notfaking_it | (no subject)

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t.j.

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It doesn't surprise Lily even a little to discover just how much she likes having T.J. around the studio.

He'd played for the artistic director and the instructors while she had watched under the pretense of needing to rehearse when all she'd really wanted to do was watch their reactions to him. She'd been sure, seeing their faces, that they'd want him to take the job and it doesn't come as a surprise to her when he's there for rehearsal the following Monday. He's talented, he's a much better player than the woman they've been using for the past year, and Lily is excited that he'll be around the studio.

More than that, she hopes it grows into something more. It might never be a full time job with the company, but the symphony director comes in, especially when they near the dates for their shows, and she's hoping he might hear something in T.J. that he'll want. She doesn't say this part, she has absolutely no control over something like that, but she hopes for it all the same.

Smiling, her face and hair damp, she shakes her arms out as she wanders over to T.J. as soon as the instructor calls their lunch break. She rolls her shoulders, then sits down beside him on the piano bench and nudges him with her shoulder. "Wanna eat lunch with me?" she asks, smiling. "You can sit with the cool kids at my table."

She mostly eats lunch alone in the studio and there are no tables, but she's actually looking forward to changing that. She has no problem with the other dancers and she gets along with them well enough, but this is different. This is better.

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"It's a nightmare," T.J. finishes for her. Even that's putting it mildly. Really, it's bullshit, how entitled they seem to feel to every little detail. For him, it was entirely his personal life they were interested in, anyway. It's not as if he ever had any kind of career that drew their interest. Had he been born to any other two people, no one would have cared at all. The thought is more appealing than he knows how to put into words. "Even my dad — by the end, they cared way more about his personal life than his policies. It's all anyone remembers." He shakes his head. "You know, I'd still say it's the best thing about this place, that no one like that gives a fuck who I am here, who I sleep with, what I do with my life."

What he really means is December, and the overdose that landed him in the hospital, but he doesn't want to mention it outright if he doesn't have to. He's pretty damn sure, though, that he wouldn't have been able to get or at least stay sober if he'd had to deal with the media fallout of something like that yet again. Too much of his life has been made available for public consumption as it is, and he can't stand it, being written off only to manage to fulfill everyone's expectations. In that way, the paparazzi, the gossip magazines, the general populace, they're no different from his family, except they have no fucking reason to be invested.

"And here I thought I was the best part of this place," Lily says with a laugh, but her smile softens and she reaches over, giving T.J.'s knee a gentle squeeze. "I only spent a few weeks with the media following me around after Nina died, I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like all the time. Every little detail out there for people to read..." She shakes her head, looking down at her food. She's never been one for celebrity gossip magazines, it's always felt so intrusive and not all that interesting to her, and now she's glad she can say as much. That T.J. has had to face that bothers her and she doesn't want to think of herself as someone who would have ever contributed to that problem.

"But some of us give a fuck," she adds a second later, smiling up at him again. "If you were sleeping with some incredible creep, you have to know I'd be right there, trying to talk you out of it." And she's here with him, trying to make sure she supports him in his sobriety, which isn't something she'd do for very many people.

"Oh, of course. I'd fully expect you to kick his ass," T.J. says with a wry grin, needing the levity. It isn't as if he minds talking about it — he's the one who really went there — but if he dwells on it too seriously for too long, all it'll do is weigh him down, and there's no sense in that when he's away from it all now anyway. Sometimes he's had to wonder what his life would have been like without all the attention, the paparazzi hounding his family whenever they could, the goddamn TV movies about them. He wonders if he'd have turned out better, if he would never have started using, or if he was always bound to go down this path. It's pointless when he'll never know, but so much of his life has been shaped by who his parents are that it's impossible not to think about what would have happened if his life had been his own. "But that's the difference, right? You care about how it affects me. Because, yeah, you're also pretty high up there as far as being the best part of this place goes."

"Well, I don't know your family and I don't give a shit about politics, so yeah," she says and she's being serious, but she smiles anyway. "Your well being tends to take first place when I'm thinking about you." That he's even had to worry about that, that he's had to live in a world where people only care how his actions affect his parents' careers makes her angry, but she doesn't let it show. It won't do any good now and she doesn't want T.J. to think, even for a second, that she's angry at him.

"Pretty high up there, huh?" she asks with a teasing sigh, then grins again. "I guess I can handle pretty high up there. It's better than you giving a shrug and a 'meh' when asked about me."

"Yeah, it would never be like that," T.J. assures her, pulling a face as he shakes his head, tone about as teasing as he actually is sincere. When it really comes down to it, he doesn't think he's ever really had a friend like her, like a few of the ones he has here. Difficult as it's been for him to learn to get by on his own, these days, he's started to suspect that Darrow might be the best thing that's ever happened to him. "It might actually be kind of awkward, all the good things I'd have to say about you."

"Oh, really?" she asks, leaning her chin on her hand, her elbow on the table as she smiles up at him. "Well, now you know you just have to tell me all the good thing you'd say. I promise I'll definitely let it go to my head." She's been accused of having an ego before, but Lily just likes to think that she's comfortable in her skin, something not many people ever manage. She knows it's threatening to other dancers, especially with how little she truly seems to care about whether or not she captures the principal roles and then gets them, time after time, but she doesn't let that bother her either.

"Oh, yeah, right, like I would tell you now," T.J. says with a scoff, making a face across the table at her as he reaches for a few more fries. "No, you're just gonna have to wonder." It's not like he wouldn't actually tell her, though he hasn't made a secret of how much he cares about her. Now that she's asking, though, he really can't not tease her about it. It's just too perfect an opportunity to resist, and the levity is helpful. That alone is one of the things he's always liked about Lily — that the mood can be light without the meaning of anything being diminished.

"You're terrible," she teases with a laugh, nudging him with her foot under the table. "You should have to write one nice thing in every birthday card you give me for the rest of my life now as punishment. And when I'm old and wrinkly and there's nothing left to say about my beautiful face, you'll have to resort to complimenting my sparkling personality."

She grins and asks, "Sound good?" She'd do the same for him with ease. Since she's met him, Lily's not sure she's ever had a bad thing to say about T.J. and she would argue with anyone who tried to come up with something.

"Alright, I think you've got a deal," T.J. says, laughing. It's not like he's the best with that particular brand of sentimentality, but he wouldn't have just given Lily some perfunctory greeting card anyway. She means too much to him for that, one of the few people who's ever really stuck by him, without the expectations of his family. Hell, being here, she pretty much is family. "Though I'll have to keep track of what I've already said and what I haven't."

"I'll forgive you some repetitions," she decides with a laugh, taking a bite of another fry. She thinks she'd probably forgive T.J. just about anything, but then, she's never been very good at holding a grudge. Lily knows she has a temper, a bit of a short fuse, but for the most part, she's never seen the point in holding onto anger for very long. "But if you want, I'll keep them all in a box and you can review them every year."

"Aw, a little box full of all my birthday cards to you?" T.J. asks with a teasing grin. "You sure that wouldn't just be so you can look at them all whenever you feel like? Come on, you can tell me the truth. I promise I won't hold it against you." The whole idea might be ridiculous, but that's hardly the point. Besides, he's pretty sure she started it, mostly.

"Well, you know, a girl likes to feel good about herself now and then," she answers with a prim smile before giving in and laughing. She's sure T.J. knows as well as anyone that she doesn't often need to worry about feeling good. Lily's ego is more than healthy.

"Besides, if I wrote you sweet little notes you know you'd keep them to look at from time to time," she adds, nudging him with her foot. "Don't even try to pretend you wouldn't."

"Are you kidding? I think I'd buy a scrapbook just for them. Decorate it with stickers and shit," T.J. says, mock-thoughtful, though his own grin likely lessens the desired effect there. Really, he probably would hold on to them. Put away in a drawer, he still has the letters Thomas wrote him while he was in rehab, unable to bring himself to let go of them even after having moved in. Granted, notes from Lily wouldn't be quite the same thing, but still, he wouldn't just get rid of them. "Maybe some glitter."

"Ooh, glitter," Lily says, laying a hand over her heart. "That's how you know it's a real friendship, when the man in question uses glitter in his scrapbook." She's getting a terrible idea now, one of a scrapbook for T.J.'s birthday, the pages filled with pictures of the two of them and as much glitter as she thinks she can manage without inhaling too much of it by accident. And it would be silly in a lot of ways, but she thinks she'd be able to make it genuine, too, because his friendship really is extremely important to her.

"I better get started on my sweet note writing, then," she says. "They'll have to be simple at first, I'm a little out of practice."

"That's alright, I'll give you a pass on those," T.J. says, waving one hand dismissively in front of him, reaching for a fry with the other. "But only the first few, and then you're gonna have to step up your game. I'm expecting some serious effort in these. I mean, if they're gonna be glitter scrapbook worthy..." Trailing off, he tips his head to the side, like that ought to speak for itself. Really, it probably does, even if he's not at all serious about the whole thing.

"Don't you worry about me. You don't think I can rise to the challenge?" she asks, playfully narrowing her eyes at him. "I'm more than capable to meet any and all challenges you set forth, Mr. Hammond."

She pauses, then, grinning. "Maybe I should write one or two for my boyfriend while I'm at it."

"Now there's an idea," T.J. says, brow raising. "You can use my first few for practice, then really be in top form when you start writing to him." Still grinning, his expression turns curious, a little surprised, after just a moment, what she's said sinking in. "Wait, are you calling him your boyfriend now?"

She smiles a little, raising her eyebrows as she gives a laugh and a shrug. "Well, I told him I love him, so I should probably gather enough courage to take that next step, shouldn't I?" she asks and she's teasing, but she's serious in a way as well.

Telling Delta how she felt hadn't seemed like such a difficult thing at the time. The words had just come out, easy to say because they were true, but it's not something she says often. Not even to her friends.

"If nothing else, I've found that it's pretty convenient," T.J. says with a shrug. There's more to it than that, of course, which he's sure she knows as well as he does, but even if the title still doesn't feel quite right, it helps having a way to define it, something easy, useful. "Less of a mouthful than 'that guy I've been seeing for months now.'" It's not like he thinks he needs to prove that it means something, but it's nice having something to point to, too, rather than what could sound like an excuse. Besides, even for him, having an actual boyfriend is a big fucking deal. "And I'm not sure there's anything better."

It's been more than a year since she and Delta began seeing each other, much longer than she's ever been in any kind of relationship with anyone and yet T.J. is right. It doesn't quite feel right, but she doesn't know if there's anything better to call him, anything more fitting.

"People do this all the time without having to worry about it or think about it very much," she says with a soft laugh. "I'm good at a lot of things, but that's not one of them."

"Hey, at least you're in good company there," T.J. says with a laugh of his own, brow raised. He's gotten somewhat better, at least, at settling into what's normal for so many people, but it's still nothing that comes all that easily to him. He isn't sure what's more to blame for that: himself, or the fucked up view he's had of anything similar throughout his life. God knows his parents' relationship wasn't exactly an ideal one, and his own previous brief one wasn't fantastic, either. Sometimes he's not sure how Doug did it, settling down with someone like Anne. "I don't know how people do it. The not worrying or over-thinking."

Lily leans her chin in her hand, lips pursed thoughtfully. "I've never been one for overthinking," she says, because she likes her life the way it is and she sees no point in worrying too much about what other people might think or say. She's always been happy with herself and her life and her choices. There will always be people who view things another way and she's just never concerned herself with them all that much.

"But it's different when you drag another person into it," she says. "You can't just think about yourself anymore."

He's always done too little of that, he thinks. Never worried enough about how what he did would reflect on his family, never thought through the consequences of his own shit, not even when he's tried to. This time, it's got to be different. He doesn't want to fuck this up, not now. Maybe he wouldn't try what he did before if it went south, but that doesn't mean he's looking to lose a good thing.

"Yeah, you really can't," he agrees. "I never have, either. It's been... a hard habit to try to break."

"You get used to looking out for yourself," she says with a shrug, smiling over at him. "I understand that." She's never felt abandoned or alone, but the truth is that she's been on her own for a very long time. Her parents hadn't been able to move to support her career as a dancer and she'd known even before entering her teens that if she wanted a career she was going to have to start young. She'd been determined and rather than hold her back, her parents had allowed her to make the moves that had been necessary.

They'd trusted her and she thinks the trust was well founded.

"I never imagined I'd want to break it," she admits. "I thought it would always be that way."

“So did I,” T.J. agrees, nodding thoughtfully. That’s always been the case for him. Before Sean, he never even thought he’d wind up falling for someone the way he did. He certainly never thought it would happen to him a second time, given how disastrously that ended, or that he would be involved in a relationship to this extent. There are times it still feels strange, like it’s something that’s happening to someone else rather than to him. He wouldn’t give it up now, though, for anything. “It still seems crazy. How the hell’d we both wind up here, you know?”