Just in case you ever wondered what conversations between two fanfic authors look like, here’s what happened when I sent Supermom @renntastic the video of Chris and Dodger’s reunion and she learned that bearded!Steve Rogers is happening.
So are they still filming ep 2? I'm only asking because I was sure someone tweeted last week that e2 filming had wrapped, but everyone seems to be saying that these newest "red-lady" pics are part of episode 2. Thanks!
Hi Lovely!
As far as I know, they’re still filming E2, and next week they will be filming all the North Gower Street scenes for all three eps, as I understand. That will probably transition into Episode 3′s filming. DON’T quote me. @thesetison @cupidford confirmation?
(Different fic, because the other one didn’t have orange in all of its 30k or whatever)
“The orange ones, which spit acid,looked a lot like pumpkin pie after they'd been hit with a repulsoror one of Hawkeye's sonic arrows, and Tony was not looking forward toThanksgiving.”
Send me a word, if it’s in my wip document I’ll answer your ask with the sentence that it appears in
Does renntastic still write for this blog? Not trying to be rude, just haven't seen updates from her in a while and wanted to make sure she didn't give up or something. I love her work! <3
She does. This is her author tag, where you can see her currently in progress story. Some updates take longer than others.
/tagged/chrisandsarah has been added to my blog for all the oneshots I've written about those nerds so far (and will be used for the ones coming up, too). Thanks!
Thanks! I’ve added the link to the last chapter as “deleted” scenes! :)
As someone who is a big fan of the art of pining as well as its amazing author renntastic, can I just say to everyone else who is a fan that she really needs encouragement right now? She's been getting some really hurtful anons and even death threats from people who say her writing is bad and she should stop, and speaking for myself personally I know that if she stopped writing it would be a huge sadness. So please can some people send her nice anons?
Into all inboxes a little bullshit must fall. Though it seems she’s handling herself very well from what I saw. We mostly delete shit heads over here.
Title: Lucky
Chapter: 9
Author: renntastic
Character: Actor!Seb
Pairing: Seb/OFC
Rating: R for language
Warnings: none
Fic Summary: Leila and Seb reunite years after they first met, and they’ve got a lot to catch up on.
Author’s Notes: Final Chapter!
Six months later, things were no better than they’d been.
Seb called as often as he could. He would call about three times a week, sometimes more, sometimes less. When he called, I didn’t talk to him more than just to say hello, pass the phone on to Max, and occasionally to let him know that I wouldn’t be in town any time soon. I only told him when he asked.
Most nights, I lie awake staring at the ceiling, thinking about what I’d wasted in not staying with him. But then I knew how things were. He was younger, more successful, famous, busy. I was just busy. Getting together was already a bad idea when I knew he was the father of my child. Staying with him just for that sake, well… that would be an awful idea.
But then, was it really only for that sake?
He called on a Friday morning, and that was nothing unusual. He did his show on Friday evenings, and he almost always called those mornings to talk to Max about how nervous he was. Max cheered him up, he said. Got him excited for the big shows when he might be nervous otherwise.
“He’s got the flu,” I said immediately. I didn’t even give him a chance to say hi.
“He can’t talk?”
“He can, but he’s sleeping. I can have him call you when he wakes up if it’s not too late.”
He was silent, but I could hear him sigh.
“Sorry, Seb,” I told him. “He’s really sick.”
“Is he okay?”
“Fever, chills, vomiting,” I said. “Like I said, it’s the flu. These are the joys you’d get to participate in if you were here with us. This happens about, oh, three or four times a year. Every season change, pretty much.”
“I wish I could be there,” he answered. “Really I do.”
But he wasn’t. And I would have reminded him so if he hadn’t sounded so sincere. “That’s sweet of you to say. I’ll let him know.”
“Wait, wait… before you hang up…”
His pleas were so desperate and almost pathetic.
“Seb, I told you. We’ve been over this. Every time we talk, I feel like shit because I know you care about me. And I know that how I feel about you isn’t the same. I can’t keep doing this. If that means that I have to stop letting you call here, then–”
“No, Lei, that’s not it.”
Oh. I wondered what it could be, and I sort of felt stupid for what I’d said. Especially since it wasn’t exactly true.
“I’m moving,” he told me. “It’s for a movie, but I have some training to do beforehand, and the shoot is really long and involved. It’s supposed to go about six months altogether, but could be as long as nine, according to my agent. He said this director’s got a reputation for that sort of thing.”
He was leaving. This is not what I expected. “Where are you going?”
“Texas first,” he said. “Then Mexico. Ultimately, most of it will shoot in Cali, though. Anyway, I’ll be pretty far away the entire time.”
“And… what about Max? Do you think you’ll still be able to talk to him?”
“Actually, I was wondering if I could take him with me. At least, part of that time. Maybe just while I’m in Texas since that’s the period of time I’ll actually be able to hang out with him.”
“When are you leaving?”
“Sunday night,” he said with a sigh. “Pretty much as soon as my last show is over.”
I felt a sudden, unexpected pain in my chest, something sharp and uncomfortable and most certainly unwelcome. “That’s a lot sooner than I would have thought.”
“Yeah, I agree.” He went silent for a moment. “I… I wish I knew what to say.”
“Me too,” I replied. And why was I crying? He wasn’t leaving forever. Even if he were, I had no emotional attachment to him. Not one that was severe enough to make me miss him. “I don’t know,” I said finally. “I need to think about it. And I need to see how he’s feeling. Can I call you tomorrow?”
“Yeah, that’s fine.” He was stalling. He had more to say. More to ask, possibly.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Don’t you want to go?”
“I mean, yeah. I guess. It’s just that I really want to see you guys before I leave, even if you don’t come with me.”
“You mean even if he comes with, don’t you?”
“Right. But, you know, you could come too if you wanted. If it made you feel better.”
His voice was so soft, so warm. As he had always been. God, I wanted to go, and I didn’t even think it was a good idea. For the first time since I chose to have Max, I was considering taking this huge risk.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” I repeated. “What’s the best time?”
“I have three shows,” he answered. “But I think I’m free around lunch. Noon-ish. Does that work?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Are you going to be at the theatre all day?”
“Yeah, I’m not gonna leave. I’ll have to eat there and everything.”
“Okay. I’ll call you tomorrow.” I didn’t even say a formal goodbye or allow him to. Everything I had to say had been said.
It was one thing knowing that he was just downstate, a couple hours’ drive away. Sure, I hadn’t taken advantage of that, and sure, I didn’t exactly plan to. But what if my mind should change? What if I did decide to see him?
And now he’d be in Texas, California, Mexico. Fucking Mexico, however far away that was. Too far, and that’s all that mattered. So sure, I’d never taken advantage of how close he was before. But now I couldn’t even if I wanted to.
I went to check in on Max, who was now awake, but still generally miserable. “You okay, Bud?”
“Was that my dad?” he asked.
I stepped into his room fully, sitting beside him on the bed to check his temperature. “Yeah. He was checking in. I told him we’d call back when you were feeling better.”
“Are we gonna go see his play? Isn’t this the last week?”
How he remembered, I don’t even know. Seb had been doing the play for months now, and he didn’t really talk about it with Max at any length. But somewhere in Max’s mind, the fact that we had yet to visit was still in the forefront of his priorities.
“You aren’t feeling well,” I reminded him. “Your fever’s still high. We can’t go anywhere today.”
“But maybe I’ll be better tomorrow!” he said in a surprising gusto.
I rested my hand against his forehead, gently urging him back into a lying position. “Sweetie, if you’re feeling better tomorrow, we’ll call your dad and you can talk to him about it. I promise.”
…
I didn’t sleep much that night. Between checking in frantically on Max and thinking about the huge yet not-so-huge changes, I probably only got about three hours, and that’s if you add up all the little snippets into one.
When the morning came, I settled into my little reading nook, cup of coffee in hand. I picked up my copy of Dark Places and opened to the next chapter. A book, a murder mystery especially, should get my mind off of things. The caffeine would wake me. By noon, and possibly – hopefully – well before then, I would understand that I couldn’t possibly send Max all the way out there with Seb. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him, it was just that…
…Um…
… Well, there had to be a reason.
“Mom?”
I heard his small voice behind me, then looked at the clock and realized I’d been sitting there for almost two hours, yet hadn’t read a single word.
“Hey, Buddy. How are you feeling?”
He sat beside me in the wicker chair, looking over the garden just outside. “It’s pretty today, huh?”
“Very pretty,” I agreed. “But you still haven’t answered the question.”
“I feel better,” he said with a shrug. His red cheeks and obvious exhaustion begged to differ.
“What are you doing down here? I would have brought breakfast to your room pretty soon.”
“I know,” he told me, moving my arm around himself so that he could be wrapped up in it. “But I wanted you to see how good I looked today.”
“Well… I guess you do look a little better.” I felt his forehead. The fever was, at the very least, much reduced. “Did you throw up anymore last night?”
“Nope,” he answered, smiling proudly. “And I slept a lot. Remember how you said it’s good for me to wake up sweating after I’m sick? You said it means the fever’s broke? Well I did this morning. Feel my back! It’s still wet!”
Of course I was paying attention to him, even touching his soaked back as he asked me too. But more impressive than how he felt today was how he’d felt since meeting Seb. How much more he talked. He hadn’t needed speech therapy or to be separated from the rest of his class during question-and-answer sessions. He’d improved so much since then. And maybe it was coincidence, but maybe it wasn’t. Maybe Seb was good for Max. Maybe Max was good for Seb. Maybe all of this was good for me.
“You really want to see him tonight, don’t you?” I asked him.
“So much!” he said. “Please?”
“Go take a shower and get dressed. We’ll have breakfast and then we’ll go. If we leave soon, we might be able to catch the matinee.”
…
The Grossman Theatre was relatively empty when we arrived. It wasn’t quite noon yet, and getting in was only something I was able to do because one of the security guards remembered Max.
“So what brings you guys here,” he asked. “You know it’s still four hours ‘til the show, don’t ya?”
“Yeah, we know,” I said, looking at Max. “We’re actually here to see Sebastian Stan. Is he in his room?”
“As far as I know,” he told us. “You know they cancelled one of the shows today, right?”
“Do you know why?”
He shrugged and looked over at the ticket counter, stopping in his tracks and yelling quite unexpectedly, “Hey Marge! Marge! Hey, do you know why the early show got cancelled?”
From afar we could hear her yelling back, “I don’t know, Ted, I just take the money!”
He shook his head and continued toward the dressing rooms. “I heard someone was sick, but I don’t know. Anyway there it is, that room there. Third from the left.”
I already knew that, but I didn’t want to seem ungrateful for his guidance. “Thanks, Ted. Have a good day.”
“You’re welcome. And hey, tell Sebastian he did a hell of a job last night, okay? The wife and I got to see the show, and he’s just amazing. Will you tell him?”
“I’ll even get you an autograph,” I promised.
Max was impatiently heading to the dressing room door ahead of me, and I had to hurry a little to catch up. “Come on, Mom,” he urged.
When we got there and he knocked, I was sure we could’ve walked in if we’d wanted to. But then maybe that wasn’t the best example to set.
The door opened after a minute, and my heart pounded faster and faster. I was ready to jump him, tell him that yes, Max could go with. Yes, I would let him be a bigger part of our lives. Maybe we could work on things. Maybe, given time, we could even…
Wait.
“You’re not Seb,” I spoke aloud to the man who answered the door. He was young, dark-haired, blue-eyed. But he was no replacement.
“I’m Luke,” he explained. “The understudy.”
“Where is he?”
“Sick,” he said. “Who are you?”
“I’m… uh…” Who was I? That was an excellent question.
“She’s his girlfriend,” Max said.
“Max!”
“Girlfriend?” He shook his head. “And he didn’t tell you he was sick?”
“I’m not his girlfriend,” I explained. “I’m just a friend of his. He didn’t know I was coming in town.”
“Sorry ‘bout that.” He looked me up and down. “Is there anything I can do to help you?”
I didn’t even dignify that with an answer. I turned around and walked out hastily, dragging my son behind me.
“Where are we going?”
“To his apartment,” I said. “the bastard couldn’t tell me he was taking a sick day? I tell him I’ll call him, and he takes a sick day? What the fuck?”
“Mom! Language!”
“Sorry.” I would owe a lot of money to the swear jar by the time the day was through, I could tell.
We arrived at his building, and I almost walked in. but with Max’s constant questioning of why I was so upset, I decided to ask him first. I couldn’t believe that in all of this, I hadn’t even asked if this was what Max wanted. I just assumed.
“Honey,” I started, bringing him to a bench along the sidewalk. “I need to be honest with you about something.”
He watched me intently, but let me speak.
“Your dad is going away for a while,” I said. “He’s going to be on the other side of the country, and he’s not sure for how long.”
He looked up at me curiously, then sadly. When he didn’t say anything to this, I was scared he’d revert to his old ways, too sad and too alone to want to talk anymore.
“He asked if I’d let you come with him.”
His eyes opened wider, brighter, and a smile appeared. “And what did you say?”
“I said I’d think about it,” I told him. “And then this morning when I saw you feeling better, I thought I’d have him ask you in person.”
He was still smiling, but I could tell he was also thinking.
“Well?” I asked. “Do you want to?”
“Yes!” he answered immediately. “Totally! And you’re coming, too, right?”
And this was the hard part.
“No, hon. I wouldn’t.”
“Why not?” As if the answer was so simple.
“Because I have work.” Not exactly true. I could easily work from anywhere. 90% of my job is research, anyway.
“So?”
“Well… it’s not just that.”
“Don’t you love him?”
In shock, I looked down at him. “Of course I do.”
“So then you should tell him that! And then you can come with!”
I sighed, working out how to explain this to him. How to explain it to myself, even.
“You know he loves you, right?”
“Yeah, Buddy, I know. It’s just… It’s scary, you know? I was married to someone else for a long time, and it ended. Things end, even when people love each other.”
“But it didn’t even start yet!”
“That’s not the point! The point is that I think he has this whole idea in his mind about how love works, and about how family works. He doesn’t understand that sometimes you have to interrupt your whole life and change jobs and move far away and make sacrifices. I don’t think he’s ready.”
He nodded. I think he understood as well as he ever would.
“So do you still want to go with him?”
He looked up at me thoughtfully. “Not if you’re not coming.”
“You sure?”
He thought again, but then answered. “I’m sure.”
…
We left without seeing Seb. It would have been too hard on both of them. I decided that we would call him when we got home, and that I would let Seb call Max’s cell phone anytime he wanted to talk to him. Up until now, I’d only let him call our home.
We stopped for ice cream, past the windmills he so loves watching, and even paused over a river to throw rocks off the bridge. The usual couple hours upstate drive took us nearly six, as we stopped often and for long periods of time to enjoy the trip. It might be the last we take for a very long while.
When we arrived home, it was dark outside. I sent max straight upstairs to change into pajamas before I called Seb. I told him we could all talk together. That might be a good way to settle things for him.
When we were together again downstairs, I picked up the home line and dialed Seb’s number, putting the phone on speaker. It rang, twice, three times, four with no answer.
Maybe he was still sick.
Finally after the fifth ring, and right when I was about to hang up, he answered.
“Hey!”
“You sound cheery,” I said. “Feeling better?”
“I’m fine, why?”
“Hold on.” I took the phone off speaker and walked away from Max. “We came in town today. I was told you were sick.”
“In town?” He paused. “Wait, the city? You were in the city?”
“Yeah.” I waited for his reply. It was sure to be good.
“Holy fucking shit, Lei!” He laughed.
“Are you drunk?”
“What? No!” I didn’t believe him.
“Then what’s so funny?”
He laughed again. “Where are you now?”
“I’m home. My home. Why?”
“I’ll call you back in ten minutes.”
He hung up. Just like that. Laughing, possibly drunk, music in the background. I couldn’t believe he was drunk on a night he said he was sick. Drunk on the day he was asking permission to take my kid thousands of miles away with him.
When the phone rang a full ten minutes later, I refused to answer. I had already sent Max to bed, and I was too upset to deal with Seb now. I let it ring all it wanted, even when he called three times in a row. Then my cell phone rang, and I didn’t answer that either. Sooner or later, I figured, he’d take the hint.
But when Max came running down the stairs to me, his own phone in hand, I realized I was mistaken.
“It’s him,” Max said. “He wants to talk to you.”
I didn’t want to be mean to him in front of Max. That would have set a bad example. “Yes?” I answered, my best fake smile in tow.
“Go outside.”
“What?”
“Go outside.” He repeated.
“Why?”
“Because I’m here.”
I moved the phone down, ending the call as I walked to the door. When I opened it, sure enough, there he was, leaning against a taxi with his phone still to his ear.
“I hung up,” I told him.
He looked at his phone. “Rude.”
“Are you drunk?”
He laughed and shook his head. “No, not drunk. Just tired.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I came here this afternoon,” he said. “Right around noon, actually. I thought if I came in person it would be better.”
“But the show… they cancelled one of the shows today.”
“I told them I was sick. I just called again and told them I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“So why are you here?”
“I told you…”
“No, I mean… I mean, why are you still here? When you showed up and we were gone, why didn’t you leave? And what was that music?”
“I got a hotel,” he answered. “I had the TV on. I wasn’t partying.”
“I wouldn’t have cared if you were.”
“Yeah, well,” he started. “Those days are over.”
I walked closer to him, resisting the urge to kiss him. I didn’t even know why I wanted to. Well, okay. I knew why.
“About the trip…” I explained. “The thing is, Alex doesn’t want to go.”
“That’s okay. I’m not going anyway.”
“What?” I didn’t understand. “Why not?”
“Because I figured he wouldn’t be able to come, and I get why you wouldn’t want him to be without you for that long. So I decided to pull out of the project.”
“Seb, no. No, you didn’t have to–”
“Yes,” he answered. “I did. I should be spending more time with him, and I want to do it in a way where you can be a part of it, too.”
“What if I went with?” Suddenly and unexpectedly even to me, I was saying it.
“You’d do that?”
Max was peeking out the front door behind me, listening. “He said he wants us together,” I said. “Maybe it’s what we need.”
Seb looked at Max. “That’s my boy.”
“I’m serious. Maybe we should… you know… go for it. Give it a shot.”
“What changed your mind?”
I looked back at our son, who was walking closer to us. “You proved me wrong,” I smiled. “As a lawyer, that’s about the only way to change my mind.”
“About us?” he asked. “How?”
“Stop asking questions and be grateful,” Max said.
Seb smiled at me. “So can I kiss you now or what?”
