I'll Meet You There

“Huh?”

Jesse’s been staring out the window at the Manhattan street in complete silence, seemingly mesmerized by the sight of the cars whizzing by and the sounds coming from outside; even at this time of night, the city’s loud with voices and the engines and tires of the vehicles passing beneath. They could probably get a nice house in the suburbs, but neither of them has ever been able to move away from the concrete jungle; Andrew likes the excitement of it all, being close to everyone and everything, and Jesse likes being able to just get lost in a sea of people; rather than less-populated areas where he’s always sure that everyone’s looking directly at him and they’re just very good at looking away before he catches them.

“I asked, where do you want to sleep?” Andrew asks softly. “I mean, well, usually we sleep together, but… if you’re uncomfortable with that, well, there’s a spare bedroom.” It kills him to say – it’s just another way of admitting to himself, out loud, that until Jesse starts to remember, their relationship no longer exists. And what if he doesn’t? he can’t help but think. “If you’re up for it, we can go out into the city tomorrow, see if that jogs your memory at all.”

Jesse looks down at the shoes on his feet; shoes he can’t remember buying, ever wearing. He looks out the window again and desperately searches for something that might jog some sort of memory, might hold something he knows. He looks back at Andrew, who seems to almost look hopeful, and debates his options. Right now, he just wants to be alone, to try to sort through everything, even though he knows his answer’s going to hurt Andrew. There’s something familiar about him, like one of those people you see at school who is in half your classes but you never speak to, but he can’t call up any specific memory. They must have had something special, but what was it?

“I-I’ll… take the guest room.”

Andrew’s face visibly falls, but only for a second before he pulls himself together; telling himself he has no right to be upset. “Right – okay. You should shower first, maybe, and I’ll… get you some clothes. – oh, and you’ll need to wrap your wrist so the cast doesn’t get wet, you can use a baggie and some tape… do you need your pain meds?”

“Um, yeah.”

In the kitchen, Jesse silently lets Andrew wrap the cast on his wrist, pulling a plastic bag over it and securing the end of it against his skin with a few layers of tape. Jesse’s skin is cold; usually, it’s warm, infinitely warm even when it’s twenty degrees outside. He lets his hand linger on Jesse’s wrist before he realizes what he’s doing and quickly pulls away. “So, I-I… I’ll get you some clothes, and your medication and then you can take the guest room – it’s right over on the left…”

In the bathroom, Jesse lets the hot water fall against him as he sinks to the floor and buries his head in the front of his arms, and finally lets the tears fall freely. He wants so badly to remember – to remember something, anything. He doesn’t know anything about himself; he doesn’t know what he likes to do, where he’s been, what he’s done. Apparently, he’s an actor, but he can’t recall any of that. Why is he an actor? What’s he done? He doesn’t know who he is and he feels like a prisoner in this body. Is this where he lives, this apartment? How long has he been here? Why here? And with Andrew – Andrew. Oh God, Andrew.

Andrew’s the only name he knows – the only one he knew right away. Andrew! It’s there! It lingers in his mind like there’s something important about it, something pushing him to remember, screaming at him to recall anything. Andrew. You know who he is, Jesse. It’s the scariest thing in the world to not know anything about who you are or where you came from, or who any of these people milling around you are. Andrew seems like such a kind soul, and he feels some lingering connection to him, but what did they have together? He doesn’t want to hurt him like this, but what can he do?

He looks around the shower, eyes scanning the bottles and jars sitting on the ledge. Which ones are his? He picks up a rectangular bottle; Suave Coco-Mango conditioner, pops the top and inhales. The scent calms him immediately, gives him a feeling of home and he somehow knows that it must be the one Andrew uses.

He forces himself to his feet and turns the dial on the shower to the left until the water’s burning his skin and scalp, just to let himself know that he’s a real person, that he’s alive even if he doesn’t remember a thing. He takes the rough blue loofa and scrubs at his face, his neck, scrubs his freckles off, his fingerprints, scars probably from falling that he doesn’t remember getting.

A brief picture flits through his head; him falling off a swing as a child, maybe seven years old. He sees a flash of dark hair and a soft face; he guesses it’s his mother.

A memory.

He blinks and shakes his head to clear it.

He turns the water off and wrings the water from his hair, grabbing a towel and quickly shuffling into the bedroom. As promised, there’s an outfit waiting on the bed; underwear, a pair of gray sweats and a hoodie with Harvard across the front. He furrows his brow at the logo but quickly dresses himself, then slips into the hall, looking for Andrew.

“Andrew?” he calls, but it catches in his throat and comes out a whisper. He tries again; “Andrew?”

From the bedroom, Andrew instantly emerges. “Jes! Jesse, Jes, baby – sorry, I mean, Jesse, do you need your medication now-? Oh, let me help you get that off…”

Andrew hurries over to peel the tape from Jesse’s forearm and he can only watch him at a kind of distance. “Which one of us went to Harvard?”

“Oh, ah, neither,” Andrew smiles. “The movie we filmed – The Social Network – was set at Harvard, so we got some clothes with the logo, and I, ah, stole that sweatshirt. I have a lot of stuff stolen from movie sets,” he chuckles. Something blips in Jesse’s mind of him on a stage, of someone – a director? – yelling something at him, and him doing it, but he knows it’s not this movie as he’s younger and there’s no Andrew.

Jesse looks down at his chest again and Andrew gets the last of the tape off, removing the plastic bag and shoving it in his pocket. Jesse stares down at his toes. He’s cold, even with the sweats and hoodie, and as he can’t think of one person that loves him or that he loves, he feels so alone. Here, he’s got this guy right in front of him – who’s supposed to be his boyfriend – and who clearly loves him, too. There’s this warmth that’s coming off from him, even now, some part of Jesse deep down that maybe still loves him too. He thinks about going back into the guest bedroom –empty and cold, curling up under the covers and crying himself to sleep over everything he’s lost, everything he doesn’t know he’s lost. Why can’t he just fucking remember?

“I don’t want to go to sleep yet,” he whispers. He wraps his arms around himself, needing some kind of contact, and Andrew’s heart breaks. He looks so scared, so alone and so broken, and usually what Andrew would do is sweep him into his arms and kiss him, sing to him that it’d be alright, but that even isn’t an option right now. He places a hand on Jesse’s shoulder – the most intimate contact he’ll risk. The most, and the least he can do, is just be here.

“You want to go sit on the couch?”

They go to the couch. “That movie,” Jesse says, “The Social Network. Do we have it?”

“Of course – I have like, three copies of the DVD. You wanna watch it?” This is obviously not Jesse because everyone knows Jesse - even now - has an irrational phobia of his own image on-screen. He's only seen The Social Network twice; at the premiere, and because his therapist made him. Even as a two-time Oscar nominee, he's never been confident about his own acting skills.

A silent, barely decipherable nod. Andrew goes to the cabinet beneath the television and snatches one of his several copies of the DVD, putting it inside the TV before going to sit back on the couch. He lets Jesse sit on his own and doesn’t get to close, but Jesse immediately folds into his side; as always, he fits perfectly in the little pocket of warmth, and smelling so clean and new Andrew has to stop himself from pressing his face into those curls and inhaling. Andrew hasn’t gotten a proper night’s sleep in a week and he hasn’t even gotten rest in thirty hours, but he’s not about to complain.

Jesse’s eyes grow wide as soon as the sound comes on, fixed on the image of the lady with the torch, and when his face comes up on the screen he sucks in a sharp breath. “Oh, God, that’s-?”

Andrew takes one of his hands, holding it between his own, and Jesse watches the scene unfold with wide eyes as Andrew moves his lips to the words. He’s doing okay, holding himself together until Andrew appears onscreen, and that’s when he freaks out- his’s hand is suddenly at the front of Andrew’s shirt, clutching desperately and his brow furrows like he’s about to cry. “Turn it off, turn it off.” The screen’s blank in a flash and Jesse curls into Andrew’s side, desperate for contact. Something about this position’s deeply familiar, but it’s just like a strong sense of deja-vu; he knows he’s been here before, but he can’t put a finger on any specific memory. His head presses almost painfully into Andrew’s chest and he makes an almost animal cry of pain and despair. Choking, he gasps out something that sounds like ‘tell me how we met’.

Andrew’s arms wrap around Jesse and holds him, feeling his shirt wet as he lets him cry out the tears of frustration. “We were in the movie together, The Social Network,” he whispers, sighing as he thinks of the day they met so many years ago. “It was a pretty simple meeting – there was a table reading, where we just sat down to read through the script, and that was when I first met you.” He sighs. “I was in love with you the moment I saw you, Jes… something just pulled me to you. You were so warm, so vulnerable, so brilliantly sweet and funny…” he finds himself starting to gush as he often does when speaking to anyone about Jesse, and lets himself trail off before taking a breath and explaining, “we started living together during the filming. We were spending all our free time together, going out to dinner together, playing board games together or cuddling with your cats…” he chuckles, and Jesse saves him from his rambling.

“Tell me about our first kiss.”

“Oh…” Andrew smiles down at him and closes his eyes a moment; he still remembers the kiss like yesterday. Jesse’s calmed down, his face is still buried in Andrew’s shirt but he’s peeking up at him, those gorgeous blue eyes shining in the dim light of the sitting room, and Andrew knows what he wants; he wants to tell him all about it, tell him everything, make him picture it so vividly that he might remember too. And then Andrew realizes; as long as he remembers, what they had still existed. It will never be gone, as long as he remembers and passes it on.

It was about three weeks after the actual filming began – almost two months after they’d met for the first time. They were settled in together in the apartment; they’d finally got all their boxes sorted out and had Jesse’s cats sufficiently settled in. (At the time he only had two, which was below his average number, and Jesse loved giving his cats completely cliché, demeaning names such as Cuddles or Zippy, but names would often make hi get to attached to the, and he'd give them a number. So currently their names were Mr. Whiskers and Number Two. (“Jesus Christ, Jesse, did you really name your cat Number Two?” “Oh, fuck you, Garfield, you – that – wasn’t even something that occurred to me at the time.”)

“You have an unhealthy attraction to cats,” Andrew said as he pushed Mr. Whiskers aside with his foot on his way into the kitchen, getting a very loud meow of protest and a concerned coo from Jesse. “I never understood them. They’re so… fluffy and whisker-ey.”

“You never had a pet?”

“Oh, I had a dog- and by the way, I am and will always will be completely team dog. Cats are so lame, they just sit there like they own the world. You can’t even walk them on a leash, they’d just drag along the sidewalk—“

“And they’d look like a boss while doing it.”

“Did you seriously just call Mr. Whiskers a ‘boss’? Since when do you use the internet?”

Jesse huffed; “I’m not completely removed from popular culture, you know – and I may have just decided to search YouTube to get a better idea of my costar.”

“Yeah?” Andrew laughed as he grabbed a soda from the fridge – something that Jesse hadn’t had in his house ever – popping off the top with a tcchh and taking a sip. “And did your opinion of me change when you met me in person?”

“Well, I hadn’t seen anything you were in before, I kind of knew your name, I knew you were at least a good actor, so I suppose I thought you’d be adequate for the part-“

“And what about now?”

Jesse fumbled – shit, why did he even bring that up? It’s true that he spent almost three consecutive hours on YouTube and Google searching for every Andrew Garfield interview he could find and renting all the movies on Netflix. He told himself it was just to get to know his costar, but once he started – once he laid eyes on this man’s face- he just couldn’t stop.

Andrew’s tall frame took up almost the whole fridge, and he probably didn’t realize how sexy he looked with his legs and arms crossed, shirt half-unbuttoned, especially with his head tilted to the side as he looked at Jesse with that smirk. Yes, Jesse did mentally describe him as sexy – he’d at least partially accepted the part of himself that thinks Andrew’s the single most attractive one man he’s ever met. They were together almost every minute of every day; they got their hair and makeup done together, they shot the majority of their scenes together, drove home together, and were together for the rest of the night. But somehow they never got bored of eachother – Andrew didn’t get annoyed with Jesse’s stuttering ramblings and use of big words and affinity for cats and geography, and Jesse never grew tired of Andrew’s sweet accent and his cooking and his cute little English scooter. Their relationship, while only just friends, was very physically affectionate; constant hand-brushing, shoulder-touching, bro-hugging physicality. Jesse wasn’t sure if Andrew realized what was doing, how his touch closed the electric circuit going through his body every time – he wasn’t even sure of Andrew’s sexuality or if it was just a British thing to be really affectionate – he denied any possibility that the touches could mean more - but he held onto each lingering moment as tight as he could.

He couldn’t deny the fact that Andrew made him feel something, either. Something that moved from inside of his chest to down in that southern region that he’d rather not mention. There was a part of him that never wanted to leave Andrew’s presence, that just sucked up all his confidence and looseness until it was enough to make him feel confident and relaxed too – he felt like he could do anything with Andrew right by his side. And then there was the part of him that he had just been trying to deny, trying to shove aside even though it liked to pop up when he was lying in bed or sitting in the makeup chair, and it was the part of him that made his eyes always drift towards Andrew’s lips or towards his jeans and its these urges, these wants that he didn’t understand. He was too old for his sexuality to be changing like this, wasn’t he? Then again, he had absolutely clueless when it comes to women, barely done anything with them really and surely never felt something like this. Though he was sure Andrew was at least somewhat on the edge of the fence, having remarked about the looks of a few men in passing, and the simple way he was so affectionate with Jesse, beyond what was necessary or possibly able to be considered heterosexual.

But Jesse didn’t mind that at all. Jesse knew Andrew adored him, he was always showering him with love, and the feeling was mutual… he just wasn’t entirely sure in what way.

Without all that flowery language, Andrew made him hard. That was about it. And he’s not sure if it’s just him, but with the fluttery awkward touches and looks that didn’t dare to get too intimate – or when they did get a little too intimate - there was always a thin strand of tension hanging in the air between them, and he hoped it wasn’t not too obvious – maybe it was just only him entirely. They’d had a few limited conversations about their relationships, and it didn’t seem like Andrew was into men but it didn’t seem like he’d gotten too much action with the ladies either, at least not that wasn’t on a set.

“I still think you’re adequate.”

“Really? Just adequate?” Andrew leaned up off the fridge and took a step closer. “Not even a ‘fitting’ or a ‘good’ or a ‘nice’? Or like, ‘super-awesome?’ Just ‘adequate’?”

Jesse countered with a backwards step. “Ah, well, fine, maybe you’re good. Not great, though. Just good. Take it or leave it.”

“Yeah, well, I think you’re suitable. How’s that?”

“I am so hurt.”

“I know, I know, you’re crying.” Andrew patted his shoulder. “It’s okay, bro.”

And then, suddenly, Andrew was right in front of him and his fingers were dancing up his side – tickling him. ­Jesse couldn’t remember the last time someone tickled him, even his mother. He screeched and his back arched into Andrew as he tried to escape, but that only pushed them closer together, and Andrew was stronger than him, easily, despite his skinny frame, and it was too easy for him to shove him back into the counter and attack his sides with those long, torturous fingers, though at that point he wouldn’t admit that part of it was just because he loved that look on Jesse’s face – his head thrown back and eyes fluttery with laughter.

“A-andrew- oh m-my god – what a-Andr-stop!”

“No, admit it! Admit that I’m the perfect Eduardo – you love me! Say it!”

“Nooo- I… aaah!” Jesse tried to jerk to the side to get free of Andrew’s arms, but of course, he could never beat Andrew at anything and this maneuver only wound up with both of them on the floor, Jesse nearly crushed under Andrew’s body weight, still being mercilessly tickled to the point of tears. “Okay, okay – you’re a good Eduardo!”

“I’m the perfect Eduardo!”

“You – you – ahh! You’re the… aaah!” by now poor Jesse was gasping for breath and practically screaming out his answer as he tried to shove Andrew off him. His hands had been shoved under his shirt and were viciously dancing over his chest, an area one might consider far too private, and with their bodies shoved together as Jesse squirmed for his freedom…

“You’re the perfect Eduardo!”

“And you love me!”

“And I love you!”

It was the cruelest thing to force him to say, but like a switch had been flipped, Andrew backed right off – he stopped tickling Jesse though he stayed on top of him leaving him gasping painfully for breath. Jesse looked up at Andrew with the most vicious glare his sweet face could manage which was only a ‘I-do-not-approve-of-your-actions’ look, and he opened his mouth with a gasp to say something, probably something like ‘I hate you’ even though he’d never mean it, but Andrew just pressed his fingers to his lips with that fucking ­smirk before climbing off of him and prancing into the living room on his Bambi legs.

And suddenly, Jesse was left there – with the weight of Andrew’s body gone from his, the closeness of his breath and the sound of his voice, after being so close and having it just gone – feeling cheated and deserted. He frowned and pushed himself up off the cold tile floor and fixed his shirt (which Andrew managed to shove halfway up his torso as he was slaughtering his ribs) and slowly shuffled out of the kitchen.

Andrew had decided to drape himself over the couch – his arm splayed out along the back of it and over the arm, one foot up on the coffee table even though he knew how much Jesse hated that, and he was just spread out over the couch like some Bambi prince in a way that made Jesse want to kick him out and jump on him at the same time.

“Andrew, how many times have I told you not to do that, that table is—“ he was cut off when Andrew took his hand and dragged him right down onto the couch on top of them, and suddenly their faces were so close – Jesse could just lean forward a little and their lips would brush. He forced that thought out of his mid though, gulping, and the spell was broken when Andrew laughed and pushed him down onto the couch beside him. “I don’t appreciate-“

“You need to relax, Eisenberg.”

“being manhandled – I’m perfectly relaxed!”

Andrew hooked his arm over Jesse’s neck and pulled it into his chest. “You just need to lie down. Chill. Take it easy.”

“How do I do that when you’re crushing my face?” his grumbled, and it wasn't not just the crushing of his face, but the close proximity of his face to Andrew’s crotch. He pushed himself up and Andrew, for once, let him go without a fight and flipped on the television. Jesse rubbed his eyes as he sat up, crossed his arms and leaned back with a pout. It didn’t help that Andrew practically thrusting their groins together had made him really hard, either.

He was tired, though, and it wasn’t long before he was sinking into Andrew’s side, face pressing into his neck. Andrew smelled so god tonight – he showered just after they got home – like vanilla and mango and something spicy. He used coconut shampoo and spicy cologne and fruity shaving cream, and it combined into a wonderful mix.

A movie came on – some bad made-for-TV flick that Andrew can’t remember the name of, but there was a scene between the two characters, talking about loving someone you can’t have, about feelings that go unsaid – and it was a rather awkward scene. For both parties. Jesse kept his eyes trained on the carpet, not wanting to risk making eye contact with Andrew. He felt second-handedly humiliated.

When he glanced up at Andrew, he noticed that he kept pursing and biting his lips, and the movement was driving him crazy. Was Andrew as nervous as he was – did he dare hope? The couple was in the middle of a screaming match, until – you know the old cliché – the boy grabbed he girl to pull her in for a kiss, and instead of her slapping the fuck out of him, they went at it.

He couldn’t hold back. If this ruined everything, so be it, but he had to know; at least know how it felt. The next time Andrew looked down at him, he lifted his head up to kiss his lips. He didn’t press or move them; just let them rest there, expecting the worst. But after the moment of initial shock wore off, just as Jesse was retreating, rested a hand on his neck to pull him back, and kiss him.

“I initiated it?”

Andrew smiles. “Yeah. You were so scared, you practically burst into tears right after.”

“But we’ve been… dating… since then?”

“Well, yeah.”

Jesse’s quiet then, and it’s probably only then that both of them realize they’re sitting on the very same couch in almost the very same position.

But neither of them mention that.