walk.another.planet.with.me.ii

[spectalcat.livejournal.com]

Going on a possibly internetless trip tomorrow through Sunday, so a bit rushed toward the end but wanted to get this up before I left. Part one found here.


Title: Walk another planet with Me
Author: S-Cat
Chapter: 2/?
Rating: Strong language, mild allusions
Summary: 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. Featured herein: moment of utmost brainfartitude about decades. Please pretend SC was aired in '87 rather than '97.)
 

Two of Greg's mental voices were talking to each other.
Oh give me a break... surely you jest.
Shut up already. I love this place.

Scarlet drawing room, Edwardian glamo[u]r, honest to goodness wall sconces and mid-wall drapery, it couldn't have been more Conan Doyle if it tried. But, what really took the biscuit: it wasn't clear it was trying. It might really just be like that. A nice place for an after-party; and more importantly, after the show, he had indeed been approached by a woman. American. Initials J.C. Her style didn't seem quite right, but he set that aside; she was bright and attractive and had agreed to come with him here.

But like a ghost in an archway...

His date left him for a moment and Greg got that who just walked over my grave? feeling. He turned, and there she was, as if waiting. They looked at each other for a moment. Then his date returned and touched his arm. When he looked up from her again, the woman across the room had vanished.

Frowning at himself, he covered by adjusting his glasses, and Greg shook it off and returned his smile to J'nell.

* * *

The plan was that it would be Ryan. Let's face it, that's why he was here, really; Ryan infecting others with his own vision, as he always did: personally, professionally, in performance. Ryan blazing the trail for Colin to follow, and making sure Colin would be welcomed when he did. Not so much that Ryan had gotten Col the audition—or even the particular desire to have it. Nah, that could as easily happened the other way around. However. Colin knew that by rights he'd blown it. Those first tapings were disastrous. He could tell better than anyone. But Ryan had gotten him another try, as no one else, Colin eventually gathered, had ever gotten.

At least he was starting to feel he'd deserved it. He'd won his place. The others were surprisingly acceptant of that, even supportive. Well, sure, it seemed that those who did well on the show were those not totally preoccupied with their own performance, but more invested in the success of the others. After all, onstage, that was literally all they had: one another. Hot dogging detrimental. (Unless you're John Ses—no, stop it. Even he was more about his co-stars than he let on.)

They both kind of assumed Ryan would be the social liaison as well. Come on, he was already here, he knew whomever it was to be known. Indeed, Ryan would take Colin to every social gathering, invitations extended to both as if they were married; but something happened that Colin found unsavory. Since Ryan was looking out for him, his whole attention would be on Colin. Without meaning to, it's just how they worked—really, worked together just like onstage: they would fall in so tight and naturally together no one else could find room to join. Instead of Ryan drawing Colin into the crowd, Colin, quite unwittingly, drew Ryan into his isolation.

Colin started giving Ryan more space at parties and lunches, refusing to monopolize him since any of their conversations quickly became too insider (between them) for anyone else to be involved. Colin went ahead and drifted, as he wasn't entirely unhappy to do.

But at a given party, it suddenly it hit Colin just how infuriatingly lonely this was. Why was it going this way? How had he fallen into it? Why wasn't he out of that rut, already? Suddenly too sick of this situation to stay in it a moment longer, he simply left the room. He figured no one would notice. All he needed was a moment to splash his face, regroup, and...

"Hey," said the person who'd suddenly appeared in the hallway behind him.

Colin jumped. "Oh, hi," he said.

The other man stepped forward. Light from another room glinted off his glasses, offsetting his grin. "Don't mean to be a buttinsky, but you okay, tiger? You seem like you could be having more fun."

"Sorry..." Colin blinked at Greg. This surely wasn't his style, was it? ...Though come to think of it, for every barb and every gibe, there had been less obvious indications of consideration and courtesy; hand-exchanges for every scene partner, checking in with every assumption... "I uh, know parties are the way to get to know people. I just find the reality a bit contrary."

"I hear it," said Greg. "What are you doing tomorrow? Lunch-ish? Sorry, 'teatime'." Colin couldn't help finding hilarious the way Greg's already soaring voice added octaves when he put on an English accent. "I'm meeting McShane. You could join us."

"With Ryan?" Colin asked automatically.

Greg shrugged. "Sure, if you want to bring him along."

(It was Ryan who said first, when Colin told him, "Not the other way around!")

Every few days it was Greg and someone else, until Colin found, much to his surprise, that he'd been introduced individually to a group large enough never to be without a member in any given gathering. The parties had also lost some importance in light of the luncheons. Someone was always throwing one, especially for the [American] foreigners. Perhaps it was an instinct to band together. Apparently through Greg, Colin was suddenly considered a fixture. Colin wasn't sure who was more surprised about it, himself or Ryan, but neither could it be said which was more pleased.

The association still applied, though. Colin could sense, dimly, that even as his relationship grew with Greg, though Greg and Ryan had already been working together for a while, they seemed to get closer somehow too.

* * *

She would push him flat and hold him down, so they could both feel his pulse in her palm.
He would hold him up and back against the wall, mouth on throat, devouring the heartbeat.
To her, he'd strain upward, reaching for every kiss, uncertain if the greater thrill was the achievement of one, anywhere on her body; or the effort towards in perpetuity.
From him, he'd turn his head away, further exposing his neck and flexing the tendons the other would trace with his nose and lips.

My pain is your pleasure, mighty Mistress of Darkness!
World's worst thing to call out in bed: 'Oh— Ryan...'

* * *

"You think I'm making it up?" demanded Greg, sounding as affronted as humanly possible before turning feline. "Why would I lie?"

"I think the rub is more," said Paul, "why couch a pleasing lie in such an appalling truth?"

"It wasn't fun at all?" asked Colin, amused, trying to get things back on Greg's side.

"Whenever the default setting is sheer humiliation," said Greg, "you have to make it fun."

"Story of my life," said Tony, half camp, half resigned.

Paul thumped Tony, perhaps a bit overforceful, on the back. "Oh, knock it."

"You just did that for me," spluttered Tony, straightening himself back up.

Greg laughed (—and oh lawd, that laugh!) and reached over to prop Tony up by the shoulder. "It has its rewards though."

"Which you blindly made up!" retorted Tony.

"I swear on my nonexistent kids I did not."

"I'll give you Bill Bailey," said Tony. "Maybe even Sylvester McCoy. But I don't believe for a fucking instant you had WilliambleedinShatner in bloomin'!Edinburgh."

"Fuck off Shatner," said Paul. "You had Sophie Aldred?"

"Comes down to Paul's point," said Greg. "Would I in a million years have admitted to hosting a trivia show called Space Cadets if it wasn't true?"

"I don't know who any of these people are," murmured Colin to Tony. Tony raised several eyebrows at him. "...Okay," Colin amended, "besides Shatner."

"Fine," said Greg, throwing up both hands and leaning archly back in his chair. "Don't believe me. But someday, somewhere, somehow, you yourselves will be in the presence of Lord Will of Shatner, and will crawl up and ask kow-towed, 'Most grovellingly, your grace, did you ever flirt with Greg Proops in a Dalek?' And he will answer, 'Hell yeah, it was... hot!' " Even sitting down, Greg's Kirk impersonation was a tour de force.

"Whatever," said Paul, when the snorting laughter had subsided. "Sophie Aldred?"



It was Paul's turn to get refills. Tony decided he suddenly needed an elaborate mixed drink, which sent Paul off a-grumbling that he'd have to wait at the bar. Clearly, in hindsight, that was calculated. Why Tony felt he could not do what he was about to in front of Paul was explicable. What Colin always wondered was why Tony felt he could do it in front of Colin.

"That's what it takes, then?" Tony commented to Greg as soon as Paul was safely barwards. "Get you in a Dalek and everything's happy?"

"You continue to make it sound much sassier than it was," said Greg. "Jeez. If anyone could have gotten laid doing that bloody show..." He glanced between the two of them. "We are clear that I didn't actually shag any of these people, right?"

"We know," said Colin. "Paul wishes."

"That's a reversal," said Tony. Colin saw, almost simultaneously, Tony kicking himself and Greg fighting a wince.

"Oh man," Greg laugh-groaned, "don't go there. It's so high-school." Paul had only just stopped going after Greg for, as everyone had known, being so obviously, so painfully smitten with Josie Lawrence. It was an episode Colin had largely missed out on but Greg (and Ryan) filled him in. Greg had always wondered at Paul's ruthlessness. Everyone else was fairly sympathetic. He supposed to everyone else it was obvious, as it wasn't to Greg until after finally accepting the unrequitedness of his own situation: Paul was smitten with her too. ("Figures," Greg had said, "the only person he goaded worse than me was her.")

"But would you have?" Tony prodded.

"Scored Ace?" (It made sense after Colin looked up Sophie Aldred.) "Never really one of my fantasies, but she was..."

"Paul said it, not you." Tony waggled his eyebrows. "Y'know. Kirked."

Greg laughed. "Why, Tony. No one's ever equated me with a nubile alien vixen before." He grinned at Colin. "Col, now..."

"Oh, constantly!" said Colin, keeping it airy. But he could tell that all three of them were sensing some undercurrent here.

"I've just always wondered this about you," said Tony. "You moon after women offstage but always flirt with men, on."

"Sure," said Greg. "It's easier. No danger, no boundaries. It's all good fun."

"No danger in an accepting environment," said Colin softly.

"Well, yeah," said Greg, contritely, "I didn't mean that. We're not comics to play it safe... but I meant less danger between performers. Shit happens in character which may not have anything to do with real life but can really fuck with you."

"I don't buy it," said Tony. "Sorry, I don't. It's a loop, isn't it? You can't play something so well without feeling it, whichever one incites the other."

Greg sat back again and finally let his expression match Tony's seriousness. " 'f course. It's genuine in the moment, always. All I'm saying is... when you can't snap out of the moment, that's when it starts screwing things up. I've not yet had a problem remembering the difference between scene and endscene with a man."

Colin's head suddenly came up and he very nearly said, "What about—?" but only got as far as opening his mouth before he remembered himself and closed it again.

Greg may have noticed. But he also hated when the subject of a conversation was himself, and it had been for a solid six minutes now. So Colin supposed it was understandable why Greg had a slight edge in his voice when he added, "Has this been an issue with you lately, Ton'?"

Tony glanced at Greg with hooded eyes. Colin knew that look. Greg certainly did too. Colin wondered if for Tony's sake he should take a toilet break, or if for Greg's he should stay put.

"I just wondered," Tony murmured, eyes fixed on Greg but clearly wishing they could now go elsewhere, "if you..."

He and Colin were both saved by a sudden growl of "Sod it all..." and balancing drinks, Paul kneed and elbowed his way back to their table. He just avoided spilling some red concoction all over the four of them. "Gratuities, please. 'Specially from Tony. What'd I miss? Fascinating. There was this drunken raving Visigoth at the bar..."



They all had things to do in the morning, so the plan was to make this an early evening out and earlyish night in. But Colin shanghaied Greg into joining him at the bar for a last drink even as Tony and Paul were heading out.

"I can't get wasted tonight," said Greg, "I can't, I can't, oh, sure, why not." Using the same hand with which he'd signalled the barman, he leveled a finger at Colin. "I just want it on record that you're being the corrupter, right now. You, not me."

"So noted," said Colin, grinning. He turned down the barman when asked for an order, causing Greg to peer at him over his glasses.

"Are you just trying to get me drunk, then?"

"Not particularly," said Colin. "I just..." he sighed. "I'm turning into a woman as I say this. But that thing with Tony earlier... seems like we both knew what was happening... I thought you might want to talk about it."

"Not particularly." Greg's attitude toward his drink had apparently changed; he downed it the moment it appeared before him. He put it down as quickly though, wiped his mouth, and peered astutely at Colin. "Do you? You had a moment in there yourself."

Colin shrugged. "The two most uncomfortable situations to be in are: to want someone who doesn't want you, or to be wanted by someone you don't want."

Greg made a face and set aside his drink. "Don't put it like that, here."

Colin said, "But if he'd... you would have turned him down, right?"

"I was trying," said Greg, "...well, who knows, I fucked it up at the end, there. The intent was for it not to come down to that. That's not what you were gonna catch me on, was it?"

"No, I know," said Colin. "I just... I was surprised you... felt you had to lie."

Greg blinked. "What?"

Colin sighed and slumped his head into his hands. "Man, guys shouldn't try this. It's just messy."

"Men are frequently bigger yentes than women," said Greg. "Spill it. At what point did you think I lied?"

"You said you'd never forgotten to snap out of it with a man," said Colin. "But what about Ryan?"

Greg fell still and silent. Colin knew quite suddenly, like a car crash, that he'd just fucked it all up. They turned only slightly away from each other, Greg to examine his drink, Colin to watch all his organs sink straight and stonelike to the floor, but it seemed quite final. There, he'd done it. He didn't know why Greg had taken it upon himself to bring Colin out of his shell; actively and directly seek out a friendship with Colin, the terminally peripheral friend; and on his own terms rather than via Ryan, the one who'd brought Colin here in the first place... and Colin had just gone ahead and quite thoughtlessly betrayed them both. Now each would think the other had told him, when the fact that neither had told proved they didn't want anyone else knowing, so he'd additionally, undeservedly betrayed each to the other as well... if he was very lucky, neither would speak to him for days, but he could make it up eventually...

But Greg, quite suddenly, startling Colin, tossed his head and set his elbow down on the bar. "You got me there. But that's not 'men'. That's... Ryan."

Colin's head had already unfolded a scenario weeks along in painstaking reconciliation. It took a moment of Colin blinking like a rabbit at Greg to get himself back to the present. In which only thirty seconds of gloom and despair on his part had actually elapsed. "Huh?"

Misinterpreting—or interpreting perfectly; Colin and Ryan hardly owned the patent on reading each other—Greg said, "Well, I guess it's hypocritical, but I really hadn't been counting that. It's such a specific... blasted... thing, here, I just didn't think of it. Though even if I had, who's to say I was lying? I may not be confused."

"I, um..." Colin had been the one to bring it up so he figured he should probably be speaking more. But this 'candor' of Greg's seemed more intended to throw him, and was working. "You seemed to be implying you didn't go for men at all. Which was clearly what... Well, I guess you did a good thing, not turning him down individually, and I shouldn't have—"

"It's a good point," said Greg. Again, either giving Colin too much credit, or actually covering for him. More dissonance, throwing up static in the space between them. "He could find out and the effect ultimately would be worse than if I'd just let him come out with it and turned him down honestly."

"I don't know that he'd find out," muttered Colin. Unable to read Greg's real feelings and getting more unhappy by the minute.

Greg finally broke a smile and broke the false objectivity barrier. He said, "Sorry, Col. I got... well, it's supposed to be a secret. But I guess I shouldn't be surprised he'd tell you." He said it entirely without rancor.

Feeling now he should almost be irritated, but going instead with relief, Colin shook his head and stole Greg's drink. "He didn't tell me." Greg, knocked flat again, watched Colin take a swig, before Colin laughed and pushed the drink back to him. "C'mon, smarty. You must have noticed, I'm good at reading him."

Greg reclaimed the glass. "Okay..."

"Anyway," said Colin, "it's my fault it even came up."

"In total innocence that," said Greg, "seems terribly unlikely."

Colin shrugged, starting to feel a bit sheepish. "I just made a comment. About your newscaster news-anchor names for yourself. It was in a larger context, thinking about how people make fun of themselves and each other, and where the lines are between being good-natured about it and being abrasive... Consensus was it probably says something about someone's level of comfort with whoever they're teasing, especially if it's themselves. Confidences and self-confidence. Right?"

"Hoo boy," said Greg.

Colin gave a brief laugh—almost shyly. "So, yeah... anyone who makes so many cracks about themselves like that, odds are they're for compensation... but your attitude toward those jokes, and your demeanor in general... I wondered if the names might actually be true. Ryan kind of... answered nonverbally."

Anyone else, at this point, would have gone entirely awkward and embarrassed. The ineffable G.P., not missing a beat, raised a skeptical brow. "Confirming or refuting?"

If they'd been onstage, Colin would be the only person not to loose it right now. "I just focused on that he clearly knew either way."

Greg, cheerfully ironic, snorted. "Thanks."



It's not a secret. We can't own up to others what we can't to each other.
I don't go for men. But it's not 'men': it's him.
Don't tell, don't even admit to myself, because the moment I meet someonethefabledher I don't want it to fuck things up... don't know if I even could tell him I'd consider dropping him for someone new when he may very well have dropped me already... probably has every time he's walked out, it just doesn't take...
Can hardly talk to someone else about something I haven't figured out. Not when the only person I could figure it out with, won't.
Don't deal with it. Don't say it's real. Don't think about it except when it's happening. Colin you bastard, you've made it real.
...Though of course it was already.



"I don't know how you feel about me," Greg muttered, wondering if he'd been wasted after all, as he and Colin trudged together toward the tube. "And you don't have to say. But I actually consider you one of my best friends. I'm not sure you knew that."

The way Colin looked at him, such startled disbelief, made Greg satisfied, not for the first time, with his decision not to have left Colin well enough alone at that party.