The Silver Screen Wars

8 - Learning

A full cast this early in the game, full to the brim with sheer acting power - but Bishop knew better than to ride the moment of triumph for too long. There was too much work to do in too little time to rest on his laurels, not even to celebrate the unearthing of prime, unfiltered, organic talent beyond anything he had ever seen. 

She was rough around the edges when it came to finer techniques, and her know-how when it came to the business side of things was laughably lacking, but those things would come later...and not on Bishop's dime, either. He didn't understand her wholesale preoccupation with 'the papers' when she barely even understood how the industry even worked, but he wasn't going to indulge her every curiosity and confusion with answers.

It wasn't his job to baby her and hold her hand through the learning process. Her agent should have taken care of that long before she ever stepped foot in any of his audition calls.

But what Kodi should be doing was heeding his every word and understanding that every syllable that came out of his mouth was gospel. Being solicited by him was an opportunity that most never got, and certainly never so aggressively. How she had yet to comprehend that was beyond his understanding.

Case in point: for some reason, instead of gushing over his phenomenal artistic choices and the undeniable thematic perfection of the site he had chosen for their sets, Kodi was currently sulking and staring out her window as she had been for the last half hour.

Not that he misses her mouth, but at least she made her thoughts plain whenever she opened it. When she was quiet like this, her uncharacteristic silence was suspicious and made him think she was plotting something. And knowing her - which he did; it didn't matter that they had just met this morning because he could read her personality through and through - she was definitely plotting against him. 

Well, then. He was going have to strangle that idea before it blossomed, and he had an inkling of an idea about what it might concern.

"No fucking."

She didn't respond, and continued to stare out her window. Bishop tried again.

"Kodiak Clyde, you heard me? No fucking."

This time, she heard him (or at least, stopped ignoring him). With a slow turn of her head, she looked over at him and gave him the foulest, most scornful grimace he had ever seen.

"What?"

He tightened his hands around the steering wheel. "I said no f*****g, at least not with anyone you're working with. Go find someone to tide you over in the meantime if you need it, but you keep your legs closed around anyone you have to see on the set in the morning. Got it?"

"What the f**k -"

"Save it. I saw the way you looked at Jason earlier. Try and lie to me, I dare you."

He heard her shift in her seat. "You're an actual creep," she informed him calmly. "The right way to say all that is to tell people not to date coworkers, not to keep their legs closed around so-and-so."

"You don't understand basic English?"

"More like you don't understand basic manners. Or how to human."

A bark of sharp laughter escaped him, and he rolled down his window to feel the wind on his face and hopefully blow away the contagious idiocy of the woman next to him. Pity that this car wasn't a convertible top. He compensated by slamming on the gas pedal and hearing the engine answer with a roar.

"Don't waste your breath," he said, raising his voice so that she could hear him over the rising din. "Just stay off of Jason's lap until the job's done, and then you can roast his duck to your heart's content."

She said something back, but the noise conveniently drowned her out so that he didn't have to hear her. He didn't care enough to ask her to repeat herself either, and he contentedly leaned his head back and drove on with one arm hanging out the window. Ah, what bliss -

Until, that is, Kodi decided to lean over and graciously help him out by shouting in his ear. Apparently she hadn't gotten the memo concerning his absolute disinterest in whatever she had to say, and she was assuming in all innocence that he simply hadn't heard her.

"I said, does he have a girlfriend?"

He gnashed his teeth together and gripped the steering wheel so tightly that he swore he could hear the leather creaking over the rushing of the wind. His other hand that hung out the window clenched as well, and if he exercised his imagination with enough enthusiasm, he could pretend he was throttling Kodi's slender little neck instead.

"HEY DOES JASON MONLAVIA HAVE A GIRLFRI -"

He knew Jason was following along behind them in his own car, otherwise he would have swerved over to the side of the desert road and taught her a lesson about screaming into his ear. The i***t even had the gall to cup it with her hands, funneling the full volume of her voice directly into his eardrums.

"f**k off!" he snarled, and he swapped hands on the steering wheel so that he could grab Kodi's face and shove it away from himself.

But due to unforeseeable events and apparently a god above who hated him - both of them, actually, judging by the horrified sound from Kodi that he heard rippling through the car like a tear in the fabric of space-time - he found his fingers slightly misplaced...and his thumb in her mouth.

To be fair, it had initially only landed on the corner of her mouth and then somehow slipped in. It hadn't been dead on or anything.

Kodi, however, seemed to suffer convulsions all the same. She reared back and away so violently that her head slammed into the passenger side window - hard enough that he thought it might even shatter (the glass, not her, because she was obviously far too hardheaded). And - alright, the retching and sputtering sounds were a little over the top. It was just a thumb for God's sake, and it was his thumb which made it preferable to all others -

He rolled up his window, and by now he had pulled his foot off the gas and dropped down to a more respectable speed. It wasn't going to do anything about the fact that she was on the verge of stroking out, but he really, really didn't want her puking in his six million dollar car. For that reason, and that reason alone, he held back the insults until she was done making a show of hacking up his cooties or whatever she thought she had swallowed. In fact, he even waited until she was mostly still again, but he couldn't help but notice she had pressed herself to her door to put as much distance between them as possible.

What a f*****g child.

"Get your s**t together," he told her, glancing over with a disdainful lift of his chin. "It was my finger, not my cock."

She lanced him through with a silent, blazing glare, saying nothing but showing her thoughts aplenty with the look in her eyes.

"Next time, don't scream in my ear. If I don't hear you on the second try, it means I'm ignoring you, not that I can't hear you."

He thought he saw her flash him the middle finger, but when he looked over at her once more, she was already turning away again. She was still shifting around and trying to put more space between them, but sadly, her efforts seemed to be hampered by the limited space available to her.

"I hope that was a good learning experience for you, Kodiak Clyde."

This time, he didn't miss the rude gesture she threw at him.

---------

Thankfully, the rest of the ride passed on in silence. A time or three, Bishop was certain that he saw police cruisers peel out onto the road from whatever hiding spot they had been hunkered down in, but none of them ever tailed him for too long. His eyes would flicker over to the side view mirror to see who was preparing to annoy him now, and he watched as they gunned their engines to catch up. And then after a moment, they would ease off and drop to a more respectable speed (the speed limit, which he was definitely exceeding) before receding into the distance as he left them far behind.

But of course. He only had half a dozen cars; he expected every offer working in and around the city of Los Angeles to recognize him on sight. They were not allowed to stop him as far as he was concerned. The law? Who had time for speeding tickets? There was a reason he was going that fast, after all; he had places to be. The last time he'd been stopped, he had promptly chewed out the rookie officer and made him regret his unfortunate life decisions.

He was Bishop Cassius. What was the speed limit?

Oh, he was careful enough. And he was a good driver, wasn't he? Never drank and drove, never passed a red light unless he really, really wanted to. Or vaguely wanted to. And he had yet to ever hit a pedestrian - on accident, at least.

(Boyan had had it f*****g coming to him, but that was a different story altogether).

It was by chance that Bishop noticed Kodi watching the side view mirror on her side, her eyes glued to the reflection of the latest police cruiser who drew up behind them. She said nothing, however, and simply watched with rapt interest until inevitably, they ended up slowing down and letting him go. He watched her in turn, noted the touch of annoyance that flashed across her face when it happened.

"You drive, Kodiak Clyde?"

She didn't even look at him, much less respond. He waited a moment before reaching over and sliding his hand around the back of her headrest.

"I asked if you drive, Kodiak."

"And I've gotta ask why you keep calling me that when it's a lot easier to just call me Kodi."

He glanced her way again. She was still irritated about the little incident earlier no doubt, but there was something sharper in her voice now. Something more angry than outraged, bitter. He didn't usually care about what particular emotions other people were feeling, to be honest, and Kodi was no exception, but he couldn't help that he was good at reading people anyway. And his instincts told her that there was something else that was on her mind now, something that was making her voice harder and more unfriendly.

Not that she was all that soft and friendly to begin with except where Jason Monlavia was concerned, but that was just what his gut was telling him. Too bad; he wasn't interested in talking about feelings and therefore had no intention of getting to the root of it. But she'd better knock off that attitude real quick before he -

He paused. Before he what? Normally, he would shout and snarl and throw heavy objects at whoever had earned his ire, or perhaps just cut them off outright if he wanted to save himself the effort, but it wasn't like he could do that with Kodi. She was already perpetually on the brink of walking out on him, and he needed her - attitude or not - on his team. Without her, none of it came together.

He supposed...he would have to change tactics...and be nice.

"What, you don't like your own name?" he asked lightly, forcing his voice to stay level. God, was this what self control felt like? Clogged arteries? "Think Kodiak Clyde has a good rhythm to it."

"So do you just never get pulled over?"

The f**k? He peeled his gaze away from the road and met her accusing gaze for a second. What kind of subject change - ? He thought he could feel the whiplash in his neck from how swift it had been.

"They shouldn't," he said simply. "I don't have time to stop for them."

The answer he gave, however, appeared to be the wrong one. He saw it in the way the corners of her mouth tightened and her eyes grew a little brighter, in the way he felt her palpable animosity suddenly filing the car's interior like poison gas.

And then just as suddenly, it was gone. She turned to look out her window again.

"Gotcha," she said, her voice calm and devoid of all emotion. "Just wondering."

He frowned.

The fuck...?