walk.another.planet.with.me

[spectalcat.livejournal.com]

Title: Walk another planet with Me
Author: S-Cat
Chapter: 1/?
Rating: R for language
Summary: (Paraphraseth the G.P.) An atmospheric romp through the twilight of affairs. —But twilight happens before morning as well as night...
Setting: England, Time: early into Britline
Disclaimer: These beloved fictional characters exist wholly apart from the real people they're based on. (e.g. How I've totally disregarded known timelines.)
3rd line of piece are lyrics from Angtoria's "The Addiction" by Sarah Jezebel Deva/Chris & Tommy Rehn.




Walk... with me

* * *
 

 

eat me, beat me, bite me, blow me / suck me, fuck me very slowly

"I knew you'd swear a lot," Ryan whispered as Greg bit his fist to stop gasping blasphemy.

taste me, bleed me dry

* * *

 

(As some would have it,) Mr. P.,

I've never written a letter like this before. Blast, everyone says that. I don't
know why I should want to be unique to you... how awful can it be to have a
mass of strangers in love with you?

It sounds dreadful.

...Though now that I think of it, I start to imagine that as fairly awful indeed...

When he showed the letter to Mike and Col, he found himself folding over the specific reactions to his act. Her prose was better and observations more insightful than a (growlretch) critic's, but he thought part of that was because she was writing for no one but him.

Well, I think I've managed to be unique after all. This is surely the most ramb-
ling and existential fan letter your assistant has ever shredded.

He'd surprised himself by letting out a laugh. (The others grinned. "Like you have an assistant.")
 

I look forward to seeing you perform again. In fact, as 'They' would have it,
we're going to be in England at the same time. Perhaps we'll meet when I se-
duce the doorman to let me into a show of yours at some Drones' Club, and
if I find the nerve to own up to this dreadful correspondence, we can laugh at
it together.

"Definite points for Wodehouse reference."
(How many, Clive?)
 

I'll plead that as my utmost hope, and maybe a less frightening motive for
writing to you here. You've given me such amusement and pleasure. Let this
be my feeble, febrile way

—She plays with words like you do. Did she do it deliberately? Or is there really someone else in the world with such grey gray matter?

of returning some of that delight and laughter.

'Who writes like this? Good grief, it's like a real letter.'

Yours, less sanely than usual (though you'll have to trust me on it),

 

She said 'in love with you'.
 

J. C.

* * *

Greg sprawled his length on the gray leather couch. In front of it stretched a full wall of bookshelves, a tapestry of multicolored spines broken only by the TV/stereo composite in the middle. An acid trip-emulating evermorphing pattern pulsed from the screen, accompanying a soft drone of some mood music or other. He paid no attention to either. They were there as the possibility of escape from the dark-bound notebook on his knee.

His concentration could be prodigious. He was an exacting editor, especially with himself. But he was in a different phase right now: the half dreaming stream-of-conscious outpour of disjointed, phantom ideas.

Sticking the pen between his teeth, he craned his neck and one arm back to snag a cigarette from the tray. He spat the pen onto his chest to replace it with the cigarette, took a hit like a kiss, and peered at whatever it was he'd just written.

woman admits apprehensively to man: '...I love you'.
man shrugs, flings out an arm— 'that'll be helpful' and
creeps toward her. woman snorts in disgust & vanishes

His phone rang.

Abandoning the cigarette to the ash tray again, he let the notebook drop where it would onto the couch—when not working he was always itching to, while working he could never be happier to ditch it—and sprinted to the dining room to grab the phone. "Y'ello."

"Hi. It's me."

"The only 'me' I know is me," said Greg. He knew who it was.

"Har har. You asked me not to just drop by again so I thought I'd call first."

"Where are you?"

"The pay phone on the corner."

Greg let out a sound that hadn't quite decided if it was a groan or a chortle. "You piece of..." He sidled up to the window and pushed the curtain as slightly aside as possible to peer out.

Ryan instantly craned out of the booth and waved at him.

Greg rolled his eyes, hoping Ryan could see it from there, and dropped the drape. "Sorry, Ry. I have someone over."

"Who?"

"Colin."

"Like hell."

"Mike."

"Just spoke to him."

"Slattery."

"Now you're just trying to give me ideas."

"I'm working, all right?"

"Ah. Then I'll be right up."

"Rya—"

He hung up.

Greg cursed and set down the phone, but he was already rebuttoning his shirt. The hell indeed.

He went straight to the door and opened it. Ryan yanked back his fist to avoid knocking on Greg's head.

"Since when am I the evasive one?" demanded Greg. He stepped back to let Ryan in. "Coy isn't my color. What are you doing to me?"

"You started it," said Ryan, shaking off the remnants of rain. They always did that around here whether it had been really raining or not. Soggy olde England.

"Did fucking not. But let's start treating like preschoolers, shall we?"

"Greg, c'mon." Ryan turned and Greg fell silent. "I'm not here to play... I'm actually..."

Greg crossed his arms over his chest, decided neither to help nor hinder, waiting.

Ryan look at him, and a jolt passed through them. For a second Greg felt Ryan's desire to reach out, powerful enough to send an ache right through him. But that was absurd.

Covering a tremor, Ryan abruptly shook himself, kept shaking his head, and started right back where he'd come from: out the door. "Screw it. See you next week."

"Whoa." Whatever he was really feeling, Greg affected resignation, and reached out. "Hold up. You just—"

Just then, Ryan's trajectory toward the door and Greg's hand reaching up met their intersection. Greg's hand caught Ryan's arm. That was that. No break in his motion, Ryan turned and grabbed Greg and kissed him. Greg managed to kick the door closed before Ryan impelled him backwards toward the couch again. Perhaps the notebook was swept to the floor, maybe it wound up on a side table, maybe that's what was digging into Greg's back. In any case, progress again delayed.
 

* * *

 (note delivered to green room:)

Mr Proops-

Per your request, list of ticket reservations matching initials "J. C."

John Calder
Jennifer Canaga
James Cavazos
Jessy Chothern
J'nell Clesca
Jordan Cudder

Mgmt

...