The little AU: Spring Rains: Indiscretion
slashfairy ~~
He's out somewhere and hears, on a radio, in a taxi? this poem being read, about
Calvin's Theory of Predestination, and the lines that catch him are Yes
let's drink to being friends
and then we can all go on our way
remembering the best part
about being chosen is that
you do not have to stop
for anyone along the way.
And he remembers how many times he's said, in interviews, that he'd never expected his career to take off the way it did, three trilogies, three blockbuster runs, being indentured, he guesses it was, to Disney, with his exposure in the world monitored (and he'll never do that again if he can help it) so it didn't reflect badly on the Mouse, and he wonders why anyone would espouse a theory of being chosen, of having been selected before you are born as one of the lucky ones, because then everything else is left out- every choice, every opportunity for adventure, for making what one can of the world, if everything is laid out before you even get here, and all you can do is finish it to the last crumb, isn't that the worst kind of gluttony? and isn't that the most foolish kind of indiscretion, to just do what's in front of you, and never choose?
There's responsibility to take: for one's attitudes, for one's behaviour, for one's relationships, and something about not having to stop for anyone along the way seems to him the most irresponsible way one could live, ever.
In his pocket, with their own keyring, are the keys for their places: the grey house in Venice, his London flat, the house in León, Karl's half-share ranch outside Wellington. But the most worn, because he fingers it like a worry bead, is the key to the house at the end of the bluff road.
Some might say a man with his life, all gala first nights and campaigns for this and that and jet-setting and paparazzi, that man is a glutton. But he knows himself for a man of careful choice, for all that: it's more important to him to stop, to choose people to be in his life, than to blindly go some path seemingly laid before him until, one day, it ends.
When he ends, he will end with a life full-lived, every rainy day, every flashbulb and stolen moment, and he will give it up with joy for having lived it, every adventurous unanticipated chosen bit.
previously:
Arrogancenext: