An Object in Motion

Chapter 8: Unstoppable Force

It's the quiet moments that hit hardest. As the day winds down, Harlow faces exhaustion, gratitude, and the stirrings of emotion she's spent years suppressing.
Sometimes, being honest - even just a little - is the first step toward being better.

"Oh, er, sorry." That familiar, deep voice gave a stilted apology. "I should've, erm, known the crew was outside for a reason."

"It's fine." Harlow answered, quickly wiping off the rest of her makeup through quick sniffles. "You can come in, Tom, I just, uh, had a mascara incident."

"Did you?" Tom asked as he entered, setting his coffee down on the counter, looking between Harlow and Roy. "I suppose women do have mascara-related workplace injuries, we get off easy with a quarter the makeup, don't we?"

"That's what I said!" Harlow exclaimed, looking between Roy and Tom in the mirror. They shared a look, Tom pulling off his navy blue Dodgers cap, settling into the chair to the right of Harlow, Roy taking a seat to the left, unbuttoning the top of his collar.

"Tom, if Dean is in a bad mood, we apologize." Roy spoke over Harlow, who was trying desperately to reduce the redness of her eyes with some eye drops that were used to make eyes look whiter on camera. "We might've pulled some strings to try out a different direction on the John/Virginia confrontation."

"Did you?" Tom replied after a long drink of his coffee. "What direction did you take it?"

As the crew filed back in, an intern began to remove the pins from Harlow's hair and Tom shrugged off his jacket to begin preparing to film.

"We - well, saying 'we' is generous, Harlow and Amanda, the writer, made this happen - decided to try building out a more complex, personal relationship between John and Virginia. His death felt too easy so we played it a little differently." Roy explained while casually swinging to the left and right in his chair. Unlike Harlow, he didn't get to go home - he had to film with Tom now - so he sat and received some minor makeup touch ups.

"Hm," Tom weighed it and shrugged. "Makes sense to me. But Dawson's hacked off now?"

"He's fine." Harlow disagreed. "I...think. I might've, uh, blacked out in the end there. Did he seem that mad?" She looked to Roy for his perspective but he shook his head.

"No, not really, I just wanted to tell Tom about the stunt you just pulled off. It really was quite the feat, good job, kiddo." Roy smirked as Harlow's jaw dropped open.

"You jerk." She lightly tossed a dry cotton pad at Roy and he caught it with a grin.

"You know I'm done filming in a week." Roy commented. "We should celebrate somehow, shouldn't we?" He asked, looking between both Harlow and Tom. The three had formed a trio of sorts, much to Finn's chagrin, Harlow was sure, but most of the scenes with Roy featured either Tom, Harlow, or both of them, so they spent quite the amount of time on set together and with Harlow as a bridge who knew both of them, they very quickly got comfortable in each other's presence.

"What would you like to do?" Harlow asked, finding her heart aching prematurely for his absence. Roy had been delightful to work with when she had been a child, but Harlow found herself much closer to him now than she would have ever expected. He had become quite the friend and mentor over the past two and a half months and without any other friends, Harlow was likely more attached to Roy than she should have been.

"Hm," Roy hummed, furrowing his brow for a moment.

"Don't say it." Tom interrupted Roy's thought process with a knowing tone.

"Don't say what?" Harlow asked, whipping her head to look at Tom.

"Oh yes, what an idea!" Roy grinned. "Thank you for the idea, Tom, yes I do think matching tattoos would be quite the way to wrap filming."