Chapter Two #2
“Are you under the impression that people can schedule their panic attacks and migraines for when they’re at home? Genuinely
curious. You can leave anytime, you know!” He makes a shooing gesture toward the door, not something he’d do to anyone else,
not even Edie (especially not Edie).
Charlie flinches a little, and Simon enjoys the dopamine hit he gets whenever he cracks Charlie’s facade of relentless cheerfulness.
Then Charlie puts on the slightly constipated expression he uses when his character has just lost a crewmember. “Are you okay?”
he asks, like he didn’t just ask the same thing two minutes ago.
For one hysterical moment, Simon imagines answering honestly. No, he isn’t okay. He left okay in the rearview mirror nearly
a year ago when his migraine meds started fucking with his old anxiety meds, and since then he’s relying on much-less-effective
anxiety meds. He isn’t okay, but he also isn’t getting three migraines a week.
“I’m fine as long as I have my medicine,” Simon says pointedly. “And as long as people don’t barge into my trailer and accuse
me of drug trafficking.”
Charlie looks torn between embarrassment and offense.
On anyone else it would look ridiculous.
On Charlie it looks—it doesn’t matter what it looks like, because Simon’s quitting this show and will peacefully live out his years not thinking about what Charlie Blake looks like.
In a few weeks he’ll be in New York, where he’ll have a job that doesn’t involve spaceships and where he won’t have any coworkers he wants to sexily murder.
“I stopped by to ask if you wanted to come to the after party at my house. It’s after the wrap party.”
“I know how after parties work, thanks.”
“You could bring Jamie.”
Simon nearly says that of course he’d bring Jamie, because Jamie’s been his plus one to everything for years. But Charlie
speaks first. “Partners are invited.”
“Jamie and I aren’t together,” Simon says before he can investigate why he needed to clarify that particular point.
“Oh God, I’m so sorry.” Charlie looks at the pair of salads, like he thinks maybe Jamie dumped him midway through lunch.
“It’s been a while.” It’s been five years, but Simon’s used to people assuming he and Jamie are still together, because some
straight people have a hard time with the idea that you can be friends with someone you’ve had sex with.
“Oh.”
“We’re friends,” Simon explains.
“That’s nice,” Charlie says, sounding perplexed.
Charlie isn’t the kind of straight person who should need this explained to him, because he’s friends with Alex, and also Bethany in the costumes department, and probably every other woman he’s dated.
He accumulates friendships like some kind of snowball of extroversion, always gathering and never letting go.
It makes Simon—who has one friend and a handful of people whose texts he mostly returns—feel panicky, but also, maybe, a little ashamed.
Simon claps his hands together. “What a fun conversation this is. We should do it more often.”
For a horrible moment, Charlie’s face brightens. Then he seems to register the sarcasm and his expression closes off. Simon
feels like one of nature’s greatest monsters for the split second before remembering this is the same man who’s spent the
last month somehow depriving Simon of blueberry muffins.
“Anyway, you’re invited. Jamie’s invited.” Charlie’s hands are in his pockets, his gaze on the wall behind Simon’s head. “People
swim. So, like. Bathing suits.”
“Thank you for explaining how to use a pool. Please go now.”
When Charlie leaves, Jamie immediately enters, an expression of shit-stirring ecstasy on his face, and Simon doesn’t need
to ask whether he eavesdropped.
“Charlie Blake is the only living person who thinks you need to be told not to skinny dip,” Jamie says, dropping into the
chair next to Simon’s. “Also, why did he invite you in the first place?”
“He always asks.” This is the first time he’s invited Simon in person, though. Usually the invitation arrives in the form
of a message in the group chat Alex keeps re-adding him to. “He invites the whole cast, but he knows I’ll say no.”
Charlie’s parties are probably loud and crowded, filled with various kinds of smoke and appetizers that’ve been left out too
long for food safety purposes; the kind of parties where if you open the wrong door, you find your actual coworkers having
sex with one another. Simon’s policy about all these things is a firm no thanks.
“I’ll come along if you want company,” Jamie says, as if there’s any question of Simon attempting a social event without him.
If the past is anything to go by, Jamie is right on time for a rebound. There is literally nobody on the cast or crew of Out There who would be a worse choice than whoever Jamie will pick if left up to his own devices.
“Okay,” Simon says. “We’re going.”
In the last episode of the season, Charlie’s character tries to rescue Simon’s character from a hostage situation. Something’s
wrong with the escape shuttle, and Jonathan Hale is insisting that Luke West leave him behind and save himself.
“Just—just shut up,” Charlie says while heroically shouldering open the shuttle door. He’s wearing a whole entire shirt and
his light brown hair is carefully disheveled. “I’m not leaving you here. I’m not getting in this damn thing by myself.”
“I won’t let you die here, you—”
“Let?”
Charlie grabs Simon’s collar in a way that’s fifty percent menacing, fifty percent affectionate, and will be cherished forever
and GIF’d immediately by queer spaceship enthusiasts. It goes on like that, as it does at least once a season. Luke and Jonathan
angrily-slash-sexily attempting to sacrifice themselves for one another is a core part of the show.
Nobody ever explicitly told Simon to play this kind of thing romantically, and so he doesn’t. His character is too buttoned-up
to play anything romantically, including actual romantic scenes. But sometimes he thinks Charlie is playing it romantically. Then again, there isn’t anything Charlie could do to make the sentiment “I’d rather die with you than live without you” more romantic than it already is.
Occasionally, interviewers who think they’re being clever ask Simon what he thinks about all the gay fanfiction being written
about his and Charlie’s characters. He always says he’s thrilled fans feel inspired to write stories about Out There. Which is true enough—the fact that Out There is a show fans have that kind of relationship with is part of why he’s stuck around so long.
For general sanity purposes, Simon doesn’t let himself think too hard about what goes on in the writers’ room. They do their
job, he does his. But they’ve spent years writing lines and entire story arcs for him and Charlie that are pretty romantic.
And yet, their characters keep getting paired with women.
He knows plenty about the history of movies and television shows depicting characters of the same gender in unusually close
friendships, acting in a way that can only be described as romantic, but then becoming involved in straight romantic relationships.
Somewhere in the bowels of the internet is all the Lord of the Rings fanfic he wrote in middle school, and also all the Sherlock fanfic he wrote in high school. Simon basically has an honorary master’s degree in dubious homoerotic tension.
At the time, he had no problem recognizing that tactic as textbook homophobia. Now, though, he’s less sure.
There’s no shortage of queer talent on the show. For all intents and purposes, Simon is out at work. So is Alex, who’s brought
partners of various genders to events. Two of the writers are nonbinary. Lian has a bi pride sticker on her laptop and an
ex-wife in Palo Alto. There are queer characters and a couple of storylines that are fairly overt metaphors for trans rights.
But it’s network television, and a queer romantic relationship between main characters is probably a step too far. From the
beginning, Lian’s been negotiating a delicate balance between doing what she wants and making the network happy.
Simon doesn’t think he’d ever recover from having to shoot a romantic scene with Charlie, so whatever’s going on with the
writers has worked out pretty great for him. And less great for, like, equal representation on slightly above-average science
fiction shows. But Simon isn’t looking a gift horse in the mouth.
The point is, he’s done this before, this romance-but-with-plausible-deniability scene. This time, though, when Charlie’s
knuckles skim Simon’s throat as he grabs Simon’s collar, Simon hesitates before delivering his next line. When they lean together,
their bodies fitting the way they always do, Charlie smelling like coffee and mints and whatever shampoo was probably on sale
at Costco, it hits Simon that this is the last time.
Simon will be so glad to be done with this show. He doesn’t know where this nostalgia is coming from.
“Don’t you dare tell me to leave you,” Charlie says, and Simon rolls his eyes. It’s familiar and kind of dumb. As they reset
the shot, Simon can’t believe he isn’t going to do this ever again.