People Around You Smiling Out Loud [NC17] Tom Hardy/Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Title: People Around You Smiling Out Loud
Author: queenklu
Beta by: imkalena
Pairing: Joseph Gordon-Levitt/Tom Hardy (with some bonus Arthur/Eames)
Rating: NC17
Word Count: 16k
Disclaimer: None of this is reeeeal.
Summary: And that’s how it happens. That’s how Tom meets Joe.
A/N: This fic would absolutely not be what it is without pennyplainknits, who held my hand and beat out my Americanisms and recorded 16k in a rediculously few number of hours. Written for her Spring-Fling-a-Thing, I absolutely had her voice in mind, and I strongly urge you to listen to the podfic if podfic is an accessable medium for you.
Despite the disclaimer, some things are real-ish. This Inception Shooting Script (I have no idea how authentic it is) really does have some marked discrepancies from the movie, which I've shamelessly exploited.
The other thing I've nabbed (we like to call this the "folk process") is Joe Gordon-Levitt's determination not to use his stunt men for the spinning hallway, as he talks about in this interview. (And before you get too worried, he did eventually get to play in the giant gerbil ball.) Also the fact that Tom Hardy had no clue how to ski.
FINALLY, really quick primer (because I rarely know real people names unless I'm making them sleep with each other):
Ellen Page - Ariadne
Marion Cotillard - Mal
Dileep Rao - Yusuf
Cillian Murphy - Fischer
Ken Watanabe - Saito
If you don't know who Michael Caine is, I don't know what to do with you.
Tom is-well. He’s not going to deny it, he’s more than a bit jetlagged when they meet-when he meets everybody-at the first read-through of Inception. He doesn’t have a proper excuse for it, other than the absolutely ludicrous number of hours he was awake after video-chatting with the sprog (who has just turned two, so the conversation was a bit one-sided). He knew it was a bit pathetic, staying up watching infomercials while missing a family he wouldn’t see much more of back across the pond, but now Tom has a toaster specifically designed for cooking hot dogs to look forward to in the post, so that’s something.
In any case, his eyes are barely open behind the absolutely ridiculous movie star sunglasses slipping down the overtired flop sweat on the bridge of his nose, and there’s a tepid kind of coffee in his hands but he doesn’t remember ordering or paying for it. His clothes smell like aeroplane for all that he changed and showered twice, though all the shower seems to have done is make it impossible to determine whether or not Tom is clammy as a rotting corpse or just slightly damp with tap water.
And then, materializing from nowhere in front of him, is what appears to be a P.A., wearing a yellow T-shirt so bright it makes Tom want to throw his worthless coffee on the poor boy just to dim it down. He’s also wearing faded blue jeans, and trainers with the thin cloth tongues flipped out over his half-undone laces.
“Are you lost?” the boy asks, and Tom gently corrects the angle of his head so as not to be caught staring at the P.A.’s apparently entrancing choice in footwear.
“No,” Tom says, mildly surprised to find that this statement is true. He can see the paper sign with a carefully printed arrow pointing to a door not too far down the lot. Tom will walk to it, shortly. Any minute now.
“Sorry,” Tom adds, half a grunt, suddenly realizing that the P.A. has not buggered off. “Did they send you to fetch me?”
The boy’s nose wrinkles up the middle as his sweet face breaks out into a beautiful grin, all dimples and straight, white, American teeth, and Tom is struck by the odd feeling that this man has not understood a word of what Tom has just said, only heard the cadence of his grumbly English vowels.
“You gotta be Tom Hardy, right?” he says, and then sticks out his hand, almost aggressively cheerful. “Hi! I’m Joseph Gordon-Levitt.”
“That’s quite a mouthful,” Tom is saying before he can stop himself. It comes out as an awful hybrid of awkward come-on and cold fish, and all Tom can do is watch as some of what looks like sincere happiness bleeds from this poor boy’s eyes.
“So I’ve been told,” Joseph Whosit Whatsit says then, and for a split marvelous second Tom is sure he is being flirted with back-but no, it’s the bloody jetlag talking. Joseph gives Tom’s hand one last shake and lets go. “Call me Joe.”
“Tom,” Tom says, slightly bewildered. Yeah, all right, mostly bewildered. “I’m sorry,” he says, genuinely apologetic, “but are you here for Inception as well?”
“Yeah,” Call-Me-Joe says, one of the middle vowels arching with the shape of his eyebrow. “I’m acting in it.”
Tom has never wished more fervently for a church spire to fall from the sky and crush his head just like what happened to that one poor bloke in Hot Fuzz-though, come to think of it, if this Nolan fellow has it right and Tom is really in some sort of nightmare, a bullet to the brainpan would do the job with half the fuss.
“Oh,” he says instead. The word comes out small, guilty. Maybe Joe is some minor bit part. Maybe he’s Projection #135 and Tom’s fat idiocy can be forgiven in some small print.
“Yeah, no, I’m Arthur,” Joe goes on to say, and almost reaches to shake Tom’s hand again. He’s still grinning, utterly pleasant. It’s unnatural.
And then it sinks in. “Arthur,” Tom says, “Arthur-bloody hell, does he have a last name? Arthur, Inception Arthur?”
Oh shit, buggering fuck, is he actually digging himself a deeper hole for this poor sod to bury him in?
“That’s the guy,” Joe says, hands in his pockets as he rocks back on his heels. His eyes are still scrunched up in the corners like he’s smiling, but he can’t possibly be-Tom has just made such an ass of himself as to forget a fellow cast-member’s name and they haven’t even done the read-through yet. He’s going to be taken out and shot by Equity. And his own mum.
“Sorry, sorry,” Tom fumbles, hands out, one still clutching his increasingly soggy paper cup, “I’m-I’m actually not this stupid in real life, I’m just knackered this morning, sorry.”
And oh, god, what is he doing, why is his accent getting thicker as some sort of shit defense mechanism, now his co-star will think he’s a posh asshole instead of just a stupid one. Fantastic.
“Okay, I caught-‘real life,’” Joe says, “which this is, by the way. You need a totem to prove it?”
“A what?”
“A…totem?” Joe repeats, good-natured smirk slipping. “Like, uh. The top? Mal’s top?”
“Oh. Right,” Tom half-laughs. “Yes,” he adds, picking at the coffee lid with his thumbnail. “This is all just. So method.”
Joe joins him in his awkward hipster nod, which is either very nice or somewhat unsettling. And then, “Think we should go in?” Joe asks, and Tom says, “Yeah, all right, after you,” like he’s some twatty butler or something else more clever that Tom will surely think of when the pounding headache of stupidity subsides.
Joe leads the way, glancing backwards every now and then as if to check Tom hasn’t fallen over his own feet and just not got up again, which is dear but if he doesn’t stop Tom may be forced to take a Cricket bat to his own head. The smiles Tom has to fit on hurt, each and every one of them hot with thinly concealed humiliation.
And that’s how it happens. That’s how Tom meets Joe.
~*~
He had met some of the cast before, during auditions to make sure the chemistry worked, and Cillian he knows from a million years ago when they were in a divey pub-theater production of Hamlet set in 1970s Uzbekistan (for some ungodly reason). DiCaprio they stuffed him in a room with for what felt like a half hour squint-off, Tom slouching low the whole time, confident and unintimidated and not bent on being the one doing the intimidating, either. Being Eames, basically. When their time was up, Tom knew Leo’s middle name (Wilhelm) and his childhood fears (drowning, bears), and Nolan offered him the job on the spot.
Tom met Dileep over a catch-up lunch with Cillian, which somehow turned into pub-crawling at three in the afternoon-though Tom doesn’t drink anymore, which made him their designated walker-and ended with being fished out of the fountain of a fancy hotel by a very flustered desk clerk who had, by some miracle, seen Stuart: A Life Backwards and agreed to let them all go if she could give Tom a quite teary-eyed hug.
But the Powers That Be hadn’t seen fit that he be introduced to the rest of the cast prior to this read-through. Mal and Ariadne, that’s understandable, as he unfortunately has very little to do with them in the film, but with Arthur-Arthur who is fastidiously dressed and coldly intelligent, Arthur who doesn’t seem like he could be farther from Call-Me-Joe if they were on different planets-there are strong, subtle connections that could be fucked over if their chemistry isn’t right.
Oh, all right, if Eames and Arthur don’t quite fit it won’t ruin the film. Tom could cite artistic integrity and get in a snit about how he wasn’t consulted, but the sheer fucking truth of it is this: he would have rather met Joe under any other circumstances than these.
Because now? Now Cillian has Tom in a headlock so fast he drops the coffee on instinct and it splashes over Joe’s ratty-but-probably-triple-digit shoes, and Joe just laughs it off and disappears to the other side of the room to speak with a little brunette who must be their Ariadne, and Tom finds himself thinking hopelessly, Come back, come back, I will buy you shiny things, and he hasn’t felt this pathetic since Mira Duncan beat him over the head with her lunch box when his pet cricket escaped onto her tuna sarnie.
“You-“ Cillian says, all long Irish vowels as he takes a theatrical whiff of Tom’s hair, “-smell like aeroplane and stale coffee.”
“You would know,” Tom shoots back, disarming Cillian long enough that Tom can elbow his way free. Joe is lifting one foot to demonstrate to ‘Ariadne’ just how soggy his trainers are, and she’s making mostly-sarcastic cooing noises (fine, she may stay).
“You all right, mate?” Cillian peers at him, unnaturally blue eyes digging right inside Tom’s skull. “Talk to Cumberbatch recently?”
“Why do you always think Benny is the problem,” Tom sighs as he sheds his jacket and drapes it over the chair with his name on it.
The room is just large enough to be considered ‘intimate’ while holding upwards of forty people, including all the technical types and the various assistants. There’s a long gray table down the middle, place-settings, scripts, chairs all around it and circling the room. Leo seems to be showing Dileep some sort of game on his phone in one corner with another man Tom doesn’t recognize, and oh, look, there’s Michael Caine. Tom hopes fervently that he will never have to say one word to this man, as it will invariably come out as a mash of syllables Tom will then have to pretend was intentional. At least for as long as it takes him to find a gun and shoot himself with it.
“I think you get all droopy when you don’t hear from him,” Cillian says, eyes twinkling. “And I remember a certain very drunk night in Prague-“
“Never happened,” Tom waves off, “And I’ll tell you why-“
“Yeah, and if I told you I have pictures?”
“Jesus Christ, why would you keep pictures of something that happened fifteen years ago, you nutter. Here, listen,” Tom says, changing trains of thought entirely before he stops and gives Cillian a considering look. “Fighting Irish?”
For reasons he can’t entirely explain, Cillian is the reason Tom has a Fighting Irish Leprechaun tattooed onto his bicep. Subsequently, the term ‘Fighting Irish’ has somehow come to be the equivalent of issuing a pinky-swear not to tell anyone what’s about to be said between them. Cillian’s arms fold across his chest as he hip-checks the table, slipping on a slightly more serious face.
“Yeah, all right.”
Tom is very careful to keep his voice low, to make sure no one is within eavesdropping distance when he asks, “Why is Arthur being played by an infant?”
“-That’s your hang-up?” Cillian asks, incredulous, louder than Tom would like. “That’s what- Tommy. Tommy. I know have trust issues wider than the fucking English Channel but I am asking you to trust that Nolan is a fucking genius, and he would never go with someone who was second best for this, all right? And that includes you,” he adds, “So try not to be an ass about it.”
Tom ducks his head to obscure the wry and dutifully shamed curl of his lips, and thanks every god above that Nolan takes that precise moment to swan in, all American sports jacket and t-shirt, light colored hair swept away from his face.
“Everyone here?” the director asks, “Ellen? Where’s Ellen? There you are, excellent,” he says when ‘Ariadne’ waves. “Why do I feel like we’re missing someone? Tom? Joe?”
“Here,” they call out simultaneously. Tom catches himself staring as Joe huffs a slightly embarrassed laugh and turns the faintest shade of pink.
“I think you’ll find,” Michael bloody Caine pipes up, and Tom’s spine fuses just in time to stop himself from physically shrinking away, “Sorry, I think you’ll find it’s our Miss Cotillard.”
“Please, call me Marion,” a sweet French voice sings out, and she must be their Mal. She is lovely, in every sense of the word, gliding into the room like she’s floating on air, slipping free of her coat as if it were a choreographed dance movement. There’s a little voice in Tom’s head that sounds an awful lot like Benny warning him that if he isn’t careful, he’ll wind up half in love with most of the damn cast. “Being fashionably late is all the rage, yes?”
A chuckle circulates the room as everyone takes their seat. Cillian is delegated to the space between Michael Caine and the man playing Fischer’s deceitful uncle-figure, a vaguely sweaty man who insists on shaking everyone’s hand within his reach. Leo, rake that he is, drops a brief kiss to Marion’s fingertips as he sits down, and it still somehow comes as a shock that there can only be one actor who could fill the seat to Leo’s left and Tom’s sodding right-Joe.
Joe, who plops down and smiles at Tom with all the inherent cold intelligence of a newborn kitten in a basket of fluffy yellow towels, not the best point man in not-strictly-legal dream espionage. Tom smiles back uncertainly despite himself, despite his day, despite his life, because damn it all, Cillian has prodded that bit of Tom’s mind where Benny’s voice lives, waiting to mock his bad life choices and horrible manners.
Nolan, meanwhile, has introduced the man in charge of reading aloud the bits that aren’t dialogue-the blocking, scenery descriptions, etc. (there’s a word for it but Tom can never remember)-and seems to be waiting for the anticipatory hush to envelope the room to the point where everyone is holding their breath. Joe’s knee jiggles out of the corner of Tom’s eye, and he barely manages to stifle the urge to rest his hand on it. He’s not that much of a bastard.
“Dawn. Crashing surf,” their reader beings at Nolan’s nod, “The waves TOSS a BEARDED MAN onto wet sand. He lies there.”
Leo grins a little and waves, which somehow does nothing to ease the tension in the room.
“A CHILD’S SHOUT makes him LIFT his head to see: a LITTLE BLONDE BOY crouching, back towards us, watching the tide eat a SANDCASTLE. A LITTLE BLONDE GIRL joins the boy. The Bearded Man tries to call them, but they RUN OFF, FACES UNSEEN. He COLLAPSES.”
The scene goes on, and Tom zones out a little. He’s read it all before; no yellow highlighter appears in his script until over a dozen pages in, so he takes the time to watch his fellow actors. Whoever they got to play Saito is good, very good. Tom never even saw him enter the room, but there he is, imperious to a fault even as he turns his voice raspy with age. Tom doodles a small, Chinese-style building in the margin of his script, absently.
“What is the most resilient parasite?” Leo-as-Dom asks the room, “A bacteria? A virus? An intestinal worm?”
“A venereal disease?” Tom offers under his breath, too quiet to be audible by anyone, really, especially under the sound of the reader describing Saito’s reaction.
“Uh,” Joe begins, and Tom freezes, caught in the act, “What Mr. Cobb is trying to say-
And…Oh. That isn’t Joe at all, except. It must be. No one else was sitting where Joe is sitting, not perched on his lap like something ridiculous. It hadn’t sounded like Joe. But-Tom checks-it’s Arthur’s bloody line.
“An idea,” Dom Cobb is expositing, “Resilient, highly contagious. Once an idea has taken hold in the brain it’s almost impossible to eradicate.”
Tom sits back in his chair to watch Joe work-and he does work, everything about him is different, clearer; no, that’s not the word. There’s an edge to him, and edge to Arthur which Joe doesn’t have. That’s Arthur speaking in the back of his throat like each word has to earn the right to be heard. That’s Arthur in the set of his shoulders like he’s bracing to be struck so he can strike back.
“In the dream state,” Arthur says, “your conscious defenses are lowered, and that makes your thoughts vulnerable to theft.”
Cillian catches Tom’s gaze across the table and arches his eyebrows, smirking behind the hands clasped in front of his face. Yes, all right, Tom shoots back in his own facial expression. He thinks he almost sees Joe glance at him, but there’s no catch in his voice at all when he goes on.
“It’s called extraction.”
Tom catches himself grinning inexplicably, and chalks it up to the general atmosphere of the room, the anticipation that they’re making something great.
~*~
Joe isn’t Arthur the whole way through, not that he should be-when it isn’t his scene he slips effortlessly back into his own skin, which is something fascinating to watch. When Tom-as-Eames drawls, “Arthur…You still working with that stick-in-the-mud?” and the way Joe grins makes Tom’s insides hitch inexplicably, irrationally-most likely due to the fact he hasn’t eaten since the night before-they’re all moments Tom can feel sticking to his skin like new tattoos.
By the end of the read-through he’s starving, and while some part of him knows he could send a P.A. for a sandwich, the thought of being That Actor this early on in the game is enough to curb his appetite until they finish.
“Great job, man,” Joe says over the clatter of chairs. It takes Tom a scattered second to realize that Joe has turned towards him instead of Leonardo DiCaprio, has offered him his hand again, which must be an American thing.
“Oh, ah, yes, thank you,” Tom stammers, pathetically, as he accepts it. “You too, really-excellent job today.”
“Thank you,” Joe says, so sincere and grateful it makes Tom want to stare at him like an exhibit in a zoo. Real People, in Tom’s experience, do not become actors. Or perhaps it’s that they don’t stay real people once they do. “It really means a lot.”
Leo is flirting harmlessly with Miss Marion, which must have been the reason Joe turned his attention this way. “Really?” Tom scoffs, disentangling the collar of his jacket from his scarf. Just to give the boy an excuse to stand here until he can get his In with DiCaprio. “A next-to-unknown Brit still fresh off the boat best known for playing Heathcliff in a BBC production of Wuthering Heights? But it means a lot that I think you’re a good actor?”
“Hey, I saw Bronson, don’t sell yourself short,” Joe says, eyebrows high and tight.
“Shit, fuck, sorry,” Tom gets out before Joe can say anything else, wincing as an instantaneous migraine obliterates everything but pain and mortification. “I’m clearly not fit for human company at present. And shall remove myself forthwith and accordingly and…some such, and go eat something. And hopefully return a much better person for my costume fitting.” His things are all gathered up, coat buttoned, before he risks a hesitant glance at Joe. “You wouldn’t happen to know the closest eatery, would you?”
Somehow, inexplicably, instead of abject horror or irritated disgust, Joe is smiling. Like he’s been caught off-guard by Tom. Damn, what is the line-“I’m impressed, Mr. Eames.” Tom checks his emotions like a pickpocketed man checks his valuables, but he doesn’t feel condescended upon, not like Eames’ response would suggest.
“Do you like bagels?” Joe asks.
“It depends.” Another glance. “Would you think less of me if I said I could eat five in one sitting?”
Joe looks as if he’s giving the matter serious thought. “At this moment or on any given day?”
“At this moment.”
“Dunno,” Joe shrugs, throwing his coat over his shoulder. “Guess we’ll find out.”
“You coming with?” Tom blurts, high-pitched and embarrassing. “Did you miss the bit where I can’t seem to help insulting you like a prize idiot?”
“Yeah, and I have a hunch that it’s totally because you’re bagel deprived. Come on.” Tom jumps when Joe’s hand lands on his shoulder, shoving his world out of alignment for a split second before dropping it back into place. There’s something there in the gesture, possibly an age-gap thing that should rankle but instead just thrills. And god, god Tom needs food.
“I know the best place,” Joe says, and Tom is so inclined to believe him that they’ve made it all the way to the door before he remembers-
“Did you want a quick word with Leo?” Tom asks. Joe’s expression goes blank, questioning, and something hot and uncomfortable squirms in Tom’s belly. “Thought that might be why you were hanging ‘round chatting with me,” he covers quickly, only just managing to carry the whole thing off as a self-deprecating joke.
“Oh,” Joe laughs, shortly. “Haha, no, don’t worry about it. I’ll catch up with him later.”
“You sure?” Tom asks, but they’re already stepping outside. He can practically already smell the bagels.
Joe finally slips into his brown leather jacket, acquiescing to the chill. “I promise,” Joe says, “you’re more interesting.”
Which is a bit of a weird thing to say. And isn’t particularly fair to Leo-by definition A-List Hollywood Celebrities are more interesting, otherwise why would the masses press their faces to the glass whenever TMZ and the like pops on the telly? Joe has to be lying, to make Tom feel better. Which is kind of soul-crushing in and of itself; if Joe, who has known him all of two minutes, can pick up on the fact that Tom is an emotional clusterfuck, then it must be obvious to everybody on the entire planet.
Joe smiles at him, and Tom tries not to be sick long enough to smile back.
~*~
They bump into Dileep and Ariadne-pardon, Ellen-on their way off the lot, a circumstance that shouldn’t be surprising or disappointing, but still somehow happens to be both (at least in Tom’s mind). Miss Ellen Page is charming and vivacious, (Canadian), and intelligent in a way that makes Tom think she might grow up to be the next Benedict Cumberbatch. Dileep in particular seems fascinated by Ellen, though he also seems fascinated by the prospect of texting someone under the table without being detected, a skill which he is woefully lacking.
Tom kicks at his feet and narrowly misses hitting Ellen by mistake. “Who on earth are you being so stealthy about, Christ,” he demands through a heavenly mouthful of carbs and cream cheese. The table they’ve encircled is just barely big enough for their bagels-must be a New York thing, trying to be a Paris thing-which means Joe’s elbow keeps bumping his every time they take a bite. It’s not bad, it’s just distracting.
Dileep’s eyes go wide. “Nobody.”
“CHEERS, ROMANS,” Cillian’s voice rings out as he bursts through the doors of the (thankfully) noisy Deli. “Countrymen,” he adds, ruffling Tom’s hair and earning himself a yelp of outrage.
“Oi!”
“Hi, we haven’t properly met, I’m Cillian,” the Irishman spins off so fast Tom can barely follow; Joe’s grin is definitely on the uncertain side, but he accepts the handshake even though it means putting down his lunch. Ellen’s eyebrows march right up into her hairline. “Listen,” Cillian continues, “Tommy. Just spoke with Benny-”
“Jesus fuck, Murphy,” Tom snaps. “How did you even- You had lunch with us once, six years ago.”
“Sod off, I keep things,” Cillian says, half over his shoulder.
Joe shifts in his seat, airy, uncomfortable laugh slipping from his parted lips. Tom has to forcibly clench his jaw against blurting out, I would take your hand and drag you from this place in an instant. Thank god for it being both bagel-o-clock and Tom’s 4th year being sober, or Tom might have said those words aloud, no question. And it’s entirely possible that he would have meant them.
“Who’s Benny?” Ellen asks, bless her.
“Benny as in Benedict Cumberbatch?” Dileep asks, damn him straight to hell. “The guy you were in Stuart: A Life Backwards with?”
“You have not seen that movie,” Tom tells him. “There is no possible-“
“It’s on youtube,” Dileep defends, eyes narrowed to hide their twinkling. “But no, I haven’t seen it. I’ve been reliably informed it’s like-wait, what’s the phrase-‘It’s like your best childhood friend…stabbing you repeatedly in the face. And you loving it anyway.’”
Tom laughs and covers his face, briefly. “God, it is that. Who told you-“
Dileep wiggles his phone. “The internet.”
“Oh, yeah.” Joe nods. “Totally reliable, then.”
“What were you doing talking to Benny?” Tom demands, rounding on Cillian, and definitely not as an excuse to turn his gaze from the laugh lines around Joe’s eyes.
“He’s concerned about you, as I suspected.” Cillian reaches unsuccessfully for Tom’s jaw before Tom slaps his hands away. “Call. Him.”
“Is Benny your-“ Ellen raises her eyebrows, and Tom simply adores how well she’s holding her own at a table with more bagels than estrogen. Which is probably why he gives her a real answer.
“No,” he says, shaking his head. “No, Benny is not my-“ He raises his eyebrows as well. “Benny has the most delightful girlfriend named Olivia, and he’s far too brilliant to be seen with the likes of me anyway.”
“Selling yourself short again,” Cillian growls, shouldering Tom right into Joe.
“Oi! Sorry,” Tom quickly apologizes, before turning back to the table, steadfastly ignoring the way his arm feels imprinted with Joe’s shape. “But, no, do you know how close I came to not getting this part? Nolan called me up the day of the contract signing, asking if I knew how to ski.”
“Oh come off it,” Cillian says, “Nolan wouldn’t’ve let you go for that.”
“That’s right.” Joe snaps his fingers. “I forgot you were in the first Batman with him.”
“Yes I was,” Cillian’s scrawny chest puffs up. “And Ken Watanabe, and,” his voice drops to an obnoxious drawl, “Michael Caine-“
Tom kicks him under the table with absolutely solid accuracy, and is not sorry in the slightest when the Irishman barely stops himself from tumbling off his seat.
“Do you?” Ellen’s expressive little mouth quirks at Tom, a dare. “Know how to ski?”
“Of course I bloody well don’t!” Tom cries over the eruption of laughter from the table. “What, do you think I was knobbing off to Switzerland every Christmas or just skiing through the streets of London all ‘All right mate, yeah, goin’ to the pub, just give us a sec to put on our skis?’”
Joe’s laugh is a deep-bellied sound, all rounded and American and right down in his gut. It feels like he’s almost leaning into the place where their arms are touching as he rocks forward, says, “God, you are definitely, definitely feeling better.”
He is, is the thing. And Tom is not quick to blush, but he can feel the back of his neck getting hot, has to duck his head so Joe won’t see. “It’s these bagels,” he proclaims, lifting his in a toast. “And this cast. To good company.”
Ellen is the first to pick up her breakfast and tap it against his, followed instantly by everyone else. “To good company.”
Yeah, Tom thinks as Joe silently passes him the cream cheese. Yeah, this’ll turn out all right.
~*~
“Are they hiring someone, do you think?”
“Sorry, what?” Tom asks, doing his level best not to twist around and impale himself on any number of pins the nice German lady is wielding so very close to his vital organs. And…other things.
“To teach you to ski,” Joe calls. He’s just on the other side of a thin curtain divide that might as well be non-existent. They’re both blokes, after all-though maybe it’s to preserve the modesty of the costume fitters. Not that the one pinning Tom’s costume had shown any qualms about stripping him to his knickers the instant he stepped through the door.
“It’s either that or watch me waste film falling flat on my face.” Tom forgets himself and shrugs, earning a pin right to the thigh. “Ouch! Erm. Why do you ask?”
“No reason,” Joe lies. It’s so delightful hearing the untruth, Tom feels as if he’s Eames discovering a new facet to a mark’s character. “It’s, ah. He didn’t mention anything to you about stunt doubles? They’re dragging you behind a snow machine at one point. I think you have to ski backwards. While shooting people.”
“Aw, Joseph, concerned for my safety?” Tom thinks he hears a little cough from Joe at the use of his full name, but he doesn’t say anything about it. “Dunno,” Tom says, “Nolan never mentioned it. I think he wants things to look as real as they can, yeah? And I’m up for it, as much as they’ll let me-ow!”
“Be. Still,” the costume lady orders, and gives his slacks a sharp yank.
"Entschuldigung, leibling,” Tom apologizes. Her mutterings turn a shade lighter, but only fractionally.
“Was that you?” Joe calls through their partition, though his voice shifts as if he’s on the move. “Do you speak German?”
“Only enough to flirt outrageously and apologize afterwards,” Tom says, giving the seamstress a cheeky wink which she ignores with the fury of a thousand suns. “Now, what did you mean when you-“
His voice dries up.
Arthur is standing in the doorway, wearing Joe’s face and a suit that makes Tom feel like he’s sweating money just by standing in the same room with it. It fits him in places Tom hadn’t even known the man had, the sweet, narrowing point of his waist and the gentle flare of his hips, the small of his back which he shows when he turns around, arms outstretched for Tom’s inspection.
“Well?” Joe asks, and his voice snaps Tom right out of it. It is Joe, under there, not Arthur, though Tom is sure it could be Arthur in a split second if Joe wanted. It’s Joe in the soft flush creeping up under the crisp shape of his collar, Joe in his hair and the embarrassed flash of his dimples. “What do you think?”
“…Perfect.” The word stays there longer than it should, a glass shape in that infinitesimal moment before it hits the ground and shatters. Tom is holding his breath. He hadn’t meant to.
Or maybe he did. Maybe the way Joe is grinning is some sort of accidental instant karma. Maybe Tom is sincerely, genuinely fucked in the head, and if he can’t find some other way to shoot himself in the foot, well, apparently his brain will just invent something like the feeling of falling in love.
“Oh my god,” Joe says, his nose wrinkling up delightfully. “Is that paisley?”
“You only wish,” Tom tells him, “that you could pull this off.”
Joe throws his head back when he laughs, flush rushing to curl up under his jaw. “Keep telling yourself that. Is that your jacket?” he asks, pointing to the lineup. “It looks like it was made from a carpet.”
“Keep laughing,” Tom dares him, more than half-way serious. “I’ve seen your rack as well, darling. They’ll have you in sweaters soon enough, and I will laugh when you look like a posh little Catholic school boy just begging to be binned.”
“You-what?” Joe splutters, voice oddly strained. Tom leans in, despite the threat of pins, to get a closer look.
At that moment Jeffrey-costume bloke-struts in, blithering about clothing integrity and character arcs and oh, he’s found the perfect watch for Eames, a huge brassy gold thing that fits around his wrist like the best kind of handcuff, an antique that will mean Tom’s head if he loses it.
“Oh, that is lovely,” Tom barely has time to say, weight of the metal steady against his pulse, before Jeffrey turns on Arthur and says, “No. No, not in a million years. Those aren’t the buttons I chose. Where the hell is Nancy?”
Joe is dragged off-not literally, Jeffrey would never grab a costume and the only bare skin Joe is showing is on his hands and the back of his neck. But the point is, he’s gone, long gone, Tom still reverently fiddling with the tiny brass dials on Eames’ watch before he realizes that he’d called Joe ‘darling.’
Oh fuck.
~*~
“I was hoping you would call,” Benny growls around his yawn, “but I was also hoping you’d call at not fuck-off-o’clock.”
“Time zones,” Tom says, wiggling his fingers as if Benedict bloody Cumberbatch is enough of a fucking genius to see them through the phone connection. Tom is chain smoking in the farthest corner of the lot from his trailer, because if he so much as glimpses a bed he’ll pass out, and he needs to get over this jet lag one way or another. It’s barely nine o’clock; if he can just stay awake until ten…
“Hello?”
Tom snaps to attention. “Yes, yes, I’m here.”
“Tommy. Dearest.” There’s a muffled rustling of linens and murmurs, presumably Olivia kicking Benedict out of bed. Tom closes his eyes because they feel leaden and raw, and not because at one point in time that word would have made his chest clench hot. In Tom’s experience, there is nothing quite like harboring a massive crush on the unattainable straight boy to damage one’s self-esteem, and here he goes again, nurturing a brand new mortar-eating ivy with Joe’s name on it.
Tom is so tired.
“Where are you?” Benny asks, completely oblivious to Tom’s hopeless mental state.
“Lot,” Tom grumbles. “Smoking. Feel like a first year outside the bike sheds.”
“Oh you had a bike shed, did you?” Benny drawls, delightedly.
“Fuck off, we didn’t all go to sodding Harrow.” Tom takes another long drag, willing the nicotine to calm him down instead of jittering him up. “I bet your food magically appeared on golden plates while candles floated on the ceiling near the rafters where the owls swooped in with the daily mail.” He thinks about it. “Shit, talk about a fire hazard. All those birds near so many candles-“
“Tommy,” Benedict cuts him off, “First off, I’m using that in an interview, you’re a fucking genius, and twice off-“ He takes a moment to sigh, god damn him, and Tom can feel him slipping into someone else, possibly drawing back the curtains to gaze out upon the lightly drizzled, empty streets of London. “I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; / I lift my lids and all is born again.”
“…What the bleeding fuck is wrong with you,” Tom demands, flatly.
“It’s poetry, you uncultured chav.” And now his feet are probably kicked up on some floral sofa in his flat-one of many, thanks to Olivia-but Benny is back with him, which is what Tom always used to tell himself is what counted. “Sylvia Plath-who was so beyond fucked in the head we won’t even get into it. But Tommy, do you notice you do this to yourself? You get into these fits where you’re mildly hopeful and then you plunge yourself into a seething pit of dread. It’s not healthy. And I’m not saying you’re bipolar, of course you aren’t. I’m just saying that you seem to find it extremely difficult to stand up for what you want.”
“Excuse me! I’m playing a vital role in a movie guaranteed to be the next fucking hit,” Tom points out, dragging his outrage from the smoke slipping from his lips. “The first advance is enough to keep me and mine in style for the next year in London alone, and-the cast is ace! I’m making friends…” His voice wavers oh-so-tellingly, but Tom puts a hand to his face and carries on, pushing forward in some vain hope Benny won’t have noticed. “What do you think it is that I want?”
“To be happy, you beautiful idiot,” Benny tells him. “Now, tell me about the cast.”
Tom groans and sinks to a crouch for a moment, feeling physically twisted up in knots and dizzy from too much nicotine. He flicks the cigarette away, and very pointedly says nothing.
“Is it DiCaprio?” Benny needles.
“Oh god, are you-I would rather fuck a stray dog from Elephant and Castle tube station.”
Benny giggles, sleep-giddy and undignified. This is the Benedict Tommy loves best, the prepubescent kid he must have been, probably still is somewhere under all his genius. “Lovely imagery, that. You always were top at words.”
“Top at words-do you hear yourself?”
It’s chilly out, cold seeping through Tom’s clothes quicker now that he doesn’t have a fag in his mouth to distract him. He plays the thought back and snorts, starts meandering back in the direction of his trailer with Benny’s voice bitching in his ear.
“Tommy, it’s five in the morning,” Benny points out, half a groan. “I’m talking you through an existential crisis; please, focus.”
“It’s Joe,” Tom hears himself blurt, words as muddled and grudging as his footsteps on the lot. “Joseph Gordon-something, oh bugger.”
“Gordon-Levitt?” Benny asks.
“Christ, has everyone heard of this boy besides me?”
A wry chuckle slips down the phone line. “It’s called Google Auto-finish, Tommy, try not to be thick. And according to his bio, he’s hardly a boy.”
“You’re just saying that to make me feel less of a pedophile,” Tom sighs, defeated.
“He’ll be thirty this February,” Benny sings. “Oh, went to Columbia University, raised Jewish by parents Dennis and-”
“Jesus Christ, shut up. This is the creepiest thing you’ve ever done for me, and that includes the time I woke up to you watching me sleep.”
“You were recovering from a cocaine overdose, pardon me for being concerned.” His tone is flat with a real edge underneath it, and Tom feels like kicking himself instantly.
“Benny, come on, love, I didn’t mean it.” Tom’s key is sticking in the lock of the trailer door, cheap print-off sign with his name on it taped to the window blocking the view inside. He hasn’t actually been in the trailer, yet, was told some poor assistant type would be responsible for collecting his bags from the hotel and bringing them here at some point during the day. “I know you worry, but I’ve been clean for ages, now-“
Joe opens the door. From the inside.
“Uhh,” Tom says, quite intelligently.
“Hi?” says Joe, sounding and looking quite confused by all of this.
“Listen,” Benedict’s voice chimes in Tom’s ear, “I think you should definitely shag this Joseph Gordon-Levitt person. Not simply because he’s been acting since he was old enough to talk, but have you seen the mouth on this boy? He also has cheekbones up to here, which I know you find attractive in a man.”
“I will have to call you back,” Tom chokes out.
“What? No, don’t. I’m going to bed. Seriously, buy the poor boy roses and suck his dick a little and he’ll be yours. Cumberbatch, out.” The dial tone sounds.
“I’m sorry,” Tom stammers out, his brain still stuck in one constant loop of-Jesus, roses, and- “Fuck, I seem to be saying that a lot today. Um.” And god, he’s mortified, thankful only that the volume wasn’t loud enough on his phone for Joe to listen in, but-“The sign,” he says, pointing at it. “It says this is mine.”
“That-huh.” Joe’s eyes are wide, mouth (Christ) slipping open in surprise. “Shit. It’s gotta be someone screwing around, I swear that sign was different-fuck, I know it was-“
And then he goes to prove it, steps down directly into Tom’s space so he can show that his key actually fits in the lock and turns it, and Tom is going to murder Cillian fucking Murphy if he has to do it in the manner of his forefathers-with potato famines and various plagues and socio-economic oppression.
“Socio-potato famines?” Joe repeats, because apparently Tom said that last bit out loud. There’s a smile tugging at one corner of Joe’s mouth, and oh. Oh. Tom doesn’t know how he missed the fact that Joe is wearing glasses, thick-rimmed wide-paned monstrosities that just make Tom want to buy him a pocket protector and lick him all over.
Happiness, Benny had said. Happiness, you beautiful idiot.
“Yes,” Tom says in reply to Joe’s query. “I will inflict upon him-er, potatoes. Joseph, darling,” he says, and it comes out so damn smooth and nearly nonchalant he could kiss himself, “I don’t suppose you know which trailer actually does belong to me?”
The only light in the lot is from a few scattered anti-trip lights and the warm glow emanating from behind Joe, so it’s impossible to tell if Joe’s cheeks just turned a shade darker. “Yeah, uh,” he says, reaching up to rub the nape of his neck. “It’s-just across the way, there.”
It is, if Joseph is to be believed, literally a grand total of eight feet away. And he should be believed, Tom thinks, because there is the sign with Joe’s name on it, and scribbled underneath is a rather crude drawing of a smiley face with its tongue sticking out.
“Brilliant,” Tom mutters. They may very well stumble into each other in the morning, hell every morning, when Tom is feeling gross and snappish and looks like jet lag fucked him dry and put him up wet.
“Are you just getting in?” Joe asks, arms crossed conversationally over his ridiculous yellow t-shirt.
“Trying to avoid temptation. Of sleeping,” Tom amends, unconsciously mimicking Joe’s pose. “Before ten, at least. I refuse to be this time zone’s bitch any longer than I have to.”
Joe laughs, and Tom loves so much in that moment that he’s so easily amused. “I hate to break it to you, dude,” Joe says, “but it’s, ah, just barely 9:30. You gonna give up and crash a little early? I promise I won’t tell anyone.”
Tom feels a little gut-punched by the time, which just testifies to how bone deep tired he is. “I haven’t sacked out before ten since…” He gives up the rest of the sentence in a sigh, pinching at the bridge of his nose before he waves the issue aside. “Never mind. I’ll see you bright and early, yeah? Sorry to have bothered you, again.”
“I’ve got, uh-“ Joe blurts, a half-step in Tom’s direction. “I mean, I was just about to watch a Big Bang Theory, if you wanted to-come in. They’re about 22-minute episodes, so. It’d get you closer to ten?”
Buy him roses, Benny’s voice whispers through Tom’s sleep-sticky mind, and he shakes it off before the rest of the thought can complete.
“Yeah,” he says, “I mean, yeah, why not. Is it a religion vs. science documentary or something?”
Joe snorts, but he looks so genuinely pleased that his offer was accepted, and his hand is warm on Tom’s shoulder as he ushers him inside, and Tom is too bloody tired to stumble into any potholes of self-doubt or whatever Benny called it. He lets himself lean into Joe a little, as he says, “Cheers,” and accepts the hot cup of tea from the brush of Joe’s fingers, and settles next to him on the soft leather sofa.
~*~
He doesn’t make it back to his trailer that night, but not for any fun reasons. He knows he giggled through at least four episodes and three cups of tea, but he couldn’t honestly tell anyone the plot of a single one of them, too caught up in Joe’s snorting laugh and the shine of his glasses in the TV light. He doesn’t even remember falling asleep, but he hopes it was more fucking dignified than jerking awake at four in the morning tangled up in a purple knit throw with his face mashed into a drool-damp sofa cushion. He has to piss so bad he’s half-hard with it, and he is not relieving himself in Joe’s trailer with morning wood, he just isn’t.
So-he’s not particularly proud of it-but he steals Joe’s afghan and sneaks off like a one-night tart, shivering the whole eight feet of dawn-damp pavement to his own trailer, where he can take a leak in peace. Falling asleep isn’t any more complicated than collapsing into a heap atop the mattress, afghan scrunched up around his face and smelling of Joe.
When his phone buzzes violently in his jeans three hours later, at least it’s a much more respectable hour of the morning to wake up hard.
Part Two