Fic: Foreheads and Foresight (RPF Crack-fic)
“James? What’s wrong?” James glanced up to see John standing in front of him.
“I’m going crazy, that’s all.” John smiled at that, and sat down next to him. They were taking a well-deserved break from filming, and James had snuck out back for a cigarette.
Or ‘nipping out for a quick fag’, as John had teased him earlier. Of course, John would know all about that, but James wasn’t about to say that out loud, no matter the teasing nature that would have prompted it.
“So,” John began, leaning back against the seat, “What makes you think you’re going crazy?”
“I’ve been having the strangest dreams the past few nights,” James was pretty sure he hadn’t meant to actually tell John that, but the man was so damn charismatic it was hard not to confide in him.
“All right,” John was patient, and not looking like he was going to laugh, so James took a deep breath.
“I’ve been dreaming that I come into work, already in Captain John’s costume, and that we’re filming a different episode. The basic plot seems to be centered on a race of aliens so small that they could land on someone’s skin and nobody would notice.”
He stopped to take a drag, and glance at John out of the corner of his eye. The other man was still watching him solemnly, as if waiting for the punch line to a joke.
“Captain John is supposed to end up with them colonizing on his face, and then it’s up to Torchwood to sort out a way to get rid of them.”
“Sorry,” John interrupted, smiling a little, “I’m clearly missing what is so strange about all this. I’m pretty certain that Russell and Chris dream stuff like that all the time.”
“Yeah, well, these aliens start to build a colony on my forehead, and they have this thing with little round, red buildings. So nobody thinks anything is wrong until it looks like I have a massive attack of acne!” He was beginning to hyperventilate, he knew he was. He needed to chill out and remember that it was just a dream. He could handle it… but the thought of aliens invading his flesh filled him with a strange level of fear. Maybe he’d been working in sci-fi for too long. Maybe he should get out and do more normal things again.
“John, I don’t want aliens to land on my face and start their little zit towns on my forehead!” He heard the note of desperation in his voice and swallowed back the urge to scream. To his credit, John didn’t laugh out-right, although he did look like he was holding back one of his ear-splitting grins. John clapped a commiserating hand on James’ shoulder, and sighed.
“James, you need to take a deep breath, first off. Now, relax, it was just a dream.” John got to his feet and held out a hand to the other man, who was still looking far too worried over something so silly.
“Come on, laddie,” John segued into his Scots just enough to make James look up, “What do ye say we get back to work?” James smiled half-heartedly and shook his head.
“Thanks John, but I’m gonna finish this first.” He held up his half-smoked cigarette. John nodded and shrugged, turning around to go back into the building, just as Gareth was coming out.
“Hey Gaz,” John called, and stopped him, quickly explaining the problem with James in a low tone. James looked away, a little embarrassed. He knew he was being silly, but he couldn’t shake the how real the dream felt. He ran his free hand across his forehead nervously, as Gareth nodded to John, and walked closer.
“Hey James,” he said, taking out a cigarette of his own.
“I knew I shouldn’t have told him anything,” James muttered, and Gareth grinned.
“Probably not, but that’s John for you. He’ll pull it out of you before you even realize you’re saying it. I sometimes wonder if he isn’t really an alien.”
“Are you going to humor me and pretend like it never happened?” James wanted to know, and Gareth smiled, took a drag and then shook his head.
“Nothing doin’ mate. You think I’m gonna let pimple aliens slide by without comment?” James sighed, knowing he should have expected it, but it didn’t mean he was happy about it.
“You wanna know a secret?” Gareth said, suddenly quieter.
“Is this going to be about pimple aliens?” James said, smiling in spite of himself.
“No,” Gareth chuckled, “One night, after a big shoot with John on the first series, I had this dream that I came into work in my underwear.”
“Not so unusual, that’s got nothing on pimple aliens,” James told him and stubbed out the cigarette in his hand. He wasn’t even really smoking it anyway, just holding it more for comfort than anything else.
“No, maybe not… but the next morning I made the mistake of telling John and Eve… and well, you can imagine what John had to say about that.”
“What happened?” James laughed, well able to imagine that John would have had a few things to say, and probably not of the general audiences appropriate variety either.
“John showed up the next day in his underwear.” Chuckles and another drag off the cigarette were followed with “Eve told us that she’d had a similar dream, but that she’d shown up and everyone else was in their underwear…and…”
“And?” James prompted, when Gareth paused.
“And she was naked.”
“Damn… where was I when all this happened?” James wanted to know, and he leaned back in his chair. Gareth laughed.
“It was just a dream, but… well, John was trying to coordinate it so that everyone, cast, crew, everybody would show up in their underwear… but Phil put his foot down since we were going on location, rather than being on the studio lot.” James and Gareth both laughed at that.
Gareth could remember the crestfallen expression on John’s face as he’d been told in no uncertain terms that while playing around in studio was obnoxious, but otherwise all right, no way were they taking the nudity on the road. Eve had been a little upset about it too, once she’d been told.
“Basically, all I’m saying is, at least your dream is so unusual that nobody is going to think of making it come true.”
“Yeah,” James said, thinking it over and realizing that he really had nothing to worry about. “Yeah, thanks man.”
“No problem,” Gareth told him, putting out his cigarette and throwing his head in the direction of the door, “We’d better get back inside.”
James nodded and stood up with the other man. They wandered back into the studio to finish shooting their scene.
~~~~ 6 months later ~~~~
James answered his phone, still a little groggy and hung over from the gig the night before.
“Hullo?”
“James, it’s Gareth, you up?”
“Huh? Gar-wha- yeah! Yeah, I’m up.” He sat up, rubbing a hand across his eyes.
“What’s up?”
“Well, Phil’s calling your agent right now, but I couldn’t wait, I had to call you myself.”
“Why? What’s going on? Is everything all right?” Gareth never called this early, even with the time difference.
“They want Captain John to come back in the next series.”
“Really?” Now James was awake, and searching around for his pants. He knew he’d had jeans when he got home… hadn’t he? “What’s the storyline, do you know?”
“Something about aliens and invasion,” Gareth dead-panned, and James resisted the urge to stick out his tongue. The only reason he didn’t was because he knew that Gareth couldn’t see it through the phone.
“All right, now, what’s the deal with the invading aliens?”
“They land, and start building their little towns and little red houses.”
“Oh no…” James had a very bad feeling about this, and Gareth chuckled, knowing that he’d gotten it.
“Yup, that’s right, Torchwood and the Invading Pimple People!” Gareth laughed out loud as James groaned and shook his head.
“Why do I let you people do this to me?”
“Because you love us,” Gareth pointed out quite simply, and James had to laugh too. It was true.
“So who gets to save Captain John from the pimple people?”
“Ianto and his miracle night cream,” Gareth said it in a low voice, and if James had been a woman he probably would have dropped trou and swooned all at once.
“See you on set then?”
“Yep,” Gareth was back to his normal voice, and James grinned. It would be good to see the kid again. After a few more minutes of conversation, they hung up. James ambled out to his kitchen to locate some water and a cup of coffee. It was going to be great to see them all again, even if Naoko and Burn wouldn’t be around.
His phone rang again, and this time he looked at the caller ID. An overseas number, but not Gareth. He grinned, wondering what his agent would say when he realized that James already knew. He answered and the person on the other end asked without preamble,
“So, did you tell them yes to pimple people?”
Laughter was the only answer John got before James hung up on him.