#SMASH cut to pidge getting head from eddie in the bathroom while still trying to eavesdrop on this entire exchange.

[powderblueblood]

For the old Hollywood AU - dealer’s choice & this quote: “And they'll know - everyone will fucking know that they could never control one goddamn fucking thing."

😘

BABYLON SENTENCE MEME

set in the frenetic grimy screwball universe of BURN LIKE NITRATE, the old hollywood au an: this is 3k words because i am soooo normal about all this. no majorly explicit warnings, just fluff and angst and coarse language and a slight allusion to steve's drinking problem

LOS ANGELES, 1927

Seven frantic knocks on your bedroom door awaken you with a skin-jumping start, and you realize you've fallen asleep with your needlework in hand. Again.

"Oof," you breathe, a hand brushing across your brow as you set the embroidery hoop down on your rickety bedside table. That'll be Pidge or one of the other girls at the door, eye-rolling and telling you it's lights out-- as is the routine racket come ten at night, every night. Bunny Lamelle's boarding house kept strict rules, and they included lights out at ten, no boozing, and no shoes or men past the first floor.

Little do you know, you're about to shatter all three of those sacrosanct commandments.

You barely bother to smooth your nightgown before you crack open your bedroom door-- and regret it immediately.

"Mr Harrington?"

Bleary-eyed and wearing a grin that would knock a nun clean out, Steven Harrington stands in the frame of your bedroom door.

Well, stands is generous. His knees look fit to buckle under the weight of whatever's in that flask he's carrying.

"Evening, Beadie."

"Get inside, quickly! Please!" You yank him in by the crook of his arm, and immediate thrill sparks in you. You'd never think to do that ordinarily! Gosh, you're afraid to even touch the fabric that you drape over the man's frame in a professional setting, and you're his darn costume fitter.

As a precaution, you poke your head out into the hallway, neck swiveling left and right. Clear? Clear. You gently close the door.

"How ever did you get up here?" you question as Steve, as he keeps insisting you call him (but you only ever do in your head-- manners are a girl's best friend!), stumbles a touch before flopping down on your bed.

Your bed. Oh, dear.

"I'm no stranger to the facilities here at Bunny Lamelle's, I'll have you know!" he proclaims, hitching himself up on his elbows. The light in here is terrifically bright, too bright for his liking, and your bed is terrifically soft, but that's just right. "It's no Hollywood Studio Club, but it's not a complete pigsty they keep you girls in--"

The pitch of his voice keeps rising and rising, and you know very well that the walls are thin and the eponymous Bunny can hear everything. Steve is familiar with Bunny Lamelle, having been chased down the stairs of this very boarding house more times than he could count. His early years in Los Angeles were nothing if not, ah, eventful. He knows he ought to be quiet, but he feels mournful tonight. Feeling mournful always leads him down the path to goading, because being sad is a fucking sap's game.

You make a motion, pleading with him to shush-- and sold on the look on your face alone, Steve's voice drops to a stage whisper.

"The back door has a loose lock."

"I know," you whisper back. "I taught Pidge how to jimmy that lock open when we both moved in here."

"That little bearcat lives here too? What a pair you two make."

Steve looks surprised, same as Pidge had looked surprised. A little church girl like you, knowing how to pick a lock. Imagine that. He swears, every time you deign open your mouth, which has become more and more frequent during your little fittings, you threaten to knock the knees from under him. Some turn of phrase, some thread of history he never guessed would be woven into your coat.

You feel a blush flaring at your cheeks, Steve's half-focused eyes resting on you a moment too long.

You force yourself to clear your throat, though breaking the spell of his stare feels like a betrayal.

"What are you doing here, Mr--"

"Bea-die. I insist. I'm in your chambers, for Chrissake."

"Steve." You put a nice fine point on it, finer than your needlework. If he insists.

Ah, yes. The reason for the season. As if punching the air in victory, Steve's right arm thrusts into the air. His movements are like those of a marionette filled with whiskey.

"It appears I have torn a button."

Indeed. A button hangs from a thread, dangling from the cuff of Steve's impeccable satin shirt, part in parcel of his whole satin getup. An outfit designed to make him look the consummate ideal of the American picture star, an image you're positive they couldn't have illustrated without the reference of his good looks and charm.

But now the suit is creased and rumpled and reeking of liquor, and the man inside it, the man you now know to be wondrous and interesting outside of the fascination he inspires onscreen, looks despondent.

This is all getting a little on-the-nose.

"You came over here to... to ask me to mend a button?" You don't mean to let that twinge of disappointment escape your voice.

Steve's mouth gapes and shuts again. He can't tell if it's the whiskey or what, but that feels like flimsy reasoning all of a sudden. "I suppose I did."

You can feel your blood pressure rising. He risked getting you evicted from the only place in Los Angeles you can afford to stay because of some silly button? Well, I never! The gall, the nerve, the-- the vanity! You take a deep, steadying breath and cross the room to the bathroom that you and Pidge share, adjoining both your bedrooms.

"If you'll excuse me."

He starts to speak, but you click the door closed behind you, softly as you can manage. When safely inside, you stuff the shower curtain into your mouth and let out a silent, frustrated scream. So, you'll do the only thing you know to do. You'll consult your most trusted source of a second opinion.

Pidge, how do I go about not murdering the entitled movie star that's currently sitting on my bed?

As if she'd heard you summoning, Pidge comes crashing through her bathroom door, hair mussed and face flushed. Giggling. Until she sees you, that is, and her face drops. She slams the door behind her, and you swear you can hear a muffled, "Ow!"

Louder than is necessary, she says, "Hello, Beadie!"

"Pidge..." Something's off in the body language of the script girl.

At a normal volume, "Hello, Beadie." A beat, as she takes you in. "Is everything alright?"

Oh, forget whatever madness Pidge has indulged herself in now! You're having an honest-to-god emergency!

"No!" you flutter, arms flapping, "No, it is not because Steven Harrington is sitting in my bedroom!"

Pidge's eyes flare for about half a second, which is just the amount of surprise she doles out for any occasion. You could tell her that Victrola records were shrinking to half their size and all she'd do is give you the ol' wide eyes and move onto more logical matters.

"The way you're talking makes me think he oughtn't be."

"Of course he oughtn't be!"

"Why oughtn't he be?"

"Well, other than the obvious, Pidge! He-- he's Steven Harrington!" Most recently seen on the arm of the latest WAMPAS Baby, Steven Harrington. Box office darling, Steven Harrington. Object of many a rabid fan letter, Steven Harrington. "And get this, he risked life and limb sneaking up here so I could sew a button back on for him!"

"That's what they're calling it now? Cad," Pidge says, eyes narrowing. Then they flare again. "Oh, hold the line..."

Your breath stitched up in your throat. "What?"

"Harrington's got a premiere tonight. Seven Slow Dances. It ought to be," Pidge checks her watch and you notice her lipstick is smudged. Hm. "Well, gosh, it'll be over by now. After party at The Roosevelt, natch. Warner Jr will have his guts for garters if he doesn't show his mug."

Your bottom lip trembles a tad, hands flapping with the sheer current of nerves and anger and excitement and dread coursing through you.

"Pidge, Pidge, Pidge, what am I to do?!"

Your roommate and friend grabs you by the shoulders and gives you a good, hefty shake.

"Beadie, snap out of it. You know exactly what you're to do. You're to mend that button and you're to send him on his way." She gives you this stare that's kind of wavering at the corners.

That throat of yours is suddenly drier than Glendale. You swallow, roughly. You dare to ask, "And what if... he tries any funny business?"

Pidge doesn't miss a beat. "Well, I have a revolver in my delicates."

This response makes you abandon the followup question of what if I'd like him to try some funny business. You nod, resolute and terrified, grabbing your sewing box from the commode. Pidge stands stock still stationary in the bathroom, arms crossed and eyes bright with curiosity.

You wonder what you'd just caught her in the middle of.

But the door clicks shut behind you and you find Steve lying flat on his back, his head dangling off the edge of your modest single bed.

"Told half of Hollywood I'm here already, huh?" His tone is languid, but not scornful. Playful, even. Like he could really expect such a thing from you. Wide-eyed, innocent you.

A nervous chuckle bubbles from you, Steve dousing the flame of your irritation as soon as he'd lit it. You edge closer to the bed, suddenly very conscious of the way your nightgown is fitting.

"Certainly not. Just, I knocked into Pidge in the bathroom. It happens, sharing and all. I didn't--"

But before you can lie, "Hello, Pigeon!" Steve calls, and you lurch for him-- too loud! He emits something close to a giggle. "She's quite the hard boiled tomato. How is it you two became so close?"

You shrug. That was a story, but not one you were about to regale Steve Harrington with. He needed to be sewn up, given his marching orders. That's that. "Every lady needs her foil, I suppose."

"Good god, don't sell yourself so short," Steve says, and there's a real edge to his voice. He's truly admonishing you. You can't truly see yourself that way, can you? Playing second fiddle to some studio drone workaholic like poor Pidge, when you and your delicate hands and your brilliant mind had the gall and grace to exist on this earth?

Christ, is he drunk.

Though, you can't help it sometimes. You love Pidge, love her true, but can't help but think she stacks up so much higher compared to you; in experience, in nerve, in dealing with men like him.

"You're the genuine article, Beadie."

Steve says this to you. Steven Harrington says this to you. Even if he's corked and ready to pour, he says this to you.

You have to give yourself an even moment to remember the act of taking a human breath and how it works.

When you recover, your voice is tiny. "Sit up, please."

He does as is told, the same as when you tell him so in the fitting rooms. It's the one time that Steve doesn't mind being told what to do; you go about it gentle, careful not to prick him with your little pins. He trusts that you never will. And, you always asks things like, "Well, how does that feel, Mr Harrington?" and then add that adorable shy addendum, "I mean, to move in?"

You settle next to him on the bed, sewing kit in your lap. Steve presents his sleeve to you and you finger the darling little pearlescent button. Feels too violent for your nature to snap it off of its lingering thread-- and yet you do it. And he can't explain it, but it thrills him.

Steve watches you thread your needle with an intensity that does not go unnoticed by you. Your entire head feels hot.

"You're aware I had a premiere tonight, Beadie."

"Oh, of course I am," and you did, having faithfully followed this man's work for years, "Seven Slow Dances, wasn't it?"

Steve swallows, feeling the paparazzi light bulbs crack behind his eyes. The tense silence in the theater that just kept getting tenser and stickier as the preview of the picture droned on.

"It's set to be my biggest picture to date," he tells you, a slur creeping into his voice, "A thoroughly modern romp, catapulting me to as-yet-unforeseen notoriety. Have you heard this?"

A small smile wafts over your lips, daring to break your focus. "Why, that sounds wonderful."

Steve emits a hearty scoff, and you have to place a hand on his arm to steady it.

"Wonderful? It sounds like bullshit to me. It sounds like the company line," he sniffs, "Do you know why I do all this, Beadie? Why I became an actor? To escape the company line."

You still your needle to an unnecessarily slow speed, taking far longer than you need to with resewing this button. Because he does this, when he's in your hands and you have your points turned towards him. He opens up, to you.

"But it follows you, you know," Steve goes on, voice thickening. That sends a jolt of alarm through you. "Chases you like you've got a target on your back."

You've never heard him sound quite like this before. Cornered.

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean..." you murmur, eyes leaving the safe reserve of the needlepoint and button to watch him. Watch his profile. Watch the tears begin to well in his scorched sugar eyes.

"I traded being one kind of stooge for another, do you know that?" he sniffs, bitterness putting a bite in his voice, "I rejected the role that was set out for me, the heir to HH Industries, to become an artist! If you can fucking believe that. Because I thought it meant something. I thought it meant I'd finally have control over my own life."

It strikes you dumb. It's an honesty so blistering, you can't quite believe that it's real, that he's sharing it with you. "I..."

"I don't," have any control, he means, "I'm being prodded around like a prize show pony in front of these cameras, preening to Photoplay and acting like it all means something when it doesn't."

Steve turns to you now, a single, screen-perfect tear cascading down his screen-perfect face. But his vitriol feels ugly and ill-fitting, like he feels in this stupid satin suit.

"And you know what, Beadie? You know what's the killer? The bullet aiming straight for my heart?"

Suspended in shock, your needle held aloft. "No..."

Steve clears his gummed up throat, nodding mirthlessly. Of course. How would you know, you poor, sweet thing?

"Once this shitheap of an Al Jolson picture goes to print, the entire company line is going to change. Sound in the pictures, what a gimmick!" he cackles, "But the public loves a gimmick, and that's who we sacrifice ourselves for. And it'll push me, who has given everything to create something out of nothing, and every other dumb sap like me, right out the door. And they'll know - everyone will fucking know that they could never control one goddamn fucking thing. Our fate, our crushable fate in the hands of those dipshit Warner brothers. The company line. Sundown on Steven Harrington."

It completely befuddles you that he could think this way. Of course, the colony is splintering into two and a dozen camps, each different variants of sound is the death of cinema and talkies are the way of the future. You had heard Pidge's diatribes on it, but hadn't settled on an opinion yourself. Pictures with sound would surely still need costumes, but you hadn't thought for even a moment about how it might effect someone like Steve. How it might... frighten him.

"Oh, Steve. Steve, you know that's not true." That hand of yours that rests on his arm tightens some. His head dips.

"It is true, Beadie," he presses and sniffles, "They'll lose any interest they had in me; for Chrissake, I can't stand up to those booming voiced theater types. I've churned my butter in pantomime! I've wasted my life on something completely null."

His words coax you to near tears. This feels as if he's welcomed you into his cocoon, shown you all the ways he fears he'll fail to metamorphose.

But then, you catch another whiff of the liquor on his breath.

You remember that, despite it all, you need to be careful-- Steve may be sweet to you now, in this moment, but Steven Harrington at large is still a documented rake. He's a mess. He'll do anything, say anything, to get what he wants.

You know this. You love this. And you know that you oughtn't.

You finish the last stitch on his errant button and push an encouraging smile across your face.

"Well. All the more reason to get peeling out to that after party then, isn't it? Make sure they don't forget who you are."

A friendly pat to his arm serves as half an encouragement for him to get up and off your bed.

This is not the reaction he wants. With his head tilted toward you, with all his sparkling tears, this is not the reaction Steve was aiming for. He can't even say he wanted to kiss you in that moment, but he did not expect you to tow that very same company line. Buck up, buddy boy. Put on a good show.

But you're a good girl. Of course you think that's the way things ought to be. He shouldn't be confusing you like this. Sullying your mind against the Warner behemoth.

Steve stands, re-buttoning his mended sleeve. You watch him, eyes gleaming and worried. He's gone all silent and sullen again, like he does. Then again, he may not even remember this in the morning.

"Away I go, then," he murmurs, barely coherent, "into the fray."

"Do be careful," you tell him, chest constricted. "Sneaking back out, I mean."

"Not my first rodeo," he reminds you, and it feels terrifically callous for some reason.

And then Steve is gone, slipping through your bedroom door. As fast and furtively as he appeared, and all that's left behind him is the silver glimmer of his flask folded into the plush of your bed sheets.