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“You’ll get cold out here.”
Ging turns, his eyes meeting Pariston’s as he steps out from the bedroom and onto the balcony. A tulle and fur robe is wrapped around the pale, pink flesh of his body; even in the late hours of night, he was performing. It was nothing like Ging had ever seen before, even though he had heard the rumors — there were certain people, certain personalities that just suited stardom. They burned so bright that the only way to fully capture them was through cellophane and studio lighting.
Ging taps his cigarette against the stone edge of the balcony, looking up at the sky. “You think? It doesn’t really get cold here, does it?”
“Or maybe you and I are just different,” Pariston suggests as he approaches Ging, standing by his side. Without asking, he takes the cigarette from Ging, taking a puff. “We come from different worlds, don’t we?”
Ging smirks, watching as Pariston smokes. It was a fleeting sight, a moment of enthralling imperfection. How long could he commit it to memory?
Was that why film had been invented? To counteract the fallibility of memory?
“You don’t know the half of it,” Ging agrees, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
“No, but I would like to.”
“Would you now?”
“Yes.”
“And what does my story have to offer you?”
Pariston opens his mouth, as though he was about to protest, but shuts it soon after. There was no need for formalities, no need for personal feelings and histories to muddy their situation even more. Pariston was a suspect, an alleged murderer. Ging was nothing more than a wandering detective, the man who would find out whether or not Pariston had been the one to reach for the gun.
At least, that was how it should have been.
“I can’t stand your whole holier than thou attitude,” Pariston snaps, curling his lips into a frown. Even his discontentment was beautiful, though it did not seem to entirely match his features. Bitterness seemed to infect his entire personality, yet his eyes held softness and humility, so much so that Ging momentarily found himself feeling that Pariston had a point.
“Eh? I’m just saying — what’s knowing about an island boy gonna do for your Hollywood lifestyle? I don’t want your pity, and I certainly don’t want whatever twisted fascination that you seem to have with me.”
“You say that, yet you’re smoking on my balcony. Living in my guest room. Wearing my old clothes.”
“I’ll buy new clothes, then. Soon as Cheadle pays me.”
“It’s not about the clothes,” Pariston replies, his voice so firm that it nearly shocks Ging out of his skin.
Right. It was easy to forget the man was more than just a face on a screen. He had studied Shakespeare, hadn’t he? Chekhov. The Greeks.
Pariston didn’t just have a commanding face, he had a commanding presence. Everything about him, from his manner of dress, to his speech, to his voice, seemed almost otherworldly. Everywhere he went, there were people who would turn to face him, who felt attracted to him in the same way a moth felt drawn to the flame; they were fascinated by what they could not understand, what flickered before them and seemed to burn so brightly. Pariston would feed into it, tell each fan that he loved them, sign autographs and respond with gratitude and cheerfulness to every love letter.
It was pitiable for both parties involved. For Pariston’s fans, devoted and lonely as they were, he was feeding into a fantasy that would never be. He would craft them daydreams written with gold ink, signed and sealed with addresses scrawled in cursive. For Pariston, he subjected himself to a state of non-being — he was human, except for all the ways that he was not, except for all the ways that he was not so easily consumable. His fans did not want the moody Pariston, the Pariston that often reeked of fruity liquor, the Pariston who had a tendency to resort to his sharp tongue and impulsive tactics to get someone, anyone to stay.
“If it’s as simple as you say it is, then why don’t you turn me in already?”
Ging looks back at Pariston with his eyes widened in shock, but any disbelief dissipates just a few seconds later. Of course Pariston knew about what Ging had found, he had left it out in the open. Nothing was ever so coincidental; just as Ging had been testing Pariston, picking fights to witness the depth of his rage, Pariston was testing Ging, wanting to see the depth of his loyalty.
Up until now, Ging had been loyal as a dog.
“I’ve been waiting until the evidence is in the right place to do anything,” Ging dismisses.
“You’re lying.”
“Am I now?”
“You are.”
“Well, then, what do you think the truth is?”
“I think you’re a man terrified by the depth of his desires,” Pariston starts, his voice low and nearly breathless. “There’s a wildness to you, one you try to repress every time you move to a new town, but repression never works does it? So you move to Milwaukee, Minnesota, New York. How many times will you run away, Mr Ging? What will it take for you to realize that running away, no matter how good you are at it, never works?
“I also refuse to believe your claim that you remove your personal life from your cases. I’ve heard all about your little escapades in Santa Fe.” Pariston states, staring into Ging’s eyes with a gaze so sharp it seemed to be made of steel.
He’s been caught red-handed. Ging opens his mouth to respond, to argue, to deflect, but Pariston’s eyes made it clear that there was no point in further evasion. All he could do to respond was laugh. “And what the hell do you know about Santa Fe?”
“I’m a powerful man, Mr. Ging. I have ways of figuring out what I need to know.”
Ging clenches his jaw. “You accusing me of something?”
“That depends. Is there something to accuse you of?”
Ging’s eyes dance with Pariston’s. He wants to end the whole thing there, to abandon composure and give in to impulse, to leave the other man bruised and beaten until he’s coughing up blood; he knows Pariston would do the same to him, if not for the circumstance. The case meant there was a tight leash on him, yet Ging always found himself feeling like he was the one being led in unprecedented directions.
His fists clench at his side. He inhales, moves to take another cigarette from his pocket, but Pariston places the one he was smoking back between Ging’s lips.
“It’s a shame to waste nicotine.”
Fuck. There it is again. The burning in his chest, in his stomach. The feeling of Pariston’s slender fingers against his lips, their shakiness and how the cool contradicts the warmth of the smoke that fills his lungs.
It was a feeling unlike anything Ging had ever known before and it unsettled him. It also left him deeply curious, hungering for more.
They continue to smoke in silence, peace surrounding them in the cool of night. Pariston complained that the stars weren’t visible in Los Angeles. Ging talked about how, on a clear night in the middle of New Mexico, all you could see was stars.
“Where do you think you’ll go after this case is over?” Pariston asks as Ging extinguishes the last bit of the cigarette against the balcony. His expression is guarded, and Ging feels a vague stinging in his spleen.
“Haven’t really thought about it,” Ging admits, though he isn’t quite sure why. There was no need for Pariston to know what he planned to do after the case ended; Pariston would be imprisoned, after all. “I never think about these things, just wander until I find something right. Why?”
Pariston hums to himself, a small smile on his face. “Hm? Oh, I was just thinking, it might be nice to run away together, get away from all of this mess.”
Ging knew what Pariston meant — the paparazzi, the casting directors, the rumors, the tabloids, the parties. The glamor existed not in spite of the rot, but to cover it up; everything in Hollywood was an obfuscation, a manipulation, a lie. It made Ging wonder, in the back of his mind, if Pariston’s case had been a matter of situation rather than senseless violence, or if the lines had blurred along the way.
The crime scene had been brutal, one of the worst he had ever seen.
What could possibly drive a person to that point?
“It’s a waste thinking about, isn’t it?” Pariston muses, looking away. There was a shyness in his behavior that was uncharacteristic of him, or that should have been uncharacteristic of him; it left Ging wondering if he understood the other man at all. “There’s only one way this ends, right?”
Ging’s breath stills. The answer was simple: of course there’s only one way this ends. For some reason, though, he found himself hesitant to speak what was so obviously true, to redraw the lines that felt as though they were slowly becoming blurred, to put a mark of finality on the sense of companionship that was growing between them.
“You would hate how I live.” Ging chokes. It is the only thing that he can say to justify his actions, to justify the end that he knows is bound to come.
Before Ging can say anything else, there’s the feeling of soft lips against his, a kiss that was unnatural and unpracticed, but not entirely unwelcome. He let out a hot breath against Pariston’s body, holding him in place by the arm. He tasted like expensive wine, cheap cigarettes, blood and tears.
The kiss was gentler than Ging had ever imagined it being, though he hadn’t realized he’d imagined it until that very moment, and by the time his brain caught up with his body, the kiss was long over. Pariston had returned to his spot a few feet away on the balcony, and Ging was left uncertain of what had just happened or what it meant for them, what it meant for the case.
“Promise me, that if worse comes to worst, you’ll be the one to kill me.”
Ging turns his head to Pariton, shocked by his boldness. Was he really in any position to be making such a bold negotiation? To determine how he would die, even when his capture was supposed to ensure powerlessness? Was it just to give him so much freedom when his victims had been given none?
Then again, it was much more complex than that, wasn’t it?
Then again, had Ging ever cared about things being just?
“Yeah,” Ging promises, nodding his head slightly, the muscles on his face pulled into something serious. He could see how Pariston looked over at him with confused eyes, cautious yet hopeful. There was no reason for Ging to be agreeing to something so careless, something so childish, yet he found himself unable to refuse. “Yeah, I promise I’ll be the one to kill you.”
Wasn’t it only fair? In a game of cat and mouse, it was only correct that the cat claimed their prize after chasing for so long. If anything, Ging owed this to Pariston, a way of saying thank you for all the fun they had been having up until this point. Even if he didn’t understand all of Pariston’s motivations, even if he didn’t understand Pariston, that didn’t make it any less real, did it?
“I have a shoot in the morning,” Pariston says, interrupting Ging’s stream of consciousness. He takes one final inhale before stepping away from the balcony, his robe still blowing in the cool night wind. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
It wasn’t a question, it was a promise, an acknowledgment that even though the end was approaching, their game had not yet come to an end.
Ging reached into his pocket, only to find the pack of cigarettes missing.