Work Text:
In a dream, I saw my own life. It was morning, and I was going about my routine. Cold shower, skincare, stomach medicine, breakfast, all as usual. As I took one last glance in the mirror before leaving, I smiled at my own reflection. That crooked snaggletooth stayed the same — my ever-present identifier — but my hair was unstraightened, and there was no hint of tension between my eyebrows as I practiced pulling the muscles in my face. It seemed it was a universe where I'd grown soft; blurry around the edges; unprofessional. It seemed I wasn't me at all.
He was an actor. As an actor, his skills left much to be desired. He took too many takes, and carved out too much time from everyone else's day. Little mistakes, little expressions that slipped out from behind a lack of discipline. Naïve, childish still, was my apparent doppelgänger.
For example, the hair unmade to draw the attention of a senior. A gentle hand brushed through unruly waves; a small smile, unwillingly fond. Unkempt. Another example, the nervous, fidgeting fingers, the shifting gaze, the posture, the gait — all odd and uneven. Something that had been trained out of me long ago, and now being slowly trained out of him: long, thin fingers curled around naked wrists, holding him steady. Inexperienced. Every inch of him — reliant.
I had been moulded under firm guidance otherwise. While he never laid a hand on me, father, as he asked of me to call him, would examine my form to ensure nothing stood out, or fell out of place.
"Show no weakness, son," Unsha had said, then. "The world will not be as merciful to you." Even at my young age, I had understood the simple sentiment without question.
But, one after another, he apologised for his errors, and was forgiven before he could even bow his head. I thought the embarrassment would knock me into lucidity, or directly out of that nightmare, but I never was. Someone came to straighten his hair for him, and someone came to fix his makeup after he smudged it in a yawn. Someone was by his side as he knocked papers over, dropped the script, stumbled over his words, mispronounced, misinterpreted, delayed, hesitated. His co-workers, the staff, they all forgave him easily. Even after a dozen apologies, the pattern of errors didn't seem to grow old.
"Ivan," they said, "Don't worry about it. We all know you work so hard."
"I need to work harder," he replied. A modicum of sense was present in him still, I could give him that.
Good, the director called from behind the camera as he nearly performed to her expectations.
Green, his senior called him onset, arms crossed and expectant of better.
Greedy, his close friend called him offset, with a friendly nudge before he took his spot in front of the camera.
Silly, his other co-stars called him in the dressing room, eager to hear more of his mishaps.
Failure, I would call him, if I were not trapped, and made to watch his life in shambles as it unfolded before me. Alas, no matter how much I tried to clench my jaw, to stop his words from escaping, he would not behave. Every excess movement I knew to still, he still committed. Show no weakness, I chanted, before he opened his mouth and admitted fault.
He was a man turned inside out; raw nerves on his outside, firing freely at any stray stimuli. He was an abominable beast without a façade over muscle and sinew. What other way was there to describe his lack of composure?
And how much he lacked it when faced with a certain actor. He held his hands behind his back — a familiar gesture if he hadn't started fiddling with his fingers, and his shoulders had not visibly twitched with the obnoxious action. What use was there in his poor excuse of what was meant to be hiding, if it was still apparent to anyone watching? If your nature was a stray mutt, still stinking of the streets where they found you, refusing to clean, to change, then what use was there in burying your muzzle in your forelegs, pretending that you have no teeth?
There was nothing so special about this senior actor to warrant any of this abhorrent behaviour. He shared a devastating resemblance to Till, including his name, but the look in his eyes was different. His reactions were different. If anything, it seemed that he had picked up the composure that my own doppelgänger had misplaced absentmindedly.
I had long accepted my role as voyeur, but I had not fully embodied the meaning until Till's false double leaned over and kissed me– him. I couldn't escape from the feeling of when his lips smeared over (mine) his, makeup surely ruined; how it felt when (my) his tongue dipped to lick at a tender spot on his lower lip; the small whimper that reverberated through his body as (I) he pushed him up against the wall; of the taste of salt on his skin under (my) his teeth.
He was nothing like me; his every action proved so.
As always, it was only more apologies with him as he stepped back. Apologies for the shove, apologies for their ruined hair and makeup, apologies for the impulsiveness of it all. And when both retreated into the bathroom to fix their appearance, additional apologies were made for the very visible mark left behind on his neck.
No apologies were issued to me — why would they ever be? I was never meant to be here to witness what they both thought to be a private moment of intimacy. I was an unheard of impossibility none could consider. My sudden burst of entitlement was foolish. At least I could admit that, in meaning, and not just in words. At least I would earn it.
He got away with all that indiscretion with nothing but a light scolding. Completely undeserved, considering the wide smile I still felt pulling at his face, and the hands that were still reaching to his vice. It seemed some judgements of him from his co-workers were close to correct — he was selfish.
Back on set, he aced the scene he was struggling with in the very next take. He was an actor, through and through.
Congratulations were passed around after shooting ended, my double comfortably at the centre of attention. As much as I hated to admit it, it was warranted, for where humility once bowed its head, triumphant pride reared up without a hitch — it had me fooled completely. I should have known it as soon as I saw the same tooth poking at his lip in the mirror — he was no bark and all bite. Buried under the appearance of raw flesh was still hard bone. This was his bargaining chip. This was how he earnt his keep, and their grace. This was how Till let him off so easily.
In fact, he seemed predisposed to the trap. After a few light insults, a pout was all it took for him to be engulfed into the arms of, in his words, the brat. Even when he knew every curtain pull, he didn't attempt to escape the embrace firmly around his middle. Instead, a familiar hue creeped up the side of his face. I watched from a close vantage point, with my chin dropped to his shoulder.
"You're ridiculous," he admonished, with eyes that still flickered forward despite his deflection. I knew for a fact my doppelgänger had his gaze locked exactly where mine was, in trying to decipher what Till could ever possibly mean.
Suddenly, I felt my whole face tense. Foreign words escaped my mouth in my voice. In a breathless whisper, I heard, "You like me."
I haven't managed to carve the lingering echo of those words out of my mind.
I thought it a stress induced nightmare; a world with my control completely stripped from me, a world where I was the worst, most useless version of myself I could possibly be. As I awoke in tears, I realised I was wrong.
In that dream I wasn't myself. I lived in the wrong house, followed the wrong routine, worked at the wrong job. It was wrong — in that dream, I was happy.