Work Text:
(These are my ghosts, the spaces amid love.)
Chris sat alone in his trailer and clutched a hot mug of coffee with icy hands. He couldn’t stand staying in the craft services area one second longer, with all those sympathetic faces, all those concerned looks.
I should never have agreed to making this movie, Chris thought. Remakes always suck anyway. And seriously, what am I trying to do?
But he knew the answer to that question. He was trying to prove a point, to himself, and to the world. And there’d been other deaths, other ghosts. You couldn’t be in the business as long as he was now without dying a dozen times in front of the camera, without losing your loved one a dozen times over. And of course it was always worse when there was personal history involved, a friendship, a romantic relationship. It wasn’t always easy to keep fiction and reality completely apart. After all, you were supposed to bring all your most intense emotions to the table for scenes like that. But damnit, the death scenes in Star Trek hadn’t gotten to him like that.
With burning eyes Chris stared at the cover of the original movie. He’d just watched it again the previous night, as reference to what he wanted to put into his performance. “Ghost.” One of the classics that had never failed to make him cry. Zach had always teased him about that, about how he cried basically at the drop of a hat. But gently, with a smile in his dark eyes. He’d hold Chris in his arms, rub his back, and let him cry.
“Why am I doing this to myself?” Chris muttered. He put the untouched cup of coffee on the table. This remake of “Ghost” with a homosexual couple had already been the target of a lot of criticism. The project had been accused of being a clichéd tearjerker and as a cheap way to cash in on a classic. Chris curled in on himself on the narrow couch of the trailer. Because he knew why he was doing this. Even if it was a sentimental homage, it was also an important statement. Because this film was not about marriage equality. That the protagonists were both male was not the point. The point was that death destroyed gay couples just like any other happily married couple. “Representation matters,” Chris whispered to himself. “Real representation.” That had always been important to Zach.
He closed his eyes and tried to focus on the next scene instead of the cold nausea that had gripped his stomach. He imagined he heard the door of the trailer open and close, but he didn’t look up.
“Baby,” Zach murmured and pulled him into a tight embrace, “it’s just a movie. I’m not going to leave you for a long, long time yet.”
Chris didn’t try to keep back his tears. He clung to his husband and cried, finally letting go. “But when you do,” he asked, “will you come back to haunt me?”