hackthis_archive | Make Sure They See My Face - Act II (Rated R for all Parts)

RPF/RPS/Entourage/CRACK!

hackthis Productions Present:

Make Sure They See My Face (The Making of a Movie in Five Acts)

featuring Ari Gold
George Clooney
Shia LaBeouf
and Milo Ventimiglia

With Viggo Mortensen. And some other folks.

Act I: Ari

The WGA strike is the best thing to happen to Milo since Tim said he could finally cut his hair. At least it's looking that way. Milo hated the bangs. And the way they were always in his way. And the way they made him look like a 15 year-old boy band reject, but that's all in the past and this is now, and Milo's life is about to go in a completely different direction.

He's on Adrian's boat when he gets the call from his agent. It's early. Really early. It's not even eight in the morning, and it's the weekend, and Milo's soup is still hot. He doesn't want to take the call, but Sandy wouldn't call unless it was important. That's why Milo likes her. She's not like some of the agents he's heard about that put webcams in their client's houses or GPS their phones to keep track of them.

"Hey, Sandy." Milo's sitting on deck, watching Adrian fiddle with all sorts of sailing stuff that Milo can't quite figure out. Milo's responsibilities when he's topside are a) don't fall overboard b) keep Adrian entertained and c) wear shoes with traction and d) don’t fall overboard.

Apparently, if your shoes look good, but are lacking in traction, and you fall overboard one time, not only do you ruin your shoes in the salt water, but you never hear the end of it.

"Milo, whatever you're doing, stop it, now, and get to the Warner's lot," his agent demands.

Milo blinks at Adrian's broad back and takes another sip of his soup. "Uh, that might be a little hard right now," he says cryptically. "You know, with it being the weekend, and me being off."

"This is not an optional exercise, Mr. Ventimiglia," his agent snaps. "You're only off when I say you're off."

Milo snorts. Sandy may be a nice agent, but she's still an agent. She still drinks her blood straight from the victim. "I'm out on the water with Adrian," he says pointedly, "unless we suddenly sprout wings and fly, I'm not going to be anywhere for another two -–"

Adrian turns around, eyes Milo and holds up four fingers.

"Excuse me, four hours," Milo corrects.

Sandy makes a hmming noise. "You're funny, Cinderfella, really. Now let me explain to you exactly why you're going to break the sound barrier this instant to get to Burbank."

Milo slurps his soup. It's obnoxious, but what Sandy thinks is important and what he thinks is important tends to diverge around the eating of dead cattle, so it takes a moment for her words to process in his head. He's not a MENSA candidate, but he's smart enough. This though, this could fry anyone's brain cells.

"Wait, who are doing what where?" He asks rather brilliantly. It takes him a moment to realize he's now got soup dribbling down his chin, but Adrian sees it and he nearly pokes his eye out laughing.

Milo can also see Sandy's victorious smirk in his mind's eye, and it's not that far off from Adrian's glee at his sudden slothfulness. Sandy repeats exactly what she already said and Milo can feel the gears in his head spinning. He has to go. They have to leave. They're miles from the Marina, and Milo has never wanted to see dry land so badly in his life.

"I'm on my way," he promises. "Tell them –- I don't know, just tell them I'll be there as soon as possible."

When he disconnects the phone, Adrian's stopped laughing and is now looking at him with a mild mixture of concern and confusion. "I need to get back to the Valley," Milo says, pouring his soup overboard. "I think I'm about to win the lottery."

Adrian raises an eyebrow. "You'll remember me when you're rich and famous?" he asks, even as he's moving from the wheel to re-rig the sails so they can turn around.

Milo gives Adrian his most guileless smile. "I thought I already was rich and famous."

Adrian snorts. "No, you're just moderately well off and occasionally mistaken for the valet. Don't let it go to your head."

*

Milo hasn't been back to the Warner Brothers lot since he stopped work on Gilmore Girls and he and Alexis broke it off, but that's really not a line of thinking he wants to follow today. After they pass through the gate, they drive down to the firehouse. They make a left turn towards the offices that encircle most of the WB lot, and Milo keeps an eye out for Building 15. "That's them, right there," he points right across Adrian's line of sight, and Adrian whaps his arm.

"I have eyes, Milo, I can see the building too," Adrian mocks.

Milo's thrumming with energy; he can feel it crackling under his skin. This is the chance he's been waiting for through The Fresh Prince and Gilmore Girls and even Rocky and Heroes. Even with all those things, he's never gotten a call like this before.

He's out of the car before it even stops, and it takes him a minute to realize Adrian's talking to him. "It's just a Meet-n-Greet, Milo," Adrian warns him, leaning over to talk out the passenger side window.

"I know, I know." Milo's trying to get his heart rate under control, but he knows people who've been doing this their whole lives that have never gotten this far. "I just-—" he stops talking because he doesn't know what to say. Or what to think. He doesn't want to hope, but he can't help it.

Adrian smiles. "Come over after, if you want," he offers. "The kids would love to see you."

Milo nods his head, but his mind is already on another page.

There's a tiny plaque on the wall with an arrow for Smoke House, and when Milo gets upstairs there's nobody there. It throws him off for a moment and he calls "Hello?" before stepping past the receptionist area. He's not sure where he's going but his gut is telling him –-

"THIS IS ALL FUCKING BULLSHIT!" A voice suddenly erupts from an office not too far ahead, and Milo freezes. It's not like he's trespassing -- technically he is -- but mostly he's just uncertain. When he pauses outside the cracked office door, he feels like he's stepping off a ledge strapped to a harness that may not work.

And then he hears a voice Milo could recognize in his sleep. Everyone could recognize George Clooney's voice. It's like the Voice of God. If God lived in Hollywood. At the moment God's telling someone else to calm down.

"I fucking told you people that this shit was a bad fucking idea, but did anybody want to fucking listen to the miracle worker? NO! Well, now, Ryan's too fat and you're all fucked and I hope you get syphilis!" the screaming voice from before retorts.

There's silence, which doesn't quite sound like a murder. Milo figures this is as good a time as any to knock on the door. He takes a step back when it's yanked up open, and Milo goes temporarily blind from the star power. Sitting around a glass table are George Clooney and Viggo Mortensen and some guy in a green army hat with two-day old stubble.

The door is being held open by a shorter man with a huge scowl on his face. "Who the fuck are you?" the man snaps. "Did you come to bring me my lunch order or my daily blow job?"

Milo opens his mouth only to have George Clooney cut him off. "Ari, for the last time, if you don't shut up I'm putting you in a ball gag."

Ari narrows his eyes and stares at Milo. "I know you, you're that kid from that TV show, what's it called? Lost?"

Milo's heart trips in his chest. "No, I'm on—"

"No, it's fucking Gossip Girl," Ari corrects himself. "My daughter loves that shit. A bunch of teenager hookers pimping themselves for Prada." Ari narrows his eyes, "You don't look 30, what are you? 45? Goddamn Sandy sending me her fucking geriatric clients!"

"No, I'm 30. I just turned 30 in July," Milo corrects, side-stepping through the door. He gets the idea that this guy would slam the door in his face just to have something to do.

The guy in the hat is watching all of this with a sort of wry amusement on his face, as though he gets this all the time. Meanwhile, the Ari person stands next to Milo frowning. "You're fucking 30 and I'm fucking Jessica Simpson. He's too fucking short. And he's not hot enough. NEXT!"

"Wait!" Milo demands. "I haven't even read anything yet!"

"You wanna read?" Ari snaps, "Go get Hooked on Phonics."

Milo can't believe this meeting is going this way. This was supposed to be his big day. Things are supposed to get easier when you get to the top; he's not supposed to be contemplating choking some suit in George Clooney's office.

Milo can feel his hands around Ari's throat already, but he's jarred from his homicidal reverie by a large ripping noise.

Milo backs into the wall when Viggo Mortensen gets to his feet and crosses the room in a few large strides. "I think the little mouth has spoken enough," Viggo says, slapping a strip of duct tape over Ari's mouth.

Milo stares, George smirks and Viggo seems satisfied all while Ari's face is turning the brightest shade of red Milo's ever seen outside of a make-up box.

Ari moves to rip his tape off, and Viggo stills his hand. "I wouldn't do that if I were you," he cautions.

Ari's eyes are bulging in his head, but when all eyes turn towards George Clooney, he just nods. "I agree with Viggo; Ari, take a time out. Milo, we're sorry about Ari, he's always like this, and he hasn't been fed lately, so it's even worse. Why don't you come sit down, and we'll talk about why you're here."

Milo exhales a long breath and gives George his most dazzling smile. George just raises an eyebrow, and Milo's brain reels. He's around good-looking people all day, every day, but this is George Clooney. And then Milo's body almost collapses under the weight of Viggo Mortensen's hand on his shoulder.

Everyone is someone else's fan.

Milo takes the seat Viggo steers him into and sits down, wincing when the door behind him slams shut. George snickers as Viggo sits down beside him. "Ari hates this part of the casting anyway," George explains as he sorts through some papers that are on the table.

"So, you are casting today?" Milo asks. Sandy hadn't known quite what the specifics were, but she had said there was a role and George Clooney was interested in him, and that was plenty for Milo.

George nods his head as Viggo speaks up. "I'm sorry for the bad vibes Ari brings around, little brother, but George can't leave home without him."

George shakes his head. "I can leave Ari at home any time, but he always chews up the furniture. It's cheaper to just bring him along."

It's Viggo's turn to look amused, but it's the guy in the hat that speaks up. "You're not from Lost," he interrupts. "You're from Heroes."

Milo nods as the guy removes his hat. Jesus, he's not some guy, it's the kid from Transformers. Milo can see the billboards getting bigger every minute. "Shia," he says, extending his hand.

"Milo."

As they're shaking hands, Milo can feel George and Viggo watching them. The kid seems cool enough, and presumably he's already been cast, which means Milo – Milo doesn't quite know what it means. He heard 'movie' 'George Clooney' and his name and that was enough for him. Maybe he should've listened harder.

George clears his throat. "Let's try this again, shall we? You've just met Shia, next to me is The King and you can call me Doug Ross."

Milo smiles for a first time in what feels like forever. "It's nice to meet you," he says, settling in his chair. "I, uh, I didn't know you all were making a film together," he says. It's better than saying, 'I am such a big fan of yours, if I was into guys, I would totally want to do you. Right after Adrian.'

"It's a project George and I have been talking about with Bradley," Viggo speaks up, "But Bradley is-–"

"Brad is off playing Mother Theresa, so I decided I couldn't wait for him anymore," George adds.

"That's not the way I would've put it," Viggo offers.

"You would've said our stars were out of alignment and Brad needed to go commune with nature," George says.

"But your stars are out of alignment."

"It's not my stars that are out of alignment, it's my-–" George stops himself as though suddenly remembering there are other people in the room. "Milo, have you ever heard of a project called The Frayed Edge?"

Milo shakes his head.

George nods. "Okay, well, the first thing you should know is that it's not Brokeback Mountain: The Sequel."

Milo blinks once, twice. When he said he would go gay for George Clooney, he had been kidding. Or maybe not. "Okay." Milo drags out the syllables in 'okay' for a bit, because he needs time to process. A gay film. With George Clooney and Viggo Mortensen. The notoriety alone will certainly make sure he's all over Google search for the next five years.

"Both of the leads are male though," George adds. "And it is a love story."

"It's not a story about gender," Viggo amends, "it's about loving who you love. The world is too small to let small minds ruin your existence."

Milo nods his head as George considers him thoughtfully. "He hasn't run out screaming yet," George says to Viggo in a mock whisper. "It's a start."

Milo's brain suddenly starts pinging like a pinball machine. "Is Shia the guy I'm sleeping with?"

Shia coughs and George laughs. "It's not a sex film," Viggo says. "It's about the human condition. Intimacy isn't about sex. It can just be kissing. Or touching. Or sleeping. In this case you just happen to be intimate with Shia."

Milo bites his lip thoughtfully. "So, that's a 'yes, I will be kissing Shia'."

George's mouth quirks up at the corner. "That is the plan, yes."

Milo cocks his head to the side. "How do you feel about this?" he asks, nodding his head towards Shia.

Shia shrugs. "It depends on how well you can kiss."

Milo's mother has always taught him that if you're going to do something, you should just do it. Less talk, more leaning across the table to kiss the star of Transformers.

One minute, Milo's in his own chair, talking about going gay for George Clooney, and the next he's stretched across the table with a fistful of Shia's shirt in his hand. Shia's stubble is rough against Milo's skin, but he kisses well. His lips are soft, not chapped, and the kiss is wet without being sloppy. Best of all, nobody rams their tongue down someone else's throat.

"FUCK ME! IT'S THE ATTACK OF THE GAYS!"

Ari's voice snaps Milo out of his current activity, but he doesn't even remember closing his eyes until he opens them and finds Shia looking at him with a huge smirk on his face. Out the corner of his eye, Milo can see George and Viggo watching them with mild amusement, and Milo can’t help chuckling even as he disentangles his fingers from Shia's hoodie.

When Milo turns around, Ari is standing in the doorway looking constipated. "Fuck," Ari says mildly. "Thank God I'm straight or I might've just gotten a boner."

Milo turns back and looks from Shia to George to Viggo. "Was that okay?"

"It was good for me," Shia replies.

"Well then," George says amiably. "Milo, how would you like to not-sleep with Shia in our movie?"

Milo smiles and shrugs his shoulders as nonchalantly as possible. "Sounds good to me."

--Act III: Shia--

Now with beautiful movie art by

antheia and the crazy talented

slodwick. Show them love people, they're the ones who are making this happen.