Uh... a love story?
Title: Untitled
Author: respectmyright
Pairing: The pair is anyone and everyone. Just any guy and girl trying to make art together and save the world.
Rating: PG, for language. These characters like to swear more than I do.
Disclaimer: I don't know what this is. Sometimes sap must be written in some form, and sometimes it has no real form at all.
Notes: The two characters have no names, just because they don't. And they're playwrights/touring actors, I think, but really they could be any kind of artist duo who spend scads of time together and are dependent on each other artistically. (Are they artists because they believe they're artists? Did they give up university for love, or vice versa? I don't know.)
Feedback: ...of the "Brej, you are on crack!" or "Brej, you are not on crack, but you are a SAP!" variety would be good. Does this make any sense whatsoever? Do you even know what it's about?? I'm not sure it's about anything. Gah.
HIM:
You and me against the world, pal, fighting the good fight.
It's the way it's been since I met you, and I hope it's the way it'll always be. I guess this is an apology, in a way, for almost fucking things up by trying to make more of this than what it is. Or... screw that, it's not what I mean, because how can anything be more this? Without this, I'd be lost. Without you, I'd be lost.
When we first met, I was dazzled by you, but it was the way you understood the stage, the way you understood exactly what I wanted to write, the way you could twist words to create something perfect, that really blew my mind. Some people might say it was inevitable that I'd fall in love with you, but I never thought of it. You were like my other half. You are like my other half. We co-exist, you and I, and I mean that in the best way possible.
The first day you yelled at me, the first day you tore my scenes in half and told me I was nothing but a pompous asshole who wrote pretentious drivel, was the day I realized I'd never be able to write without you again. Because you were right, and I knew it, and I'd known it all along, but without someone brave enough to say it to my face, I was destined to keep writing in circles. With you, I could create something real. With you, I was an artist.
And you know, dude, don't hit me for this, but you're never hotter than when you're mad.
But I never thought of that until you started dating that dude, the one with the annoying laugh, and suddenly, life got in our way. I behaved like a jealous 16-year-old, I know it, but what the fuck, you deserved so much better than him. And then came that other loser and then that old professor dude, and I started wondering what they had that I didn't. I don't know if it was because I was legitimately in love with you, or because I'm a possessive bastard and love you too much to let you be with anyone else, but christ, seeing you with them made me mad.
You say that I never wanted you until I couldn't have you, and maybe you're right, but I think there was, and always will be, a piece of me that is in love with you. Part of you will always belong to me, and I don't mean that in some sort of creepy male chauvinist way, because part of me will always belong to you. It sounds like a really bad love song, but I know you know what I mean.
Maybe I shouldn't have said anything, but maybe I didn't have to, because you always could read my mind. And it was at the point where... well, shit, when people you've known since grade three are coming up to you and going, "Dude, you're, like, fucking in love with her, man! Stop being a wuss and do something, already!", it's kind of sad to sit around feverishly writing scenes about it instead of taking their advice and, well, doing something about it.
You tried to be kind, I know, but I didn't know how to deal - I never have, with stuff like that - and I know I screwed up royally. I nearly tore us apart, and if I had, it would've been the biggest mistake of my entire fucked up life. I had to write it into a play, without you, to realize that you were right and I was wrong, but both our names are on it, as usual, because even if you didn't write a word of it, more than any of our other work, this play is you. Your voice is on every page.
Every woman I've dated since I met you has been jealous of you, you know that? So when I met one who wasn't, I knew I had to marry her, because she loves me enough to understand what you and I have. And maybe that's twisted and maybe it's supremely fucked up that I love her and yet, still, I love you, and maybe she knows that one day we'll both be on the road somewhere, drunk off our rockers, and end up in bed together, but she's willing to take that risk. And goddamn it, I love her for knowing all that, and still being able to love me.
So maybe you're right and we aren't meant to be together in the traditional sense, but when have we ever been traditional, anyhow? We've always just been us, and that's how I want it to stay. This thing we have, whatever it is... I don't want to wreck it. Because if being on a darkened tour bus in the middle of fucking nowhere with you leaning against me, half asleep, unconsciously clutching my hand, isn't some twisted kind of love, I don't know what is.
And I'm good with that now. I'm good with that.
*****
HER:
I do love you, you fool.
You've got to know that straight off. I know I've said it thousands of times before, but I mean it differently now, a little less drunkenly, a lot more seriously. Not that I wasn't serious before, but it's got to be different, now. You changed things when you said the words... there will always be that tiny sliver of knowledge that the words were said and can't be taken back.
But that's okay. I don't know if I'd want to go back. Because it was inevitable, wasn't it? I think it was inevitable from the start, because no one can click the way we do and not think about it.
You're right in a way, you crazy, crazy dreamer - we were meant to be, but not in the sappy, Romeo & Juliet sense. We were meant to create something beautiful together, and even when we're fighting at the top of our lungs over a scene that isn't working, I'm never happier than when I'm writing with you. You are my artistic soulmate, and you bring out the best in me.
But you bring out the worst in me, too, and as much as I love you, if we were together, I'd spend half my time wanting to kill you. Hell, more than half, because I already spend half my time wanting to kill you, but it would be a whole different brand of fucked up if we started sleeping together on top of everything. We're too much alike in some ways and too different in others, and you're insane and you're beautiful and you make me laugh and scream and cry, but it's just too much sometimes. I have to step away. And if I let myself love you like that, I couldn't step away, and it would be our undoing.
I'm not sure what the boundaries of love are, really, or if there even are any, but I do know that I can't let myself fall in love with you. I love you fiercely in so many ways, but we're already too much of an us to be an us in that last, seemingly inevitable way. It would consume us. It would destroy us. And I can't take that risk, because without you, my life would only be ashes.
I keep searching for that other kind of love, thinking that I can love you as a friend and still be someone else's lover, but I don't know how to find that balance. I keep thinking I've found it, but then I spend a few hours alone with you, and we're yelling at each other across the room, or we're drunk as fish, lying outside in the snow, or we're doing nothing at all, but I realize... until I find someone who makes me feel as safe, as perfect as you make me feel, it's just not gonna work. Because I need someone I can love as much as I love you. Not more, but equally. In a different way... a way that's less bombastic, less sublimely ridiculous, more secure.
I hope you've found that in her. I don't begrudge you your marriage, not for a second, and I mean that with my heart and soul. I just wish I could find someone that easily, without having an image of you in the back of my mind the whole time.
But for now... whatever this is, this twisted, fucked-up thing we call a partnership, this codependent, cracked-up, beautiful thing we call a friendship... I want it to stay like this forever, with your hand in mine and an empty bottle of wine on the table and pages and pages of writing strewn everywhere.
So I'm not asking you to let me go, my friend, though maybe I should be.
I'm asking you not to.
- END -
Author: respectmyright
Pairing: The pair is anyone and everyone. Just any guy and girl trying to make art together and save the world.
Rating: PG, for language. These characters like to swear more than I do.
Disclaimer: I don't know what this is. Sometimes sap must be written in some form, and sometimes it has no real form at all.
Notes: The two characters have no names, just because they don't. And they're playwrights/touring actors, I think, but really they could be any kind of artist duo who spend scads of time together and are dependent on each other artistically. (Are they artists because they believe they're artists? Did they give up university for love, or vice versa? I don't know.)
Feedback: ...of the "Brej, you are on crack!" or "Brej, you are not on crack, but you are a SAP!" variety would be good. Does this make any sense whatsoever? Do you even know what it's about?? I'm not sure it's about anything. Gah.
HIM:
You and me against the world, pal, fighting the good fight.
It's the way it's been since I met you, and I hope it's the way it'll always be. I guess this is an apology, in a way, for almost fucking things up by trying to make more of this than what it is. Or... screw that, it's not what I mean, because how can anything be more this? Without this, I'd be lost. Without you, I'd be lost.
When we first met, I was dazzled by you, but it was the way you understood the stage, the way you understood exactly what I wanted to write, the way you could twist words to create something perfect, that really blew my mind. Some people might say it was inevitable that I'd fall in love with you, but I never thought of it. You were like my other half. You are like my other half. We co-exist, you and I, and I mean that in the best way possible.
The first day you yelled at me, the first day you tore my scenes in half and told me I was nothing but a pompous asshole who wrote pretentious drivel, was the day I realized I'd never be able to write without you again. Because you were right, and I knew it, and I'd known it all along, but without someone brave enough to say it to my face, I was destined to keep writing in circles. With you, I could create something real. With you, I was an artist.
And you know, dude, don't hit me for this, but you're never hotter than when you're mad.
But I never thought of that until you started dating that dude, the one with the annoying laugh, and suddenly, life got in our way. I behaved like a jealous 16-year-old, I know it, but what the fuck, you deserved so much better than him. And then came that other loser and then that old professor dude, and I started wondering what they had that I didn't. I don't know if it was because I was legitimately in love with you, or because I'm a possessive bastard and love you too much to let you be with anyone else, but christ, seeing you with them made me mad.
You say that I never wanted you until I couldn't have you, and maybe you're right, but I think there was, and always will be, a piece of me that is in love with you. Part of you will always belong to me, and I don't mean that in some sort of creepy male chauvinist way, because part of me will always belong to you. It sounds like a really bad love song, but I know you know what I mean.
Maybe I shouldn't have said anything, but maybe I didn't have to, because you always could read my mind. And it was at the point where... well, shit, when people you've known since grade three are coming up to you and going, "Dude, you're, like, fucking in love with her, man! Stop being a wuss and do something, already!", it's kind of sad to sit around feverishly writing scenes about it instead of taking their advice and, well, doing something about it.
You tried to be kind, I know, but I didn't know how to deal - I never have, with stuff like that - and I know I screwed up royally. I nearly tore us apart, and if I had, it would've been the biggest mistake of my entire fucked up life. I had to write it into a play, without you, to realize that you were right and I was wrong, but both our names are on it, as usual, because even if you didn't write a word of it, more than any of our other work, this play is you. Your voice is on every page.
Every woman I've dated since I met you has been jealous of you, you know that? So when I met one who wasn't, I knew I had to marry her, because she loves me enough to understand what you and I have. And maybe that's twisted and maybe it's supremely fucked up that I love her and yet, still, I love you, and maybe she knows that one day we'll both be on the road somewhere, drunk off our rockers, and end up in bed together, but she's willing to take that risk. And goddamn it, I love her for knowing all that, and still being able to love me.
So maybe you're right and we aren't meant to be together in the traditional sense, but when have we ever been traditional, anyhow? We've always just been us, and that's how I want it to stay. This thing we have, whatever it is... I don't want to wreck it. Because if being on a darkened tour bus in the middle of fucking nowhere with you leaning against me, half asleep, unconsciously clutching my hand, isn't some twisted kind of love, I don't know what is.
And I'm good with that now. I'm good with that.
*****
HER:
I do love you, you fool.
You've got to know that straight off. I know I've said it thousands of times before, but I mean it differently now, a little less drunkenly, a lot more seriously. Not that I wasn't serious before, but it's got to be different, now. You changed things when you said the words... there will always be that tiny sliver of knowledge that the words were said and can't be taken back.
But that's okay. I don't know if I'd want to go back. Because it was inevitable, wasn't it? I think it was inevitable from the start, because no one can click the way we do and not think about it.
You're right in a way, you crazy, crazy dreamer - we were meant to be, but not in the sappy, Romeo & Juliet sense. We were meant to create something beautiful together, and even when we're fighting at the top of our lungs over a scene that isn't working, I'm never happier than when I'm writing with you. You are my artistic soulmate, and you bring out the best in me.
But you bring out the worst in me, too, and as much as I love you, if we were together, I'd spend half my time wanting to kill you. Hell, more than half, because I already spend half my time wanting to kill you, but it would be a whole different brand of fucked up if we started sleeping together on top of everything. We're too much alike in some ways and too different in others, and you're insane and you're beautiful and you make me laugh and scream and cry, but it's just too much sometimes. I have to step away. And if I let myself love you like that, I couldn't step away, and it would be our undoing.
I'm not sure what the boundaries of love are, really, or if there even are any, but I do know that I can't let myself fall in love with you. I love you fiercely in so many ways, but we're already too much of an us to be an us in that last, seemingly inevitable way. It would consume us. It would destroy us. And I can't take that risk, because without you, my life would only be ashes.
I keep searching for that other kind of love, thinking that I can love you as a friend and still be someone else's lover, but I don't know how to find that balance. I keep thinking I've found it, but then I spend a few hours alone with you, and we're yelling at each other across the room, or we're drunk as fish, lying outside in the snow, or we're doing nothing at all, but I realize... until I find someone who makes me feel as safe, as perfect as you make me feel, it's just not gonna work. Because I need someone I can love as much as I love you. Not more, but equally. In a different way... a way that's less bombastic, less sublimely ridiculous, more secure.
I hope you've found that in her. I don't begrudge you your marriage, not for a second, and I mean that with my heart and soul. I just wish I could find someone that easily, without having an image of you in the back of my mind the whole time.
But for now... whatever this is, this twisted, fucked-up thing we call a partnership, this codependent, cracked-up, beautiful thing we call a friendship... I want it to stay like this forever, with your hand in mine and an empty bottle of wine on the table and pages and pages of writing strewn everywhere.
So I'm not asking you to let me go, my friend, though maybe I should be.
I'm asking you not to.
- END -