem. You're not getting help for it. You could have killed someone, and I don't want to have to bury my best friend when she's not even thirty."
Playing the 'she could be dead' card was a dangerous thing to do. It was not something either of them wanted to have happen. If they were honest, they had a lot in common: they were close to the same age, both in iconic franchises, both with teenage daughters and divorces in their past. But for as much as Danny enjoyed having fun, and I'd been with him in a few pubs in my time, he knew where to draw a line. That was the difference.
That was what he needed to know that Kiefer knew before he would be okay with the two of us as a couple. He knew I loved the man too much to be this firm. If he didn't do it, chances were I never would.
The two of them glared at each other for a long moment before my boyfriend looked at the floor. "How do you know what I'm not doing?" he finally said.
"You didn't do it yet. And you've got a daughter and two ex-wives already." Danny had done his homework. "So why should I believe this is any different?"
"Because I've never spent time in jail before." Kiefer's voice was quiet. "And I've got mandatory counseling to complete." He swallowed. "I'll tell you what I told her. I don't know if I can change. It's not that I don't want to. I just don't know."
"You have to try." Daniel let out a long, slow breath. After another moment, he continued, "She's not going to get a new best friend or a new boyfriend. It's not fair to her to make her choose between us. So you and I, we have to find a way to get along. And for me, the only way I'm going to look at you and learn to trust you is if I know that you're trying. For her sake, for yourself...you have to fucking grow up."
He sounded like he'd gotten that speech before.
The two of them looked at each other. I wasn't going to be able to choose between them. But if they couldn't work together, it wasn't going to be much better. There had to be something there. That much was absolute.
****
I was poking at the fortune cookie, debating whether or not to open it. I enjoy eating them, but I rarely believe anything they say.
"Going to psychically divine what it says?" James asked me, giving me an amused look. "Developed X-ray vision since the last time I saw you?"
I stuck my tongue out at him. "Shut up, you once recorded a song about being David Letterman."
"You listened to it, so what's that make you?" he replied, laughing a little. Then he glanced at me seriously. "Something on your mind?"
My lips curled in the faintest hint of a smile. "No matter what I do, I feel so damn young."
"You're turning twenty-nine this year, aren't you?" he said, and when I nodded, he chuckled. "Shit, now I feel old."
"Shut up," I retorted, laughing a little.
"You realize I'm turning forty-six this year?" he replied, "And that I have a son who's going to be twelve?"
I facepalmed. That didn't help me, considering that my boyfriend was forty-one with a daughter who was going to be twenty this year, and a best friend who was going to turn forty with a daughter who was a teenager. If you started counting my other friends, Jon has been married for years now with two kids, and Cole is engaged with a son of his own. Everyone I knew was at least into their thirties, many of whom were married or in serious relationships, and almost all of whom had children. Instead of feeling liberated by being under thirty and childless, I just felt like I was growing up fast.
"That doesn't help," I muttered, before I glanced at him. "It's just...two years ago I was going to go to graduate school in Florida. I was just another ordinary twentysomething trying to be famous. Now here I am, on this big-ass film, with my best friend and my boyfriend, who are huge, and who by the way I happen to have followed for most of their careers, and I haven't done shit, and what the hell am I really doing here?"
James just glanced at me for a moment. Then he smiled. And a moment after that, he wrapped an arm around me.
"You know," he said, squeezing my shoulders, "you said almost the same thing to me, two years ago."
I looked at him. "Did I?"
"Yeah. Except you were talking about me. And I fell in love with you anyway." A pause, and he laughed. "Obviously not in a romantic way," he corrected, chuckling to himself, as if he thought his girlfriend was somehow hearing the entire conversation. A small smile. "I think you don't realize, for all the people who care about you, how much you give back to all of us."
"Is it worth it?" I asked, randomly.
"Completely."
****
End Part 2
****