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pesterloglog · 11 months ago

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Calliope, Jane Crocker, Jade Harley

Act 6, page 7265-7273

CALLIOPE: what else do yoU remember, jane?

CALLIOPE: the more yoU tell Us, the closer we may come to jogging yoUr and jade's memory of how yoU died.

CALLIOPE: not to mention, the closer we will get to completing this lovely illUstrated story. :u

JANE: Hrm.

JANE: My recollection continues to be so darn hazy.

JANE: Is there anything from my session that you can remember, Callie?

CALLIOPE: UnfortUnately from my perspective, most of it was blacked oUt.

CALLIOPE: everything else i know, i have learned from ancient joUrnals, whose veracity i have come to regard as...

CALLIOPE: tenUoUs.

CALLIOPE: yoU two are the only primary soUrces i have left to reconstrUct the tale. if only yoU can keep jogging yoUr memories!

JANE: I see.

JANE: Well, I do recall quite a bit more from our stint as tricksters.

JANE: For some reason all those memories are still quite vivid.

JANE: I suppose I could recount more of that drunken tomfoolery and extend our trickster chapter.

CALLIOPE: oh, yes!!! i woUld absolUtely adore hearing more aboUt yoUr trickster adventUres.

CALLIOPE: it pleases me to no end hearing that yoU experienced sUch joyfUl escapades as a resUlt of the birthday present i gave yoU! :U

JANE: Um. Yes!

JANE: Joyful.

JANE: That's what they were. So joyful.

JANE: What a present! You are a true sweetheart, Callie.

CALLIOPE: ^u^

JANE: So, where was I?

JANE: Ah yes. Dirk had just acquiesced to the siren's song of the trickster.

JANE: When all the rainbow magic and sparkle dust had subsided, there he stood, as stoic and rigid as ever.

JANE: He was like a plank of wood in orange trousers and suspenders. A bronze statue in a silly pair of wrist warmers. A stone-faced automaton with a shock of vermilion hair, in which comfortably nestled what appeared to be an orange soft drink.

JANE: The juju's potent spell seemed only to strengthen his resolve in betraying no emotion whatsoever.

JANE: But would his curmudgeonly facade prove a deterrent to Roxy's lascivious wiles? Methinks not!

JANE: She advanced upon him with her magic ring, seeking his hand in quadruple betrothal.

JANE: Her lips puckered and quivered, like an amorous cephalopod skulking the briny ocean depths for a handsome mate.

JADE: guys i think weve heard enough about the trickster stuff :|

CALLIOPE: (shoot!)

JADE: jane, dont you remember when we turned into bad guys?

JANE: Bad guys?

JADE: yeah...

JADE: i turned into an evil werewolf for a while

JADE: and you i think were some kind of cyborg

JANE: Yes, that does sound very familiar.

JANE: Can you tell me anything else to nudge my recollection?

JADE: ummmmm

JADE: you had a pitchfork thingy and your outfit was bright red

JANE: Yes, of course!

JANE: I do remember that now.

JANE: Oh dear. I really was behaving horribly, wasn't I?

JADE: yeah, we both were

JADE: it feels like it was all a bad dream

JADE: im glad its over now, even if it means were probably dead

JANE: Mm-hm.

JANE: It's coming back to me now...

JANE: Gosh, how embarrassing it is to recall my actions.

JANE: They somehow manage to trump my indiscretions as a trickster.

JANE: The things I said to Jake!!!

JADE: :o

JADE: what did you say?

JANE: I can't even bring myself to talk about it.

JANE: You're right, Jade. We probably are better off dead than having to face the music for our shameful deeds.

CALLIOPE: i do not wish to pry into matters that make yoU Uncomfortable...

CALLIOPE: bUt can yoU at least recall the circUmstances which were likely to have resUlted in yoUr deaths?

JANE: Hm.

JANE: Yes, I believe I can.

JANE: Remembering my encounter with Jake in his prison cell has reminded me of a crisis that followed shortly thereafter.

JANE: It caught us all quite by surprise, if I recall, even the Condesce.

JANE: I believe there were unanticipated factors which even she was unable to account for.

CALLIOPE: can yoU recall the natUre of this crisis?

CALLIOPE: jade and i will do oUr best to record it!

JANE: Yes, hold on.

JANE: Allow me a moment to get back into my storytelling voice.

JANE: ...

JADE: ...

CALLIOPE: ...

JANE: Ahem.

JANE: 'Twas like Jade said. We'd been hoodwinked by none other than the Batterwitch herself.

JANE: The old lady's fishy mind tricks had us both behaving like a pair of crooks!

JANE: We were all too willing to do her dirty work, and none too shy about reveling in our misdeeds.

JANE: It was as if she'd pulled the stops on our sense of conscience. At last we were free to act upon our darkest desires.

JANE: And if it please the jury, I'd prefer said desires were kept stricken from this record. >:B

JADE: i second the motion

CALLIOPE: (doUble shoot!!)

JANE: The crafty witch made sure I would be the brains of the operation.

JANE: She saw to it her heiress had a super computer wrapped around her noggin years in advance.

JANE: A state of the art Thoughtwave Tiaratop, for the up and coming junior battermaster on the go -- with the factory default set to EVIL!

JANE: But if I was the brains of the outfit, Jade was the uncontested brawn.

JANE: Within two shakes of a dog's tail, she kicked Dirk to the curb of the incipisphere.

JANE: Then in one fell swoop, she and I pinched Roxy and Jake respectively, and hauled them right off to the slammer for interrogation.

JANE: The slammer, as we all know, is how one describes the penal system when feeling extra angry at crimes.

JANE: Their crime, you ask? It was being on the wrong side of the law.

JANE: And by wrong, I mean right.

CALLIOPE: jane, slow down! this is all solid gold.

JANE: But before we could badger hapless pals in the slammer, there was work to be done.

JANE: We were to prepare for the others, scheduled to arrive shortly on a meteor from the furthest ring.

JANE: I was ordered to build up the houses on our planets to reach Skaia. The witch said it was critical to her plans.

JANE: Whereas Jade was told to intercept the meteor, and scatter all her friends on the four new planets.

JANE: They were all to be separated into pairs, and prepared to receive instruction to help us advance the cause.

JANE: But then, something went wrong. Something fully unanticipated, even by the Witch!

JANE: Before Jade could intercept the meteor, she disappeared without a trace.

JADE: i did? :o

CALLIOPE: (jade, shh! this is getting exciting.)

JANE: Perhaps it's my shoddy memory acting up again, but I have no recollection of what happened to her.

JANE: This left the Witch's scheme in total shambles, and without Jade's unlimited power at her command, the situation on Derse was vulnerable.

JANE: Jade's friends were now unaccounted for, and could freely move about the medium without being caught.

JANE: They used their freedom to maximum advantage. Staying a step ahead of the Witch, they organized and came up with a plan.

JANE: The plan, you ask?

JANE: A prison break!!!

JANE: They struck at just the right moment, while the Witch was out searching for them. They had established a series of clever decoys to lure her away.

JANE: Their assault on the Derse prison was furious, with only myself and a few agents on hand to fend them off.

JANE: Their aim was to free Jake and Roxy, and I can only presume, me as well from my corrupted state.

JANE: But I was not about to go down easy. Oh no.

JANE: The melee was fierce, and alas...

JANE: Not without casualty. :(

CALLIOPE: what happened, jane?

CALLIOPE: was someone slain? other than yoU and jade?

JANE: I'm sorry. The memory is coming back to me.

JANE: It is difficult to talk about, let alone present it with a flourish a good story deserves.

JADE: well forget about the story for a second

JADE: just tell us with regular words... i mean if you want to

JANE: No, it's ok.

JANE: I shall persevere.

JANE: Our tale must go on.

CALLIOPE: (;u;)

JANE: Roxy's young mother made an exceedingly aggressive move to free her estranged daughter.

JANE: She attacked me with a fearsome enchantment of blinding light!

JANE: I deftly sidestepped her sorcery, and in my demented state found myself enraged by her claim on my beloved Bffsy.

JANE: I let my fork sail, straight and true, toward the interloping Lalonde.

JANE: But Roxy...

JANE: In a sudden fit of gumption, she intercepted my fork.

JANE: Directly through her chest.

JANE: I knew it before her heart even stopped.

JANE: Her death was surely heroic.

#homestuck #calliope #jane crocker #jade harley #homestuck act 6 #page 7265 #page 7266 #page 7267 #page 7268 #page 7269 #page 7270 #page 7271 #page 7272 #page 7273 #homestuck act 6 act 6 #homestuck act 6 act 6 intermission 4

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chronic-ghost · 1 year ago

Text

Chapter 3 of Recovery Road

chapter rating: E (18+)

pairing: dieter bravo x f!reader

word count: 7266

chapter summary: dieter and natalie finally figure out why the hell they can’t seem to get along.

chapter warnings/tags: masturbation, discussions of addiction/rehab/drug use, angst, discussions of shitty parents, cursing, discussions of infidelity/cheating

a/n: i've finally put together a taglist request form if anyone wants notifications about this fic or any of my other series! This fic will update every Thursday now!

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Somewhere, out there, in some sliver of the universe, someone might possibly– curiously– be looking out for him.

The five days, counting down to the possible end of his life, extended into a week. Then two.

While most of the shooting had taken place at the soundstage in south LA, the new director – Scott Manley – had found a new location out in a real desert in New Mexico where some of the beginning scenes could be reshot without adding too much to the budget. Maybe he agreed too quickly to getting out of the city, but Dieter put up no argument against the reshoots. Two weeks to do his scenes again with Mark, play the guitar, maybe finally get that drink with Mark he’d been meaning to. He even paid for the AirBnB just outside of Albuquerque for himself. Hell, he rented a car without telling anyone. He got up there a day early to drive the 511 all by himself.

Scott even seemed like a reasonable guy. Not possessing an ounce of Heidi’s creative talent, but all he had to do was stick to her notes and not fuck it up, and he seemed to be capable of that.

For a few brief moments, it seemed like things were back on track.

And then the universe forcibly reminded him exactly what it thought of him.

“Close quarters character work?” Dieter parrots back to Scott, who nods seriously. “What the fuck – sorry – what is that?”

Scott always wears a black ball cap and thick 70s glasses. He looks like he grew up on too much George Lucas and too little social interaction. He knows how to run a set, and aim a camera, but human emotion seems like a foreign concept to him. Dieter vaguely wonders if his good behavior got him here; if it was the old Dieter, then maybe they would have sent someone who could carry a conversation instead.

“Close quarters character work is designed to enhance chemistry and create a sense of comradery between otherwise antagonistic talent,” Scott says with all the inflection of wet cardboard.

Dieter sputters. “‘Otherwise antagonistic talent’? What are you talking about?”

“You two fight a lot. I need that fixed.” Scott’s expression does not change.

Fuck, maybe they did send the right guy for the job.

Dieter swallows.

He couldn’t exactly disagree with the man. Since Heidi left, the barrier between whatever was going on between you and Dieter had completely disintegrated.

But better way to phrase it might be: it burned up in a colossal fire of rage, yelling, and walk offs. What had been subtle and hidden arguments behind stages had ignited into almost knock-down, drag-out fights.

Everything you did irritated the shit out of him. The way you walked. Your voice. Even the way you breathed. Every single goddamn thing you did was wrong and he was going to let you know it.

You still showed up casually high to most scenes, and because he was such a fucking upstanding guy, he never brought it up in public once.

You fought and you yelled and you screamed at each other. Which worked for a while because that’s what the characters were going through. But then the arguments continued past when Scott called cut. They continued over the crafts table, at lunch, into the makeup rooms. You’d stand in the parking lot until midnight to finish an argument that started at three that afternoon. You made him want to claw his own eyes out.

“We’re getting complaints, Dieter.” Scott continues, just as deadpanned as ever.

He cringes. “From the crew?”

“From the janitorial staff.”

“Got it.” He fiddles with his ring. Not the gold one. Another black one. “Okay, what does this close quarters character work look like?”

“Two hour sessions every day until we get things running back up here. Shouldn’t be more than a week or two.”

He runs his tongue against the back of his teeth, trying to ignore the high-pitched screaming in his ears.

“Okay. Where?”

“Anywhere you want. Just have to clock in and out with one of the PA’s here.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“Does she know about this?”

“She does.”

“How did she take it?”

“About as well as you are.”

Fuck, he wants to be more obviously casual.

Dieter twists his jaw and scratches the back of his neck. “And if it doesn’t work out. If we keep fighting?”

For a man with little social skills, the look on his face clearly reads, you know exactly what will happen.

“Okay, then, when do we start?”

The air is warm and he tastes the desert sand in his mouth. He’s got the top down of the blue coup he rented and his hair is longer than it has been in years. Sweat sparks along the back of his neck, but the sensation isn’t unpleasant. There’s something about the sun, the sand that makes him feel alive, that whatever out there is also in him and it’s more ageless than the world itself. He wants to rub himself in sunlight like a cat.

If he imagines with his whole heart, he can picture himself alone in the car.

But he’s not. His rings on his fingers knock against the hard black steering wheel.

Neither one of you has so much as looked at the other since leaving the parking lot.

He thought you’d scoff when he drove up to the temporary studio the project was using in New Mexico with the top down – my haaair, he imagined you screeching – but you just threw your purse over the lip of the car door and dropped down onto the waiting leather seat.

At least, this time, you had the decency to wear pants. Jean leggings so tight he was sure he could see your thong, but whatever. He floored it so hard, the tires squealed, smoke fluttering into the face of the bewildered PA left behind.

He drives north, towards the mesas and the open plains. The road curves up, and around, and around, and around, Albuquerque a small bundle of toy buildings over the edge of the cliff. It’s about two in the afternoon and he’s pretty sure this is already the longest day of his life. He fears he might stall out the clutch at the speed he’s going but he’d sooner drive you both off this cliff than slow down. As if that would somehow shorten the time he’d have to spend near you.

The car swerves into the white stone driveway of his AirBnb and he cuts the engine. He probably should have spent the drive thinking of ways to somehow talk to you like a normal person, but his brain was just a static hum. Not quite rage but the two seconds before it where everything goes white and blank and you exist only in a void.

Calling Chloe wouldn’t help with this one. In fact, he scowled at the mere idea you’d ever hear her beautiful voice. He’d smash his phone before he let that happen.

Dieter slams the car door shut as he shoves the keys into his pocket. He taps the code in the keypad and strides in, not looking back and not holding the door for you. If you fell off the top of the mesa, that was hardly his problem.

This is the part where he’d pop open a stopper of outrageously expensive whiskey and drink until his body released the tension, until the white noise in his head quieted. But he’s not that Dieter, so he goes right for the fridge. He snatches out the carafe of orange juice, pulpy as it was legally allowed to be, and takes three gulps. Sometimes, ice water didn’t burn enough. He needed something acidic.

He breathes. The knot in his chest eases.

Fuck, if you had fallen off the edge, they would assume he pushed you.

He calls out for you, licking the last bit of orange juice off his mustache. He calls again, when you waltz in.

You’re no longer scowling, which is an improvement from when he picked you up, but you look about as comfortable as a tomcat that’s been out on the streets suddenly forced to live indoors. You seem eager not to touch anything, your eyes roaming every square inch of the room.

“You want anything?” He asks gruffly. “Soda? Water? Sparkling water?”

“I’d kill for a shot of vodka and a lime.”

He glares at you. “Fresh out.”

You nod, as if this confirmed something for you. You wander to the edge of the long white marble countertop, eying a brass bar cart with every single bottle empty. You stand up right and look at him.

“I Googled you, you know.”

“Congratulations on being able to work technology a five year old can do in their sleep.”

“I know you went to rehab after you got arrested for possession of illicit substances, in amounts that would make Escobar blush,” you continue as though he hadn’t spoken. You slid into one of the black and gold bar chairs at the island countertop, your hands folding over one another as you lean forward into your shoulders. “I know you’ve been doing movies and television every year since you were twenty-five, whether or not you were as high as a kite. I know Heidi thinks very highly of you, even if she won’t give me a real reason. He’s talented, she says, but I don’t believe her.”

He lowers the carafe. “You don’t think I’m talented?”

“I think you owe your life to Heidi Morgan,” you snap, but then recoil your fangs. “But you’ve been through hell to get your life back.

“And . . .” you add begrudgingly, “I think you’re an insanely talented actor. Sometimes I’m actually intimidated by you.”

He swallows. “Thanks. Uh, you too. You’re good – great – I mean. You’re a natural.”

You smile smugly because you cannot take a compliment. “I know.”

He rolls his eyes.

A moment passes and he knows Heidi would want him to figure this out.

“Look, you saw the arrest photo, right?” He works his jaw and you nod. “So, no, I don’t drink. There’s not a drop of alcohol anywhere in this house. No uppers, no downers, either. Nothing.”

You nod again, glancing up to the top shelves of the cabinets as if there might be something stashed up there.

“And I know how quickly things can get out of hand,” he says slowly. You tense, perched on the chair, your gaze still up turned. The golden desert light from the window behind him makes your throat glow. “I know some good centers nearby. They can get you help. They’ll be discrete–,”

“And I know I don’t have a problem,” you say, your voice raising. “I don’t need your help or anyone else’s for that matter.”

Maybe this can’t be solved. Maybe this would end in a murder-suicide. He does think about the inside of your skull, sometimes, before he drifts off to sleep.

They were having problems with scenes of vulnerability. The rage, the hatred – that all came naturally. But when he exposed himself to her, or she let the truth filter in, everything came off stilted and wrong.

And maybe all that came down to the fact they’d never once had a normal conversation. They weren’t coworkers, or friends. They weren’t even castmates. They were something else.

“Is that why it started?” He asks, gently because he knows you’re not afraid to pull his hair if he pisses you off enough. He runs his thumb against the cold bottom of the carafe, not looking quite at you. “Because you want to do everything on your own and the drugs keep you awake. Keep you going. Keep you from thinking.”

Your eyes narrow at him, black holes inside your skull. He definitely found a nerve. “Oh, fuck off, Dieter.”

You stand up and push away from the counter, stalking off to some other corner of the house. “That’s none of your goddamn business.”

“It doesn’t have to be, but you’ve gotta give me something.”

He follows you to the living room. You’re standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the canyon below, your arms bunched up around yourself. He can’t see your face, but he knows your mouth is contorted, knotted. You want to crawl into yourself, he knows it.

“Either we figure out how to work together, or we’re both out of a fucking job. More than that, my career is over and so is yours, even before it really began. We don’t even have to like each other, but we do have to work together.”

Your fingers wrapped around your bicep clench. “Jesus Christ– and I have to do this sober?”

Dieter snorts, unable to help himself. “We both know you aren’t sober right now so let’s not start with that.”

You whirl around, fists clenched tightly. “I don’t even need the drugs, you know? I can quit whenever I want.”

“Oh yeah? Prove it. Take whatever you’ve got in your purse and flush it down the toilet right now.”

There’s a flicker of hesitation across your face before your scowl tightens. “Fine.”

He watches you stride back to the kitchen, low-heeled black boots clicking on the tile. Glaring at him, you snatch up your purse and he waves down the hall.

“Go on. Bathroom’s right down there.”

He leans against the doorframe as you kick the toilet seat – bamboo lid – up with the toe of your boot. Your hand dives into your purse and pulls out two orange prescription pill bottles. You rattle them once for good measure, smile deranged, and then with a flick of your thumbs, you pop the caps off and pour the contents down the porcelain bowl.

He does not break eye contact with you as the blue and red pills swirl down and away in a rush of water.

“Satisfied?” You bark. You almost bare your teeth at him.

He is waiting for you to drop to your knees and stick your hand down the hole to grasp at the pills before they’re all gone.

“No,” Dieter snaps, crowding you against the sink. “Empty your pockets.”

“Do it for me,” you reply, your smile so flat and broad you look a little bit unhinged.

“Fine.” Without further prompting, he shoves his fingers into your front pockets. The lip of your pants sway and rub against your skin as he digs in. That delirious smile still plastered on your face is going to haunt his dreams. He thinks he feels the line of your panties.

Finding nothing, he then cups the meat of your ass, his fingers diving into the back pockets of your jeans. He takes his time molding and squeezing your ass, the real search of his conquest only vaguely in the back of his mind.

Pills. Find pills.

He pulls his hands off you, your gazes connected as if tied by string.

It could be sunburn, but he swears your cheeks are pink.

“Want to check my bra next? Since you’ve already copped a feel and a half.”

“Give me your purse.” You shove it into his chest, but do not step away. You’re both pressed up inside the small bathroom and he doesn’t even think about breathing in deeply.

He digs around for a bit, before rattling it. There’s a clear metallic clacking – his chest sparks at the way you go slightly pale – and he pokes around until he finds the hidden pocket. Triumphant, he plucks the silver compact out your purse and drops the rest onto the ground. He opens the compact over the toilet, and a dozen pills tumble out into the stagnant water.

You watch the pills break down and disappear as the water rushes down the hole. There is concern, uneasiness, in the rims of your eyes. Your mouth is soft, parted. All at once, he feels sort of guilty – but it had to be done.

“Now will you get off my dick?” You glare at him, the softness gone and that distinct displeasure at his mere existence burning in your eyes. “Now that you’ve gotten rid of any chance that this will be tolerable?”

For the first time around you, he smiles. “Buck up, buttercup. How about I make you dinner, so you stop trying to think of ways to kill me in my sleep.”

He leaves the bathroom, the air less stifling. He hears you snort behind him.

“That wouldn’t happen even with a birthday cake shoved up my ass.”

*~*~*

It’s not dinner under the stars, with fresh pasta and mozzarella and basil, with a smooth glass of red wine to top it off.

It’s not that. But it is something.

Turns out when you’re not at each other’s throats, you’ve got a lot in common.

“No fucking way, I love Coney Island too.”

You smile and lean back in your seat, the heels of your bare feet balancing on the edge of the white patio chair. You both are sitting outside on the second floor patio, the great black maw of the canyon in the distance below. The sun is fading fast and the air is growing colder by the minute. But he doesn’t mind and, it seems, neither do you.

The ivy around the back patio pergola shudders in the faint breeze. Water from the pool below laps at the edges of the white concrete, the sound soothing like a rhyme. The plates of arroz con pollo are empty. He was quite sure if you were alone, you would have licked the plate clean.

You prefer sparkling water while his is still and ice cold, but that’s at least something else in common.

“Yes, Coney Island is the best! We went there one summer as a kid and I’ve dreamed about it every day since.”

He smiles and drinks from his glass, legs spread wide as he rests comfortably in his chair. “So did you see the rest of New York when you were there?”

“God, I love New York,” you groan, grinning widely. “I’d live there if I could, but everything filmed is out in LA. Would love to do theater again, someday.”

“Fuck, I know what you mean. Six months of production, live shows, all of it in one place.” Dieter shakes his head. “I used to do a bunch of off-Broadway stuff up there. I really miss it sometimes.”

You jerk an eyebrow at him, that grin turning warm. “Yeah, I know. I told you I Googled you.”

He twists his mouth, fighting between a smile and a scowl. “I Googled you too.” It feels like a confession when he doesn’t want it to be.

“Oh my God, really?” You clutch the glass to your chest, toes flexing on the edge of the seat. “What does it say? I am wildly curious.”

“What do you mean? You’ve never Googled yourself?”

You shake your head as you take a sip. “Nope. I lived it. And the internet always takes things and twists them. Make the good things bad and the bad things worse. Plus, I don’t need to know how many photos of my ass there are online.”

“If you wore pants, that might not happen as much.”

“Ha, ha, Bravo. Don’t slut-shame me when I’m this close to having a good time.”

Something passes between your gazes and it makes his heart flutter. He drops the connection like it burned him.

“But seriously, what did you find out about me?”

He shrugs and leans forward onto his elbows on his knees. “If it helps, I only looked at Wikipedia.”

“Yeah, and? C’mon, man, I’m in suspense here.”

“You worked in smaller parts in the early 2000s. Mostly movies where they needed a cute kid to save or have a line about the big scary monster. Then, when you were in your early teen years you got that part on Red Money with Sean Connery, as his daughter. That was big. Lots of articles about that. You got a few, higher profile roles – Helen Miriam’s niece, Gerard Butler’s step-daughter – you’d hit the big leagues. There were talks of you getting an Oscar but then . . . it all just stopped. The entry ends with, ‘she lives in California today’.”

He stops, waiting to see if you’ll yell at him or throw your glass of water in his face. Instead, you nod and drink slowly.

“Does it say my father is Henry Milklen?”

His eyes go wide. “No. No, it doesn’t. Your father is the Henry Milklen, the CEO of MaxWide Entertainment?”

“Biologically, yes,” you say, a bit prickly, “but I haven’t seen him in-person since I was eight. Mom kinda went off the rails when I said I wanted to do acting, but unfortunately for her, I was really fucking good. I think she thought I wanted to do it to be close to him.”

“Did you? Did you want to get close to him?”

You shake your head.

“Nah. If anything, I did it in spite of him. I wanted to know if I could do this without his help.” You hold up your glass like an award. “‘You didn’t give me shit growing up and you didn’t give me my first Oscar,’ – because I plan on owning several – ‘so, eat shit, old man.’”

He grins in spite of himself. “Winning an Oscar is definitely one way to tell your old man to fuck off. There might be other, easier ways to do that, though.”

“C’mon, don’t act like you don’t do it all for that moment. That moment of standing on stage, in front of all your peers – in front of everyone who told you you couldn’t do it – and be recognized as someone of value, of real talent.”

You’re close to touching something very close to his heart. He drinks from his ice cold water. “Nah, it’s always been about the money for me.”

You roll your eyes and he chuckles.

“Sure, I do it for that,” he says softly, thumb nail scraping against the glass. “The art, that’s what really matters, but having other people see value in your art . . . it’s a good feeling.”

“Cheers to a night on stage.” You raise your glass to him. Something was fundamentally different about the way you looked at him. “Hope we see each other there.”

He accepts your toast with his own, his heart beating mildly faster, as he thinks of a way to steer this conversation back into something he’s capable of handling.

“So your mom had some issues with you acting – how’d you end up back in LA then?”

You smile wryly, your defenses going back up so quickly, he was surprised he didn’t hear a clicking sound.

“She got over it pretty fast when she realized she never had to work again, once things started going well. I think she liked being a sugar mama to men half her age. Men that never hesitated to hit on me while she was out of the room, even when I was fourteen. The money was coming in, but not as fast as she was spending it. I wanted a way to hide in my own room so I didn’t have to hear her literally fuck my money away . . . So, drugs. Got caught twice drunk driving but Dad managed to get all blown away — without ever actually having to see me. There were no real consequences in my life so it felt like I didn’t have one. The day I turned eighteen, I left and never went back. Pulled together the scraps she left me, got a place on my own, and now I’m trying show biz again.” You roll your bottom lip between your teeth. “But I don’t really blame her, or my dad, you know. They were forced to be parents when neither of them have a nurturing bone in their bodies. Anyways . . . does my drug use have to be their fault? Can’t I just be fucked up on my own?”

Dieter snorts softly. He taps your glass with the rim of his. “Cheers to being fucked up on our own.”

You both drink, letting the ding of the glasses ring out into the night air. His bare feet are starting to get cold but he doesn’t really want to go back inside. Not yet.

“Can I ask you a personal question?” You ask and drop your arms over your knees, glass dangling from your fingertips.

“I think that’s the whole point of this, so sure. Fire away.”

“What’s with you and drugs, man? You gotta know everyone’s on something in this town.” You say, without a hint of malice. “And more specifically, why are you always on my ass? Roxie and that gang do shrooms in the back lots all the time but you never go after them about it. Why me?”

He chews on his lip and sits back in his seat.

“Because I’ve been where you are,” he says to you under his eyelashes. “You’re too fucking talented to throw your career in the garbage because you’re too high to show up to casting on time. I know you think you have it under control, that you can stop when you want, and maybe you do. But there’s too much at risk to go fucking around with shit like that.” He drops his elbows onto his knees. “And to be entirely honest, because I don’t trust you when the parking brakes are off.”

It’s a bigger admission than he means it to be, but it’s there and he can’t take it back. He looks up at your face from his bent-over position.

Your eyebrow twitches as if you want to frown from confusion, but are actively fighting it. You want to ask just what the fuck he means by that – he can tell – but for once in your life, you keep your mouth shut. Instead you throw back the rest of your water and stand up.

His mouth is inches from the seam of your pants.

“Wanna watch a movie?”

“Okay, his stuff is good but it’s not the pinnacle of acting, alright?”

“I never said it was but it’s raw and real and every single performance he gives everything,” he says adamantly as you step over his legs stretched out on the table in front of him with a bowl of popcorn on your hip. You had insisted on the popcorn, even though you both just ate. What the fuck is the film experience without buttery popcorn? You asked him indignantly and he found he couldn’t argue with you.

You huff as you settle in next to him on the black leather couch in the living room. The lights are off and the TV screen glows in the dark.

“And, you know, art is subjective. Who's to say what the ‘pinnacle of acting’ is anyway?” He snatches up a handful of popcorn as you narrow your eyes scornfully at him.

“That is such a cop out. You’re just saying that so I don’t have an argument against watching Vampire’s Kiss.” You say as though the name of the movie burned the inside of your mouth. “It’s a thought terminating cliché, most common in cults.”

“I’d gladly join the cult of Nicolas Cage,” Dieter admits, his mouth half full of popcorn, as he clicks the remote to play the movie.

“Okay, but this is your one freebie.” You say as you dig into the bowl yourself. “Next time I’m gonna make you watch Amélie or some shit.”

“I happen to love Amélie,” he says, eyes still on the screen.

You’ve gone quiet, which is never a good thing, so he glances over at you.

There’s something soft about your face. Your mouth hovers open, lips parted and warm. This is the look you should have been giving him at the table read.

When you begged him to never, ever leave you.

His blush is so hot and fast, it shoots down from his ears into his cheeks before he can stop it.

“What?”

Slowly, you blink.

“Sorry . . . it’s just . . . I really love Amélie and I couldn’t imagine you’ve ever seen it. It just . . . surprised me, I guess.”

“What can I say, princess?” He folds his arms over himself to ensure not a single patch of skin touches yours. “I’m surprising.”

He can hear you swallow as you turn back to the movie.

It's the 80s and it’s trash and Dieter can’t remember the last time he had this much fun. Chloe was never a big fan of movies, didn’t like to sit still that long, and all of his other friends hadn’t been around since the arrest.

He can’t remember the last time he was this relaxed.

So relaxed, in fact, he falls asleep before the third act, his head dropping to the back of the couch.

He’s crawling out the depths of a warm, plush sleep when he hears it.

At first, he’s not quite sure what exactly he’s hearing. It’s familiar, he knows he’s heard it before, but it’s at the same time foreign, too. Like he’s never heard this exactly before.

His eyes flicker open. The room is pleasantly warm and his back doesn’t ache as bad as it usually does when he falls asleep on the couch.

His gaze focusing, he realizes something’s different about the TV. The movie is no longer playing – rather Vampire’s Kiss is no longer playing and instead, it’s one of his old movies. Back when he didn’t need to exercise to have v-lines in his hips and his skin was naturally sun-kissed. It’s the high fantasy one where he kissed so many men and women during shooting, he found out he definitely wasn’t straight by the end of it – and –

You’re moaning.

That’s what that noise is. Moans. Stifled, but high-pitched, breathless, tense moans.

He knows exactly what that sound is, but he had never, ever heard it come from you before. It’s not him, it’s not the movie, so it has to be –

You are arched against the back of the couch, chest rising and falling, with your hand down your pants. The buttons are undone and the zipper is halfway down and the fabric bunches and twists against your knuckles.

You’ve got your lip between your teeth, cheeks flushed, air rushing out of your nose, and your eyes are glued, attached, bound to the screen.

To him.

You lick your lips as his character takes off his cloak, revealing a broad, sculpted back and you whine, almost panicked. Your mouth falls open, eyes falling shut as you work your hand faster in your pants. There’s sweat on your forehead.

You’re masturbating, right here on his couch.

You’re masturbating to him.

He’s on top of you before he knows what he’s doing.

His fingers dig around your wrists, pinning them above your head, your tits inches from his chest. You look up at him in bewilderment and beside his head, your fingers glisten in the light from the screen.

You were using three of them, judging by the shine.

He drops his head, fighting the body-wracking groan that’s pulsating in his throat.

God, he can fucking smell it, you, from here. If your fingers are anything to go by, your panties must be drenched.

He’s shaking– actually shaking – from restraint.

He cannot look at your face, cannot see what’s in your eyes.

The word ballistic is knocking around in his brain.

I’m gonna go ballistic. You’re making me go ballistic. This is the night I go ballistic.

He might actually drool.

You breathe in and he squeezes your wrists harshly. No, no talking from you. But of course, you don’t listen. When in the history of the fucking world did you ever listen to him?

“In my defense,” you begin slowly and he can picture the shameless coy smirk on your face, “I thought you were asleep. I checked. Twice.”

He doesn’t know whether he’s going to kiss you and fuck you, or split you apart with his bare hands.

“FUUUCK!” Dieter roars and physically shoves you deeper into the couch.

He bounds up, and snatches your purse off the floor. He’s rifling through it as he slams open the sliding door to the pool so hard the glass shakes. He finds what he’s looking for and chucks your purse behind him.

His hands are still trembling as he lights the cigarette in his mouth.

He inhales so deeply, he can’t breathe right.

It doesn’t slow the hurricane in his mind, but it does ease the knife wound between his ribs.

His feet are cold against the concrete by the pool.

Water laps behind him and the stars above are indifferent to one man’s plunge into insanity.

“What’s got you so wound up?” You come out from the open door, with a blanket wrapped around your shoulders. It might be cold, if his skin wasn’t burning from the inside out. You’re scowling as this is somehow his fault.

“No. Fuck off. Go back inside. I’m not talking to you.”

“What’s your actual fucking problem, dude?”

His eyes grow wide and he plucks the cigarette out from between his teeth. “Are you fucking serious? Is that a real question?”

“Look, I figured out why we can’t have a scene together that even fringes on vulnerability.”

He huffs darkly. “Since you’re not going to leave me alone, feel free to fucking enlighten me.”

“You see this project as the be-all-end-all to your career, right? And you’re afraid you’ll screw things up with your wife permanently if you have one more fuck up. That’s why you can’t be vulnerable with me, because you’re scared someone will see the truth in it. Well, baby, the truth is a matter of perspective.”

He balks. He can feel the heat of the cigarette burn his skin but he doesn’t care.

“‘Truth is a matter of perspective’? What the fuck are you talking about? Do you hear what comes out of your mouth sometimes? Nobody talks like that! That is not how normal people talk!”

“If it’s not that, then what? Tell me, Dieter! What are you so fucking mad about?”

“You were masturbating– to me! That’s like some kind of violation, right? I should call the fucking police on you.”

“Why does it bother you so much? You’re an actor, you've gotta know people do sick shit online all the time!”

“Yeah, but I don’t know them. I don’t. . .” He swallows. “I don’t know– it doesn’t bother me so much thinking about the nebulous them.”

“Then what the fuck is up your ass about . . .” You trail off. His heart by his ears, he turns to you. You’re watching him, your eyes the size of silver dollars, your earrings glistening like diamonds in your ears. “Oh my god . . .”

He doesn’t like that tone of voice at all, doesn’t like the look in your eyes. You step closer and he steps back. You take another step and he almost falls backwards into the pool fully clothed.

“Oh my god, Dieter . . .”

“What?”

A smile breaks out across your face. Relief. Hope. Shock. Delight. A joy that verges on cruel.

“That’s it, isn’t it?”

He turns his shoulder away from you, trying to wiggle out from under the pin of your eyes.

“The fuck are you talking about? What’s it?”

You stepside him and he catches your wicked smile again. Your eyes are glittering. Victory.

“You’ve masturbated thinking about me, haven’t you?”

“. . . no. What?” He turns away towards the house, but you block him. He could pick you up and just move you, but he doesn’t. “Get out of my face.”

Triumphant, you snatch the last bit of cigarette out of his fingers and inhale. Your hip cocked, maroon shirt trembling in the night air, you look like you own the mesa and all the stars in the sky. You lick your bottom lip, transcendence shining in your eyes.

“You’ve totally jerked yourself off thinking about what it would be like to fuck me,” you whisper, a secret just for the two of you. “Was it big? Was it messy? Did it go everywhere?”

Dieter nearly snarls again and claps his hands over your shoulders. He wants to shake some sense into you or pull you closer.

Despite everything, having his hands on you is a balm. It quiets some part of him.

“For the love of God, stop fucking talking. I am literally begging you to. stop. talking.”

You don’t say anything, but that boastful grin is still on your face. He doesn’t drop his hands and you don’t step back. You are farther apart than in the bathroom, and somehow, out in the open air, it feels even tighter, enclosed. He can see the individual lashes around your eyes, the barely-there wrinkles forming at the corners. You’ve got freckles in places that he’d very much like to taste.

God, how you love a challenge. You bring the cigarette to your mouth. You inhale, then slowly dip your head forward to his mouth. You don’t go any further, but then you exhale, smoke escaping past your lips and dousing him. His eyes flutter shut from the heat, the warmth, the burn of the smoke. He thinks he can smell bubble-gum. The smoke kisses him on the lips, gentle, inviting. A promise of many, many possible futures.

The smoke passes, flits away on the desert wind. And there’s your face, emerging from behind obscurity. The smirk is gone. Instead, you’ve gone soft, wanting, full of desire. Your eyelids are halfway closed against the smoke and the flood of need scorching you from head to toe. He thinks you and hurricanes share the same sort of powerful, thunderous beauty.

It would be easy.

It would be so easy. No one else had to know.

But he would know. He wasn’t quite there.

Not yet.

He takes the cigarette back from between your fingers, careful not to touch you.

“That one’s mine,” he murmurs, hoping his words land where he wants to put his mouth. “Almost gone anyway.”

He flicks the butt across the white concrete as he goes back to your purse. He gets two this time, the lighter in his back pocket, and he sits at the edge of the pool. He rolls his jeans up to his knees before easing his legs into the cool water. The pool light below him throws constellations of blue-silver onto his calves.

You sit next to him, after a moment, the blanket still around your shoulders. You roll up your jeans just like he did and find a matching position next to him. He offers you the other cigarette wordlessly and you take it and light it. Faint smoke trails waft up into the night sky from between your fingers and his, inches from each other.

“If it isn’t entirely obvious, I wanna fuck you too,” you confess to your thighs, voice small and edged. “I can’t tell you how disappointed I was that you didn’t take me up on my offer at the hotel.”

His eyebrows slowly rise. “You remember that?”

You nod. “I was ready to kick out those other two assholes if you had said yes. I wanted you all to myself.”

It was out there. You knew his secret and he knew yours. A monumental weight had been shifted and Dieter no longer feels like there is a burning knot of metal wool in his chest.

The paper crinkled as it burned.

Still, something lingered.

“What do you want to do about it?” You swing your ankles through the water. It catches the light and your skin glows.

“About what?”

“About this. About us.”

“Nothing,” he says. The hand at his lips trembles. “Nothing can happen and it never will.”

“Because you love your wife so much.” You make it sound genuine. But there’s enough bitterness inside of him to know it’s not.

“Because I can’t do that to her. Not again. She’s a better person than I am. A better person than I will ever be. I don’t know why she loves me but I don’t deserve her and I’m not putting her through that again.”

You sit quiet for a moment, your mouth puckered and cocked to the side. He thinks– just for a moment, for a minute, as you stare out into the night-blue abyss– he thinks your eyes are wet.

His heart, his whole chest, aches deeply. Just for a moment.

“Seems kinda fucked up to stay with someone out of guilt,” you say finally. Your voice is clear and maybe he was just imagining things. He swallows and smokes some more, hoping the burn in his mouth will somehow give him the right words to say. His fingers drum on his knee.

“You only get two of those a day. From now on. Only two.”

“Two what?”

He grins because he really does like spending time with you.

“Comments that make me feel like an asshole. You get two a day. That was one.”

You scoff, tossing your hair over your shoulder. “Four. I want four.”

“You get two.”

“Three.”

“God, you are bossy. Three and that’s it. You go over and I’m throwing you off this mesa.”

You smirk, and he lets you have this victory. You need it, he knows.

You wade your feet some more, ankles spinning out in slow, small circles. He watches your thigh muscles move. How soft the backs of your knees are, he can only imagine.

“So, was this all worth it?” He waves his hand around, smoke trailing from between his middle and index finger. “Close quarters character work or whatever. Are we friends?”

His smile is teasing, but it falls off slowly when you don’t smile back. Your face is blank, but your eyes are dark as they stare, heated, at the water, a storm brewing in your thoughts. You pick at your nails, resting on your knee, the cigarette weakly chuffing silver smoke.

“I don’t want to be friends,” you murmur softly.

“Natalie, I —”

“I don’t want to be friends.” You say louder, forcefully. You turn your gaze to him and he sees that girl on set that’s always a word away from pushing him over the limit, towards the edge of his sanity. “And I know you don’t want that either.”

He works his jaw, buckling under the weight of your desire. He looks away. Your ankles are sparkling.

“That’s all I can offer. I’m sorry.”

“An apology. Wow.” You scoff scornfully. “You know, Dieter, I think that’s the most honest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

Your voice is strained, grated, unpolished. Your face is tragically beautiful, even when it’s holding back tears.

“This is the way it has to be. Do you want me in your life or not? Can we be friends?”

He doesn’t know what he’s gonna do if you say no. He hadn’t really considered a life without you in it, in some shape or form. But the dread he felt when he made it an option, it was overwhelming.

He can’t swallow air right. He rubs his chest, suddenly light-headed from the smoke. He wants to lie down somewhere warm.

Slowly, thankfully, with a grace he didn’t think you possessed, you nod. You switch the cigarette to the other hand and lift your palm. A greeting. The waving of a white flag. A rain-soaked battlefield full of ghosts and dreams.

He takes your hand and shakes it once.

“Friends it is.”

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