Character Bleed Book 3: Steadfast

Chapter 1: Still Day 26-4

He’d always thought Colby was the nicest person he’d ever met. He’d once upon a time assumed that was an act. It wasn’t, and Colby was the bravest person in the world. The man he’d fallen in love with, because he couldn’t not love Colby Kent. He wanted to stand at Colby’s side forever.

He hunted for verbal bandages. Thread to stitch up those tapestries. “I should’ve said it better. I should’ve told you how impressed I am. I was thinking, of course you’re a writer, that makes total sense, and of course you’re good at it.”

“I’m not,” Colby said. “It’s only touch-up work. Not even close to what—well, what my mother does, for one. You don’t have to try to make it into something significant; we don’t have to talk about it.”

Jason’s whole chest tried to cave in. “No, we should. You told me because you wanted to. I want to. I should’ve said all of that. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize to me—”

“Please,” Jason said. “Um. Sort of an order? Since you still want to be, um. Mine. Let me say this. Please.”

“I’m yours,” Colby said. “You can give me orders. If—if you still want that. Me.”

“Still a yes. Always a yes. No question about it.” He rubbed a hand over Colby’s hip as reinforcement. “I want you to listen, okay? I mean this. Everything I should’ve said. I think you’re a genius.”

Colby didn’t say anything; Jason drew a breath and kept forging ahead.

“I mean, like…you’re an actual genius. You’re an amazing writer.” He leaned down, trying to catch Colby’s eye. Colby wasn’t quite looking back. The chest-cavern where Jason’s heart had broken ached even more. He’d done that. “Seriously. I don’t even know what to say. I’m f*****g in awe of you. Your words.”

“It’s only tidying up…”

“It’s not. You make scripts work.”

“It’s only—”

“I told you once,” Jason said, extremely gently, venturing onto this brittle ice because he loved Colby and Colby shouldn’t be facing the treacherous path back to solid ground and self-worth alone, “not to insult yourself, didn’t I?”

“But that’s hardly the…” Colby paused. “You think it is. The same.”

“I think you’re brilliant and I think you don’t give yourself enough credit.” He bent, kissed Colby’s shoulder, sketched a heart in lotion in the same spot. The heart came out lopsided. That was fine; it gleamed cheerfully despite that. “You love stories. You know when a story’s good, right?”

“Ah…I hope so?”

“And you trust your own writing. Your screenplays’ve been nominated for awards. Jill’s friends send scripts to you—I know they don’t know it’s you, you said, I remember—because they want your help. They wouldn’t do that if you weren’t good. And you were excited about fixing up our scenes. You like your writing.”

“I…suppose I do, yes.”

“So don’t tell me it’s not significant. Not when it is. Not when it makes you happy.”

Colby went quiet for a handful of seconds. Jason crossed fingers—figuratively, but also literally, fleetingly, where those blue eyes couldn’t see—and got back to the massage.

“Jason?”

“Yeah?”

“I might have to think about that a bit. But you might be right. I suspect Jill would say so.”

Good, Jason thought. Good. He said, “Bet she would. How’re you feeling? Still getting better?”

“Entire galaxies of better. Which is in part how I feel. Floating in stars. I’d say that’s the medication, but I think it’s you. Touching me. You’re marvelous. How did I ever end up here, with you…”

“You offered me a role. And then you ate a pastry at me.”

“Sorry, I what?”

“That first morning you bought pastries,” Jason said. “And you told me to pick one, and I told you to eat the other one, and you looked at me like you thought about throwing it at me, but you ate it.”

“And that…made you want to be here?”

“Yep.”

“Marvelous,” Colby muttered into a pillow, “and possibly insane.”

“You’re the sweetest person I’ve ever met, except you think all the sarcastic thoughts, and also all the s*x jokes, but you don’t say them. But you do with me.”

“I like talking to you. You listen. And you don’t mind dragons in the conversation.”

“And you’re my favorite book-wyrm. Can I ask you more about your writing?”

“Oh.” Colby sounded startled, and also pleased. Jason grinned to himself, and moved to the back of Colby’s neck, gathering shaggy hair out of the way. “Yes, of course. What, ah, what would you…oh, that feels superb…”

“You said you’d worked on other projects, not just Jill’s. Anything I’d know?” He hoped that came out purely curious; he meant it that way.

“Possibly? If you ever saw Darklight, last year, that science-fiction—”

“—with the awesome crew dynamics and interstellar exploration and—you wrote that?”

“Put a final layer on. Smoothed out. Tightened up. Some sort of metaphor. I didn’t work on the original draft and I was afraid to do much to the science-heavy bits. But…well, I did rework the structure. And I wrote all the dialogue.”

“Oh my God.” It’d been one of the best-written science-fiction films Jason had seen recently, intelligent and human and awe-inspiring and cosmic and occasionally outright funny, with a wry affectionate sense of humor that, now that he thought about it, sounded exactly like Colby. Critics had agreed, not that sci-fi films ever won major awards. “What else do we have to thank you for?”

“Ah…all right, I’m sorry about this one…Ricochet.”

“I was almost in that! They cast—”

“Cliff Majors instead. I know. I wished it’d been you, with your sense of timing and delivery, but I only came on once they were so evidently in trouble, when the director begged Jill to send it over to her magic script doctor, but even I couldn’t fix it enough.”

The screenplay had been the best piece of a disastrous pile of special effects and blazing guns and sloppy revenge-thriller action, over-budget and miscast. Jason had in fact been up for the lead, had run into scheduling difficulties with the next John Kill movie, and had ultimately been glad to escape unscathed. But the one thing that reviews had praised had been the dialogue, with comments along the lines of, in better hands the dry wit and restrained emotion would’ve landed, and it’s a shame we couldn’t see that film…

“I tried,” Colby said. “I did what I could. I think I really wrote it for you. Cliff…I hate to say anything bad about him, when I don’t even know him…”

“You can. Trust me. I’ve met him. He literally crushed a beer can on his forehead and then asked me which supermodels I’d slept with.”

“Oh dear.”

“Yeah. Anything else?”

“Hmm…one or two that’ve never gone into production…and, well. The other big one. Princess. Though I wasn’t the only one they asked—they didn’t know it was me, they went through Jill, like always—and I know some of the final version isn’t my writing.”

“That was up for best animated feature!”

“Yes…that was the first—so far only—time I’ve attempted a children’s movie. Not that it’s only for children, of course.”

“Holy shit.”

“I did say it wasn’t all mine. I don’t know who else came on after I sent them my version. The opening’s not mine. Most of the second and third acts, however…those are.”

“Oh my God.”

“Sorry.”

“For what? No. And still no about that. The unnecessary sort of saying sorry.” He worked on the massage a little harder, over Colby’s shoulders. “How long’ve you been doing this? Not as far back as—”

“Not South Coast. I was too nervous being there on a television series at all, without any acting experience, and initially only a recurring role in any case. I didn’t dare speak up.”

“But you had ideas.”

“Mmm…I’ll admit to you that I did. I saved the best ones someplace. No, the first proper writing I did was for Afterparty, with Jill. I did most of it on set, in high school classrooms and that prom night hotel suite.”

“Weren’t you still in high school yourself? Jesus.” He curled fingers around the back of Colby’s neck, letting the weight be perceptible: a tease and a vow. Colby melted under the caress. “So you really are a genius.”

“Oh, no, I was nineteen. Out of school. We were all playing younger on camera, of course.”

“You wrote that at nineteen.” It’d been a runaway hit. Critics and audiences alike had fallen in love. Had called it fresh and clever and heartfelt, a teenage comedy that knew with flawless timing when to tug at emotions and when to go quiet and when to dance.

Colby didn’t answer right away. Jason cursed himself. He’d put that flinch in place.

“I didn’t come up with the story,” Colby said. “Someone else wrote the first treatment—Ashley Bryant, who went on to work on Twirl, that high-school flag squad sitcom, you know—but then Ben took a crack at it when Jill came on, and that was the version I auditioned for, but…well…once we started…he’s marvelous at overall structure and shape, but the details and dialogue…some lines weren’t quite…”

“So you fixed them.”

“I wouldn’t’ve said anything, except I accidentally said one of my own lines instead of the script version, and everyone thought it was hilarious in the moment, and then Jill caught me making notes before the next scene, and she asked to see my version, and…”

“How much of it’s yours?”

“More than it ought to’ve been,” Colby admitted. “As far as attribution and credits. I’ve never asked for that, though.”

That was a whole other discussion, one Jason didn’t think they were ready to wade into yet. He’d have to think about that, too. He didn’t understand, but he didn’t want to make assumptions or trample over Colby’s wants or needs. He’d done that too much already.

He came up with a different question. “Different question. When is your birthday?”

“Mine? It’s the second of January. Does that matter?”

“Well, yeah, if I’ve got like two and a half months to find you the best present ever. Thirty-one, Andy said?”

“Yes, I’ll be properly into my thirties. But you—”

“Don’t even try saying I don’t have to get you anything.”

“I wasn’t,” Colby protested drowsily. Every inch of him had become languid and flowing as the rain, under Jason’s hands. Jason’s hands beamed with accomplishment.

Colby went on, “I admit I rather like the idea…you wanting to do that, to do something for me…no, I was going to say you already are the best present and I enjoy unwrapping you and I’d quite like to do that now.”

Jason snorted. Tapped fingers over Colby’s ass, not with any force. “Being persistent. I said we weren’t doing that tonight. You want me to spank you? Not now. Obviously.”

“I don’t know,” Colby said. He didn’t sound upset or distressed by the idea; Jason had only thought of that possibility after setting the words free, but maybe this one wasn’t as big a deal as it might’ve been. “You could try. Tony tried it a few times. I didn’t like it much, though I think that was partly because he always did it quite hard, so he could see me cry. I thought it must be my fault that I couldn’t get into it—he plainly enjoyed it, so I must’ve been doing something wrong. But it hurt so much I couldn’t think about anything else. I don’t want you to think he was terrible; he did want me to like the things he tried with me—he kept saying he wanted me to like them, and I kept trying to make him happy, so that’s partly on me—but I never could get off from, er, things that only inflicted pain.”