fic: it's meant to be taken down
title: it's meant to be taken down
pairing: Jesse/Andrew
rating: pg
summary: Realistically, Jesse knows that nothing lasts.
based on Chase Coy's "Ferris Wheel".
Realistically, Jesse knows that nothing lasts.
Dreams change, ideas morph, people die, the world turns, trash decomposes (well, maybe not twinkies, or styrofoam, but those aren't very pleasant lasting things), and everything changes to something different, eventually. Everything leaves.
He told someone this when he was seventeen, that nothing lasts long enough to matter, and he was called pessimistic. This confused him; it's not pessimism if it's realism, is it? Surely there's some merit to guarding one's feelings over something that wouldn't last much in the first place. It's idiocy anyway else, Jesse thinks. Pure ignorance.
Then, of course, he meets Andrew, who's number one goal in Jesse's life seems to be to prove him wrong on ever level of his existence, and everything changes. Well, not everything, Jesse won't be dramatic. His cats are the same, his mother still calls every Wednesday, Emma still insists on changing all his phone contacts to pop culture references whenever he sees her; those all stay the same, but everything else Jesse's ever thought, that changes.
Andrew sticks around long enough for Jesse to finally start caring, thinking that maybe it's entirely worth it to pour your heart and soul out to someone who seems to completely understand you, to reverberate every thought you have, to enhance it, poke at it until its smiling back at you, better than ever. So he does. He gives everything he can without being hollow inside, lays everything out on the table at once for Andrew to have his picking, like some run down garage sale with a FREE sign on all the boxes, and Andrew does the same for him, until they pick and choose and trade until their lives are twisted and braided and melded into each other in a beautiful set of compensable chaos. All because Andrew stays. Andrew stays just long enough for Jesse to think something might be a constant, for once.
It never is, though, never is a constant, and Jesse considers himself a fool for forgetting this, a fool forgetting his number one rule.
Filming ends, and he can slip back into his own skin as Andrew can his. Press Junkets only last so long, about as long as the film hype can. Award shows are terrifying and he hates every one of them, but for a while Andrew's there, holding his elbow, touching his collar, toeing at his calf, and then Andrew's gone. He's gone in a flurry of packed bags, rushed apologies, flights to catch, and we'll keep in touch's.
He says his goodbyes, watches as Andrew picks back his own life, dropping and placing down things that Jesse had give him, quickly untangling his own life from Jesse's like it hadn't been hard enough to integrate into, like everything was still separate, and this isn't what Jesse remembers, isn't what he remembers at all, and he wonders what else he remembers that isn't right.
Without Andrew, Jesse goes back to assuming that nothing lasts. It's not even assuming anymore. He considers this a win for himself, really. Now he knows that nothing worthwhile lasts, that there's no point in holding on for something that will fade in time.
It's his realism.