[blues in the bod] commentary
Monday, 5 September 2011 09:31![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
extemporallySo I did as I threatened and wrote up a commentary for this story I wrote, which may be entirely narcissistic and self-indulgent but you know, whatever! Here's the first half of the fic with bonus commentary. I might do the next half later.
Obviously, don't read this if you haven't read the original story.
PART ONE
0th week Oxford (like Cambridge) operates on an eight-week term. There are three terms in a year. If that sounds really short, it kind of is. As a result terms usually end up being stupidly intense; I knew from the very start that I wanted to structure this fic on a chronological week-by-week basis because a more lax approach to time would probably ring false to me.
The term here discussed is Hilary, i.e. the second term of the first year in one A. Garfield's university career. That runs from mid-January to mid-March.
Subject: International Students’ Dinner
From: Keira Knightley And start... Self-Indulgent Celebrity Cameos, #1 in a series of 3000.
Date: 10 January 2011 03:02
To: Merton JCR [merton-jcr]
Dear all,
Welcome to Merton, new exchange students! I'm looking forward to welcoming you to the oldest, smallest and all round best college in Oxford.
This email is also being sent to the entire JCR (that's the Junior Common Room, or the undergraduate population at Merton). They should be able to help you settle in during the transition to Oxford life. You have also now got an email from our International Students Rep, Ellen Page. Do send any queries about packing / academic life to her.
I’m Keira, and I’m the JCR President for the academic year 2010 – 2011. If you have any queries about the JCR, or want to get more involved in college life, do speak to me.
In 0th week we will having a International Students Dinner at the Chequer’s Inn. Details are here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=143738242347267
Please RSVP. If you haven't clicked "attending" I might not be able to give you a seat, and as we all know that would be a tragedy.
Keira Knightley
JCR President, Merton College
Committee Member of OUSU Women's Campaign
Keira is one of those stupidly overacheiving/earnest kids who gets involved in everything. I would have liked to put her in this fic more, especially since she & Andrew & Carey were this total tripartite of powerhouse English-expat-in-LA actors who starred in Never Let Me Go, except that it just never happened and I made up an excuse that pretty much amounted to "Keira is one of those stupidly overachieving/earnest kids". Imagine they hung out a lot more in the first term than they did in this fic, okay?
---
Ready to Start, Arcade Fire
"How are the exchange students this term?" Andrew asked. He'd really wanted to go to the dinner they'd held to welcome the students from Columbia, except he'd bought tickets for the screening of The Man Who Fell To Earth at Modern Art Oxford and it'd so happened that the dinner and the film had been on the same day.
Ellen shrugged. Ellen was Canadian, but she wasn't an exchange student. She was an international student who decided she'd rather spend four years focusing on what she really loved (Biology; she wanted to live in an ecological commune someday) than "flailing around at a liberal arts school", and now she was in the third year of her degree. Last year she had been the college's LGBTQ representative and this year she was returning to the committee as the international students' rep. Andrew loved her. "Not bad," she said. "I sat next to this guy with dark curly hair who wouldn't say much. He had the bluest eyes, though."
At certain points in the story I was pretty concerned about being too overtly like, "And while they're at college they do XYZ cool thing!" But Ellen is definitely one of Those Cool Kids who're everywhere.
...
Andrew didn't meet the guy whose name could have been 'Bessie Wisen-up' for a couple of days after that - even though he was busy running around doing all the ridiculous 'meet people! meet people!' socialising that every start of term seemed to entail, and met quite a few new people in the process, the exchange students didn’t make an appearance, and a guy with curly black hair and bright blue eyes in particular seemed sadly in absentia. Perhaps Ellen had made him up.
Andrew shrugged cheerfully and put the matter out of his mind. It was term-time, after all, and term was good for nothing if not meeting new people. Last term (his first term at uni, actually), he'd met at least a thousand people, or felt like, anyway, and had got with two people, for a definition of 'got with' that extended to 'kissing and some groping but no actual sex'. People who said gay people were promiscuous had clearly never met him.
/ short sexual history
...
Andrew loved Carey’s room. Her small elephant silhouette watercolour painting had been put up on her wardrobe again and her Never Let Me Go poster; a blowup of the first edition cover, hung on the wall above her bed again. The photo of her and her sister, whom Andrew had not met yet, on a rollercoaster in the summertime, was on her pinboard above her desk.
Someone mentioned that they really liked how I wrote female characters, which definitely made me beam - I think it's pretty hard to get that balance right in a slashfic which is fundamentally about two dudes getting it on, even though it shouldn't be. Here, have my thoughts on Carey Mulligan: I think she is a brilliant actress! And has some very very very good taste. A lot of actors have one or two pretty terrible film/TV projects tucked away somewhere; Carey Mulligan is known to me as "that girl who was in An Education. And Pride & Prejudice. And one of my very favourite episodes of Doctor Who." It seems she can do no wrong. If that's the definition of a Mary-Sue, eh, well, all of them kind of are.
Also, poster because she's actually mentioned NLMG is her favourite novel.
“Congratulations are in order,” Carey said, as she got the tea. (Andrew noted approvingly that it was Twinings tea, not that horrible PG Tips rubbish.) “I’ve passed my driving test!”
“That’s amazing,” Andrew said. “When?”
“Last Thursday,” Carey said, smiling. She added milk and fished the teabags out with a spoon. “My Dad made me drive us to a Thai restaurant to celebrate; it was brilliant.”
“Congratulations,” Andrew said. He’d got his license last summer. “How many minors?”
“Four.”
“Lovely.” Helen said something along the lines of: "I love this conversation ending, it's so British." Just putting that out there.
It was lovely to be back in Oxford, and back in Carey’s room. Last term Andrew had spent nearly more time here than in his own room, which was horribly far away and next to the dullest people you could imagine, Carey had told him it was good for privacy but Andrew couldn’t even imagine needing privacy. So.
“So, young Andrew,” Carey said, watching him over her mug with interest. “Tell me of the Oxford haps.”
“Do people even say ‘haps’ any more?”
“I do,” Carey said brightly, as if that was enough.
“We-e-ell,” Andrew said, considering the fact. “Dave the porter is still bald. There are new exchange students, but I don’t seem to have met any of them. Ellen is still amazing, and I haven’t done enough vacation reading.”
“Do you know anything about the exchange students?” Carey asked excitedly. “It feels a bit like they’re the new freshers, d’you know, since we sort of know Oxford already and they don’t, not really.”
“No,” Andrew said, “But apparently, Ellen sat next to the hottest boy ever at the dinner to welcome them.”
“Did she really?” Carey mused. “Somehow I can’t quite imagine her using those words exactly.”
“Well, no,” Andrew admitted, “But she said he had curly black hair and blue eyes and was Jewish, and I bet you anything he plays the guitar.”
Carey mm-hmed. “Sounds promising,” she allowed. “What’s his name?”
“Oh, it’s either Jesse or Bessie,” Andrew said airily. “She said he was mumbling so she couldn’t quite tell.”
“Bessie,” Carey said. “All right then.”
Andrew sighed happily. It was going to be a brilliant term, January weather notwithstanding.
---
There was lots of time, anyway. It was only Thursday of 0th week. Andrew spent most of that buzzing around in excitement and attending start-of-term meetings with his tutor with the rest of the English students.
"Hilary is a difficult term," Professor Smith yay Maggie Smith! utter BAMF said, as they were all ensconced in her office, "but it's also an important term. It's the term before your first exams, so study hard and you won't have as tough a time in Trinity."
"I intend to," Andrew chirped, and Carey, who was sitting next to him, grinned at him.
"I hope you will, Mr Garfield." Professor Smith (he would never, he thought fervently, be able to call her 'Maggie' even though that was how she signed off all of her emails) said, giving him one of her rare smiles. "I expect great things from you. All of you."
Andrew beamed. This was going to be the best term ever. He would devote himself to the sanctuary of academic life, he would attain a first-class report at the end of the term, he would even try for a scholar's gown at the Mods, he would…
Quick catch-up for people not as attuned to the whole British undergrad thing: we don't do Honors or what-have-you in the UK. Every piece of work gets marked according to this classification: first-class, second-upper, second-lower, third, fail. At the end of university most people leave with a second-upper (2:1) degree and a First is obviously the best.
Mods: exams you take in your first year at Oxford (except when they're called Prelims, but I think that's just semantics).
Scholar's gown: when you do really well (get a First or an extremely good 2:1) they give you the right and privilege of wearing an academic gown that is 100% more amazing than the one you'd otherwise wear as an undergraduate. To wit: normal gown, scholar's gown. You see why the enticement of a scholar's gown is a huge incentive to do well.
"Now I've sent you your tutorial timetables, I believe," Professor Smith said, as they all rose to leave. "If you have any problems with the schedule, do try and switch your tute slots around, and email me, and oh - I trust you've read Little Dorrit already."
The smile slipped off Andrew's face. He had not read Little Dorrit. He would of course be glad to read Little Dorrit, and be glad to read it before their first tutorial in six days time, and even most joyfully write an essay on it, only - !
"Nine hundred pages," Carey moaned, once the door to Professor Smith's office was shut safely behind them. "Andrew, we're doomed."
---
Andrew spent the next two days holed up in his room reading the Victorian novel their tutor had conveniently forgotten to tell them to read over the holidays, emerging, really, only for meals. It was on his third day back that he was gloomily waiting at the tail end of the queue in the buttery (overcrowded, it was always overcrowded at the start of term before people started realising they actually knew how to cook) for some less-than-mediocre vegetarian lasagne, before the door from the Thomas Quad opened and a horde of distinctly American-looking people poured in.
Blue-Eyed Boy (as Andrew had already taken to referring to him in his head) was there. That was probably him, wasn't it? There couldn't be more than one boy with dark, curly hair and - Ellen was right - the bluest eyes Andrew had ever seen, in the contingent. Happily, he sidled into the queue right behind Andrew.
Andrew resolved to strike up a conversation.
"Are you a Columbia exchange student?" he asked, and the boy nodded jerkily.
"I thought so," Andrew said cheerfully. "I'm Andrew, hi. Ellen mentioned you - you must be Bessie -" and stopped, clapping his hand, horrified, over his mouth.
The boy - Jesse, Andrew's head reminded him, not Bessie. Lord. Oh lord, lord, lord - looked bewildered. He didn't say anything, except, "Uh."
"I'm sorry!" Andrew squeaked out finally. "I meant Jesse, Jesse, Jesse. I, uh, slipped up, and that sounds not only like I didn't know your name but also that I mixed you up with a girl, gracious, that's not very good, is it? I'm really sorry."
"It's all right," not-Bessie said. He was smiling a bit.
"Anyway," Andrew continued bravely, "I'm Andrew. How are you finding Oxford?"
"We've been here two weeks," Jesse said. "I'm, I don't know, I guess I'm getting used to it."
"Two weeks!" Andrew said. He supposed that sounded about right, he knew the exchange students always arrived before term started to settle in. "It must have been boring, mustn't it, I couldn't imagine Oxford without all the students in it, but now that we're here things are going to get interesting." He was rattling on and he knew it. Where was Carey when he needed her?
"I don't know," Jesse said diffidently. "I mean, I did come over with fifty other people, so, you know -"
"Oh yes," Andrew said hurriedly. He was beginning to feel quite stupid. You know how sometimes when you really really want to make small talk and people just kind of resist that attempt? And you start feeling stupid. That is pretty much what's going on here except that Jesse isn't deliberately snubbing Andrew, he just actually has no idea how to respond.
"But I know what you mean," Jesse said, and smiled a bit. Andrew smiled back, and they stood there smiling at each other for a bit until the lunch queue shuffled on, and there was no more ignoring that there was tremendous gap of space between Andrew and the person in front of him. Fool, fool, fool. Andrew hated being a fool.
...
"I'm thinking of starting a college literary magazine," Andrew said, "and I want to have every type of thing in there, you know, poems, short stories, crosswords, knock-knock jokes, articles, that kind of thing... but we don't have anyone studying art here, and I've sort of asked around, but no one really likes doing that sort of thing, and I really want someone to submit their drawings so we can be really impressive in an interdisciplinary sort of way. Could you do it?" He put on his best puppydog eyes, even though they really only worked on women his mother's age (his mother was a strong exception). "I'd be most grateful. Please?"
"Okay," Jesse said. He hesitated, then said, "Would you take any kind of submission from me then?"
"Oh, of course," Andrew said. "What were you thinking of?"
"I write sometimes," Jesse said. "Poems, short stories, knock-knock jokes. You know."
Andrew grinned. "Brilliant." he said. "Brillianty-brillianty brilliant. Yes, submit everything you have please and thank you, and do you want to come to Litsoc?"
"What's Litsoc?" Jesse said. They were nearly at the front of the queue now.
"We have it every Saturday at 5," Andrew said excitedly. "We sit around, drink lots of tea, and then someone gives us a prompt and we have about thirty minutes to write it, and at the end of the thirty minutes we read aloud what we've written and give each other comments on it. I mean you don't have to read what you've written aloud if you don't want, but that's the general idea. I'm running it this term, because the third year who was doing it is taking time off to study for her finals, and I feel like a bit of a fraud I must say. The power!!!" Andrew, encouraged by Jesse's laugh, grinned at him again. "You have to help me restrain my megalomaniacal tendencies. Do come."
"Wouldn't I, uh, be, adding another head to the faceless masses you'd be reigning over?" Jesse asked.
"Well, that too," Andrew admitted. "Not counting the people who turn up once and then get intimidated because we mean SERIOUS BUSINESS, you'd be giving me six people instead of five to boss around. It's a challenge but I'm sure I'll meet it. Come to Litsoc!"
"Sure," Jesse said, easy as anything, and Andrew beamed.
"I thought I'd like you," Andrew said. "Jesse Eisenberg. I'm still really sorry about 'Bessie', by the way."
"Of the many things people have called me, that is one I should be least offended by," Jesse said. He sounded very sincere about it. Andrew beamed again.
"Can't be that horrible," Andrew said. "At least," he added, as they entered the buttery proper and took trays from the side, "can't be as bad as this veggie lasagne."
Andrew smiled weakly at the kitchen staff ladling a truly horrendous amount of it on the tray. "Veggies and potatoes, please," he said. He might not be able to worry down all of the pasta, but he wasn't going to starve, at least.
Jesse was staring at the gloopy mess. "It's enough to make anyone vegan," he said, but he pitched it so the staff couldn't hear, at least. Andrew appreciated courtesy in a boy. "I mean, I was vegan for a year, I could totally do it again."
"And then you'd never be able to eat in hall again and I'd never see you," Andrew said sadly.
"Is it all -" Jesse said, and gestured at his plate.
"It is," Andrew said with a sigh. "All the vegetarian entrees are at least seventy percent cheese. It's kind of disgusting."
"I was led to expect I'd subsist on champagne and strawberries in Oxford," Jesse said, and Andrew chortled. "So much for that."
"So much for that," Andrew agreed, and wondered if there'd be enough empty seats so they could all sit together. It was only after lunch that he realised he hadn’t asked Jesse if he played the guitar, but that probably didn’t matter: Real Jesse could write and build houses. Real Jesse was so much better.
There's definitely a real-Jesse/Jesse-in-my-head disconnect going on here that persist beyond how it's disproven in this scene, but think of it as an optimistic form of ~foreshadowing~ because this story, I guess, is fundamentally about people sorting their shit out and getting better.
---
Soul Love, David Bowie
"I met Blue-Eyed Boy," Andrew told Carey later that day, setting his tray down beside hers in hall. The Columbia people were nowhere in sight.
To her great credit, Carey immediately knew what he was talking about. "And is he your soul-mate?" she said, raising her eyebrows.
"I'm not sure yet," Andrew said, "I think so."
"Hmm" Carey said, and ate some bread. "Where did you meet him anyway?"
"Oh, at lunch," Andrew said. "While you were off picnicking with the gender campaign, I got to meet the Columbia people."
Carey groaned. "It's not fair," she said.
"Hard choice, that," Andrew agreed. "How was Megan?"
"Megan was wonderful," Carey said, her eyes going dreamy. "She was all -" she gestured vaguely. Megan Fox, btw. But you knew that.
"Hot," Andrew provided.
"Yeah," Carey agreed. "I wanna be her when I grow up."
"Hot?" Andrew said, and grinned when Carey smacked him on the side of his head.
"No, I mean, just - awesome and combative and - and bitey. Like, biting your head off. Also, she brought this new girl called Kristen and together they were just - um. Really intimidating." At some point I kind of gave up on, "All the Americans I want to mention should be exchange students", and have a lot of international students floating around Oxford in the general periphery.
"Whatever," Andrew said. "Are you going to listen to my adventures of blue-eyed boy? I mean I should really call him Jesse, what with that being his proper name, and I think we're going to be actual friends - we're going to be actual friends! - so best if I call him Jesse, at least at first."
"Andrew, shut up and tell me about Jesse," Carey ordered.
"Shan’t!” Andrew said, and Carey smacked him again. “At least, I can't do both at the same time. Anyway, I started talking to him in the queue, and I meant to say ‘You must be Jesse,’ but then instead I said, 'You must be Bessie.'"
Carey snorted. "You didn't!" she said.
"I did," Andrew said dolefully. "He was really good about it though, said he'd come to LitSoc and that he'd submit some drawings - he's an architect! I bet he's a really good one too - to our magazine, and I got to sit with everyone from Columbia at lunch and they were all really good-looking and sophisticated but also nice, I bet because I'm at an advantage here, being native to England, ha ha, and anyway it was brilliant." Andrew paused. "They had good teeth, too. The stereotypes are true."
Carey got a dangerous look on her face. She was clearly plotting something. Knowing Carey, it was probably a nefarious scheme. She was good at those. "Andrew, you have to get me in with them."
"What if I said no?" Andrew asked curiously.
"Then I'd smack you upside the head and refuse to share my Bleak House notes with you," Carey told him. "But seriously, you have to get me in with them, they sound amazing!!! and when am I going to be around so many New Yorkers again in my lifetime?"
"You could go to New York," Andrew pointed out.
"When am I going to be surrounded by so many New Yorkers again in my lifetime without paying nine hundred pounds on airfare?"
"You could make someone pay for you to go to New York."
“When my prize-winning jetsetting career happens, don’t call me,” Carey said, pointing her spoon at Andrew. “I’ll call you. Or not.”
I'm not sure if this is way obvious but I enjoyed slipping in this hint of, "yeah they're actors OH WAIT NO THEY'RE NOT they're just uni kids messing around together. New York? What is this strange and exotic place??"
---
Subjects of JCR emails sent out to Merton College in 0th week of Hilary Term, 2011:
Workers at St. Catz Ball needed
By-Election for Academic Affairs Officer
Safety Bus…
LAUNDRY MISSING, PLEASE RETURN
FW: Chemistry Students
Message about Collections
PUB QUIZ TONIGHT
Litsoc at 5!
---
Subject: Litsoc at 5!
From: Andrew Garfield
Date: 15 January 2011 10:02
To: Merton JCR [merton-jcr]
Dear Merton,
Welcome back from the vac! There, that was a rhyme… in the interest of rhyming things, I’d like to invite you to our first Lit(erary) Soc(iety) (must I spell everything out?) of the term, at 5 on Saturday in the Morelli Room. There will be tea. There will be cakes. There will be poetry – written by you and hopefully submitted to the literary magazine we’re hoping to put out at the end of term (that’s right, stay tuned for details…). Most of all, there will be delightful company. If you didn’t come last term, we’d be honoured to welcome you. If you did, why break a winning streak?
If you don’t write poetry, not to worry! Novelists and novices welcome too.
Andrew x
Andrew Garfield
President of Merton College Literary Society
I enjoyed writing all these emails a stupid amount.
---
The week passed quickly and very soon Andrew found it difficult to believe that he had ever been away from Oxford at all. Saturday brought the twin triumphs of having finished his essay (take that, Little Dorrit!) and running his first ever LitSoc session successfully.
Andrew had turned up early just in case the porters refused to surrender the keys, with a full kettle and some teabags in his bag. Oh, and a tube of Jaffa Cakes.
“This is going to be amazing,” Andrew chattered happily to Carey as she unlocked the door of the Ackroyd Room for him (he couldn’t; having too many things on his hands). “Well, if anyone turns up, that is…”
“I’m sure they will,” Carey said reassuringly. “There’s always at least four people at Litsoc, and anyway the fewer people the more biscuits we have each.”
“Yes, but what if they all decide not to come because of me?” Andrew said, working himself into a state. “And I’ll be – oh, hi, Jesse.”
Carey coughed. It was very carefully disguised as a snort, probably because Carey didn’t want to show that she was on the verge of falling ill, and on the first week back at college, such utter bad luck, too.
“Good to know I’m at the right place,” Jesse said. “I was starting to go mad walking around this college, I thought I’d lost my way.”
“Are you here for Litsoc?” Andrew asked. He nudged at Carey. “Because here it is! Welcome to Litsoc!”
Jesse looked concerned. “You mean this isn’t the Origami Society?” Andrew froze.
“Well, I might as well stay,” Jesse said, sitting down. “I’m sick of being lost and I haven’t got the patience for origami today.”
“You were bluffing,” Andrew accused. “Bluffer!”
“I take the prospect of improving my origami skills very seriously,” Jesse said.
“Who doesn’t?” Carey said, and smiled at him. “Hello, I’m Carey.” She was – obviously because of the warning look Andrew had thrown her way – on her best behaviour. “Andrew’s told me about you.”
“I’m Jesse,” Jesse said, then blushed and sat down. “I also have a friend. Emma. She said she might come, if she finished her paper.”
“Lovely, lovely,” Andrew said, and rubbed his hands together nervously. “Shall we, uh, shall we start the tea?”
The water hadn’t boiled when some more people streamed in; a few regulars from last term, and a few people whose interest had clearly been piqued by the amazing email he’d sent out. The room wasn’t – the room wasn’t crowded, and there were still some empty chairs, but it was a good start.
Andrew had prepared for this moment. When the tea had been poured and the biscuits distributed he walked round to the head of the table and made sure to look everyone in the eye.
“Welcome to Litsoc,” he said, leaning into the table and giving everyone his most serious face to show that he meant business. “Today, we’ll be practicing a bit of ekphrasis. Carey, will you do the honours?”
---
“That was really good,” Andrew told Jesse, when nearly everyone had left. His supply of teabags was severely dented; he really had to look into getting a reimbursement from the college soon.
“It was really fun,” Jesse agreed.
“I meant your short story,” Andrew said. “That was brilliant.”
“Oh,” Jesse said. “Thank you!”
Andrew beamed some more. He wasn’t even exaggerating. He’d got Carey to bring a stack of art books down from the library and made everyone practice ekphrasis, which was a rather good idea if he did say so himself. Carey had written about a Vermeer painting, Andrew had chosen some carved jade, and Jesse had chosen a headless sculpture to write about.
“Have you seen the Gormley sculpture yet?” Andrew asked.
“No?” Jesse said. “What is it?”
“It’s a sculpture on Broad Street that Antony Gormley did.” Andrew said. “You know the Angel of the North?”
“Yeah,” Jesse said. He swallowed, unaccountably, and Andrew found his eyes drawn to the Adam’s apple in his throat, its slight bob. “That’s the really big sculpture of the angel along the highway, isn’t it? In the, uh, North.”
“Yeah,” Andrew said. “Antony Gormley’s the guy who’s done it.”
“That sounds great,” Jesse said.
Carey had been making a stack of art books and she had been growing quieter and quieter over the past five minutes. The back of Andrew’s neck prickled with the knowledge that she was watching the both of them.
“Dinner?” he asked Carey, spinning around abruptly.
“Can’t,” she replied. “I’m meeting people. Someone.” She waved her hands vaguely. “You know.”
Andrew narrowed his eyes. He knew perfectly well, as Carey did, that she had nothing going on.
“Rushing off, sorry,” she said, stack of art books in her arms. “See you, boys!”
Andrew winced as she shut the door. That must have been so obvious.
“I could show you the statue, if you want,” he offered, suddenly shy. “D’you have anything on right now?”
“Not really,” Jesse said. He paused. “We could get dinner? Hall doesn’t serve today, does it.”
“No, they don’t,” Andrew said. “What do you fancy?”
“I’m vegetarian, so,” Jesse said. “Anything else besides meat is fine.”
“Even macaroni and cheese with seventy percent cheese?” Andrew said, grinning.
“Well, let’s try to avoid that,” Jesse admitted.
They ended up going to Taylor’s on High Street. Jesse got a roast vegetable panini and Andrew had the chicken mayonnaise and bacon on brown bread. Chewing their sandwiches happily, they wandered up Broad Street in their scarves and coats. Say what you like about British food - Oxford does the gourmet sandwich thing so well. I know a couple of people who subsist solely on paninis.
“There, you see,” Andrew said, once they were at Blackwell’s. He pointed at Exeter College, and could see exactly when Jesse began to see the stark seven-foot iron nude perched atop the roof of the college: his eyes widened, mouth forming a little O.
“That’s amazing,” he breathed.
“I like it,” Andrew said. “You know – there’s so much, so much antediluvian splendour in Oxford, it’s nice that they’ve got a sculpture like this here, too.” He shrugged, and then felt silly for shrugging, and stopped, and put his hands in his pockets.
“Yeah?” Jesse said. He was speaking in the same hushed tones as Andrew was now.
It was still very cold, and it had become dark hours ago. Andrew thought, let it snow, let it snow, even though he knew it wouldn’t.
“Have you ever seen the Angel?” Jesse asked.
“Once,” Andrew told him. “We were driving up the A167 – that’s a motorway. I was eight.”
Helen, in an earlier draft: "I just spent five minutes googling to make sure that was right and wondering if I should tell you to say the A167b instead and realised what I was doing and then promptly died in horror at myself."
Jesse nodded, and shivered.
“Oh, are you cold?” Andrew said, concerned.
“Not – not really,” Jesse said. “It must be the art,” he said, and Andrew grinned.
“Good art does that to you sometimes,” he agreed. “Just gives you the shivers.”
“Thanks,” Jesse said. “Thank you for the – thanks for showing this to me, it was brilliant.”
“You’re welcome,” Andrew said quietly. He could see Jesse’s eyelashes because they were standing under a streetlight, and for some reason his throat closed up on that thought. Was it possible, he thought, to be this way around someone he didn’t even really know yet? And yet it was happening.
This is A Moment, one of the many many moments where Andrew catches himself falling in love with Jesse, and is absolutely convinced that there's something there and it's all very dramatic and important until the scene deflates itself and he goes away and feels convinced that it isn't. There is a lot of second-guessing going on in his head here.
“Do you want to do anything now?” he asked abruptly.
“Sure,” Jesse said, looking startled at the change of subject. And a little disappointed.
Andrew was probably just projecting.
“What can we do? All the shops are closed.”
“We could watch a play,” Andrew suggested. “Want to go to the Oxford Playhouse and have a look? It’s only quarter past seven now. Tickets are cheap usually - £5, something like that.”
“That’ll be good,” Jesse said. “Let’s have a look.”
“Do you like plays?” Andrew asked. “Sorry, ought to have asked you that first, what if you actually really hate them, feel free to say so if you really do, by the way.”
“No, no, they’re great,” Jesse said. “I actually, uh, I actually act sometimes, and what I really like are musicals.”
Andrew gasped in delight. “Jesse Eisenberg,” he said. “I knew we were going to have tons in common.”
“Do you like musicals?” Jesse said. He sounded excited.
“Well… I’m not an expert,” Andrew admitted. “But acting! I do that sometimes too. What musicals do you like? Educate me.”
“Well, uh, this is… going to make me sound like a jerk, but you probably haven’t heard of them. Anyway, I like Pacific Overtures and Floyd Collins. Those are my top two.”
“That’s really interesting,” Andrew said sincerely. “I love it when people love things.”
Jesse laughed. “You really don’t want to hear me ramble on at great length about musicals. My mom nods and says ‘all right’ a lot. Then she just tells me to stop talking.”
“I would never tell you to stop talking, Jesse Eisenberg,” Andrew told him.
Jesse got roses on his cheeks and didn’t answer.
---
Subject: musicals & stuff
From: Andrew Garfield
Date: 15 January 2011 23:35
To: Jesse Eisenberg
I went back to my room and looked up Pacific Overtures. “The musical is set in 1853 Japan and follows the difficult Westernization of Japan, through the lives of two friends caught in the change. The title of the work is ironic, nodding toward "overture" as a musical form, noting that the initiatives of the Western powers for commercial exploitation of the Pacific nation were anything but "pacific" (or peaceable) overtures.” That sounds amazing! It’s so sad that it had to close after six months. I suppose every great artist is occasionally misunderstood by his or her people. That sounded overly Nietzschean, sorry (I actually had to look up how ‘Nietzsche’ is spelt – never know where that pesky ‘s’ goes.)
Anyway, Facebook said that your political views skew towards the ‘Very Liberal’ so I thought it was safe to show you this, which is relevant to our interests anyway: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1L8RaM7GyGI Song of the Jewish Bund (labour movement + antifascist resistance). Amazing, yeah?
Andrew x
Every uni kid's flirtation with socialism ever. Socialism and Jewish politics and music: there is literally nothing more you could want! At the beginning of the 2010-2011 academic year when the Tories were talking about raising school fees Andrew probably hopped on one of the Student Union-chartered buses with Carey and went down to London for the student protests. His sign probably said something like NO IFS, NO BUTS, NO EDUCATION CUTS.
(Then on the other side it probably said "Hi mum!" just in case he got on TV.)
---
“You what?” Ellen said the next day. They’d bumped into each other on High Street and were walking companionably together now.
“Had sandwiches together, showed him the Gormley statute, and then we watched a play. And then I emailed him,” Andrew said. total date.
“My god, you move fast, Garfield,” Ellen said. “I approve.”
Andrew squawked. “I’m not moving fast!” he said. “We’re not moving anywhere.”
“I thought you told me you’d made up songs about him in your head,” Ellen said, dodging a tour group of French schoolchildren as they meandered down Cornmarket. “Is this or is this not true?”
“True,” Andrew said. “But that doesn’t count.”
Ellen shook her head. “You are such a confusing little man.”
Like I told Helen, this was going to be Carey originally, except that what with "confusing little man" and other words I thought the diction skewed towards a North American speaker more. So, Ellen!
This scene kind of turned out being one of those critical linchpin ones in the sense that it articulated a lot of my thoughts re: characterisation of Andrew here in this fic: even as he's falling in love (!) he tells people that he's not, except that he tells people that he's not by telling people that he is and overstating it, and so when people call him out on it he's does the equivalent of "jk jk", and I'm not sure why. Perhaps because fundamentally this is a story about university and figuring out who you are/how you feel, and how love and relationships and crushes fit into all of that.
Mostly it just makes conversations with him really frustrating.
---
The JCR during the first welfare tea of term was crowded, though not as crowded as Andrew had remembered it being at the beginning of Michaelmas term - still. He elbowed his way in between a cluster of finalists, giving them an apologetic look and a cheeky smile, as the occasion demanded - and fought his way to a big mug of tea and a bit of baguette, which he proceeded to smother in hummus. He felt a hand clap on his shoulder.
"Still living off the welfare state I see, Garfield?" It is kind of awesome and ridiculous how much welfare they provide you with, mostly in the form of tea and biscuits and condoms.
It was Matt, whom Andrew hadn't seen since before the vac. Andrew whooped a little and flung his arms around him, squeezing tight. (Some of his baguette got smeared over the back of Matt’s shirt, but Matt didn’t seem to notice.) "Your bow tie is hurting my eyes," he said, letting go.
"Got this one for Christmas, it's a beaut," Matt said, stroking it fondly with his index finger. I actually do know a dude who wears bowties on a regular basis and manages to look completely cool and hipstery in them.
Andrew peered at it - green polka dots against a yellow background; it clashed horribly with the red and blue plaid shirt Matt was wearing today, but out of the sheer kindness of his heart he didn't say that. "Who gave it to you?" he asked instead, having a colour-blind grandmother in mind, or something.
"I did," a leggy ginger-haired girl volunteered, popping up behind him. Andrew, despite the presence of mind for which he was so famed, started. "Hello Andrew," she said cheerily. "Itttttttttt's…. K-Gill!"
Helen actually wondered in one of the earlier drafts if I should have given the K-Gill line to someone else - one of the boys maybe? But the killing thing is, SHE HAS ACTUALLY REFERRED TO HERSELF AS K-GILL BEFORE.
1st week
"I can't believe it," Andrew said. "She - she gave me a list of words I'm not allowed to use."
Carey giggled again. She'd been laughing pretty much non-stop since the end of their tutorial. Andrew resented her giggling, which must stop. Immediately. "She wants you to expand your vocabulary."
"She wants to curtail my vocabulary," Andrew muttered, and that set her off again.
"Think of it as a challenge," Carey said, patting him on the shoulder.
"Think of it as a chokehold," Andrew moaned, and pushed into the door to the JCR with his shoulder.
It was only five minutes past four but the room was already fairly crowded with people seeking respite from the library in the form of the tea the committee set out every weekday. Undeterred, Andrew swiped two mugs stamped with the college crest off a sideboard and elbowed his way through the throng of people gathered around the table as charmingly as he could. "Milk, Carey?" he asked loudly over his shoulder, barely catching her "Yes please."
"It's terrible," Andrew said, again over his shoulder, as he poured, the full teapot a strain on his wrist.
"What's, uh, what's terrible?" a voice said, somewhere to his right, and Andrew's head jerked up.
"Oh! Jesse!"
"It is I," Jesse agreed. "How are you?"
"Terrible, simply terrible," Andrew said sadly. "Want to hear why?"
"I'm sure I wouldn't mind," Jesse said, his smile reaching his eyes. They were even bluer now, the treacherous voice in Andrew's head told him.
Andrew sighed. “It's a long story."
"Oh," Jesse said, rather taken aback. "If you'd rather not tell it..."
"No! no!" Andrew said. "I want to tell it. Or perhaps, you'd better see it..." he thrust the essay which he'd until then been clasping under his arm, under Jesse's face.
"Read the red bits," Andrew said helpfully, as Jesse's eyes scanned the first paragraph. There being no red bits on the first side, Jesse paged slowly to the end of the essay.
"A list of words you are hereby banned from using until further notice..." Jesse read, and started to laugh.
Andrew groaned. "I'll be ruined!" he said, clutching at his hair.
"Go on, read the list," Carey said, appearing at Andrew's elbow. She took the mug of tea from him. "Thanks, Garfield." Addressing Jesse again, she said, "Read it out loud."
"'Binary. Domination. Patriarchy. Postmodernism. Connotations. Theoretical implications. Edward Said.'" Jesse said, his eyebrows improbably shooting up further with each item.
"You see how I am ruined,” Andrew said sadly.
"I'm sorry," Jesse told Andrew. "I really am."
"You're not," Andrew sulked. “No one is. No one understands. How can I not use patriarchy?"
"Some people manage to not use it in once every two sentences," Carey said.
"She has a point," Jesse said.
"This," Andrew said with some finality, "does not solve my problem. What am I going to write about?"
There was a thoughtful silence.
"You could write about the, uh, text?" Jesse offered.
Andrew gasped with mock-effrontery (he seemed to be doing a lot of that these days). "I never took you for a literary conservative."
"You insult me," Jesse said, giving a half-smile. It was like he didn't do full expressions.
"Literary theory went to his head," Carey said to Jesse, patting the appendage in question. "He can't talk about anything without talking about the binary now."
"It's true," Andrew agreed. "I have been changed forever. It's all Maggie Smith's fault."
"It was even worse last term," Carey said. "God, remember, Andrew? She took us through all those weeks of post-structuralism - then she said, 'But of course you don't really believe in all that, do you?"
"Sounds like Santa Claus all over again," Jesse said.
"Exactly!" Andrew said. "I was upset enough the first time 'round."
Biscuits were going round. Andrew made a grab at the tube and was vaguely consoled to find they were Jaffa Cakes. That very nearly compensated for Andrew not being able to cite Edward Said in his essays any more.
next
Obviously, don't read this if you haven't read the original story.
PART ONE
0th week Oxford (like Cambridge) operates on an eight-week term. There are three terms in a year. If that sounds really short, it kind of is. As a result terms usually end up being stupidly intense; I knew from the very start that I wanted to structure this fic on a chronological week-by-week basis because a more lax approach to time would probably ring false to me.
The term here discussed is Hilary, i.e. the second term of the first year in one A. Garfield's university career. That runs from mid-January to mid-March.
Subject: International Students’ Dinner
From: Keira Knightley And start... Self-Indulgent Celebrity Cameos, #1 in a series of 3000.
Date: 10 January 2011 03:02
To: Merton JCR [merton-jcr]
Dear all,
Welcome to Merton, new exchange students! I'm looking forward to welcoming you to the oldest, smallest and all round best college in Oxford.
This email is also being sent to the entire JCR (that's the Junior Common Room, or the undergraduate population at Merton). They should be able to help you settle in during the transition to Oxford life. You have also now got an email from our International Students Rep, Ellen Page. Do send any queries about packing / academic life to her.
I’m Keira, and I’m the JCR President for the academic year 2010 – 2011. If you have any queries about the JCR, or want to get more involved in college life, do speak to me.
In 0th week we will having a International Students Dinner at the Chequer’s Inn. Details are here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=143738242347267
Please RSVP. If you haven't clicked "attending" I might not be able to give you a seat, and as we all know that would be a tragedy.
Keira Knightley
JCR President, Merton College
Committee Member of OUSU Women's Campaign
Keira is one of those stupidly overacheiving/earnest kids who gets involved in everything. I would have liked to put her in this fic more, especially since she & Andrew & Carey were this total tripartite of powerhouse English-expat-in-LA actors who starred in Never Let Me Go, except that it just never happened and I made up an excuse that pretty much amounted to "Keira is one of those stupidly overachieving/earnest kids". Imagine they hung out a lot more in the first term than they did in this fic, okay?
---
Ready to Start, Arcade Fire
"How are the exchange students this term?" Andrew asked. He'd really wanted to go to the dinner they'd held to welcome the students from Columbia, except he'd bought tickets for the screening of The Man Who Fell To Earth at Modern Art Oxford and it'd so happened that the dinner and the film had been on the same day.
Ellen shrugged. Ellen was Canadian, but she wasn't an exchange student. She was an international student who decided she'd rather spend four years focusing on what she really loved (Biology; she wanted to live in an ecological commune someday) than "flailing around at a liberal arts school", and now she was in the third year of her degree. Last year she had been the college's LGBTQ representative and this year she was returning to the committee as the international students' rep. Andrew loved her. "Not bad," she said. "I sat next to this guy with dark curly hair who wouldn't say much. He had the bluest eyes, though."
At certain points in the story I was pretty concerned about being too overtly like, "And while they're at college they do XYZ cool thing!" But Ellen is definitely one of Those Cool Kids who're everywhere.
...
Andrew didn't meet the guy whose name could have been 'Bessie Wisen-up' for a couple of days after that - even though he was busy running around doing all the ridiculous 'meet people! meet people!' socialising that every start of term seemed to entail, and met quite a few new people in the process, the exchange students didn’t make an appearance, and a guy with curly black hair and bright blue eyes in particular seemed sadly in absentia. Perhaps Ellen had made him up.
Andrew shrugged cheerfully and put the matter out of his mind. It was term-time, after all, and term was good for nothing if not meeting new people. Last term (his first term at uni, actually), he'd met at least a thousand people, or felt like, anyway, and had got with two people, for a definition of 'got with' that extended to 'kissing and some groping but no actual sex'. People who said gay people were promiscuous had clearly never met him.
/ short sexual history
...
Andrew loved Carey’s room. Her small elephant silhouette watercolour painting had been put up on her wardrobe again and her Never Let Me Go poster; a blowup of the first edition cover, hung on the wall above her bed again. The photo of her and her sister, whom Andrew had not met yet, on a rollercoaster in the summertime, was on her pinboard above her desk.
Someone mentioned that they really liked how I wrote female characters, which definitely made me beam - I think it's pretty hard to get that balance right in a slashfic which is fundamentally about two dudes getting it on, even though it shouldn't be. Here, have my thoughts on Carey Mulligan: I think she is a brilliant actress! And has some very very very good taste. A lot of actors have one or two pretty terrible film/TV projects tucked away somewhere; Carey Mulligan is known to me as "that girl who was in An Education. And Pride & Prejudice. And one of my very favourite episodes of Doctor Who." It seems she can do no wrong. If that's the definition of a Mary-Sue, eh, well, all of them kind of are.
Also, poster because she's actually mentioned NLMG is her favourite novel.
“Congratulations are in order,” Carey said, as she got the tea. (Andrew noted approvingly that it was Twinings tea, not that horrible PG Tips rubbish.) “I’ve passed my driving test!”
“That’s amazing,” Andrew said. “When?”
“Last Thursday,” Carey said, smiling. She added milk and fished the teabags out with a spoon. “My Dad made me drive us to a Thai restaurant to celebrate; it was brilliant.”
“Congratulations,” Andrew said. He’d got his license last summer. “How many minors?”
“Four.”
“Lovely.” Helen said something along the lines of: "I love this conversation ending, it's so British." Just putting that out there.
It was lovely to be back in Oxford, and back in Carey’s room. Last term Andrew had spent nearly more time here than in his own room, which was horribly far away and next to the dullest people you could imagine, Carey had told him it was good for privacy but Andrew couldn’t even imagine needing privacy. So.
“So, young Andrew,” Carey said, watching him over her mug with interest. “Tell me of the Oxford haps.”
“Do people even say ‘haps’ any more?”
“I do,” Carey said brightly, as if that was enough.
“We-e-ell,” Andrew said, considering the fact. “Dave the porter is still bald. There are new exchange students, but I don’t seem to have met any of them. Ellen is still amazing, and I haven’t done enough vacation reading.”
“Do you know anything about the exchange students?” Carey asked excitedly. “It feels a bit like they’re the new freshers, d’you know, since we sort of know Oxford already and they don’t, not really.”
“No,” Andrew said, “But apparently, Ellen sat next to the hottest boy ever at the dinner to welcome them.”
“Did she really?” Carey mused. “Somehow I can’t quite imagine her using those words exactly.”
“Well, no,” Andrew admitted, “But she said he had curly black hair and blue eyes and was Jewish, and I bet you anything he plays the guitar.”
Carey mm-hmed. “Sounds promising,” she allowed. “What’s his name?”
“Oh, it’s either Jesse or Bessie,” Andrew said airily. “She said he was mumbling so she couldn’t quite tell.”
“Bessie,” Carey said. “All right then.”
Andrew sighed happily. It was going to be a brilliant term, January weather notwithstanding.
---
There was lots of time, anyway. It was only Thursday of 0th week. Andrew spent most of that buzzing around in excitement and attending start-of-term meetings with his tutor with the rest of the English students.
"Hilary is a difficult term," Professor Smith yay Maggie Smith! utter BAMF said, as they were all ensconced in her office, "but it's also an important term. It's the term before your first exams, so study hard and you won't have as tough a time in Trinity."
"I intend to," Andrew chirped, and Carey, who was sitting next to him, grinned at him.
"I hope you will, Mr Garfield." Professor Smith (he would never, he thought fervently, be able to call her 'Maggie' even though that was how she signed off all of her emails) said, giving him one of her rare smiles. "I expect great things from you. All of you."
Andrew beamed. This was going to be the best term ever. He would devote himself to the sanctuary of academic life, he would attain a first-class report at the end of the term, he would even try for a scholar's gown at the Mods, he would…
Quick catch-up for people not as attuned to the whole British undergrad thing: we don't do Honors or what-have-you in the UK. Every piece of work gets marked according to this classification: first-class, second-upper, second-lower, third, fail. At the end of university most people leave with a second-upper (2:1) degree and a First is obviously the best.
Mods: exams you take in your first year at Oxford (except when they're called Prelims, but I think that's just semantics).
Scholar's gown: when you do really well (get a First or an extremely good 2:1) they give you the right and privilege of wearing an academic gown that is 100% more amazing than the one you'd otherwise wear as an undergraduate. To wit: normal gown, scholar's gown. You see why the enticement of a scholar's gown is a huge incentive to do well.
"Now I've sent you your tutorial timetables, I believe," Professor Smith said, as they all rose to leave. "If you have any problems with the schedule, do try and switch your tute slots around, and email me, and oh - I trust you've read Little Dorrit already."
The smile slipped off Andrew's face. He had not read Little Dorrit. He would of course be glad to read Little Dorrit, and be glad to read it before their first tutorial in six days time, and even most joyfully write an essay on it, only - !
"Nine hundred pages," Carey moaned, once the door to Professor Smith's office was shut safely behind them. "Andrew, we're doomed."
---
Andrew spent the next two days holed up in his room reading the Victorian novel their tutor had conveniently forgotten to tell them to read over the holidays, emerging, really, only for meals. It was on his third day back that he was gloomily waiting at the tail end of the queue in the buttery (overcrowded, it was always overcrowded at the start of term before people started realising they actually knew how to cook) for some less-than-mediocre vegetarian lasagne, before the door from the Thomas Quad opened and a horde of distinctly American-looking people poured in.
Blue-Eyed Boy (as Andrew had already taken to referring to him in his head) was there. That was probably him, wasn't it? There couldn't be more than one boy with dark, curly hair and - Ellen was right - the bluest eyes Andrew had ever seen, in the contingent. Happily, he sidled into the queue right behind Andrew.
Andrew resolved to strike up a conversation.
"Are you a Columbia exchange student?" he asked, and the boy nodded jerkily.
"I thought so," Andrew said cheerfully. "I'm Andrew, hi. Ellen mentioned you - you must be Bessie -" and stopped, clapping his hand, horrified, over his mouth.
The boy - Jesse, Andrew's head reminded him, not Bessie. Lord. Oh lord, lord, lord - looked bewildered. He didn't say anything, except, "Uh."
"I'm sorry!" Andrew squeaked out finally. "I meant Jesse, Jesse, Jesse. I, uh, slipped up, and that sounds not only like I didn't know your name but also that I mixed you up with a girl, gracious, that's not very good, is it? I'm really sorry."
"It's all right," not-Bessie said. He was smiling a bit.
"Anyway," Andrew continued bravely, "I'm Andrew. How are you finding Oxford?"
"We've been here two weeks," Jesse said. "I'm, I don't know, I guess I'm getting used to it."
"Two weeks!" Andrew said. He supposed that sounded about right, he knew the exchange students always arrived before term started to settle in. "It must have been boring, mustn't it, I couldn't imagine Oxford without all the students in it, but now that we're here things are going to get interesting." He was rattling on and he knew it. Where was Carey when he needed her?
"I don't know," Jesse said diffidently. "I mean, I did come over with fifty other people, so, you know -"
"Oh yes," Andrew said hurriedly. He was beginning to feel quite stupid. You know how sometimes when you really really want to make small talk and people just kind of resist that attempt? And you start feeling stupid. That is pretty much what's going on here except that Jesse isn't deliberately snubbing Andrew, he just actually has no idea how to respond.
"But I know what you mean," Jesse said, and smiled a bit. Andrew smiled back, and they stood there smiling at each other for a bit until the lunch queue shuffled on, and there was no more ignoring that there was tremendous gap of space between Andrew and the person in front of him. Fool, fool, fool. Andrew hated being a fool.
...
"I'm thinking of starting a college literary magazine," Andrew said, "and I want to have every type of thing in there, you know, poems, short stories, crosswords, knock-knock jokes, articles, that kind of thing... but we don't have anyone studying art here, and I've sort of asked around, but no one really likes doing that sort of thing, and I really want someone to submit their drawings so we can be really impressive in an interdisciplinary sort of way. Could you do it?" He put on his best puppydog eyes, even though they really only worked on women his mother's age (his mother was a strong exception). "I'd be most grateful. Please?"
"Okay," Jesse said. He hesitated, then said, "Would you take any kind of submission from me then?"
"Oh, of course," Andrew said. "What were you thinking of?"
"I write sometimes," Jesse said. "Poems, short stories, knock-knock jokes. You know."
Andrew grinned. "Brilliant." he said. "Brillianty-brillianty brilliant. Yes, submit everything you have please and thank you, and do you want to come to Litsoc?"
"What's Litsoc?" Jesse said. They were nearly at the front of the queue now.
"We have it every Saturday at 5," Andrew said excitedly. "We sit around, drink lots of tea, and then someone gives us a prompt and we have about thirty minutes to write it, and at the end of the thirty minutes we read aloud what we've written and give each other comments on it. I mean you don't have to read what you've written aloud if you don't want, but that's the general idea. I'm running it this term, because the third year who was doing it is taking time off to study for her finals, and I feel like a bit of a fraud I must say. The power!!!" Andrew, encouraged by Jesse's laugh, grinned at him again. "You have to help me restrain my megalomaniacal tendencies. Do come."
"Wouldn't I, uh, be, adding another head to the faceless masses you'd be reigning over?" Jesse asked.
"Well, that too," Andrew admitted. "Not counting the people who turn up once and then get intimidated because we mean SERIOUS BUSINESS, you'd be giving me six people instead of five to boss around. It's a challenge but I'm sure I'll meet it. Come to Litsoc!"
"Sure," Jesse said, easy as anything, and Andrew beamed.
"I thought I'd like you," Andrew said. "Jesse Eisenberg. I'm still really sorry about 'Bessie', by the way."
"Of the many things people have called me, that is one I should be least offended by," Jesse said. He sounded very sincere about it. Andrew beamed again.
"Can't be that horrible," Andrew said. "At least," he added, as they entered the buttery proper and took trays from the side, "can't be as bad as this veggie lasagne."
Andrew smiled weakly at the kitchen staff ladling a truly horrendous amount of it on the tray. "Veggies and potatoes, please," he said. He might not be able to worry down all of the pasta, but he wasn't going to starve, at least.
Jesse was staring at the gloopy mess. "It's enough to make anyone vegan," he said, but he pitched it so the staff couldn't hear, at least. Andrew appreciated courtesy in a boy. "I mean, I was vegan for a year, I could totally do it again."
"And then you'd never be able to eat in hall again and I'd never see you," Andrew said sadly.
"Is it all -" Jesse said, and gestured at his plate.
"It is," Andrew said with a sigh. "All the vegetarian entrees are at least seventy percent cheese. It's kind of disgusting."
"I was led to expect I'd subsist on champagne and strawberries in Oxford," Jesse said, and Andrew chortled. "So much for that."
"So much for that," Andrew agreed, and wondered if there'd be enough empty seats so they could all sit together. It was only after lunch that he realised he hadn’t asked Jesse if he played the guitar, but that probably didn’t matter: Real Jesse could write and build houses. Real Jesse was so much better.
There's definitely a real-Jesse/Jesse-in-my-head disconnect going on here that persist beyond how it's disproven in this scene, but think of it as an optimistic form of ~foreshadowing~ because this story, I guess, is fundamentally about people sorting their shit out and getting better.
---
Soul Love, David Bowie
"I met Blue-Eyed Boy," Andrew told Carey later that day, setting his tray down beside hers in hall. The Columbia people were nowhere in sight.
To her great credit, Carey immediately knew what he was talking about. "And is he your soul-mate?" she said, raising her eyebrows.
"I'm not sure yet," Andrew said, "I think so."
"Hmm" Carey said, and ate some bread. "Where did you meet him anyway?"
"Oh, at lunch," Andrew said. "While you were off picnicking with the gender campaign, I got to meet the Columbia people."
Carey groaned. "It's not fair," she said.
"Hard choice, that," Andrew agreed. "How was Megan?"
"Megan was wonderful," Carey said, her eyes going dreamy. "She was all -" she gestured vaguely. Megan Fox, btw. But you knew that.
"Hot," Andrew provided.
"Yeah," Carey agreed. "I wanna be her when I grow up."
"Hot?" Andrew said, and grinned when Carey smacked him on the side of his head.
"No, I mean, just - awesome and combative and - and bitey. Like, biting your head off. Also, she brought this new girl called Kristen and together they were just - um. Really intimidating." At some point I kind of gave up on, "All the Americans I want to mention should be exchange students", and have a lot of international students floating around Oxford in the general periphery.
"Whatever," Andrew said. "Are you going to listen to my adventures of blue-eyed boy? I mean I should really call him Jesse, what with that being his proper name, and I think we're going to be actual friends - we're going to be actual friends! - so best if I call him Jesse, at least at first."
"Andrew, shut up and tell me about Jesse," Carey ordered.
"Shan’t!” Andrew said, and Carey smacked him again. “At least, I can't do both at the same time. Anyway, I started talking to him in the queue, and I meant to say ‘You must be Jesse,’ but then instead I said, 'You must be Bessie.'"
Carey snorted. "You didn't!" she said.
"I did," Andrew said dolefully. "He was really good about it though, said he'd come to LitSoc and that he'd submit some drawings - he's an architect! I bet he's a really good one too - to our magazine, and I got to sit with everyone from Columbia at lunch and they were all really good-looking and sophisticated but also nice, I bet because I'm at an advantage here, being native to England, ha ha, and anyway it was brilliant." Andrew paused. "They had good teeth, too. The stereotypes are true."
Carey got a dangerous look on her face. She was clearly plotting something. Knowing Carey, it was probably a nefarious scheme. She was good at those. "Andrew, you have to get me in with them."
"What if I said no?" Andrew asked curiously.
"Then I'd smack you upside the head and refuse to share my Bleak House notes with you," Carey told him. "But seriously, you have to get me in with them, they sound amazing!!! and when am I going to be around so many New Yorkers again in my lifetime?"
"You could go to New York," Andrew pointed out.
"When am I going to be surrounded by so many New Yorkers again in my lifetime without paying nine hundred pounds on airfare?"
"You could make someone pay for you to go to New York."
“When my prize-winning jetsetting career happens, don’t call me,” Carey said, pointing her spoon at Andrew. “I’ll call you. Or not.”
I'm not sure if this is way obvious but I enjoyed slipping in this hint of, "yeah they're actors OH WAIT NO THEY'RE NOT they're just uni kids messing around together. New York? What is this strange and exotic place??"
---
Subjects of JCR emails sent out to Merton College in 0th week of Hilary Term, 2011:
Workers at St. Catz Ball needed
By-Election for Academic Affairs Officer
Safety Bus…
LAUNDRY MISSING, PLEASE RETURN
FW: Chemistry Students
Message about Collections
PUB QUIZ TONIGHT
Litsoc at 5!
---
Subject: Litsoc at 5!
From: Andrew Garfield
Date: 15 January 2011 10:02
To: Merton JCR [merton-jcr]
Dear Merton,
Welcome back from the vac! There, that was a rhyme… in the interest of rhyming things, I’d like to invite you to our first Lit(erary) Soc(iety) (must I spell everything out?) of the term, at 5 on Saturday in the Morelli Room. There will be tea. There will be cakes. There will be poetry – written by you and hopefully submitted to the literary magazine we’re hoping to put out at the end of term (that’s right, stay tuned for details…). Most of all, there will be delightful company. If you didn’t come last term, we’d be honoured to welcome you. If you did, why break a winning streak?
If you don’t write poetry, not to worry! Novelists and novices welcome too.
Andrew x
Andrew Garfield
President of Merton College Literary Society
I enjoyed writing all these emails a stupid amount.
---
The week passed quickly and very soon Andrew found it difficult to believe that he had ever been away from Oxford at all. Saturday brought the twin triumphs of having finished his essay (take that, Little Dorrit!) and running his first ever LitSoc session successfully.
Andrew had turned up early just in case the porters refused to surrender the keys, with a full kettle and some teabags in his bag. Oh, and a tube of Jaffa Cakes.
“This is going to be amazing,” Andrew chattered happily to Carey as she unlocked the door of the Ackroyd Room for him (he couldn’t; having too many things on his hands). “Well, if anyone turns up, that is…”
“I’m sure they will,” Carey said reassuringly. “There’s always at least four people at Litsoc, and anyway the fewer people the more biscuits we have each.”
“Yes, but what if they all decide not to come because of me?” Andrew said, working himself into a state. “And I’ll be – oh, hi, Jesse.”
Carey coughed. It was very carefully disguised as a snort, probably because Carey didn’t want to show that she was on the verge of falling ill, and on the first week back at college, such utter bad luck, too.
“Good to know I’m at the right place,” Jesse said. “I was starting to go mad walking around this college, I thought I’d lost my way.”
“Are you here for Litsoc?” Andrew asked. He nudged at Carey. “Because here it is! Welcome to Litsoc!”
Jesse looked concerned. “You mean this isn’t the Origami Society?” Andrew froze.
“Well, I might as well stay,” Jesse said, sitting down. “I’m sick of being lost and I haven’t got the patience for origami today.”
“You were bluffing,” Andrew accused. “Bluffer!”
“I take the prospect of improving my origami skills very seriously,” Jesse said.
“Who doesn’t?” Carey said, and smiled at him. “Hello, I’m Carey.” She was – obviously because of the warning look Andrew had thrown her way – on her best behaviour. “Andrew’s told me about you.”
“I’m Jesse,” Jesse said, then blushed and sat down. “I also have a friend. Emma. She said she might come, if she finished her paper.”
“Lovely, lovely,” Andrew said, and rubbed his hands together nervously. “Shall we, uh, shall we start the tea?”
The water hadn’t boiled when some more people streamed in; a few regulars from last term, and a few people whose interest had clearly been piqued by the amazing email he’d sent out. The room wasn’t – the room wasn’t crowded, and there were still some empty chairs, but it was a good start.
Andrew had prepared for this moment. When the tea had been poured and the biscuits distributed he walked round to the head of the table and made sure to look everyone in the eye.
“Welcome to Litsoc,” he said, leaning into the table and giving everyone his most serious face to show that he meant business. “Today, we’ll be practicing a bit of ekphrasis. Carey, will you do the honours?”
---
“That was really good,” Andrew told Jesse, when nearly everyone had left. His supply of teabags was severely dented; he really had to look into getting a reimbursement from the college soon.
“It was really fun,” Jesse agreed.
“I meant your short story,” Andrew said. “That was brilliant.”
“Oh,” Jesse said. “Thank you!”
Andrew beamed some more. He wasn’t even exaggerating. He’d got Carey to bring a stack of art books down from the library and made everyone practice ekphrasis, which was a rather good idea if he did say so himself. Carey had written about a Vermeer painting, Andrew had chosen some carved jade, and Jesse had chosen a headless sculpture to write about.
“Have you seen the Gormley sculpture yet?” Andrew asked.
“No?” Jesse said. “What is it?”
“It’s a sculpture on Broad Street that Antony Gormley did.” Andrew said. “You know the Angel of the North?”
“Yeah,” Jesse said. He swallowed, unaccountably, and Andrew found his eyes drawn to the Adam’s apple in his throat, its slight bob. “That’s the really big sculpture of the angel along the highway, isn’t it? In the, uh, North.”
“Yeah,” Andrew said. “Antony Gormley’s the guy who’s done it.”
“That sounds great,” Jesse said.
Carey had been making a stack of art books and she had been growing quieter and quieter over the past five minutes. The back of Andrew’s neck prickled with the knowledge that she was watching the both of them.
“Dinner?” he asked Carey, spinning around abruptly.
“Can’t,” she replied. “I’m meeting people. Someone.” She waved her hands vaguely. “You know.”
Andrew narrowed his eyes. He knew perfectly well, as Carey did, that she had nothing going on.
“Rushing off, sorry,” she said, stack of art books in her arms. “See you, boys!”
Andrew winced as she shut the door. That must have been so obvious.
“I could show you the statue, if you want,” he offered, suddenly shy. “D’you have anything on right now?”
“Not really,” Jesse said. He paused. “We could get dinner? Hall doesn’t serve today, does it.”
“No, they don’t,” Andrew said. “What do you fancy?”
“I’m vegetarian, so,” Jesse said. “Anything else besides meat is fine.”
“Even macaroni and cheese with seventy percent cheese?” Andrew said, grinning.
“Well, let’s try to avoid that,” Jesse admitted.
They ended up going to Taylor’s on High Street. Jesse got a roast vegetable panini and Andrew had the chicken mayonnaise and bacon on brown bread. Chewing their sandwiches happily, they wandered up Broad Street in their scarves and coats. Say what you like about British food - Oxford does the gourmet sandwich thing so well. I know a couple of people who subsist solely on paninis.
“There, you see,” Andrew said, once they were at Blackwell’s. He pointed at Exeter College, and could see exactly when Jesse began to see the stark seven-foot iron nude perched atop the roof of the college: his eyes widened, mouth forming a little O.
“That’s amazing,” he breathed.
“I like it,” Andrew said. “You know – there’s so much, so much antediluvian splendour in Oxford, it’s nice that they’ve got a sculpture like this here, too.” He shrugged, and then felt silly for shrugging, and stopped, and put his hands in his pockets.
“Yeah?” Jesse said. He was speaking in the same hushed tones as Andrew was now.
It was still very cold, and it had become dark hours ago. Andrew thought, let it snow, let it snow, even though he knew it wouldn’t.
“Have you ever seen the Angel?” Jesse asked.
“Once,” Andrew told him. “We were driving up the A167 – that’s a motorway. I was eight.”
Helen, in an earlier draft: "I just spent five minutes googling to make sure that was right and wondering if I should tell you to say the A167b instead and realised what I was doing and then promptly died in horror at myself."
Jesse nodded, and shivered.
“Oh, are you cold?” Andrew said, concerned.
“Not – not really,” Jesse said. “It must be the art,” he said, and Andrew grinned.
“Good art does that to you sometimes,” he agreed. “Just gives you the shivers.”
“Thanks,” Jesse said. “Thank you for the – thanks for showing this to me, it was brilliant.”
“You’re welcome,” Andrew said quietly. He could see Jesse’s eyelashes because they were standing under a streetlight, and for some reason his throat closed up on that thought. Was it possible, he thought, to be this way around someone he didn’t even really know yet? And yet it was happening.
This is A Moment, one of the many many moments where Andrew catches himself falling in love with Jesse, and is absolutely convinced that there's something there and it's all very dramatic and important until the scene deflates itself and he goes away and feels convinced that it isn't. There is a lot of second-guessing going on in his head here.
“Do you want to do anything now?” he asked abruptly.
“Sure,” Jesse said, looking startled at the change of subject. And a little disappointed.
Andrew was probably just projecting.
“What can we do? All the shops are closed.”
“We could watch a play,” Andrew suggested. “Want to go to the Oxford Playhouse and have a look? It’s only quarter past seven now. Tickets are cheap usually - £5, something like that.”
“That’ll be good,” Jesse said. “Let’s have a look.”
“Do you like plays?” Andrew asked. “Sorry, ought to have asked you that first, what if you actually really hate them, feel free to say so if you really do, by the way.”
“No, no, they’re great,” Jesse said. “I actually, uh, I actually act sometimes, and what I really like are musicals.”
Andrew gasped in delight. “Jesse Eisenberg,” he said. “I knew we were going to have tons in common.”
“Do you like musicals?” Jesse said. He sounded excited.
“Well… I’m not an expert,” Andrew admitted. “But acting! I do that sometimes too. What musicals do you like? Educate me.”
“Well, uh, this is… going to make me sound like a jerk, but you probably haven’t heard of them. Anyway, I like Pacific Overtures and Floyd Collins. Those are my top two.”
“That’s really interesting,” Andrew said sincerely. “I love it when people love things.”
Jesse laughed. “You really don’t want to hear me ramble on at great length about musicals. My mom nods and says ‘all right’ a lot. Then she just tells me to stop talking.”
“I would never tell you to stop talking, Jesse Eisenberg,” Andrew told him.
Jesse got roses on his cheeks and didn’t answer.
---
Subject: musicals & stuff
From: Andrew Garfield
Date: 15 January 2011 23:35
To: Jesse Eisenberg
I went back to my room and looked up Pacific Overtures. “The musical is set in 1853 Japan and follows the difficult Westernization of Japan, through the lives of two friends caught in the change. The title of the work is ironic, nodding toward "overture" as a musical form, noting that the initiatives of the Western powers for commercial exploitation of the Pacific nation were anything but "pacific" (or peaceable) overtures.” That sounds amazing! It’s so sad that it had to close after six months. I suppose every great artist is occasionally misunderstood by his or her people. That sounded overly Nietzschean, sorry (I actually had to look up how ‘Nietzsche’ is spelt – never know where that pesky ‘s’ goes.)
Anyway, Facebook said that your political views skew towards the ‘Very Liberal’ so I thought it was safe to show you this, which is relevant to our interests anyway: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1L8RaM7GyGI Song of the Jewish Bund (labour movement + antifascist resistance). Amazing, yeah?
Andrew x
Every uni kid's flirtation with socialism ever. Socialism and Jewish politics and music: there is literally nothing more you could want! At the beginning of the 2010-2011 academic year when the Tories were talking about raising school fees Andrew probably hopped on one of the Student Union-chartered buses with Carey and went down to London for the student protests. His sign probably said something like NO IFS, NO BUTS, NO EDUCATION CUTS.
(Then on the other side it probably said "Hi mum!" just in case he got on TV.)
---
“You what?” Ellen said the next day. They’d bumped into each other on High Street and were walking companionably together now.
“Had sandwiches together, showed him the Gormley statute, and then we watched a play. And then I emailed him,” Andrew said. total date.
“My god, you move fast, Garfield,” Ellen said. “I approve.”
Andrew squawked. “I’m not moving fast!” he said. “We’re not moving anywhere.”
“I thought you told me you’d made up songs about him in your head,” Ellen said, dodging a tour group of French schoolchildren as they meandered down Cornmarket. “Is this or is this not true?”
“True,” Andrew said. “But that doesn’t count.”
Ellen shook her head. “You are such a confusing little man.”
Like I told Helen, this was going to be Carey originally, except that what with "confusing little man" and other words I thought the diction skewed towards a North American speaker more. So, Ellen!
This scene kind of turned out being one of those critical linchpin ones in the sense that it articulated a lot of my thoughts re: characterisation of Andrew here in this fic: even as he's falling in love (!) he tells people that he's not, except that he tells people that he's not by telling people that he is and overstating it, and so when people call him out on it he's does the equivalent of "jk jk", and I'm not sure why. Perhaps because fundamentally this is a story about university and figuring out who you are/how you feel, and how love and relationships and crushes fit into all of that.
Mostly it just makes conversations with him really frustrating.
---
The JCR during the first welfare tea of term was crowded, though not as crowded as Andrew had remembered it being at the beginning of Michaelmas term - still. He elbowed his way in between a cluster of finalists, giving them an apologetic look and a cheeky smile, as the occasion demanded - and fought his way to a big mug of tea and a bit of baguette, which he proceeded to smother in hummus. He felt a hand clap on his shoulder.
"Still living off the welfare state I see, Garfield?" It is kind of awesome and ridiculous how much welfare they provide you with, mostly in the form of tea and biscuits and condoms.
It was Matt, whom Andrew hadn't seen since before the vac. Andrew whooped a little and flung his arms around him, squeezing tight. (Some of his baguette got smeared over the back of Matt’s shirt, but Matt didn’t seem to notice.) "Your bow tie is hurting my eyes," he said, letting go.
"Got this one for Christmas, it's a beaut," Matt said, stroking it fondly with his index finger. I actually do know a dude who wears bowties on a regular basis and manages to look completely cool and hipstery in them.
Andrew peered at it - green polka dots against a yellow background; it clashed horribly with the red and blue plaid shirt Matt was wearing today, but out of the sheer kindness of his heart he didn't say that. "Who gave it to you?" he asked instead, having a colour-blind grandmother in mind, or something.
"I did," a leggy ginger-haired girl volunteered, popping up behind him. Andrew, despite the presence of mind for which he was so famed, started. "Hello Andrew," she said cheerily. "Itttttttttt's…. K-Gill!"
Helen actually wondered in one of the earlier drafts if I should have given the K-Gill line to someone else - one of the boys maybe? But the killing thing is, SHE HAS ACTUALLY REFERRED TO HERSELF AS K-GILL BEFORE.
1st week
"I can't believe it," Andrew said. "She - she gave me a list of words I'm not allowed to use."
Carey giggled again. She'd been laughing pretty much non-stop since the end of their tutorial. Andrew resented her giggling, which must stop. Immediately. "She wants you to expand your vocabulary."
"She wants to curtail my vocabulary," Andrew muttered, and that set her off again.
"Think of it as a challenge," Carey said, patting him on the shoulder.
"Think of it as a chokehold," Andrew moaned, and pushed into the door to the JCR with his shoulder.
It was only five minutes past four but the room was already fairly crowded with people seeking respite from the library in the form of the tea the committee set out every weekday. Undeterred, Andrew swiped two mugs stamped with the college crest off a sideboard and elbowed his way through the throng of people gathered around the table as charmingly as he could. "Milk, Carey?" he asked loudly over his shoulder, barely catching her "Yes please."
"It's terrible," Andrew said, again over his shoulder, as he poured, the full teapot a strain on his wrist.
"What's, uh, what's terrible?" a voice said, somewhere to his right, and Andrew's head jerked up.
"Oh! Jesse!"
"It is I," Jesse agreed. "How are you?"
"Terrible, simply terrible," Andrew said sadly. "Want to hear why?"
"I'm sure I wouldn't mind," Jesse said, his smile reaching his eyes. They were even bluer now, the treacherous voice in Andrew's head told him.
Andrew sighed. “It's a long story."
"Oh," Jesse said, rather taken aback. "If you'd rather not tell it..."
"No! no!" Andrew said. "I want to tell it. Or perhaps, you'd better see it..." he thrust the essay which he'd until then been clasping under his arm, under Jesse's face.
"Read the red bits," Andrew said helpfully, as Jesse's eyes scanned the first paragraph. There being no red bits on the first side, Jesse paged slowly to the end of the essay.
"A list of words you are hereby banned from using until further notice..." Jesse read, and started to laugh.
Andrew groaned. "I'll be ruined!" he said, clutching at his hair.
"Go on, read the list," Carey said, appearing at Andrew's elbow. She took the mug of tea from him. "Thanks, Garfield." Addressing Jesse again, she said, "Read it out loud."
"'Binary. Domination. Patriarchy. Postmodernism. Connotations. Theoretical implications. Edward Said.'" Jesse said, his eyebrows improbably shooting up further with each item.
"You see how I am ruined,” Andrew said sadly.
"I'm sorry," Jesse told Andrew. "I really am."
"You're not," Andrew sulked. “No one is. No one understands. How can I not use patriarchy?"
"Some people manage to not use it in once every two sentences," Carey said.
"She has a point," Jesse said.
"This," Andrew said with some finality, "does not solve my problem. What am I going to write about?"
There was a thoughtful silence.
"You could write about the, uh, text?" Jesse offered.
Andrew gasped with mock-effrontery (he seemed to be doing a lot of that these days). "I never took you for a literary conservative."
"You insult me," Jesse said, giving a half-smile. It was like he didn't do full expressions.
"Literary theory went to his head," Carey said to Jesse, patting the appendage in question. "He can't talk about anything without talking about the binary now."
"It's true," Andrew agreed. "I have been changed forever. It's all Maggie Smith's fault."
"It was even worse last term," Carey said. "God, remember, Andrew? She took us through all those weeks of post-structuralism - then she said, 'But of course you don't really believe in all that, do you?"
"Sounds like Santa Claus all over again," Jesse said.
"Exactly!" Andrew said. "I was upset enough the first time 'round."
Biscuits were going round. Andrew made a grab at the tube and was vaguely consoled to find they were Jaffa Cakes. That very nearly compensated for Andrew not being able to cite Edward Said in his essays any more.
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Date: Monday, 5 September 2011 20:07 (UTC)THANK YOU FOR SHARING THAT.
i use this icon bc it is the closest i have to one entitled 'tease'.
Date: Monday, 5 September 2011 20:11 (UTC)I would read shit-tons of fic about Keira Knightley (beleagured lefty law student and charismatic student politician) saving the world.
Damn it woman, if you're not going to write these things then you are just not allowed to mention them. HOW AM I/THE REST OF THE INTERNET SUPPOSED TO DEAL WITH KNOWING THAT IT *COULD* EXIST BUT DOESN'T YET???
Re: i use this icon bc it is the closest i have to one entitled 'tease'.
Date: Monday, 5 September 2011 20:23 (UTC)I pine as well :(
Re: i use this icon bc it is the closest i have to one entitled 'tease'.
Date: Monday, 5 September 2011 20:31 (UTC)Re: i use this icon bc it is the closest i have to one entitled 'tease'.
Date: Monday, 5 September 2011 20:31 (UTC)Re: i use this icon bc it is the closest i have to one entitled 'tease'.
Date: Monday, 5 September 2011 20:41 (UTC)I AM THWARTED IN EVERY ASPECT, ETC
no subject
Date: Monday, 5 September 2011 20:21 (UTC)no subject
Date: Tuesday, 6 September 2011 05:26 (UTC)