[FIC] Ever After (Chapter 4/11)
Title: Ever After
Main Pairing: Jeff/Greg, with background Chip/Wayne and Colin/Ryan
Rating: R for language
Total Word Count: 17,890
Chapter Word Count: 1,627
Summary: Jeff’s a directionally challenged actor who can’t seem to catch a break. Chip promises that Jeff’s new GPS will be the solution to all of his problems, but why does it seem to cause more problems than it solves? Will Chip turn out to be right in the end? (Spoiler alert: of course he will. This is, after all, a fairy tale.)
Special Thanks: to sungreen70 for patiently (lol) championing this story from its humble beginnings in 2009, subtly (lol) suggesting I finish it while recovering at home from surgery, and going above and beyond as a beta reader despite all the other demands - including Hurricane Sandy and a presidential election! - on her time. You are amazing! ♥
The Mexican hat dance greeted Jeff as he unlocked his front door. “Coming!” he called, jiggling his key in the recalcitrant lock. “Don’t hang up!” He stopped, feeling sheepish, as he realized that his phone was in his back pocket. He pulled it out and thumbed the Answer button. “Davis.”
“Jeff?”
“No, Geena.”
“Oh, darling, you were simply divine in A League of Their Own,” came the voice from the other end. “Absolutely to die for! I just adored you in those little culottes.”
Jeff laughed. “Come on, Wayne, there’s no gushing in baseball. What’s up?” He locked the front door behind him and headed into the living room.
“Well, I just called to say-”
“I love you, right? And you mean it from the bottom of your heart. Of... your... heaaaarrrrrt!”
“Jeff?”
“Yes, Wayne?”
“Please don’t sing.”
Jeff collapsed on the sofa, kicking off his sneakers. “Fine. I’ll stop singing, you’ll tell me why you called.”
“Just checking up on you, man. I tried this morning to see if you wanted to grab lunch, but it went straight to voicemail. Were you at an audition?”
“Yes,” Jeff lied. “For, um, Facebook: The Musical.”
There was a pause on Wayne’s end, and Jeff knew he’d blown it. Never embroider a lie.
“That’s funny,” Wayne said. “I didn’t see you there.”
Jeff was silent. His life didn’t seem to be under his control anymore, and he was tired of the effort it took to make everyone believe that it was. He sighed. “Okay, you got me,” he admitted. “I wasn’t there.”
“Hey, how come? I thought you’d be perfect for the part of the Like Button.”
“Well, my agent doesn’t think I’d be perfect for anything, not even his representation.”
“What? Don’t tell me you got dumped!”
Jeff said nothing, taking a perverse enjoyment in the sympathy and concern in Wayne’s voice. He fiddled with a tassel on one of the sofa cushions, winding it around his finger.
“Shit, man, I’m sorry. What’re you going to do?”
“Do? I’ve got plenty to do. Just tonight I was over in Alhambra for dinner.” Jeff winced almost before the words were out of his mouth. What kind of a defence of his life was that, that he’d gone out for dinner? God. He let the tassel fall from his finger and pushed the cushion to the floor.
“Oh hey, you mean that fusion place?” Wayne asked, steering the conversation in a safer direction. “Great food. I wish I got over to that part of town more often.” He laughed. “Couldn’t believe it when you started speaking Dutch to the owner that one time. Didn’t know who was more surprised, me or her.”
Jeff smiled despite himself. “That was a good night, wasn’t it?”
“Sure was.”
Jeff listened to the soft sounds of Wayne’s breathing for a moment. Suddenly shy, he said, “Um, Wayne? I’ve been doing some thinking lately and I wanted to ask you-”
“Hold on a sec, okay?” Jeff could hear Wayne covering the receiver and the muffled sounds of a second voice in the background. He heard the tinkling of ice cubes in a glass and what sounded like the theme song to WKRP in Cincinnati. “Sorry about that. You were gonna ask me something?”
Jeff felt his courage slipping away. “Maybe another time. It sounds like you’ve got company.”
The pause on Wayne’s end was the wrong length. “Yeah, it’s just, um. Uh, it’s just Chip.”
Jeff flicked a look at the clock, which read ten. Ten o’clock at night, and Wayne was suddenly tripping over his words about Chip being at his apartment. Jeff’s cheeks burned with embarrassment. Had he always been such a fool, or was this just a recent development?
“Jeff? You still there?”
“I’m here.” The hurt in Jeff’s voice was audible.
“Look, man, I’m sorry,” Wayne said, contrite. “That was one of the reasons I wanted to see you for lunch today, actually, so I could tell you-”
“Tell me what? That you’re joining the very long line of people who don’t think I’m good enough?”
“Jeff, no.”
“Exactly. Just another person to tell me, ‘Jeff, no.’”
“Come on, man, we weren’t trying to hurt you or hide anything. We care about you, and-”
Jeff pressed the End Call button. It wasn’t in his nature to hang up on people, an act he normally viewed as on par with stealing a handicapped parking space or leaving the house without hair product. It just wasn’t done. But it was the we that had put him over the edge. We weren’t trying to hurt you. We, meaning Wayne and Chip but never Jeff, living happily ever after. We care about you. “Bullshit,” Jeff said to his empty apartment. “If you really cared about me, you wouldn’t have broken up with me in the first place.”
* * *
“And if you call right now, we’ll throw in this absolutely gorgeous, limited edition, diamond-simulant flea collar for only... nineteen ninety-five! That’s right, folks. For seventy-seven easy payments of two ninety-five plus shipping and handling, you get our patented PP-B-Gone flushable kitty litter system! Plus! An instructional DVD featuring our very own cat whisperer to the stars, Dr. Bradley Sherwood!”
Jeff opened one eye to a landscape of corduroy. He opened the other: more corduroy. Reluctantly he extracted his face from the sofa cushion and sat up, feeling around for the TV remote.
“Plus! A glow-in-the-dark motivational poster! You won’t find this amazing deal in stores, folks, so call now! Our operators are standing by. Ohio residents, please add six and a half percent sales tax....”
Jeff clicked the power button on the remote and the kitty litter evangelist evaporated into staticky nothingness. Jeff yawned, rubbing his eyes. Two in the morning. His apartment was quiet, the lights still on. He got up from the sofa to switch them off and tripped over his bag, upending its contents on the floor. “Figures,” Jeff mumbled. “Can’t book a job, can’t keep a relationship, can’t walk on carpet....”
“Enough with the negative self-talk, for fuck’s sake.” The voice was muffled and seemed to come from far away.
“Wayne?” Jeff said, puzzled. Was he still on the phone? Jeff began to rummage through the contents of his bag, now spread across the floor.
“No, it’s Dr. Sherwood. I’m here to teach your cat how to take a dump.”
Jeff sat back on his heels and surveyed the array of junk from his bag. Why was the empty M&M bag glowing green? “Radioactive candy?” he wondered aloud.
“They pretty much sold out after their second album went to number eight on the German dance charts,” came the voice again. “Their latest single sounds like Kraftwerk got into a bar brawl with the Pussycat Dolls.”
Jeff pushed the candy wrapper aside to reveal the screen of his GPS. “Oh. A talking GPS. That’s much more plausible.” He picked up the device and set it on the coffee table.
“Fuck plausible,” Greg said, more clearly now. “How else am I supposed to tell you what to do? You were expecting semaphore flags, maybe?”
“I was expecting someone - I mean, something - to tell me what to do in a directional sense,” Jeff said. “Like ‘turn right here’, stuff like that.”
“And didn’t I do that for you today? Or yesterday, to be precise?”
“Yeah, you did,” Jeff conceded. “But all this other stuff, what’s that about? It’s like you’re possessed by the spirit of George Burns or something. ‘Oh the sun shines down on my old Kentucky home bwah bwah bwah bwah….’”
Greg let out a dismissive beep. “Geez, is that the most current reference you’ve got? Maybe you should go on down to the seniors’ centre and see if they want you for their next production of Bye Bye Birdie.”
“And risk rejection once again? Sorry, no deal. I’ve had enough of that to last me a lifetime. Several lifetimes, even, if you believe in reincarnation. Do you believe in reincarnation?” Jeff cradled his head in his hands. “What am I saying, do you believe in reincarnation,” he mumbled, addressing his remarks to his lap. “Might as well ask whether you think there’s a soulmate out there for everyone....”
“You’re better off without him,” Greg said suddenly. “He doesn’t like scotch and he thinks that rollerblading is a fine, unironic way to spend an afternoon.”
Jeff lifted his head up and squinted at Greg’s screen. “Dude, you can read minds?”
“What the fuck? Of course I can’t read minds. You think life’s a fairy tale or some shit?”
“Then how do you know that stuff about Wayne?”
A mirthful series of tones spilled from Greg’s speaker. “Because I can read people,” he said. “People, not minds. And I’m a good guesser. I heard what you said in the car, what you said on the phone. Didn’t take much to add it all up.”
“Yeah, I guess,” Jeff ventured, for lack of anything better to say. What were you supposed to say to a wisecracking GPS, anyway? He glanced at the clock. “Shit! It’s almost two-thirty. I’d better plug you in. I wouldn’t want to leave you turned on all night.”
There was an awkward silence.
“Come on, I’ll set you up on the nightstand,” Jeff said, letting loose with a yawn. “I’m beat. Been a long day.” He picked up Greg and stumbled into the bedroom. “A long day of driving around, eating alone, being betrayed, and talking to electronics. Just another day in the fairy tale that is my life, here in the city of angels, where men are men, agents are bastards, and your GPS is not what it seems....”
“Jeff?”
“Yeah?”
“Go to sleep.”
And he did.
Main Pairing: Jeff/Greg, with background Chip/Wayne and Colin/Ryan
Rating: R for language
Total Word Count: 17,890
Chapter Word Count: 1,627
Summary: Jeff’s a directionally challenged actor who can’t seem to catch a break. Chip promises that Jeff’s new GPS will be the solution to all of his problems, but why does it seem to cause more problems than it solves? Will Chip turn out to be right in the end? (Spoiler alert: of course he will. This is, after all, a fairy tale.)
Special Thanks: to sungreen70 for patiently (lol) championing this story from its humble beginnings in 2009, subtly (lol) suggesting I finish it while recovering at home from surgery, and going above and beyond as a beta reader despite all the other demands - including Hurricane Sandy and a presidential election! - on her time. You are amazing! ♥
The Mexican hat dance greeted Jeff as he unlocked his front door. “Coming!” he called, jiggling his key in the recalcitrant lock. “Don’t hang up!” He stopped, feeling sheepish, as he realized that his phone was in his back pocket. He pulled it out and thumbed the Answer button. “Davis.”
“Jeff?”
“No, Geena.”
“Oh, darling, you were simply divine in A League of Their Own,” came the voice from the other end. “Absolutely to die for! I just adored you in those little culottes.”
Jeff laughed. “Come on, Wayne, there’s no gushing in baseball. What’s up?” He locked the front door behind him and headed into the living room.
“Well, I just called to say-”
“I love you, right? And you mean it from the bottom of your heart. Of... your... heaaaarrrrrt!”
“Jeff?”
“Yes, Wayne?”
“Please don’t sing.”
Jeff collapsed on the sofa, kicking off his sneakers. “Fine. I’ll stop singing, you’ll tell me why you called.”
“Just checking up on you, man. I tried this morning to see if you wanted to grab lunch, but it went straight to voicemail. Were you at an audition?”
“Yes,” Jeff lied. “For, um, Facebook: The Musical.”
There was a pause on Wayne’s end, and Jeff knew he’d blown it. Never embroider a lie.
“That’s funny,” Wayne said. “I didn’t see you there.”
Jeff was silent. His life didn’t seem to be under his control anymore, and he was tired of the effort it took to make everyone believe that it was. He sighed. “Okay, you got me,” he admitted. “I wasn’t there.”
“Hey, how come? I thought you’d be perfect for the part of the Like Button.”
“Well, my agent doesn’t think I’d be perfect for anything, not even his representation.”
“What? Don’t tell me you got dumped!”
Jeff said nothing, taking a perverse enjoyment in the sympathy and concern in Wayne’s voice. He fiddled with a tassel on one of the sofa cushions, winding it around his finger.
“Shit, man, I’m sorry. What’re you going to do?”
“Do? I’ve got plenty to do. Just tonight I was over in Alhambra for dinner.” Jeff winced almost before the words were out of his mouth. What kind of a defence of his life was that, that he’d gone out for dinner? God. He let the tassel fall from his finger and pushed the cushion to the floor.
“Oh hey, you mean that fusion place?” Wayne asked, steering the conversation in a safer direction. “Great food. I wish I got over to that part of town more often.” He laughed. “Couldn’t believe it when you started speaking Dutch to the owner that one time. Didn’t know who was more surprised, me or her.”
Jeff smiled despite himself. “That was a good night, wasn’t it?”
“Sure was.”
Jeff listened to the soft sounds of Wayne’s breathing for a moment. Suddenly shy, he said, “Um, Wayne? I’ve been doing some thinking lately and I wanted to ask you-”
“Hold on a sec, okay?” Jeff could hear Wayne covering the receiver and the muffled sounds of a second voice in the background. He heard the tinkling of ice cubes in a glass and what sounded like the theme song to WKRP in Cincinnati. “Sorry about that. You were gonna ask me something?”
Jeff felt his courage slipping away. “Maybe another time. It sounds like you’ve got company.”
The pause on Wayne’s end was the wrong length. “Yeah, it’s just, um. Uh, it’s just Chip.”
Jeff flicked a look at the clock, which read ten. Ten o’clock at night, and Wayne was suddenly tripping over his words about Chip being at his apartment. Jeff’s cheeks burned with embarrassment. Had he always been such a fool, or was this just a recent development?
“Jeff? You still there?”
“I’m here.” The hurt in Jeff’s voice was audible.
“Look, man, I’m sorry,” Wayne said, contrite. “That was one of the reasons I wanted to see you for lunch today, actually, so I could tell you-”
“Tell me what? That you’re joining the very long line of people who don’t think I’m good enough?”
“Jeff, no.”
“Exactly. Just another person to tell me, ‘Jeff, no.’”
“Come on, man, we weren’t trying to hurt you or hide anything. We care about you, and-”
Jeff pressed the End Call button. It wasn’t in his nature to hang up on people, an act he normally viewed as on par with stealing a handicapped parking space or leaving the house without hair product. It just wasn’t done. But it was the we that had put him over the edge. We weren’t trying to hurt you. We, meaning Wayne and Chip but never Jeff, living happily ever after. We care about you. “Bullshit,” Jeff said to his empty apartment. “If you really cared about me, you wouldn’t have broken up with me in the first place.”
* * *
“And if you call right now, we’ll throw in this absolutely gorgeous, limited edition, diamond-simulant flea collar for only... nineteen ninety-five! That’s right, folks. For seventy-seven easy payments of two ninety-five plus shipping and handling, you get our patented PP-B-Gone flushable kitty litter system! Plus! An instructional DVD featuring our very own cat whisperer to the stars, Dr. Bradley Sherwood!”
Jeff opened one eye to a landscape of corduroy. He opened the other: more corduroy. Reluctantly he extracted his face from the sofa cushion and sat up, feeling around for the TV remote.
“Plus! A glow-in-the-dark motivational poster! You won’t find this amazing deal in stores, folks, so call now! Our operators are standing by. Ohio residents, please add six and a half percent sales tax....”
Jeff clicked the power button on the remote and the kitty litter evangelist evaporated into staticky nothingness. Jeff yawned, rubbing his eyes. Two in the morning. His apartment was quiet, the lights still on. He got up from the sofa to switch them off and tripped over his bag, upending its contents on the floor. “Figures,” Jeff mumbled. “Can’t book a job, can’t keep a relationship, can’t walk on carpet....”
“Enough with the negative self-talk, for fuck’s sake.” The voice was muffled and seemed to come from far away.
“Wayne?” Jeff said, puzzled. Was he still on the phone? Jeff began to rummage through the contents of his bag, now spread across the floor.
“No, it’s Dr. Sherwood. I’m here to teach your cat how to take a dump.”
Jeff sat back on his heels and surveyed the array of junk from his bag. Why was the empty M&M bag glowing green? “Radioactive candy?” he wondered aloud.
“They pretty much sold out after their second album went to number eight on the German dance charts,” came the voice again. “Their latest single sounds like Kraftwerk got into a bar brawl with the Pussycat Dolls.”
Jeff pushed the candy wrapper aside to reveal the screen of his GPS. “Oh. A talking GPS. That’s much more plausible.” He picked up the device and set it on the coffee table.
“Fuck plausible,” Greg said, more clearly now. “How else am I supposed to tell you what to do? You were expecting semaphore flags, maybe?”
“I was expecting someone - I mean, something - to tell me what to do in a directional sense,” Jeff said. “Like ‘turn right here’, stuff like that.”
“And didn’t I do that for you today? Or yesterday, to be precise?”
“Yeah, you did,” Jeff conceded. “But all this other stuff, what’s that about? It’s like you’re possessed by the spirit of George Burns or something. ‘Oh the sun shines down on my old Kentucky home bwah bwah bwah bwah….’”
Greg let out a dismissive beep. “Geez, is that the most current reference you’ve got? Maybe you should go on down to the seniors’ centre and see if they want you for their next production of Bye Bye Birdie.”
“And risk rejection once again? Sorry, no deal. I’ve had enough of that to last me a lifetime. Several lifetimes, even, if you believe in reincarnation. Do you believe in reincarnation?” Jeff cradled his head in his hands. “What am I saying, do you believe in reincarnation,” he mumbled, addressing his remarks to his lap. “Might as well ask whether you think there’s a soulmate out there for everyone....”
“You’re better off without him,” Greg said suddenly. “He doesn’t like scotch and he thinks that rollerblading is a fine, unironic way to spend an afternoon.”
Jeff lifted his head up and squinted at Greg’s screen. “Dude, you can read minds?”
“What the fuck? Of course I can’t read minds. You think life’s a fairy tale or some shit?”
“Then how do you know that stuff about Wayne?”
A mirthful series of tones spilled from Greg’s speaker. “Because I can read people,” he said. “People, not minds. And I’m a good guesser. I heard what you said in the car, what you said on the phone. Didn’t take much to add it all up.”
“Yeah, I guess,” Jeff ventured, for lack of anything better to say. What were you supposed to say to a wisecracking GPS, anyway? He glanced at the clock. “Shit! It’s almost two-thirty. I’d better plug you in. I wouldn’t want to leave you turned on all night.”
There was an awkward silence.
“Come on, I’ll set you up on the nightstand,” Jeff said, letting loose with a yawn. “I’m beat. Been a long day.” He picked up Greg and stumbled into the bedroom. “A long day of driving around, eating alone, being betrayed, and talking to electronics. Just another day in the fairy tale that is my life, here in the city of angels, where men are men, agents are bastards, and your GPS is not what it seems....”
“Jeff?”
“Yeah?”
“Go to sleep.”
And he did.