midsummer2007 fic for mickymvt
Title: his ghost is always silent
Author: nos4a2no9
Rating: R for adult language (of the Quebecois variety)
Pairing: Billy Tallent/Geoffrey Tenant
Length: 1,985 words
Notes: For mickeymvt, who requested “a HCL/Slings & Arrows crossover fic, where Geoffrey convinces Billy Tallent that he's more than a successful musician, he's an actor...Bonus points for Billy actually accepting the role and doing Shakespeare.” I had to forfeit my bonus points on several accounts, but I hope you still like this, Mickster!
Many thanks to jamethiel_bane for a great early beta, and to j_s_cavalcante for helping to finish this story and for assisting this clueless Canadian with her Quebecois French.
In life Joe Dick talked more than anyone Billy had ever met. His speech was quick, almost violent, always punctuated with “fuck” and “goddamn” and “cunt” because Joe swore the way other people gestured with their hands when they spoke. He had a voice that could carry to the back of a crowded house, a laugh that was big and booming, and a soft, quiet whisper that could make a stranger feel like an intimate friend.
But in death Joe Dick is silent. Billy will look up from a recording session in LA to see his ghost lingering at the back of the room, an unlit cigarette dangling from his mute lips, his eyes locked on Billy but focused on the distance between them. On stage in front of five thousand people at a stadium in Arizona, Billy will scan the light rigging and squint, certain he’s seen Joe’s battered old sneakers dangling down between the spotlights. Joe’s ghost is always present but never vocal, content for the first time to simply watch.
Billy, for his part, never speaks to Joe’s ghost. He’ll look for him as long as he can until the moment snaps like spring thaw and something draws his attention away. And when Billy looks back Joe’s ghost is gone. Gone, but not departed. Never forgotten.
He gets used to it. Someone once told him that it’s possible to get used to anything as long as you believe you’ve got no choice, and Billy knows deep in his soul the simple truth of that. He’s a part of Joe and Joe’s a part of him and they’ll always be connected, even though Joe passed a bullet through his brain and Billy is just going through the motions, now. Still looking for Joe, still finding him.
Jenifur plays New York on the final stop of a tour that’s lasted six months. They’ll rest up for a couple of weeks, write some new songs, maybe record a little, and then it’s on to Japan for another two-month tour. Billy doesn’t mind--a gig’s a gig, and he stopped caring about any of it when Joe offed himself--but he’s looking forward to the break. Even he can see that he’s drinking too much, not sleeping, not eating. Soon he’ll be just like Joe, a walking ghost, thin and pale and mute. Something has to change, something has to give, or he’s not going to survive Joe’s afterlife.
So when Hannah hands Billy a ticket to Montreal and suggests he spend a few weeks in his home and native land while Jenifur takes a break, Billy packs a bag and hops on a plane and drinks enough to make sure he won’t see Joe for the whole flight. Joe seems to get the hint, for once, and Billy falls asleep and dreams of driving winding highways in the dark.
Montreal is a great city. It’s not their city, not even close, but Montreal is good. It doesn’t fit with the rest of Canada and Quebec doesn’t seem to know what to do with it, but for Billy it’s perfect because it’s not Vancouver. Or Edmonton. He checks into a hotel and orders up some liquid lunch, then goes stumbling down St. Laurent Boulevard looking for a fight or a fuck.
Joe trails behind and smokes cigarettes that don’t burn.
They end up in a seedy part of town full of condemned apartment buildings. The stench of the river is heavy here, reeking of chlorine and dead fish. Billy breathes deep, welcoming the burn in his throat that joins the nicotine and the Quebecois whiskey. He throws the empty bottle against a graffiti brick wall and screams at Joe.
“Talk to me! Fucking talk to me!”
The bottle makes a satisfying crash as it shatters and lands in the alley in a mess of glass and booze.
“Saint-crisse de tabarnac, tais-toi!”
The man yelling at him in Quebecois has poked his head out of a window high above. In the darkness of the alley it looks like he’s part of the building. Billy can just barely make out the vague suggestion of a head and shoulders. Billy never learned any French but he’s played to enough hostile crowds to understand what the guy yelled down to him, and he’s picked up a handy phrase or two himself. Which he screams, loudly, at the man above.
“De calisse!”
He almost turns his head to check if Joe approves before he realizes he’ll never get any kind of response.
What he gets instead is footsteps pounding down a staircase, and the loud bang of a door being thrown open and hitting the brick wall. The yelling guy seems to want a fight and Billy’s happy to oblige. He sways drunkenly and tries to figure out which of the three men shifting and blurring in front of him he should hit first.
But the guy only mutters something in French and keeps his distance. Billy pulls himself into his best tough-guy stance, which probably doesn’t look like much since he’s thin and shaky and wasted.
“What’d you say to me?”
“I said, you’ve got good projection. Your elocution could use work, but then you smell like a distillery and one can’t expect miracles.”
Billy meets Joe’s eyes over the crazy guy’s head. For a second he thinks Joe is going to smile but it’s the same dead, unfocused stare. “What’s it to you?” he snarls.
Crazy Guy shrugs. “I just think it’s a shame to waste a good voice. Keep yelling like that and your throat will be raw in the morning.”
“So what?” Billy doesn’t say that his throat could be put to better uses. He doesn’t say it because the guy isn’t really his type. He’s tall, good-looking, a little weary around the edges. His hair’s too long and his clothing is rumpled, but he looks more like a wino or maybe a college professor than a real punk. Which is Billy’s type. Was.
“So, if you insist on yelling yourself hoarse in a public venue at one a.m. on a weekday, you should expect to get notes and learn to accept them gracefully.” Crazy Guy stares at him in a way that reminds Billy, slightly, of Joe. The way Joe used to look when he was prodding around for weaknesses, poking for any soft, vulnerable spots that he could exploit. It’s an assessing look and it makes Billy feel uncomfortable.
“You got a name?”
“Geoffrey,” he says. “And the building you’ve just christened with your cheap Sortilège happens to be my theatre. So if you’d kindly fuck off I’d appreciate it.”
“Fuck off, eh?” Billy asks, turning on the charm. He smiles, wide and slow, and lets his hand drift down to his crotch. His jeans are tight and faded; the denim feels soft against his fingers as he strokes himself. “I can do that.”
“So can chimpanzees.”
This Geoffrey guy seems to be a bit of an asshole, which is okay with Billy. He’d seen the flare of interest, of desire, and even if the guy’s not his type he could probably do a lot worse. Joe’s fucked off, vanished into the spirit world, so Billy can’t tell if he approves. He fondles himself for a moment longer and lets his dick get nice and hard in his jeans, then moves closer to Geoffrey.
“Sorry I christened your theatre. Make it up to you, okay?”
“You’re completely wasted.”
“Yeah.” Billy’s close enough to get into the guy’s face. His breath must stink like bad whiskey and puke, but Geoffrey doesn’t even flinch. “Doesn’t mean I can’t blow you. Or you could fuck me, if you want.”
Geoffrey doesn’t reply. He’s as mute as Joe for a long time and just stares Billy down, eyes narrowed and gleaming with an intensity that makes Billy feel slightly ashamed of himself. Finally Geoffrey speaks. He says: “You’re a very good actor, you know.”
Billy blinks and steps back. Of all the fucked-up things he’d expected... He looks around for Joe to share the joke and this time Joe’s there. He’s standing out on the street under one of the old wrought-iron lampposts the Montreal city council probably thought would lend the neighbourhood a bit of old-world charm. Joe just smokes and watches, eyes glittering like the shards of Sortilège scattered across the street.
“What do you mean?”
“Just what I said.” Geoffrey locks his fingers around the thinness of Billy’s wrist. “You’re a good actor.” His hands are warm and strong and blunt, a little like Joe’s. Billy swallows.
“Yeah, well, everyone plays a role. Everyone lies. Got a problem with that?”
“No.”
Geoffrey lets go of his arm and Billy resists the urge to rub it the way prisoners do in the movies when the handcuffs finally come off. He’d read the whole situation wrong. The theatre queer didn’t want to fuck or be sucked. Somewhere Joe Dick is laughing.
Geoffrey looks at him again, but this time he’s not assessing Billy or trying to see into his soul. Billy thinks for a wild second that maybe Geoffrey could do that, until he remembers that he’s just drunk and it’s late and he’s so fucking lonely that this seemed like a good idea five seconds ago.
“It’s no way to live. That’s all I’m saying.” Geoffrey’s voice is sad and quiet, and it makes Billy thinks about stories where the hero falls in love with the only person who can’t love him back.
“Yeah,” Billy agrees. He thinks about that last performance in Edmonton, Joe at the mike predicting in a low, angry voice that Billy was a dead man. The sharp crack of bone against bone when Joe threw that first punch, the way pain blossomed in his jaw. The fucking pain blooming in his heart. He still felt like the whole thing had happened to someone else, like he really was just some actor reading his lines and doing a stage fight, throwing jabs, feinting, rolling around with every movement timed and choreographed. Fighting Joe, fucking him...it all felt like some bigger plan that had been worked out in advance. But Geoffrey was right--that was no way to live. Never had been.
And while Joe’s ghost stays silent, Billy talks.
“Could have been good, is what I’m saying. Could have faked it.”
“I suppose so,” Geoffrey says, but he sounds like he doesn’t quite believe it. Maybe Geoffrey isn’t such a good actor. Not as good as Billy, anyway.
Billy turns to go. He looks back over his shoulder at Geoffrey standing alone in the alleyway, silhouetted by the light from the open exit door. Geoffrey is just a dark shape again, just a head and shoulders, just a shadow. He waves at something. Billy knows nothing is going to wave back.
Joe’s ghost trails along behind him, and this time Billy doesn’t look for him. “See you around.”
“I highly doubt that,” Geoffrey responds, but Billy just ignores him. He wasn’t talking to Geoffrey, anyway.
THE END
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Translations of the Quebecois for you completists out there:
Geoffrey: “Saint-crisse de tabarnac, tais-toi!” (Holy Christ of the tabernacle, shut up!)
Billy: “De calisse!” (Fuck off!)
Author: nos4a2no9
Rating: R for adult language (of the Quebecois variety)
Pairing: Billy Tallent/Geoffrey Tenant
Length: 1,985 words
Notes: For mickeymvt, who requested “a HCL/Slings & Arrows crossover fic, where Geoffrey convinces Billy Tallent that he's more than a successful musician, he's an actor...Bonus points for Billy actually accepting the role and doing Shakespeare.” I had to forfeit my bonus points on several accounts, but I hope you still like this, Mickster!
Many thanks to jamethiel_bane for a great early beta, and to j_s_cavalcante for helping to finish this story and for assisting this clueless Canadian with her Quebecois French.
In life Joe Dick talked more than anyone Billy had ever met. His speech was quick, almost violent, always punctuated with “fuck” and “goddamn” and “cunt” because Joe swore the way other people gestured with their hands when they spoke. He had a voice that could carry to the back of a crowded house, a laugh that was big and booming, and a soft, quiet whisper that could make a stranger feel like an intimate friend.
But in death Joe Dick is silent. Billy will look up from a recording session in LA to see his ghost lingering at the back of the room, an unlit cigarette dangling from his mute lips, his eyes locked on Billy but focused on the distance between them. On stage in front of five thousand people at a stadium in Arizona, Billy will scan the light rigging and squint, certain he’s seen Joe’s battered old sneakers dangling down between the spotlights. Joe’s ghost is always present but never vocal, content for the first time to simply watch.
Billy, for his part, never speaks to Joe’s ghost. He’ll look for him as long as he can until the moment snaps like spring thaw and something draws his attention away. And when Billy looks back Joe’s ghost is gone. Gone, but not departed. Never forgotten.
He gets used to it. Someone once told him that it’s possible to get used to anything as long as you believe you’ve got no choice, and Billy knows deep in his soul the simple truth of that. He’s a part of Joe and Joe’s a part of him and they’ll always be connected, even though Joe passed a bullet through his brain and Billy is just going through the motions, now. Still looking for Joe, still finding him.
Jenifur plays New York on the final stop of a tour that’s lasted six months. They’ll rest up for a couple of weeks, write some new songs, maybe record a little, and then it’s on to Japan for another two-month tour. Billy doesn’t mind--a gig’s a gig, and he stopped caring about any of it when Joe offed himself--but he’s looking forward to the break. Even he can see that he’s drinking too much, not sleeping, not eating. Soon he’ll be just like Joe, a walking ghost, thin and pale and mute. Something has to change, something has to give, or he’s not going to survive Joe’s afterlife.
So when Hannah hands Billy a ticket to Montreal and suggests he spend a few weeks in his home and native land while Jenifur takes a break, Billy packs a bag and hops on a plane and drinks enough to make sure he won’t see Joe for the whole flight. Joe seems to get the hint, for once, and Billy falls asleep and dreams of driving winding highways in the dark.
Montreal is a great city. It’s not their city, not even close, but Montreal is good. It doesn’t fit with the rest of Canada and Quebec doesn’t seem to know what to do with it, but for Billy it’s perfect because it’s not Vancouver. Or Edmonton. He checks into a hotel and orders up some liquid lunch, then goes stumbling down St. Laurent Boulevard looking for a fight or a fuck.
Joe trails behind and smokes cigarettes that don’t burn.
They end up in a seedy part of town full of condemned apartment buildings. The stench of the river is heavy here, reeking of chlorine and dead fish. Billy breathes deep, welcoming the burn in his throat that joins the nicotine and the Quebecois whiskey. He throws the empty bottle against a graffiti brick wall and screams at Joe.
“Talk to me! Fucking talk to me!”
The bottle makes a satisfying crash as it shatters and lands in the alley in a mess of glass and booze.
“Saint-crisse de tabarnac, tais-toi!”
The man yelling at him in Quebecois has poked his head out of a window high above. In the darkness of the alley it looks like he’s part of the building. Billy can just barely make out the vague suggestion of a head and shoulders. Billy never learned any French but he’s played to enough hostile crowds to understand what the guy yelled down to him, and he’s picked up a handy phrase or two himself. Which he screams, loudly, at the man above.
“De calisse!”
He almost turns his head to check if Joe approves before he realizes he’ll never get any kind of response.
What he gets instead is footsteps pounding down a staircase, and the loud bang of a door being thrown open and hitting the brick wall. The yelling guy seems to want a fight and Billy’s happy to oblige. He sways drunkenly and tries to figure out which of the three men shifting and blurring in front of him he should hit first.
But the guy only mutters something in French and keeps his distance. Billy pulls himself into his best tough-guy stance, which probably doesn’t look like much since he’s thin and shaky and wasted.
“What’d you say to me?”
“I said, you’ve got good projection. Your elocution could use work, but then you smell like a distillery and one can’t expect miracles.”
Billy meets Joe’s eyes over the crazy guy’s head. For a second he thinks Joe is going to smile but it’s the same dead, unfocused stare. “What’s it to you?” he snarls.
Crazy Guy shrugs. “I just think it’s a shame to waste a good voice. Keep yelling like that and your throat will be raw in the morning.”
“So what?” Billy doesn’t say that his throat could be put to better uses. He doesn’t say it because the guy isn’t really his type. He’s tall, good-looking, a little weary around the edges. His hair’s too long and his clothing is rumpled, but he looks more like a wino or maybe a college professor than a real punk. Which is Billy’s type. Was.
“So, if you insist on yelling yourself hoarse in a public venue at one a.m. on a weekday, you should expect to get notes and learn to accept them gracefully.” Crazy Guy stares at him in a way that reminds Billy, slightly, of Joe. The way Joe used to look when he was prodding around for weaknesses, poking for any soft, vulnerable spots that he could exploit. It’s an assessing look and it makes Billy feel uncomfortable.
“You got a name?”
“Geoffrey,” he says. “And the building you’ve just christened with your cheap Sortilège happens to be my theatre. So if you’d kindly fuck off I’d appreciate it.”
“Fuck off, eh?” Billy asks, turning on the charm. He smiles, wide and slow, and lets his hand drift down to his crotch. His jeans are tight and faded; the denim feels soft against his fingers as he strokes himself. “I can do that.”
“So can chimpanzees.”
This Geoffrey guy seems to be a bit of an asshole, which is okay with Billy. He’d seen the flare of interest, of desire, and even if the guy’s not his type he could probably do a lot worse. Joe’s fucked off, vanished into the spirit world, so Billy can’t tell if he approves. He fondles himself for a moment longer and lets his dick get nice and hard in his jeans, then moves closer to Geoffrey.
“Sorry I christened your theatre. Make it up to you, okay?”
“You’re completely wasted.”
“Yeah.” Billy’s close enough to get into the guy’s face. His breath must stink like bad whiskey and puke, but Geoffrey doesn’t even flinch. “Doesn’t mean I can’t blow you. Or you could fuck me, if you want.”
Geoffrey doesn’t reply. He’s as mute as Joe for a long time and just stares Billy down, eyes narrowed and gleaming with an intensity that makes Billy feel slightly ashamed of himself. Finally Geoffrey speaks. He says: “You’re a very good actor, you know.”
Billy blinks and steps back. Of all the fucked-up things he’d expected... He looks around for Joe to share the joke and this time Joe’s there. He’s standing out on the street under one of the old wrought-iron lampposts the Montreal city council probably thought would lend the neighbourhood a bit of old-world charm. Joe just smokes and watches, eyes glittering like the shards of Sortilège scattered across the street.
“What do you mean?”
“Just what I said.” Geoffrey locks his fingers around the thinness of Billy’s wrist. “You’re a good actor.” His hands are warm and strong and blunt, a little like Joe’s. Billy swallows.
“Yeah, well, everyone plays a role. Everyone lies. Got a problem with that?”
“No.”
Geoffrey lets go of his arm and Billy resists the urge to rub it the way prisoners do in the movies when the handcuffs finally come off. He’d read the whole situation wrong. The theatre queer didn’t want to fuck or be sucked. Somewhere Joe Dick is laughing.
Geoffrey looks at him again, but this time he’s not assessing Billy or trying to see into his soul. Billy thinks for a wild second that maybe Geoffrey could do that, until he remembers that he’s just drunk and it’s late and he’s so fucking lonely that this seemed like a good idea five seconds ago.
“It’s no way to live. That’s all I’m saying.” Geoffrey’s voice is sad and quiet, and it makes Billy thinks about stories where the hero falls in love with the only person who can’t love him back.
“Yeah,” Billy agrees. He thinks about that last performance in Edmonton, Joe at the mike predicting in a low, angry voice that Billy was a dead man. The sharp crack of bone against bone when Joe threw that first punch, the way pain blossomed in his jaw. The fucking pain blooming in his heart. He still felt like the whole thing had happened to someone else, like he really was just some actor reading his lines and doing a stage fight, throwing jabs, feinting, rolling around with every movement timed and choreographed. Fighting Joe, fucking him...it all felt like some bigger plan that had been worked out in advance. But Geoffrey was right--that was no way to live. Never had been.
And while Joe’s ghost stays silent, Billy talks.
“Could have been good, is what I’m saying. Could have faked it.”
“I suppose so,” Geoffrey says, but he sounds like he doesn’t quite believe it. Maybe Geoffrey isn’t such a good actor. Not as good as Billy, anyway.
Billy turns to go. He looks back over his shoulder at Geoffrey standing alone in the alleyway, silhouetted by the light from the open exit door. Geoffrey is just a dark shape again, just a head and shoulders, just a shadow. He waves at something. Billy knows nothing is going to wave back.
Joe’s ghost trails along behind him, and this time Billy doesn’t look for him. “See you around.”
“I highly doubt that,” Geoffrey responds, but Billy just ignores him. He wasn’t talking to Geoffrey, anyway.
THE END
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Translations of the Quebecois for you completists out there:
Geoffrey: “Saint-crisse de tabarnac, tais-toi!” (Holy Christ of the tabernacle, shut up!)
Billy: “De calisse!” (Fuck off!)