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monaboyd Aug. 17th, 2007 02:16 am)
glass-moment.livejournal.com posting in monaboyd Aug. 17th, 2007 02:16 am)Title: Of Kneecaps, Laundry, and the Sum of Happiness
Pairing: Monaboyd
Rating: PG
Author's Notes: For![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sandelwood. Happy birthday!
Back when he was in drama school Billy had refused to use his parents as emotional fodder for his acting. It had seemed disrespectful somehow, cheapening, to pretend with something that important. He doesn't remember exactly when he changed his mind. At some point along the way he'd realized that his characters' feelings would only ever go as deep as his own, and grief was required to produce grief. It's been a long time since it bothered him.
Today's shooting is utterly exhausting, take after take of listening to Gandalf describe a paradise that Pippin can believe in and Billy can't, never mind how desperately he sometimes wants to. It makes it worse that the scene requires him to be constantly on the edge of tears. By the time he gets home he feels stretched out, worn down, with a choked burn in the back of his throat that won't go away.
He stretches out on his couch and begins the task of sorting the emotions back into the guarded, quiet corners of his mind. There are creases half-obscuring some of the memories where he's taken them out and turned them over in his mind before placing them carefully away again, more and more faded as the years go on. It's hard not to get distracted. The old feelings pull at him again, anger rising somewhere below his conscious thought.
The front door opens and closes and someone scuffles around in the hallway.
"Bill?"
"In the living room."
He tracks Dom by sound, staring at the ceiling. Soft thump of shoes hitting the carpet, footsteps into the kitchen, refrigerator and cabinet doors opening and closing, more footsteps, and then he appears in the doorway.
"How was your scene?" he asks, offering Billy one of his own beers. Billy nods and catches the gentle toss one-handed as Dom settles into the easy chair.
"Fine. The writing's so amazing it's hard to mess up, you know?"
Dom hums agreement and Billy turns his head, studying him. He's wearing jeans and a faded blue t-shirt, hair damp and a little wild from his customary post-work shower. He looks calm and open and confident in a way that makes the ache in Billy's chest flare with every breath. Laundryis written on his left hand in ballpoint. Billy imagines him stepping out of the shower and realizing he's out of clean boxers, jotting the reminder on the back of his hand before driving over. The other hand has a black smudge where he'd changed his mind about a word. Resolve is written over it in dark green marker.
"What do you think about when you have to cry on camera?" Billy asks.
"Dying," Dom says without hesitation. Billy grunts in surprise. They've never exactly had a conversation on the subject, but he would have bet good money that Dom was one of those dying-is-part-of-living, circle-of-life type of people, all wonder and profound acceptance.
"I think about dying young," Dom is saying, "in some kind of stupid accident, like. All the things I was meant to do and be, just severed. The children I'd never have, countries I'd never see, people I'd never meet. Then I think about everyone at my funeral- you, Matt, my parents. Mostly my parents. It would tear them up, you know? They'd just- just be completely destroyed. I can't imagine how they'd go on with the rest of their lives.
"No parent should have to bury their child," Billy quotes, understanding now. He calls up his own loss, his past, and Dom makes himself cry by thinking of people he cares about in pain. It makes Billy feel like a selfish git, to be honest.
"What about you?" Dom asks. "What were you thinking of today?"
"My mother."
"Do you think about her a lot?" Dom's tone is frank curiosity, nothing more, and Billy loves him for it.
"Not really. It's sort of like, I don't know, your kneecap or something. It's there, right, and you know that, but you don't really think about it often. Unless somebody kicks you there or something."
"Nice metaphor," Dom says, grinning. Billy smiles back for what feels like the first time all day and flicks his beer cap at Dom's face, the tension in his chest finally starting to thaw.
They order in pizza with green peppers (Billy has an odd craving for them) and pineapple (Dom has a habitual craving for them). When Billy gets up to answer the door Dom calls out,
"Hey, can I crash here tonight?" which Billy correctly interprets as 'do you need me to stay', only less embarrassing if the answer is yes.
"You'll get more sleep if you go home," he says, grateful. He drops the pizza box on the coffee table and they both dig in. "Your house is closer to set."
"True enough. You know, we could have gotten half without pineapple."
"I like pineapple!" Billy protests, picking the last chunk off his slice and popping it into his mouth. "I just don't like it mixed in with sauce and cheese and all. Terrible thing to do to a fruit." Dom snorts, mouth full, and they're quiet until about half the pizza is gone and they slow down enough to speak between bites.
"It doesn't usually upset me this much," Billy says. "Or at least not for this long. Someone said something on set today that made me think, though, one of the girls on lighting."
"Hmm?"
"I don't even remember exactly. She was saying what she would have to use to make herself cry. I never thought of it like that before, really, but...well, I don't want to be using my parents' memory. It seems wrong. Especially not for something so fake. I mean, that's what we do, isn't it? We make things up in order to...to manipulate people's emotions, people we've never even met. Doesn't that seem demeaning, to use my parents for that?"
Dom raises his eyebrows, putting his slice of pizza down and leaning back. "Billy. Of course we manipulate people's emotions. Everyone does in today's world. Advertisers, lawyers, musicians, artists, um, salesmen. Designers. At least with acting you're not deceiving people about what you're trying to do. Besides, people enjoy your plays and your movies, right?"
"I certainly hope so."
"There you are, then. People go in hoping for an experience that they'll find enjoyable or valuable, whether it's depressing or uplifting. You're giving everyone who sees these movies a few hours of something really wonderful. A positive experience. Maybe they go away feeling hopeful or amazed or awed. Either way, you're adding a little bit to the happiness of everyone who sees you act."
Billy's heard this before, Dom's theory of a world happiness sum and how everyone's highest aspiration should be to add to it. It actually works out to a surprisingly good life philosophy.
"So think about it," Dom continues. "You're not depressed or angry or bitter. Instead you're using your parents' deaths to make the lives of other people in the world just a little bit better. Don't you think they'd be proud of that?"
And just like that, the last of Billy's guilt disappears.
"Yes," he says, "I think they would."
They lapse into silence again as he lets it all assimilate. After a while he flops back down on the couch and looks over at Dom, who hasn't picked up his pizza again. He's sitting very still, looking intently at laundry resolve where they rest on top of his knees. Billy looks at them too. They're upside-down from his angle, laundry a thin scrawl that would be impossible to read if he didn't already know what it said. Resolve is written in the blocky, slightly shaky capitals that Dom ends up with when he wants writing on the back of his right hand and can't find anyone else to do it for him. The oblong wooden beads of his good luck bracelet encircle his wrist just below the word and it dawns on him that Dom's always worn it on the other wrist before tonight. He wonders if the switch has anything to do with resolve.
Dom's breathing changes slightly, getting quieter and more even. Billy frowns in confusion. Dom controlling his breathing means he's either nervous or upset and trying to calm himself, and it must be something big if he's consciously keeping still as well. Psyching himself up for something, maybe, but Billy doesn't have any idea what it is.
"Maybe it's sort of like a sore throat," Dom says finally. Billy raises an eyebrow. It's amazing that he can know this man so well that he reads the meaning in his breathing patterns and yet half the time he still doesn't have a clue what Dom's talking about.
"You know, what you were saying before," Dom continues, and Billy's impressed despite himself; he sounds totally calm. "Thinking about your parents. It's like a sore throat. You know it exists but you never really think about your throat until you get a sore throat and then you can't believe how much time you spent not appreciating how it wasn't sore. You can get meds for it, too, but you can only have so many at a time and they make you all woozy and stuff and end up being addictive eventually. And the only other way to deal with it is to get a distraction. Take your mind off it. Right?"
"So you're saying I should take my mind off it?" Billy says slowly, utterly bemused.
"Yeah, basically."
"Okay. Um, what do you suggest?"
Dom's gaze flicks down to his hand for a split second and then he looks up, lock his eyes on Billy's. "Stay still, okay?" he says, pushing himself off the chair and over to where Billy's lying on the sofa. Billy complies, a little nervous as Dom kneels on the floor next to him and places a hand on the pillows by his head. He braces himself for whatever truly unfunny prank is coming- tickling or dousing in cold water or something- but what happens next is totally unexpected.
Dom kisses him.
It's a soft kiss, gentle and chaste, but it goes on for a long time. Billy, taken by surprise, find himself studying the soft skin of Dom's eyelids, the little wrinkle of concern or concentration on his forehead. His brain can't seem to catch up. When Dom pulls away the very air seems poised and expectant, as if the entire world is holding its breath along with Dom.
"Can I move now?" Billy asks.
"Oh. You can move."
He sits up so that he's looking down at Dom, who is unnaturally quiet. The blue shirt makes his eyes look darker than normal, Billy thinks, slow-motion. He extends a hand to the worn collar, up over Dom's neck (butterfly pulse, at odds with his outer stillness), touches his jaw, runs his fingers from chin to ear. Dom stays perfectly motionless, as if afraid to startle Billy, afraid to call his hope back to his chest if the moment is broken. Billy leans down for another kiss. Dom makes a quiet noise and Billy's fingers tighten on the back of his neck, pulling him closer, up onto his knees, and this one is not chaste at all.
"I've changed my mind," Billy says when they pull apart. "Maybe you should stay the night, after all."
Pairing: Monaboyd
Rating: PG
Author's Notes: For
sandelwood. Happy birthday!Back when he was in drama school Billy had refused to use his parents as emotional fodder for his acting. It had seemed disrespectful somehow, cheapening, to pretend with something that important. He doesn't remember exactly when he changed his mind. At some point along the way he'd realized that his characters' feelings would only ever go as deep as his own, and grief was required to produce grief. It's been a long time since it bothered him.
Today's shooting is utterly exhausting, take after take of listening to Gandalf describe a paradise that Pippin can believe in and Billy can't, never mind how desperately he sometimes wants to. It makes it worse that the scene requires him to be constantly on the edge of tears. By the time he gets home he feels stretched out, worn down, with a choked burn in the back of his throat that won't go away.
He stretches out on his couch and begins the task of sorting the emotions back into the guarded, quiet corners of his mind. There are creases half-obscuring some of the memories where he's taken them out and turned them over in his mind before placing them carefully away again, more and more faded as the years go on. It's hard not to get distracted. The old feelings pull at him again, anger rising somewhere below his conscious thought.
The front door opens and closes and someone scuffles around in the hallway.
"Bill?"
"In the living room."
He tracks Dom by sound, staring at the ceiling. Soft thump of shoes hitting the carpet, footsteps into the kitchen, refrigerator and cabinet doors opening and closing, more footsteps, and then he appears in the doorway.
"How was your scene?" he asks, offering Billy one of his own beers. Billy nods and catches the gentle toss one-handed as Dom settles into the easy chair.
"Fine. The writing's so amazing it's hard to mess up, you know?"
Dom hums agreement and Billy turns his head, studying him. He's wearing jeans and a faded blue t-shirt, hair damp and a little wild from his customary post-work shower. He looks calm and open and confident in a way that makes the ache in Billy's chest flare with every breath. Laundryis written on his left hand in ballpoint. Billy imagines him stepping out of the shower and realizing he's out of clean boxers, jotting the reminder on the back of his hand before driving over. The other hand has a black smudge where he'd changed his mind about a word. Resolve is written over it in dark green marker.
"What do you think about when you have to cry on camera?" Billy asks.
"Dying," Dom says without hesitation. Billy grunts in surprise. They've never exactly had a conversation on the subject, but he would have bet good money that Dom was one of those dying-is-part-of-living, circle-of-life type of people, all wonder and profound acceptance.
"I think about dying young," Dom is saying, "in some kind of stupid accident, like. All the things I was meant to do and be, just severed. The children I'd never have, countries I'd never see, people I'd never meet. Then I think about everyone at my funeral- you, Matt, my parents. Mostly my parents. It would tear them up, you know? They'd just- just be completely destroyed. I can't imagine how they'd go on with the rest of their lives.
"No parent should have to bury their child," Billy quotes, understanding now. He calls up his own loss, his past, and Dom makes himself cry by thinking of people he cares about in pain. It makes Billy feel like a selfish git, to be honest.
"What about you?" Dom asks. "What were you thinking of today?"
"My mother."
"Do you think about her a lot?" Dom's tone is frank curiosity, nothing more, and Billy loves him for it.
"Not really. It's sort of like, I don't know, your kneecap or something. It's there, right, and you know that, but you don't really think about it often. Unless somebody kicks you there or something."
"Nice metaphor," Dom says, grinning. Billy smiles back for what feels like the first time all day and flicks his beer cap at Dom's face, the tension in his chest finally starting to thaw.
They order in pizza with green peppers (Billy has an odd craving for them) and pineapple (Dom has a habitual craving for them). When Billy gets up to answer the door Dom calls out,
"Hey, can I crash here tonight?" which Billy correctly interprets as 'do you need me to stay', only less embarrassing if the answer is yes.
"You'll get more sleep if you go home," he says, grateful. He drops the pizza box on the coffee table and they both dig in. "Your house is closer to set."
"True enough. You know, we could have gotten half without pineapple."
"I like pineapple!" Billy protests, picking the last chunk off his slice and popping it into his mouth. "I just don't like it mixed in with sauce and cheese and all. Terrible thing to do to a fruit." Dom snorts, mouth full, and they're quiet until about half the pizza is gone and they slow down enough to speak between bites.
"It doesn't usually upset me this much," Billy says. "Or at least not for this long. Someone said something on set today that made me think, though, one of the girls on lighting."
"Hmm?"
"I don't even remember exactly. She was saying what she would have to use to make herself cry. I never thought of it like that before, really, but...well, I don't want to be using my parents' memory. It seems wrong. Especially not for something so fake. I mean, that's what we do, isn't it? We make things up in order to...to manipulate people's emotions, people we've never even met. Doesn't that seem demeaning, to use my parents for that?"
Dom raises his eyebrows, putting his slice of pizza down and leaning back. "Billy. Of course we manipulate people's emotions. Everyone does in today's world. Advertisers, lawyers, musicians, artists, um, salesmen. Designers. At least with acting you're not deceiving people about what you're trying to do. Besides, people enjoy your plays and your movies, right?"
"I certainly hope so."
"There you are, then. People go in hoping for an experience that they'll find enjoyable or valuable, whether it's depressing or uplifting. You're giving everyone who sees these movies a few hours of something really wonderful. A positive experience. Maybe they go away feeling hopeful or amazed or awed. Either way, you're adding a little bit to the happiness of everyone who sees you act."
Billy's heard this before, Dom's theory of a world happiness sum and how everyone's highest aspiration should be to add to it. It actually works out to a surprisingly good life philosophy.
"So think about it," Dom continues. "You're not depressed or angry or bitter. Instead you're using your parents' deaths to make the lives of other people in the world just a little bit better. Don't you think they'd be proud of that?"
And just like that, the last of Billy's guilt disappears.
"Yes," he says, "I think they would."
They lapse into silence again as he lets it all assimilate. After a while he flops back down on the couch and looks over at Dom, who hasn't picked up his pizza again. He's sitting very still, looking intently at laundry resolve where they rest on top of his knees. Billy looks at them too. They're upside-down from his angle, laundry a thin scrawl that would be impossible to read if he didn't already know what it said. Resolve is written in the blocky, slightly shaky capitals that Dom ends up with when he wants writing on the back of his right hand and can't find anyone else to do it for him. The oblong wooden beads of his good luck bracelet encircle his wrist just below the word and it dawns on him that Dom's always worn it on the other wrist before tonight. He wonders if the switch has anything to do with resolve.
Dom's breathing changes slightly, getting quieter and more even. Billy frowns in confusion. Dom controlling his breathing means he's either nervous or upset and trying to calm himself, and it must be something big if he's consciously keeping still as well. Psyching himself up for something, maybe, but Billy doesn't have any idea what it is.
"Maybe it's sort of like a sore throat," Dom says finally. Billy raises an eyebrow. It's amazing that he can know this man so well that he reads the meaning in his breathing patterns and yet half the time he still doesn't have a clue what Dom's talking about.
"You know, what you were saying before," Dom continues, and Billy's impressed despite himself; he sounds totally calm. "Thinking about your parents. It's like a sore throat. You know it exists but you never really think about your throat until you get a sore throat and then you can't believe how much time you spent not appreciating how it wasn't sore. You can get meds for it, too, but you can only have so many at a time and they make you all woozy and stuff and end up being addictive eventually. And the only other way to deal with it is to get a distraction. Take your mind off it. Right?"
"So you're saying I should take my mind off it?" Billy says slowly, utterly bemused.
"Yeah, basically."
"Okay. Um, what do you suggest?"
Dom's gaze flicks down to his hand for a split second and then he looks up, lock his eyes on Billy's. "Stay still, okay?" he says, pushing himself off the chair and over to where Billy's lying on the sofa. Billy complies, a little nervous as Dom kneels on the floor next to him and places a hand on the pillows by his head. He braces himself for whatever truly unfunny prank is coming- tickling or dousing in cold water or something- but what happens next is totally unexpected.
Dom kisses him.
It's a soft kiss, gentle and chaste, but it goes on for a long time. Billy, taken by surprise, find himself studying the soft skin of Dom's eyelids, the little wrinkle of concern or concentration on his forehead. His brain can't seem to catch up. When Dom pulls away the very air seems poised and expectant, as if the entire world is holding its breath along with Dom.
"Can I move now?" Billy asks.
"Oh. You can move."
He sits up so that he's looking down at Dom, who is unnaturally quiet. The blue shirt makes his eyes look darker than normal, Billy thinks, slow-motion. He extends a hand to the worn collar, up over Dom's neck (butterfly pulse, at odds with his outer stillness), touches his jaw, runs his fingers from chin to ear. Dom stays perfectly motionless, as if afraid to startle Billy, afraid to call his hope back to his chest if the moment is broken. Billy leans down for another kiss. Dom makes a quiet noise and Billy's fingers tighten on the back of his neck, pulling him closer, up onto his knees, and this one is not chaste at all.
"I've changed my mind," Billy says when they pull apart. "Maybe you should stay the night, after all."
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Thanks for this! *mems*