Slings & Arrows ficathon piece
TITLE: Alas, Alack and All Undone
FOR: bjohan57
WORDS: 1158
RATING: R (for sexual themes and language)
PAIRING: Geoffrey/Ellen, with a whisper of Ellen/Oliver, if you squint.
PROMPT: "Geoffrey, more Geoffrey and even more Geoffrey. In whatever form."
Set: s1 finale. On the stage, and off it.
A/N: So this is set during my favourite scene in all three seasons of S&A, and it came out a little odd, and not very long but...forgive, forgive.
An actor is supposed to be obsessed with his audience, and Geoffrey knows that, has always known that, but he isn't always entirely comfortable with it, not when his audience is Ellen and she's looking at him like that. The way that Geoffrey feels about Ellen now is complicated but it was never, ever easy. And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death.
Wrong play.
"How long was I out there?"
"A million years."
When he was a child, taken up with childish things, he'd thought that there was something romantic about. Romantic. He hovered in the back of scenes. He learnt his craft. He wasn't yet that Geoffrey Tennant, stuff of legend and banner headline, the one they talked about. Nobody goes to the theatre anymore and nobody listens to the radio, but somehow everyone had heard, and everybody knew. But he wasn't him, yet. He was still in his Romeo days.
The Prince of Denmark, the unseated youth, is dying in Horatio's arms for the second time today. It has to be exhausting, all those little deaths...and then his mind is wandering and he's thinking about Ellen again (later, years later, when he's still angry with her it'll be a habit that he still finds hard to break, occasionally wandering into thoughts of her even if, for a while, his broken heart can only generate ways to be cruel to her. He still thinks of her).
A lot of times, Geoffrey knows, a production will cut Horatio out altogether. It's easier, you see. It's easier if Hamlet's just mad and never learns. If he's never a soldier than, at the end, he never has to realise what he's done. Good night, sweet prince complicates everything so much.
Everything is so complicated, or it will be later, but not until afterwards, after Geoffrey's finished Understudying Horatio, and his Romeo days are over with, and done.
"They tried to go on without you."
When he looks at her, when he looks at Ellen standing there, he sees two women (three if you count the foolish queen, four with the drowning girl). He sees the woman that Ellen is now, arch and brittle, sort of ruined and infuriating but still beautiful, and he sees the girl standing in the wings that night, with her hair in long spirals and back then when he saw her all he wanted to do (all he ever wanted to do) was fuck her, was push her down and fuck her, because they were alive and young, then, and they had their entire lives and all of those plays in front of them. They played the greats, and they played them well, and it was like having sex in public, and it was like dying, a little (in the same way that sex is a little like dying; you have to give everything of yourself and, if you do it right, you forget who you are, just for a split second and you become someone else and they're coming back, they're coming back riding in your eyes).
Sometimes, when he looks at Ellen, he sees two women, and, sometimes, when he thinks about Ellen, he feels like two men, too. The mad man is always with him, now but then he was a lover, he was Paris, and the story is always different according to Paris, and Helen was the most beautiful woman in the world.
They were beautiful children together, or they were stupid, or they were in love.
Something like that, anyway.
That night, that marvellous magical night with the woman weeping and Oliver reeling drunk and Ellen in a short, short skirt and heels, they didn't make a lot of babies and they didn't make it home, either. There's a tree in the park, and under the tree the grass is lush and long. They left a shape pressed by their bodies, and that night, he could remember it all, could remember every word and he whispered them to her, tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and to-morrow-oh-fuck-Ellen-I-love-you.
Two days, two performances, until the end of the world, the world as you know it, as they know it, and oh, fuck, why did you tell me, Ellen, and, oh, God, what did I do that it was alright to destroy me like that?
Oh, Ellen.
He was Hamlet on the stage, and he was Hamlet that night in the park with his pants around his knees, and tomorrow and tomorrow he'll be Hamlet again with a broken heart and it'll be good night, sweet Prince something something.
So that was twice, and somehow he's back on the stage, so maybe this is the third time he's been in Hamlet. He's been on this stage and forty-thousand brothers could not have...it doesn't fucking matter what the brothers could or could not have done, now. Oliver's dead and their lives went completely to shit and his moviestar Hamlet is missing. He's showing her the bleached white bones of his career and forget about Yorick, it's "Alas, poor Geoffrey...I knew him, Horatio." Alas, alack, and all undone.
Come back.
You're not finished yet.
...I never am..
"I would have cut my throat but you're not allowed to do that in front of subscribers, so...I jumped in there."
"And you didn't come out for seven years..."
Has it really been that long? He supposes that it must have been. He supposes that they must both be that old by now. Juliet and Romeo are long behind them now, and as he stands there, he imagines Ellen as Cleopatra with her kohl thick eyes, her bitten breast, her brittle sadness. A victim of her own sexuality, he called her, but that's not entirely true...What Ellen's sexuality has always been is a car-crash, dragging everyone in. She's a bitch but, when she's good, she's captivating and Geoffrey's really very sorry that he'll never get to see her Gertrude. He's really very sorry that he'll never get to see her naked again. He's sorry for a lot of things.
A life without regrets is a life not really lived but, somehow, standing there in the ruins of his third Hamlet, Geoffrey wishes that there were a few less regrets and a few more nights in Ellen's arms, and a few more to be or not to bes, and a bit more of everything that was good while it was good.
FOR: bjohan57
WORDS: 1158
RATING: R (for sexual themes and language)
PAIRING: Geoffrey/Ellen, with a whisper of Ellen/Oliver, if you squint.
PROMPT: "Geoffrey, more Geoffrey and even more Geoffrey. In whatever form."
Set: s1 finale. On the stage, and off it.
A/N: So this is set during my favourite scene in all three seasons of S&A, and it came out a little odd, and not very long but...forgive, forgive.
An actor is supposed to be obsessed with his audience, and Geoffrey knows that, has always known that, but he isn't always entirely comfortable with it, not when his audience is Ellen and she's looking at him like that. The way that Geoffrey feels about Ellen now is complicated but it was never, ever easy. And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death.
Wrong play.
"How long was I out there?"
"A million years."
When he was a child, taken up with childish things, he'd thought that there was something romantic about. Romantic. He hovered in the back of scenes. He learnt his craft. He wasn't yet that Geoffrey Tennant, stuff of legend and banner headline, the one they talked about. Nobody goes to the theatre anymore and nobody listens to the radio, but somehow everyone had heard, and everybody knew. But he wasn't him, yet. He was still in his Romeo days.
The Prince of Denmark, the unseated youth, is dying in Horatio's arms for the second time today. It has to be exhausting, all those little deaths...and then his mind is wandering and he's thinking about Ellen again (later, years later, when he's still angry with her it'll be a habit that he still finds hard to break, occasionally wandering into thoughts of her even if, for a while, his broken heart can only generate ways to be cruel to her. He still thinks of her).
A lot of times, Geoffrey knows, a production will cut Horatio out altogether. It's easier, you see. It's easier if Hamlet's just mad and never learns. If he's never a soldier than, at the end, he never has to realise what he's done. Good night, sweet prince complicates everything so much.
Everything is so complicated, or it will be later, but not until afterwards, after Geoffrey's finished Understudying Horatio, and his Romeo days are over with, and done.
"They tried to go on without you."
When he looks at her, when he looks at Ellen standing there, he sees two women (three if you count the foolish queen, four with the drowning girl). He sees the woman that Ellen is now, arch and brittle, sort of ruined and infuriating but still beautiful, and he sees the girl standing in the wings that night, with her hair in long spirals and back then when he saw her all he wanted to do (all he ever wanted to do) was fuck her, was push her down and fuck her, because they were alive and young, then, and they had their entire lives and all of those plays in front of them. They played the greats, and they played them well, and it was like having sex in public, and it was like dying, a little (in the same way that sex is a little like dying; you have to give everything of yourself and, if you do it right, you forget who you are, just for a split second and you become someone else and they're coming back, they're coming back riding in your eyes).
Sometimes, when he looks at Ellen, he sees two women, and, sometimes, when he thinks about Ellen, he feels like two men, too. The mad man is always with him, now but then he was a lover, he was Paris, and the story is always different according to Paris, and Helen was the most beautiful woman in the world.
They were beautiful children together, or they were stupid, or they were in love.
Something like that, anyway.
That night, that marvellous magical night with the woman weeping and Oliver reeling drunk and Ellen in a short, short skirt and heels, they didn't make a lot of babies and they didn't make it home, either. There's a tree in the park, and under the tree the grass is lush and long. They left a shape pressed by their bodies, and that night, he could remember it all, could remember every word and he whispered them to her, tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and to-morrow-oh-fuck-Ellen-I-love-you.
Two days, two performances, until the end of the world, the world as you know it, as they know it, and oh, fuck, why did you tell me, Ellen, and, oh, God, what did I do that it was alright to destroy me like that?
Oh, Ellen.
He was Hamlet on the stage, and he was Hamlet that night in the park with his pants around his knees, and tomorrow and tomorrow he'll be Hamlet again with a broken heart and it'll be good night, sweet Prince something something.
So that was twice, and somehow he's back on the stage, so maybe this is the third time he's been in Hamlet. He's been on this stage and forty-thousand brothers could not have...it doesn't fucking matter what the brothers could or could not have done, now. Oliver's dead and their lives went completely to shit and his moviestar Hamlet is missing. He's showing her the bleached white bones of his career and forget about Yorick, it's "Alas, poor Geoffrey...I knew him, Horatio." Alas, alack, and all undone.
Come back.
You're not finished yet.
...I never am..
"I would have cut my throat but you're not allowed to do that in front of subscribers, so...I jumped in there."
"And you didn't come out for seven years..."
Has it really been that long? He supposes that it must have been. He supposes that they must both be that old by now. Juliet and Romeo are long behind them now, and as he stands there, he imagines Ellen as Cleopatra with her kohl thick eyes, her bitten breast, her brittle sadness. A victim of her own sexuality, he called her, but that's not entirely true...What Ellen's sexuality has always been is a car-crash, dragging everyone in. She's a bitch but, when she's good, she's captivating and Geoffrey's really very sorry that he'll never get to see her Gertrude. He's really very sorry that he'll never get to see her naked again. He's sorry for a lot of things.
A life without regrets is a life not really lived but, somehow, standing there in the ruins of his third Hamlet, Geoffrey wishes that there were a few less regrets and a few more nights in Ellen's arms, and a few more to be or not to bes, and a bit more of everything that was good while it was good.