[oneshot] you wake up, another year is gone
Title: you wake up, another year is gone
Pairing: jesse eisenberg/andrew garfield
Rating: pg13
Genre: gen, romance, slice-of-life
Warnings: swearing, rps
Author: gdgdbaby
Notes: stupid birthday feel-good fic. in which jesse lies and andrew laughs a lot and justin really likes his alcohol. 2,012 words.
Neither he nor the rest of the cast and crew realize that Jesse's lied to them about his birthday until he gets the phone call.
Well, technically speaking, it's a lie by omission-preoccupation with rehearsals and filming and sleepless nights on set make it so that the topic never really comes up. When Andrew's birthday passes in August and Carey and Keira bake him a lopsided cake on the road, he shoots Jesse a text and asks him when his birthday is, so i'll be able to get you something when the time comes! 8D! He never responds.
In retrospect, it would've been ridiculously easy to type a quick jesse eisenberg's birthday into Google and browse through the results, but Andrew has promotions for the rest of the year to worry about, and afterwards it just never crosses his mind.
So it is that October rolls around after advance screenings and the first cocktail parties and a couple of press conferences. There's a photocall in Berlin that day-it isn't particularly long, but lingering fatigue from Sunday night's hectic Paris premiere has him dozing off intermittently when they're in the limo on the way back to the hotel. Jesse keeps staring out the windows and Justin's on his phone, a serious expression on his face.
Jesse's phone breaks the silence and jolts Andrew awake; this week's ringtone is Cats' Memory. Justin raises his eyebrows. Jesse ignores him. "Hello?" he says into the receiver.
The next second he's recoiling away from the earpiece as several loud, female voices proclaim happy birthday! from across the line. Jesse tries to turn the volume down but the damage has already been done: he and Justin exchange meaningful looks and then Justin's on his Blackberry again, fingers flying over the keys.
Andrew rubs at his eyes when Jesse ends the call. "It's your birthday today? How come none of us knew about it?"
"Birthdays are-" he pauses, as if trying to find a suitable word to describe them.
"Fun?" Andrew proffers. "Exciting? The perfect time to get wasted?"
"-annoying," Jesse finishes.
"This is unacceptable," Justin says. "We're taking you out tonight."
Jesse fiddles at the cuffs of his shirt, frowning. "We're in Berlin. None of us speak German."
"Okay," Justin concedes, "we'll order a shit ton of alcohol from room service and drink all night. Consider it our present."
"Do you think that's such a good idea? We have to fly out early for that junket interview in Madrid tomorrow."
"If you hadn't given us such short notice," Andrew points out, "we would've gotten you something more suitable." Justin punctuates this statement with vigorous nods.
Jesse sighs heavily and pinches the bridge of his nose. "You," he says, pointing at Justin, "just want to get drunk. It's barely four in the afternoon, you can think about that later!" The man in question shrugs, pastes on an easy what-can-I-say grin, and goes back to his phone. Jesse turns to Andrew. "Celebrating my birthday would be pointless. Why do I get gifts and a party for twelve hours of my mother's backbreaking labor and the fact that I'm one year closer to death?"
"That's the most depressing thing I've ever heard," he replies, arms crossed, slouched over into the cushions of the limo's seatback. "Birthdays are supposed to be a celebration of life." Jesse doesn't reply, just leans his head against the window again and stares out as the buildings flash by. Andrew sighs into the uncomfortable silence and drapes his palm over his face.
"Okay," Justin says when they round the corner of their street. "I texted everyone else-" ("Oh, God," Jesse groans), "-and they all seem to think you've cheated them out of something because you never told us your birthday. They want to talk to you face-to-face."
"How?" Jesse says, propping his head up with his hand. "They aren't here."
"Webcam."
It's perhaps the best and worst idea Justin could've ever suggested. Brenda speaks to them from her kitchen and asks about the promotional campaign whilst baking brownies. "I'll eat one for you," she says with a cheeky smile at the end of the conversation. "Happy birthday!"
"Wasn't so painful, was it?" Andrew says. Jesse elbows him in the side and Justin connects the next call.
They're in the living room of the suite when Rooney answers, and after weaseling a half-hearted explanation for not telling her about his birthday out of him, she demands that they give her a tour of the hotel. Rashida joins for a conference call and all Andrew can think is that they must look really, really stupid, the three of them walking around with a laptop and pointing things out to tiny people on a screen. At one point, Jesse almost drops the computer into the pool and Justin tugs it out of his hands, places it gently in Andrew's arms, and then proceeds to grab Jesse by the shoulders and shake him until they're all laughing too hard at the ridiculousness of the situation to continue.
Despite a constant stream of attempted protests on Jesse's part, Andrew manages to edge in a telling comment about Jesse's dismal thoughts on birthdays during their video chat with Aaron. The screenwriter launches into the longest lecture about respect for life and looking at things positively that any of them have ever heard. By the end of it, Justin's hanging over the armrest of the couch and Jesse's eyelids are fluttering closed. "Nice going," Jesse snaps at him when Aaron finally hangs up.
"I hope you learned something from that moving speech," Andrew says, grinning with unrepentant glee.
After the call with Armie (which mostly consists of him and Justin trading witty one-liners to Andrew's eternal amusement and a lot of eye-rolling from Jesse), a knock comes on the door of the suite and Andrew gets up to answer it. "Lieferung," a German Fedex guy says, holding out a medium-sized package. "Herr Eisenberg?" Jesse signs for it and turns it over to read the address.
"It's from Emma," he says, bewildered.
"How come she knows your birthday and we don't?" Andrew asks, eyes narrowed.
"I don't know!" He starts opening the package. "I changed the birth date on my Wikipedia page a couple of weeks ago just so no one would find out."
"Wow," Justin says. "All I can say is wow."
"Well, it's good that I didn't Google it, then," Andrew returns, "though I think Wikipedia checks for inaccuracies and changes them back after a while." He ignores Jesse's scowl. "And it's not like you can change your IMDb page to show a fake birthday."
"What'd she get you?" Justin cuts in hastily before Jesse can reply.
He rips the last of the cardboard off and pulls out a shirt. It's dark blue, almost black, and has thin white stripes on it. Tacked to the collar is a note that reads: stop wearing the same fucking shirt all the time, it makes you look like such a slob! and it reinforces the fact that everything you own is from a movie set. at least try to keep up appearances. always looking out for your best interests, emma.
"For the record," Andrew says over his shoulder, "I'd like to express that I share exactly the same sentiments."
"Well, it's good that you two will probably get along on set in December, then," Jesse retorts.
"Boys, boys," Justin says, patting Jesse on the back and leading them back to the couch. "Look at the time! It's almost ten-we should break out the alcohol." He seems to take it as a good sign that Jesse doesn't object and starts pulling beers and wine and glasses out of the cabinets. "Birthdays are about playing stupid drinking games with your friends," he adds, setting everything on the coffee table and sinks down into an armchair.
"No, birthdays are about birth-" Jesse tries to protest, but Justin waves it off.
"Don't you like alcohol?" Jesse gives him a reluctant nod. "Don't you like drinking games?"
"Depends," Andrew pipes up. Jesse nods again.
"You aren't nodding just to humor me, are you?" Justin asks suspiciously. Jesse gives him that little half shrug and lopsided smile combo, and Andrew starts laughing into the pillow he's hugging. "Whatever," he continues, pouring small measures of Bordeaux out into their cups. "We can start with Never Have I Ever."
"Okay, I'll go first," Andrew says. "Never have I ever written a song that debuted at the top of the Billboard 200 chart."
"Fuck," Justin says, downing his wine and pouring a new glass.
"Never have I ever," Jesse says, eyes bright with amusement, "collaborated with Madonna."
"Never have I ever been Jewish," Justin replies when it's his turn. Andrew raises his glass towards him in a mock toast, as if to say touché, and then drinks, enjoys the feeling of warm wine sliding down his throat.
It's two on one, though, and by midnight, Justin's already slurring his words while Andrew and Jesse are still semi-lucid. They've gone through two bottles of red wine and one white and too many cans of beer to count. "I'd suggest we play fuzzy duck," Jesse says, sipping a beer, "but Justin would probably be the only one drinking anything."
Justin finally passes out on the floor a couple of minutes later. Andrew's sprawled across the length of the couch, legs stretched atop its back, and Jesse's at the other end, pressed deep into the cushions behind him, feet propped up on the coffee table. "Want to keep playing?" Andrew asks, reaching for an unopened bottle of Grüner Silvaner and waving it in his direction.
"Sure," he says, and Andrew pops the cork, pours wine into their cups. "Never have I ever been in a West End production."
"Nice." Andrew thinks for a moment. "Never have I ever written a musical."
"I lied about that, actually," Jesse says, the corner of his lips going up.
"You're a tosser," Andrew drawls languidly, curling into the couch. "Okay, go."
"Never have I ever kissed a guy."
Andrew blinks slowly, once, twice. "Is that so?" He raises the glass to his lips and is about to drink, but Jesse's leaning forward, pulling it out from between his suddenly nerveless fingers and setting it down on the table.
"No," he says, and he's much too close, so close that Andrew can see his individual lashes and the flecks of lighter blue in his eyes. "I lied about that, too."
"What are you doing?" Andrew whispers, and then the next second Jesse's mouth is on his, soft and warm and just barely there. He reaches up and fists his hands in Jesse's shirt, tilts his head for better access-and their tongues are sliding against each other just so. His eyes flutter closed when a leg slides in between his, presses upward, and his back is arching, now, and the alcohol makes him hyperaware of every place they're touching.
Andrew sucks in a long breath when Jesse pulls back, opens his eyes to see a tentative, questioning expression on his face, like he's afraid Andrew's going to punch him or yell at him or something. Instead, he just cocks his head to the side and grins. "How long have you been waiting to do that?"
Jesse exhales and presses his forehead into Andrew's shoulder. "A really fucking long time," he says, voice muffled in Andrew's shirt.
"Happy birthday, then," he says, pulling him up again.
Jesse pretends to think about it for a second. Then, "I guess it wasn't as bad as it could've been."
"Ungrateful brat," he murmurs, and Jesse's chuckle puffs into the shell of his ear. Andrew tangles their legs together and curls his arms around Jesse's neck, says, "I'm sure this will be a gift that keeps on giving."
"Is that so?" he says sweetly, mimicking his accent, and Andrew laughs into the next kiss, and the next-and the next. There's no meaningful conversation for a very long time.
fin
A/N: wow, i think i got like five cavities whilst writing this? :| title from happy birthday by the click five.
Pairing: jesse eisenberg/andrew garfield
Rating: pg13
Genre: gen, romance, slice-of-life
Warnings: swearing, rps
Author: gdgdbaby
Notes: stupid birthday feel-good fic. in which jesse lies and andrew laughs a lot and justin really likes his alcohol. 2,012 words.
Neither he nor the rest of the cast and crew realize that Jesse's lied to them about his birthday until he gets the phone call.
Well, technically speaking, it's a lie by omission-preoccupation with rehearsals and filming and sleepless nights on set make it so that the topic never really comes up. When Andrew's birthday passes in August and Carey and Keira bake him a lopsided cake on the road, he shoots Jesse a text and asks him when his birthday is, so i'll be able to get you something when the time comes! 8D! He never responds.
In retrospect, it would've been ridiculously easy to type a quick jesse eisenberg's birthday into Google and browse through the results, but Andrew has promotions for the rest of the year to worry about, and afterwards it just never crosses his mind.
So it is that October rolls around after advance screenings and the first cocktail parties and a couple of press conferences. There's a photocall in Berlin that day-it isn't particularly long, but lingering fatigue from Sunday night's hectic Paris premiere has him dozing off intermittently when they're in the limo on the way back to the hotel. Jesse keeps staring out the windows and Justin's on his phone, a serious expression on his face.
Jesse's phone breaks the silence and jolts Andrew awake; this week's ringtone is Cats' Memory. Justin raises his eyebrows. Jesse ignores him. "Hello?" he says into the receiver.
The next second he's recoiling away from the earpiece as several loud, female voices proclaim happy birthday! from across the line. Jesse tries to turn the volume down but the damage has already been done: he and Justin exchange meaningful looks and then Justin's on his Blackberry again, fingers flying over the keys.
Andrew rubs at his eyes when Jesse ends the call. "It's your birthday today? How come none of us knew about it?"
"Birthdays are-" he pauses, as if trying to find a suitable word to describe them.
"Fun?" Andrew proffers. "Exciting? The perfect time to get wasted?"
"-annoying," Jesse finishes.
"This is unacceptable," Justin says. "We're taking you out tonight."
Jesse fiddles at the cuffs of his shirt, frowning. "We're in Berlin. None of us speak German."
"Okay," Justin concedes, "we'll order a shit ton of alcohol from room service and drink all night. Consider it our present."
"Do you think that's such a good idea? We have to fly out early for that junket interview in Madrid tomorrow."
"If you hadn't given us such short notice," Andrew points out, "we would've gotten you something more suitable." Justin punctuates this statement with vigorous nods.
Jesse sighs heavily and pinches the bridge of his nose. "You," he says, pointing at Justin, "just want to get drunk. It's barely four in the afternoon, you can think about that later!" The man in question shrugs, pastes on an easy what-can-I-say grin, and goes back to his phone. Jesse turns to Andrew. "Celebrating my birthday would be pointless. Why do I get gifts and a party for twelve hours of my mother's backbreaking labor and the fact that I'm one year closer to death?"
"That's the most depressing thing I've ever heard," he replies, arms crossed, slouched over into the cushions of the limo's seatback. "Birthdays are supposed to be a celebration of life." Jesse doesn't reply, just leans his head against the window again and stares out as the buildings flash by. Andrew sighs into the uncomfortable silence and drapes his palm over his face.
"Okay," Justin says when they round the corner of their street. "I texted everyone else-" ("Oh, God," Jesse groans), "-and they all seem to think you've cheated them out of something because you never told us your birthday. They want to talk to you face-to-face."
"How?" Jesse says, propping his head up with his hand. "They aren't here."
"Webcam."
It's perhaps the best and worst idea Justin could've ever suggested. Brenda speaks to them from her kitchen and asks about the promotional campaign whilst baking brownies. "I'll eat one for you," she says with a cheeky smile at the end of the conversation. "Happy birthday!"
"Wasn't so painful, was it?" Andrew says. Jesse elbows him in the side and Justin connects the next call.
They're in the living room of the suite when Rooney answers, and after weaseling a half-hearted explanation for not telling her about his birthday out of him, she demands that they give her a tour of the hotel. Rashida joins for a conference call and all Andrew can think is that they must look really, really stupid, the three of them walking around with a laptop and pointing things out to tiny people on a screen. At one point, Jesse almost drops the computer into the pool and Justin tugs it out of his hands, places it gently in Andrew's arms, and then proceeds to grab Jesse by the shoulders and shake him until they're all laughing too hard at the ridiculousness of the situation to continue.
Despite a constant stream of attempted protests on Jesse's part, Andrew manages to edge in a telling comment about Jesse's dismal thoughts on birthdays during their video chat with Aaron. The screenwriter launches into the longest lecture about respect for life and looking at things positively that any of them have ever heard. By the end of it, Justin's hanging over the armrest of the couch and Jesse's eyelids are fluttering closed. "Nice going," Jesse snaps at him when Aaron finally hangs up.
"I hope you learned something from that moving speech," Andrew says, grinning with unrepentant glee.
After the call with Armie (which mostly consists of him and Justin trading witty one-liners to Andrew's eternal amusement and a lot of eye-rolling from Jesse), a knock comes on the door of the suite and Andrew gets up to answer it. "Lieferung," a German Fedex guy says, holding out a medium-sized package. "Herr Eisenberg?" Jesse signs for it and turns it over to read the address.
"It's from Emma," he says, bewildered.
"How come she knows your birthday and we don't?" Andrew asks, eyes narrowed.
"I don't know!" He starts opening the package. "I changed the birth date on my Wikipedia page a couple of weeks ago just so no one would find out."
"Wow," Justin says. "All I can say is wow."
"Well, it's good that I didn't Google it, then," Andrew returns, "though I think Wikipedia checks for inaccuracies and changes them back after a while." He ignores Jesse's scowl. "And it's not like you can change your IMDb page to show a fake birthday."
"What'd she get you?" Justin cuts in hastily before Jesse can reply.
He rips the last of the cardboard off and pulls out a shirt. It's dark blue, almost black, and has thin white stripes on it. Tacked to the collar is a note that reads: stop wearing the same fucking shirt all the time, it makes you look like such a slob! and it reinforces the fact that everything you own is from a movie set. at least try to keep up appearances. always looking out for your best interests, emma.
"For the record," Andrew says over his shoulder, "I'd like to express that I share exactly the same sentiments."
"Well, it's good that you two will probably get along on set in December, then," Jesse retorts.
"Boys, boys," Justin says, patting Jesse on the back and leading them back to the couch. "Look at the time! It's almost ten-we should break out the alcohol." He seems to take it as a good sign that Jesse doesn't object and starts pulling beers and wine and glasses out of the cabinets. "Birthdays are about playing stupid drinking games with your friends," he adds, setting everything on the coffee table and sinks down into an armchair.
"No, birthdays are about birth-" Jesse tries to protest, but Justin waves it off.
"Don't you like alcohol?" Jesse gives him a reluctant nod. "Don't you like drinking games?"
"Depends," Andrew pipes up. Jesse nods again.
"You aren't nodding just to humor me, are you?" Justin asks suspiciously. Jesse gives him that little half shrug and lopsided smile combo, and Andrew starts laughing into the pillow he's hugging. "Whatever," he continues, pouring small measures of Bordeaux out into their cups. "We can start with Never Have I Ever."
"Okay, I'll go first," Andrew says. "Never have I ever written a song that debuted at the top of the Billboard 200 chart."
"Fuck," Justin says, downing his wine and pouring a new glass.
"Never have I ever," Jesse says, eyes bright with amusement, "collaborated with Madonna."
"Never have I ever been Jewish," Justin replies when it's his turn. Andrew raises his glass towards him in a mock toast, as if to say touché, and then drinks, enjoys the feeling of warm wine sliding down his throat.
It's two on one, though, and by midnight, Justin's already slurring his words while Andrew and Jesse are still semi-lucid. They've gone through two bottles of red wine and one white and too many cans of beer to count. "I'd suggest we play fuzzy duck," Jesse says, sipping a beer, "but Justin would probably be the only one drinking anything."
Justin finally passes out on the floor a couple of minutes later. Andrew's sprawled across the length of the couch, legs stretched atop its back, and Jesse's at the other end, pressed deep into the cushions behind him, feet propped up on the coffee table. "Want to keep playing?" Andrew asks, reaching for an unopened bottle of Grüner Silvaner and waving it in his direction.
"Sure," he says, and Andrew pops the cork, pours wine into their cups. "Never have I ever been in a West End production."
"Nice." Andrew thinks for a moment. "Never have I ever written a musical."
"I lied about that, actually," Jesse says, the corner of his lips going up.
"You're a tosser," Andrew drawls languidly, curling into the couch. "Okay, go."
"Never have I ever kissed a guy."
Andrew blinks slowly, once, twice. "Is that so?" He raises the glass to his lips and is about to drink, but Jesse's leaning forward, pulling it out from between his suddenly nerveless fingers and setting it down on the table.
"No," he says, and he's much too close, so close that Andrew can see his individual lashes and the flecks of lighter blue in his eyes. "I lied about that, too."
"What are you doing?" Andrew whispers, and then the next second Jesse's mouth is on his, soft and warm and just barely there. He reaches up and fists his hands in Jesse's shirt, tilts his head for better access-and their tongues are sliding against each other just so. His eyes flutter closed when a leg slides in between his, presses upward, and his back is arching, now, and the alcohol makes him hyperaware of every place they're touching.
Andrew sucks in a long breath when Jesse pulls back, opens his eyes to see a tentative, questioning expression on his face, like he's afraid Andrew's going to punch him or yell at him or something. Instead, he just cocks his head to the side and grins. "How long have you been waiting to do that?"
Jesse exhales and presses his forehead into Andrew's shoulder. "A really fucking long time," he says, voice muffled in Andrew's shirt.
"Happy birthday, then," he says, pulling him up again.
Jesse pretends to think about it for a second. Then, "I guess it wasn't as bad as it could've been."
"Ungrateful brat," he murmurs, and Jesse's chuckle puffs into the shell of his ear. Andrew tangles their legs together and curls his arms around Jesse's neck, says, "I'm sure this will be a gift that keeps on giving."
"Is that so?" he says sweetly, mimicking his accent, and Andrew laughs into the next kiss, and the next-and the next. There's no meaningful conversation for a very long time.
fin
A/N: wow, i think i got like five cavities whilst writing this? :| title from happy birthday by the click five.