fic: TWAIN [dr. and mrs. princess whitelaw]
Title: TWAIN
Fandom: ST RPF (AU!)
Pairing: Pinto!
Rating: Rish for language
Word Count: ~6700
Summary: Part of the Dr. and Mrs. Princess Whitelaw series -- AU in which Chris quits Hollywood and acting, goes back to school for his Ph.D in literature, and teaches at Berkeley. This is the story of how Mark Twain saved Zach and Chris.
Notes: Dedicated, as always, to the marvelous
leupagus, whose constant abuse and shaming makes this possible. And a billion thanks to that same leupagus and
waldorph for looking this over a few thousand times and telling me how to make it suck less. Inspired by this story from around May or so. Yeah. It's been in the works that long. Sigh. (AO3)
Graduate programs in the humanities aren't in the habit of courting potential students, but Berkeley pulled some real cloak-and-dagger Indiana Jones shit to get Chris.
At least, Indiana Jones is all he can think of when his former adviser and a few other administrative hotshots from the CLS (College of Letters and Science -- because while College of Liberal Arts is good enough for every other school in the country, it's not good enough for Berkeley) take him deep into the bowels of the library. Oh, and the chancellor of the university comes, too, because why not.
It's dark, dank, moldly, musty, and all those other great synonyms for gross as they wind their way through passages, each one making Chris more and more concerned that he's going to be forced to drink human blood at the end.
And then they reach the end, where a huge steel door opens into some kind of Batman Begins kind of shit: a huge, blindingly bright, sterile lab, and Chris wonders how many goddamn franchises he'll see on this fucking tour.
"Just a little further, Chris," Dr. Lee, his adviser, says, and the other hotshots murmur in agreement.
Chris lingers as they walk because this is apparently The Rare Book Room. Not the rare book room with some rare first editions on display for careful perusal, Chris realizes as he glances at the cases: these are handwritten manuscripts, too cramped and yellowed for an untrained eye to discern easily, and too precious for even the careful handling of the main rare book room.
Dr. Lee stops in front of a case and urges Chris to come forward and look.
"We've been in possession of this manuscript for about twenty years," she says as Chris leans in to inspect the papers in the case. "The previous caretakers simply didn't have the resources to do the materials justice and, considering the time-sensitive nature of the materials, it was unreasonable of them to have held on for as long as they did."
Chris squints a little, the typewritten title page of the manuscript too often manhandled and smudged, and then steps back to stare at Dr. Lee when he reads it.
"This is -- it's all of the Twain autobiography?" Chris asks. He clears his throat so as to avoid squeaking like a girl. "This --"
"Chris, this has the Mark Twain that America needs to meet," Dr. Lee says seriously. Chris steps back from the case and notices the hotshots have gathered behind her, all of them staring at him more intently than he's ever been stared at in person. It's disarming enough to disarm him, who has some experience with being visually probed and assessed.
"We've worked out a timetable that would enable you, upon completing your dissertation, to become one of the project managers of the third volume: the volume that will change everything we know about these formative years of modern American culture."
"What," Chris laughs. "I'm not --"
"At the moment, you're not qualified," the chancellor of the CLS informs him. "However, you wouldn't be here if Dr. Lee hadn't vouched for your exceptional work as a student, your potential with further instruction, and your passion for this subject."
He's fucking dumbstruck, but manages to keep his mouth shut. Okay, he licks his lips once, but that's just because the humidity controls in the lab are ridiculous and it's not a nervous tic or anything.
"Mr. Pine," the chancellor of the university begins, "Berkeley is the best educational institution in the world. This is how we remain the best: daily, our scholars push themselves further than they believe themselves possible and, in every discipline, we achieve the extraordinary. We've given the world Google, Apple, Intel, presidents and prime ministers, Nobel Laureates in droves -- Chris, we have a synthetic element on the periodic table." He steps forward and looks right into Chris's soul. "Destiny doesn't exist in this day and age, but your timing: why else would you come to us on the eve of literary history if not to have a part in it?"
Chris swallows and nods. "Let's talk."
*
"Lord of the Rings?" Zach asks when he hears the story.
"Star Wars, dude," Chris says sharply. "Those droids just happen to --"
"Whatever, nerd," Zach replies.
"Oh," Chris says. "Oh. You --"
They're lying in bed, facing each other, and Chris leans in to kiss Zach, but changes his mind and smothers him with a pillow instead.
"Basically what you're telling me is that you're pretty hot shit," Zach asks when he fights his way to oxygen again.
"Yeah."
"In the English department at Berkeley."
"It's funny that I can hear how that means nothing to you, while all I hear is like -- it's all in bold and italics, basically, with how important that is."
"Mmmhmm," Zach replies. "And it doesn't mean nothing to me -- it's important because you're there!"
"That's sweet," Chris says, and he kisses Zach for real. "But it's actually important. Like. Objectively important. In the world. To people."
"Of course it is, princess," Zach says in that way where a tree stump wouldn't believe him, and would then beat him into a smoothie for being so condescending.
*
For all that Mark Twain might have shaped Chris's life and post-acting career, Zach finds that Chris doesn't bring it up as often as Zach thought he would.
"That's because it's eating the rest of my life," Chris says, his eyes fixed on his netbook screen.
He's just reading in bed, so Zach rests his head on Chris's lap and doesn't compete with the computer. He had a horrible flight from New York with two fucking emergency landings (one in Wyoming, which had achieved flight capability without informing Zach) and just wants to lie here quietly with his fucking husband and stop his shoulders from screaming in pain.
"I come home, you're here, and you're not going to ask me how my sketch of Twain as a central figure in the global 19th century is going," Chris adds. He types a note over Zach's hair and pushes his glasses further up his nose.
"How --"
"Badly," Chris says.
"Sorry."
"Yeah, it sucks." Chris closes the netbook, puts it on his bedside table, and looks down at Zach. Zach looks up and gives him the best tired puppy eyes he can manage.
"Wanna fuck?" Chris asks.
"I might fall asleep," Zach sighs.
"Me too," he admits.
"Is Mark Twain our baby? You know, sucking our youth and beauty and life force out of us?"
"God, I hope not. You know, considering the university eventually wants to sell the shit out of our baby."
"I think we've been celebrities too long," Zach says. "That sounds pretty normal."
Chris murmurs in agreement and strokes Zach's hair for a while. They fall asleep like that and Zach is the one to wake up later, pull the glasses off Chris's face, turn off the light, and urge his zombie into something resembling a sleeping position.
*
It's time for Chris to defend his dissertation and he's a raw fucking nerve for the two weeks leading up to the event. It makes no sense, as he submitted his fucking extensive work on the Twain project as his dissertation so he didn't have to write a traditional, soul-sucking one; he just had to have the past six years of his life devoured by the pursuit of becoming the new definitive Voice of Mark Twain or what the fuck ever.
It's really the department's announcement e-mail that pisses him off the most:
Christopher Pine, Ph.D candidate at the College of Letters and Science in the subject of English, will defend his dissertation on Thursday at 11 AM. This event is open to the public.
Please arrive early as seating is limited.
Those dissertation defense e-mails are sent out every goddamn week and they never have that last line attached, but Chris needs it because he's a special flower and maybe fifty people (versus the usual 10) will be there to watch him embarrass himself and attempt to justify the last six years of his life.
He waits outside the hall, and then they summon him in -- Berkeley brings a weird kind of medievalism and ceremony to just about everything, even today when he gets to sit at a table in front of his three advisers and listen to them poke holes in every argument he's ever made.
For hours.
He's been to these before, friends of his mostly, and knows he should walk in, take a seat, and try not to sob.
So he walks in through the double doors and the room fucking bursts into applause. (At least two hundred of pairs of hands attached to bodies in seats, not fifty.)
No one else gets that.
Ever.
What the fuck.
Since they expected a huge crowd, the university set up his defense in one of the law school's courtrooms and just as Chris is about to push the little half door to get to his table, he sees the front row.
Zach is sitting there ("early shoot in Sacramento", the liar) with Chris's friends and TAs, all of them sipping from little plastic supermarket champagne glasses. Chris didn't see any familiar faces as he walked in because his students are all in the rows behind Zach, most of them drinking and eating --
Yeah, eating finger foods at his fucking dissertation defense out of their picnic basket -- the Picnic Basket of Destiny, as Zach calls it, because Chris bought it during their first trip to Williams-Sonoma the day after the Oscars. Chris can't quite believe any of this is real.
"I saved a cup for you," Zach says, holding a plastic champagne glass up. "And I have another bottle for when you kick this dissertation's ass, Mr. Pine."
"Zach," is the sound the whole scene, the whole room full of people supporting him and being hugely inappropriate for him, drags out of his throat. "Remember how I -- I don't mix professional and private," Chris says weakly, shooting warning glances at his friends, TAs, and undergrads.
"I know that, and they told me," Zach replies, "But just for today, could we say 'fuck that'?"
"Yeah, fine," Chris laughs, and he grabs at Zach's shoulder briefly, and his fingers touch the back of Zach's neck and feel the soft hair there before he heads over to his table and sits down.
*
Hours later, after the crowd has dispersed, Zach wraps his arms around Chris's waist and just holds him outside on the lawn.
"Dr. Christopher W. Pine," Zach muses as he stands with Chris. "Can I get you business cards now?"
"Wait two years," Chris replies. "If Berkeley hires me as a professor, I get my own letterhead, too."
"But my cards will say 'fuckmuffin' underneath your name," Zach grins. "Oh! Of course. I could just have them say 'Dr. Princess Whitelaw'."
"Why do you hate me and want me to be sad?"
"Never, princess, never," Zach murmurs, pressing himself against Chris and holding him tighter.
*
Chris becomes a postdoc (more money, same workload, new title), and gets all sorts of access to parts of the Twain memoirs he wasn't allowed to handle before.
"Which is stupid, I mean, hello, public domain," Chris says. "I don't think we're legally allowed to --"
"But why are you talking to me about work?" Zach interrupts because Chris doesn't, as his own a rule, bring shop talk home.
"Because work just got awesome -- come read this!"
So they sit on the recliner (Chris in the chair itself and Zach on the arm, both of them hoping neither the cat nor one of the dogs tries to join because then it will definitely collapse under all of them) and Zach tries to plow through the goddamn 19th century bullshit ("turn of the 20th, you cretin") on Chris's netbook screen.
"Wait," Zach says. "Is -- wait. Wait." He pulls the netbook into his lap, then higher so it's in front of his face, then takes Chris's glasses that fuck with the contacts he has in anyway, and then just stares at Chris.
"Doctor, explain," Zach says, because it's still not old, the 'Dr. Pine' thing.
Chris grins like a kid who just got a deadly weapon and a puppy for Christmas, and rests his hand high on Zach's thigh.
"Mark Twain and his sexy young secretary really, really liked electric toys," Chris says seriously. "And this is in the first twenty pages. I get to devote the next however many years covering the filthy amazing Twain years."
"Do you want to be Mr. Twain and I can be," Zach looks back at the screen and reads, "'that bawdy and licentious slut' --"
"Isabel," Chris finishes. "I can't go a page further until we've done that, Zach."
Zach laughs as he says, "You get more amazing every minute of every day. Now take your pants off."
"I don't think that's what Isabel --"
"I'm saying take your damn pants off."
Chris doesn't fight it.
*
Margot the Paramount agent, who will try for the rest of her unnatural life to get Chris on board for Star Trek XII: Fuck You, Chris Pine, This is Going to Fucking Happen, summons Zach for one of their lunch dates filled with half-drunk banter, expensive fucking food, and Zach looking up how to kill a succubus on his phone.
"Zach," Margot announces when their appetizers arrive, "You'll be so happy to hear this."
"Chris has me reading the Harry Potter books and I'm pretty sure the --" Zach stops himself because if he really does make the Harry Potter joke he's about to make, Margot will twist it into a story for the tabloids about how he and Chris are running a children's book themed sex dungeon.
(They aren't.)
"Anyway, I'm pretty sure people can't feel happiness around you, Margot," Zach sighs.
"How cute are you," she coos as she leans over the table and strokes his cheek with her fake nails that could, actually, claw one of his eyes out. She sits back and clears her throat. "I'm not here to talk about Star Trek, Zach," she says.
"I'm still not paying for this," Zach says as he's about to shove a forkful of salmon tartare into his mouth.
"Still Paramount's pocket, hon. You enjoy those calories, okay?"
He glares at her and eats it anyway.
"Paramount knows what Chris is doing," she says finally.
"What is Chris doing?" he asks.
"That whole Mark Wahlberg project for Berkeley."
"Mark Twain."
"Mark who gives a shit -- but Paramount thinks people will give fifteen dollars worth of shits if he agrees to consult on the Mark Twain biopic they want to produce."
Maybe Margot has pulled Zach into some kind of wormhole, but that... doesn't sound like an idea he should reject immediately. He realizes he might be emoting his genuine intrigue when Margot smirks at him over her martini.
"Five," she adds, the glint in her eye indicating million. "I don't have to tell you that Chris would become the wealthiest academic on the fucking planet if he took this one job."
"I'm not sure what part of 'my husband left a trillion-dollar franchise for his love of books' hasn't sunk in yet, but: it's not --"
"This is a timed offer, Zach, and I haven't mentioned the fun part yet." The idea of Margot excited about something terrifies Zach, so he takes an edifying sip of his drink.
"Berkeley approves."
"Wait, what? Berkeley? Bastion of integrity Berkeley?"
"Inte-what? Zach, Berkeley is a business. Chris is their shiny, gorgeous cog. So you tell Chris this: either he works directly with Paramount, collects his paycheck, and builds you a city-block sized addition to Castle Homo, or he works for Paramount through Berkeley and maybe sees 3% of that five mil."
Business!Zach steps in and asks, "Working for Paramount directly would mean he gets an executive producer role, am I right?"
"It could. Does this mean I'm going back with good news?"
"You're going back to make it clear that Chris gets that executive producer credit, and that any additional consultants Paramount hires would report to him and have to be approved by him." He pauses and adds, "Also, I want Before the Door in on it."
"Oh my God," Margot says. "Zach. How do you feel about vaginas because --"
"Call me when you hear something," Zach says quickly, and rushes out of the restaurant because fuck, he isn't sure what just happened but Chris is probably going to kill him.
"Zach!" Margot calls just as he reaches the door. "One more thing!"
Zach halts and takes a deep breath before he turns around walks back to the table, taking his seat across Margot again.
"While your confidence is inspiring, Chris hasn't been exactly... receptive of any of Paramount's offers yet," she begins.
"No shit, Margot, but this sounds like something he might actually do -- it's not acting, it's Mark Twain --"
"Zach," Margot says slowly, a smile that shouldn't be on her face making its way on there again, "It's been six years since Chris packed up shop and left for the ivory tower, is that right?"
"Uh. Yeah?"
"Paramount and Berkeley think this joint production of the Twain book-and-movie could be quite big, and it's not something either of them wants to shelve."
"Okay..."
"When you propose all this to Chris, let him know that it's not really a proposal. It's the opportunity to get back into Paramount's good graces."
"And why should he -- oh."
"Oh sweetie," Margot coos. "I do love that look on you. Don't you think those three words are the most beautiful in any language?" She sighs and exhales the phrase, "breach of contract," and mother of fucking everything, they are fucked.
*
A day or two later on one of Zach's precious days off, Zach's phone rings just as Chris walks out of his study, netbook in hand, glasses on the edge of his nose and eyebrows raised.
"Zach," he begins.
"Hold on, it's Corey," Zach says as he answers. "What's up?"
"A Mark Twain biopic?!" Corey shrieks.
"I didn't know your beard let your voice get that high."
"And Chris as an executive producer? Zach, what?!"
"Wait, they said yes to that?"
"Video call in two hours and until then, Neal and I are going to practice killing you with our minds."
"Corey, I haven't heard anything back so forward whatever to me --"
"Okay, check your phone. Two hours, okay? And if you can get Chris on there, too --"
"We'll see if I'm alive in two hours, but I'll try and be there."
"ZACH!" Corey screams once more before he hangs up. Zach puts his phone down and it vibrates immediately to indicate a new e-mail. He focuses on Chris, hoping it's unrelated but knowing it's probably not.
"Why do I have a contract from Paramount in my inbox?" Chris asks. "More importantly, why does the university's chancellor want to meet with me immediately?"
"So, uh, remember that meeting I had with Margot?"
"Oh my God," Chris exhales. "You didn't -- you didn't agree to anything, did you? Oh my God. What the fuck could have --"
"Chris, have you even read the e-mail?" Zach asks.
"I don't have to -- Zach, I don't do that anymore, okay, and I can't believe --"
"Shut up," Zach says and he climbs out of the recliner so they can be at eye-level with each other. "It's a Mark Twain biopic."
"What?!" Chris shrieks, which has Zach briefly wonder if it's something in the water or whether he really did fuck up and make an incredibly stupid decision for all the people in his life. "What in the hell could have made you think --"
"You'd be an executive producer, not an actor," Zach interrupts. "Corey was calling me because apparently Paramount said okay to Before the Door also producing -- Chris, you'd be the head consultant on the movie, with the caveat that I'd murder anyone who took a step without your permission and pull our money out of it. And it's Paramount paying you! You'd be good with them again!"
"Zach," Chris says slowly, and he shakes his head. "Zach I can't."
"Chris, they really want this movie to happen," Zach says, putting his hands on Chris's shoulders, trying to meet his eyes. "That's probably what the chancellor wants to talk to you about -- either you do it our way or Berkeley's way, and you are going to get screwed if you do it Berkeley's way. But you have to do it."
"You're missing the point here, Zach!" Chris replies. "I don't do this bullshit anymore -- Hollywood -- movies -- I don't, it's just. I physically cannot do it. If I take one step, if I give in even just a little, that means they can drag me back and I can't do that." Chris puts his computer down and Zach, again, can't figure out if Chris is being genuine or if he was always this good at acting and making his eyes water on cue.
(Oh God, how could he doubt Chris? If he doubts that, then what's the point of any of this?)
"You know, Zach," Chris says, and Zach knows it's bad when Chris is using his name this often, like some kind of crutch to get him through every sentence and every feeling. "You know how difficult it's been for me to get to this point and now I should just --"
"Chris, what part of Berkeley wants this are you not hearing? And Paramount wants this. If you piss either of them off, they are going to end you -- Chris!" Zach tightens his grip on Chris's shoulders and says slowly, "The breach of contract suit. They're going to file it if you don't agree to consult. They're playing nice right now, but they won't for long, so you should set up that meeting and --"
"Why are you saying that like I'm actually going to do it?" Chris asks. "I'm writing back or calling them or whatever, it's -- I'm not doing it. They can get someone else because I'm not doing this."
Zach lets go of Chris and covers his mouth because he honestly cannot believe Chris is this fucking stubborn, like, stubborn to the point of stupidity.
"You are a fucking moron!" Zach says, half shocked and half laughing and it all seems really eerily familiar for a minute. "You have people with more power than you can even conceive of bending over backwards to accommodate you and you -- are you kidding?"
"I'm not doing this," Chris repeats.
Zach stares at him for a moment and mimics Chris's pose, the defiant arms-crossed-over-their-chests look with a matching really tough open-legged stance for their giant balls of obstinance.
"You really are this selfish," Zach says, a little softer than he would have liked but he can't help the realization seeping into his brain.
"Zach --"
"We've had this fight before," Zach says. "And you're still that selfish, that -- it's called compromise, Chris, remember?!"
"I've spent my entire life compromising --"
"No, actually, you haven't," Zach says, and he holds out a hand to tick points off. "Born to rich fucking parents who have been together your whole life and love and support you no matter what, sent to the best schools in the country, lived off them while you kind of maybe acted, became a huge fucking actor and then stopped doing that --"
"Okay, I get it, Zach --"
"-- when it got too unpleasant for you, and then just left all that, and -- oh my God, what about me?"
"It's always about you, isn't it?" Chris replies angrily and wow, he just. He does not get it. It knocks the breath out of Zach for a moment and Zach honestly can't move for like, seconds before the yelling really starts.
"No, it isn't, Chris! It has never been about me when it comes to you, not for one fucking minute of one fucking day! I'm talking about the part where I've spent the past six years supporting you, protecting you, defending you, and making sure that you got everything you wanted."
"I'm sorry, you never mentioned I'd have to pay you back someday -- who should I make the check out to?"
"Okay, never mind how offensive that is to me on every level imaginable," Zach begins. "You need to put on your big boy panties and go look over your Berkeley contract, and then the one Paramount sent you, and consider your choice really carefully."
"Whatever," Chris says, because if he was a sulky sixteen-year-old before, he's just regressed to like, eight at best.
"Chris, I'm not fucking kidding. Get a lawyer to look them over for you and they'll tell you what I'm trying to tell you -- you have to do this or we are both ruined. Like, can't-afford-to-feed-the-dogs-never-mind-ourselves ruined." Zach rubs a hand over his face because Chris is looking away, and both of them -- they've never fought like this. How can -- does one of them walk away now? Do they make dinner together later? Is Chris going to work on the couch while Zach reads? Can Zach wander into Chris's office and drape himself over Chris's shoulders and distract him from his work? How could people do this regularly?
It's his phone vibrating again with that e-mail notification that makes the decision for him, apparently.
"I need to get this," Zach says.
"Okay," Chris says quietly. "I'll -- I'm going to let Topanga out, she was whining before."
Zach grabs his hand and they're still for a moment, like that can actually do something --
Chris squeezes back and heads to the French doors, leaving Zach standing in the living room victorious and feeling really shitty about it.
*
This is how Stan enters their lives (though how Chris instills the fear of god into him is another story entirely.)
Two or three days after the Battle of Berkeley, Stan comes over and Zach spends the first twenty minutes trying to figure out what that smell is.
"Right, so," Stan says as he spreads his papers out on their table in front of Chris. He points to Zach and asks Chris, "Is he here as your domestic partner or as a Before the Door partner?"
"Uh," Chris stammers. "Domestic...?"
"Make up your fucking mind, princess, because if it's the latter he needs to swish back to his Sears modeling gig before we start."
Zach is kind of in love and only mildly offended.
"Common law husband," Zach says.
"Nope," Stan replies, not looking up from his papers. "Common law marriages aren't recognized in California and even if they were, one of you doesn't have a vagina. You're partners, so sit down and shut up and I don't want to hear about the role your production company plays in this, okay?"
"That's fine," Zach says, and he sits down.
"Anyway," Stan begins, "Looking these over, calling Berkeley's counsel -- what a slimy sack of shit, by the way, don't let that bitch get into any of your business -- I've determined that your partner here is right and you should take Paramount's offer."
"Uh, why?" Chris asks.
"Uh," Stan mocks, "because you're not a fucking idiot?"
Zach opens his mouth to say something because it's one thing for him to say that to Chris, but -- he doesn't. Chris needs to hear it from someone else.
Chris knows it and his eyes dart over to look at Zach a little helplessly.
"Now, I don't know --"
"Patchouli!" Zach whispers to himself.
Stan stares at him for a second, shakes his head, and looks at Chris.
"I don't know what kind of moral objection you have to doing this movie and frankly, I don't give a fuck. You asked me how bad it would be if you didn't and I'm telling you: it would be very bad."
"How bad?" Chris asks.
"Ruining your life," Stan says. "I also called Paramount's counsel and they -- kid, you only got out of your Trek contract by the grace of J.J. Abrams not pressing charges and the economy picking back up around that time, so they could afford to just slide Trek to the backburner until you change your mind."
"That's not going to happen."
"They know that," Stan says, "which is why they will officially drop all that nasty business if you come work for them on this one little project."
Chris groans and slouches into his chair.
"And how does Berkeley come into this?" Zach asks.
"That is something particular to Dr. Pine here," Stan says with a grin that makes Zach feel unpleasantly dirty all over. "On paper, Dr. Pine is an untenured postdoc, working on a little project about whoever, right?"
"Uh, it's a little more than --" Chris begins but Stan actually shushes him.
"I know. Here's the catch: your contract in particular has a clause about 'complete cooperation' with all aspects of the project's production, probably aware of the fact that you've bolted from projects before. Berkeley's counsel made it clear that she will twist that cooperation clause to mean all works produced with the university. Once the movie's officially given a go, that'll establish a connection between Paramount and Berkely and if you back out, they'll both come after you for breach of contract."
"Fuck," Chris says.
"And remember: Paramount still has your first little breach of contract thing saved up for a rainy day, but like I said -- they'd be willing to forgive that for your complete cooperation on their movie."
"And if I don't --"
"Is he serious?" Stan asks Zach, who keeps his expression completely blank. Stan turns to Chris again, cups his hands around his mouth and says, "You will never work again." He lowers his hands and asks, "Who's going to hire a 40-year-old has-been action star with a Ph.D in English and three breach of contract suits on their record?"
Chris is 37, but that doesn't soften the blow. Zach rubs a foot against Chris's calf and watches him carefully across the table.
"The bitch at Berkeley did corroborate what Paramount counsel said: say yes now, you'll be hired as Dr. Chris Pine and can keep your $5 mil; say no, then you'll be doing the work through your Berkeley contract and you'll get 10% for just as much work."
"What stake does Before the Door have in everything?" Chris asks and Zach stares at him, baffled.
Stan sighs, looks at Zach, and then replies as if by rote, "Before the Door Productions will provide 15% of the film's financial backing in exchange for their partners' executive producer rights and privileges to the film."
"15% is a lot," Chris says to Zach.
Zach could sit there and scream NO FUCKING SHIT, YOU INFANT, BUT I DO IT FOR YOU.
He shrugs instead.
"So I've made an appointment for you with the Berkeley chancellor and the rest of the college's board," Stan says, "and then we can --"
"Wait, I haven't hired you --" Chris begins.
Stan stares at him and Chris meekly replies, "Hired."
"Thank you. Anyway, I did a little early work with Berkeley counsel so that at this meeting, we'll agree to develop a new timeline where the last volume of the Twain memoirs will be published six weeks before the premiere of the film -- approximately three years from now, so you have about two to get it all done. First, you'll develop for Paramount a treatment of the project, which they can approve, revise, or reject."
"If they reject it?" Chris asks and Zach laughs because that's not a silver lining he sees, not even a little.
"They get someone else to develop a treatment and then you do the research to make that treatment possible," Stan says. "So it's in your best interest if they don't reject it since you want to retain all this creative control."
Chris sulks a little and asks, "And for the next three years --"
"You work on the Twain memoirs and the movie stuff concurrently."
Chris doesn't agree, so Stan sighs and says, "Frankly, this is a better deal than you deserve and if you hesitate on accepting, the deal changes. Price drops to $2 mil and with that kind of drop, you're going to lose a whole lot of privileges you'd get otherwise."
"I hate everything," Chris informs Zach.
"Big boy panties, one leg at a time," Zach says.
"That's my cue to get the fuck out of here," Stan says as he packs his papers up again. "Boys, I'll be in touch."
Once they're alone again, that awkwardness Zach has avoided by working late all week at BTD's San Francisco office (i.e., calling his mom to whine about Chris being awful and then reading Gawker and OhNoTheyDidnt until the cleaning crew arrived) comes back in full force, worse now because Chris knows he was wrong and, haha, Chris apologizing, that should be fun.
"So," Chris begins, standing by the door with his hand in his hair and looking really sheepish and sad. "15%?"
"What?" Zach asks. "Uh, yeah. Berkeley's the other big backer, through the university and the university press so they've got a lot of overall influence, but I figured --"
"Baby," Chris says suddenly, and he crosses the living room to straddle Zach on the chair and grin a little. "When did you get so smart about shit?"
"Uh," Zach says stupidly because, what? Chris's arms are on Zach's shoulders and his hands are playing with his hair and -- what? Weren't they mad two minutes ago? At each other? Like, really mad? "It's kind of what I've been doing, you know, this entire time. My job? The thing that bought us this house and everything in it?"
"I thought you were just making comic books and things!"
"Okay, seriously? 'Comic books and things'? Now I'm just --"
They kiss for the first time in three days and Zach realizes what a horrible feeling it is to have missed someone while living in the same house with them.
"Yeah," Zach says as he breaks the kiss to breathe. "I told Neal and Corey it was an investment in my sanity."
"Mostly mine," Chris murmurs.
"Mine is yours, yours is mine. Joint tax returns, joint sanity, yeah --"
"I'm so sorry," Chris interrupts, and then says, "Hold on."
He leaves Zach's lap, puts his hands in his pockets, looks Zach plain in the face and says, "Zach, I am so sorry I said those really awful things to you."
Zach swallows and says, "They were the worst things anyone has ever said to me."
"I'm so sorry," he repeats soberly.
"You need to grow up a little, Chris." He sits up and pulls Chris into his lap again. "You can't say those things to me just because you're mad. And you can't -- it's not, never has been and never will be, about you owing me anything, but the fact that you didn't want to do this for me -- for us -- like. What?"
"I just --" Chris wraps his arms around Zach's neck and closes his eyes as he hides his face near Zach's shoulder. "It feels like it did before everything, you know? Before the Oscars when I was just. Flailing around trying to drink my coffee and not be seen and --"
"You idiot, it's different now," Zach says. "Remember the part where now you can be out and proud and --"
"I still want my privacy."
"Well fuck that," Zach says, and he grips Chris a little tighter around his waist. "For the next three years we get to work together and yell at people together -- Chris, you get to help pick who plays Mark Twain."
Chris considers it and says, "He needs to have really good hair. Like, these long fucking curls and, well, duh, the stache."
"I think I'll grow one in Twain's honor," Zach says.
"No you won't."
"No, probably not."
*
After that, it's surprisingly easy for them to sign all the contracts and move to LA for two years.
Settling into their LA house (i.e., Zach's old house, where he lived out The Trek Years) is a little more difficult.
For one thing, it being Zach's old house, there's a fucking 10-foot wall around the entire property.
"What if we have to escape?!" Chris shrieks.
Granted, Chris asked that when they were just friends and he visited, and he asked that when they were fucking and Zach's house was so much bigger than his shitty apartment a few blocks away, and he asked whenever he thought to ask, but now it was a genuine question.
"Who would we have to escape? Your puppy, Cujo?"
"Way to date yourself, buddy."
"Scared the shit out of my mom -- it's why we never had a dog when I was growing up."
Topanga chooses that moment to run outside and bark at a squirrel along the wall.
"Goddammit, she's rabid," Chris whimpers. "How are we going to escape?"
"Uh, we walk out the front gate," Zach begins, and he takes Chris's hand and leads him around to the front of the house, "And we leave. And lock it behind us. And we go to Lamill."
Chris digs his heels into the concrete and shakes his head. "I will never need coffee that bad."
"I didn't want to tell you this before we got here, but," Zach says slowly, and they stand in front of the house, both his hands holding both of Chris's, "Lamill coffee? Has gotten even better than you remember."
"How can it get better than perfection?" Chris asks.
Zach drops Chris's hands, puts his hands in his pockets, and begins strolling down the street, taking their usual way (well, usual what, seven years ago?) to Lamill.
".........dammit," Chris hisses as he runs after Zach and nudges him until he almost crashes into a wall.
They run into exactly one photographer just outside Lamill, who yells at Zach but lets Chris sneak inside mostly unnoticed, and that's the start of things not being horrible anymore.
Zach notices, with relief, that it gets better when Chris actually gets back to working on what he was sent to LA for, but there's still that -- childishness and petulance that Zach thought was endearing until it almost cost them everything they had (and make no fucking mistake about it -- it was everything they had.)
"No one said it would be this hard," Chris whines when Zach walks in after spending the day at the studio.
Zach stops in the doorway and looks around because Chris had decided not to work in any of the bedrooms, or his newly furnished office, or Zach's office, or even the kitchen table -- instead, he had spread his netbook and books and papers all over the living room floor and camped out there. He was pretty sure Noah was flopped on volume II of Chris's life-work and he somehow didn't mind.
"Was that a Coldplay lyric? Oh my God, get your leash. You need to get out of the house."
"Zach, no, it was a joke --"
"Coldplay is never a joke. Come on."
Zach's heart breaks a little when Topanga rushes in with a leash in her teeth, looking eagerly towards the door.
"I hope you're happy," Zach tells Chris. "You've made her work like her breed intended."
And they go out and walk and talk and bicker and Chris grows up a little.
Just a little, but a little every time.
Zach notices that Chris gets bigger sunglasses, shaves less frequently, runs (not jogs) with Topanga every day until he glides in through their front gates and has to catch his breath while Topanga looks exhilarated and whines the dog equivalent of "LET'S DO IT AGAIN!"
Eventually (EVENTUALLY), Chris shows up at mandatory production meetings and, because the other producers are Zach, Zach's best friends, and the guy who produced The Princess Diaries 2 (the one who didn't make his life a waking nightmare), Chris gets by.
It's nice, Zach reflects, when your boyfriend/partner/husbandoid/best friend/joint-pet-owner of a billion years no longer hates the industry that brought you together and supports him, even if he can't quite let go of that look in his eyes that suggests he wants to burn down the entire film industry in a fire ignited by his own vitriol.
And one day about a year in, they're in a production meeting and the casting agent announces they've just signed a contract with the starlet who will play Isabel opposite James Franco's Twain (and boy, the James Franco thing took a few minutes, especially when they remembered that whole art gallery fiasco a few years before, but Chris acquiesced on the basis of his hair and a flourishing mustache.)
"Abigail Breslin," the agent says.
"Oh my God, how old is she?!" James shrieks.
"She's twenty-two," the agent replies. "You're only for--"
"Jesus Christ, she's my college baby," James moans, and then sits up straight and corrects, "Not that I had one."
Chris snorts and bursts out laughing right at the table, and has to cover his mouth with his hands while he tries to suppress his laughter, but it's not fucking happening. James sighs and says something about it probably being historically accurate, and Chris nods while his eyes water. He looks to Zach on his left and laughs even harder and fuck, it wasn't even that funny but everyone laughs all the harder because Chris has finally let the fuck go.
Fandom: ST RPF (AU!)
Pairing: Pinto!
Rating: Rish for language
Word Count: ~6700
Summary: Part of the Dr. and Mrs. Princess Whitelaw series -- AU in which Chris quits Hollywood and acting, goes back to school for his Ph.D in literature, and teaches at Berkeley. This is the story of how Mark Twain saved Zach and Chris.
Notes: Dedicated, as always, to the marvelous
leupagus, whose constant abuse and shaming makes this possible. And a billion thanks to that same leupagus and
waldorph for looking this over a few thousand times and telling me how to make it suck less. Inspired by this story from around May or so. Yeah. It's been in the works that long. Sigh. (AO3)
Graduate programs in the humanities aren't in the habit of courting potential students, but Berkeley pulled some real cloak-and-dagger Indiana Jones shit to get Chris.
At least, Indiana Jones is all he can think of when his former adviser and a few other administrative hotshots from the CLS (College of Letters and Science -- because while College of Liberal Arts is good enough for every other school in the country, it's not good enough for Berkeley) take him deep into the bowels of the library. Oh, and the chancellor of the university comes, too, because why not.
It's dark, dank, moldly, musty, and all those other great synonyms for gross as they wind their way through passages, each one making Chris more and more concerned that he's going to be forced to drink human blood at the end.
And then they reach the end, where a huge steel door opens into some kind of Batman Begins kind of shit: a huge, blindingly bright, sterile lab, and Chris wonders how many goddamn franchises he'll see on this fucking tour.
"Just a little further, Chris," Dr. Lee, his adviser, says, and the other hotshots murmur in agreement.
Chris lingers as they walk because this is apparently The Rare Book Room. Not the rare book room with some rare first editions on display for careful perusal, Chris realizes as he glances at the cases: these are handwritten manuscripts, too cramped and yellowed for an untrained eye to discern easily, and too precious for even the careful handling of the main rare book room.
Dr. Lee stops in front of a case and urges Chris to come forward and look.
"We've been in possession of this manuscript for about twenty years," she says as Chris leans in to inspect the papers in the case. "The previous caretakers simply didn't have the resources to do the materials justice and, considering the time-sensitive nature of the materials, it was unreasonable of them to have held on for as long as they did."
Chris squints a little, the typewritten title page of the manuscript too often manhandled and smudged, and then steps back to stare at Dr. Lee when he reads it.
"This is -- it's all of the Twain autobiography?" Chris asks. He clears his throat so as to avoid squeaking like a girl. "This --"
"Chris, this has the Mark Twain that America needs to meet," Dr. Lee says seriously. Chris steps back from the case and notices the hotshots have gathered behind her, all of them staring at him more intently than he's ever been stared at in person. It's disarming enough to disarm him, who has some experience with being visually probed and assessed.
"We've worked out a timetable that would enable you, upon completing your dissertation, to become one of the project managers of the third volume: the volume that will change everything we know about these formative years of modern American culture."
"What," Chris laughs. "I'm not --"
"At the moment, you're not qualified," the chancellor of the CLS informs him. "However, you wouldn't be here if Dr. Lee hadn't vouched for your exceptional work as a student, your potential with further instruction, and your passion for this subject."
He's fucking dumbstruck, but manages to keep his mouth shut. Okay, he licks his lips once, but that's just because the humidity controls in the lab are ridiculous and it's not a nervous tic or anything.
"Mr. Pine," the chancellor of the university begins, "Berkeley is the best educational institution in the world. This is how we remain the best: daily, our scholars push themselves further than they believe themselves possible and, in every discipline, we achieve the extraordinary. We've given the world Google, Apple, Intel, presidents and prime ministers, Nobel Laureates in droves -- Chris, we have a synthetic element on the periodic table." He steps forward and looks right into Chris's soul. "Destiny doesn't exist in this day and age, but your timing: why else would you come to us on the eve of literary history if not to have a part in it?"
Chris swallows and nods. "Let's talk."
*
"Lord of the Rings?" Zach asks when he hears the story.
"Star Wars, dude," Chris says sharply. "Those droids just happen to --"
"Whatever, nerd," Zach replies.
"Oh," Chris says. "Oh. You --"
They're lying in bed, facing each other, and Chris leans in to kiss Zach, but changes his mind and smothers him with a pillow instead.
"Basically what you're telling me is that you're pretty hot shit," Zach asks when he fights his way to oxygen again.
"Yeah."
"In the English department at Berkeley."
"It's funny that I can hear how that means nothing to you, while all I hear is like -- it's all in bold and italics, basically, with how important that is."
"Mmmhmm," Zach replies. "And it doesn't mean nothing to me -- it's important because you're there!"
"That's sweet," Chris says, and he kisses Zach for real. "But it's actually important. Like. Objectively important. In the world. To people."
"Of course it is, princess," Zach says in that way where a tree stump wouldn't believe him, and would then beat him into a smoothie for being so condescending.
*
For all that Mark Twain might have shaped Chris's life and post-acting career, Zach finds that Chris doesn't bring it up as often as Zach thought he would.
"That's because it's eating the rest of my life," Chris says, his eyes fixed on his netbook screen.
He's just reading in bed, so Zach rests his head on Chris's lap and doesn't compete with the computer. He had a horrible flight from New York with two fucking emergency landings (one in Wyoming, which had achieved flight capability without informing Zach) and just wants to lie here quietly with his fucking husband and stop his shoulders from screaming in pain.
"I come home, you're here, and you're not going to ask me how my sketch of Twain as a central figure in the global 19th century is going," Chris adds. He types a note over Zach's hair and pushes his glasses further up his nose.
"How --"
"Badly," Chris says.
"Sorry."
"Yeah, it sucks." Chris closes the netbook, puts it on his bedside table, and looks down at Zach. Zach looks up and gives him the best tired puppy eyes he can manage.
"Wanna fuck?" Chris asks.
"I might fall asleep," Zach sighs.
"Me too," he admits.
"Is Mark Twain our baby? You know, sucking our youth and beauty and life force out of us?"
"God, I hope not. You know, considering the university eventually wants to sell the shit out of our baby."
"I think we've been celebrities too long," Zach says. "That sounds pretty normal."
Chris murmurs in agreement and strokes Zach's hair for a while. They fall asleep like that and Zach is the one to wake up later, pull the glasses off Chris's face, turn off the light, and urge his zombie into something resembling a sleeping position.
*
It's time for Chris to defend his dissertation and he's a raw fucking nerve for the two weeks leading up to the event. It makes no sense, as he submitted his fucking extensive work on the Twain project as his dissertation so he didn't have to write a traditional, soul-sucking one; he just had to have the past six years of his life devoured by the pursuit of becoming the new definitive Voice of Mark Twain or what the fuck ever.
It's really the department's announcement e-mail that pisses him off the most:
Christopher Pine, Ph.D candidate at the College of Letters and Science in the subject of English, will defend his dissertation on Thursday at 11 AM. This event is open to the public.
Please arrive early as seating is limited.
Those dissertation defense e-mails are sent out every goddamn week and they never have that last line attached, but Chris needs it because he's a special flower and maybe fifty people (versus the usual 10) will be there to watch him embarrass himself and attempt to justify the last six years of his life.
He waits outside the hall, and then they summon him in -- Berkeley brings a weird kind of medievalism and ceremony to just about everything, even today when he gets to sit at a table in front of his three advisers and listen to them poke holes in every argument he's ever made.
For hours.
He's been to these before, friends of his mostly, and knows he should walk in, take a seat, and try not to sob.
So he walks in through the double doors and the room fucking bursts into applause. (At least two hundred of pairs of hands attached to bodies in seats, not fifty.)
No one else gets that.
Ever.
What the fuck.
Since they expected a huge crowd, the university set up his defense in one of the law school's courtrooms and just as Chris is about to push the little half door to get to his table, he sees the front row.
Zach is sitting there ("early shoot in Sacramento", the liar) with Chris's friends and TAs, all of them sipping from little plastic supermarket champagne glasses. Chris didn't see any familiar faces as he walked in because his students are all in the rows behind Zach, most of them drinking and eating --
Yeah, eating finger foods at his fucking dissertation defense out of their picnic basket -- the Picnic Basket of Destiny, as Zach calls it, because Chris bought it during their first trip to Williams-Sonoma the day after the Oscars. Chris can't quite believe any of this is real.
"I saved a cup for you," Zach says, holding a plastic champagne glass up. "And I have another bottle for when you kick this dissertation's ass, Mr. Pine."
"Zach," is the sound the whole scene, the whole room full of people supporting him and being hugely inappropriate for him, drags out of his throat. "Remember how I -- I don't mix professional and private," Chris says weakly, shooting warning glances at his friends, TAs, and undergrads.
"I know that, and they told me," Zach replies, "But just for today, could we say 'fuck that'?"
"Yeah, fine," Chris laughs, and he grabs at Zach's shoulder briefly, and his fingers touch the back of Zach's neck and feel the soft hair there before he heads over to his table and sits down.
*
Hours later, after the crowd has dispersed, Zach wraps his arms around Chris's waist and just holds him outside on the lawn.
"Dr. Christopher W. Pine," Zach muses as he stands with Chris. "Can I get you business cards now?"
"Wait two years," Chris replies. "If Berkeley hires me as a professor, I get my own letterhead, too."
"But my cards will say 'fuckmuffin' underneath your name," Zach grins. "Oh! Of course. I could just have them say 'Dr. Princess Whitelaw'."
"Why do you hate me and want me to be sad?"
"Never, princess, never," Zach murmurs, pressing himself against Chris and holding him tighter.
*
Chris becomes a postdoc (more money, same workload, new title), and gets all sorts of access to parts of the Twain memoirs he wasn't allowed to handle before.
"Which is stupid, I mean, hello, public domain," Chris says. "I don't think we're legally allowed to --"
"But why are you talking to me about work?" Zach interrupts because Chris doesn't, as his own a rule, bring shop talk home.
"Because work just got awesome -- come read this!"
So they sit on the recliner (Chris in the chair itself and Zach on the arm, both of them hoping neither the cat nor one of the dogs tries to join because then it will definitely collapse under all of them) and Zach tries to plow through the goddamn 19th century bullshit ("turn of the 20th, you cretin") on Chris's netbook screen.
"Wait," Zach says. "Is -- wait. Wait." He pulls the netbook into his lap, then higher so it's in front of his face, then takes Chris's glasses that fuck with the contacts he has in anyway, and then just stares at Chris.
"Doctor, explain," Zach says, because it's still not old, the 'Dr. Pine' thing.
Chris grins like a kid who just got a deadly weapon and a puppy for Christmas, and rests his hand high on Zach's thigh.
"Mark Twain and his sexy young secretary really, really liked electric toys," Chris says seriously. "And this is in the first twenty pages. I get to devote the next however many years covering the filthy amazing Twain years."
"Do you want to be Mr. Twain and I can be," Zach looks back at the screen and reads, "'that bawdy and licentious slut' --"
"Isabel," Chris finishes. "I can't go a page further until we've done that, Zach."
Zach laughs as he says, "You get more amazing every minute of every day. Now take your pants off."
"I don't think that's what Isabel --"
"I'm saying take your damn pants off."
Chris doesn't fight it.
*
Margot the Paramount agent, who will try for the rest of her unnatural life to get Chris on board for Star Trek XII: Fuck You, Chris Pine, This is Going to Fucking Happen, summons Zach for one of their lunch dates filled with half-drunk banter, expensive fucking food, and Zach looking up how to kill a succubus on his phone.
"Zach," Margot announces when their appetizers arrive, "You'll be so happy to hear this."
"Chris has me reading the Harry Potter books and I'm pretty sure the --" Zach stops himself because if he really does make the Harry Potter joke he's about to make, Margot will twist it into a story for the tabloids about how he and Chris are running a children's book themed sex dungeon.
(They aren't.)
"Anyway, I'm pretty sure people can't feel happiness around you, Margot," Zach sighs.
"How cute are you," she coos as she leans over the table and strokes his cheek with her fake nails that could, actually, claw one of his eyes out. She sits back and clears her throat. "I'm not here to talk about Star Trek, Zach," she says.
"I'm still not paying for this," Zach says as he's about to shove a forkful of salmon tartare into his mouth.
"Still Paramount's pocket, hon. You enjoy those calories, okay?"
He glares at her and eats it anyway.
"Paramount knows what Chris is doing," she says finally.
"What is Chris doing?" he asks.
"That whole Mark Wahlberg project for Berkeley."
"Mark Twain."
"Mark who gives a shit -- but Paramount thinks people will give fifteen dollars worth of shits if he agrees to consult on the Mark Twain biopic they want to produce."
Maybe Margot has pulled Zach into some kind of wormhole, but that... doesn't sound like an idea he should reject immediately. He realizes he might be emoting his genuine intrigue when Margot smirks at him over her martini.
"Five," she adds, the glint in her eye indicating million. "I don't have to tell you that Chris would become the wealthiest academic on the fucking planet if he took this one job."
"I'm not sure what part of 'my husband left a trillion-dollar franchise for his love of books' hasn't sunk in yet, but: it's not --"
"This is a timed offer, Zach, and I haven't mentioned the fun part yet." The idea of Margot excited about something terrifies Zach, so he takes an edifying sip of his drink.
"Berkeley approves."
"Wait, what? Berkeley? Bastion of integrity Berkeley?"
"Inte-what? Zach, Berkeley is a business. Chris is their shiny, gorgeous cog. So you tell Chris this: either he works directly with Paramount, collects his paycheck, and builds you a city-block sized addition to Castle Homo, or he works for Paramount through Berkeley and maybe sees 3% of that five mil."
Business!Zach steps in and asks, "Working for Paramount directly would mean he gets an executive producer role, am I right?"
"It could. Does this mean I'm going back with good news?"
"You're going back to make it clear that Chris gets that executive producer credit, and that any additional consultants Paramount hires would report to him and have to be approved by him." He pauses and adds, "Also, I want Before the Door in on it."
"Oh my God," Margot says. "Zach. How do you feel about vaginas because --"
"Call me when you hear something," Zach says quickly, and rushes out of the restaurant because fuck, he isn't sure what just happened but Chris is probably going to kill him.
"Zach!" Margot calls just as he reaches the door. "One more thing!"
Zach halts and takes a deep breath before he turns around walks back to the table, taking his seat across Margot again.
"While your confidence is inspiring, Chris hasn't been exactly... receptive of any of Paramount's offers yet," she begins.
"No shit, Margot, but this sounds like something he might actually do -- it's not acting, it's Mark Twain --"
"Zach," Margot says slowly, a smile that shouldn't be on her face making its way on there again, "It's been six years since Chris packed up shop and left for the ivory tower, is that right?"
"Uh. Yeah?"
"Paramount and Berkeley think this joint production of the Twain book-and-movie could be quite big, and it's not something either of them wants to shelve."
"Okay..."
"When you propose all this to Chris, let him know that it's not really a proposal. It's the opportunity to get back into Paramount's good graces."
"And why should he -- oh."
"Oh sweetie," Margot coos. "I do love that look on you. Don't you think those three words are the most beautiful in any language?" She sighs and exhales the phrase, "breach of contract," and mother of fucking everything, they are fucked.
*
A day or two later on one of Zach's precious days off, Zach's phone rings just as Chris walks out of his study, netbook in hand, glasses on the edge of his nose and eyebrows raised.
"Zach," he begins.
"Hold on, it's Corey," Zach says as he answers. "What's up?"
"A Mark Twain biopic?!" Corey shrieks.
"I didn't know your beard let your voice get that high."
"And Chris as an executive producer? Zach, what?!"
"Wait, they said yes to that?"
"Video call in two hours and until then, Neal and I are going to practice killing you with our minds."
"Corey, I haven't heard anything back so forward whatever to me --"
"Okay, check your phone. Two hours, okay? And if you can get Chris on there, too --"
"We'll see if I'm alive in two hours, but I'll try and be there."
"ZACH!" Corey screams once more before he hangs up. Zach puts his phone down and it vibrates immediately to indicate a new e-mail. He focuses on Chris, hoping it's unrelated but knowing it's probably not.
"Why do I have a contract from Paramount in my inbox?" Chris asks. "More importantly, why does the university's chancellor want to meet with me immediately?"
"So, uh, remember that meeting I had with Margot?"
"Oh my God," Chris exhales. "You didn't -- you didn't agree to anything, did you? Oh my God. What the fuck could have --"
"Chris, have you even read the e-mail?" Zach asks.
"I don't have to -- Zach, I don't do that anymore, okay, and I can't believe --"
"Shut up," Zach says and he climbs out of the recliner so they can be at eye-level with each other. "It's a Mark Twain biopic."
"What?!" Chris shrieks, which has Zach briefly wonder if it's something in the water or whether he really did fuck up and make an incredibly stupid decision for all the people in his life. "What in the hell could have made you think --"
"You'd be an executive producer, not an actor," Zach interrupts. "Corey was calling me because apparently Paramount said okay to Before the Door also producing -- Chris, you'd be the head consultant on the movie, with the caveat that I'd murder anyone who took a step without your permission and pull our money out of it. And it's Paramount paying you! You'd be good with them again!"
"Zach," Chris says slowly, and he shakes his head. "Zach I can't."
"Chris, they really want this movie to happen," Zach says, putting his hands on Chris's shoulders, trying to meet his eyes. "That's probably what the chancellor wants to talk to you about -- either you do it our way or Berkeley's way, and you are going to get screwed if you do it Berkeley's way. But you have to do it."
"You're missing the point here, Zach!" Chris replies. "I don't do this bullshit anymore -- Hollywood -- movies -- I don't, it's just. I physically cannot do it. If I take one step, if I give in even just a little, that means they can drag me back and I can't do that." Chris puts his computer down and Zach, again, can't figure out if Chris is being genuine or if he was always this good at acting and making his eyes water on cue.
(Oh God, how could he doubt Chris? If he doubts that, then what's the point of any of this?)
"You know, Zach," Chris says, and Zach knows it's bad when Chris is using his name this often, like some kind of crutch to get him through every sentence and every feeling. "You know how difficult it's been for me to get to this point and now I should just --"
"Chris, what part of Berkeley wants this are you not hearing? And Paramount wants this. If you piss either of them off, they are going to end you -- Chris!" Zach tightens his grip on Chris's shoulders and says slowly, "The breach of contract suit. They're going to file it if you don't agree to consult. They're playing nice right now, but they won't for long, so you should set up that meeting and --"
"Why are you saying that like I'm actually going to do it?" Chris asks. "I'm writing back or calling them or whatever, it's -- I'm not doing it. They can get someone else because I'm not doing this."
Zach lets go of Chris and covers his mouth because he honestly cannot believe Chris is this fucking stubborn, like, stubborn to the point of stupidity.
"You are a fucking moron!" Zach says, half shocked and half laughing and it all seems really eerily familiar for a minute. "You have people with more power than you can even conceive of bending over backwards to accommodate you and you -- are you kidding?"
"I'm not doing this," Chris repeats.
Zach stares at him for a moment and mimics Chris's pose, the defiant arms-crossed-over-their-chests look with a matching really tough open-legged stance for their giant balls of obstinance.
"You really are this selfish," Zach says, a little softer than he would have liked but he can't help the realization seeping into his brain.
"Zach --"
"We've had this fight before," Zach says. "And you're still that selfish, that -- it's called compromise, Chris, remember?!"
"I've spent my entire life compromising --"
"No, actually, you haven't," Zach says, and he holds out a hand to tick points off. "Born to rich fucking parents who have been together your whole life and love and support you no matter what, sent to the best schools in the country, lived off them while you kind of maybe acted, became a huge fucking actor and then stopped doing that --"
"Okay, I get it, Zach --"
"-- when it got too unpleasant for you, and then just left all that, and -- oh my God, what about me?"
"It's always about you, isn't it?" Chris replies angrily and wow, he just. He does not get it. It knocks the breath out of Zach for a moment and Zach honestly can't move for like, seconds before the yelling really starts.
"No, it isn't, Chris! It has never been about me when it comes to you, not for one fucking minute of one fucking day! I'm talking about the part where I've spent the past six years supporting you, protecting you, defending you, and making sure that you got everything you wanted."
"I'm sorry, you never mentioned I'd have to pay you back someday -- who should I make the check out to?"
"Okay, never mind how offensive that is to me on every level imaginable," Zach begins. "You need to put on your big boy panties and go look over your Berkeley contract, and then the one Paramount sent you, and consider your choice really carefully."
"Whatever," Chris says, because if he was a sulky sixteen-year-old before, he's just regressed to like, eight at best.
"Chris, I'm not fucking kidding. Get a lawyer to look them over for you and they'll tell you what I'm trying to tell you -- you have to do this or we are both ruined. Like, can't-afford-to-feed-the-dogs-never-mind-ourselves ruined." Zach rubs a hand over his face because Chris is looking away, and both of them -- they've never fought like this. How can -- does one of them walk away now? Do they make dinner together later? Is Chris going to work on the couch while Zach reads? Can Zach wander into Chris's office and drape himself over Chris's shoulders and distract him from his work? How could people do this regularly?
It's his phone vibrating again with that e-mail notification that makes the decision for him, apparently.
"I need to get this," Zach says.
"Okay," Chris says quietly. "I'll -- I'm going to let Topanga out, she was whining before."
Zach grabs his hand and they're still for a moment, like that can actually do something --
Chris squeezes back and heads to the French doors, leaving Zach standing in the living room victorious and feeling really shitty about it.
*
This is how Stan enters their lives (though how Chris instills the fear of god into him is another story entirely.)
Two or three days after the Battle of Berkeley, Stan comes over and Zach spends the first twenty minutes trying to figure out what that smell is.
"Right, so," Stan says as he spreads his papers out on their table in front of Chris. He points to Zach and asks Chris, "Is he here as your domestic partner or as a Before the Door partner?"
"Uh," Chris stammers. "Domestic...?"
"Make up your fucking mind, princess, because if it's the latter he needs to swish back to his Sears modeling gig before we start."
Zach is kind of in love and only mildly offended.
"Common law husband," Zach says.
"Nope," Stan replies, not looking up from his papers. "Common law marriages aren't recognized in California and even if they were, one of you doesn't have a vagina. You're partners, so sit down and shut up and I don't want to hear about the role your production company plays in this, okay?"
"That's fine," Zach says, and he sits down.
"Anyway," Stan begins, "Looking these over, calling Berkeley's counsel -- what a slimy sack of shit, by the way, don't let that bitch get into any of your business -- I've determined that your partner here is right and you should take Paramount's offer."
"Uh, why?" Chris asks.
"Uh," Stan mocks, "because you're not a fucking idiot?"
Zach opens his mouth to say something because it's one thing for him to say that to Chris, but -- he doesn't. Chris needs to hear it from someone else.
Chris knows it and his eyes dart over to look at Zach a little helplessly.
"Now, I don't know --"
"Patchouli!" Zach whispers to himself.
Stan stares at him for a second, shakes his head, and looks at Chris.
"I don't know what kind of moral objection you have to doing this movie and frankly, I don't give a fuck. You asked me how bad it would be if you didn't and I'm telling you: it would be very bad."
"How bad?" Chris asks.
"Ruining your life," Stan says. "I also called Paramount's counsel and they -- kid, you only got out of your Trek contract by the grace of J.J. Abrams not pressing charges and the economy picking back up around that time, so they could afford to just slide Trek to the backburner until you change your mind."
"That's not going to happen."
"They know that," Stan says, "which is why they will officially drop all that nasty business if you come work for them on this one little project."
Chris groans and slouches into his chair.
"And how does Berkeley come into this?" Zach asks.
"That is something particular to Dr. Pine here," Stan says with a grin that makes Zach feel unpleasantly dirty all over. "On paper, Dr. Pine is an untenured postdoc, working on a little project about whoever, right?"
"Uh, it's a little more than --" Chris begins but Stan actually shushes him.
"I know. Here's the catch: your contract in particular has a clause about 'complete cooperation' with all aspects of the project's production, probably aware of the fact that you've bolted from projects before. Berkeley's counsel made it clear that she will twist that cooperation clause to mean all works produced with the university. Once the movie's officially given a go, that'll establish a connection between Paramount and Berkely and if you back out, they'll both come after you for breach of contract."
"Fuck," Chris says.
"And remember: Paramount still has your first little breach of contract thing saved up for a rainy day, but like I said -- they'd be willing to forgive that for your complete cooperation on their movie."
"And if I don't --"
"Is he serious?" Stan asks Zach, who keeps his expression completely blank. Stan turns to Chris again, cups his hands around his mouth and says, "You will never work again." He lowers his hands and asks, "Who's going to hire a 40-year-old has-been action star with a Ph.D in English and three breach of contract suits on their record?"
Chris is 37, but that doesn't soften the blow. Zach rubs a foot against Chris's calf and watches him carefully across the table.
"The bitch at Berkeley did corroborate what Paramount counsel said: say yes now, you'll be hired as Dr. Chris Pine and can keep your $5 mil; say no, then you'll be doing the work through your Berkeley contract and you'll get 10% for just as much work."
"What stake does Before the Door have in everything?" Chris asks and Zach stares at him, baffled.
Stan sighs, looks at Zach, and then replies as if by rote, "Before the Door Productions will provide 15% of the film's financial backing in exchange for their partners' executive producer rights and privileges to the film."
"15% is a lot," Chris says to Zach.
Zach could sit there and scream NO FUCKING SHIT, YOU INFANT, BUT I DO IT FOR YOU.
He shrugs instead.
"So I've made an appointment for you with the Berkeley chancellor and the rest of the college's board," Stan says, "and then we can --"
"Wait, I haven't hired you --" Chris begins.
Stan stares at him and Chris meekly replies, "Hired."
"Thank you. Anyway, I did a little early work with Berkeley counsel so that at this meeting, we'll agree to develop a new timeline where the last volume of the Twain memoirs will be published six weeks before the premiere of the film -- approximately three years from now, so you have about two to get it all done. First, you'll develop for Paramount a treatment of the project, which they can approve, revise, or reject."
"If they reject it?" Chris asks and Zach laughs because that's not a silver lining he sees, not even a little.
"They get someone else to develop a treatment and then you do the research to make that treatment possible," Stan says. "So it's in your best interest if they don't reject it since you want to retain all this creative control."
Chris sulks a little and asks, "And for the next three years --"
"You work on the Twain memoirs and the movie stuff concurrently."
Chris doesn't agree, so Stan sighs and says, "Frankly, this is a better deal than you deserve and if you hesitate on accepting, the deal changes. Price drops to $2 mil and with that kind of drop, you're going to lose a whole lot of privileges you'd get otherwise."
"I hate everything," Chris informs Zach.
"Big boy panties, one leg at a time," Zach says.
"That's my cue to get the fuck out of here," Stan says as he packs his papers up again. "Boys, I'll be in touch."
Once they're alone again, that awkwardness Zach has avoided by working late all week at BTD's San Francisco office (i.e., calling his mom to whine about Chris being awful and then reading Gawker and OhNoTheyDidnt until the cleaning crew arrived) comes back in full force, worse now because Chris knows he was wrong and, haha, Chris apologizing, that should be fun.
"So," Chris begins, standing by the door with his hand in his hair and looking really sheepish and sad. "15%?"
"What?" Zach asks. "Uh, yeah. Berkeley's the other big backer, through the university and the university press so they've got a lot of overall influence, but I figured --"
"Baby," Chris says suddenly, and he crosses the living room to straddle Zach on the chair and grin a little. "When did you get so smart about shit?"
"Uh," Zach says stupidly because, what? Chris's arms are on Zach's shoulders and his hands are playing with his hair and -- what? Weren't they mad two minutes ago? At each other? Like, really mad? "It's kind of what I've been doing, you know, this entire time. My job? The thing that bought us this house and everything in it?"
"I thought you were just making comic books and things!"
"Okay, seriously? 'Comic books and things'? Now I'm just --"
They kiss for the first time in three days and Zach realizes what a horrible feeling it is to have missed someone while living in the same house with them.
"Yeah," Zach says as he breaks the kiss to breathe. "I told Neal and Corey it was an investment in my sanity."
"Mostly mine," Chris murmurs.
"Mine is yours, yours is mine. Joint tax returns, joint sanity, yeah --"
"I'm so sorry," Chris interrupts, and then says, "Hold on."
He leaves Zach's lap, puts his hands in his pockets, looks Zach plain in the face and says, "Zach, I am so sorry I said those really awful things to you."
Zach swallows and says, "They were the worst things anyone has ever said to me."
"I'm so sorry," he repeats soberly.
"You need to grow up a little, Chris." He sits up and pulls Chris into his lap again. "You can't say those things to me just because you're mad. And you can't -- it's not, never has been and never will be, about you owing me anything, but the fact that you didn't want to do this for me -- for us -- like. What?"
"I just --" Chris wraps his arms around Zach's neck and closes his eyes as he hides his face near Zach's shoulder. "It feels like it did before everything, you know? Before the Oscars when I was just. Flailing around trying to drink my coffee and not be seen and --"
"You idiot, it's different now," Zach says. "Remember the part where now you can be out and proud and --"
"I still want my privacy."
"Well fuck that," Zach says, and he grips Chris a little tighter around his waist. "For the next three years we get to work together and yell at people together -- Chris, you get to help pick who plays Mark Twain."
Chris considers it and says, "He needs to have really good hair. Like, these long fucking curls and, well, duh, the stache."
"I think I'll grow one in Twain's honor," Zach says.
"No you won't."
"No, probably not."
*
After that, it's surprisingly easy for them to sign all the contracts and move to LA for two years.
Settling into their LA house (i.e., Zach's old house, where he lived out The Trek Years) is a little more difficult.
For one thing, it being Zach's old house, there's a fucking 10-foot wall around the entire property.
"What if we have to escape?!" Chris shrieks.
Granted, Chris asked that when they were just friends and he visited, and he asked that when they were fucking and Zach's house was so much bigger than his shitty apartment a few blocks away, and he asked whenever he thought to ask, but now it was a genuine question.
"Who would we have to escape? Your puppy, Cujo?"
"Way to date yourself, buddy."
"Scared the shit out of my mom -- it's why we never had a dog when I was growing up."
Topanga chooses that moment to run outside and bark at a squirrel along the wall.
"Goddammit, she's rabid," Chris whimpers. "How are we going to escape?"
"Uh, we walk out the front gate," Zach begins, and he takes Chris's hand and leads him around to the front of the house, "And we leave. And lock it behind us. And we go to Lamill."
Chris digs his heels into the concrete and shakes his head. "I will never need coffee that bad."
"I didn't want to tell you this before we got here, but," Zach says slowly, and they stand in front of the house, both his hands holding both of Chris's, "Lamill coffee? Has gotten even better than you remember."
"How can it get better than perfection?" Chris asks.
Zach drops Chris's hands, puts his hands in his pockets, and begins strolling down the street, taking their usual way (well, usual what, seven years ago?) to Lamill.
".........dammit," Chris hisses as he runs after Zach and nudges him until he almost crashes into a wall.
They run into exactly one photographer just outside Lamill, who yells at Zach but lets Chris sneak inside mostly unnoticed, and that's the start of things not being horrible anymore.
Zach notices, with relief, that it gets better when Chris actually gets back to working on what he was sent to LA for, but there's still that -- childishness and petulance that Zach thought was endearing until it almost cost them everything they had (and make no fucking mistake about it -- it was everything they had.)
"No one said it would be this hard," Chris whines when Zach walks in after spending the day at the studio.
Zach stops in the doorway and looks around because Chris had decided not to work in any of the bedrooms, or his newly furnished office, or Zach's office, or even the kitchen table -- instead, he had spread his netbook and books and papers all over the living room floor and camped out there. He was pretty sure Noah was flopped on volume II of Chris's life-work and he somehow didn't mind.
"Was that a Coldplay lyric? Oh my God, get your leash. You need to get out of the house."
"Zach, no, it was a joke --"
"Coldplay is never a joke. Come on."
Zach's heart breaks a little when Topanga rushes in with a leash in her teeth, looking eagerly towards the door.
"I hope you're happy," Zach tells Chris. "You've made her work like her breed intended."
And they go out and walk and talk and bicker and Chris grows up a little.
Just a little, but a little every time.
Zach notices that Chris gets bigger sunglasses, shaves less frequently, runs (not jogs) with Topanga every day until he glides in through their front gates and has to catch his breath while Topanga looks exhilarated and whines the dog equivalent of "LET'S DO IT AGAIN!"
Eventually (EVENTUALLY), Chris shows up at mandatory production meetings and, because the other producers are Zach, Zach's best friends, and the guy who produced The Princess Diaries 2 (the one who didn't make his life a waking nightmare), Chris gets by.
It's nice, Zach reflects, when your boyfriend/partner/husbandoid/best friend/joint-pet-owner of a billion years no longer hates the industry that brought you together and supports him, even if he can't quite let go of that look in his eyes that suggests he wants to burn down the entire film industry in a fire ignited by his own vitriol.
And one day about a year in, they're in a production meeting and the casting agent announces they've just signed a contract with the starlet who will play Isabel opposite James Franco's Twain (and boy, the James Franco thing took a few minutes, especially when they remembered that whole art gallery fiasco a few years before, but Chris acquiesced on the basis of his hair and a flourishing mustache.)
"Abigail Breslin," the agent says.
"Oh my God, how old is she?!" James shrieks.
"She's twenty-two," the agent replies. "You're only for--"
"Jesus Christ, she's my college baby," James moans, and then sits up straight and corrects, "Not that I had one."
Chris snorts and bursts out laughing right at the table, and has to cover his mouth with his hands while he tries to suppress his laughter, but it's not fucking happening. James sighs and says something about it probably being historically accurate, and Chris nods while his eyes water. He looks to Zach on his left and laughs even harder and fuck, it wasn't even that funny but everyone laughs all the harder because Chris has finally let the fuck go.