Fic: He Wants The World To Rule Itself (1/?)
FIC: He Wants The World To Rule Itself (1/?)
Paring: Andrew Garfield/Jesse Eisenberg
Rating: PG (atm)
About: A lot of stories seem to be Jesse pining for Andrew, so I thought I'd do it the other way round. Also, I'm British so it's easier to write this way!
Disclaimer: Entirely fiction from my own head. Based on my idea of Andrew Garfield and Jesse Eisenberg.
Author's Note: Erm, I've never posted on LJ before. I have NO IDEA what I'm doing, so bear with me. The section in different font comes from the script posted on the TSN website.
When Andrew is acting, he can let his mind go completely blank. He can shut the Andrew side of his brain down and let his character - whoever he is playing - step forward and take over, until he is gone and the character is in every inch, every pore of him. It is necessary to being a good actor. You have to make the story believable. You can’t pretend to be someone; you actually have to be them. He is proud of it, this skill he has, this ability to wholly let go. The way he can quieten his own thoughts down until they aren’t even a whisper in his head.
He just wishes he could do in his real life, that’s all.
***
It is a little over three weeks since Andrew’s long-term girlfriend left him. She called him early one evening, as he was waiting to be driven to set. She was considerate that way, knowing what his schedule was and that he would no doubt have been sleeping all day after a hectic night of filming. She told him that she was going back to London. She was leaving the house that they had shared for the past two years in LA, and going back home. You’re different now, somehow, she told him. You’re so…distant. I don’t know if it’s this film or the people you’re working with, or what, but it has changed you. And I’m not really a part of the new you, am I?
He hadn’t tried to argue. She was right. Disturbingly right. Or the people you’re working with. She had visited them while they were filming; she had seen them together. How much could she ascertain from that? But she had been with Andrew for years; she could read him like a book. So had she seen this new part of him, these weird and ridiculous and intense new feelings that he had that were most certainly not for her? It didn’t matter. She is gone. He is on his own.
It is all Jesse Eisenberg’s fault.
Jesse Eisenberg, in all his neurotic, self-deprecating perfection. Jesse, who reads 1300 page books on Russian history for fun and who collects maps because he is fascinated by geography. Whose intelligence shines through every carefully thought out word that he says. Who makes surreal, sarcastic jokes and then waits a beat before laughing at them himself. Andrew likes all that. In fact, he can’t really think of a single thing about Jesse that he doesn’t like - apart from maybe how negatively Jesse sees himself, and even that makes him feel all warm and protective. Andrew likes the way that Jesse stares at you intently when you are talking to him, as if he is truly concentrating on everything you say. He likes the way that Jesse touches his hair nervously when he is trying to think of an answer to a question. And he really likes the way that Jesse comes to set even for scenes that he isn’t in, and he stands next to Fincher, watching Andrew, and when cut is called he gives Andrew a nod, as if to say you’re good. It is the only praise that Andrew really needs.
But it isn’t just that stuff that he likes about Jesse. He could handle that. He would probably be able to sleep at night and eat at mealtimes and concentrate on the book he is reading if the stuff that he liked about Jesse ended right there, edging close to - but not crossing - the friendship boundary. But it doesn’t. If it did, Andrew’s stomach wouldn’t flip every time Jesse walks into the room. If the way he feels is platonic, Andrew wouldn’t have gotten a hard-on that time he accidentally walked in on Jesse getting changed in his trailer.
The thing is, Jesse is adorable. He has that sweetly curling hair and those pretty, pretty eyes, and beautifully expressive hands and those cheekbones and lips and nose and lips. Lips that Andrew has found himself daydreaming about. Lips that Jesse is always nervously biting, top teeth catching on the lower lip in a way that makes Andrew want cry. It isn’t just an aesthetic appreciation and Andrew knows this. The way that you can look at a picture of Robert Downey Jr and think, well, he’s handsome. No. This is a kind of desperation, more of a longing, really. Andrew looks at Jesse and he wants to lay down next to him on a deserted beach somewhere, their faces close together, whispering secrets to one another. Maybe holding his hand, maybe touching his cheek with the tips of his fingers. He can’t let his imagination go further than that, because it is already difficult to face Jesse every single day with all this pent-up, inexplicable desire surging inside of him. Andrew has never been properly attracted to another man before, and it is taking a little getting used to.
Andrew never used to be this brooding and pensive and nervous. He was fine. Three months ago, he was fine. But then Jesse Eisenberg shuffled quietly, unobtrusively into his life, and unknowingly tore everything apart.
***
Jesse is talking. Zuckerberg talking. He has his head lolled against the back of the sofa, his eyes turned up to the ceiling, but in the scene that they were going through a moment ago, when he delivered the you're gonna blame me because you were the business head of the company and you made a bad business deal with your own company line, his words were still sharp enough to cut Andrew. Eduardo. They go through this scene every single day, because they know that it is going to be the most intense, and they know that it is going to be an utterly crucial moment in the movie. But they have moved on now, and they are in a classroom
--where 60 or so STUDENTS are in a semi-circle, five and six deep, cheering on the contestants for the internship.
Jesse - Mark, because he is entirely Mark now - is trying to explain to Eduardo what is going on, but the eleven-line monologue that he has to spurt out in less than 30 seconds is tough, and he keeps tripping over his lines. Andrew watches him, his back against the arm of the sofa, his toes tucked under Jesse’s thigh, and he realises that this is the most comfortable that he ever gets these days.
“Every 10th line of code written, they have to drink a shot. And hacking’s supposed to be stealth, so any time the server detects an intrusion, the candidate responsible has to drink a shot. I also have a program running that has a pop-up window appear simultaneously on all windows-the last - fucking shit. Five computers, all five computers. Simultaneously on all five computers. Shit.”
He knocks his crumpled, highlighted, annotated script off his knee with one hand and rubs his eyes with the other. “This is more tongue-twisting than ‘the guy who builds a really nice chair’ speech.”
“You’re doing fine, Jess,” Andrew says, untucking his feet and crossing his legs, Buddha style.
Jesse makes a noncommittal sound, still rubbing his eyes.
“You are,” he presses. “You’re just - do you want to leave it for tonight?”
Jesse nods and leans back to stretch, his arms over his head, his back cracking satisfyingly. “He knows when we’re not prepared.”
“Who?”
“David.” He runs his hands through his hair. Always moving, Andrew thinks. You’d be less knackered if maybe you sat still once in a while.
“I know.” Andrew waits a beat, hesitating before standing up and asking, “Do you want coffee?”
Jesse smiles up at him gratefully, a smile that stretches right to his tired eyes. “Yes, please.”
Over the past two months of filming 'that facebook movie', they have fallen into a comfortable routine. In hotels at various filming locations across the country, Jesse will always come to Andrew’s suite, every night, and they will run lines and watch TV together and talk about the news and books and their families and how wrong Andrew's - because Jesse never has a bad thought about anyone - preconceived ideas on Justin Timberlake have turned out to be. And every night they will finish up working and Andrew will offer Jesse coffee, food, a game of Scrabble, anything to keep him there. And Jesse will always accept. And it is moments like this, with Jesse smiling up at him, that Andrew thinks that maybe this is ok. Of course it cannot go anywhere, this insane - he hates to use the decidedly teenage word, but it is an apt description - crush that he has, but maybe that is ok. Andrew can live with this. With smiles and stretching so that t-shirts ride up a little and Aaron Sorkin’s words flying between them, like another language that they have become almost fluent in. For now, this is enough.
Andrew makes them coffee, strong, the way that Jesse, the born and bred New Yorker, likes it. And he is thinking, for now, this is enough to himself as he carries the mugs across his hotel suite, but then he looks up and sees Jesse curled up, his head on the arm of the sofa, his eyes closed, and this unnameable feeling hits Andrew with a force that makes his hands shake so much that he has to put the mugs down on top of the television. Over the past couple of months, Jesse has become his best friend. He was the first one Andrew told when his girlfriend left him. The first person he talked to when Eduardo started burying a little too deep into his subconscious. Jesse is nervous and uncomfortable and completely different to anyone that Andrew has ever met before, and he is something that Andrew had come to depend upon.
Abandoning the coffee, Andrew walks over and pulls a blanket off the back of the sofa, laying it over Jesse, who mumbles something in his exhausted sleep and settles deeper into the couch. Andrew leans down and presses a light kiss into the curls on Jesse’s head. He allows himself that small moment before crossing the large hotel room, flicking the light off and collapsing onto his bed, shattered, still fully-dressed, letting the soft sound of Jesse’s breathing lull him to sleep.