《Events after The Great Game》vernon

32、[RPS] he can call me a flower if he wants to The f

　　The first one is, predictably, from Justin. Attached to it is a note that says BECAUSE YOU ARE A CARTOON DEER and then, written in marker pen across the disc, BUT EVEN DEER NEED TO GET LAID. INVITE SOMEONE TO ~WATCH A MOVIE~ AND BY SOMEONE I MEAN JESSE EISENBERG. Andrew stares at it for about ten straight minutes in a sort of state of shock, and then he drops the whole thing down the back of his sofa and resolves to pretend it doesn't exist.

　　The next one comes by recorded delivery. Andrew signs for it with a sense of foreboding, which is proved entirely right and not at all Sean Parker paranoid when he takes the cardboard packaging apart and finds the same dvd inside. This one's from Armie. Andrew knows this because there's a note inside the case that says DUDE SERIOUSLY HAVE YOU SEEN YOUR FACE RECENTLY IT LOOKS LIKE THIS. There's also a terrible drawing of a crown with an arrow pointing to it and then it says if we're being Disney characters, I get to be a prince because I am taller than all you forest animal bitches and also I have perfect teeth. Andrew thinks, fair point, and leaves the dvd on his sofa. He sends Armie an email that says only competition and gets one back, minutes later, that says NOT EVEN FUCKING CLOSE.

　　Andrew is having such a productive and not at all ridiculous day.

　　By the time the third one arrives, delivered late that afternoon by FedEx, which always comes later than the regular post, it's starting to grate ever so slightly. This one's from Joe, and there's no note with it but there is a printed out picture of Andrew's face stuck at a jaunty angle over Bambi's on the dvd cover. Andrew texts him, what are you that you would do this to me and Joe replies, shut up you know it's true,you have the knobbly knees of a newborn deer. Andrew looks down at his legs in his jeans, and texts back MY GOOD MAN I WILL NOT STAND FOR SUCH SLANDER and Joe texts, whatever,you totally checked out your knees, I reject all criticism from a man who fondles his own kneecaps, and Andrew guiltily stops poking his knees like Joe can see him and knows.

　　The fourth thing happens when Andrew makes dinner and checks his emails again, and there's one from Josh that he reads while he's eating because he still hasn't learnt his lesson about Food Near the Laptop even after the great orange juice disaster of 2009 that provoked swearing and tears and possibly declarations to the effect of IT'S LIKE REPLACING MY HEART when he was informed by an incredibly unhelpful tech guy at Comet that basically nothing would save it, and then he got a lecture about liquids around keyboards and he vengefully and pettily went across the street to Curries and fucking well bought his new laptop there. Back in the here and now, when Andrew is guiltily wiping a blob sauce off the trackpad, Josh's email just says I assume you are aware that the Bambi dvd is out today. I'd have sent you one but I'm not that guy. Andrew sets his plate precariously on the edge of his sofa and types back, he who smelt it, dealt it, which neither is mature nor makes sense in context, but whatever. He changes his mood message on Skype to I AM NOT A CARTOON DEER!!!!!!!!!! which he thinks is possibly missing a few exclamation marks.

　　He's about to close Skype when a message from Emma pops up.

　　E. Stone
　　Really, Garfield

　　A. Garfield
　　yes really i am a HUMANNNNNNNNNN

　　E. Stone
　　you type like you have hooves

　　A. Garfield
　　MY FINGERS ARE PERFECTLY FORMED

　　E. Stone
　　that's what he said

　　A. Garfield
　　who's he

　　E. Stone
　　it's a pity that someone so pretty should also be so dumb

　　A. Garfield
　　emma you lie!!!!!!!

　　E. Stone
　　I can't lie to you, it's like lying to a fawn

　　A. Garfield
　　I AM NOT A FAWN

　　E. Stone
　　okay fine, a fawn with rage issues

　　A. Garfield
　　I DO NOT HAVE RAGE ISSUES EITHER

　　A. Garfield
　　You should have an L on your chest, not an A

　　A. Garfield
　　L FOR LIAR

　　A. Garfield
　　WHICH IS WHAT YOU ARE!!

　　E. Stone
　　someone's over-reacting

　　E. Stone
　　and you call this not having rage issues

　　E. Stone
　　now who's the liar,you murderous fawn

　　A. Garfield
　　if I were a fawn, I would nibble you

　　A. Garfield
　　not sexually

　　A. Garfield
　　aggressively though. mine would be an angry nibble

　　E. Stone
　　an angry nibble sounds like a dangerous health complaint.you should get that checked out. is there a vet near you

　　A. Garfield
　　I AM NOT A DEER

　　E. Stone
　　whatever. later home skillet, have fun in the forest

　　A. Garfield
　　YOU ARE NOT ELLNE PGAE

　　He's aware he could type less like a drunk person, but, whatever, he's not Mark Zuckerberg, he's allowed.

　　your message has not been sent comes up a couple of seconds later, and Andrew is just about to send a retaliatory and slightly obnoxious stream of keyboard smash for Emma to receive next time she's online when there's a knock at his door. He checks his watch. It's, like, half eleven at night. Okay, so the Royal Mail is screwy at the best of times, but this is getting ridiculous.

　　"I hope you're well paid for this sort of job dedication," Andrew says, swinging open the door, and then he says, "Or not," when the person on the doorstep is not his usual dour-faced, shorts-wearing postman and is instead Jesse.

　　"I wasn't aware this was a job," Jesse says, shifting a backpack on his shoulder like it's heavy. "Was there some sort of interview I wasn't aware of"

　　"Hello," says Andrew. "You're not in New York."

　　"Good to see I'm apparently working for someone so observant," Jesse says.

　　'Er," says Andrew, continuing his stream of intelligent conversational input. "Er, come in"

　　He holds the door open and Jesse walks in, and Andrew has to linger when he closes the door again because he's smiling so widely he's worried it might scare Jesse right back onto a plane and away from his crazed expression of happiness.

　　He puts his hand to the small of Jesse's back to point him in the direction of the living room. "I can't believe you're here," he says, and Jesse turns to look over his shoulder at him. "It's great."

　　Andrew really needs to stop smiling now, mostly because of the whole thing where sometimes if he smiles too long he looks like a serial killer and he's still trying not to scare Jesse straight back out of his house but also largely because it's making his cheeks hurt. Andrew gets more ridiculous when Jesse is around, and that's saying something in a day where he's been sent the same cartoon dvd three times.

　　"Um," says Jesse, as they go through out of the hall. "So, It wasn't so much that I saw this and thought of you as I saw you and thought that there'd been a gigantic step forwards in 3D technology and a break-out from the Disney animation studio, but, um,you should have this anyway." Jesse holds the dvd out. Andrew looks down at it. The title has been crossed out and instead, in Jesse's scrawling handwriting, it says the adventures of a wild Andrew Garfield and his little woodland friends.

　　Andrew looks back up at Jesse.

　　Jesse shrugs again. "That's more accurate."

　　Andrew says, "Did you come all the way out here just to give me a dvd"

　　Jesse sort of scuffs his the toe of his shoe against Andrew's carpet, but he says, like it's no big deal, "We said we'd support each other's work, right And, I mean, this one's critically acclaimed."

　　Even though Jesse's blushing, there's an amused little smile tugging at the edges of his mouth like his poker face is failing him for once, and Andrew does the whole look at your dvd, now back to Jesse, now back to your dvd, now back to Jesse thing again, and while Jesse isn't shirtless and on a horse, he is still the best looking thing Andrew has seen since the last time he saw Jesse, and he's here in Andrew's flat and he came all the way from New York to bring him a stupid dvd. Old Spice guy can suck it.

　　Andrew looks down at the dvd again, and laughs.

　　"What"

　　"Nothing," says Andrew. "It's just - I've never actually seen Bambi."

　　"You do own a mirror, right" Jesse says, and Andrew rolls his eyes. Jesse says, "Seriously,you've never seen it"

　　Andrew shakes his head.

　　Jesse says, "We should watch it."

　　"It's late," Andrew says. "Aren't you jet-lagged"

　　Jesse shrugs. "Not too jet-lagged for the magic of Disney."

　　Andrew puts the movie on and they sit and watch it, and it's so much like all that time they spent sharing blankets on a couch in a rented apartment in Boston that Andrew can't stop himself smiling, and putting an arm round Jesse like it's second nature. Jesse relaxes against him, and Andrew sort of toys at the curls at the nape of his neck, and even without the Disney movie in the background it's, like, almost nauseatingly lovely. At least Jesse can claim jet-lag as an excuse: Andrew's just out on his own limb of madness.

　　Whatever Jesse might say, he's nodding off against Andrew's shoulder ten minutes in, and Andrew spends the next half hour watching the light of the television flicker forest green and sun bright across Jesse's face. Okay, so it's stupid and ridiculous and Andrew needs, like, a stop-making-googly-eyes-at-your-friend-yes-even-if-he-is-Jesse-yes-okay-shut-up intervention or something, but no-one ninjas down from behind the curtains to tell him to man up and stop gazing, so he doesn't.

　　Jesse stirs like he knows Andrew is looking at him.

　　Andrew tears his gaze away and looks back at the television, colour rising in his cheeks like the ridiculous excuse for a person he is. "I'm not Bambi," he says, and even half-asleep, Jesse makes this little noise, like,yeah, right against Andrew's upper arm.

　　Andrew watches Bambi wobble his way across the screen.

　　"All right," he says, because he can feel the rise and fall of Jesse's sleepy breath against him and it is rendering him weak, because he is stupid and needs to be shot in the woods like Bambi's mother, "fine. I'm a little bit Bambi."

　　"You're a lot bit Bambi," Jesse mumbles, still asleep enough not to be self-conscious. Andrew likes it when Jesse isn't self-conscious, because he spends so long being hyper-aware of Jesse's entire existence, especially in proximity to him, that for Jesse to be worrying about it too just seems like overkill. Jesse says, slurred and tired, "You know, because of your big stupid eyes and all your legs."

　　"All my legs"

　　"You've got too many."

　　"I've got two."

　　"Yes, but they're really long."

　　Andrew tugs the blanket up over Jesse's side where it's fallen down a little, and Jesse sort of shifts and actually nuzzles closer to Andrew. Andrew is pretty sure that if his eyes were ever going to be as big as Bambi's, now is the time.

　　"If you're Bambi," Jesse says, sleepily, "does that make me Thumper"

　　Andrew laughs. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah, Jess,you're a little daft rabbit."

　　Jesse laughs too, and then his breathing evens slowly back out into sleep. Andrew turns to look at him again. He thinks about Thumper talking about the taste of lettuce like Jesse complaining when Andrew burned the toast in the mornings, Thumper nosing up at Bambi's side to help him stand on the ice, Bambi looking at Thumper like he's the only thing that makes sense, and yeah, okay, this isn't the most rational or really the least disturbing thought to come about as a result of watching a children's movie, but Andrew can't seem to shake it.

　　Jesse has shrugged the blanket off again, and Andrew tugs it back up over his shoulders.

　　"Fine," he says, because no-one is listening. "I'm Bambi," and Jesse, who is apparently a big faking faker, grins sleepily all over his stupid, attractive face and says, "Yep, I guess that'll do all right," and leans in closer to Andrew's side.

　　[THIS IS BOTH RIDICULOUS AND TEETH-ROTTING BUT I AM TOO TIRED TO CARE. \o/ \o/ \o/ also re: the title: ENTIRELY OUT OF MY HANDS, I MEAN, I SORT OF HAD TO. also also, I wrote this whole thing and then realised that Andrew would be in the states filming Spiderman when this happened and not in England, but LET'S JUST PRETEND OTHERWISE #hand-waving reality for nonsense]