Smoke and Mirrors (13 page)

“But I want Mason to stay!” Ashley's protest carried easily over the ambient noise of Mason and Lee pushing past various crew members to emerge out into the hall. “He's my motivation!”

“There isn't room.” Peter's voice had reached the preternaturally calm stage that seemed to suggest an imminent nervous breakdown—its tonal range so limited it sounded as though it had been Botoxed. “Besides, he's just out in the hall, watching you on the monitors.”

To Tony's surprise, Mason, who'd been heading to his dressing room, stopped, sighed, and returned. Since the words “team player” and Mason Reed had never appeared together previously, the crew and his costar stared at him in some confusion.

“If we don't finish today,” he muttered, “they'll be back.”

Eyes widened and several heads nodded sagely, reassured that Mason's motivations remained vested self-interest.

Lee clapped him on the shoulder and murmured, “Greater love. I'll go get you a coffee.”

“She is
not
in love with me,” Mason growled, looking a little panicked.

“It's a quote, big guy. I'll be back in a minute,” he added to Adam as he turned. “Peter won't even know I'm gone.”

The 1AD shrugged. “Just be back when he needs you.”

“I need you . . .” Peter's direction drifted out into the hall. “. . . to dance around in that circle a few more times pretending that Mason and Lee are still . . . Ashley, don't turn on the water. Brianna! Don't touch . . .”

All things considered, the soft
phzt
was vaguely anticlimactic.

Standing behind Sorge's left shoulder where he'd have a good view of both monitors, the gaffer frowned. “Sounded like a halo lamp going. I'm starting to think the lines in this house are seriously fucked. We should bring in a second generator.”

“And getting CB to agree?” Sorge snorted.
“Bon chance
.
”

Tony opened his mouth to say it wasn't the lines it was the house and then closed it again. His day was already crap; he didn't need to add the ridicule that would follow any explanation of ax-murdered extras or rotisserie babies. No, better just to stay quiet and right where he was, surrounded by people who wouldn't know a metaphysical phenomenon if it bit them on the ass. Almost literally in Tina's case although the specific piece of anatomy had been higher up.

“Malcolm! Adam!”

The gaffer and the 1AD headed for the bathroom.

“Everett!”

“It's starting to be like a fraternity prank in there,” Tina snickered as the makeup artist forced his way through the crowd in the doorway using his case like a battering ram. “How many people can you fit in one bathroom?”

“Tony!”

Hopefully one more.

He squeezed past the camera—extra careful while squeezing past Mouse. Mouse had been shadow-held back in the spring and while under the influence had first locked lips and then worked him over with fists the size of small hams. Theoretically, Mouse—like the other shadow-held—remembered none of his time possessed, but once or twice Tony had noticed him staring and the possibility that some lingering memories remained had made him fanatical about giving the much larger man his space.

With any luck he remembered the beating and not the tonsil hockey; given Mouse's background the beating, at least, had been in character.

Fortunately, although Kate had also been shadow-held, their interaction during that time had been minimal. If she muttered something rude under her breath as he shuffled by her, it had nothing to do with the metaphysical and everything to do with Tony being one of the few people around who had less influence on the show than she did.

The bathroom was definitely crowded. The girls were sitting on the edge of the tub being powdered although they didn't seem to need it. Actually, given the number of bodies and amount of equipment, it was strangely cool.

The nursery had been cool.

The girls, Everett, Peter, Adam, Malcolm, Mouse, Kate, one of the electricians—Tony wasn't sure of his name. Nothing and no one in the room who shouldn't be there. Then he glanced in the mirror and saw the two half-dressed, bloody teenagers flickering in and out of focus.

He didn't quite gasp when Adam grabbed his arm. “Tony, the battery in my radio's gone tits-up again. Go drop it in the charger and bring me a new one.”

“Sure.” Not a problem. Happy to get the hell off the second floor.

Clutching the battery, he pushed his way out into the hall and headed for the back stairs. The main stairs were just a little too close to the nursery. Of course, the back stairs were right across the hall from Mason's bathroom and the crying shadow crouched by the shower stall, but at this point, ghosts that merely rocked and cried were definitely the lesser of two or three or even four evils.

He opened the stairwell door to be greeted by the same soft
er er er er
he'd heard earlier from the kitchen. From here, he could tell that it was actually coming from the third floor.
Oh, yeah, like I'm stupid enough to look up.

An icy draft pushed him down the first few steps. The light started to dim. He moved a little faster. Missed his footing on the steep, uneven stairs. Started to fall. His feet sliding off every second or third step, his hands desperately grabbing for a guardrail that didn't exist, he plunged toward the kitchen, crashing against the bottom door which flew open. The impact slowed him a little but not enough for him to catch his balance and his out-of-control descent continued until he slammed into a warm and yielding barrier.

Unfortunately, yielding enough he took it with him to the floor.

Heart pounding, fighting to get enough air into his lungs, his body said
familiar
before his brain caught up. No mistaking the flesh sprawled beneath him. Man. Young man. Good shape. Then his brain reengaged. Young man in good shape wearing a tuxedo . . . he lifted his head off the snowy white expanse of dress shirt to see the bottom of Lee's chin. Then the rest of Lee's face as the actor lifted his head and shook it once as though to settle his brain back into place. The green eyes focused.

“Tony?”

“Yeah.” One of his legs was down between the actor's thighs, their position a parody of intimacy. He was a little too shaken up to move, muscles doing a fairly accurate imitation of cooked spaghetti as the adrenaline left his system. No way Lee could know that, though, and he half expected the other man to heave him across the room. Didn't happen.
He's probably winded, too.
“You okay?”

“I think so.” Lee shifted slightly and Tony thanked any gods who might be listening for that whole cooked spaghetti muscle thing. “You?”

Him what? A half frown up at him and he abruptly remembered. “Yeah. I'm good. Not
good
good,” he added hurriedly in case Lee started thinking he was enjoying this too much. “Just not hurt good.” He had a strong suspicion he was making less than no sense.

“What happened?”

“I fell. Down the stairs.”

From this angle, Lee's smile was nearly blinding. A warm hand closed around Tony's bicep. “No shit.”

“Am I interrupting?”

And there was the expected, albeit delayed, heave. Both men were on their feet fast enough to reassure any onlooker that neither had been damaged by the collision. Except that the only onlooker had arrived after the collision.

“Zev!” Tony ran a hand back through his hair, and flashed a smile he knew was too wide, too hearty, and too guilty at CB Productions' music director and his most recent ex. “I uh, fell down the stairs and Lee was there at the bottom and I slammed right into him. He was just . . . I mean, he cushioned my fall.”

“So I saw.” A white crescent flashed for an instant in the shadows of Zev's dark beard although his expression remained no more than neutrally concerned. “You guys all right?”

“Yeah. Lucky, eh?”

“Very. Nice catch, Lee.”

“Sure.” His face flushed—although that could have been from either sudden change in position, going down or coming up—Lee picked two large yellow melmac mugs of coffee off the kitchen table. “You guys probably want to . . . uh, you know, talk and I've got to get one of these up to Mason.”

Tony took a step toward him, hand outstretched, and stopped as the flush deepened. “You've got dust on the back of your tux.”

“No problem. Brenda's dancing attendance on the girls. She can get it.” He turned toward the stairs, paused, and visibly changed his mind. “Seems safer to use the other set.”

As Lee left the kitchen, Tony spotted Adam's battery—flung out of his hand on impact—over by the sink. When he straightened, battery back in hand, he found Zev staring at him, dark brows almost to his hairline. “What?”

“You fell down the stairs?”

“Yeah . . .”

“And Lee just happened to be there to catch you?”

“Yeah.”

“And having saved you, he sank to the floor with you cradled tenderly in his arms.”

“It wasn't like that!”

Zev snickered. “Looked like that.”

Tony rolled his eyes and pushed past the other man, heading for the butler's pantry and the battery chargers. On the bright side, of all the people who could have walked in on him and Lee in a vaguely compromising position, Zev was the least likely to blow it out of proportion. On the other hand, given their history, Zev was the most likely to tease him unmercifully about it, so he'd just nip that in the bud right now. “I hit him pretty hard, so it wasn't so much sinking to the floor as being slammed into the floor and he wasn't cradling me tenderly or any other way—bits of me were imbedded in his ribs.”

“Looked like you were happy there.”

Not much he could say to that.

“Looked like he was happy to have you there.”

“You're delusional.” Since he was there, he changed his own battery and tossed the rest of the fully charged into a box.

Hand shoved in the front pockets of his black jeans, Zev shrugged, the backpack slung over one shoulder riding up and down with the motion. “I'm just saying he looked like a man ready for a six-pack.”

“What?”

“What's the difference between a straight man and a bi . . .”

Tony sighed and held up a hand. “Okay. I remember the joke. I should never have mentioned that whole crush thing.”

“Since we were together at the time, it did seem a bit unnecessary.” When Tony turned a worried face toward him, Zev grinned. “Because you know, I'm blind and stupid and would never have noticed on my own even if Amy hadn't discussed it at length.”

“Bite me.”

“Sorry. You gave that option up.”

“You dumped me!”

“Oh, yeah. Nevertheless, biting remains off the agenda.”

Back in the kitchen, Tony glanced up the back stairs and, much like Lee had, turned and headed for the main hall, Zev falling into step beside him. “So, unless you dropped by to taunt me with my relationship mistakes, why
are
you here?”

“Ambient noise.”

“What?”

“I'm going to play some Tchaikovsky in the foyer and record it, then figure out how the dimensions of the space change the sound. I may be able to use the minor distortions when I score the episode.”

“Tchaikovsky?”

“Who?”

“Ballet based on a novel by Pushkin.”

“Hobbit?”

“Russian.”

“CB's idea?”

“Your lack of confidence in my ability to make musical choices is why we're no longer together.”

“I thought it was my lack of being Jewish?”

“Minor reason.”

“Or my inability to understand what you see in Richard Dean Anderson.”

“Much larger reason.” Grinning, Zev slid the backpack off his shoulder and set it on the floor by the lighting rig in the entrance hall. “Don't you have production assisting to do?”

He did. Adam was still without a battery, although given the radio reception and the fact that most of the crew was standing about six feet away from him, it wasn't likely he could be feeling the loss. “You want to go for a beer after work?”

The music director glanced at his watch. “It's just past six. Technically, I'm after work so it depends on what time you finish up.”

“CB said he'd be by to pick the girls up at eight.”

Zev winced at the reminder of the episode's guest stars. “They're safely upstairs, right?”

A crash from the second floor answered before Tony could.