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It starts as a joke. Bill and Seth are just standing there with four or so crew members, and it's getting late. Cords are being wrapped up, lights moved out of the way, keys clinking together against hands and leather bags. Bill lifts a hand, says, "Bye," and then catches Seth's eye. Just goes for it.
Seth knows it's going to happen the second Bill's dimple appears, and he stiffens momentarily, but then it's happening. Bill's hand is on his cheek and he's pulling Seth into a quick kiss on the lips. Bill smiles brightly at everyone, and then ambles away. Seth puckers his lips, hands shoved deep in the pockets of his hoodie, and looks to the side, then pointedly back at the crew, their audience, before someone claps a hand on his shoulder, and he says goodnight.
They're playing their characters. Sort of.
Except Bill has his own hair and his own voice, and he doesn't over-use his mouth to portray his 'emotions'. Seth is pretty much 'Seth' except that ... he doesn't know whether he's supposed to 'blush' or not. Which, in turn, makes him blush. Not as hotly as 'Seth' would, but involuntarily still, and real, and embarrassing. Embarrassment he hides behind his character's persona, and Bill's easy smiles. The way he slips in and out of it whenever he pleases, and the way they barely have to communicate in order to let the moment come to pass.
It's disconcerting how un-funny Seth feels the whole bit to be. Not their real one, where uncontrollable laughter takes over one or both of them every time it's not supposed to, but this. In front of the crew, in front of the others. In front of anyone who knows them... He guesses.
It's just that. Okay, if they're doing it for laughs, it should be okay to do it in front of anyone and everyone who knows them from SNL, and that would be anyone who chooses to watch their interviews, anyone who's conceivably on the other end of a camera lens that's pointing at them. But it's not. It's only around the set, once it's gone marginally quiet and dimly lit, around people who know them. Who decidedly laugh more often, and longer than they should, when Bill steps into Seth's space and ...Seth's just not sure why the intended audience is their intended audience.
When Seth is tired, crashing from a day-long adrenalin rush of anticipating meetings with heroes, meeting heroes, interacting with heroes, and making heroes laugh, he and Bill are called together for one last, abrupt, and decidedly small interview to recount the day. Seth feels like his nerves are seizing sporadically, and like he can't quite control his body, and Bill's right there, and he's bouncing, but more controlled, and Seth keeps leaning in and angling close, and Seth can't stop himself.
Bill. Bill takes a step away. And then he takes a step back. Seth tries not to watch it happen, tries to focus on the words he's saying, tries not to repeat himself too many times, to talk over Bill, to show his exhaustion, but he fails miserably. And Bill makes sure to rub out the obviousness of it all by laughing at appropriate intervals, and keeping his eyes straight ahead and somehow focused, giving the people something to look at, hopefully, other than the ragged, jittery slice of a man Seth has currently become.
In the cab ride back to their hotel, Seth, with his elbow on the door, leans his forehead into his hand and rubs at it, eyes closing almost completely before he glances sideways instead.
"Thanks." Bill flashes an expression of surprise, and Seth feels like he might pretend he doesn't know what Seth is talking about, but then Bill closes his mouth and lifts a hand to Seth's shoulder and squeezes.
"No problem, buddy. Let's go get some rest, huh?"
And Seth nods, and for some reason - he feels a little like crying.
Seth is not a weak person. He's suffered in his lifetime, and it's worn under his eyes, and the makeup artists try to cover it up, so that he looks just fine... But sometimes 'fine' is not alright, and Seth is a man and Seth admits when things are wrong.
Seth does not hide. Not for long.
This time, Bill steps up behind Seth when Seth is emoting a story to a PA with curled blonde hair, and big glasses that promote the school girl vibe the rest of her outfit tries to suggest. She sees Bill, but is nodding her head fervently at whatever Seth is saying, and Bill raises a finger to the middle of his lips, and she just barely nods her head, but she smiles.
She smiles, and Seth sees. And Seth turns around just as Bill is about to encircle him with his arms, and Bill's lips land on Seth's forehead, and his arms sag down over Seth's shoulders.
Together, they stand un-moving, waiting, pressed together and uncomfortable, and Seth sighs heavily before lifting his arms to Bill's back and patting. "Good to see you too," he says, for comedy's sake, and then Bill pats his back too. They step away at the same time, and Seth tries not to laugh too much when Bill still has his lips puckered.
"What -" Seth begins to ask.
"Your - head," Bill starts, unlocking his lips and pointing up, over Seth's head.
"Oh," Seth says, quieter, and then shakes his head. "Holding your height over me, real romantic..."
Bill takes a second, then beams, and says, "Thank you," proudly.
When Seth turns back around, and Bill's eyes lift, the PA has scurried away. No one's there to laugh.
"Well," Bill says, eyebrows furrowed.
Seth rubs at his chin, edging in on a wry sort of smile, then squeezes Bill's shoulder and walks away without another word.
When a break comes up, Bill and Seth go for weeks without seeing, or speaking to each other. It's weird, not because they usually interact at least fairly often on the set of SNL, but because usually they work on little side projects together, or have dinner once a month, or watch fucking Star Wars. They don't not see each other.
Seth realizes that it hurts to find that he's surprised when he answers his phone, french fry half-stuffed into his mouth, and hears Bill on the other end. "Woah, hey," he says, and barely chews, swallows too fast, and feels the french fry in his throat throughout the rest of the conversation.
"I feel like things got weird," Bill says. Seth hates that it sounds so honest, and hates that he's been trying not to think the same thing.
He can't hide forever... "Yeah, I think that's my fault. ...Sorry."
"What? Your fault? It's totally my fault." Seth almost smiles, because there's a laugh caught in Bill's throat, and there he is again, slipping into a character, and Seth can't blame him. It's what they do.
It's what they all do. Just slip away into someone else, because it's, more often than not, easier than being themselves. Seth stays silent long enough for Bill to sober up, and then he squeezes his eyes shut when Bill, himself again, says, "No seriously... It's pretty obviously my fault. I'm sorry if I like, blurred the lines, or whatever. I don't know why I thought it would be such a good idea."
"Sure you do," Seth says sardonically. He's a little surprised at how bitter he's acting about this. About Bill apologizing for making Seth have - perceptions of reality he never should have had.
Bill's perfectly quiet for a beat, and then in serious confusion says, "Seth."
"No," Seth says quickly, rubbing at his wrinkled forehead, and shakes his head at himself. "No, it's cool. It's not a big deal."
"What. Isn't, though?" It becomes apparent that Bill thought he was apologizing for something else, making Seth just as confused as Bill sounds.
"I'm sorry, but - Why did you call again?" Seth pushes his plate away from him when a waiter comes nearby, and it's whisked away from the table with a surprisingly sympathetic, and perceptive look of concern. Looking away, to the side of him, Seth analyzes his surroundings for a moment, and then gets up, dropping a few bills from his wallet, and begins walking away at a brisk pace. All the while asking himself in repetitive slow-motion, What the fuck?
"I," Bill stutters, "I don't know? I guess."
This is all unrealistically strange, and Seth doesn't know whether to beat himself up over it, or whether to brush it under a facade, or whether to immediately stop and pretend like literally none of it has ever happened.
"Did I annoy you with my jokes, because -" Bill asks, and Seth slows down, finally.
"No," Seth says, sincerity in his voice, throat constricting. "No," he says, and then inhales, then exhales, until his chest un-tightens. "Hey, listen, can I call you back?" He aims for light-hearted, but mostly he sounds as though he's about to walk into a Wake.
"Sure. Yeah. Sure," Bill tells him, and then as Seth is pressing the disconnect button, "Sorry."
Bill's sorry? How about Seth, who's acting like an irrational teenage girl? Seth regrets the entirety of the conversation he had with Bill three days ago, and thinks he scared Bill off from calling him, probably, ever again. Which means it's up to Seth, or they just wait until filming begins again and walk onto set with an unholy awkwardness sitting thickly between them and the chemistry that makes their segment such a hit.
Or maybe he's giving himself too much credit. It's Bill who puts on the face of this wildly endearing character and wears it like he was made to. It probably has nothing to do with Seth. Seth just says the same lines over and over again and then lets Bill - Stefon - kiss him, and that's his job. His only job.
Oh, and not to laugh. Which he does frequently, and maybe they should just replace him...
Seth has had two beers, and is watching re-runs of the old Batman series when he picks up his phone and finally does it.
"I guess I can be a little dramatic at times," Seth says quickly, into the mouth piece, as soon as Bill says 'hi'. "I didn't even know that about myself until recently. It's not the the best attribute to discover about yourself, just as a head's up. So uh... I want to apologize for that. Cause I feel like it probably made me an asshole. And I don't want to be an asshole. Or a douchebag. Either one, really, whichever one it made me"
"Neither," Bill breathes out, finding his chance to get a word in. "You were neither one," Bill reassures him.
"Really? Cause uh," Seth says, eyebrows knitting together, "I feel pretty strongly that I was."
"I didn't notice anything," Bill says, voice fluctuating into a deeper more assured 'voice' and Seth smiles for the first time in a while.
"Huh, weird," Seth says, his whole face getting in on the joke now, voice just a bit higher in accentuation.
"Like, so weird," Bill agrees. A bit Californian now. "The weirdest."
The only problem with how much he wants to laugh, is how serious he needs to be. Seth doesn't know where to go from here, because while this all makes it so much easier to just hide from everything again, become an escapist, Seth knows that if he does... things are always going to be a little bit uncomfortable. It's never going to go back to before he started...
"I have a problem," Seth tells Bill reluctantly, but seriously.
Bill clears his throat, and Seth can see his face, a mixture of worry and fear, as he asks, "What kind of a problem?"
Seth angles his head back, and to one side, the tendon on one side of his neck sticking out prominently, as his knee begins bouncing his nearly-empty beer bottle. "One where I sort of feel things about someone I'm not really comfortable feeling." Seth feels like this is the most honest, and dishonest he has ever been with anyone else and himself at the same time. He doesn't know where the dishonesty part is coming from... He feels pretty secure in the knowledge that he's gotten emotional over his relationship with - and that it isn't working out well for him.
"Oh. That does sound like a problem."
"Yeeeah. It," Seth begins, then rolls his eyes, "Sucks, actually."
He can sense Bill nodding his head on the other end. "That totally sucks."
"Yep," Seth says, with a pop of his lips.
"I'm sort of sensing that I know who this person is," Bill asks. And Seth's heart clenches in a somewhat sickening way.
Rubbing one of his eyes and then blinking, Seth thinks, Shit, and then says, "Mmm... yeah."
Bill sucks in a breath and Seth feels like... he feels like... Like this is all one big lie, one huge misunderstanding. That he doesn't, and never will want Bill Hader in any other way than he already has him. Like it'd be foolish to even consider that their relationship might ever transcend to any other level, even if it's one-sided. It's a fucking lie, he tells himself. But then Bill just makes a small noise of assent, and Seth feels like he's been hit with bricks.
"I'm sorry," Seth tells him. "I know this isn't - it's not okay. It's completely not okay, and it's even unprofessional." Like their friendship is based on decorum. Bill seems to think the same thing because he snorts quietly, and then goes silent again. "Well anyway. I want - you," Seth stumbles, "to know that it won't be affecting anything anymore. I've got it handled."
That is a lie, but he thinks it's a good one, one that will benefit the people it needs to, and put him in his place, like it needs to. He'll get there. It's human nature to recover from life's pitfalls, even if life's pitfalls are really really stupid, and annoying.
"Ohh," Bill says, like he's not-humoring someone, and Seth's jaw clenches as he removes the phone from his cheek for a second to collect himself before he reacts illogically, angrily. "Okay, well, as long as you've got it covered." Seth knows that by pretending to be condescending, Bill is opening himself up more for Seth to just... let it out, to become therapeutic, but it still stings.
Breathing out heavily through his nose, Seth grits his teeth and then says as politely as possible (because it's not Bill he's angry at, not really), "I have to go."
"No you don't," Bill says seriously, knowingly.
"No. I don't. But I'm going to."
"If you're sure," Bill says, uncertain now, giving Seth another opening.
"Yeah," he breathes out, "Bye."
"See you," Bill says, and Seth flinches minutely at how dis-heartened he sounds.
Seth goes way too long without talking to any of his cast mates. Kristen calls one day, out of the blue, and asks how he's doing. Which, if it wasn't suspicious all on its own, her tone certainly would have made it that way.
"I'm good," he says, skepticism obvious. "How are you?" he drawls, pausing his DVR.
Seth didn't used to watch so much t.v. in-between work, but he doesn't have anything to work on anymore, not anything important, unless you count the loose cabinet door under his sink, which annoys the hell out of him every time he goes to wash the dishes. But it's not important enough.
"Awesome," she says shortly.
"Great," he replies. After a pregnant pause, he continues, "Well, it was nice talking to you."
"Are you possibly, maybe... I don't know, kind of into someone right now?"
"Why, do you want to go on a date?" he asks, knowing it will frustrate her. Seth almost feels ashamed of himself for not expecting this. If there's anyone who would actually care about Seth's feelings, or any other male human being's, on set, it would be Kristen. Someone who's worked more with Bill than anyone else.
Making a strangled-cat noise, Kristen says seriously, "Oh come on, Seth..."
"I'm not in love with you, if that's what you're asking. And if you're asking about anyone else, it's none of your business, is it?" Seth asks. Not in an angry way, just in an I Know You Have Good Intentions, But You Can Stop There way.
"Are you in love with him?"
"Kristen," Seth says, voice sing-songy in warning.
Defeatedly, Kristen says, "Okay but. I think it's awesome. And, I just want you to know that."
It doesn't weigh as heavily as it should, until he hangs up after they say goodbye, that Bill knows way too much. That Kristen even thought Seth might seriously be insinuating that he's in love with Bill, means so much more about how much Seth didn't mean to say, but apparently did.
And he's not. He's not in love with Bill. That'd be way too much, and off-the-scale cheesy. In the grand scheme of things, he probably barely even knows Bill.
He's not. He's not in love with Bill.
'Uh hey, so... I may have just realized that I talk too much sometimes, when I get drinks with Kristen, and if she called you - she's nodding her head - uh, thanks, Kris - then I am really sorry and there's no - stop laughing! - What? - Oh yeah, just, I'm sorry about that; she was probably fucking high off her ass, so ignore whatever the hell she said. I know I do. - Ew!'
That's probably the most interesting message Seth has ever had left on his machine, and it's sort of unfortunate that he knows he should erase it, for sanity's sake but... Just in case. It is sort of funny. In a really pathetic way. So Seth lets it live there, on a tape, in his kitchen, next to his phone and jar of pens.
Seth doesn't sleep the night before he's scheduled to be back on set. He knows that Bill won't even be in the segment today (which is rare, and Seth, for a bleating heart-attack of a second, wonders if Bill called in a favor from Lorne) but the likelihood of Bill being there for other reasons is... huge.
In the morning when he rolls out of bed after finally closing his eyes for twenty minutes, he dry-heaves when he's brushing his teeth, and then tiredly slaps himself across the face before pouring two thermoses full of coffee.
This is it. Bill's standing there, talking to Lorne behind Camera C and keeps giving Seth side-long glances that Seth's ashamed to admit he's receiving alarmingly well for someone who should be pointedly not looking Bill's way. But they're paused during rehearsal since Lorne has something overwhelmingly important to talk about with Bill, apparently, and so he and Kenan are pretending to wait patiently behind the Weekend Update desk, until they can have their writer focused once again.
Before rehearsal resumes, Bill gives Seth a thin smile, and nods his head, then gives a short wave, and begins to walk away. Seth finds that his hand is more or less paralyzed where it lies on the desk top, and settles for opening and closing his mouth like a gawking fish.
He's not sure how much more stupid a person can feel before it seriously affects their overall outlook on life. It's beginning to look like a very downward spiral.
He knows it's got to stop, that he is an adult, who is in control of his brain, and his own feelings, and he tells himself that if he doesn't stop - everything - that he's going to... It doesn't matter what, because there's no other option.
The next week when Seth walks into the studio, really nervous about having a live audience for the first time in what feels like forever, Kristen gives him the most awkward smile he's ever seen, as he passes her to get to Makeup.
Well, the most awkward smile until he sees her approaching him from behind, her reflection in the mirror. "He-ey," she says.
"Hi," he says, like 'hi' is some kind of witty joke.
"Can I talk to you for a second?" She looks, instead of at him, meaningfully at the artist, who nods his head, and leaves the room.
Seth watches Kristen's reflection sit down, watches her reflection put a hand on his forearm, but feels Kristen grip it. "Look, I know it's not my place," she says, and Seth looks down, then at her hand. "But," she sighs. "This is bullshit," she says, now with a very matter-of-fact tone of voice. "You're both adults. Deal with it. At least talk to each other in full sentences for once in your life. And stop reading each other in favor of speaking honestly.
Because as much as you two assholes probably think you can get out of each other from one look, you've been talking over the phone, it sounds like, and that's a whole mess of Not Gonna Work... Use your words. You're big boys now, okay?" she asks, and while it's all very... cavalier, she squeezes Seth's arm again, and he can feel the love, the intent behind it. Seth nods, in a state of numbness, and Kristen leaves the room, and just as quickly, there's a cosmetic brush tickling his face again.
Week three. Stefon is on... It's a little harder to ignore Stefon's wardrobe than it used to be, now that there's all this... affliction between them, so Seth just folds his arms over the desk, and looks straight ahead, to speak. "Kristen's kind of mean," he says to Bill, half-way out of himself in into someone else.
Bill laughs, surprised. "Yeah, I know."
"Apparently I'm supposed -" Seth intended to stay in his almost-persona, but now that he's actually speaking, it doesn't feel right. His eyes drop to look at the crevasses in his heands, the different pigments, things he normally never ever considers. "I'm supposed to talk to you."
"Which you are," Bill says in faux-aid.
Seth nods his head quickly, and then says, "Yeah, but I'm -" He dares to look up at Bill, and realizes that he'd forgotten himself for a second, forgotten where he was sitting, what he'd be looking up at and then begins laughing irreverantly. Even more hyena-like when a piece of fake hair falls into Bill's eye.
"Oh my god," Seth says, and he means to finish the thought with, 'I will talk to you afterward, okay?' but then Bill presses his hand to Seth's back, and it's warm through his blazer, and then Bill rolls the chair so that their knees are touching, and Seth is taken back to that place. Back to where he feels like crying for no reason at all, over nothing and everything, where he's exhuasted, but this time not physically, and from entirely different emotions.
He stops laughing pretty quickly, the sound ebbing away, and being replaced by silence. He doesn't look up at Bill, focuses on his hand on his knee, by Bill's knee, and breathes out through his open mouth. When Bill ducks his head down he asks, hushed - both glad they don't have their mics on this time around - "Are you okay?"
Seth wants to say yes, then wants to shake his head 'no'. "Maybe. - I don't know," he says unevenly.
The producers begin counting down to what's supposed to be a professional run-through, and as they straighten up, and seconds before Bill slides his chair away from Seth, Bill says quickly, "I don't make assumptions about people."
Seth doesn't have time to figure out what that might mean.
After they finish their run-throughs, both remaining quiet throughout, but for their lines, and interacting with the crew when asked to, Bill has to stay. He's got more than one segment, of course, and Seth gets to go home.
"Hey!" Seth, admittedly, jumps in surprise as he's stuffing his water bottles into his bag and preparing to leave.
"Hi," he says, and then shakes his head, thinking of Stefon and 'Seth'.
Bill takes hold of Seth's elbow, and Seth tries not to flush - it's obvious Bill's in a hurry to get back to rehearsal, and that would probably slow him down. Not to mention, be really embarrassing for Seth. "Call me later - or - no - come over. Tonight. We need to -" He waves his free hand around and Seth gets it. Clear the air.
Nodding, Seth pulls the zipper of his bag, and Bill looks like - well, like he wants to do, or say something, but then he nods his head back, and leaves.
Seth has to take a second to re-learn how to breathe before he walks out to his car with the unsettling feeling of light-headedness surrounding his entire body.
He feels like he knows what that look meant, but refuses to believe it. He's not being foolish anymore, he reminds himself tersely, as he turns up the radio and drives into traffic.
Seth knocks on Bill's door before he has a chance to back down and leave. He stands on the balls of his feet and bounces, rubbing his hands together as he waits, as if it's cold, but it's just nerves.
He's thought about this a lot, wondered if it wouldn't be for the best to just stop talking until one of them leaves SNL, and then this conversation never has to - be. But things have been twisting up all kinds of wrong inside of him this past year, and Seth thinks maybe - just maybe he's ready to be done.
This night must be for closure, for moving on. For Bill to tell Seth that they're really good friends, and that Seth means a lot to him, but that hey, he knows this really nice girl that Seth would love. She's an actress, she's pretty, she and Seth'll get along great.
Seth even wonders what her name is, as Bill opens the door. Watches, finally stilling himself, as Bill draws finger and thumb around his lips, drawing it to an 'o', stretching it before dropping his hand to his side, and welcomes Seth in more like he would an acquaintance, then a best friend. That tugs at his heart again.
"Hey," Seth says quietly, as he steps in and avoids looking Bill in the eyes.
Bill says, "Hi," and then his hands are on Seth's shoulders, and the door closes, and for a second Seth is in a dulled-panic, wondering just what is happening before he realizes Bill is trying to take his jacket for him.
"Oh. Okay. Thanks," Seth says, bewildered, and wriggles his arms out of his sleeves. Bill grunts in reply, and Seth wants to laugh, but can't quite manage getting passed the very idea of it. Then he wants to joke around, grunt back, initiate some sort of caveman conversation and see where that gets them. But he can't do that either. At least, not tonight.
Once the jacket's off, and Seth is released, he steps forward a few steps, and Bill pats him on the back as he turns toward his kitchen and says, "Just sit whereever. Wine?"
"Yeah, sure," Seth says, wiping his clammy hands on his jeans as he enters the living room. The t.v. is off, and somehow ominous in its silence. Seth clears his throat, and sits on the couch cushion nearest the front door. Just in case he reacts as badly as he thinks he might to whatever Bill says is best for them. And he'll let Bill make that call, because really, Seth's the one with the issue here, and he's the one inflicting it upon others. Bill deserves, at least, to decide how it stops.
With wine glass stems between his fingers, Bill rounds the corners, and offers a half-smile, as Seth takes the glass closest to him. Then Bill goes around the coffee table to sit on the other couch. Seth doesn't know whether it's on purpose or... He looks down at his glass, then sets it on a coaster. Drinking, actually, probably won't help his situation much. "Um, thank you," he says belatedly.
"No. I mean, thanks for coming," Bill says, then takes a sip, red staining his upper lip just slightly.
Seth nods his head, then rubs his palms against his thighs, down to his knees again. His nerves are beginning to jump again; he doesn't think it would be wise to stay long. "I should probably -" he starts, at the same time as Bill speaks.
"Sorry that this is so - sorry." Seth shakes his head, looking momentarily at Bill, then towards the door, and changes his mind about the wine, just to have something non-inappropriate to do. "Well, the thing of it is..." Bill folds his hands together on his knees and seems to study his thumb nails as he collects his thoughts. Just how does one go about letting people down gently?
Lips thin, Seth offers what he hopes is a helpful smile, to encourage Bill to continue on, just shoot the horse already.
"I already told you, I don't like to make assumptions about people. I'd rather they tell me what they're thinking when they're - when they're ready, but I think - before - when you were trying to tell me, that I may have ...screwed up?" he asks, raising his eyebrows. Seth sits unmovingly for a long moment, before he realizes: Bill is actually asking him.
Breathing out something that sounds like, 'Oh,' Seth shakes his head. Sure, maybe Bill scared him away from saying the direct, honest-to-God truth, but Seth had been having a rough time of it on his own. Maybe Bill - maybe he, hadn't been ready for it after all. "No," he says simply. If anything, it was both of them who'd stopped it, and that may have very well been the best thing for that moment. Seth couldn't, and wouldn't, blame Bill for any part of this.
With a quietly-strangled noise (a noise a goose, maybe, might make) beforehand, Bill presses onward. "I guess what I need to know, from you, then, is if you were talking... about me."
Seth knew this was coming, sort of. He hadn't actually expected to have to confirm it, that Bill would just go on and deal with it as though Seth had already said it out loud, but... First he blinks, and then Seth mumbles, "Yes." It comes out a mixture of statement and question, still looking for an easier way out, plausible deniability in case things go south. He doesn't know what he thinks could possibly happen; it just feels - safer.
Bill's eyebrows shoot up, and Seth's furrow, because honestly? He's surprised? "Oh," Bill says around an emerging smile, and an almost-laugh. "Oh..." he says more softly, a little like he finds it endearing, but then he looks - sad, and Seth is still. Not sure where this is going anymore.
"Um," Seth says, and then has his hand on the cushion, thinking of pushing himself up and walking to the door, excusing himself to go have a nice long think. But he knows that now, it just wouldn't do any good. There are more questions now than he'd expected, and if he leaves now, not a single one will have been answered.
When Seth looks at Bill, really looks at him for the first time tonight, scrambling for something, he sees that Bill looks flustered. Genuinely flustered, and he's wringing his hands in his lap, and looking at the coffee table like he can see through it. This is uncomfortable, Seth realizes suddenly, and it settles something within his stomach, within his chest, and within his mind.
"Bill," Seth asks, a smile hinting at the corner of his lips. "Did you -"
"I don't..." Bill shakes his head, and then he looks at Seth. "God." Seth laughs a little, and then - "That is so weird, because I totally thought that you were like, offended, at first, by what I was doing." An explanation. Fucking finally, Seth thinks. "But then it all got... way," Bill says, eyes bulging, "confusing, and I was lost, and you seemed lost and angry. God I thought you were so mad at me."
Seth's face cracks into a real smile, a smile made for laughing, and, he shakes his head. "I know I - I acted like it, and I'm sorry, I really am," he says, sincerity behind the relieved smile. At least there's this, he tells himself. Friendship without misunderstanding.
It feels good. Better than he remembered.
"No," Bill says, like Seth's apology is some crazy idea, "Don't be..."
"I was just frustrated," Seth says, creating a tepe with his fingers, and bringing his thumbs up to squeeze at the top of his nose, looking down through his hands at his wine glass. "And. Worried, you know?"
"Totally," Bill says. Seth looks over at him in a flash, eyes narrowing, head craning back. "I've been feeling it too, man. It's weird to suddenly -" Bill stops, probably thinking his point doesn't need to be made, because Seth is on the same page. But. They're not. Are they?
Bringing his hands down slowly, to his lap, Seth cocks his head to one side. "Are you telling me that you -" he points at Bill, and then turns his finger on himself, "And I? Wait. What?" At this point, it's just better to ask for straight answers. Vague answers have been the devil's advocate for far too long in this carousel of madness.
"What?" Bill asks dumbly. "What?" Bill takes another drink, suddenly becoming fidgety again. When he swallows exxaggeratedly, he slides himself up off the couch and comes to sit beside Seth, and with a shaking hand, places it on his knee. "Um, Seth." This time he sounds like he's talking to a Mental patient. Which is nice, and Seth gets another little smile, suspicious, on his face, and his pulse kicks up a notch. "I... feel the same way - I think anyway, it's hard to tell these days - about you, as you do about me." He punctuates the sentence with a short nod of his head. "There. Not as hard as I thought that'd be."
"'There?' Really?" Seth is not... unhappy, but bewildered and what? "I'm sorry, you're saying you like me?"
Bill rubs at one side of his face, and then pats Seth's knee, purposefully being condescending. "Yeah, dude." As if it's been obvious this entire time Seth has been beating himself up for every mild feeling he's ever had for Bill.
"Great!" Seth throws his hands up in the air. He gives up. He's tried, and tried to be logical about this entire situation, and now he's going to throw it right out the motherfucking window because, Really?
Kristen was right. This is bullshit.
Seth grabs Bill's head in his hands, palms covering his ears, on their way down, and pulls Bill forward. Plants a kiss right on his stupid, wine-y lips, and then slumps back into the couch, letting his hands fall comfortably where they may.
"Okay," Bill says. Then blinks, and then tries to get comfortable too. Even throws a leg over Seth's lap, and Seth... god help him, tries not to get overly amped up over the sliver extra of touch, and throws his hands on top of Bill's shin. In silence they sit, and wait, for something weird to happen, some confusing, anti-clarifying thing to happen, and when it doesn't, Bill starts to chuckle, hand shaking on top of his stomach. "Wow," he sighs happily.
Seth turns his head over on the leather couch, cheek pressed up against the coolness of it, and looks at Bill with a huge grin on his face.
Seth looks suggestively at the camera. Stefon's crazy. Stefon - Oh, Stefon. Stefon is... ad-libbing. What is Stefon doing?
Oh. Stefon is taking Seth's face in his hands and he's kissing Seth's lips, and Seth's eyes are widening, and then Stefon's opening up his lips, and he's not fake-kissing Seth like he did in the St. Patrick's Day episode. Stefon is kissing Seth, and Seth is...
Trying not to blush too hard at the camera when Stefon rolls out of view, and he's left there with raw-red lips, after having quite thoroughly (though in a timely manner) kissed Stefon back.
"Um. From Weekend Update, I'm Seth Meyers! Goodnight!" Seth calls out to them all, face losing some of its stiffness as he speaks, giving a simple wave, before looking off-screen at a rather giddy-looking Bill, and Lorne, who's giving him a thumb's up. How nice of him.
"That," Seth stays, hiding a grin, not well, but trying anyway, "Was not in the script." He's in the driver's seat, and about to drive them home (well to his home, for now) after probably the funnest shoot he's ever had.
Bill is cracking up beside him at just the mention of it, eyes squinting involuntarily as spittle makes its way passed his lips as he tries to hold back the laughter. Seth shakes his head, and smiles helplessly as he grips the steering wheel.
Squeezing Seth's thigh, Bill finally quiets himself down and begs Seth's attention. With his other hand, he takes Seth's cheek into his palm and rubs it. "I know," he says sweetly, but the twinge in Seth's jaw says he can see what's coming from a mile away. "It was hilarious," Bill says, quickly breaking back into a hit of laughter as he falls into Seth's chest.
Seth rubs his arm, until Bill can handle himself, and then pecks his lips before turning the ignition. "Sorry," Bill lies, head on Seth's shoulder before they pull out of the lot.
Seth gives Bill a sideways glance, then takes Bill's hand from his thigh, and holds it until he needs it to shift gears.