They've given up sleeping alone.
I've been listening to this song on repeat for the past hour.
"That's How You Got Killed Before"
Hugh/Stephen; they respond as expected. Post-Golden Globes.
I try to think about nothing
Difficult.
1.
When he's drunk, Hugh gives away secrets like some women give away matchbooks. It's a weakness, but a familiar one, and Stephen's only perfunctorily embarrassed as Hugh spills all the small facts of his life into his beer.
"That's not proof at all," Hugh slurs, pointing to the trophy perched on the stool next to him. "Doesn't mean a thing. Sooner or later, sooner or later, probably sooner - they'll figure it out."
"Figure out what?" Stephen asks.
"That I'm not an actor."
"Hugh, you're a marvel," Stephen says fondly, and lights another cigarette. "That's your last drink, by the way. Your wife's waiting for you."
"Shit," Hugh says. "I'm not - I can't. Fuck."
"Don't be vulgar, Hugh, it's unbecoming."
Hugh slumps over to Stephen and leans his head against his shoulder, smiles crookedly up at him. "It's becoming when you do it," he says, and exhales loudly. He reaches out and pats Stephen's hand resting on the bar, ignoring the ash that falls on his wrist.
The best friend smiles and finishes his seventeenth cigarette of the night. "Your wife is waiting," he says again, and carefully props Hugh back up. "Come on, up we go."
So they go, Hugh swaying against Stephen, singing something under his breath. It doesn't take long for them to find a cab, for Stephen to gently slide Hugh onto the seat and close the door on him, smiling and waving and then watching the car careen down the street, crushing his final Marlboro under his shoe.
He wonders if, when Hugh scrapes himself off the floor tomorrow morning, he'll remember any of the things he said tonight.
2.
Some days everything goes wrong. Hugh's used to that by now. There's a spot behind his trailer where he keeps a folding chair, and he sits there under the blistering sun and smokes a cigarette, inspects the lines on his hands and the lines he said wrong.
It's about mechanics. Method was never quite his thing; he acts, he's not an actor. He's a reasonable facsimile of the real thing, playing a character that hits closer to home than he himself has been for years in his reasonable facsimile of a life. It's just mechanics.
He goes drinking with Robert some nights, since Robert's the sort of man who enjoys a beer and a basketball game and a healthy dose of irony. The bars here are all filled with actors; the good ones, the ones Robert takes him to, have actors who actually act. The other ones are covered wall-to-wall with people who'll be actors just as soon as they make their break, just as soon as the next check comes in, the next show's casting call. Actors in name, and maybe that's more important than having the job itself. A thousand people pretending to pretend, collapsing into a hundred bars, spending their tip money on odd cocktails and imported beers, and sharing anecdotes about all the things they'll be doing next year.
It's easy for him, because he acts, he's not an actor. He drinks, he's not a drunk. He's unhappy sometimes, but he's not depressed. He's got no problems, not really.
One night he picks his way through the streets til he finds some place where he doesn't recognize anyone, and no one recognizes him (or if they do, they're not saying anything). He sits in the back, in one of those shadows that tend to hang around businesses like this, thinking about how he's never really wanted this, not like they do. Maybe thinking about Robert's straight white teeth and symmetrical smile, narrow shoulders and deft movements. He buys another drink and writes out a script on a napkin; he'll play the doctor, Stephen will be a professor, it's set in a bar, there's a joke in that somewhere. He buys another drink.
3.
When he's sober, he collects all the small signifiers of the relationships he's cultivated: a book here, a photograph there, some dried flowers, concert tickets, ties. He collects the things around the spaces, and he can say that the outline of his marriage looks like this, and his relationship with Stephen looks like that, and he himself looks like something else entirely.
When he's sober, he can't stop smiling. And really, he's got so much to be happy about. He's his own man, he's honest-to-goodness famous for his acting now. Prize-winner, acclaim-garnerer, subject of myriad websites, reciever of much lewd fan mail. He gets accosted while buying lettuce; that's success.
And maybe the American accent and limp make his whole body hurt, and maybe it gets lonely, and maybe he sits in his undecorated apartment staring at the trophy sitting on his kitchen counter, feeling terribly, ridiculously out of place. Maybe he makes himself a gin and tonic, but he's entitled to relax after a long day, isn't he? He's earned it.
4.
He extricates himself from the bedsheets and a hangover and fumbles Stephen's cell number into his telephone, invites him out to lunch. He just barely remembers to be thankful they're both still in the same city.
At the cafe, he burns his tongue on his coffee and picks at a dry cookie with his fingernail. Stephen is uncharacteristically quiet. Maybe it's the heat, the rapid temperature change detuning him like a piano; maybe he's just got nothing to say.
"You don't remember, do you?" Stephen asks finally, and tries a new look, somewhere between reproach and resignation.
And he doesn't remember, but he knows what it must've been, because that look says more than it's probably supposed to, and because he's been trying to submerge this for months. This thing. Almost ignorable, but not quite. He wonders how exactly it came out: an I'm in love with you slipped between the cocktail napkins and the shot glasses, or an I want you accompanied by a hand drunk-lurching over every boundary he'd normally respect. He feels abstractly like punching himself in the face.
Stephen smiles; at the moment he's trying to figure out how to say that he'd almost reconciled himself to the fact that a few blow jobs in dressing rooms fifteen years ago didn't mean much of anything at all.
Hugh, complementary as ever, doesn't know how to say that that smile, that lopsided, scared-to-be-hopeful, crooked-teeth smile, is breaking his heart into a thousand little unrecoverable pieces.
"So," Stephen says.
Hugh nods. He wants to say something about how he's lost all his context, something about how he feels so impossibly lost in California, in this character, in this body; something that'll make some goddamn sense. He's got all these things in his wallet and in boxes in his apartment, newspaper clippings and postcards and notes and records, hundreds of placeholders and if he threw them out right now he wouldn't care at all, because Stephen's finally here with him, big and solid and real, awkward and pulling faces maybe, but he's here and he's tangible and touchable and that's why Hugh swallows down all the things he never meant to say anyway and kisses him, leaning across the table, crumbs digging into his bare elbows.
"Hugh, we can't."
He pulls back enough just to look effectively determined. "Life is short, can we please just enjoy it?"
"Yes, of course, absolutely, every sparkling minute of every glorious day, but I really would prefer if we enjoyed it in a more private setting."
"Ah," Hugh says. "Right. Okay. My apartment, then." It's not a question, but it's still hesitant; Stephen's two steps ahead of him, though, just like he always is, paying the bill, leaving the tip, smiling brilliantly down at him. Hugh grins back.
They hold hands the whole cab ride there.
"That's How You Got Killed Before"
Hugh/Stephen; they respond as expected. Post-Golden Globes.
I try to think about nothing
Difficult.
1.
When he's drunk, Hugh gives away secrets like some women give away matchbooks. It's a weakness, but a familiar one, and Stephen's only perfunctorily embarrassed as Hugh spills all the small facts of his life into his beer.
"That's not proof at all," Hugh slurs, pointing to the trophy perched on the stool next to him. "Doesn't mean a thing. Sooner or later, sooner or later, probably sooner - they'll figure it out."
"Figure out what?" Stephen asks.
"That I'm not an actor."
"Hugh, you're a marvel," Stephen says fondly, and lights another cigarette. "That's your last drink, by the way. Your wife's waiting for you."
"Shit," Hugh says. "I'm not - I can't. Fuck."
"Don't be vulgar, Hugh, it's unbecoming."
Hugh slumps over to Stephen and leans his head against his shoulder, smiles crookedly up at him. "It's becoming when you do it," he says, and exhales loudly. He reaches out and pats Stephen's hand resting on the bar, ignoring the ash that falls on his wrist.
The best friend smiles and finishes his seventeenth cigarette of the night. "Your wife is waiting," he says again, and carefully props Hugh back up. "Come on, up we go."
So they go, Hugh swaying against Stephen, singing something under his breath. It doesn't take long for them to find a cab, for Stephen to gently slide Hugh onto the seat and close the door on him, smiling and waving and then watching the car careen down the street, crushing his final Marlboro under his shoe.
He wonders if, when Hugh scrapes himself off the floor tomorrow morning, he'll remember any of the things he said tonight.
2.
Some days everything goes wrong. Hugh's used to that by now. There's a spot behind his trailer where he keeps a folding chair, and he sits there under the blistering sun and smokes a cigarette, inspects the lines on his hands and the lines he said wrong.
It's about mechanics. Method was never quite his thing; he acts, he's not an actor. He's a reasonable facsimile of the real thing, playing a character that hits closer to home than he himself has been for years in his reasonable facsimile of a life. It's just mechanics.
He goes drinking with Robert some nights, since Robert's the sort of man who enjoys a beer and a basketball game and a healthy dose of irony. The bars here are all filled with actors; the good ones, the ones Robert takes him to, have actors who actually act. The other ones are covered wall-to-wall with people who'll be actors just as soon as they make their break, just as soon as the next check comes in, the next show's casting call. Actors in name, and maybe that's more important than having the job itself. A thousand people pretending to pretend, collapsing into a hundred bars, spending their tip money on odd cocktails and imported beers, and sharing anecdotes about all the things they'll be doing next year.
It's easy for him, because he acts, he's not an actor. He drinks, he's not a drunk. He's unhappy sometimes, but he's not depressed. He's got no problems, not really.
One night he picks his way through the streets til he finds some place where he doesn't recognize anyone, and no one recognizes him (or if they do, they're not saying anything). He sits in the back, in one of those shadows that tend to hang around businesses like this, thinking about how he's never really wanted this, not like they do. Maybe thinking about Robert's straight white teeth and symmetrical smile, narrow shoulders and deft movements. He buys another drink and writes out a script on a napkin; he'll play the doctor, Stephen will be a professor, it's set in a bar, there's a joke in that somewhere. He buys another drink.
3.
When he's sober, he collects all the small signifiers of the relationships he's cultivated: a book here, a photograph there, some dried flowers, concert tickets, ties. He collects the things around the spaces, and he can say that the outline of his marriage looks like this, and his relationship with Stephen looks like that, and he himself looks like something else entirely.
When he's sober, he can't stop smiling. And really, he's got so much to be happy about. He's his own man, he's honest-to-goodness famous for his acting now. Prize-winner, acclaim-garnerer, subject of myriad websites, reciever of much lewd fan mail. He gets accosted while buying lettuce; that's success.
And maybe the American accent and limp make his whole body hurt, and maybe it gets lonely, and maybe he sits in his undecorated apartment staring at the trophy sitting on his kitchen counter, feeling terribly, ridiculously out of place. Maybe he makes himself a gin and tonic, but he's entitled to relax after a long day, isn't he? He's earned it.
4.
He extricates himself from the bedsheets and a hangover and fumbles Stephen's cell number into his telephone, invites him out to lunch. He just barely remembers to be thankful they're both still in the same city.
At the cafe, he burns his tongue on his coffee and picks at a dry cookie with his fingernail. Stephen is uncharacteristically quiet. Maybe it's the heat, the rapid temperature change detuning him like a piano; maybe he's just got nothing to say.
"You don't remember, do you?" Stephen asks finally, and tries a new look, somewhere between reproach and resignation.
And he doesn't remember, but he knows what it must've been, because that look says more than it's probably supposed to, and because he's been trying to submerge this for months. This thing. Almost ignorable, but not quite. He wonders how exactly it came out: an I'm in love with you slipped between the cocktail napkins and the shot glasses, or an I want you accompanied by a hand drunk-lurching over every boundary he'd normally respect. He feels abstractly like punching himself in the face.
Stephen smiles; at the moment he's trying to figure out how to say that he'd almost reconciled himself to the fact that a few blow jobs in dressing rooms fifteen years ago didn't mean much of anything at all.
Hugh, complementary as ever, doesn't know how to say that that smile, that lopsided, scared-to-be-hopeful, crooked-teeth smile, is breaking his heart into a thousand little unrecoverable pieces.
"So," Stephen says.
Hugh nods. He wants to say something about how he's lost all his context, something about how he feels so impossibly lost in California, in this character, in this body; something that'll make some goddamn sense. He's got all these things in his wallet and in boxes in his apartment, newspaper clippings and postcards and notes and records, hundreds of placeholders and if he threw them out right now he wouldn't care at all, because Stephen's finally here with him, big and solid and real, awkward and pulling faces maybe, but he's here and he's tangible and touchable and that's why Hugh swallows down all the things he never meant to say anyway and kisses him, leaning across the table, crumbs digging into his bare elbows.
"Hugh, we can't."
He pulls back enough just to look effectively determined. "Life is short, can we please just enjoy it?"
"Yes, of course, absolutely, every sparkling minute of every glorious day, but I really would prefer if we enjoyed it in a more private setting."
"Ah," Hugh says. "Right. Okay. My apartment, then." It's not a question, but it's still hesitant; Stephen's two steps ahead of him, though, just like he always is, paying the bill, leaving the tip, smiling brilliantly down at him. Hugh grins back.
They hold hands the whole cab ride there.