Pairing: MR/TW
Summary: AU. Trapped somewhere between angst and humour.
A/N: Never happened. Except the tiny bits that did, and those have been completely turned to my own purposes. Feedback is like a shot of espresso, straight up.
Part 1
Part 2
Smallville is in reruns on some Canadian channel and Michael drinks three beers just watching one hour. He’s never caught the show before, has actually deliberately avoided it, but now it doesn’t have to be about Michael and what he’s missed. It can be about Tom instead, what Tom does.
The storyline is derivative: Lex Luthor marries in haste and doesn’t get a chance to repent at leisure before Clark Kent saves the day, discovering his heat-vision powers in the process.
Tom Welling is wooden but not nearly as bad as Michael might have guessed. The producers practically ordered him out of an Abercrombie and Fitch catalog; it was a running joke even back then before he’d been signed, when Michael and John Schneider were trading low-pitched rumors in the casting director’s office. Michael feels oddly proud of Tom as he watches with a long-dormant critical eye. Yeah, Tom has a slight tendency to mumble his lines whenever he’s trying to emote, but the episode gives him a few scattered comedic moments, and Tom really shines in those.
The writing is stilted and the pacing is jerky, but the show is beautifully shot, and Michael gets a fourth beer and changes to the Canucks game while he tries to accept the idea that being part of Smallville might not have been a terrible thing. Michael brushes an alcohol-clumsy hand through his short dark faux-hawk and tilts the last of his beer down his throat.
He probably would have looked ridiculous bald anyway.
Michael gets up, trying to head for his bed. He winds up in front of his laptop instead, whose sole purpose for the past several months has been nothing more than a porn-retrieval-device. This time, he finds himself staring at a blank word processing document template, heavy Courier font blinking grey, requesting things like ‘Insert Title Here’ and ‘Click here to enter character name for dialogue’.
He scrolls down impatiently and clicks on the first large gray block, then starts typing hastily, like he’s on a deadline.
***
Working at Starbucks, at least as a reliable nearly-full-time barista, is not unlike having a newborn baby. Michael can’t remember the last time he slept for more than four hours continuously. Heaven for him would be two days off in a row with no chance of being called in for overtime.
Heaven is a long way off when he wakes up at 3:30 in the morning and staggers into the shower. Right, opening shift starts at 4:30 and today is -- it’s…well, it’s some weekday and Michael’s going on two hours of rest.
He achieves a sort of consciousness about halfway along his walking route to work, shrugging his shoulders in for warmth inside his gore-tex rain jacket and listening to the big trolley buses shushing past. Of course, the first thing his mind goes to is yesterday’s conversation with ICM.
Tom probably hasn’t ever seen Michael’s screen tests, if Ian’s telling the truth. So maybe Tom just remembers Michael from the sit-com he used to be on, or maybe one of the handful of movies where he’s had minor roles. Michael was telling the truth when he’d said that he’d remember meeting Tom, so it’s got to be something like that.
In which case, Tom has no idea that Michael had anything to do with Smallville, however briefly. By this time, five years have gone by, and Michael would be surprised if anyone on the production team even remembers that he exists, much less that he was once slated to co-star.
It should put Michael at ease to realize this, but it doesn’t. He’s edgy and exhausted and his mind still feels vaguely out of focus, which hasn’t happened for a long time. Too little sleep, too much beer, and maybe just a little dollop of stress from having spoken to Ian yesterday -- Michael halts momentarily in his trudging and looks down at his shoes.
“You,” he orders darkly, fixing a glare on his right foot, “are going to behave today. Got it?’
His foot doesn’t answer, but it doesn’t show any signs of rebellion either as Michael starts walking again. When he stumbles a little a few steps later, Michael is content to blame it on the darkness and a slight unevenness in the pavement.
The store is warm and glowing-bright and thankfully, Michael’s working with another guy today, so they go about their opening duties in intent masculine silence, each nursing a mug of coffee between tasks. “Late night?” asks the co-worker about ten minutes before opening.
The coffee’s helped a little, so Michael’s speech is clearer than it might have been an hour earlier. “Yeah. Catch the game?”
“Fuckin’ heartbreaker, man,” says the other man, shaking his head.
Michael just nods and volunteers himself for till duty. Which has nothing to do with the distinct possibility that Tom Welling might be in again today.
***
“Venti dark roast,” says Tom again, more confidently than yesterday, and Michael smiles as he keys in the order. It’s amazing how late eight o’clock can feel if you start work before five. It’s easy to concentrate now, to work around the blurry patches in Michael’s tired mind. He hasn’t spilled anything and he hasn’t had to repeat himself to customers and he’s moving effortlessly between the till and the pastry case and the percolator.
What he’s not capable of doing, Michael discovers, looking up at Tom Welling, is making small talk. He’s still just smiling like an idiot, his mind a perfect blank. Even the default Starbucks dialogue has evaporated. At length, he grasps onto something he heard earlier in the day, and manages, “Fuckin’ heartbreaker of a game last night, huh?”
Michael just said ‘fuck’ to Tom Welling.
Who looks confused and slightly shocked.
Which makes sense, because a normal barista doesn’t casually throw ‘fuck’ into a simple sentence when serving a customer.
Tom clearly has no idea what Michael’s talking about, and of *course* he doesn’t, he’s not a goddamn Canadian or a Rangers fan, and that means that he’s going to do the guy-thing where he just nods and agrees, because no guy wants to admit that he possesses less than encyclopedic knowledge about any given sport.
But he doesn’t. Instead, he just cracks a brilliant grin and laughs. “Hockey?” Tom asks, handing over his money.
“Hockey,” Michael agrees, making change. “Have you heard of it? Sport where people strap blades to their boots and slide around on the ice and hit a little black disc with sticks?”
“Sounds vaguely familiar,” says Tom, and there’s some kind of Starbucksian miracle happening right now, because there’s no one in line behind him. No one.
“You never even played when you were a kid?” Michael asks, more seriously now, turning to get Tom’s coffee.
“Can’t even skate,” says Tom. “I never learned how.”
The words are out of Michael’s mouth before his brain can offer approval. “You should try it. I could teach you.”
Bad idea, bad idea, but Tom’s eyes go all bright and sweet and Michael’s glad he already put the cup of coffee down or it’d be all over the counter. “Really?”
Michael lifts one shoulder. “Been skating since I was walking.” He can’t look away from Tom’s clear gaze, the way he’s beaming at Michael.
“I’m --” Tom says, suddenly awkward, and extends a hand, shaking his head at his own hesitation. “You’re Michael, and I’m -- Tom.”
“I know,” Michael says, but takes the hand and shakes it anyway. Tom’s hand is ridiculous. Big and warm and soft.
“So -- I have to get going, I have to be at work in like seven minutes,” Tom rushes, letting go and reaching for his coffee, “but maybe I could call you?”
Michael has never done this before, even though it’s practically in the employee manual. He picks up a drink sleeve, steals his co-worker’s sharpie pen, and writes out his number in black digits across the green logo before slipping the sleeve onto Tom’s outstretched cup. “Have a good day,” he says, and tries to smile before realizing that he’s been smiling all along.
“You too,” says Tom. He pauses, then adds, “I look forward to learning how to skate from a real live Canadian.”
Tom is all the way out of the store before Michael’s brain digests that last statement.
It seems that Tom didn’t check out IMDb after all -- because Michael’s birthplace is listed right under his name. And unless male models really *are* as dumb as they’re supposed to be, Michael doubts that Tom wouldn’t recognize New York as being one of the lower fifty.
It’s just as well that the mystery of how Tom knows Michael has been reopened, Michael supposes. It gives him something else to worry about, something other than how the hell he’s going to teach Tom Welling to skate when he hasn’t been on the ice himself in five years.
- Mood:
tired
Comments
dude, you dont even know the SHEER FUCKING GLEE I have whenever I see youve posted. this is just - totally made my day *g*
At length, he grasps onto something he heard earlier in the day, and manages, “Fuckin’ heartbreaker of a game last night, huh?”
Michael just said ‘fuck’ to Tom Welling.
Who looks confused and slightly shocked.
*DIES*
best thing EVER! I love it! YAY!
*kisses you*
Yay! Glee!
Glad I could inspire glee.
Thanks for posting.
Share your theory! I love knowing what people think I'm doing...
There is much of the woobie in this story. Dunno where that came from. Hmm. *g*
I cannot wait to see where you're going to take this:)
Me too.
*ahem*
I mean, of course I've planned it all out carefully.
Hee! He's much smoother than I'd be, that's for sure.
Disturbing conjunction of offers, but appreciated nonetheless. *g*
I'm loving, loving, loving this.
Honest to god, even I'm having a hard time remembering!!! It's so weird, huh?
Hee! This line made me laugh out loud!
Loving this story more with each post!
It's perfect. It's always perfect. *shakes head* You're amazing.
Michael brushes an alcohol-clumsy hand through his short dark faux-hawk
... I was totally still imagining him bald until this line. Doh!
And yay to you liking my Wentworth suggestion in the other post! :D
Me too! *g* I suddenly realized the guy has hair and I had to point that out somehow.
I can't believe how realistic this fic feels.
*g* You know, this is a frequent comment for my RPS...and I can't decide if it's a good thing or a scary thing. Hee.
He's such a dork. *g*
This is all so cute and intriguing.
I love this!
He picks up a drink sleeve, steals his co-worker’s sharpie pen, and writes out his number in black digits across the green logo before slipping the sleeve onto Tom’s outstretched cup.
God that's smooth. Now I'm thinking of Tom walking around set with a phone number on his coffee... heh. Amazing.
Oooh, I hadn't even gone there! That *so* has to be a Tom's POV ficlet after this thing is wrapped up.
Hmmm...what do you have up your crafty sleeve, eh?
You are not just a pretty face, I see.
*thinks longingly of getting to the S*
Yeah, that'd be nice.
Also? I want to know what talking to his feet and not having been on skates in 5 years means. (the mystery deepens.)
Hurray!
I need to make me a barista!Mike icon.
Was there a freak lawnmower accident?
...Does he have a wooden leg?!
ps. Love the flirting!
*dies*
♥