FIC: The Trick of Finding What You Didn't Lose (5/?)
FIC: The Trick of Finding What You Didn't Lose (5/?)
Paring: Andrew Garfield/Jesse Eisenberg
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not true, no profit made.
Author's Note The First: Follow-up to this.
Author's Note The Second: In this part even more than in the others, girlfriends don't exist. Yes, I saw them too, but trust me, they don't exist. M'kay?
Jesse feels crushed the second he finally stumbles into the room. Andrew is already dressed, suited and booted and ready to hit the red carpet. The stylists don't like them to mess up their clothes, not when they have spent hours steaming and ironing and pressing, getting the creases just so. So excessive hugging is generally frowned upon. But it's not just that. Andrew looks beautiful at worst, but now he's untouchable, like he's wearing armour. Jesse is still in his jeans. And two sweatshirts, layered up against the last tendrils of a grey London winter.
"I have to go back straight after," Andrew says by way of greeting.
"What?" Jesse hears himself ask from a spectacular distance away, even though he's understood perfectly well.
"I'm flying back tonight, right after the show. It was the only way they would let us come."
"Oh," Jesse says. "Right."
Andrew looks drawn and tired, like one of those smileys people sometimes put in emails. Jesse guesses it's meant to convey a nicely tempered, non-judgmental balance of dis/interest, but to him the small non-face has always looked concerned, harrowed, as if it's trying and just about not failing to hide a lot of emotions, most of them spiky and sharp. :|
"Right," Jesse says again.
"Yeah," Andrew says. There are voices in the corridor.
"Well, I guess I'd better get dressed," Jesse says.
"Yeah," Andrew says again, still making the smiley face minus the smile.
So Jesse goes and gets dressed.
The red carpet is the same as always, only colder and wetter. He catches glimpses of Andrew, but their paths never manage to converge. He wonders if that's a coincidence. He also wonders if he is getting paranoid. He wonders if it's too late to pull out of presenting that award. But mostly he wonders if this is it. The beginning of the end. Or maybe the middle part of the end. Maybe they are already mostly into the final reel of the end, and he's not kept up. He really hopes that The King's Speech wins everything it's nominated for and maybe a couple of other things into the bargain. He's not up to accepting anything tonight. He's not up to getting up on stage tonight. Physically. There are stairs. He's seen them. Andrew ducks inside the building.
They aren't even sat next to each other. Andrew is in front of him. In front of him. He hates this. There's only so much of the nape of Andrew's neck that he can take. This is like every birthday party he was made to go to as a kid where he felt hated and wrong and stupid. Only now, he can't even feign tummy ache and get his mom to come and pick him up. He tunes into the feeling of his head on his neck, like a cork on the waves, gently bobbing. He feels the space above and around himself. There is a lot of it, and where the space stops, there's a lot of gold leaf. That's good. A peaceful, warm glow like a shroud he can pull around himself. He grounds his feet into the floor. His forearms into the armrests. This too shall pass.
And then Tilda fucking Swinton announces that they will be collecting David's award. Well, thank you, Tilda. Thank you very fucking much, Tilda fucking Swinton. And that I Am Love-DVD is going straight in the trash when he gets home.
He doesn't remember anything about being on stage, all he remembers is his mind working furiously while they are having their photos taken, and when his publicist mails him the links the next day (Why does she do this? He doesn't want her to do this.) he can see it in his eyes. 'Our hand are touching. Our fingers are touching. We're not holding on to the award, we're holding on to each other. Would he drop it if I let go? Would I drop it if he let go? I hope he doesn't let go. Maybe I do hope that he lets go. Our hands are touching. Our fingers are touching…' An endless loop to the rhythm of flash lights. It's the closest he gets to Andrew all night.
But he doesn't remember anything about being on stage, and so it's not sad to watch it on YouTube the next day. Not really. Not the first four times. After that, maybe a bit.