Drowned Ice Cream

Disclaimer: None of this is intended as slander to the parties involved. I do not own them, nor gain profit from this. Apart from glee. Glee counts as profit doesn't it?!

Author note: thanks to nixwilliams the encouragement but not for being so far away!

Feedback: Yes please.


-Drowned Ice Cream-


It was a tardis of a café, a thing that was barely a box with a door from the outside, yet surprisingly spacious inside. Andy had a seat by the window and was nervously awaiting his affogato. He had high standard with these things. It had to be worth feeling like a kid with an ice cream. After all, he wasn’t a kid anymore and wouldn’t you have thought these days would be over?

Billy burst through the door with a grin on his face, breathless and flushed. “Am I late? I thought I was lost. This place is – wow – it looks tiny from the outside.” He plonked himself down opposite Andy. “Hi.”

Just like Billy, Andy smiled, and smiling back into Billy’s animated face, “Hi.”

Maybe he was just nervous, generally nervous, you know? The coffee was never really -that- important. Billy flicked some restless energy around the room, glancing around himself for the briefest of moments, as though that was all it took to take in the place. Then he was done and he looked back at Andy, straight in the face. And he -really- looked at him, no nonsense, not like most people who look at people, but don’t -really- look at them. Most people don’t take time to really -see- other people, to study their faces as though committing them to memory or trying to read them like a painting. Not like Billy did. Not like Billy was doing now. And all this time, Andy suddenly realised, he too had been watching Billy. And then Andy was painfully aware that there wasn’t anything on their table, nothing between them, not even a sugar bowl for his fingers to play with.

“So, what’ll it be?” he asked, wishing his coffee would come already.

“What are you having?”

A question with a question. His kid wasn’t allowed to get away with that, but he’d let it slide. It was Billy after all. Maybe if his kid spoke with an accent like that. And then his coffee arrived, a tall glass with thick near-black liquid and in it, a ball of creamy-looking ice cream.

“Oh yum, that looks good.” Billy looked impressed, “Give me one of those.”

“Let me taste it first, tell you if that coffee’s ok.”

“Nah, don’t worry about that,” Billy was now looking up at the waitress, “I’ll have one, I trust you.” Billy smiled at her. Andy watched her look at Billy for a bit, perhaps trying to place why his face was familiar. The hobbits, especially, got that a lot. But people seemed confused that they really weren’t -that- small in real life. And then Billy’s gaze was back on Andy.

“So, how’s it all going for you then?” Billy asked, “with the gimp suit and all?”

Andy took a spoonful of his ice cream, coffee dripping off the spoon, and without taking his eyes of Billy, “Couldn’t be better.”

It was a long beat. Could even be classified as longer than a beat – a moment, a -time-. Andy thought perhaps the café was a tardis after all, because hadn’t they been looking at each other for far too long for the regular laws of time to apply. And hadn’t they already done this before, or was that just Andy’s head doing him in. The walls of the café shimmered a bit, like a pocket of time trying to hiccup itself back into motion.

“The coffee’s alright too.”

“Good-O. Good to hear. Good to hear, my friend.” Billy was smiling again and maybe Andy’s head wasn’t doing him in.

“Good to know.”

*

Outside the window, the light was a thin, fragile yellow, like the quality of a dream only half realised. Andy was holding the blind away from the window, his arm stretched up and out while the rest of him still lay in bed. It was a delicate kind of light – even his hand looked somehow fairy-like stretched up in it. Less solid, less muscled, less -real-. It was a thought he caught himself thinking and was glad he hadn’t voice it out loud and in company, Hugo or Orlando’s company especially.

His hand was far from fairy-like after all, skin a pale pasty colour, with some dark hairs over the back of it and calluses on the under side from all that clambering around on rocks. Billy had grabbed that hand yesterday, caught him as he walked past in the street and brought Andy’s head back to the crowded city street and to Billy’s bendy, laughing face. It was a pleasant way to jump back into reality, he thought. Billy had then walked with him – Andy had been runny not -late- exactly, but he never liked being -just- on time. They had walked together to the studio and Billy was still holding his hand. He only let go when they parted ways, letting go to instead hold Andy by the shoulders and kiss him, once on each cheek. Like they were both from not a drizzle-prone land of white-skinned fish-and-chip-eaters, but instead somewhere passionate and lively and temperate. Billy had applied some pressure with his hands, holding Andy for a moment while he looked at him. Then laughing, released him and sent him on his way.

Billy had an energy around Andy, an energy somehow displaced so that Billy was always laughing and goofing around, always like he was distracted by something. And yet, just when Andy thought his mind was elsewhere, Billy would look back at Andy playfully, a look that said it was all for his benefit, all for the sole purpose of amusing Andy. And suddenly Billy would make Andy the centre of his attention again. Just by looking at him. Or maybe Andy’s head was doing him in, Andy wasn’t sure.

Andy realised he was still holding the blind and staring at his white, white hand. The stillness and the pale yellow light engulfed him. He felt that if he let it drop – not just let the blind slip back into place and make a sound – but just by -letting it move-, well, -something- would change. And that something would be irreversible. Perhaps the light would turn back to normal. Perhaps a heavy new reality would fall on top of him and these light giddy dreams would change direction and refuse to come his way.

He wasn’t sure but he knew it wouldn’t be good. Perhaps Billy wouldn’t be laughing anymore. Perhaps he would be looking at him seriously and calling him ‘Andrew,’ instead of ‘Andy.’

Or worse, ‘Andrew Serkis,’ his eyes level and dry.