[Andrew/Jesse] Until We Meet Again
Title; Until We Meet Again
Pairing; Jesse Eisenberg/Andrew Garfield
Genre; Fluff, angst
Word count; ~3000
Does anyone know how to make it so that when you cut, you just get clean white space to read? If so please do fill me in.
Italicized words are flashbacks of a conversation pre-Oscars.
Quiet is not a word one might typically use to describe Jesse Eisenberg, at least not off the top of their head. He seems to always have something to say, or something he wants to say, and even when he leans back with that intense, brooding stare, lips pursed, you wouldn’t think ‘quiet’, bt maybe ‘thoughtful’, like he’s assessing the mental capacity of everyone around him. There’s something almost intimidating about him, despite his lack of physically strong attributes.
Andrew likes it, though, the way they don’t always have to be chattering. On nights at the apartment, they almost never spoke, past a certain time, but it was never a cold kind of silence and not one he felt obligated to fill as he may with anyone else. Jesse’s never been god at social interactions anyway because silence can often say so much more.
He’s gotten used to having Jesse there. A shoulder to wrap his arm around, a hand to hold, encouraging words to be whispered in his ear with his warm breath. When the flashes of the cameras feel blinding, the air around him and the very collar on his shirt feel suffocating, when he feels as if he may collapse or crash and burn under the heat of the spotlight, Jesse there. With his soft hands and warm voice and soft speech, and he makes everything okay. And Andrew can do it then, he can do it all, for Jesse - because if Jesse can do this then there’s no reason he can’t.
Nothing’s constant as an actor. He of all people should have remembered that. Your career rests solely on the shoulders of other people, people who deem you satisfactory. Can’t get a job without having your name known, can’t get your name known without getting a job. And then, once people start to know your name, people get tired of seeing your face and toss you off again, upset with what you become when it’s only what they wanted for you. People walk into your life and walk out of it willy-nilly; costars, directors, friends, fans, partners.
It hasn’t been this way with Jesse, at least not yet, at least he hopes it won’t. Because he’s been clinging onto it so hard. Jesse’s all he has in the world anymore. Jesse is the reason he does all of this, Jesse’s the reason he gets up in the morning and smiles for the cameras, Jesse’s the reason he continues to follow his dreams. And he thinks that if he loses him, he just won’t be able to handle it.
He makes the phone calls, sends the texts, the emails. He’s the one who insisted Jesse get a Skype account so they could chat face to face despite his electronophobic protests. And though it sometimes feels like Jesse’s not as committed to the relationship as Jesse is, like Jesse might just be happy if Andrew disappeared, it’s not like him to push him away, but that’s what he’s doing now.
The Oscars. A night Jesse dreaded for days and weeks and months, only growing worse as the date grew nearer. Of course Andrew made sure he got in, for support, even though he wasn’t nominated.
“You’re kidding. Andrew, you’re kidding. Me nominated and not you? Shut up.”
“I’m serious, Jesse! You’re an Oscar nominee! This is huge!”
“But you’re not?”
“Well - no.”
“It doesn’t bother you?”
It does. But Andrew has no right to be upset. It’s how acting works: people don’t like you, for whatever reasons they can think of. You get snubbed, because you’re simply not the target of their affection. And anyway, he’s seen enough Oscar ceremonies to guess that he’s not sure he wants an award from the Academy.
“No… But you did, Jess! And this is huge!”
Jesse leaves the scene right away, doesn’t need the cameras to rub the failure in his face. But it’s not just the loss that upsets him, it’s the mark of an ending. The ending of something that he’ll never have again.
They’ve arranged to stay in a hotel room, just for the two of them, for the night, but now Jesse almost wishes they didn’t. It’d be so much easier to just leave, catch a flight home and wallow in his self-pity.
The ride is silent. The elevator lift is silent. They go to the room in silence. A two-bedder; he requested it. Andrew gets the hint, and he knows that something is very, very wrong.
“Andrew?”
“Yeah, Jess?”
“You’re not upset, are you? At me?”
“No! No, Jess. Why would I be upset about something you earned?”
“…Andrew?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you.”
They’d never said it before. Though the feeling had been there. And he meant it in so many ways as a friend, someone he cares for. As a brother, someone he’s spiritually connected to. And as much, much more than that.
“I love you, Jess. You just remember that.”
They haven’t said it again since then, not because the feeling is gone, but because it’s unnecessary. Andrew expresses his love in the way he looks at Jesse, the way he touches him, speaks to him, holds him at night, comforts him through panic attacks and the breakdowns and the flu. In kisses, hand-holding - he shows it. He’s not going to undermine the words by using them to fill meaningless gaps in conversation, though he’s whispered it a few times over Jesse’s sleeping form after he knocks himself out, murmured it to himself in the mirror. Never above a whisper.
Jesse breezes into the hotel room in a rush, rips the silk tie from his neck, ruining it, and throwing it aside. He shrugs the jacket off and tears open his buttons. They fall to the faded hotel carpet, uncared for. He knew the loss would hurt Jesse - to be honest, he’d been expecting it - but something else is going on.
“Jesse.” He places a hand on his shoulder, and whether what happens next is an accident or not isn’t clear, but it happens. Jesse whips around like he’s been electrocuted, and as he does, his hand flies up. It catches Andrew right on the cheek. Hard enough to make a slap and leave a dark handprint, a stabbing pain through Andrew’s face. It shocks both of them, and as Andrew recoils in horror, hurt and confusion, Jesse runs to the bathroom.
Andrew’s after him, and he’s in the room before the door closes, but the more he tries to figure out what’s wrong, the worse things seem to get. Jesse’s eyes are all black pupil, even in the bright bathroom light - they are not Jesse at all.
“Jesse - for god’s sake, what’s the matter!”
“You don’t know!” Jesse whirls around to face the sink, raking his hands through his styled curls, messing them all up. Andrew doesn’t know whether to respond to this as a statement or a question, but indeed, he doesn’t know what would make Jesse act this way- poor, sweet Jesse - and it’s scaring him, frankly.
“I don’t! Jess-please!”
“Don’t call me that! This is your fault, Andrew!” Jesse grabs the closest thing on the sink to throw - which is a complimentary bottle of hotel shampoo, and turns around only to chuck it at Andrew’s head. In his state, though, he can’t aim, so it misses by a mile, but the effect is still there. He just doesn’t know what to do, and his heart is breaking for Jesse. Him? Is this about the Oscar? How is that his fault?
But it’s not the Oscar. In fact, it’s nothing of the like. Andrew does the only thing he can; he holds him, while Jesse screams at the top of his lungs, and hits, and kicks and cries until he dissolves into a mess of soft little sobs.
“I hate you.”
“I love you.”
That just makes him cry even harder. Jesse - his Jesse, crying. Crying his eyes out. What did he do? What can he do?”
“Andrew, just - stop, please.”
“Stop what?”
“Being so nice!” Just when it looks like progress has been made, Jesse’s pulling away again, but Andrew holds on tight.
“Why wouldn’t I be nice?”
“Because, don’t you get it? It’s over.”
“What’s ‘over’?”
“This-!” Jesse, instead of pulling free from Andrew’s grip, slips down, down to the tiled floor in a heap. Andrew follows, lets Jesse cry a little more until he can gather himself enough to explain. “It’s over, Andrew; the movie, it’s done. Award season is over. We lost, and everything’s over now.”
“I still don’t understand, Jesse.”
“Of course you don’t!” Jesse stops, sneezes, and sniffles. Andrew’s never seen him this vulnerable, and it’s scary, seeing someone usually so strong as him become so weak. “It’s you, Andrew.”
“Me?”
“Us. Everything’s over now. And you’ll go start another movie, and I will too, and you won’t be around anymore, and then you’ll forget, and everything we had-“
“Jesse.”
He has to say it loudly to get his attention, and Jesse winces. Andrew doesn’t know whether to feel guilty or touched, but does Jesse really think that’s what will happen? He slips a finger under Jesse’s chin, lifts it to get him to look, and poor Jesse doesn’t have it in him to fight it. “I would never leave you, Jesse. Nothing’s permanent, but I’d never leave you behind.”
“But you’re Spiderman now.”
“I haven’t forgotten. I won’t if you don’t.
“Deal.”
“Hey, Drew?”
“Yeah?”
“You’ll come, right? You’ll be there.”
“To the Oscars?”
“Yeah. I can’t do it without you.”
“Of course I’ll be there, Jess. Just for you.”
“But I’m still Andrew.”
“I can’t do this without you, Andrew!” Jesse suddenly jumps forward, grips the collar of Andrew’s shirt, his face all crumbled and wet with tears, and damn, if Andrew’s heart wasn’t shattered already, it is now.
So many things have changed in the past year of Andrew’s life, from his roles in his movies to his hairstyles (Call it silly, but one thing he never likes to do is sacrifice his luscious locks to suit a character. He quite likes when it’s long, when he can shake it all about like a mane. Jesse likes it too, likes stroking it, petting it, pulling, grabbing and brushing it. He has a hair fetish and he won’t deny it). He’s always moving around, never has a place to settle, to really call home. He always says to his costars, ‘oh, we’ll stay in touch’, but he never does. He makes amazing friendships that last for five months and then are gone completely. And, to their credit, he doesn’t usually try too hard to hold on.
“Then I can do it.”
Jesse though. Jesse’s something totally different. Jesse makes him feel things he’s never felt before, yanks him in a new direction that’s every bit as terrifying as it is exciting. And he holds onto the ride because that’s all he can do. He’s known this for a while, too, that the great times - perhaps the best times of his life - would not last. They didn’t live together anymore, didn’t see eachother on a regular basis anymore as hard as they tried to. And Jesse was right, that soon, he would be Spiderman, Jesse would have his own projects, and they would be pulled apart. It was no one’s fault, but it was inevitable.
“Is that why you’ve been pulling away from me, Jesse?”
Jesse looks away, out of embarrassment, or maybe fear, but he squeaks out an affirmation.
“Jess. Jesse, you need to look at me, and I need to explain something to you.”
Fearing the worst, Jesse’s eyes slowly meet Andrew’s; dark and wet and wide. “It’s true that you say that we won’t be this close together for much longer,” he whispers, trying to keep his voice as gentle as possible, because Andrew’s so fragile in this state- and to be honest, Andrew’s scared of him. “but I will never leave you, Jesse. Just because we’re not next to eachother doesn’t mean we’re not together. We’ll stay in touch - we’ll call, we’ll email, we’ll Skype. I’m not just going to leave you behind. Why didn’t you tell me about this sooner?”
“I didn’t want you to feel guilty for getting to live out your dream.”
“Did you honestly think I would leave you?”
Jesse presses his chin to his chest, letting another tear fall down his eye. It rolls off his cheek and Andrew feels the wet spot on his shirt. “I didn’t know! I didn’t want to think you did, but I was just so scared, because I couldn’t do that, Andrew. I couldn’t handle you leaving me.”
“I’ll never leave you.”
“Promise?”
“Only if you never leave me.”
“I promise.”
“Then I promise, too.”
Andrew holds up a fist, pinky extended. Jesse stares at it a moment, as if confused, and then that little smile lights up his face and even a laugh. He lifts his pinky, hooks it with Andrew’s, and they shake once.
“Pinky promise.”
“Pinky promise.”
And then they’re quiet. Like the way it used to be, the way they’re most comfortable, it’s just the two of them. Jesse’s never been good with words, but there’s so much he wants to say. And he says it with the beating of his heart against Andrew’s, the way he looks at him when their foreheads are rested together, the way their bodies are wrapped around eachother, the way their auras blend and mold into eachother in the quiet space of the hotel bathroom. And then he says it with a kiss, the way their lips move together, synchronized but not rehearsed.
They pull away.
“Andrew?”
“Yeah?”
“This is our last night together. For a long time.”
He’s right, of course. Andrew’s off to California to begin working on Spiderman very shortly after this. Jesse will go back home, to New York, and that’s the farthest they could possibly be while in the same country. He’s always had something to hang onto as the next time he’d see Andrew; another award show, and interview, something. But now all of that’s gone, and he doesn’t know how he’ll live without that one thing to keep pulling him along. Now, he’ll just drag.
“I know…”
“I love you, Andrew.”
“And I love you, Jesse.”
The three simple words have so much meaning between them, especially as they’re used so infrequently, they’re like a fountain you just drink up. Magic words that can keep you going, at least for the next little while. Jesse’s quiet again, scooting into Andrew’s lap, his legs wrapping around Andrew’s waist, arms around his shoulders. His face is blotchy, streaked with tears, lip moist and bleeding, his eyes are a blood-streaked cerulean. He’s reached his boiling point, he’s hit the bottom, and there’s nowhere from here to go but up.
“Then show me.”
Jesse’s eyes finally meet his, and Andrew gazes at his face empathetically for a moment before looking down at their hands. He intertwines their fingers, raises their hands between them. Jesse’s grip is almost crushing, holding onto him like his life depends on it - and maybe it does - but Andrew allows it. “One last time?” Jesse squeaks.
“Shh - none of that. It won’t be the last time, that I can promise you.”
“You won’t fall in love with another costar?”
Andrew laughs softly, and shakes his head. “No. No I won’t. I pinky promise.” Keeping their fingers together, he holds up his other hand, pinky out, and they shake. Promise sealed, forever. “And if you really miss me, Jesse, just close your eyes, and I’ll be there. Dream of me - promise you will.”
“I can promise you that, Andrew.”
They shake again.
“Will you name a kitten after me?”
Jesse laughs. “I’m afraid if I did that I would never be able to give it up.”
“The next cat that you decide to keep - because knowing you you’ll have seven by the time you’re thirty. Will you name one after me?”
“Of course.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
They shake.
Jesse closes his eyes, sagging against Andrew - almost as if he’s asleep and Andrew’s hands only are holding him up. But he’s not asleep, he’s just thinking, reliving every wonderful moment of the past eight months, trying to memorize the feeling of Andrew’s fingers between his, trying to memorize Andrew’s scent, desperate to remember how it feels to be this close, so he can hold onto that feeling, hold onto it for the next few months or as long as it takes.
“One more time - until we meet again.”
“Until we meet again. And we will meet again.”
Pairing; Jesse Eisenberg/Andrew Garfield
Genre; Fluff, angst
Word count; ~3000
Does anyone know how to make it so that when you cut, you just get clean white space to read? If so please do fill me in.
Italicized words are flashbacks of a conversation pre-Oscars.
Quiet is not a word one might typically use to describe Jesse Eisenberg, at least not off the top of their head. He seems to always have something to say, or something he wants to say, and even when he leans back with that intense, brooding stare, lips pursed, you wouldn’t think ‘quiet’, bt maybe ‘thoughtful’, like he’s assessing the mental capacity of everyone around him. There’s something almost intimidating about him, despite his lack of physically strong attributes.
Andrew likes it, though, the way they don’t always have to be chattering. On nights at the apartment, they almost never spoke, past a certain time, but it was never a cold kind of silence and not one he felt obligated to fill as he may with anyone else. Jesse’s never been god at social interactions anyway because silence can often say so much more.
He’s gotten used to having Jesse there. A shoulder to wrap his arm around, a hand to hold, encouraging words to be whispered in his ear with his warm breath. When the flashes of the cameras feel blinding, the air around him and the very collar on his shirt feel suffocating, when he feels as if he may collapse or crash and burn under the heat of the spotlight, Jesse there. With his soft hands and warm voice and soft speech, and he makes everything okay. And Andrew can do it then, he can do it all, for Jesse - because if Jesse can do this then there’s no reason he can’t.
Nothing’s constant as an actor. He of all people should have remembered that. Your career rests solely on the shoulders of other people, people who deem you satisfactory. Can’t get a job without having your name known, can’t get your name known without getting a job. And then, once people start to know your name, people get tired of seeing your face and toss you off again, upset with what you become when it’s only what they wanted for you. People walk into your life and walk out of it willy-nilly; costars, directors, friends, fans, partners.
It hasn’t been this way with Jesse, at least not yet, at least he hopes it won’t. Because he’s been clinging onto it so hard. Jesse’s all he has in the world anymore. Jesse is the reason he does all of this, Jesse’s the reason he gets up in the morning and smiles for the cameras, Jesse’s the reason he continues to follow his dreams. And he thinks that if he loses him, he just won’t be able to handle it.
He makes the phone calls, sends the texts, the emails. He’s the one who insisted Jesse get a Skype account so they could chat face to face despite his electronophobic protests. And though it sometimes feels like Jesse’s not as committed to the relationship as Jesse is, like Jesse might just be happy if Andrew disappeared, it’s not like him to push him away, but that’s what he’s doing now.
The Oscars. A night Jesse dreaded for days and weeks and months, only growing worse as the date grew nearer. Of course Andrew made sure he got in, for support, even though he wasn’t nominated.
“You’re kidding. Andrew, you’re kidding. Me nominated and not you? Shut up.”
“I’m serious, Jesse! You’re an Oscar nominee! This is huge!”
“But you’re not?”
“Well - no.”
“It doesn’t bother you?”
It does. But Andrew has no right to be upset. It’s how acting works: people don’t like you, for whatever reasons they can think of. You get snubbed, because you’re simply not the target of their affection. And anyway, he’s seen enough Oscar ceremonies to guess that he’s not sure he wants an award from the Academy.
“No… But you did, Jess! And this is huge!”
Jesse leaves the scene right away, doesn’t need the cameras to rub the failure in his face. But it’s not just the loss that upsets him, it’s the mark of an ending. The ending of something that he’ll never have again.
They’ve arranged to stay in a hotel room, just for the two of them, for the night, but now Jesse almost wishes they didn’t. It’d be so much easier to just leave, catch a flight home and wallow in his self-pity.
The ride is silent. The elevator lift is silent. They go to the room in silence. A two-bedder; he requested it. Andrew gets the hint, and he knows that something is very, very wrong.
“Andrew?”
“Yeah, Jess?”
“You’re not upset, are you? At me?”
“No! No, Jess. Why would I be upset about something you earned?”
“…Andrew?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you.”
They’d never said it before. Though the feeling had been there. And he meant it in so many ways as a friend, someone he cares for. As a brother, someone he’s spiritually connected to. And as much, much more than that.
“I love you, Jess. You just remember that.”
They haven’t said it again since then, not because the feeling is gone, but because it’s unnecessary. Andrew expresses his love in the way he looks at Jesse, the way he touches him, speaks to him, holds him at night, comforts him through panic attacks and the breakdowns and the flu. In kisses, hand-holding - he shows it. He’s not going to undermine the words by using them to fill meaningless gaps in conversation, though he’s whispered it a few times over Jesse’s sleeping form after he knocks himself out, murmured it to himself in the mirror. Never above a whisper.
Jesse breezes into the hotel room in a rush, rips the silk tie from his neck, ruining it, and throwing it aside. He shrugs the jacket off and tears open his buttons. They fall to the faded hotel carpet, uncared for. He knew the loss would hurt Jesse - to be honest, he’d been expecting it - but something else is going on.
“Jesse.” He places a hand on his shoulder, and whether what happens next is an accident or not isn’t clear, but it happens. Jesse whips around like he’s been electrocuted, and as he does, his hand flies up. It catches Andrew right on the cheek. Hard enough to make a slap and leave a dark handprint, a stabbing pain through Andrew’s face. It shocks both of them, and as Andrew recoils in horror, hurt and confusion, Jesse runs to the bathroom.
Andrew’s after him, and he’s in the room before the door closes, but the more he tries to figure out what’s wrong, the worse things seem to get. Jesse’s eyes are all black pupil, even in the bright bathroom light - they are not Jesse at all.
“Jesse - for god’s sake, what’s the matter!”
“You don’t know!” Jesse whirls around to face the sink, raking his hands through his styled curls, messing them all up. Andrew doesn’t know whether to respond to this as a statement or a question, but indeed, he doesn’t know what would make Jesse act this way- poor, sweet Jesse - and it’s scaring him, frankly.
“I don’t! Jess-please!”
“Don’t call me that! This is your fault, Andrew!” Jesse grabs the closest thing on the sink to throw - which is a complimentary bottle of hotel shampoo, and turns around only to chuck it at Andrew’s head. In his state, though, he can’t aim, so it misses by a mile, but the effect is still there. He just doesn’t know what to do, and his heart is breaking for Jesse. Him? Is this about the Oscar? How is that his fault?
But it’s not the Oscar. In fact, it’s nothing of the like. Andrew does the only thing he can; he holds him, while Jesse screams at the top of his lungs, and hits, and kicks and cries until he dissolves into a mess of soft little sobs.
“I hate you.”
“I love you.”
That just makes him cry even harder. Jesse - his Jesse, crying. Crying his eyes out. What did he do? What can he do?”
“Andrew, just - stop, please.”
“Stop what?”
“Being so nice!” Just when it looks like progress has been made, Jesse’s pulling away again, but Andrew holds on tight.
“Why wouldn’t I be nice?”
“Because, don’t you get it? It’s over.”
“What’s ‘over’?”
“This-!” Jesse, instead of pulling free from Andrew’s grip, slips down, down to the tiled floor in a heap. Andrew follows, lets Jesse cry a little more until he can gather himself enough to explain. “It’s over, Andrew; the movie, it’s done. Award season is over. We lost, and everything’s over now.”
“I still don’t understand, Jesse.”
“Of course you don’t!” Jesse stops, sneezes, and sniffles. Andrew’s never seen him this vulnerable, and it’s scary, seeing someone usually so strong as him become so weak. “It’s you, Andrew.”
“Me?”
“Us. Everything’s over now. And you’ll go start another movie, and I will too, and you won’t be around anymore, and then you’ll forget, and everything we had-“
“Jesse.”
He has to say it loudly to get his attention, and Jesse winces. Andrew doesn’t know whether to feel guilty or touched, but does Jesse really think that’s what will happen? He slips a finger under Jesse’s chin, lifts it to get him to look, and poor Jesse doesn’t have it in him to fight it. “I would never leave you, Jesse. Nothing’s permanent, but I’d never leave you behind.”
“But you’re Spiderman now.”
“I haven’t forgotten. I won’t if you don’t.
“Deal.”
“Hey, Drew?”
“Yeah?”
“You’ll come, right? You’ll be there.”
“To the Oscars?”
“Yeah. I can’t do it without you.”
“Of course I’ll be there, Jess. Just for you.”
“But I’m still Andrew.”
“I can’t do this without you, Andrew!” Jesse suddenly jumps forward, grips the collar of Andrew’s shirt, his face all crumbled and wet with tears, and damn, if Andrew’s heart wasn’t shattered already, it is now.
So many things have changed in the past year of Andrew’s life, from his roles in his movies to his hairstyles (Call it silly, but one thing he never likes to do is sacrifice his luscious locks to suit a character. He quite likes when it’s long, when he can shake it all about like a mane. Jesse likes it too, likes stroking it, petting it, pulling, grabbing and brushing it. He has a hair fetish and he won’t deny it). He’s always moving around, never has a place to settle, to really call home. He always says to his costars, ‘oh, we’ll stay in touch’, but he never does. He makes amazing friendships that last for five months and then are gone completely. And, to their credit, he doesn’t usually try too hard to hold on.
“Then I can do it.”
Jesse though. Jesse’s something totally different. Jesse makes him feel things he’s never felt before, yanks him in a new direction that’s every bit as terrifying as it is exciting. And he holds onto the ride because that’s all he can do. He’s known this for a while, too, that the great times - perhaps the best times of his life - would not last. They didn’t live together anymore, didn’t see eachother on a regular basis anymore as hard as they tried to. And Jesse was right, that soon, he would be Spiderman, Jesse would have his own projects, and they would be pulled apart. It was no one’s fault, but it was inevitable.
“Is that why you’ve been pulling away from me, Jesse?”
Jesse looks away, out of embarrassment, or maybe fear, but he squeaks out an affirmation.
“Jess. Jesse, you need to look at me, and I need to explain something to you.”
Fearing the worst, Jesse’s eyes slowly meet Andrew’s; dark and wet and wide. “It’s true that you say that we won’t be this close together for much longer,” he whispers, trying to keep his voice as gentle as possible, because Andrew’s so fragile in this state- and to be honest, Andrew’s scared of him. “but I will never leave you, Jesse. Just because we’re not next to eachother doesn’t mean we’re not together. We’ll stay in touch - we’ll call, we’ll email, we’ll Skype. I’m not just going to leave you behind. Why didn’t you tell me about this sooner?”
“I didn’t want you to feel guilty for getting to live out your dream.”
“Did you honestly think I would leave you?”
Jesse presses his chin to his chest, letting another tear fall down his eye. It rolls off his cheek and Andrew feels the wet spot on his shirt. “I didn’t know! I didn’t want to think you did, but I was just so scared, because I couldn’t do that, Andrew. I couldn’t handle you leaving me.”
“I’ll never leave you.”
“Promise?”
“Only if you never leave me.”
“I promise.”
“Then I promise, too.”
Andrew holds up a fist, pinky extended. Jesse stares at it a moment, as if confused, and then that little smile lights up his face and even a laugh. He lifts his pinky, hooks it with Andrew’s, and they shake once.
“Pinky promise.”
“Pinky promise.”
And then they’re quiet. Like the way it used to be, the way they’re most comfortable, it’s just the two of them. Jesse’s never been good with words, but there’s so much he wants to say. And he says it with the beating of his heart against Andrew’s, the way he looks at him when their foreheads are rested together, the way their bodies are wrapped around eachother, the way their auras blend and mold into eachother in the quiet space of the hotel bathroom. And then he says it with a kiss, the way their lips move together, synchronized but not rehearsed.
They pull away.
“Andrew?”
“Yeah?”
“This is our last night together. For a long time.”
He’s right, of course. Andrew’s off to California to begin working on Spiderman very shortly after this. Jesse will go back home, to New York, and that’s the farthest they could possibly be while in the same country. He’s always had something to hang onto as the next time he’d see Andrew; another award show, and interview, something. But now all of that’s gone, and he doesn’t know how he’ll live without that one thing to keep pulling him along. Now, he’ll just drag.
“I know…”
“I love you, Andrew.”
“And I love you, Jesse.”
The three simple words have so much meaning between them, especially as they’re used so infrequently, they’re like a fountain you just drink up. Magic words that can keep you going, at least for the next little while. Jesse’s quiet again, scooting into Andrew’s lap, his legs wrapping around Andrew’s waist, arms around his shoulders. His face is blotchy, streaked with tears, lip moist and bleeding, his eyes are a blood-streaked cerulean. He’s reached his boiling point, he’s hit the bottom, and there’s nowhere from here to go but up.
“Then show me.”
Jesse’s eyes finally meet his, and Andrew gazes at his face empathetically for a moment before looking down at their hands. He intertwines their fingers, raises their hands between them. Jesse’s grip is almost crushing, holding onto him like his life depends on it - and maybe it does - but Andrew allows it. “One last time?” Jesse squeaks.
“Shh - none of that. It won’t be the last time, that I can promise you.”
“You won’t fall in love with another costar?”
Andrew laughs softly, and shakes his head. “No. No I won’t. I pinky promise.” Keeping their fingers together, he holds up his other hand, pinky out, and they shake. Promise sealed, forever. “And if you really miss me, Jesse, just close your eyes, and I’ll be there. Dream of me - promise you will.”
“I can promise you that, Andrew.”
They shake again.
“Will you name a kitten after me?”
Jesse laughs. “I’m afraid if I did that I would never be able to give it up.”
“The next cat that you decide to keep - because knowing you you’ll have seven by the time you’re thirty. Will you name one after me?”
“Of course.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
They shake.
Jesse closes his eyes, sagging against Andrew - almost as if he’s asleep and Andrew’s hands only are holding him up. But he’s not asleep, he’s just thinking, reliving every wonderful moment of the past eight months, trying to memorize the feeling of Andrew’s fingers between his, trying to memorize Andrew’s scent, desperate to remember how it feels to be this close, so he can hold onto that feeling, hold onto it for the next few months or as long as it takes.
“One more time - until we meet again.”
“Until we meet again. And we will meet again.”