Bad Idea

by Damon Suede

  The cheesy sax of the Undercover Lovers titles blared from the speakers, and most of the room turned to find the source.

  “This is the new premiere.” Silas stopped and pointed across the dance floor, where the first episode of Season Three appeared on the twenty-foot screen stretched high above the milling crowd.

  Trip blinked and watched. “All those criminals are so good-looking.”

  Silas knew he was making an effort. “We do our best.”

  Trip contemplated the audience, ignoring the screens. “This isn’t as scary as I thought it’d be. That sounds bad. Not as fancy, I mean.” They had skipped the screening at the Director’s Guild.

  “Good.” Silas exhaled. Trip just kept fitting into the pieces of his world that mattered. “My glamorous life is not very glamorous.”

  “I dunno about that.”

  “Wait till it’s your show.” Silas bumped him playfully.

  Trip laughed. “Mine?”

  “Scratch on Showtime.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Mr. Spector, don’t you ever say never.”

  “I don’t even know if it’s gonna get published. Hell, I don’t know if I can risk it.” Trip swallowed. It hurt to hear the chagrin in his voice.

  “I know.” He’d seen the work Trip had poured into the idea. He couldn’t imagine investing that much energy and then hiding the results. “Hey. You draw this and the right folks see it. Isn’t that the idea?”

  Trip looked apprehensive.

  No sign of Barney or the other bozos at least. Silas relaxed a little and moved toward the ladies again. Then again, maybe Barney would play it cool with all the cameras on him.

  Kurt was fun, but it felt so different to come to one of these things with a real partner, not just a partner in crime. “Have you noticed….” Silas brushed the slope of Trip’s back absently. “You don’t sneeze at my place anymore?”

  “Well, apparently I’m allergic to everything but you.”

  Silas pointed at the bar. “Drink?” Maybe if he went alone, he could avoid uncomfortable pop-ups.

  Trip bit the inside of his cheek. “Beer?”

  “You be okay here? I’ll be right back.”

  “Sure. Sure, yeah.” He straightened his back.

  “Two seconds.” Silas threaded quickly through the clumps of people to the bar, joked and flirted his way to the head of the line, and claimed two bottles.

  Fun to see this nonsense through Trip’s eyes, but he didn’t really enjoy these things anymore. The affiliates flew in from all these cable outfits to get their marketing materials and get pictures with the stars. The paps used the red carpet area to stage fake candids with the ambitious talent, while the assistants gorged on the free hors d’oeuvres and hooch. Which is why Kurt started coming. They’d get trashed and make fun of muggles while Kurt humped some stud for the TMZ cameras. Silas was about thirty feet from Trip when—

  Ska-reetch!

  The big DJ in the sky had skipped a track. Lance Tibby had moved in for the thrill. Somehow, in the short time it took Silas to reach the bar and claim two open Heinekens, his ex had scented Trip’s blood in the water.

  Silas muttered, “What the fuck-en-heimer?”

  As he closed the distance between them, jealousy sprouted and wrapped itself around his ribs. Since when did he feel jealous of anyone?

  Sneaky fucker. He watched Lance drizzle charm as if Trip were a waffle.

  Not knowing any better, Trip would act civil, nod, and smile shyly while Lance ladled snake oil over him. Whatever Lance babbled about would give Trip the wrong impression. Silas needed to get Lance away before he started to spill.

  Lie. Just lie.

  Silas cleared his throat from a couple of yards away, but it must have gotten lost in the hubbub.

  Finally Lance saw him. He simpered and kneaded Trip’s shoulder. Trip blushed but held his ground. So much for drawing him out of his shell.

  Protective rage rose in Silas, and he turned sideways to slither between a cluster of suits. A drunk director grabbed at his arm and one of the beers sloshed over his wrist. When a couple of yards still stretched between them, Lance glanced his way.

  “Sigh.” Lance turned to smile with every fake tooth in his head. “I know you.”

  Silas handed Trip a bottle and tried to sound casual. “You made a friend.”

  “There you are.” Trip smiled fitfully and turned to him. “I just—”

  “Oh.” The blond actor dropped his hand off Trip’s shoulder. “Are you two—?”

  Silas jerked a thumb toward the front door and flat-out lied. “Lance, the Condé Nast photogs are up front.”

  Lance pivoted like a starved cheetah spotting a gazelle. As supporting cast, he missed most promo unless he remained vigilant. “Thanks.” Without a word to Trip, Lance abandoned them for the imaginary photo call. Silas relaxed his hands.

  By the time Trip turned back, Lance was twenty feet away. “We—yeah.” He stared at the space where the actor stood four seconds ago. “Where’d he go?”

  Silas rolled his eyes, whistling through the graveyard. “Tabloids. Never get between an actor and publicity.”

  “I guess not.” Trip regarded a table of assistants stuffing themselves with limp shrimp cocktail. He leaned close to mutter. “’S’like a comic con with better clothes. See what you mean about gladiatorial combat.” The blood had drained from his face.

  “Sorta. I mean, a lot of craziness goes down.”

  Trip swigged his beer. “But I guess it’s not the end of the world.”

  Silas laughed. “Well, nothing is the end of the world, right?” He held up his beer.

  “Not so far. Give it time.” Trip toasted him.

  “That was the first great lesson I learned from comics. Nothing is the end of the world.” Silas ran a finger under his collar. “Everyone can come back from the dead. They can fix anything, no matter how awful. Nuclear holocaust, decapitation, the fucking Scarlet Spider.” Worst plot-twist clone ever. “Writers come in and retcon the fabric of time and space, kiss the boo-boo better.”

  “Guilty.”

  “That may be what got me hooked on comics in the first place. Even the end of the world isn’t the end of the world.”

  Leigh Ann and Benita now mugged for a video crew shooting footage for broadcast. Silas waved a hand but couldn’t catch their attention. He told himself that once Trip met them, everything would be okay.

  “In comics everyone has secrets: secret powers, secret lairs, secret identities, secret weaknesses.” Trip paused to mull over something. “Which taught me to fucking pay attention.”

  Silas raised a wry brow. “Portrait of the comic book writer as a young stud.”

  The room broke into applause, and a couple of people pointed at the screens. Blooper reel. Someone had loaded the outtakes, and in a series this racy, there were doozies. Probably no danglies, but definitely embarrassing moments. Trip set his half-empty beer down to clap. Table eight hooted and thumped the actor who played the mayor.

  Silas laced their fingers and kissed Trip’s knobby knuckles, risking the affection. Trip tightened his grip but didn’t pull free.

  Silas eyed him directly. “Does that make you uncomfortable?”

  “No. Yes. I dunno.” Trip turned Silas’s fist over and stroked the chewed fingernails and calluses. “Thanks.” He traced the pale scars that wrapped around Silas’s meaty palm to the base of his index finger. Trip turned Silas’s hand over and traced the broad joints. “I’m working on it. I swear. I can’t live in my secret hideout forever, right?”

  In Silas’s search for the ladies, they had ended up around the tables by the dance floor. Silas almost collided with Barney, nursing a triple glass of something pungent, stopping before he clocked him.

  “Hey, Goolsby.” Barney sat with his “girlfriend,” and both seemed bored out of their skulls.

  No thanks.

  Trip smiled hello to the closeted actor. Silas saluted but kept walking.
<
br />   Karma rule. Silas waited until they were several tables away before he studied Barney again. Trip followed his gaze back to the uncomfortable couple.

  Maybe to Trip, an actor in the closet might not seem as creepy.

  “He okay?”

  Silas stepped close and muttered into Trip’s ear. “Kind of a bummer. They have the same manager. She’s supposed to be his date.”

  “Eesh.” Trip examined his hands, scrubbed and pink. It must have taken sandpaper to get all the stains off, but he had for tonight. That scoured skin peeking out of the cuffs pierced Silas to the core. He grasped exactly how hard Trip was fighting his worst habits. He might be pissing his pants, but he’d put on a damn suit and braved this shit because he cared.

  “Must suck.” Trip looked at Barney again, blinking. “Secret identity. Be an actor and have to fake your whole life. And for the girlfriend.”

  “Mmh.” Barney had made his choices.

  “What do you do…?” Trip turned back to Silas. “When you’re stuck like that? When you’re at the bottom of the barrel?”

  Silas shrugged. “Find another barrel.”

  “Spoken like a barrel maker.” Trip said nothing for a minute, but he sure chewed on the sight of Barney and his date.

  The stricken expression made Silas push one last time, against his better judgment, to get Trip out of his own way. “Y’know, Nerd Herd is hosting an LGBT panel in Chicago this year.”

  Trip blinked before his face fogged with justifications. “There’s a lot of weird old-school prejudice in comic publishing. Specially in capes and scrapes. Superhero books, I mean. Most the time, Marvel and DC act like it’s still 1963.”

  “So you’d be part of breaking that down. That’s good, right?” Silas waved at the second AD.

  “I don’t want to break anything. These are guys who gave Bruce Wayne a teenage ward in tights and never thought ‘creepy chicken hawk.’ They think Wonder Woman is feminist because she isn’t married.”

  “Not now. I mean, maybe for a couple old buzzards, but there are lotsa gay characters. Hell, digital is burying all these old setups. The whole entertainment industry is the Wild West right now.”

  “Scratch is the best thing I’ve ever done.”

  “And all that time and talent you invested counts. You’ve spent months laying tracks for this thing. There’s no harm in seeing if they lead somewhere.”

  “Yes? No? It’s not like anything I’ve ever done. No one to answer to.” Trip tugged at his cuffs. “Otherwise, come July I might as well sit next to a fake girlfriend in San Diego with my head buried in Cliff’s Hero Heinie like a fucking ostrich!” He was almost shouting.

  Silas made light of it. “Naw. You’re being cautious is all. Smarter than me, that’s for damn sure. You can’t hide in plain sight.”

  “I don’t wanna— You’d never puss around like that.” Silent alarm bells jangled silently behind Trip’s solemn face.

  Eep. Silas frowned. “Hey. Hey, what’s the matter?”

  “I’m sorta like him. That actor.” Trip looked desolate.

  “Barney?”

  “Heroes don’t sit on their butts.” He intoned the words like a maxim.

  “Says who? What’s going on?” Silas glanced at the partiers around them. Trip should be having this conversation somewhere quiet and safe.

  Trip cracked his joints so hard that Silas winced. “This is why you think I should announce Scratch. Everyone does. I’m hiding out at Big Dog with my Unboyfriend.” He glanced back at Barney.

  “No.” Actually, yeah, sorta. Guilt. “You’re drawing your book and it’ll find its way one day.”

  Trip nodded as if he didn’t believe any such thing. “Out and proud.”

  “You’re plenty proud, Mr. Spector. And when it’s ready, you’ll let Scratch out to find his audience.”

  Trip’s mouth buckled as he wrestled with a bunch of shit that had no place at a red carpet event. Maybe it was time to cut their losses.

  Gabriel and his shimmery Wiccan had begun to hustle on the dance floor. Across the party, Barney tapped his patent leather shoes, too afraid to stand, let alone shake a tail feather. He caught Silas watching and hoisted his glass in a woozy toast.

  Trip dropped his chin to his chest and inhaled deeply. “I’m doing it.”

  “Doing what?” Silas asked, even though he knew full well. Why the total 180? The suddenness of it made him nervous.

  A light shone in Trip’s face, clear and bright. His hands were shaking when he retrieved his beer, but he nodded adamantly. “Scratch.”

  Silas stared at Trip hard for a moment. “You sure?”

  “Pretty much. How sure can you be?”

  “Naw. It’s just… you can’t unslice the bread, man. Once Scratch is out, he’s out.”

  Trip mock-glared. “Can you please not question me when I’m being incredible?”

  Silas beamed. He resisted the urge to lick his long neck right then and there. Baby steps. “Yeah?”

  “No reason not to launch him, hot outta the oven.” He rubbed his forehead hard. “I know a good thing. And you know the Nerd Herd people.”

  “They already love you. Mary and Randy? You kidding? They’d add you in a heartbeat.”

  Francesca and Leigh Ann waved at Silas from the dance floor. Benita pointed at Trip and shouted something happy. Silas pretended not to see them. Trip might not want to get sweaty or feel crowded on the floor. Besides, if he was serious, they had a lot of planning to do, stat.

  Silas squeezed his arm. “You ’bout ready to head home?”

  The words seemed to take Trip by surprise. “No. Why? Am I being a buzzkill?” Apparently, making his decision had put his nerves to flight. “I still have to meet your friends, right? Turnabout.” He laughed high and bright, chugging the dregs of his beer and ditching the bottle.

  Trip looked around them as if he wanted to stand on a table and announce his comic now, in his beautiful suit. He had missed a little patch of stubble on the side of his face, maybe a millimeter at the outside of his cheekbone. Scarcely noticeable, but there all the same. He was in a hurry.

  For some reason the sight of the tiny comma pierced Silas in a way he couldn’t name or describe. No one else would notice or care if they did, but knowing that Trip had shaved so he’d look nice, and rushed to meet him, made Silas feel simultaneously potent and grateful.

  He leaned over and kissed the faint comma.

  Trip smiled shyly. “What was that for?”

  “For tonight. For being so handsome. Talented. Brave.” Silas grinned. “For coming to see my bullshit work.”

  “I thought for sure I was gonna end up faceplanting out front where the cameras are.”

  “Nope.”

  “Or y’know… asthma attack, limb loss, chestburst alien.” Trip flapped his hands. One side of his mouth pulled down like a goofy practice frown. “Something so humiliating that you’d realize what a complete geek I am and trade me in for a cooler model.”

  “No such thing.” Silas squeezed his hand. “Your secret’s safe with me. And you already know all my secrets.”

  “Bull!” Trip snorted and shoved him. “The only way to know every secret about someone is to invent them. Write them, I mean.” He took a swig of Silas’s beer. “I know every molecule of the Mighty Mites, right? They can’t hide anything from me. Comforting in a way, because I can trust them to do what they need to.”

  Silas got quiet. “And also a little boring. It’s all you, talking to yourself. Best thing about sex is curveballs, anyways. I mean, jackin’ off isn’t exactly a surprise. Unless you’re a schizo.”

  Trip grinned at that. “You’re gross.”

  Silas shrugged and grinned back, tracing his canine with his tongue. “You’re gorgeous.”

  Trip dropped his warm whiskey gaze. “So, Mr. Goolsby… you wanna come to C2E2 with me week after next? It’s gonna be—”

  “Duh. Obviously.”

  Without warning, Trip waved back at the three
girls he had barely seen before and swerved their way. Francesca had joined Leigh Ann’s sandwich, and things were getting a little NC-17. Hell, someone was actually having fun in this waxworks.

  “Where do you think you’re going, Mr. Spector?”

  He took Silas by the hand. “I dunno, but it was worth the walk.”

  18

  SO FAR, Silas thought the comic con seemed like a half-ass film festival staffed by outpatients and shut-ins.

  While Trip picked up some kind of paperwork, Silas went down to the bar in search of Kurt and the Unbored posse.

  Thursday night. C2E2 officially opened tomorrow, but this “swanky” Marriott bar resembled every other lame corporate watering hole in America. Even the freakiest and shyest among them might be the reporter who put Scratch on the map. The ragtag crowd laughed and squawked at each other as if they stood in Shangri-La and sipped the spooge of the gods out of the skulls of their enemies, but all Silas could see was nine-dollar beers and a lot of stale corn chips. These lumpy lunatics held all the strings.

  Kurt beckoned from a high circular booth across the room, way overdressed in a Hugo Boss blazer and a fat tie. This weekend’s escort seemed bored beside him: a shortish fitness model with black skin and skintight shirt. In the booth next to Kurt’s, Sarah Michelle Gellar looked irritated and tiny in a pack of shouty hipsters.

  From Kurt’s reserved perch, he surveyed the crowd and held court without the geek stampede. Typical. Oddly enough, the crowd treated Silas and Kurt like ghosts. Anything noncomic became invisible as they scrambled to chat up the sodden artists huddled at the bar.

  Silas picked his way through the prattling flock. Jolly, for the most part, but a little smellier than your average convention. So different from film festivals. At Sundance, people took two, three showers a day, if they could. Hell, some of the executives got a haircut and a shave every morning, but here, they wore vintage T-shirts and iffy skin conditions.

  Stop. Silas had come for Trip and for Scratch. Karma rule.

  When Silas first graduated from Tom Savini’s FX program, he’d gone to a screening of a no-budget film out in Williamsburg: a murky, grandiose heist comedy with rape jokes and makeup like birthday-cake icing. He’d gone in an attempt to hook up with the hot assistant director.