"Okay. I'll be there in... I dunno. However long it takes me to get there. I'll see you soon."
Phone conversations have never been his strong suit, and he's perfectly happy to hang up the phone and go get changed into something appropriate for leaving the house in. His father, of course, feels the need to ask him where he's going, but he brushes it off, as he usually does, says something casual about going to a Halloween party, and leaves it at that. It's not even strictly a lie, as far as he's concerned, because he and Ned could have a party of their own.
He's reliant on the subway to get to Ned's, but he knows the subways so well by now that he barely has to think about it on his trip over; instead, he concentrates on doodling in a notebook, waiting patiently to get to the stop nearest Ned's apartment, bracing himself against the chilly air as he walks in that direction. He can tell that Ned's not in a good mood, but he doesn't know whether he'll be able to change it.
That's why he's a little antsy as he stands outside of Ned's apartment, ringing the buzzer. Is his presence really wanted, or had Ned simply told him to come over out of politeness?
Ned opens the door to greet him with a wan smile. He's paler than usual, but there are no other outward signs of distress. Nothing except perhaps a shift in body language, an increased tension, a stiffness to his movements that gives him away.
He's been hiding in his apartment since he closed The Pie Hole, doing his best to avoid the unavoidable festivities. There are other apartments in the building with decorations on their doors, jack-o'-lanterns, the whole nine yards. Ned's own door is unadorned, but he knows he'll get a few knocks regardless. He's never quite mustered the foresight to make himself some kind of sign with a politer version of fuck off, kids written on it.
"Thanks for coming," he says, shuts the door behind Ginsberg rather abruptly when he sees a family heading up the stairs, with a whole small troupe of costumed children.
"Yeah, of course," he says, already trying to figure out just why Ned seems so unhappy. He's smiling, sure, but that smile isn't up to its usual brilliance, not if he were really happy, and Ginsberg can tell he's not. It doesn't take a genius to realize that there's something that's eating at Ned, and he immediately wants to get to the bottom of it, partially out of curiosity, partially because he can't stand to see Ned upset, no matter what the cause. Already, he realizes that he's bizarrely attached to Ned, and maybe that should be cause for concern, but it's not right now, because he has other concerns, like Ned's mood.
"So," he says, immediately fixing Ned with a completely nonjudgemental expression, "You don't like Halloween."
That's far less babbling than normal, but it's also one of those statements he's pretty sure Ned can't argue with. He's not necessarily going to ask why, though. "So we'll pretend it isn't Halloween. No candy here. No pumpkins. Definitely no stupid costumes."
He's impressed, in a distant way, that Ginsberg put the pieces together so easily. He hadn't explicitly said it, after all. Just that he was having a bad day, didn't want to go to a party, didn't want to think about costumes or any of that. But it's easier if he's worked it out on his own, because Ned doesn't have to explain and feel silly and worthless trying to do so. Instead, he can just nod in confirmation.
"Pretty much what I do every year," he admits, adds, "Though... I'm usually doing it by myself."
Ned leads Ginsberg in to the living room, sits with him on the couch. "I made tea. If you want any." There are two mugs, faintly steaming, sitting on the coffee table. Ned picks up his own, just to have something to do with his hands, but doesn't drink any.
"I'll go with you to the next work party, promise. If you still want me to, I mean." Maybe by the time it rolls around Ginsberg will be sick of him, after all, will have moved on to someone new and better. Just as Ned's about to go on, ask Ginsberg something relatively normal - how was his day, what is he working on at work, etc - there is a knocking at the door. Ned glances in that direction, but doesn't move. They'll go away eventually, he thinks.
He picks up the cup of tea and takes a small sip of it, trying to decide whether it's polite or not to ask Ned why he doesn't like Halloween. There are various reasons to dislike various holidays, he thinks, and he's met people who disapprove of Halloween for religious reasons. That, he thinks, shaking his head to himself, probably has nothing to do with Ned not liking it. After their discussion at the art museum, he can't exactly imagine Ned hating Halloween because he think it's devil worship. It's probably something more personal, and while a more polite person might not approach the subject, he's never been great at not asking difficult questions.
"I wasn't kidding when I said I didn't like parties," he says, mostly to let Ned know that he's off the hook for the next party, too, if he wants to be, (though he feels a tiny thrill of delight when Ned refers to the next party, like it's a given that they'll still be spending time together) "but do you dislike Christmas like you dislike Halloween? There'll probably be a work Christmas party, and believe me, if you don't go to that one, people think you're insane. So I'm going to that one, and you could come to that, if you wanted. People bring friends, family, dates... nobody'd have to think we were together. I mean, if that's a concern."
Following Ned's lead, he ignores the knock at the door, although there's a part of him that wants to jump up and open it, to admire the costumes of the children that are undoubtedly standing in the hall. On the other hand, it's not like Ned has any candy here to hand out, and it would just make Ned uncomfortable, so he stays where he is, sipping at his tea, frowning a little.
"I have no particular objection to Christmas," Ned says, "I'd be happy to go, as your friend." A kind of costume, even for that party, but one that Ned is used to adopting. "Maybe I can make it a little more bearable, for you. Plus, I do think I'd like to meet Stan, and Peggy, and the rest of them, after everything you've told me about them."
He's glad for Ginsberg's thoughtfulness, feeling more than a little self-conscious that he feels the need to be so careful with him. Because he ought to be able to say he has no problem with any holiday, ought to have said yes to this party and gone to socialize like a normal human being. But he's glad to have Ginsberg all to himself tonight, even if he feels a bit as if he's been run over by a truck.
Just as Ned's beginning to relax incrementally, there's another knock at the door, followed by the muffled sound of a very young child calling, "Trick or treat!" This is followed immediately by a very elder-brotherly, bossy voice reprimanding, "Not yet!" This time, Ned actually flinches, runs a hand over his face, wonders how obvious it will look if he puts music on. There's no way Ginsberg will have missed that recoil.
"You'd like Stan and Peggy. You might even like Ken. There're a lot of them you won't like, but that's okay, because it'll give us something to talk about after the party's over and we judge just how drunk and stupid everyone got, and you try to figure out how I can stand working with some of those people day in and day out."
Sometimes realizing just how ridiculous everyone at work is is what keeps him going through the motions every day. He likes the creativity of his job, likes that there're actually some people he enjoys working with, but he can't help but clash with some of the executive team; he's never been good at pretending to get along with people when he doesn't. It helps to be around people -- people like Ned, he thinks -- who're a little offbeat, who would probably find some of his coworkers just as irritating as he did.
He glances over towards the door again, noticing the way Ned flinches, wondering what it is about Halloween that has him so obviously upset. There's no way he could miss the discomfort and tension in Ned's every movement. "I think you're probably a freak in some ways, yeah. Most people are. I know I am. Overall, I'd say you're generally less freaky than I am, but more freaky than some people, too. Which is okay, because some people are boring. You fit somewhere in the continuum of freaky, just like everyone else."
"I like the sound of that." Ned can guess how hard it must be for someone of Ginsberg's disposition and temperament to be polite to his bosses when he can't bring himself to respect them. Maybe having a good laugh about them behind their backs, with someone he trusts, will be some comfort.
Ned likes that concept of a continuum of normalcy to freakishness, knows that he and Ginsberg are both far closer to the latter than the former. There is just a touch of warmth that comes into his smile, as he contests, "No, no, I'm going to have to disagree with you on that. I'm definitely just as freaky as you, if not moreso. I think I just... hide it more."
He thinks back to one of their former conversations, about how Ginsberg decided that he was going to stop pretending to be normal, to just be himself and damn the consequences. It's the kind of decision, Ned thinks, that comes from being a little bit strange, but maybe not too strange. Not the kind of strange where his life would likely be in jeopardy if people found out.
"You know, you really are unlike anyone I've been with." Putting the mug of tea down - still untouched - Ned explains further, "Anyone else would be badgering me to explain myself, by this point. Or trying to change my mind. Or making fun of me."
"It'd be pretty shitty of me to come all the way over here for the purpose of making fun of you," he says, sipping at his tea, noticing the way Ned hasn't touched his, and realizing again just how shaken up he really is. "And trying to change anyone's mind is pointless -- unless it comes to trying to get someone to approve of my idea for an ad, in which case I'll argue for hours. And as for explaining yourself, well..."
He tries to think of how to phrase it in a way that will make it clear both that he's interested in the potential explanation, but doesn't want to get it out of Ned in an unpleasant, bullying way. He himself has been alternately cajoled and threatened into trying to explain how his own mind, his own neuroses work, and it's never been effective. If anything, it's just made him distrust people more, made him highly skeptical of anyone who pretends to want to understand something emotional. Unlike Ned, however, he tends to share these things freely anyway.
"I'm curious," he finally says, setting down his cup, "But you're obviously not feeling comfortable. It's like telling someone who's panicking to calm down, you know? That's absolutely the worst thing you can say, because then they panic that they can't calm down. So trying to get you to explain yourself would probably just make you feel worse, because you'd be worried that I thought what you were saying was ridiculous, and that'd just add to the shitty way you're already feeling."
Ned can see the delicate balance Ginsberg is trying to strike between implying willingness to listen and implying any kind of pressure to spill his story. All the same, Ned knows what the story is, thinks that he's more qualified to make the call of whether or not Ginsberg wants to hear it. All he can imagine talking about it would do is bring things to an even lower emotional pitch.
(The way he talks about someone panicking and being told to just calm down has the sound of personal experience; Ned's been in that situation, himself, is struck by just how much he and Ginsberg have in common. Then, it occurs to him, retrospectively, how little he'd had in common with the majority of people he'd known in his life).
"Something like that," he agrees. He sighs, and it is half frustration at himself for not being past this, even though it was so many years ago.
If he can at least give Ginsberg an outline, he thinks it will make his own peculiar behavior make more sense. Not enough information to make himself really vulnerable, of course. Just the category of distress. "Let's just say that... certain things from my past that I spend most of my time trying not to think about are harder to not-think-about today, and all that stuff - the candy and costumes and pumpkins and the rest of it, that makes everyone else so happy - just makes it worse."
Ned isn't usually the one who initiates physical contact. He doesn't avoid it, from Ginsberg, but he doesn't often ask for it. But right now, he can't stand just sitting there with the space between them and Ginsberg looking at him with his undisguised compassion. So Ned leans forward, carefully buries his face against the other man's shoulder.
"Usually just stay in and try to sleep through it," he admits.
It's not easy, for him, to find polite ways to phrase things, to let Ned know that he's here for him if he wants him to be, but that he's perfectly willing to shut up and ignore the subject entirely if that's what he wants. He's glad that the message seems to have gotten across. What is easy for him, though, what's always been easy for him, is physical affection, and when Ned leans forward and buries his face in his shoulder, it's the most natural thing in the world for him to wrap his arms around him. It doesn't take conscious thought, it doesn't take any contemplation, and there's no hesitation or awkwardness in his movements. For all his awkwardness in other realms, it's completely instinctive to offer physical affection, if that's what's needed, and Ned seems to need it.
Ned's words make sense to him, and he nods, acknowledging them, as he tries to think of a way to respond to it. He's using more care in choosing his words now, afraid of saying the wrong thing or upsetting Ned further, because he knows that, however much compassion he feels, it'll be pretty useless if he misuses that compassion and makes Ned's day worse. "There're things like that in my life, too. Things from the past that come up at certain times of the year and are harder to deal with when everyone else is happy. They're probably not the same things. I'm not going to ask you what yours are because you don't want to talk about it and I don't want to make it worse. But I don't think you're weird for feeling that way."
Is that good enough? He doesn't think it is, and despite his vows to himself to choose his words more carefully, it's incredibly hard not to chatter on when he feels somewhat at a loss for how to handle a situation. So he keeps talking. "Do you want to do something to distract yourself, or do you just want to try to sleep through it now? Because we can do whatever you want, but I can try to be a distraction. I mean, at the very least, I can say weird stuff that makes you confused enough not to think about how much you hate today, just for a minute."
He's still hugging Ned, not letting him go until Ned gets sick of it and tries to squirm away. "Hey, listen, I have no idea how to deal with stuff like this. I'm sorry in advance."
"That makes two of us," Ned says, and he isn't trying to pull away, isn't moving at all. He appreciates how readily Ginsberg hugs him, without question or complaint, without expecting anything.
"Distraction sounds nice," he agrees, though he isn't sure exactly what Ginsberg could do to take his mind off it. Ned's been trying to distract himself all day. He'd tried reading, had taken Digby for a walk, had tried to come up with a new passionfruit pie recipe; none of it had helped. In the end, he'd only been more depressed by the increasing desperation of his own attempts to distract himself from the fact that he was alone on Halloween missing his father so much his chest ached.
"You're too nice to me," Ned doesn't know why he says it. He's thought it before, but usually this is the sort of thing he keeps himself from saying aloud. His verbal filter is apparently so preoccupied keeping back all the other stuff that things like this slip through the cracks, "Why are you so nice to me. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop."
"Because I like you," he says, as though it's the most obvious thing in the world. "How should I be acting? Should I be mean to you? I'm not always a nice person, anyway. I get myself into plenty of trouble with this big mouth of mine. But why shouldn't I be nice to you, if I can be? You're nice to me."
He really doesn't understand why Ned should be so baffled by it, but there's a certain part of him that understands it, too. It's rare, in his experience, to spend time with someone who doesn't mock or belittle him, who doesn't treat him as though he's insufferably weird, who doesn't make him feel like some kind of other, bizarre species. He thinks that maybe Ned feels that way, too, and that would explain why he's so confused by the continuing 'niceness' that Ginsberg's offering (in actuality, he doesn't think of himself as being nice at all, simply honest: if he likes someone, he tries to treat them well, or at least, as well as he can, given his own limitations.)
"Okay, distraction." He finally loosens his grip on Ned just a little, so that he can draw back and look at him, but not so much that he breaks away from the hug entirely. "We can talk about something, if you want. It doesn't have to be anything serious. We don't even have to talk about you. Or me. We can talk about..." He shrugs, trying to think of the most inane thing possible. "We can talk about bad television. We can talk about the weather. Seriously, you name the topic, I'll discuss it."
It doesn't work that way, in Ned's experience. He knows how paranoid that makes him, that the very reason he has difficulty trusting the kindness of someone like Ginsberg is that he's been lied to before, hurt before. Though he doubts anyone wanders around blindly trusting the people around them, he does wonder sometimes if he is a little too suspicious, too cautious, too ready for the moment when the tables will turn against him.
He isn't sure why it's the first topic to spring to his mind; on another day he would worry about giving Ginsberg the wrong impression and frightening him off, but he asks with a certain guilelessness that will hopefully pre-empt any suspicions.
"Tell me about the first time you fell in love? Or... something like that. A happy story."
It's an interesting question, and he has to think about it, before finally shaking his head. "I don't think I've ever been in love. I mean, sure, I've had crushes. I've been attracted to people. I've even been stupidly attached to people I shouldn't be. But I don't think I've ever fallen in love. My first crush, though, I was maybe..."
His childhood can sometimes be a blur of indistinct memories, and there's nothing at all there from before the time he was five or so, but he doesn't need to tell Ned that. He'd wanted happy stories, not reflections on things that could easily turn gloomy with the slightest provocation. "I think I must have been in first grade. Six or so, right, that's how old kids are in first grade? There was a little girl named Jane -- weird, I still remember her name, I haven't thought about her for years -- that I was absolutely crazy about. It was my first year of school in the US, I could barely speak English, and I was just as awkward then as I am now. Needless to say, she didn't exactly reciprocate the feelings."
Maybe that doesn't count as happy, but he's smiling as he says it, so at least it's a decent memory. "I started trying to figure out how to say sweet things to her, but the problem was that I had to ask my dad how to say stuff, and he didn't speak English that well either, at that point, and I didn't want to tell him why I wanted to know how to say your dress is pretty, or whatever it was I was trying to say. So, long story short, it was a completely unrequited love, and I learned all of my flirtatious lines from my father, which explains why they're all awful."
It starts as such a sweet story. Ned adjusts the way he's sitting, so that he can lean against Ginsberg more comfortably, hands knitted together in his lap, listening to him talk. He tries to imagine what Ginsberg would have been like as a boy. He'd said he was quiet. In some ways, Ned imagines him a little bit the way Eugene was - brilliant but different to the other kids, desperate to be liked, friendly, wearing his heart on his sleeve.
He can hear the smile in Ginsberg's voice, even if he can't see it. The part about wanting to learn how to compliment her is almost more charming. Ned does, however, almost imperceptibly stiffen when Ginsberg is talking about going to his father for instruction on how to flirt in English. It's not a voluntary reaction, and he doesn't even notice himself doing it.
"For me it was the girl who lived across the street. Chuck." Ned can remember just how intensely, how ardently he had adored her, lets out a little sigh. "Charlotte Charles. She and I got into so much trouble together. The first time we met, she pushed me out of a tree." He laughs as he says it - clearly there were no hard feelings. "I was a complete disaster. I thought the sun and the stars all revolved around her. Never said anything about it, but I did kiss her, once."
Which is when his fond memory of her, and how much he'd cared for her, is interrupted (as it always is) by the memory of how they'd eventually been parted. How he'd ruined her life.
"I think getting into trouble with someone sounds like the best part about having a crush. Or about being friends, even. I didn't have a whole lot of those, so I mostly got into trouble by myself, which isn't nearly as fun, especially when you're already kind of a weird kid. I'm glad you kissed the girl who lived across the street. That was brave."
And he admires bravery; it's one of the few qualities he can recognize and appreciate in himself, although admittedly, sometimes bravery and stupidity are awfully close together, at least for him. Bravery makes him blunder into awkward situations just as often as it benefits him, but he wouldn't change it. He likes having Ned leaning against him like this, talking, like maybe they can talk enough to make the evening go by quickly enough that Ned won't have to deal with his obviously uncomfortable feelings about Halloween soon enough. He's committed to trying to make it at least somewhat tolerable.
"I never tried to kiss Jane. We were too young, and I pretty much blew my chances with her by being that weird foreign kid who didn't quite know how to talk to anyone. Not that I'm not still kind of that guy, except that I'm an adult and American now. It's a lot less endearing coming from someone my age than it was coming from me when I was six."
He isn't sure brave is the word that he would use. It was a confusing part of a confusing day. Ned can remember that day (and the days around it) with absolute clarity, but a kind of emotional hollowness. At the time it almost seemed worse to him; to kiss Chuck, the way he'd wanted for so long in his shy and childlike way, in the midst of so much pain, than to never kiss her at all.
"I think it's pretty endearing," Ned says, knows he's taking a risk by saying it. But Ginsberg has shown no signs of being easily startled by that kind of talk, of being flighty and ready to bolt at the least sign of affection. Quite the contrary.
And maybe it's a bad idea to go on and say what he does, but now that it's popped into his mind, Ned can't seem to stop himself from saying it. He's had this problem before: keeping everyone at an arm's length, but getting far too involved far too quickly once he does let someone in. "The first boy I ever fell for at boarding school was the weird foreign kid who didn't quite know how to talk to anyone." Maybe he has a type? "Eugene. Definitely never said anything about it to him."
He has to laugh at the comment, because he finds it endearing, likes the honesty in it, that Ned's not afraid of admitting something like that. They haven't known each other for very long, and he knows that there're a fair few amount of people who wouldn't say something like that for fear of it sounding too intimate, too emotional. In his opinion, though, there's nothing wrong with being intimate or emotional; he just likes that Ned can do it around him.
"Well, yeah, you usually don't tell the guys you fall for that you've fallen for them. Unless you fall for them after they get pie thrown at them, apparently. Not that that's falling for, I mean, not in the really serious definition of the term, just that you were pretty forward with me. I liked that."
And if there's one thing he can say about himself, it's that no matter how affectionate someone else can be, he's always there, poised with something equally affectionate and generally more awkward, to say. He hadn't meant that Ned had really fallen for him, because that implies a depth of emotion that he's pretty sure can't exist yet, but Ned had certainly been interested in him, in some way, from the moment they'd met. The feeling had been mutual.
"The first time I fell for a guy, I was in high school. I thought I was losing my mind. I mean, up until then, I'd been a weird kid, but the one thing I had going for me that was entirely normal was that I was just as girl-crazy as every other guy I knew. And then all of a sudden, there was this guy, and I was having the same thoughts about him I was having about the girls -- well, you know, a little different, but the same basic idea -- and I really thought I'd lost it."
Yes, he had been rather forward, hadn't he? Looking back, Ned's surprised at his own boldness. All the same, he's grateful to past Ned for taking that risk. Look where it's gotten him. For once, a gamble that paid off. At least - thus far.
Another knock at the door, but this one Ned barely responds to. He's too busy listening to Ginsberg's story about discovering his budding sexuality, thinking about how nice it is to just talk, like this. Ned's been with guys before, but none of them were too big on chit-chat, on telling him about their lives. Sometimes they wanted to hear about his, sure - things he didn't want to tell them. But they never offered parts of themselves, in the way that Ginsberg does so effortlessly, so generously.
"What was it that made you fall for him?" Ned asks, curious, thinking it might give him some insight into what it is that draws Ginsberg to people. He has to admit, he's interested for entirely selfish reasons.
"That's a good question. I mean, from a completely shallow perspective, he was really good-looking. But that's not all it was, because there were a lot of good-looking guys, I guess, and I didn't really notice any of the rest of them. I guess I liked him because he genuinely tried to be nice. He was kind of a loner, just like me, but he wasn't cynical like I am. He just liked to do his own thing, but he got along with most people. He just kind of made you think that he actually gave a shit about the stuff you were saying."
He's well aware that his description of this guy sounds a fair bit like Ned, but maybe Ned won't notice. It's not completely obvious, anyway, and just because he sees Ned that way doesn't mean Ned sees himself that way. "And I guess I liked that he was kind of mysterious. You know, he was that kid that you could never quite fit comfortably into a group. He wasn't a jock, he wasn't incredibly rebellious, he wasn't really anything. I wanted to get to know him better."
He feels that way about Ned, too, like he wants to get to know him better, like he really wants to get inside his head -- not in an uncomfortable, prying way, just in a way that'll tell him more about Ned. He cares what Ned has to say, and doesn't mind offering information in return. To be fair, he's never been particularly hesitant about sharing information about himself.
Ned, indeed, does not notice any marked similarity, because he doesn't think of himself in terms anywhere near as positive as those. The only thing that seems to him a possible point of crossover is what Ginsberg says about him being mysterious. Ned's been called mysterious by enough people to know that it's not always a compliment. Mysterious can be an accusation.
"You ever wonder what he's doing, these days?" Ned asks, closing his eyes for a moment. He likes sitting like this, being able to feel Ginsberg's chest rising and falling, "I wonder about that kind of thing all the time. Eugene's parents moved him to a different school, because he was so miserable. I don't even know where I'd start to look, if I wanted to find out where he is these days. For all I know he's dead, or a millionaire, or living a block away. And Chuck-" he hesitates here, before he concludes, "-I'm not sure I want to know how her life turned out, actually. What if it was awful?"
He's slipping, without meaning to, without realizing it, back into the shallows of that melancholy that's been threatening to drag him under all day.
"I know where he is, these days. I mean, kind of. He joined the military right after high school. None of us saw that one coming, so I guess he really was mysterious."
He's quiet for a minute, thinking about the people he'd known in the past, wondering where all of them have gone, what's happened to them, wondering whether any of them wonder about him at all, or whether he's completely erased from the memories of everyone he'd ever known. He's pretty sure he'd never really stood out to anyone, throughout most of school. Even at some of the ad agencies he'd worked at, he doubts anyone remembers him, or if they do, it's vaguely, as the 'weird guy' that hadn't stuck around long.
"It would've been different when I'd been younger if my dad hadn't been so..." He pauses, looking for a word, not wanting to sound like he's blaming all of his oddities on his father. "Well, overprotective. He's always asking me when I'm going to get a girlfriend, always asking me if I'm actually interested in girls, and there's no way I can tell him I'm interested in both, because I don't think he'd get it. I mean, I think he'd understand if I weren't interested in girls at all, but when I ended up with this confusing, ridiculous crush on a guy in high school, it's not like I could go to him and talk about it. And yet he was always there, dogging every single one of my steps, wondering why I didn't have a date to prom, trying to set me up with the kids of his friends..."
Once more, when Ginsberg starts talking about his dad, Ned tenses slightly. This time, though, it isn't a passing mention. He just keeps going, and Ned feels a completely irrational knot of anger tightening in his stomach. At the same time that he realizes it is entirely unwarranted, he doesn't know how to loosen it, to dispel it.
"I don't know..." Ned begins, and his voice is lighter than before. It's a false lightness, though. Perhaps not an obvious enough one for Ginsberg to pick up on, since he hasn't really heard Ned use it before. He's the sort of guy who gets quietly angry, whose irritation gets buried under layers of passive-aggression and meaningful shrugs and a complete inability to vent it in any sort of healthy way. "That doesn't sound all that bad to me. He probably wants you to find someone because he thinks it will make you happy."
"If he wanted me to be happy, he'd realize that making me happy meant getting off my back once in awhile. It's bad enough that I have to live with the guy, I don't need him breathing down my neck all the time, too, asking me stupid questions."
He knows that he sounds bitter, and he's half-compelled to apologize for it. He's not supposed to be here complaining about his family life, after all, he's supposed to be comforting Ned, and this is counterproductive. The problem is that once he gets started talking about all the ways his father is overbearing, he can hardly stop.
"He's not even my real father. He needs to back off and let me live my life. I'm an adult."
Even as he's saying it, he realizes how petulant and childish and decidedly un-adult-like he sounds. He doesn't pick up on the false lightness in Ned's voice, though if he did, he'd stop his tirade immediately. As it is, he's winding down with it anyway, realizing how stupid it all sounds.
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Phone conversations have never been his strong suit, and he's perfectly happy to hang up the phone and go get changed into something appropriate for leaving the house in. His father, of course, feels the need to ask him where he's going, but he brushes it off, as he usually does, says something casual about going to a Halloween party, and leaves it at that. It's not even strictly a lie, as far as he's concerned, because he and Ned could have a party of their own.
He's reliant on the subway to get to Ned's, but he knows the subways so well by now that he barely has to think about it on his trip over; instead, he concentrates on doodling in a notebook, waiting patiently to get to the stop nearest Ned's apartment, bracing himself against the chilly air as he walks in that direction. He can tell that Ned's not in a good mood, but he doesn't know whether he'll be able to change it.
That's why he's a little antsy as he stands outside of Ned's apartment, ringing the buzzer. Is his presence really wanted, or had Ned simply told him to come over out of politeness?
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He's been hiding in his apartment since he closed The Pie Hole, doing his best to avoid the unavoidable festivities. There are other apartments in the building with decorations on their doors, jack-o'-lanterns, the whole nine yards. Ned's own door is unadorned, but he knows he'll get a few knocks regardless. He's never quite mustered the foresight to make himself some kind of sign with a politer version of fuck off, kids written on it.
"Thanks for coming," he says, shuts the door behind Ginsberg rather abruptly when he sees a family heading up the stairs, with a whole small troupe of costumed children.
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"So," he says, immediately fixing Ned with a completely nonjudgemental expression, "You don't like Halloween."
That's far less babbling than normal, but it's also one of those statements he's pretty sure Ned can't argue with. He's not necessarily going to ask why, though. "So we'll pretend it isn't Halloween. No candy here. No pumpkins. Definitely no stupid costumes."
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"Pretty much what I do every year," he admits, adds, "Though... I'm usually doing it by myself."
Ned leads Ginsberg in to the living room, sits with him on the couch. "I made tea. If you want any." There are two mugs, faintly steaming, sitting on the coffee table. Ned picks up his own, just to have something to do with his hands, but doesn't drink any.
"I'll go with you to the next work party, promise. If you still want me to, I mean." Maybe by the time it rolls around Ginsberg will be sick of him, after all, will have moved on to someone new and better. Just as Ned's about to go on, ask Ginsberg something relatively normal - how was his day, what is he working on at work, etc - there is a knocking at the door. Ned glances in that direction, but doesn't move. They'll go away eventually, he thinks.
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"I wasn't kidding when I said I didn't like parties," he says, mostly to let Ned know that he's off the hook for the next party, too, if he wants to be, (though he feels a tiny thrill of delight when Ned refers to the next party, like it's a given that they'll still be spending time together) "but do you dislike Christmas like you dislike Halloween? There'll probably be a work Christmas party, and believe me, if you don't go to that one, people think you're insane. So I'm going to that one, and you could come to that, if you wanted. People bring friends, family, dates... nobody'd have to think we were together. I mean, if that's a concern."
Following Ned's lead, he ignores the knock at the door, although there's a part of him that wants to jump up and open it, to admire the costumes of the children that are undoubtedly standing in the hall. On the other hand, it's not like Ned has any candy here to hand out, and it would just make Ned uncomfortable, so he stays where he is, sipping at his tea, frowning a little.
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He's glad for Ginsberg's thoughtfulness, feeling more than a little self-conscious that he feels the need to be so careful with him. Because he ought to be able to say he has no problem with any holiday, ought to have said yes to this party and gone to socialize like a normal human being. But he's glad to have Ginsberg all to himself tonight, even if he feels a bit as if he's been run over by a truck.
Just as Ned's beginning to relax incrementally, there's another knock at the door, followed by the muffled sound of a very young child calling, "Trick or treat!" This is followed immediately by a very elder-brotherly, bossy voice reprimanding, "Not yet!" This time, Ned actually flinches, runs a hand over his face, wonders how obvious it will look if he puts music on. There's no way Ginsberg will have missed that recoil.
"You must think I'm such a freak."
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Sometimes realizing just how ridiculous everyone at work is is what keeps him going through the motions every day. He likes the creativity of his job, likes that there're actually some people he enjoys working with, but he can't help but clash with some of the executive team; he's never been good at pretending to get along with people when he doesn't. It helps to be around people -- people like Ned, he thinks -- who're a little offbeat, who would probably find some of his coworkers just as irritating as he did.
He glances over towards the door again, noticing the way Ned flinches, wondering what it is about Halloween that has him so obviously upset. There's no way he could miss the discomfort and tension in Ned's every movement. "I think you're probably a freak in some ways, yeah. Most people are. I know I am. Overall, I'd say you're generally less freaky than I am, but more freaky than some people, too. Which is okay, because some people are boring. You fit somewhere in the continuum of freaky, just like everyone else."
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Ned likes that concept of a continuum of normalcy to freakishness, knows that he and Ginsberg are both far closer to the latter than the former. There is just a touch of warmth that comes into his smile, as he contests, "No, no, I'm going to have to disagree with you on that. I'm definitely just as freaky as you, if not moreso. I think I just... hide it more."
He thinks back to one of their former conversations, about how Ginsberg decided that he was going to stop pretending to be normal, to just be himself and damn the consequences. It's the kind of decision, Ned thinks, that comes from being a little bit strange, but maybe not too strange. Not the kind of strange where his life would likely be in jeopardy if people found out.
"You know, you really are unlike anyone I've been with." Putting the mug of tea down - still untouched - Ned explains further, "Anyone else would be badgering me to explain myself, by this point. Or trying to change my mind. Or making fun of me."
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He tries to think of how to phrase it in a way that will make it clear both that he's interested in the potential explanation, but doesn't want to get it out of Ned in an unpleasant, bullying way. He himself has been alternately cajoled and threatened into trying to explain how his own mind, his own neuroses work, and it's never been effective. If anything, it's just made him distrust people more, made him highly skeptical of anyone who pretends to want to understand something emotional. Unlike Ned, however, he tends to share these things freely anyway.
"I'm curious," he finally says, setting down his cup, "But you're obviously not feeling comfortable. It's like telling someone who's panicking to calm down, you know? That's absolutely the worst thing you can say, because then they panic that they can't calm down. So trying to get you to explain yourself would probably just make you feel worse, because you'd be worried that I thought what you were saying was ridiculous, and that'd just add to the shitty way you're already feeling."
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(The way he talks about someone panicking and being told to just calm down has the sound of personal experience; Ned's been in that situation, himself, is struck by just how much he and Ginsberg have in common. Then, it occurs to him, retrospectively, how little he'd had in common with the majority of people he'd known in his life).
"Something like that," he agrees. He sighs, and it is half frustration at himself for not being past this, even though it was so many years ago.
If he can at least give Ginsberg an outline, he thinks it will make his own peculiar behavior make more sense. Not enough information to make himself really vulnerable, of course. Just the category of distress. "Let's just say that... certain things from my past that I spend most of my time trying not to think about are harder to not-think-about today, and all that stuff - the candy and costumes and pumpkins and the rest of it, that makes everyone else so happy - just makes it worse."
Ned isn't usually the one who initiates physical contact. He doesn't avoid it, from Ginsberg, but he doesn't often ask for it. But right now, he can't stand just sitting there with the space between them and Ginsberg looking at him with his undisguised compassion. So Ned leans forward, carefully buries his face against the other man's shoulder.
"Usually just stay in and try to sleep through it," he admits.
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Ned's words make sense to him, and he nods, acknowledging them, as he tries to think of a way to respond to it. He's using more care in choosing his words now, afraid of saying the wrong thing or upsetting Ned further, because he knows that, however much compassion he feels, it'll be pretty useless if he misuses that compassion and makes Ned's day worse. "There're things like that in my life, too. Things from the past that come up at certain times of the year and are harder to deal with when everyone else is happy. They're probably not the same things. I'm not going to ask you what yours are because you don't want to talk about it and I don't want to make it worse. But I don't think you're weird for feeling that way."
Is that good enough? He doesn't think it is, and despite his vows to himself to choose his words more carefully, it's incredibly hard not to chatter on when he feels somewhat at a loss for how to handle a situation. So he keeps talking. "Do you want to do something to distract yourself, or do you just want to try to sleep through it now? Because we can do whatever you want, but I can try to be a distraction. I mean, at the very least, I can say weird stuff that makes you confused enough not to think about how much you hate today, just for a minute."
He's still hugging Ned, not letting him go until Ned gets sick of it and tries to squirm away. "Hey, listen, I have no idea how to deal with stuff like this. I'm sorry in advance."
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"Distraction sounds nice," he agrees, though he isn't sure exactly what Ginsberg could do to take his mind off it. Ned's been trying to distract himself all day. He'd tried reading, had taken Digby for a walk, had tried to come up with a new passionfruit pie recipe; none of it had helped. In the end, he'd only been more depressed by the increasing desperation of his own attempts to distract himself from the fact that he was alone on Halloween missing his father so much his chest ached.
"You're too nice to me," Ned doesn't know why he says it. He's thought it before, but usually this is the sort of thing he keeps himself from saying aloud. His verbal filter is apparently so preoccupied keeping back all the other stuff that things like this slip through the cracks, "Why are you so nice to me. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop."
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He really doesn't understand why Ned should be so baffled by it, but there's a certain part of him that understands it, too. It's rare, in his experience, to spend time with someone who doesn't mock or belittle him, who doesn't treat him as though he's insufferably weird, who doesn't make him feel like some kind of other, bizarre species. He thinks that maybe Ned feels that way, too, and that would explain why he's so confused by the continuing 'niceness' that Ginsberg's offering (in actuality, he doesn't think of himself as being nice at all, simply honest: if he likes someone, he tries to treat them well, or at least, as well as he can, given his own limitations.)
"Okay, distraction." He finally loosens his grip on Ned just a little, so that he can draw back and look at him, but not so much that he breaks away from the hug entirely. "We can talk about something, if you want. It doesn't have to be anything serious. We don't even have to talk about you. Or me. We can talk about..." He shrugs, trying to think of the most inane thing possible. "We can talk about bad television. We can talk about the weather. Seriously, you name the topic, I'll discuss it."
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He isn't sure why it's the first topic to spring to his mind; on another day he would worry about giving Ginsberg the wrong impression and frightening him off, but he asks with a certain guilelessness that will hopefully pre-empt any suspicions.
"Tell me about the first time you fell in love? Or... something like that. A happy story."
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His childhood can sometimes be a blur of indistinct memories, and there's nothing at all there from before the time he was five or so, but he doesn't need to tell Ned that. He'd wanted happy stories, not reflections on things that could easily turn gloomy with the slightest provocation. "I think I must have been in first grade. Six or so, right, that's how old kids are in first grade? There was a little girl named Jane -- weird, I still remember her name, I haven't thought about her for years -- that I was absolutely crazy about. It was my first year of school in the US, I could barely speak English, and I was just as awkward then as I am now. Needless to say, she didn't exactly reciprocate the feelings."
Maybe that doesn't count as happy, but he's smiling as he says it, so at least it's a decent memory. "I started trying to figure out how to say sweet things to her, but the problem was that I had to ask my dad how to say stuff, and he didn't speak English that well either, at that point, and I didn't want to tell him why I wanted to know how to say your dress is pretty, or whatever it was I was trying to say. So, long story short, it was a completely unrequited love, and I learned all of my flirtatious lines from my father, which explains why they're all awful."
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He can hear the smile in Ginsberg's voice, even if he can't see it. The part about wanting to learn how to compliment her is almost more charming. Ned does, however, almost imperceptibly stiffen when Ginsberg is talking about going to his father for instruction on how to flirt in English. It's not a voluntary reaction, and he doesn't even notice himself doing it.
"For me it was the girl who lived across the street. Chuck." Ned can remember just how intensely, how ardently he had adored her, lets out a little sigh. "Charlotte Charles. She and I got into so much trouble together. The first time we met, she pushed me out of a tree." He laughs as he says it - clearly there were no hard feelings. "I was a complete disaster. I thought the sun and the stars all revolved around her. Never said anything about it, but I did kiss her, once."
Which is when his fond memory of her, and how much he'd cared for her, is interrupted (as it always is) by the memory of how they'd eventually been parted. How he'd ruined her life.
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And he admires bravery; it's one of the few qualities he can recognize and appreciate in himself, although admittedly, sometimes bravery and stupidity are awfully close together, at least for him. Bravery makes him blunder into awkward situations just as often as it benefits him, but he wouldn't change it. He likes having Ned leaning against him like this, talking, like maybe they can talk enough to make the evening go by quickly enough that Ned won't have to deal with his obviously uncomfortable feelings about Halloween soon enough. He's committed to trying to make it at least somewhat tolerable.
"I never tried to kiss Jane. We were too young, and I pretty much blew my chances with her by being that weird foreign kid who didn't quite know how to talk to anyone. Not that I'm not still kind of that guy, except that I'm an adult and American now. It's a lot less endearing coming from someone my age than it was coming from me when I was six."
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"I think it's pretty endearing," Ned says, knows he's taking a risk by saying it. But Ginsberg has shown no signs of being easily startled by that kind of talk, of being flighty and ready to bolt at the least sign of affection. Quite the contrary.
And maybe it's a bad idea to go on and say what he does, but now that it's popped into his mind, Ned can't seem to stop himself from saying it. He's had this problem before: keeping everyone at an arm's length, but getting far too involved far too quickly once he does let someone in. "The first boy I ever fell for at boarding school was the weird foreign kid who didn't quite know how to talk to anyone." Maybe he has a type? "Eugene. Definitely never said anything about it to him."
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"Well, yeah, you usually don't tell the guys you fall for that you've fallen for them. Unless you fall for them after they get pie thrown at them, apparently. Not that that's falling for, I mean, not in the really serious definition of the term, just that you were pretty forward with me. I liked that."
And if there's one thing he can say about himself, it's that no matter how affectionate someone else can be, he's always there, poised with something equally affectionate and generally more awkward, to say. He hadn't meant that Ned had really fallen for him, because that implies a depth of emotion that he's pretty sure can't exist yet, but Ned had certainly been interested in him, in some way, from the moment they'd met. The feeling had been mutual.
"The first time I fell for a guy, I was in high school. I thought I was losing my mind. I mean, up until then, I'd been a weird kid, but the one thing I had going for me that was entirely normal was that I was just as girl-crazy as every other guy I knew. And then all of a sudden, there was this guy, and I was having the same thoughts about him I was having about the girls -- well, you know, a little different, but the same basic idea -- and I really thought I'd lost it."
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Another knock at the door, but this one Ned barely responds to. He's too busy listening to Ginsberg's story about discovering his budding sexuality, thinking about how nice it is to just talk, like this. Ned's been with guys before, but none of them were too big on chit-chat, on telling him about their lives. Sometimes they wanted to hear about his, sure - things he didn't want to tell them. But they never offered parts of themselves, in the way that Ginsberg does so effortlessly, so generously.
"What was it that made you fall for him?" Ned asks, curious, thinking it might give him some insight into what it is that draws Ginsberg to people. He has to admit, he's interested for entirely selfish reasons.
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He's well aware that his description of this guy sounds a fair bit like Ned, but maybe Ned won't notice. It's not completely obvious, anyway, and just because he sees Ned that way doesn't mean Ned sees himself that way. "And I guess I liked that he was kind of mysterious. You know, he was that kid that you could never quite fit comfortably into a group. He wasn't a jock, he wasn't incredibly rebellious, he wasn't really anything. I wanted to get to know him better."
He feels that way about Ned, too, like he wants to get to know him better, like he really wants to get inside his head -- not in an uncomfortable, prying way, just in a way that'll tell him more about Ned. He cares what Ned has to say, and doesn't mind offering information in return. To be fair, he's never been particularly hesitant about sharing information about himself.
"Needless to say, he and I didn't work out."
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"You ever wonder what he's doing, these days?" Ned asks, closing his eyes for a moment. He likes sitting like this, being able to feel Ginsberg's chest rising and falling, "I wonder about that kind of thing all the time. Eugene's parents moved him to a different school, because he was so miserable. I don't even know where I'd start to look, if I wanted to find out where he is these days. For all I know he's dead, or a millionaire, or living a block away. And Chuck-" he hesitates here, before he concludes, "-I'm not sure I want to know how her life turned out, actually. What if it was awful?"
He's slipping, without meaning to, without realizing it, back into the shallows of that melancholy that's been threatening to drag him under all day.
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He's quiet for a minute, thinking about the people he'd known in the past, wondering where all of them have gone, what's happened to them, wondering whether any of them wonder about him at all, or whether he's completely erased from the memories of everyone he'd ever known. He's pretty sure he'd never really stood out to anyone, throughout most of school. Even at some of the ad agencies he'd worked at, he doubts anyone remembers him, or if they do, it's vaguely, as the 'weird guy' that hadn't stuck around long.
"It would've been different when I'd been younger if my dad hadn't been so..." He pauses, looking for a word, not wanting to sound like he's blaming all of his oddities on his father. "Well, overprotective. He's always asking me when I'm going to get a girlfriend, always asking me if I'm actually interested in girls, and there's no way I can tell him I'm interested in both, because I don't think he'd get it. I mean, I think he'd understand if I weren't interested in girls at all, but when I ended up with this confusing, ridiculous crush on a guy in high school, it's not like I could go to him and talk about it. And yet he was always there, dogging every single one of my steps, wondering why I didn't have a date to prom, trying to set me up with the kids of his friends..."
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"I don't know..." Ned begins, and his voice is lighter than before. It's a false lightness, though. Perhaps not an obvious enough one for Ginsberg to pick up on, since he hasn't really heard Ned use it before. He's the sort of guy who gets quietly angry, whose irritation gets buried under layers of passive-aggression and meaningful shrugs and a complete inability to vent it in any sort of healthy way. "That doesn't sound all that bad to me. He probably wants you to find someone because he thinks it will make you happy."
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He knows that he sounds bitter, and he's half-compelled to apologize for it. He's not supposed to be here complaining about his family life, after all, he's supposed to be comforting Ned, and this is counterproductive. The problem is that once he gets started talking about all the ways his father is overbearing, he can hardly stop.
"He's not even my real father. He needs to back off and let me live my life. I'm an adult."
Even as he's saying it, he realizes how petulant and childish and decidedly un-adult-like he sounds. He doesn't pick up on the false lightness in Ned's voice, though if he did, he'd stop his tirade immediately. As it is, he's winding down with it anyway, realizing how stupid it all sounds.
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