Hoping that it wasn't an omen for how her sleep schedule would be treating her on her press trip, Kirby climbed out of her bed at 3 am and made her way to her couch instead, hoping that a change in scenery would make her sleepy once more.
The half-finished joint she'd left on the coffee table called to her invitingly from the ashtray. With a defeated sigh, she crossed the room to open the window and relit it, settling in uncomfortably on the floor.
She had two interviews lined up for that day - and Fallon would have a car sent in the next four hours to pick her up. It was the last day before they flew out, and while Fallon did preach about using every possible moment that they had for productivity, she'd relented and scheduled their day to end early. Kirby knew she'd be half-asleep during the interviews, but knowing she could just come straight back home and sleep made her feel considerably better.
Pulling open the door, followed by the slightly rickety screen of the balcony from her spot on the floor, Kirby ashed the joint outside and let the cool air waft into her apartment. She tried to picture what Fallon would be doing, right then, but her brain angrily showed her a picture of the brunette, eyes closed, with a massive power cable sticking out of her back and into the wall.
She felt guilty as soon as she snorted at the image, though Fallon had deserved everything she'd said to her yesterday. And the reassurance that she was actually interested in what Kirby was doing made her feel a little less annoyed with the entire situation. Having the brunette breathing down her neck constantly would have been much more enjoyable if she just learned to lighten up once in awhile.
It was weird that Kirby never once saw her with another person. She had originally chalked it up to her being a workaholic, but wasn't sure anymore.
Already feeling her worries about the day fading out of her mind, Kirby flicked the roach from her hand over the edge of the balcony and stood up, shutting the door and locking it. She could try to get a bit of a nap in before she had to start getting ready for work.
Climbing back into her bed, she scrolled through Alice's instagram - Fallon had pettily deleted the app off of her phone altogether, but the browser view worked fine. The singer was already in New York, and the mix of blurry group pictures, selfies, and rooftop views made Kirby miss her immediately. She considered phoning her, then remembered the time - it was only be 6 am in New York, and there was no way that Alice was awake at that time on her day off.
She scrolled for a little longer, smiling curiously when she saw Jeff's name pop up under the top likes on one of Alice's photos, and clicked through to his page instead. His page was considerably brighter than Alice's had been - full of high-quality photos of himself with clients - Kirby recognized a few artists she knew - and his family. She scrolled for a little bit until she paused on a photo that was clearly taken at a work event - Jeff, and Fallon, stood out to Kirby amongst a group photo of strangers, and she quickly clicked the photo to bring up the tags. Everyone in the photo was linked to, except for Fallon. Frowning to herself and pulling up the search bar, she searched 'Fallon Carrington' - but none of the results were a match.
She tried Twitter, next, and even Facebook - but she found nothing of value there, either. Googling her name brought up the Carrington PR firm's company website, and a LinkedIn profile, but both of those were bare bones, too. Clicking on the official website, Kirby snuggled deeper into her covers and rolled onto her side, propping a pillow up under her cheek and preparing to research. The 'Company Standards' and 'What We Do' sections were about as generic as every other company that Kirby had come across, but her finger hovered over the 'Our History' link thoughtfully.
Blinking the brightness out of her eyes when the page changed from black and gold to a suddenly stark white background, Kirby refocused on a photo of Fallon and a man that Kirby didn't recognize, scrolling down to read the caption.
Blake Carrington, CEO, and daughter Fallon.
Huh. She scrolled through the page for another moment, but there wasn't another mention or photo of Fallon, so she backed out, scrolling through the homepage one last time to make sure that she hadn't missed anything when she noticed the time.
5:54AM. Shit.
Plugging her phone in, frustrated with herself, Kirby rolled over and desperately willed herself to fall asleep, if only for twenty more minutes. Her eyes ached as she closed them, dry from the smoke and staring at a bright screen in the dark, but she ignored it and curled up under the blanket tightly.
The next thing she knew, she was waking up to the sound of sharp rapping on her front door. Sitting up and glancing at her phone, she gasped out loud, and leapt to her feet. It was 7:00 on the dot - she needed to be at the first interview in only half an hour. Scrambling into a pair of jeans and pulling a cardigan around herself to give the illusion of being dressed and ready, she ran to open the door.
An equally tired - but considerably more put-together l - Fallon stood on the other side of it, arms crossed.
"Okay, I am-" Fallon took a deep breath before continuing. "I'm waving the white flag, here. Can you please give this a rest? Please? I don't get the whole self-sabotage thing."
Kirby held the door open wider, a pang of guilt surprising her as it hit her.
"I'm not self-sabotaging. I overslept. Come in."
"We have to go," Fallon insisted.
"I don't even have a bra on. Just let me get dressed."
Fallon sighed, stepping inside and Kirby reached around her to shut the door, suddenly extremely aware of how everything she was wearing had a very distinct green scent to it. If Fallon noticed, she didn't say anything, instead walking further into the apartment and glancing around, unimpressed.
Kirby had cleaned since the last time Fallon had visited, but the stacked crates of whiskey in the corner were a new piece of decor, and the ashtray by the window was almost completely full.
"I can't believe you live here," Fallon murmured, watching as Kirby vanished back down the hall toward her bedroom. She heard the brunette follow her, but ignored her, kicking her jeans off and stepping into a fresh pair as Fallon rounded the corner and leaned on the doorframe.
"I don't take judgment from people who aren't transparent about their own bullshit," Kirby informed her.
"Is that you trying to get me to invite you over?" Fallon snorted. Kirby raised an eyebrow at her as she lifted her head from where she was doing up her pants, and then pulled her shirt up over her head, tossing it onto the bed.
Fallon made a startled noise in the back of her throat and turned around, staring at the wall in the hallway instead. "Uhhh…"
"Nothing you haven't seen before," Kirby pointed out, feeling a smug smirk pulling at the corners of her mouth as she tracked down a bra and started to pull it on.
"What makes you think -?"
Kirby cut Fallon off.
"The movie?"
"Right." Fallon was still refusing to look at her, which made her laugh under her breath and dig through her drawers for a shirt. "You should… hurry up. There's coffee in the car."
That perked Kirby up a little bit, pulling a shirt out almost at random and tugging it over her head before using the hair tie around her wrist to pull her hair up into a tangled ponytail. Her skin had been looking clearer than ever lately, even without the production-supplied $400 facials, which she chalked up to the humidity being balanced out by the unrealistic amount of alcohol she had been consuming lately. Deep down, she knew that was insane, but it was a nice thought.
"Alright, I can do some makeup in the car. Let's go." Kirby watched Fallon's body physically untense in relief, and hummed curiously to herself as she followed her out and back down the hallway. As fun as it was to watch her squirm, having Fallon in her own apartment like this made her feel just as uncomfortable as Fallon visibly was. She was as out of place as her Porsche parked outside was, but instead of looking overdressed, it made everything else just look more depressing than it already was; shock of the red that could be, against the grey and beige background of her actual surroundings.
Fallon's car had been detailed, she realized upon sliding inside. The next thing she noticed was the pile of DVDs in a Carrington PR tote bag at the foot of the passenger seat, which she reached for as the brunette made her way around to the driver's side and climbed in as well.
"Hey, don't touch." Fallon pushed the bag down softly when Kirby tried to bring it up into her seat with her. "That isn't yours."
Kirby snorted, taking one of the coffees from the cupholder and taking a sip. Still warm. Perfect temperature for chugging.
Letting the tote bag drop from her mind, she instead dug into her own purse and pulled out her mascara, giving Fallon a single warning before she started the car:
"Drive careful."
Fallon snorted, shaking her head but seeming to heed the warning, occasionally glancing at the redhead as she pulled away into the road. She even occasionally warned her when turns in the navigation were coming up, until she had finally lowered the wand from her eyes and tucked it back into her bag.
"So, we've worked with these guys before. I've personally had a few actresses jump start their tours with them, but they tend to be a little bit… forward. And intense. So I figured we'd let them take second place, and then we can still bury them under the rest of your tour if we need to."
Kirby watched Fallon while she spoke, applying a liberal amount of gloss and then smacking her lips loudly enough to make the brunette look at her before turning her attention back to the road.
"What kind of intense?" She asked.
"Scarily well-researched intense." Her words made Kirby stiffen in her seat, but the brunette waved a hand. "Not about you , about the movie. And the production. Nothing weird happened while you were filming, did it?"
Kirby shook her head.
"I don't have anything to compare it to," she pointed out, honestly. "But I don't think so."
"Good. Just give me a signal if you need me to bail you out, alright? Take a sip of water or something."
Kirby felt a little swell in her chest, feeling excited like she had the first time that she'd managed to properly connect with anything Fallon was doing for her. She abruptly remembered their conversation from the night before, and wondered whether she had knocked some sense into her, or if she'd just learned how to act to keep her comfortable.
Either way she was too tired to fight it - even if the neutral reassurance was all an act, it was much more pleasant than a fight first thing in the morning.
"Sure, whatever you say."
Fallon's eyebrows shot up, but she kept her gaze on the road. Kirby had to fight the urge to laugh.
"Turning left," Fallon said quickly, after a few moments, one hand shooting out as if she planned to hold it across Kirby's chest. She seemed to change her mind at the last minute, though, instead lowering her hand back to the gear shift.
"My makeup is already done." Kirby felt the grin spreading across her face and into her words. "Were you going to mom arm me?"
Fallon cleared her throat, parking the car. Kirby hadn't even realized that they'd arrived.
"Okay, you're already late, get out," was the only answer she got.
Kirby laughed outright once she was on the street, watching Fallon pull away to the valet kiosk before heading into the lobby without her.
The concierge directed her down the hallway toward one of the smaller conference rooms, and she let herself in quietly. She wasn't sure what she'd been expecting - it looked exactly the same as every other interview set up she'd been to recently, but Fallon's words had definitely gotten under her skin, at least a little. Scarily well-researched. She knew nothing weird or under the table had happened on her set, but the idea that they might have come across something she'd forgotten about made her nervous. She shouldn't have pressed Fallon for details in the first place.
She made her way over and introduced herself, getting mic'd and comfortable in the seat before glancing around for Fallon again. She supposed she might have deserved it, if she had just decided to leave her there by herself, but, all things considered, it felt like their morning had been one of the first pleasant ones they'd had in a while.
"Hey, so, we don't have a set script, but is there anything that you want completely off the table before we start?"
Kirby tore her gaze from the door to the woman in front of her and smiled a little bit, shaking her head.
"No, but I need to wait for my publicist, so-"
Fallon pushed both double doors open and strode in, marching directly up to Kirby's side and leaning over with a sheet of paper for the interviewer.
"Absolutely no mention of the state of the Australian government versus ours, don't bring up the director's wife, and I know you know about Alice Alby, so leave her out of it, too. This interview is about my client," Kirby jumped in surprise when Fallon's hands were suddenly pressing down on her shoulders. "And her movie. Are we clear?"
"Absolutely, Ms. Carrington." The woman smiled up at Fallon innocently, and Kirby held her breath for a beat before Fallon's hands dropped from her shoulders. She didn't dare turn around so that she could see where Fallon was - and didn't have to; the brunette dragged her guest seat around the entire set up, loudly filling the tense silence with the sound of metal scraping on vinyl, and set it behind the video village area. Taking a seat and clearing her throat, she gave Kirby one last reassuring look, and then pulled her phone out to busy herself while the interview was conducted.
Kirby was basically on autopilot, trying to keep her gaze from glazing over as she was asked the same questions that she had been parroting back answers to for what felt like her entire lifetime by then.
"So, this movie has Oscar buzz written all over it. Was that going through your head at all when you saw the finished product?"
Kirby glanced at Fallon for a split second, when the brunette's head snapped up and she made a cutting gesture to her throat. Trying not to smile to herself, she turned her gaze back to the woman beside the camera and shook her head.
"It would be an honor just to be nominated."
She watched Fallon grin at her phone, then smiled at the interviewer once more.
"Don't you feel that you sort of… went the extra mile, though? I mean - especially in today's times - it's a lot to ask from a breakout actress to undress on camera without being able to promise a high production value and solid artistic backing."
Kirby desperately wanted to turn to Fallon again, but forced herself to appear relaxed, staring directly at the woman in front of her as her mind raced.
"I'm sorry - what was the question?"
"In the movie. You have a love scene - it's your first film, I was just pointing out that it's a big risk to take unless you're being promised some sort of a kickback."
"Right," Kirby started, then shook her head, "I mean, no, I just. I heard that part. Was there a question, though?"
She watched as the woman worked to smooth over the attempted curveball and quickly swigged from her water bottle. She waited a beat, but Fallon didn't appear to be moving in her peripherals, so she took another sip, clearing her throat into it and hearing it echo into the plastic.
"I, personally think that you did outstanding work. The concern is always just that the end-product comes across as too… male-gaze oriented."
Kirby clutched her bottle in both hands.
"I suppose that is always a possibility." Her voice almost wavered, but she swallowed hard and kept it as neutral as possible, even forcing a tiny, weak smile as she spoke. "But we do our best - I did my best - to make sure that it was tasteful and important to the scene."
"What the fuck happened to you back there?" Kirby snapped, shoving a cigarette between her lips and barely even making it out of the front door of the hotel before lighting it.
The traffic outside was loud and bustling, but she took such a sharp first drag of smoke that she could hear the paper crackling under the heat.
"Kirby, relax, it wasn't that bad, you did fine!" Fallon insisted, trying to keep up with her as she marched toward the valet kiosk. "I was busy - our next cancelled on us, I wanted an explanation."
"I gave you the signal!" Kirby exclaimed, whirling around so quickly that the brunette had to stop herself from walking directly into her. She shook the mostly empty water bottle aggressively at her, watching Fallon wince away a little from the crinkling sound of it.
"You didn't even need me to bail you out!" Fallon pointed out. "You were perfectly fine, and that woman looked like an asshole. Please calm down."
Kirby took another drag from her cigarette, flinging the water bottle toward the nearest trash can and missing entirely.
Fallon watched it hit the side of the can and roll away, being picked up by a breeze and whisked into the street, before turning to Kirby again. The look on her face took the redhead by surprise, though, and she found herself struggling to maintain her glare when Fallon widened her eyes and sighed quietly.
"I'm sorry that you felt overwhelmed. But you handled it perfectly fine."
Kirby softened - half of her mind immediately screamed in protest, arguing with the half that was suddenly completely endeared by the woman in front of her.
"I'm still annoyed with you," she insisted.
"Fine. But I stand by what I said, and - hang on, I have to take this." Fallon turned away from Kirby and handed the valet her ticket, picking up her phone. "Hey! Did you get my text?"
Kirby turned her attention back to the road, and considered picking up the water bottle she'd thrown, but Fallon's voice cut through the background noise and she perked up.
"No, my afternoon just opened up. Looks like I can do lunch after all. Yeah? Perfect, I missed you. Oh, yeah, I'm just around the corner, actually. Let me get my client a car, we're just finishing up here."
Kirby turned to face her now, watching as she hung up and turned back to her, jumping a little when she realized she was being stared at.
"Who was that?" Kirby asked, a smirk spreading across her face.
"Hm?" Fallon's eyebrows rose quickly, and she looked at her phone as if it had a better excuse for her. "No one. Change of plans, though. I'll get you a car."
Flagging down the valet, Fallon called him back over to cancel her pickup, then tapped away at her phone in silence for a few moments.
"Y'know what?" Kirby watched her, quirking an eyebrow. "I actually really need to eat. I can get my own car, I'm going to go, uhhh…" She looked around for a moment, then pointed at the nearest restaurant-looking building she could see.
Fallon followed her gaze, frowning in confusion for a moment before shrugging.
"Okay. I'll see you on the tarmac tomorrow morning. Don't be late." She pointed right at her, and Kirby resisted the urge to swat her hand away.
She finished her cigarette on the spot, watching Fallon wander toward the corner of the street and take a right turn, waiting until she disappeared around the building before butting out the smoke and trailing along behind her.
For a woman in heels, she walked surprisingly fast, and Kirby panicked when she rounded the corner and she couldn't immediately see where Fallon had gone to. She looked around frantically for a moment before spotting her vanishing into a nearby restaurant and sighing in defeat. Realizing how insane her stalking plan had been to begin with, she fished around in her bag for her pack of cigarettes and lit a second one, leaning against the wall of the building behind her and enjoying the brief moment of shade from the sun. Her afternoon was wide open, and despite her tiredness that morning, she now felt too awake to simply go home and rest. Just as she was about to wander down the street to see what she could find to entertain herself, she spotted Fallon making her way from the restaurant's interior to the attached sidewalk patio, and could see even from across the street how her face completely brightened in excitement as she made her way to one of the patio tables.
With his back to Kirby, a man got up from his own seat and immediately hugged Fallon when she approached, and the two exchanged what Kirby assumed were hellos, but she couldn't properly make them out from her spot. She watched Fallon settle in, trying to gauge if the meeting was professional or not - but judging by the phone call she'd overheard back at the hotel, it was much more likely a personal date.
Still, it was jarringly new to see the way Fallon lit up when she talked and smiled genuinely - Kirby was floored at the sight of her laughing, and seemingly not at anyone else's expense - and she found herself watching until she'd completely smoked the new cigarette down to the filter.
Maybe she'd been wrong about the other woman not being able to date or make friends. That, or Fallon was as good at manipulating everyone around her as she was with Kirby. Feeling a surprisingly irritated pull in her chest, Kirby stomped the smoke out and turned to head back around the corner she'd come from. It wasn't that she was a complete robot; that was just how she chose to act around Kirby the majority of the time. She'd been so stuck on proving that Fallon was an actual person that she hadn't really realized the implications of why she personally never got to see it firsthand.
Passing the valet parking lot, Kirby put her sunglasses on and slid, unnoticed, past a group of paparazzi that were crowded outside of the hotel entrance to wait for someone else on their way out. It wasn't until she was in the clear that she had the cold realization that she was increasingly able to handle situations that she would have sworn she needed Fallon for perfectly on her own. It was a much warmer realization, though, that despite being able to handle a few curveballs by herself, she much preferred it when Fallon was around.