《Events after The Great Game》vernon

31、rps there is a place in my heart tit

　　title: there is a place in my heart
　　fandom: tsn rpf
　　pairing: andrew/jesse
　　rating: pg-13
　　word count: ~13, 600 (HA HA HA MY CREYS)
　　disclaimer: these people are real and belong to themselves, this never happened, I'm not implying that it did, this uses fictionalized versions of public personas, etc etc etc. LIFE RUINERS.
　　a/n: writing andrew/jesse after Robin's carry it in my heart felt actually superfluous because that is SO SPECTACULAR but this sort of happened anyway. the title is from Open Up by Editors (which,yes, I found on the ciimh mixtape.~perfection everywhere~ etc; I am stealing all the ideas but also the feel of this song was how I felt about the end of this fic./lunatic.). ALSO HOW IS THIS NEARLY 14,000 WORDS, WHAT IS MY LIFE.
　　summary: the way to solving all problems in life, if you happen to be andrew garfield, is to get super drunk and kiss your co-star. except that is a lie, because this way only lies madness, taking inappropriate advice and smelling bottles of shampoo. Guest-starring Emma Stone and Justin I-am-the-worst-person-to-talk-to-about-your-problems Timbalone.

　　The problem with realising you have a crush on your co-star, Andrew has sagely and fairly drunkenly figured out, is that if your co-star is Jesse Eisenberg, it becomes almost impossible to do anything about it, on account of not wanting to ruin everything you already have. Jesse has this stupid curly hair and stupid face and stupid little smile, and Andrew wants his face to stop being in his life at once but also to never leave him.

　　"Um," says Jesse, staring down at Andrew, who is sprawled across the sofa of the apartment they're sharing, "I don't think I can do both those things at once. And my face is attached to me, so it would be where I was. Obviously. Because it's my face."

　　Andrew was obviously completely aware of the fact that he had been saying this stuff out loud. He tries to play it cool, which is difficult for numerous reasons which include a) the back of his head is resting against Jesse's fly right now and the zip is digging into his scalp even through his cloud of floppy, uncontrollable hair, b) he is naturally quite an exuberant person, which would be the opposite of cool if the word hot was not already filling that role, and c) he is fairly spectacularly drunk.

　　Luckily- or unluckily, if he were sober enough to care, which he isn't, so it's not - he doesn't have to dwell on these difficulties for long because what he says in reply to Jesse is not a witty and intelligent rejoinder but rather, "I knew I was talking out loud, just so you know. I knew. Did you know Because I did"

　　Jesse gives him a look that is one part concern and one substantially larger part indescribably amused. He also looks slightly uncomfortable but Andrew figures that's because Jesse isn't one for initiating physical contact and Andrew has flagrantly ignored any of his personal contact preferences by getting incredibly drunk and lying all over him on a small sofa. Jesse being slightly uncomfortable about initiating physical contact sometimes is another reason why it sucks to have a crush on him. Andrew is pretty sure he didn't say that last bit out loud, but he thinks he'd better check.

　　"Did I say that out loud" he asks, rolling his eyes up in their sockets so he can see Jesse's face without actually moving in any real way. It hurts, but he does it anyway.

　　"Did you say what out loud" Jesse asks.

　　"I know I didn't say 'what'," Andrew says. "Did I say something else"

　　"Like what"

　　"Not 'what!" Something else!"

　　Jesse frowns. "How drunk are you," he asks. "Just as a matter of interest." He shifts awkwardly on the sofa; Andrew's head sort of bobbles up and down as Jesse moves.

　　"I'm not drunk!" Andrew cries, and then laughs. "Just kidding," he says, in what is supposed to be a stage-whisper but comes out like he's trying to communicate with elephants, "I'm reeeeeeeally drunk."

　　"That's great," says Jesse, looking briefly heavenwards. "You know we have filming tomorrow, right An early start I'm not coming to wake you up."

　　"Lies!" says Andrew, waggling a hand in the air. From his position on his back, it flails dangerously close to Jesse's eye but instead veers into the safer but snottier territory of his left nostril. Jesse snorts, and coughs, and bats his hand away. Andrew says, "Sorry," because he is, because if Jesse is awkward about touching people anyway then Andrew shoving a finger up one of his orifices probably isn't helping. Though it might, depending on the orifice. Oh god, Andrew is so drunk. He's so drunk he's almost sober again, but not in any way that it might help. "You will get me up in the morning though, right" He makes his eyes as wide as they can go.

　　Jesse makes a frustrated yet endeared little noise in the back of his throat and slaps his hand over Andrew's eyes. "Stop using your bush baby eyes on me," he says. "That's cheating. You have eyes the size of my face, how am I supposed to say no when you have eyes the size of my face"

　　"My eyes are the size of my eyes," Andrew says, which is not untrue. "And why aren't you drunk"

　　Jesse fidgets. "Because I haven't been drinking"

　　That makes sense. Andrew tells him so. "That makes sense," he says. And then, when it occurs to him: "But why"

　　"You, er," says Jesse, "I mean, I." He stops.

　　Andrew reaches up to wag a roguish finger millimetres away from Jesse's nose in disapproval. "That's not an answer."

　　"No, right," Jesse says. "I just -you were drinking when I got back, so that's whyyou're - "

　　"Drunk!" says Andrew, happily. "I'm really drunk. It's great. You should try it."

　　"Maybe I'll try it someday when we don't have to be awake at such a horrible time in the morning," Jesse says.

　　Andrew sighs, heavily. "Spoilsport."

　　And, okay, so Andrew isn't lying and he really is really drunk, but he doesn't think he's making up the fact that Jesse actually looks a little hurt at that. He is, however, too drunk to stop Jesse from levering them both up from the sofa and somehow, awkwardly, maneuvering Andrew's arm over his shoulders. He loops an arm around Andrew's waist, his grip surprisingly firm. Andrew staggers, and leans more heavily on Jesse's side. Jesse tenses up.

　　"Don't be like that," Andrew tells him, as sincerely as he can. "You don't have to be."

　　"Yes, I do," Jesse says, as he starts to help Andrew topple towards his room, and Andrew thinks that even if he didn't currently have a higher alcohol to blood ratio going on in all his vital organs, he still wouldn't be able to understand Jesse's closed, sad tone of voice.

　　They make their way into Andrew's room, and Jesse sort of drops him on the side of his bed with an incredible lack of grace. Andrew bounces off the pillows.

　　"Well, er," says Jesse, looking over his shoulder at the door. Andrew looks up at him, obviously wanting to leave, and wants his stupid face and his stupid fidgety hands and his stupid face some more, and so he reaches up and grabs for Jesse's shirt, pulling him down onto the bed next to him with the peculiar concentrated strength and incredible coordination of the very drunk and the very determined. Jesse makes a little noise when he lands on the bed, like he's winded. He won't look at Andrew.

　　Andrew is looking at the line of Jesse's neck, the way his shirt has come misshapen with Andrew tugging at it, the neck of it drooping defiantly over Jesse's shoulder. Andrew looks at the pull of Jesse's skin over his collarbones, the way the light from the corridor falls yellow and orange over him. Andrew leans up and over, and kisses the side of Jesse's throat, tasting the skin over his pulse point. It's completely sloppy and lacks any finesse and it is actually more a lick than anything else, but it does get across the point that Andrew wants to kiss him.

　　Jesse makes another of those little unreadable noises, soft in the dark of the bedroom, and turns to look down at Andrew, sprawled heavily across his side.

　　"You look very orange," Andrew tells him, looking at the light falling on Jesse's chest.

　　"Do I" Jesse says, very softly.

　　"Yes," Andrew says, and he leans up just that little bit more and kisses Jesse on the mouth, just as softly as Jesse had been talking. It's not the best kiss he's ever given, but frankly he's surprised he's still awake at this point, so he'll take what he can get.

　　Jesse pushes him away gently. "Go to sleep," he says, when Andrew looks at him, all quizzical drunk confusion. "We have to be up really early."

　　"Will you wake me up" Andrew asks again, already slumping back down into his pillows.

　　Jesse turns in the doorway, silhouetted by the corridor light. "Sure," he says, quietly, and then Andrew must pass out or something, because that's the last bit of that night he remembers.

　　//

　　Not that he remembers any of that night when he first groggily wakes up scarcely five hours after he fell into bed. He lies on his back in the dark for a minute, trying to figure out whether he's feeling more drunk or sick until his stomach gives a lurch and helpfully answers that question.

　　When Jesse pads down the corridor an hour or so later, he sticks his head around the open bathroom door to see Andrew braced over the toilet with his forearms on the seat. Even with his head mostly in a toilet bowl - Andrew loves his life and all of his past decisions - Andrew can see him flinch slightly.

　　"It's all right," he says, in a voice that sounds mostly like death but also with maybe a touch of hacking consumption or just a really deserved hangover. "I'm not actually throwing up anymore. I just don't want to move, or I might."

　　"I am so glad I live with you," Jesse says.

　　"Humour makes me nauseous," Andrew tells him. "Please stop it."

　　Jesse laughs, that little soft half-laugh that makes Andrew's stomach do ridiculous things even when he's not actively having to try to hold down his stomach lining.

　　"Ugh," says Andrew, hearing his own self-wrecked voice echo out of the porcelain at him. "You have to get out. I don't want you to see me this way. It will ruin our friendship forever,you will have no respect for me as a person anymore."

　　"Don't be silly," says Jesse, and his voice is wavering, but then Andrew could be imagining that because, again: his head is in the toilet. He's been more observant. Jesse continues, lightly, "I don't respect you now."

　　"You are a horrible friend," Andrew tells the inside of the toilet.

　　"I'm sure the toilet is very sad to hear that."

　　"I hate you," Andrew moans.

　　"I'll make coffee," Jesse says, pattering back into the kitchen now that he's apparently made sure Andrew is up and raring to get to the set on time, and Andrew makes a superhuman effort and reaches out and kicks the door shut.

　　He wouldn't actually mind being this hungover if he could at least remember what he did last night. He closes his eyes and leans his head against the rim of the toilet, hoping, what, somehow he can freeze his brain into yielding this information Whatever. He can smell coffee percolating, and he swallows hard and tries to pull himself together.

　　When he gets to his feet, his stomach gives a lurch but he ignores it like a boss.

　　He looks back at the poor, abused toilet before he leaves the room. "As we're now long past a first name basis," he says, "I hope you have a good day."

　　When he turns round, Jesse is standing in the hall just behind him. He's giving him a look like he's just proposed they get a puppy and call it Facebook. Bewildered is what a normal person would call the look on Jesse's face; Andrew goes for puppies and Facebook. He is so smooth.

　　Andrew says, "What"

　　Jesse says, "If you're sick in my car, I will cry. I'm just letting you know. You know, so it doesn't alarm you when it happens."

　　"Yep, great," says Andrew. "I can deal with that."

　　//

　　Andrew is not sick in the car.

　　//

　　Andrew is sick just outside the car door, somewhere between their apartment and the set. Jesse watches from the driver's seat, wringing his fingers like he can't decide whether to help or join him.

　　Andrew wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and spits a few times onto the ground outside before he swings his legs back into the car. He didn't have time to get up and out properly, just got the door open and twisted away from the interior and the paintwork once Jesse had pulled over.

　　"Sorry," he says, glancing over at Jesse sitting tense and hunched beside him.

　　"There's hand gel in the glove, if you want it," Jesse says. He looks actually worried, although it's probably for the sanctity of his car. Why Andrew has to fall for a guy that carries hand gel in his glove compartment and can't deal with vomiting hangovers without drumming out a nervous symphony on the steering wheel, he'll never know.

　　//

　　Andrew spends every spare moment he's got that day trying to remember what happened the night before. Justin must recognise the look on his face when he ducks in to the make-up trailer, because he claps a hand down on Andrew's shoulder and grins.

　　"Rough night"

　　"I don't know," Andrew says, shrugging him off. He's slammed down a couple of paracetamol and wisely not ingested anything resembling food for a while, and he's feeling less like something from Beowolf, which is a definite step up from this morning.

　　Lucy, the make-up artist, swats at Justin with a powder puff, which does nothing for Andrew's admittedly minimal sense of masculinity.

　　"It probably wasn't that bad," Justin says. "I mean, what, were you out late Wake up with some girl's number written on your hand"

　　Andrew wishes they were having this conversation somewhere where he could actually move without incurring the wrath of a tiny blonde woman wielding a make-up brush.

　　"No," he says, "I was just at home. With Jesse."

　　Justin pouts. "And you didn't invite me"

　　"It wasn't like that," Andrew says, "you know, it wasn't even a thing. We just - I just - drinking happened."

　　Suddenly, Justin raises his eyebrows. "I see," he says, in a tone that implies how much he really does see, which Andrew thinks is a bit rich for someone who was in the Mickey Mouse Club.

　　"You can't see," Andrew says, "you have no vision at all. That is not -you are blind."

　　"Some blind people can see the light," Justin calls over his shoulder as Lucy finally manages to shoo him out. "I can see your drunken light!"

　　Andrew wishes he could put his head in his hands.

　　Lucy catches his eye in the mirror like she can read his mind. "Don't even think about it."

　　Andrew has no memory of last night and no autonomy in his life.

　　//

　　"Are you staring at me" Jesse asks, between takes when a lens is being readjusted or something and they're waiting around on their marks.

　　Andrew jumps. "No," he says. It's only partially a lie. He'd been staring at Jesse in the hopes it would jar his hangover-addled brain into giving up all the horrible details Andrew is missing from the last few hours of his life, and then he'd been distracted by the light catching the edge of one of Jesse's curls, and how is this his life, Andrew hates himself.

　　"Oh, okay," Jesse says. "Because it looked like you were staring at me."

　　"I was staring into the past," Andrew tells him. "You were just standing in front of my mental time portal."

　　"I thought it was drafty over here." Jesse grins, and bites his lip a little, which makes Andrew first want to kiss him and then slap himself around the face a bit.

　　"What happened last night" he blurts, finally, because there's trying to dredge up memories that aren't coming back and managing to save face and then there's actually knowing shit, and he's going to go with red-faced knowledge over smooth ignorance. Life choices: he really should reevaluate them.

　　Jesse frowns. "You don't remember"

　　"I remember drinking a lot," Andrew say, shrugging like it's no big deal, "or, well, I don't really remember that so much as I assume I did because of my new intimate acquaintance with our toilet, Paul."

　　"Paul"

　　"I had to do something to distract myself from the heaving nausea," Andrew says. "Naming the toilet seemed like a good idea at the time."

　　Jesse considers. "You realise we have to move now, right"

　　"Yep."

　　"Great."

　　"Sorry about that."

　　They smile at each for a minute. Andrew has to remind himself that he is an □□ and is not allowed to feel like his heart has become a lamb and is gamboling around in his chest and possibly letting singing baby birds settle on his unsteady fleecy shoulders when someone smiles at him, even if that someone is Jesse. He also wonders if the dvd special features crew are around today, and whether there'll have to be a special feature on the amount of time they spend grinning at each other, because that would be a bit embarrassing.

　　Luckily for Andrew in many, many ways, Jesse eventually says, "You were really drunk last night,you know."

　　"Yes," says Andrew, leaning on the word hard in relief. "Yes, I was."

　　"And you don't remember anything"

　　Andrew is starting to get the suspicion that he's not being unduly paranoid and something really did happen last night that he really should remember. "Nooo"

　　"All right, places," calls David, from behind the cameras, and Andrew has never, ever hated having to do his job quite as much as in this second.

　　//

　　And then, inevitably, it comes back to him.

　　He's in his room looking for a cardigan that he kicked under the bed the other day- okay, so he's not the tidiest person in the world - and when he straightens up it's like a flashback hits him, or a sense memory or something, but he takes one look at his bed and is suddenly reminded of the exact taste of dragging his tongue over Jesse's pulse point, the sloppy, open-mouthed kiss, the even sloppier way he caught Jesse's mouth, Jesse's breath, warm and surprised against his lips.

　　"Oh, god." This seems like something of an understatement.

　　Andrew goes out into the corridor and peers out at Jesse, curled on their sofa, reading something obscure that Andrew can't make out.

　　"Oh, god." Everything is horrible. The horror smacks him round the face and beats him down to the mat and then keeps going. It's been ten rounds and Andrew is out but the horror keeps coming. Everything is horrible and there is no such thing as hyperbole. He kissed Jesse. He kissed him. Andrew feels like apologising forever but also never mentioning it out of the small, pathetic hope that maybe Jesse is suffering from temporary, drunken Andrew advance shaped amnesia and has no memory of it at all.

　　Then he thinks back to their conversation on set, the tense way Jesse had held himself in the car, and obviously Jesse knows. Andrew is the world's worst person and is never allowed to drink again.

　　"Oh my god." It won't stop being horrible.

　　Maybe Jesse hears him this time, because he looks up and sees Andrew, gaping and horror-stricken, in the lounge doorway.

　　"Are you all right" Jesse asks him, earmarking his place in his book. "You look kind of - " he looks Andrew up and down. "- wobbly."

　　"I'm not wobbly," Andrew says. "I'm, um." He has to think, frantically, for the opposite of wobbly. Absolutely nothing presents itself. God, he's glad he's suave under pressure. "I'm, um, hard!" Abysmal. This is abysmal. "No! Wait! Not hard! Straight" Well, that's even worse.

　　Jesse looks like he is buying precisely none of this. He's clever like that. Also, Andrew is babbling like a lunatic who shouldn't be allowed near people.

　　Andrew swallows hard and valiantly tries to get a grip. He is a horrible drunken kiss bestower. What should his next move be

　　He flits through several possibilities including a) acting like everything's normal and b) dialing down his current level of abnormal, but eventually, stupidly, plumps for option c) avoidance.

　　"What I mean," he says, swallowing, "obviously, is that I'm tired."

　　Jesse is giving him this look like,yeah fucking right, which is slightly incongruous on his sweet little confused face. Andrew cannot deal with any of this anymore.

　　"Ha ha," he says, "yes, I am so very tired. I should go to bed. To sleep! For what else is there to do in a bed but sleep Nothing! Platonic nothings in the arms of Morpheus."

　　Andrew retreats to his room before he lets himself say anything else. He leans his head against the back of the closed door and considers cutting out his tongue. It can only be for the best in the long run. If there were a church of Talking Like A Normal Person, Andrew would have been excommunicated long, long ago.

　　//

　　In the car on the way to set the next day, Andrew sings along to the radio as loudly as he can. This serves the double purpose of preventing him from saying anything stupid or embarrassing like last night, and also making Jesse laugh. Admittedly making Jesse laugh has become, like, one of Andrew's life goals out of nowhere, but it's particularly useful when he's driving because then he's less likely to start mowing down perfectly innocent old people shakily crossing the road and not fitting in exactly with Jesse's perfect journey ideals.

　　"You don't have to grip the door handle while we're driving,you know," Jesse tells him, glancing over.

　　Andrew swallows down the yell of look at the road!!! that bubbles up in his throat on a wave of crazy parental terror, and instead breaks off from his charming rendition of a Taylor Swift song to say, "If you really think I'm getting in your car without clinging onto something that can save me in the event of a twenty car pile-up,your curls have obviously started growing inward and tickling your brain."

　　Jesse laughs at that as well, and Andrew gets this warm feeling in his chest that is stupid and he would prefer heartburn. Why has he become a prepubescent girl

　　"I mean," Andrew continues, "it's Taylor Swift, man. She wears t-shirts on the bleachers! Not for her the harlotting ways of high heels and cheerleading. Put that in your musical theatre pipe and smoke it."

　　"I don't think musical theatre has a pipe," Jesse says, veering across into another lane with a carelessness that makes Andrew want to cry. "I think musical theatre has enough respect for its lungs not to suck down harmful Taylor Swift tobacco."

　　Every single part of Andrew's brain has shut down, apart from the part that keeps replaying Jesse saying "suck down" over and over again, in whatever the audio equivalent of slow motion is. Suuuuuuuuccckkk doooooooowwnnn. Andrew can't look over at him because he will just stare at his mouth in the world's least subtle way, and then Jesse will notice, and then they'll have a conversation that will end with Andrew coming up with yet more ridiculous lies to explain his ridiculous pervy behaviour, and then he will be forced to jump out of the car into the moving traffic. Instead, he doesn't say anything, and the car feels suddenly uncomfortable, and Taylor Swift is too loud, and Jesse shifts awkwardly in the driver's seat, and Andrew hates himself.

　　//

　　Justin is in the make-up trailer again that day. Andrew doesn't know why, it's not like he's got any scenes this week, but whatever. Maybe it's lonely being a super wealthy music prince Andrew's not in any position to judge anyone for anything right now.

　　"So, hypothetically," he says, dreading the whole conversation but still having to ask, "if you were blind but you could see the light, um. Um."

　　Justin swivels to face him in the chair he has commandeered and been pivoting around on for the last ten minutes. "I can see the light," he says. "The drunken, homosexual light."

　　Andrew groans. "Okay," he says. "Great." He has to actually psyche himself up to ask. Asking Justin Timberlake for advice on stupid drunken neck-licking shenanigans with your co-star seems like asking for trouble, but at this point, Andrew feels a little low on options. "So, what do I do now"

　　Justin raises his eyebrows and shrugs all in one movement. "See only I, give not advice."

　　"Fuck off,you're not Yoda."

　　"Hurt am I. Sexy back I brought."

　　"Face shut your."

　　Justin laughs. "Hey,you asked."

　　"And doesn't that give you some idea of how desperate and needy I am"

　　"Yeah, if you do talk to him about this, lead with that. Desperate and needy are just the right characteristics to show someone if you're trying to get in their pants."

　　"I'm not!"

　　"Whatever, let's not forget who can see the light here."

　　"We can both see!" Andrew is painfully aware how high his voice is getting.

　　Lucy the long-suffering make-up artist has given up and is just waiting near Andrew, armed with a metric ton of concealer. Andrew blinks up at her.

　　"I didn't sleep well," he explains. "Er, at all. This week."

　　Lucy sighs.

　　Justin won't stop laughing. Andrew hates everything.

　　//

　　They're sitting on the sofa the next night, eating takeaway of dubious quality out of the containers because neither of them could be bothered to cook or do the washing up, and while it's not like they're sitting in silence, it's not comfortable either. It's like yesterday morning, awkward and quiet in the car with Taylor Swift still insisting they belonged with her. Andrew is pretty sure he belongs with Jesse, actually. That is what has happened to his life now: he is having thoughts like that. He has become a walking Valentine's Day card.

　　And despite that, despite the little self-deprecating moments and Justin spinning round in his chair and laughing, and Jesse obviously trying to act like nothing happened that night, Andrew is honestly terrified of fucking this up. Right now, for example, Jesse is just out of the shower so his hair is still damp, there's a towel round his shoulders like he's forgotten about it and there's a stain on his t-shirt from the week before when Andrew cooked pasta and joggled Jesse's elbow on purpose when he lifted up a forkful just to make him swear and say his name in only half faked exasperation, and then Andrew had run a wet cloth over the sauce stain while Jesse squirmed and slapped at his hand and told him he was making it worse, and Andrew had ignored him and the mark hadn't come out even after two washes.

　　Andrew is sitting on one half of the sofa like a normal person instead of sprawling his limbs out everywhere like he usually would, just in case, and Jesse shifts every now and then like he does to move Andrew's legs when they're getting too heavy thrown over his own, to move Andrew's arm from around his shoulders if he's reaching for the remote, but Andrew is all curled up around a cushion on the other side of the couch and torturing himself with how much he wants to uncurl and lean against Jesse's shoulder, maybe steal noodles as Jesse lifts them to his mouth to make him yelp and complain.

　　Jesse can use chopsticks while Andrew calls them "dropsticks" and makes Jesse show him again how to do it, letting him put his hand over Andrew's and huff like he's being difficult, bite his lip in concentration and move Andrew's fingers until he's finally happy that Andrew's not actually going to starve because he can't use eating utensils properly. Jesse reads books with ridiculous titles like "Hypothetical Geography for a Parallel World Where Cats Rule the Earth and Humans Are Like Tiny, Tiny Ants", only actually not like that, because Jesse reads serious books and likes old maps and once, when Andrew asked and kept asking, he'd unfurled a yellowing map of Europe and pointed out the differences, fingers tracing old delineations while he blushed. Jesse listens to musical theatre and sings along in the shower like Andrew will magically not be able to hear him with the water running, and Andrew sings back to him in the kitchen when one of them decides to cook before they both get scurvy, and Jesse tries to teach him how to harmonize properly, and Andrew tells him he's too British to do anything so ridiculous, and Jesse sighs at him and tells him to stop reorganising the fridge because the milk does not live next to the cheese.

　　But tonight they're on opposite ends of the sofa and Jesse hasn't told him he's holding the chopsticks like one of the Muppets and Andrew hasn't tried to knock over Jesse's takeaway container by wiggling his socked toes on Jesse's lap, and Jesse shifts like he's missing it as much as Andrew is, like they're both missing a limb. It actually feels that melodramatic. Andrew wants to kiss Jesse, but he wants his limb back more.

　　This is when Andrew decides that something has to be done.

　　//

　　Stealing someone's phone number from your friend's phone is a pretty low move, Andrew thinks, especially when you don't actually know the person you're about to call, but whatever, desperate times et cetera. And these are pretty desperate times by any definition, and Andrew's definition is "help, I got really drunk and kissed Jesse and he doesn't know I remember but he obviously remembers and I don't know what to do because I'd like to do it again but now everything's weird and I've forgotten how to use words or punctuation".

　　He locks himself in the bathroom and dials.

　　Emma picks up after a couple of rings. "Hello"

　　"I got really drunk and kissed Jesse and I don't know what to do," Andrew blurts. "Also, hello. My name is -"

　　"Andrew, right" says Emma.

　　"Yes," Andrew says, slightly confused.

　　Emma just laughs down the phone at him, which is maybe a little bit rude for someone he's never met, but then again Andrew didn't exactly open the conversation the wayyou're supposed to greet people for the first time.

　　"So,you kissed Jesse" she says, still sounding unnecessarily amused.

　　"Yes," Andrew confirms. It makes him feel a little bit more stupid every time he thinks about it.

　　"And you were really drunk"

　　"Really drunk," he says. "I was so drunk, I threw up for about five hours the next day. Which was attractive. I think I have to buy the toilet flowers or something."

　　Emma laughs again. "It sounds like you and the toilet are going to be very happy together."

　　"I don't want to be very happy with the toilet! I want to be very happy with Jesse!"

　　There is a slight pause, in which Andrew mentally contemplates the relative difficulties of inventing time travel in the next few seconds and then going back in time to stop himself saying that against the idea of continuing with this conversation without making a bigger ass of himself than he already has.

　　A couple more seconds pass and he doesn't seem to be hurtling into the past to stop and/or gag himself, so he tries to pull himself together and get on with things.

　　Emma makes this plan about a billion more times more difficult when she says, in a funny sort of voice, "You want to be very happy with Jesse"

　　"What I obviously meant by that," Andrew says, trying to verbally backtrack now that backtracking through time has let him down, "is that I am very happy to be friends with Jesse. Happy, friendly friends. I'm happy. And friends with Jesse. And I hope he's happy to be friends with me. So that is what I meant. Happy. Friends."

　　"Are you drunk now" Emma asks, which, okay, is maybe justifiable.

　　"No," Andrew mutters. "I wish I were though. It might make this slightly less excruciating."

　　"Hey," Emma reminds him, though she sounds like she's smiling, "you called me, remember"

　　"Vividly." Andrew leans his head against the bathroom tile and sighs. "I don't know what to do, okay."

　　"All right," says Emma, softening. "Let's work through this. You got really drunk and you kissed him"

　　"Yes," Andrew says, trying to ignore the way his stomach goes all churny when he remembers it, "but, um, first I sort of licked him."

　　"You licked him"

　　"It was really more of a really drunk kiss. That was sort of a lick. On his throat. Nothing lower! I was drunk! Let's keep that in mind, I feel it's important."

　　"Okay," Emma says, "right, so - God,you two are so - never mind. Okay, so tell me this: why were you so drunk"

　　"I don't remember," Andrew lies.

　　"Bullshit," says Emma, immediately.

　　"Are you always this rude to people you've never met"

　　"Please, the amount I've heard about you it's like I've lived with you since I was six."

　　"What"

　　"It's not important right now, we're talking about you."

　　"Must we" Andrew asks, miserably.

　　"Yes,you great gangly deer, but it's not going to work if you don't man the fuck up and actually talk about it."

　　"I'm not actually a deer," says Andrew. "I only have two legs, for one thing."

　　"Whatever,your eyes are ridiculous. Don't think I've not googled you."

　　"Well, that's not creepy at all."

　　Emma says, "If you think this is the first I'm hearing about you,you are more ridiculous than your hair implies."

　　Andrew runs his fingers through his hair without really thinking about it, like he's seen girls touch their ears when he says he likes their earrings, or when Jesse looks down at his t-shirt in the morning when he's still asleep enough to fall for Andrew pretending there's something there and then flicking him on the nose when he checks. "Are you this mean to everyone" he asks.

　　"I'm going easy on you," she tells him.

　　"Great, thanks."

　　"Don't think just because you've got that accent that you can get away with being that sarcastic when I'm trying to help you."

　　"You're trying to help me Why"

　　"Um, because you called me and begged for my help like a little lovesick bitch" Emma sounds like she's having way too much fun with Andrew's misery and general despair.

　　"I'm not a - "

　　"You stole my number and called me to tell me that you kissed Jesse and you don't know what to do about it."

　　Andrew considers this for a minute. She is, inescapably, right. "I hate everything," he moans.

　　"Man up, Garfield," she repeats. "So tell me, why were you so drunk"

　　Andrew thinks back past the last few days of being incredibly, ridiculously, excruciatingly awkward, past the unending hangover, past the hazy memories of actually being drunk and the foggy, dream-like memory of his tongue hot against the pulse in Jesse's neck to being on set and looking over at Jesse and seeing him smile and just thinking, so clearly, oh, shit.

　　"His face," Andrew says, "it has ruined my life."

　　Emma considers this like it was a reasonable thing to say. Andrew is maybe a little bit in love with her for that.

　　"Oh my god," Emma says, slowly. "Garfield, do you like Jesse"

　　"Of course I like him," Andrew says. "We're friends. He's great."

　　"No, no," she says. "You liiiiike him."

　　The fourteen year old girl in Andrew's brain is doing, like, handstands and cartwheels and wants to immediately ask Emma if she thinks Jesse likes him back. The other part of his brain wants to drown himself.

　　"Yes," he says, miserably, "I liiiiiiiike him."

　　Andrew's life is so ridiculous that if it were on tv, he would get complaints about there only being so far viewers can suspend their disbelief and the farcical events of recent episodes have pushed them past their tolerance levels. He empathizes.

　　"'We're friends'," Emma mimics, not unkindly. "'He's great'."

　　"Shut up," Andrew says, "I hate everything."

　　"Poor baby," Emma says. "And by that, I mean,you are ridiculous. Have you even talked to him about it"

　　"Well," Andrew says, "I did think about sliding him a note between takes that said "do you like me tick yes or no" but I thought that might be a bit forward."

　　"Look at you getting your snark on."

　　"I'm half-British, it's genetic."

　　"Yeah, but the other half is American and stupid."

　　"You're American."

　　"I didn't say the other half was stupid because it was American."

　　"You implied it."

　　"You're in love with Jesse and you're not doing anything about it apart from getting drunk and licking him, so shall we maybe assume that I'm the one who knows what they're talking about and listen to what I say instead of your hopeless, denial-filled, flailing thoughts"

　　Andrew pauses to think that over. He's not sure which part to start with, so he goes with, "I'm not flailing."

　　"I can't even see you and I know you are."

　　"I'm sitting very still."

　　"One, I doubt that, and two, I said your thoughts were flailing, not that you were."

　　"My thoughts aren't flailing."

　　"But you are in love with Jesse"

　　"Yes," says Andrew, without thinking, and then, slightly more high-pitched than is really dignified, "You tricked me!"

　　Dignity is long gone. Dignity has taken a flying leap out of the window. Dignity is a rat abandoning the ship of failure that is Andrew. Dignity ran for the hills when Andrew licked Jesse's neck.

　　Emma laughs for longer than Andrew thinks is really necessary or fair.

　　"Hey," she says, "don't blame me. You're the one who's letting the British side down by having all these feelings all over the place."

　　Andrew makes an unintelligible noise of mostly disgruntled-sounding consonants at her.

　　"The first step is admitting you have a problem," she says, unreasonably cheerfully. "You'll be fine."

　　"What - no - don't go!" Andrew bleats down the phone. "What do I do now"

　　"You'll figure it out," she says. "I would recommend telling Jesse some time soon, before his face overwhelms you again and you start licking other parts of him while you're wasted."

　　Andrew's brain is having something that feels like a seizure and keeps giving him these entirely unhelpful images of Jesse on his back on Andrew's bed, gripping hold of the sheets while Andrew licks his way down his chest. It's like his cerebral cortex has resigned and hired a softcore □□ channel as its replacement. A softcore □□ channel dedicated entirely to skinny, pasty, nervous, funny, intelligent, musical theatre-listening, guitar-playing, cat-owning idiots called Jesse Eisenberg. Andrew wants to change his brain's channel but his heart has broken the remote.

　　"But I can't tell him!" Andrew yelps. Dignity is now boarding a transatlantic flight with a one-way ticket and no fond memories of him at all. "What if - what if he hates me or thinks I'm going to molest him in his sleep or it ruins the film and no-one ever hires me again and David Fincher guts me behind my trailer"

　　"If it helps," Emma says, "you already molested him and he was awake, and he hasn't run screaming for the hills yet. And David Fincher would pick a better place to murder you than somewhere so public."

　　"When I die,you'd better look for my body," Andrew tells her. He goes silent for a moment, and Emma doesn't say anything, like she can tell he's serious. Andrew hates this feeling. He says, very quietly, "I don't - I don't want to be something else he worries about."

　　"Oh, Andrew," Emma says, in an odd, low voice, and then she says, "Andrew," again, like she's trying not to laugh. Andrew doesn't see what's so funny, but he's thinking about the way Jesse's voice shakes sometimes in interviews, and the numbers for Jesse's therapists he'd scrolled past trying to find Emma's, and the way Jesse pauses sometimes when he steps from the metal stairs to the concrete parking lot their trailers are in, and he's thinking about the way Jesse might look at him if Andrew tells him how much he likes his stupid hair and his stupid voice and his stupid hands, and none of that is funny at all. Apart from maybe Jesse's hair in the morning, but then Andrew has started finding that endearing now, and he should really just shoot himself now before he starts, like, stealing Jesse's shirts just to breathe against their collars like he's in Brokeback Mountain or something.

　　"He won't hate you, okay" Emma says, finally, fond like she's known him far longer than the duration of this insane conversation. "Just - " she sighs, long-suffering. "Tell him, okay It's time to nut up or shut up."

　　"If I were in Zombieland," Andrew sighs, pressing his forehead against the cold tiled wall, "I would just be eaten byzombies in the first ten minutes and then I wouldn't have to think about Jesse's face going all crinkly when he smiles in the mornings, and I wouldn't be telling you this, and I would have the dignity rats back on my ship."

　　"Wow," says Emma, after a minute. "Okay, then."

　　"Yeah," says Andrew. "Please help."

　　"Tell him," Emma says again, "it is the only way out of this. It's for your own good, okay"

　　"But - " Andrew starts.

　　"Just do it," Emma says. "I will brook no argument, Garfield."

　　"I - " he says, but Emma has hung up. He stares at his phone for a second, in case he can make her call back by sheer concentration, but apparently his mental coercion skills are on the wane.

　　Andrew briefly contemplates drowning himself in the toilet bowl but thinks better of it. He wouldn't want to break up with his one true porcelain friend after all.

　　//

　　Okay. Andrew can do this. He can totally do this. He can totally go and tell Jesse that he has become a ridiculous mess of a human who actively has to stop himself from sniffing Jesse's shampoo and who would like nothing more than maybe to make Jesse some pancakes on their next day off and then snuggle a bit and then have glorious, incredibly satisfying, tantric sex on the living room floor. He probably won't use those exact words, and will also hopefully avoid using "pining" while he's at it, but there's a point he should get across and that is "funny story, I want to lick your neck even when I'm not drunk, how do you feel about that".

　　Do people do this, in the real world In the world outside film scripts and small shared apartments in Boston, do people manage to have □□ conversations about their feelings without wanting to slam their fingers in doors to distract themselves from the horrible, Mean Girls vomity sensations in their stomachs Is there some sort of life guidance class Andrew missed out on while he was distracted in school and learning how to feel his way through a script He chants nut up or shut up, nut up or shut up under his breath as often as he can without attracting attention for the whole day, and finally nuts up properly when Jesse asks him what he wants to order from the Chinese place that night.

　　It's not ideal timing, but Andrew will take what he can get.

　　"Um," says Jesse. "I don't think they have "do you remember when I kissed you" on the menu. They have cashew chicken, though, or there's that black bean thing you had last week."

　　Jesse is taking this remarkably well. Andrew is a fetching shade of crimson, and shifts in the kitchen chair.

　　"Yeah," he says, trying not to look up at Jesse.. "The black bean thing." He holds his hand out for the menu. "I'll call."

　　Jesse hands it over without saying anything else. Andrew stares down at the menu like it's suddenly going to stop telling him how much the prawn crackers are and start telling him the right thing to say next.

　　"How do you feel about it" he blurts, and, immediately learns that takeaway menus are capable of silent, papery judgment.

　　Jesse freezes in the doorway. "About what" he says.

　　Hurray, this conversation is being dragged out! That is exactly what Andrew wanted to happen. Andrew wonders briefly how long it would take to die from paper-cut-induced blood loss and if it would help stop this from happening.

　　"About," says Andrew, and then chickens out spectacularly. "About the black bean thing."

　　Andrew can actually see Jesse physically relax. "I'm not the one who's going to eat it," he says, "so it probably doesn't matter." He turns round, and grins at Andrew, all lopsided and sweet. Andrew grins back, because it's like a reflex at this point. Jesse smiles; Andrew smiles.

　　Jesse says, "And don't try to steal my food tonight, okay, just order the same thing if you want some," in a tone that makes it perfectly clear he expects Andrew to do no such thing, and then Andrew mock-pouts, and Jesse smiles some more and leaves the room, and Andrew bashes his head lightly against the tabletop.

　　"Did you just ask me how I would feel if you licked my neck again"

　　Lucy meets Andrew's eyes in the make-up trailer mirror, one eyebrow perfectly, incredulously, raised.

　　"Yes," says Andrew, despondently, and then, quickly, " But not you specifically. I'm practicing."

　　"For what" she asks.

　　"Failure," Andrew tells her, and she clucks all over him while she dabs concealer under his eyes.

　　//

　　"My hair doesn't smell like apples," Justin tells him, as Andrew makes a mental note to look around him before he starts talking aloud on his way to his trailer when he thinks he's alone.

　　"I know," says Andrew, dragging his feet.

　　"I didn't think you went around smelling my hair," Justin says, following. "This is new."

　　"I don't sniff your hair."

　　Justin grabs his arm. "Oh my god, Jesse's hair smells like apples"

　　"Please, please, shut up."

　　"Oh my god, it's like Snow White."

　　"How is - "

　　"No," says Justin, still holding Andrew's elbow with alarming strength, "better. It's like he's an orchard and you're the apple maid. You just want to pluck him and feel him in your hands."

　　Andrew makes this strangled, inarticulate sound, distressed beyond all measure. "Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh god, please never say anything like that ever again.""

　　"YOU WANT TO TASTE HIS INNER JUICES," Justin shouts, and Andrew wrenches his arm away and runs.

　　//

　　"Inner juices," Andrew moans, hands over his face in the make-up trailer again, the next day. "Feel him in your hands."

　　Lucy is getting more sympathetic as the days go on, possibly because Andrew is looking more and more like a crazy person or because he's started bringing her coffee in the mornings as a sort of preemptive apology.

　　"There, there," she says. She pats him on the shoulder. Andrew sort of shudders. "What" she asks.

　　"Juices," he whispers, still horrified, and Lucy laughs, and drinks her coffee.

　　//

　　He calls Emma again.

　　"I can't do it," he says, as soon as she picks up. "I tried but it was horrible and Justin keeps talking about orchards and everything is horrible."

　　She hangs up on him.

　　//

　　hey snow white bitten anything sweet yet beeps through to Andrew's phone one afternoon, and Andrew resolves to find someone who isn't Justin or being bribed with coffee to talk to about this.

　　//

　　"I'm not actually a Disney princess, right"

　　Armie just looks really confused.

　　"Never mind."

　　//

　　It's been a week of Justin saying horrifying things every time they cross paths, and Andrew slowly spiraling into actual, quantifiable lunacy, and he's standing and staring into the kitchen cupboards one evening, trying to decide which of the things in there would combine into an edible meal, when he decides that this is enough.

　　"Jesse," he says, walking through to find Jesse reading on the sofa. "Look, um." Well, this isn't any easier than it was the first time. "About that night last week."

　　Jesse puts his book down, looking like this is as uncomfortable for him as it is for Andrew, but Andrew sincerely doubts that.

　　"I kissed you," he says, and then, when Jesse doesn't say anything, "When I was drunk. I kissed you."

　　"You did," Jesse says, slowly, like he's trying to see where this is going. This is one of those times when Andrew wishes Jesse were just the smallest bit easier to read, because, although Andrew can tell when he's upset, or when he's happy, or when he needs Andrew to shut up just for a second but he's too polite to actually ask, he can never tell what Jesse's thinking. This has something to do with how Jesse works like no-one else Andrew's ever met, and is a large part of why Andrew's stomach feels like a rogue lepidopterist has left their live collection in it when he makes Jesse smile, but it is also infuriatingly unhelpful.

　　"So, um," says Andrew, because he is the world's greatest wordsmith. "Should we talk about that"

　　Jesse drops his gaze, running his fingers over the cover of his book. "If you want, I guess," he says, and Andrew is trying really hard to look like a normal person having a normal conversation and not a crazy person reminding himself why he can't just jump his friend right now but Jesse is making it difficult. "I mean," Jesse continues, "you were drunk."

　　"I was," Andrew confirms. "Very drunk."

　　Jesse looks up and shrugs. "So we don't have to talk about it."

　　Andrew stares at him. He absolutely cannot in any way say what he wants to say right now, which is we don't have to talk about it, like, no big deal,you were drunk, good joke, bro, let's move on - or, like, we don't have to talk about it because I want you to blow me right now and then we can adopt kittens and get married He might have a regrettably poor brain-to-mouth filter, but he's fairly sure that one shouldn't get through.

　　Instead, he says, "We don't" which doesn't exactly get the same point across, but is at least less likely to make Jesse move out.

　　Jesse is still toying with the pages of his book. Andrew wants to be the book. Jesse says, again, "You were drunk," like that answers everything, and there's a tone in his voice that Andrew doesn't understand.

　　"I was," he repeats. "But, um." He takes an unnecessarily deep breath, because nut up or shut up, Garfield and because Jesse is biting his lip and Andrew wants to kiss him, because he wants to kiss him all the damn time. "Um. Do you - "

　　Jesse interrupts. "It's all right," he says, in this pinched sort of voice. "No big deal, I get it." He looks back down at the book in his lap, and Andrew is ridiculously grateful he doesn't see Andrew's face fall the expressional equivalent of a skyscraper amount of storeys. Of course Jesse doesn't feel the same way. He probably just wants Andrew to shut up right now so they can go back to being bros, or at least their version of bros, which involves post-it notes on the fridge and Andrew actually knowing what Jesse's shampoo smells like and being aware of Jesse's presence in a room even when he can't see him, like a haunting, like they're magnets, drawn together. Andrew clamps down hard on that line of thought and looks at Jesse looking determinedly at his book like he's trying to zap himself into fiction and out of this situation, and clears his throat.

　　"Okay," says Andrew, and if it comes out flatly then at least it's better than going adopt a kitten with me, I love you in a broken sort of way like he can hear in his head, melodramatically. "Great. Glad we've, er, got that sorted out."

　　"Mmm," Jesse agrees, not looking up, and Andrew stops to look at him reading for a moment longer, at the way he holds the book so that the tips of his fingers touch on the careworn spine, the way he frowns absent-mindedly down at the pages, the way he's pulled his feet up onto the sofa, and, just for that moment, lets himself ache with wanting.

　　And then he says, "Okay," again, and walks out to the bathroom to lean against the door and squeeze his eyes closed and tamp it all back down again.

　　//

　　Of course Jesse doesn't feel the same way. Jesse is an actual person with actual interests who actually looks confused when people talk about sport like it's a thing that exists, who fosters cats, who reads real books and acts but doesn't own a television. Andrew rides a Vespa and owns hair products and doesn't agree about how to organise the kitchen cupboards and really wants to be cast as Spiderman. There's just no way Jesse would turn round one day and be all "Andrew, take me now, I can no longer disguise my lust for you and your perfect hair". Jesse might have therapists, and he might be anxious a lot of the time, and he might not like leaving the apartment some days, but he's the most real person Andrew knows. Everyone else feels pretend in comparison, like the difference between a black and white film and a full colour movie, like they've only got shades of grey and Jesse has a rainbow.

　　Oh, god, what. A fucking rainbow This is what has become of Andrew: he is comparing Jesse to a rainbow. Next up he'll be writing Mr Andrew Eisenberg all over his script in pink glitter gel pen.

　　He steps into the shower, turns it on hot enough that he almost flinches away from the water, and hopes the searing, searing heat will shut his brain up for a little while.

　　Of course, when he gets out of the shower and pads down the hall to his room, wrapped in a towel from the waist down, he bumps into Jesse coming round the corner from the kitchen, because apparently today hasn't been awkward enough. Jesse steps back at once, like half-naked Andrew is the worst thing he could possibly have run into when he was just taking a bowl of cereal to his room, but then he seems to actually look at Andrew, and he looks confused.

　　"You're bright red," he says.

　　"Shower's broken," lies Andrew, and hurries away.

　　He spends an hour or so hiding in his room - he tidies, which is basically a sign of the impending apocalypse - before he is driven out to the kitchen by hunger. Jesse is watching something on tv in the dark in the living room, and Andrew watches the blue light flicker down the corridor while he pokes eggs around a pan and waits for his toast to pop up, and tries to ignore the actual pang in his chest. He's spooning the eggs out onto a plate when he hears Jesse laugh, all late night quiet, and he clatters the pan into the sink with more force than is really necessary.

　　If Jesse doesn't feel the same, there's not a lot Andrew can do about it. He'll just wait until they can look at each other without turning the colour of overripe tomatoes and then everything will go back to normal, and he can work on not feeling giddy and ridiculous every time he hears Jesse laugh at something on tv. This is a plan. This is a great plan.

　　Who is he kidding, Andrew's pretty sure even his toast knows this is a stupid, doomed plan, but it's the only one he's got and he's determined to make it work.

　　//

　　And, so, naturally, everything goes completely to crap pretty much the second they clap eyes on each other the next day.

　　It's like - it's like it's one thing for them just to be awkward around each other for a week, but now that Andrew's pretty sure that Jesse's spent the last week prepped to fend off anything untoward Andrew might do, they're just quiet. Before, before that night, they were really good at the whole companionable silence thing, but this isn't that, this is quiet, like there's something missing. It doesn't help that they've hit a run of scenes from the second half of the film, and they don't talk much on set either, apart from when they're filming, and everyone else sort of leaves them to it, because these scenes have really got to work or the film will feel soulless. So that's stressful too. Andrew could really do with some singing birds or big-eyed kittens or something right about now, because if Justin is going to call him Disney in all his texts - which Andrew doesn't hesitate to say sounds even more ridiculous coming from Mr Mickey Mouse Club - then he might as well get something cheerful out of it, right

　　They're filming the deposition scene where Mark's lawyers bring up the whole chicken thing, and it doesn't take much for Andrew to dredge up frustration, to let his voice shake. Eduardo is wide open, emotionally, and it's good for Andrew to sink into feeling like someone else, even if that someone else is as churned up over someone with Jesse's face as Andrew is.

　　Across the table from him, Jesse shrugs as Mark, blank-faced. "Oops," he says, and Andrew feels Eduardo want to shake him and both of them want to kiss him.

　　//

　　Even with the television on, or Arcade Fire or something from Broadway curling out from the speakers depending on whose iPod is in the dock, it still feels too quiet in their apartment. It feels like they're avoiding each other, and maybe Andrew is avoiding Jesse, just a little bit, because he can't do anything about the way he wants to lean against him when they're both on the sofa, or put a hand on Jesse's hip when Jesse's at the sink and Andrew needs to get to the fridge and has to squeeze past, or to kiss him in the morning when his hair is even more ridiculous than Andrew's and he still looks half-asleep while he's holding a piece of toast in one hand and a box of cereal in the other like he can't choose between the two. He can't do anything about that, but nor can he help wanting to be close to Jesse, to sit and listen to whatever's playing in their living room while Jesse reads on the sofa next to him, to do any one of the little things you do without thinking when you're living with someone and Andrew hasn't been letting himself do for going on two weeks. He wants to brush Jesse's hair out of his eyes when he falls asleep in the corner of the sofa.

　　He doesn't know whether Jesse is avoiding him too, but he wouldn't be surprised. He probably thinks Andrew's going to jump him or something, or he's just too embarrassed by it all to talk to him. Andrew doesn't blame him.

　　Which is why it's a surprise when Jesse coughs from the doorway of the kitchen when Andrew is poking through the takeaway menu drawer one evening, and holds up his battered copy of the script when Andrew turns to look.

　　"Want to run lines" he asks, and yeah,yes, Andrew wants that.

　　It's not until they're in the living room, both of them cross-legged on the floor, that Andrew realises this was maybe not the brightest of ideas. They do the scene where Mark confronts Eduardo about freezing the account, and Jesse is on, getting his lines out rapid-fire and brittle, and Andrew feels more than a little blown away. He grits his teeth and gives back, letting himself hide back in Eduardo, hurting, and they run it a few times like they will on the day, Fincher shooting take after take.

　　"I need my CFO," says Jesse on their fourth run through the scene, and his voice is so rough Andrew hears it catch.

　　Andrew's chest is tight and Jesse is looking at him with such an unreadable expression that it actually hurts. Andrew ducks his head to write something unintelligible in the margins of his script, and tries to get it together enough to say the next line.

　　In the background, the track changes and the opening notes of the song Jesse's been humming for the last few days start playing. Jesse looks surprised, and twists around to look at the dock on the coffee table, and it's still Andrew's iPod there, of course, and Andrew freezes up like he's done something wrong, like he's a big stalking stalker who googled the lyrics he'd been unable to shake after half a day of overhearing Jesse singing them softly under his breath and then downloaded the whole stupid musical theatre greatest hits album he'd found the track on and listened to it on repeat into the early hours of the morning. Which of course, he is, and he did, and Jesse looks at him like he knows.

　　"Sorry," Andrew says, because he feels like he should apologise for essentially being creepy and ridiculous and making Jesse's eyes go that wide, and he makes some excuse about a headache and goes to make a cup of tea. He can feel Jesse watching him as he leaves the room, and while he leans against the kitchen counter and waits for the kettle to boil, he hears the track playing in the living room stop mid-harmony, and Editors comes on instead, and Andrew drinks his tea with his hands white-knuckled around the mug, listening to Tom Smith sing low and sure,you are home,you are home.

　　//

　　They shoot Andrew's side of that scene the next day, and Jesse stands off camera and feeds his lines out for Andrew, and Andrew hears his voice catch every time on the same line, the same word.

　　Mark needs his CFO. Andrew wishes he knew what Jesse needed from him.

　　//

　　They're both shattered that evening, and they end up on the sofa letting infomercials wash inconsequentially over them while they let themselves unwind, let the characters go. It's harder every night now they're not talking as much, Andrew is finding, to ease away from openhearted, broken-hearted Eduardo and back into himself.

　　Yes, okay, he's a walking cliché. What the fuck ever. It's just, it's more difficult than it should be to sit here with Jesse and not touch him, just like he's been not touching him since he tried to bring up the kiss and Jesse backed away from it. Andrew thinks maybe Jesse misses it too, because sometimes he looks over like he's expecting Andrew to throw an arm over his shoulder when they're walking to their trailers, or to nudge him with his foot between takes to make him look up so Andrew can tell him a joke, but Andrew's not sure of anything Jesse feels anymore, so he doesn't do any of those things.

　　Andrew also thinks, stop thinking, and he uncurls his legs and kicks them out over Jesse's lap. Jesse turns to him, and Andrew thinks for one horrible moment that he's going to shrug him off, that everything really has gone this wrong between them, but instead Jesse smiles, tentatively, and says, "If your feet smell, I cannot be responsible for my actions."

　　"I'm scared," teases Andrew. "What are you going to do, tickle me"

　　The minute the words have left his mouth he knows it's a stupid thing to say, but Jesse just grins wider, and drags a fingertip up the sole of Andrew's sockless, defenseless, left foot. Andrew shrieks like a girl and bucks up instinctively, and Jesse is laughing, and he does it again, and Andrew is laughing and struggling and telling him not to be so heartless.

　　And just then, all ridiculous tickle-defense assuming angles on the sofa, looking over at Jesse grinning at him, it's so much like things were between them before Andrew had the brilliant idea of getting exceptionally drunk to try to erase Jesse's stupid face from his brain, and then the even better idea of kissing him, and then the stupendous idea of bringing it up again in a way that somehow made Jesse look like Andrew had told him all his cats had died, that it makes something actually ache in Andrew's chest. He can't go on like this. He bolts up from the sofa in a tangle of limbs.

　　"I, er, have to make a phone call," he says, smooth as ever. Jesse's face drops, a little.

　　"Yeah," he says. "I should probably, um, do the dishes. Before all the food gets congealed."

　　Congealed food, how have they been reduced to this

　　"Great," says Andrew. "Okay, so, I'll be right back."

　　And then he flees like an idiot to his room. He grabs his phone from the bedside table with shaking hands and manages to hit Emma's number on his third attempt. He listens to it ring, chanting pick up pick up pick up under his breath. Everything seems to be going too fast and too slow at the same time, and that's impossible, but Andrew's heart is pounding and he misses Jesse in a way that's just stupid considering they still spend, like, 90% of their waking hours together, excluding, like, showering and things, and all he wants is to get this fixed right now. It feels as urgent as breathing, and he's somehow reached Austen heroine levels of tortured romance somewhere in the last few days, and why isn't Emma picking up.

　　Finally: "Hello"

　　"This has to stop!" Andrew yelps, and then tries to get his voice back down to an acceptable conversational pitch.

　　Emma is as distantly amused as ever. Andrew thinks he might be failing to express the urgency of the situation. "Hi, Garfield. How's it going"

　　"It's going terribly, actually," he says. "I am never taking your advice again."

　　"About talking to Jesse about it"

　　"Yes, that was an awful idea."

　　Emma laughs at him. It echoes down the phone. "Okay," she says, in what Andrew still thinks is too casual a voice for the situation at hand, "so, if you're never going to take my advice again, why are you calling me"

　　Andrew is just not allowed to talk to people again. "I need your help," he mutters.

　　"Which would be in the form of advice, right"

　　"Yes! Fine!" Andrew shoots a look at his bedroom door like it's got some sort of volume monitor in that'll let him know if he's being loud enough that Jesse could overhear. "Just - help."

　　"You sound like the hunter's coming, Bambi," Emma says. "Calm down."

　　"You calm down," Andrew retorts, childishly but he leans his forehead against the wall, and takes a breath. "I just," he says, and his voice is suddenly flat. "I just, I want things to go back to how they were."

　　He expects some sort of recognition for this, maybe Emma's voice softening, but what actually happens is that she says, "Hang on, there's someone on the other line. Don't go anywhere."

　　"No, wait," Andrew starts, desperately, but it's no use. He stares at the phone in his hand, and then, because his other option is hanging up and going back out to be awkward around Jesse some more, he sits on the edge of his bed and waits.

　　And waits.

　　In the sudden silence, he can hear Jesse's voice in the living room, muffled by the distance and Andrew's closed door. He listens without really meaning to. He can't pick out any words, but he just likes the way Jesse's voice sounds, a constant.

　　And because this is what has happened to Andrew, because he has become this person, he opens his bedroom door and sits there very quietly, and listens.

　　"- don't know," Jesse is saying, sounding like he's trying not to be overheard, and Andrew scooches a few inches out into the corridor to be able to hear better.

　　Scruples: fading. Dignity: gone. Life: all the points; Andrew: none.

　　"If I knew, I wouldn't be on the phone with you, would I" Jesse says, frustrated. There's a pause. "Okay, maybe I would because I am a ridiculous human with too many cats and he owns hair product for reasons other than having stupid curls, but the point is I don't know."

　　Silence. Andrew's brain helpfully reminds him that he owns hair product, but he tries to ignore it.

　　"I was tickling him," says Jesse, sounding helpless. "I don't - maybe I shouldn't have - but he put his feet up on me and - "

　　Andrew's brain has stopped reminding him of anything helpful and has started just going oh my god oh my god he's talking about me like a teenage girl.

　　"I am not a frightened little rabbit," Jesse says, slightly offended, and then, "except I completely am, that is what I am, I am a rabbit. He makes me go all - all twitchy."

　　Is - is Jesse talking to Emma If he is, does this mean - does he - Andrew can't even let himself think it. It's like when you don't realise you've burned your hand until you look down and see it, a defense mechanism, only Andrew really, really wants to look down and see if he's burned his hand.

　　He tunes back in to what Jesse is saying in time to hear him yelp, "No, don't - wait - " and feels his own phone buzz in his hand. He dives for his bedroom and gets the door shut before it rings.

　　"Are you talking to Jesse on the other line right now" he blurts, before Emma can say anything.

　　"I might be," Emma says.

　　"Oh my god," says Andrew. It feels like that is literally the only thought in his brain right now, except the one he's skirting around, stove hot.

　　Emma sighs down the phone. "Are you going to go out there and talk to him"

　　"I don't know," says Andrew. He can't think. He's all keyed up with nervous energy, like the adrenaline rush before going on stage except that this has nowhere to go. He drums his fingers against his thigh. He says, again, "Oh my god.

　　"Ugh, god,you two," Emma says, and Andrew can hear her rolling her eyes. "Okay, hang on,you're not panicking as much, I'll be back."

　　Andrew makes this stupid little sound - Jesse's panicking - and then Emma's gone again. Andrew actually gives himself carpet burn skidding back into place in the corridor.

　　"Hello," he hears Jesse say, from the living room. "Slow down, I - what" He sounds slightly further away, like he's walked to the other end of the room.

　　Andrew would kill for one of those extendable ears from Harry Potter right now. He can't get any closer without being visible from the living room door and he doesn't want to miss anything. He cranes his neck, in case it helps.

　　"You're an angry person," Jesse says. He listens, and then, "I don't know, okay I don't - "

　　There's a silence that is apparently being filled by something vehement on Emma's end of the phone. Andrew takes a second to sympathise.

　　"Yes," Jesse is saying, agitated. "Haven't we had this conversation before I feel like we've had this conversation before. I don't know how he feels, that's the problem."

　　Andrew digs his fingers into the carpet like that'll keep him tethered, like pinching yourself in a dream. Then he actually pinches himself, because how is this happening It's been weeks of treading on batten-down-your-stupid-feelings eggshells and now this, handed to him on a plate while he lurks in the corridor Andrew can't fucking even.

　　Jesse's continuing. "When - " Andrew hears his voice waver, and goes hot all over, guilty, finally, for eavesdropping. Not that it stops him, just. He feels guilty. Jesse says, "When he kissed me, when he was drunk - I thought he knew, um, that - "

　　Emma must interject something, because Jesse just says, "Yes, exactly," in tones of some relief, and it takes genuine effort for Andrew not to just shout "WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT" down the corridor, because he's actually not sure how much more of this he can stand. He taps his fingers against the floor, fast, and stays silent.

　　Jesse says, all in a rush, "I thought maybe he just was kidding around. I didn't know whether - whether he was serious."

　　There's a pause. This is literally the most nervous Andrew has ever felt about anything, and that includes the time he spent checking his phone six times a minute after the table read for Social Network, sort of sure but still not certain whether he'd been cast.

　　"Of course I liked it," Jesse says, and his voice has reached a weird, sincere, high pitch. "Have you been listening I'd kiss him every time I saw him if I thought - if he wanted - " he stops short, like Emma's started yelling, but Andrew wouldn't be able to hear any more even if he tried, on account of the actual ringing in his ears, like he's got sudden emotionally-induced tinnitus.

　　He remembers Emma saying if you think this is the first I'm hearing about you,you're even more ridiculous than your hair implies, and thinks about why he called Emma in the first place, Jesse telling little anecdotes about her on set with his little fond smile, the texts Jesse shows him sometimes, all bawdy humour and terrible text speak and ridiculously clever quips.

　　He thinks about Jesse lying next to him with the orange light from the corridor playing over him, about Jesse freezing up when Andrew first tried to bring the kiss up again, about Jesse saying it was no big deal in that odd little voice, and I'd kiss him every time I saw him, oh, god, and, slowly, Andrew lets himself hope.

　　"I just," he hears Jesse say, quietly, like an admission, "I want - "- and Andrew is so fully on tenterhooks that he's holding his breath - "I want him."

　　Andrew's breath comes rushing out of him like he's been punched. He feels dizzy with it, and he can't quite believe what he's hearing, like he really doesn't deserve it and he's going to wake up any second to the sound of Edith Piaf and be in a Chris Nolan movie, but he can't stop hearing it over and over in his head. I want him.

　　Jesse wants him.

　　This is so overwhelming that something in Andrew's brain just gives up and dies, and he abandons subtlety and his few remaining shreds of dignity altogether.

　　"I like you, Jesse Eisenberg!" he cries, scrambling to his feet and pelting down the corridor to the living room. He bursts through the door like there's an emergency, which, well, there is.

　　"What" says Jesse, startled, and Andrew says, "I like you." He has a horrible suspicion he might be blushing but, whatever, Jesse wants him, why should he be worried about a trivial thing like blushing when it's like he's on a precipice and wants nothing more than to let himself tip into it. Almost, he thinks, almost there.

　　Jesse is staring at him like he's turned into an actual gazelle right there in front of him. He's still holding the phone to his ear. Andrew can hear Emma on the other end, going, "Jesse Jesse Jesse Eisenberg,you answer me right now."

　　Andrew clears his throat, trying to sound as casual as a guy who's just sprinted down a hallway can. "Tell her you'll call her back."

　　Jesse just closes the phone, still staring at him.

　　"The thing is," Andrew starts, "I hate you."

　　Jesse's face starts to get this closed up look, and Andrew reaches out and grabs him by the wrist, panicking. Everything's feeling like he's seeing it from a distance. Jesse wants him.

　　"No, wait, that didn't come out right," he says. "Hang on."

　　"You're hanging on," Jesse says, looking down at Andrew's hand, "to my wrist."

　　"Shut up," says Andrew, "only, um, nicely"

　　Jesse starts to look less defensively closed up and more completely confused.

　　"I'm not doing this very well," Andrew explains.

　　"Doing what" This, Andrew thinks, is a fair question.

　　"Hang on," Andrew repeats. "Just - listen for a minute, okay"

　　"All right," Jesse says. He presses his lips together like he can't decide whether to be amused or hurt. Andrew wishes he could fast forward through this whole conversation and just get to the bit where they've talked everything through and he can pull Jesse down by his t-shirt onto the sofa, and make out for hours and watch crappy late night tv in the dark with only the flickering light of the screen washing over Jesse's face, dim in comparison to when he smiles. Whatever he says next has to kick start all this, to be the first step on the rainbow road to sickening happiness, whilst at the same time making sure that Jesse definitely wants late night make-outs too, though Andrew is 99.9% sure he does. I want him. Basically, Andrew has to come up with something that's practically fucking Shakespeare levels of eloquent right now and make this happen.

　　He draws on his inner Bard.

　　"Um," he says. He can feel Shakespeare's disapproval across the centuries.

　　Jesse takes Andrew's inability to speak as an opportunity to say, "Can I have my wrist back"

　　"No," says Andrew, and then, immediately, "I mean,yes, obviously, I'm not going to cut it off or anything, but um. Holding on to you helps me think." This is going so much worse than Andrew had pictured this bit going, and even when he was being optimistic he hadn't pictured it going all that well.

　　Jesse says, in an odd, pleased sort of voice, "Holding on to me helps you think"

　　"Shush," says Andrew, "I'm thinking."

　　"I can't feel my fingers."

　　"You were talking to Emma," Andrew blurts, smoothly.

　　"I was talking to Emma"

　　"Just now. On the phone. You were talking to Emma about me." Andrew can feel his eyes starting to gleam, and he hopes it comes off as excited and happy rather than crazed serial killer, although judging by the look on Jesse's face he might as well have a knife in his hand.

　　"What does that have to do with whyyou're holding my wrist"

　　Andrew takes a breath, and this is it, and - "You want me," he says, softly, and it's like he's letting it out, like it's been rattling, trapped, around his head since he heard Jesse say it and it was just a matter of minutes before it spilled out again.

　　Jesse fidgets and looks away. Andrew is resisting the urge just to kiss him and be done with this whole thing.

　　"Jess" he says. His heart is beating hummingbird fast. Jesse isn't saying anything. Andrew drops his wrist, just in case. If he's wrong - if somehow he's got this wrong - he doesn't know what he'll do.

　　Jesse speaks to the carpet rather than to Andrew. Andrew knows how he feels. "Yeah," he says, and he's biting his lip, and Andrew takes an unnecessarily deep breath. Jesse says, "I do."

　　Anything hummingbird-y going on in Andrew's chest has stopped so suddenly he wonders if it might be a heart attack. Like, a hummingbird-meets-tennis-racket, mid-air stop, sort of heart attack. His voice comes out all strangled. "What"

　　Jesse is still determinedly not looking up from the carpet, and, okay, Andrew gets that this is, like, walking on nails levels of torturous, but he really needs Jesse to look at him for this. Fine, so that really makes him sound like a Disney princess, but he does. He clears his throat. "You do"

　　Jesse nods. "I do."

　　He looks up, and he looks so completely certain and so completely terrified, which is so precisely what Andrew is feeling right now that he just can't, he just can't, so he takes a hasty step forward and grabs Jesse's face in his hands, stopping just short of his mouth.

　　"I'm going to kiss you now, okay"

　　Jesse nods again. Andrew can feel him shaking. Maybe they're both shaking.

　　"Okay," Andrew says, and closes the gap. He kisses him as gently as he can, checking, but Jesse makes this little noise in the back of his throat like he's wanted this for as long as Andrew has, like he's letting go of something too, and gets a grip on the front of Andrew's shirt and pushes him down onto the sofa. Andrew bounces, surprised, pleased.

　　"You have no idea how long I've - " he starts, breathless and delighted, but before he can say anything else, Jesse straddles him and kisses him again. Andrew laughs up into it, spluttering unattractively against Jesse's lips and Jesse tells him softly to shut up, and he's sliding a hand up under Andrew's shirt, and Andrew shuts up.