hmm...
...ow ow ow, paper-cut, why must you bleed this much?! That's kind of unnerving, stop it! ...right. Band-Aid acquired. Anyway...
In case anyone's possibly not aware, for some reason Michael Fassbender is wearing a fiberglass head throughout his upcoming movie (Frank, that is, not any other one of his upcoming movies). I'm conflicted about this. Yes, he's a good enough actor to pull that off; but so much of that emotion's always evident in his eyes and his facial expressions, and...and...why, Michael?
I really wanted to have this done today, but I'm not sure I will, so: have a bit of the next James/Michael Things With Buddy Holly Soundtracks (the song is very tentatively "True Love Ways," but I haven't decided yet; might be too slow for this story). This is the one for papercutperfect, who wanted boys having some "alone time" at a premiere.
Welcome to the Punch premieres on an icy evening, in London. The skies aren’t raining, for once, but they’ve opened up to reveal cold crystalline stars, shivering in dark blue velvet. The air stabs like needles, when Michael breathes it into his lungs.
He’s watching James on the red carpet, all enthusiastic wayward hair and bright kind eyes, hands pausing to squeeze someone’s arm in welcome or wave hello to arriving co-stars or sign autographs for adoring fans. Everyone adores James. Even the weary city lights, outside the cinema, perk up when James glances around, taking everything in with that glorious smile.
He’s doing his fair share of smiling and waving, too, of course, and fielding the occasional puzzled expression that says why are you here, not your movie, but mostly he just finds himself distracted. Watching.
James laughs at something Mark Strong’s said to him, head tipped back delightedly, and that sound peals out through the crisp night air and into Michael’s chest, where his heart aches with it, just a little: James is so beautiful, standing there, two feet away.
And then blue eyes flit across the distance and find his, and James smiles, a different smile, slow and private and reflected in the tropical-ocean depths, and all at once the night is perfectly warm.
James says something in reply to Mark, tilts his head, offers some elaborate gesture involving both hands and a meaning likely known only to himself. And then bounces back across the carpet, leaving ruffled footprints in the faux-velvet, and fits himself neatly under Michael’s arm, one arm going around Michael’s waist, and the crowd’s applauding but Michael only has eyes and ears for James.
“Right,” James says, and turns slightly to wave at the nearest cameras, “shall we?”
“Yes,” Michael says back, and kisses him, not a terribly dramatic show-stopping kiss, only a little press of lips to the closest temple, but the onlookers and journalists go wild. And James smiles at him again, under the light of the stars.
Michael, briefly, feels like the king of the world. He knows he’s the luckiest person in it.
They walk into the theater together, arms around each other.
It’s an opulent, old-fashioned sort of place: London glamour trying her hardest to impress. Red velvet and gold braid and swooping curtains. Michael raises an eyebrow; James laughs. “You can’t help liking it, though. It wants so badly to be friends.”
“You want to be friends with that chair? The one covered in brocade?”
“Someone should be. I could also be friends with the open bar.”
“Oh, really…”
Half an hour and multiple martinis later-Michael’d witnessed the atrocity the bartender was committing with James’s first drink, and then said, “Hang on, no, sorry, you use a shaker like this-” and taken it away and made a second one himself, and then had found himself deluged by requests-they settle comfortably into their seats, best row but not dead center.
James gets the seat at the end, where the only person next to him is Michael. The blue eyes look up at him, amused, at that.
“Yes?” Michael says, because he has to say something.
“I know you did that on purpose,” James whispers, words feathering along his ear. “You didn’t need to. But thank you.”
“No idea what you’re talking about. Watch your movie.”
They both do have an idea, of course. James takes his hand, in the darkness, as the credits start. Michael rubs his own thumb gently over the back of James’s hand, tracing freckles he can’t see but knows by heart.
It’s silly, this protective impulse, and he knows it is. James isn’t scared of the dark. Not now, at least; not the cozy welcoming dark of a theater, a premiere, their chosen profession. Michael has seen him scared, though; has held him through the shivering, the aftermath, the waking from nightmares while trying not to scream, not to draw attention from those shadowy figures that stand over him in dreams.
Any shadowy figures looming here, any faceless bodies coming too close, will have to go through him. They won’t stand a chance.
James leans a bit more comfortably against him, and smiles, contentment visible even in profile. Michael holds that hand a bit more tightly, and smiles along.
Until he stops.
It’s not the movie. More accurately, it is the movie. The movie’s good. Sheer fun, but intelligently so; James, larger than life, throws off emotion and drama and intensity like sparks-Michael leans over to whisper, “Remind me never to believe you again when you say you can’t be an action hero,” and James rolls his eyes, plainly saving that argument for another time-and he commands every scene he’s in, and Michael’d be looking at him anyway but he’s looking this time because James is so damn compelling.
He contemplates, momentarily, whether he could talk James into bringing home a prop gun and some of that wardrobe. Probably not. James is up for almost anything, in bed, but that is an almost. Some things earn an unequivocal no, and those things always involve potential hurt to Michael, even in play.
Michael wonders sometimes, some late nights and mornings-after, whether they need to have a talk about this. James never says no to anything Michael wants to do to him.
He squeezes that hand, in his, one more time.
James taps fingers over his, in response. The gesture might be flirtation, or exasperation at all the coddling, or simply a way of saying still here. Michael wouldn’t be surprised if it were all three.
Film-James, surrounded by shades of blue and steel, gets shot. The bullet goes right through his leg. Knocks him to the ground. He doesn’t get up, after.
It’s not real. It’s not. That’s a stunt.
James does all his own stunts.
James has been hurt, doing his own stunts, once before. James is still hurt, on long days, on rainy days, grey days that make improperly-healed joints ache and each step an exercise in pain.
The sharp teeth of memory obligingly drag up that most recent day, not long enough ago yet or ever-hastily bundled bandages, that knee folding under any attempt to stand, the whiteness of already-pale skin beneath the freckles, the weight of James in his arms-and then sit there gnawing the shape of it into his heart.
“You’re twitching.”
“I am not.”
“Yes, you are. Stop that.”
In case anyone's possibly not aware, for some reason Michael Fassbender is wearing a fiberglass head throughout his upcoming movie (Frank, that is, not any other one of his upcoming movies). I'm conflicted about this. Yes, he's a good enough actor to pull that off; but so much of that emotion's always evident in his eyes and his facial expressions, and...and...why, Michael?
I really wanted to have this done today, but I'm not sure I will, so: have a bit of the next James/Michael Things With Buddy Holly Soundtracks (the song is very tentatively "True Love Ways," but I haven't decided yet; might be too slow for this story). This is the one for papercutperfect, who wanted boys having some "alone time" at a premiere.
Welcome to the Punch premieres on an icy evening, in London. The skies aren’t raining, for once, but they’ve opened up to reveal cold crystalline stars, shivering in dark blue velvet. The air stabs like needles, when Michael breathes it into his lungs.
He’s watching James on the red carpet, all enthusiastic wayward hair and bright kind eyes, hands pausing to squeeze someone’s arm in welcome or wave hello to arriving co-stars or sign autographs for adoring fans. Everyone adores James. Even the weary city lights, outside the cinema, perk up when James glances around, taking everything in with that glorious smile.
He’s doing his fair share of smiling and waving, too, of course, and fielding the occasional puzzled expression that says why are you here, not your movie, but mostly he just finds himself distracted. Watching.
James laughs at something Mark Strong’s said to him, head tipped back delightedly, and that sound peals out through the crisp night air and into Michael’s chest, where his heart aches with it, just a little: James is so beautiful, standing there, two feet away.
And then blue eyes flit across the distance and find his, and James smiles, a different smile, slow and private and reflected in the tropical-ocean depths, and all at once the night is perfectly warm.
James says something in reply to Mark, tilts his head, offers some elaborate gesture involving both hands and a meaning likely known only to himself. And then bounces back across the carpet, leaving ruffled footprints in the faux-velvet, and fits himself neatly under Michael’s arm, one arm going around Michael’s waist, and the crowd’s applauding but Michael only has eyes and ears for James.
“Right,” James says, and turns slightly to wave at the nearest cameras, “shall we?”
“Yes,” Michael says back, and kisses him, not a terribly dramatic show-stopping kiss, only a little press of lips to the closest temple, but the onlookers and journalists go wild. And James smiles at him again, under the light of the stars.
Michael, briefly, feels like the king of the world. He knows he’s the luckiest person in it.
They walk into the theater together, arms around each other.
It’s an opulent, old-fashioned sort of place: London glamour trying her hardest to impress. Red velvet and gold braid and swooping curtains. Michael raises an eyebrow; James laughs. “You can’t help liking it, though. It wants so badly to be friends.”
“You want to be friends with that chair? The one covered in brocade?”
“Someone should be. I could also be friends with the open bar.”
“Oh, really…”
Half an hour and multiple martinis later-Michael’d witnessed the atrocity the bartender was committing with James’s first drink, and then said, “Hang on, no, sorry, you use a shaker like this-” and taken it away and made a second one himself, and then had found himself deluged by requests-they settle comfortably into their seats, best row but not dead center.
James gets the seat at the end, where the only person next to him is Michael. The blue eyes look up at him, amused, at that.
“Yes?” Michael says, because he has to say something.
“I know you did that on purpose,” James whispers, words feathering along his ear. “You didn’t need to. But thank you.”
“No idea what you’re talking about. Watch your movie.”
They both do have an idea, of course. James takes his hand, in the darkness, as the credits start. Michael rubs his own thumb gently over the back of James’s hand, tracing freckles he can’t see but knows by heart.
It’s silly, this protective impulse, and he knows it is. James isn’t scared of the dark. Not now, at least; not the cozy welcoming dark of a theater, a premiere, their chosen profession. Michael has seen him scared, though; has held him through the shivering, the aftermath, the waking from nightmares while trying not to scream, not to draw attention from those shadowy figures that stand over him in dreams.
Any shadowy figures looming here, any faceless bodies coming too close, will have to go through him. They won’t stand a chance.
James leans a bit more comfortably against him, and smiles, contentment visible even in profile. Michael holds that hand a bit more tightly, and smiles along.
Until he stops.
It’s not the movie. More accurately, it is the movie. The movie’s good. Sheer fun, but intelligently so; James, larger than life, throws off emotion and drama and intensity like sparks-Michael leans over to whisper, “Remind me never to believe you again when you say you can’t be an action hero,” and James rolls his eyes, plainly saving that argument for another time-and he commands every scene he’s in, and Michael’d be looking at him anyway but he’s looking this time because James is so damn compelling.
He contemplates, momentarily, whether he could talk James into bringing home a prop gun and some of that wardrobe. Probably not. James is up for almost anything, in bed, but that is an almost. Some things earn an unequivocal no, and those things always involve potential hurt to Michael, even in play.
Michael wonders sometimes, some late nights and mornings-after, whether they need to have a talk about this. James never says no to anything Michael wants to do to him.
He squeezes that hand, in his, one more time.
James taps fingers over his, in response. The gesture might be flirtation, or exasperation at all the coddling, or simply a way of saying still here. Michael wouldn’t be surprised if it were all three.
Film-James, surrounded by shades of blue and steel, gets shot. The bullet goes right through his leg. Knocks him to the ground. He doesn’t get up, after.
It’s not real. It’s not. That’s a stunt.
James does all his own stunts.
James has been hurt, doing his own stunts, once before. James is still hurt, on long days, on rainy days, grey days that make improperly-healed joints ache and each step an exercise in pain.
The sharp teeth of memory obligingly drag up that most recent day, not long enough ago yet or ever-hastily bundled bandages, that knee folding under any attempt to stand, the whiteness of already-pale skin beneath the freckles, the weight of James in his arms-and then sit there gnawing the shape of it into his heart.
“You’re twitching.”
“I am not.”
“Yes, you are. Stop that.”