Fallon didn't want to jinx it, but once they'd landed in New York, Kirby seemed to have woken up as a new woman. The spark was clearly extinguished from her eyes, but she was helpful - she didn't complain once when Fallon suggested that they have an early night after dinner - and while it originally made her a little suspicious, wondering if the redhead planned to retire to her room with another hidden bottle, she ultimately seemed genuine.
Kirby actually suggested their spot for dinner, and Fallon wanted to ask if had anything to do with Alice - the worst case scenario in her mind was that they'd 'run into her' because she'd told Kirby they didn't have time for her to properly hang out with her - but she held her tongue and decided to see if this 'new Kirby' would behave or not.
Alice was nowhere to be seen, though, and Kirby barely even looked up from her phone as she asked the hostess to seat them near the back.
"How'd you know about this place if you've never been here?" Fallon asked once they settled in, though she felt pathetic and hypocritical, needing to fill the tired silence with something .
"Internet." Kirby tapped away on her phone for another moment before setting it down and looking up, fixing Fallon with a quick, tight smile as she reached for her water. "We should do something after this."
Fallon sighed, watching a hint of the Kirby she had actually come to know flash through in a millisecond of a pout before the other woman straightened her features and shrugged.
"Just a suggestion. It's still early."
"And I thought we said an early night was a good idea. Tomorrow is going to be packed."
"Just feeling kind of… cramped up, sitting in hotel rooms constantly."
"What did you have in mind?" Fallon flipped the menu closest to her open but she was focused on the other woman, not the words on the page.
"I don't know. A walk. Something."
"You want me to take you for a walk?" Fallon repeated, reflexively amused but then immediately regretting it, somehow worried that prodding at the other woman would cause her to flip the switch and go back to her unproductive behaviour.
"Ha-ha." Kirby rolled her eyes and laughed sarcastically. She looked up as their server approached, but before he could offer them any sort of greeting, she informed him, "We're going to need a wine menu."
"We are?" Fallon asked as the waiter spun on his heel and marched away again.
"We are." Kirby said decisively, flipping her own menu open and poring over it curiously. "I feel like there was more room in the budget for a better-furnished hotel room, we can at least treat ourselves with the balance."
"What do you care about the hotel bed, if you're going to sleep outside?"
Watching as the gears turned in the actress's mind, trying to come up with a comeback, Fallon sipped her own water and then hummed into her glass.
"You can go for a walk, I don't care. As long as you can get up for your call time."
Kirby's phone buzzed before she could answer, and Fallon saw a flash of Alice's face on the screen before it vanished again, and Kirby flipped her phone over abruptly.
"Actually, I'll go with you," Fallon decided.
"Really?" Kirby eyed her suspiciously, but before Fallon needed to come up with a good excuse, their server returned with a wine list and left the two of them to go over that between themselves instead.
By the time that they ordered and were waiting on food, Kirby had already circled back to pressing the matter, though.
"If you think I'm going to sneak out like some kind of kid just to see Alice, you'll be happy to know she's doing a show tonight, and you don't need to come out for 'fresh air and exercise' just to keep an eye on me."
"Why are you acting like fresh air and exercise are the shitty parts of keeping an eye on you?" Fallon almost laughed.
Kirby fixed her with an unamused look. "So you're just coming with me because you enjoy my company."
"Less and less with each passing day," Fallon snarked back.
"Funny. That's funny." She sipped her wine, swiping a drop of it that threatened to fall onto the tablecloth up with one fingertip. "What're you doing in publicity when you should have been a comedian?"
She popped her finger into her mouth and Fallon immediately forgot the insult that had been on the tip of her tongue.
"Hello?" Kirby cocked her head forward and blinked at her impatiently.
"I was intentionally not laughing because you should not be encouraged."
"I was half-serious. Why'd you get into publicity?"
Fallon opened her mouth to answer, before deciding that she wasn't interested in going down that particular road. At least not with Kirby.
"I think that we're past small talk at this point in our relationship."
"Right," Kirby nodded slowly, sipping her wine once more. "On account of you seeing me naked. Or breaking into my apartment. Or breaking into my apartment and then seeing me naked."
" Half naked," Fallon corrected.
"So far."
Kirby's words hung very heavily in the air between the two of them for a second before she finally backpedalled.
"I mean, if you're lifting the ban on me having fun and plan to continue to break in without warning, it's bound to happen eventually."
"Right." Fallon cleared her throat and took a few generous sips of her own wine, nearly choking on them. "Well, you could stop giving me reasons to break in."
"Where's the fun in that?" Kirby grinned, but Fallon quickly dropped her gaze. "Oh my god, lighten up."
"I just peeled you off of balcony furniture and shoved you on a plane to get to work," Fallon reminded her. "Forgive me."
Kirby sighed quietly.
"Whatever." She leaned back a little as their food arrived and was placed in front of them, poking away at it with her fork for a minute.
The silence was long and awkward, and it made Fallon feel guilty for telling Kirby not to fill every gap in conversation with meaninglessness.
"Where are we going for this walk?" Fallon finally asked.
"I told you that you didn't have to come. I was going to go see if I could meet any drug dealers under the Brooklyn Bridge and then maybe go back to Alice's hotel and break in to wait for her and hope I don't get arrested."
"My god, y'know, it's a good thing you can do drama because you are criminally unfunny."
Kirby laughed quietly. "That's very high praise, thank you."
"Definitely not a compliment," Fallon reminded her, but Kirby shook her head.
"You're trying so hard, I can tell, but you can't make me not like you."
"Is that your new goal? After you failed spectacularly at making me like you , you decided to go the opposite way?" Fallon pushed her own food around, but she was too distracted to actually feel hungry.
"But you do like me," Kirby told her, smugly sitting back in her seat with a little shrug.
Fallon glanced up and caught her eye, and for a moment she was tempted to admit it. She did like this part, at least - the back and forth; the excited energy when Kirby got to do something for the first time that Fallon had seen so many actors become jaded to the experience of… it was pleasant. She didn't mind the idiotic texts or the stupid questions. Dragging her out of messes and rescheduling interviews and trying to pry her away from her less savoury - at least image-wise - friends, however, were all things that Fallon could live without.
She watched the other woman cut up the chicken on her plate into tiny pieces and considered the idea that maybe giving more of the approval that she so clearly was desperately looking for would make her more susceptible to controlling herself - but watching her refill her wine glass too generously reminded her that Kirby was exactly who she was, with or without Fallon's jabs about babysitting and groundings.
"If you didn't like me at least a little bit, you wouldn't be here," Kirby continued. "I know you could be doing something else."
"Well, I don't start anything I won't finish," Fallon informed her, shaking herself out of her thoughts. "And I already told you why I'm here. Plus it'll wipe the smug look off of Cristal's face when she hears your name at the nominations."
"Oh yeah?" Kirby asked, wiping the corner of her mouth with her thumb and raising an eyebrow. "Why's that? She betting for the other team?"
"She only gave me you because she wanted me to be miserable."
Kirby laughed quietly at that.
"And now look at us. Best of friends." She lifted her glass and clinked it gently against Fallon's, taking a sip before setting it aside. "I've never been someone's punishment before. Should I be doing more?"
"I think doing any more would be overkill."
That just made her laugh even more.
"You know," she hummed, "If you had told me all of that from the start, we could have worked together. But I'm not going out of my way to help you now, because you've been such a huge bitch."
"Oh no, I'm heartbroken." Fallon stabbed up a piece of broccoli and popped it into her mouth, smirking.
"I think that requires a heart," Kirby shot back, pushing her still mostly full plate aside and leaning on the table to fix her gaze on the other woman.
"How original," Fallon hummed.
"Come on." Kirby stood up, picking up her glass and slamming back the rest of her wine before tossing her napkin onto the table. "I want to enjoy my last couple of hours of freedom. I promise not to lead us to any drug dealers or pop star's hotel rooms."
"Fine." Fallon pushed her own seat back and straightened her skirt, following the redhead out.
Kirby woke Fallon up the morning of their flight, waiting outside her door with coffee and the copy of the paper she'd requested at the front desk.
"Good morning!"
Wincing at the energy - too much of it for the early hour, Fallon decided - she reached out for both the paper and the cup, frowning.
"Why are you up before me?"
She was distinctly aware of her unkempt appearance, but was too confused to focus any of her thoughts on how embarrassing it was to be standing in front of her client, bare-faced, in her pajamas.
"I couldn't sleep," Kirby explained, and Fallon finally took in her appearance. She was wearing more makeup than usual, and her outfit was considerably nicer than the one she'd worn on their previous two flights. "So then I had tea, thinking it would put me back to sleep, but I didn't realize it wasn't decaffeinated. So then I did my makeup and packed, and by then it was time for us to be getting ready, anyway."
"You're talking… very fast," Fallon sighed, sipping her coffee and turning around to leave Kirby in the open doorway as she made her way to the bathroom to start getting ready.
The redhead followed her in, shutting the door behind her.
"I need to get gravol before we get on the plane. I gave you the last of mine."
Fallon scrutinized her reflection thoughtfully for a moment before glancing at the shower next to her. The water pressure was terrible, but if she held out, she could use her own high-end steam shower as soon as she was home. Dry shampoo was the winner - just this once.
"Why don't you just take an actual sleeping pill like a normal person?" Fallon asked. "Y'know, too much gravol can stop your heart."
"Spooky," Kirby hummed. "But I take it for my stomach. Like a normal person. Not everyone is terrified of flying."
Kicking the door shut and pulling her toothbrush out, Fallon ignored the jab - it was meant to get a rise out of her, anyway - and tracked down her toothpaste.
Kirby continued to talk, though, and Fallon heard her lean up against the wall outside of the bathroom door as she spoke.
"Would it make you feel better to try to wrestle booze away from me again? That was a fun game that you were really bad at."
Fallon found herself smirking despite her annoyance and shook it off, rinsing her toothbrush and reaching for her dry shampoo instead.
"That's a very weird survival instinct that you have," Fallon called back.
Kirby hummed, and then Fallon could hear the laugh behind her words when she spoke next.
"I got pretty ripped fighting kangaroos back home."
Pulling the bathroom door back open, Fallon fixed the actress with the most unimpressed look she could muster, but Kirby just squinted back, grinning.
"I can see you trying not to smile. You're stubborn. Like a toddler."
Snorting and slipping around her to properly hide her face and grab her makeup bag from her suitcase at the end of the bed, Fallon shook her head.
"I can't believe all I wished for this entire campaign was you being able to get up and be ready at a reasonable hour, yet somehow this pre-seven-AM Kirby is even more annoying than usual. You still haven't told me why exactly you're so enthusiastic."
"Homesick, I guess," Kirby admitted, coming over and flopping onto Fallon's unmade bed with a little bounce. She laid back and looked up at the brunette, shrugging. "I want to get back to my friends, and my -"
"One bedroom with no central air conditioning?" Fallon finished for her, glancing at her as she made her way back into the bathroom.
"Right," Kirby agreed, staying comfortably where she was. "And I'm sure whatever mansion you live in is getting all cobwebby and gross without you there, too. Wait, no. No mansion. Just a pull-out sofa bed in your office, right?"
"Neither," Fallon replied.
"You sure?" Kirby asked. "Because when I Googled you, it said you lived in some ridiculous castle in Beverly Hills."
" Used to ," Fallon corrected her, not sure why she was even bothering to indulge her. "That's my family's house. I don't live there."
"Aw," Kirby cooed. "Did they build you in the cyborg factory at the size you are now, or did you have some weird rich-kid childhood that explains all of this?"
Leaning back from the mirror and admiring her eyeliner, double-checking that both sides were even, Fallon scoffed.
"I grew up in Atlanta. Your creepy stalker background check didn't tell you that, too?"
"...No." Kirby's tone sounded genuinely surprised. "It didn't. Why don't you have the… y'know. Accent?"
Losing her patience, Fallon pulled out her lipstick and then turned to poke her head out of the bathroom door to glare at the other woman.
"If you're going to sit there this entire time could you at least make yourself useful and tell the front desk we'll be down shortly? Instead of just… interrogating me?"
Kirby propped herself up on her elbows and frowned. " Interrogating you? Jesus."
Mercifully, though, she did leave Fallon alone to finish the last of her routine, and as she finished with a quick mist of setting spray, she heard Kirby phoning down to the desk to update them.
"Are you ready? Totally ready? We're not going to get halfway to LA before you decide you forgot your phone or something?" Fallon came back out and zipped her makeup bag back into her suitcase.
"Yeah, Mum , I think I got everything." Kirby hopped up and tossed Fallon's empty coffee cup into the garbage for her. "I sent my bag down already. Can we go now, please ?"
Bouncing impatiently on the spot, Kirby resembled an excited kid more than an Oscar-hopeful, but Fallon found herself (secretly) endeared, and had to click her tongue in mock-distaste to cover up her smile.
"Fine. Lead the way."
Flinging her jacket down on the couch and then collapsing directly onto it, Fallon sighed heavily in relief and began to toe off her uncomfortable heels. The six hour flight had been rougher than she was expecting, and the combination of dry-shampoo and overall 'plane scent' that didn't seem to go away, even on a private vessel, were cloying to her senses.
Pushing herself onto her elbows, she took a quick glance around to ensure she hadn't missed seeing any broken windows or other signs of trouble on her way inside.
Her shower was so welcoming that the first pulse of good water pressure made Fallon want to burst into tears of relief. She scrubbed until her skin felt dry, and then leaned against the wall and let the steam wash over her until she felt like she was going to start sweating again.
Her kitchen welcomed her with perfect cleanliness and her own coffee maker - which she quickly made herself a cup of, despite the fact that it was still early afternoon, just because she'd missed having it her own way. She ate in her own dining room and worked from her own home office, and by the time she climbed into her own bed at the end of her night, she felt like she was completely back to normal. The jet lag convinced her that she wanted to be asleep by 8PM, but as she tossed and turned, she realized that maybe she wasn't as relaxed as she'd originally thought.
Trying to will herself to fall asleep, she wondered what it was that was keeping her up - Kirby seemed to be back to working well, and coming home had obviously put her in a more positive mood, as had the fact that all of her work obligations seemed to be under control. She even had a couple of days to relax, and despite realizing that she probably wasn't going to be able to squirm out of having to go to the wedding, it seemed like a much more minor issue now that Kirby was proving to be attached to her. Maybe she just needed a pill - the thought of it brought her thoughts back to Kirby and her gravol quickly.
Groaning and rolling over to check the time, she saw that an entire two hours had passed since she'd started tossing and turning. With a defeated sigh, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and stepped into her slippers, making her way downstairs to the couch. The background noise of the television usually did an alright job of putting her to sleep when she was having issues.
Her living room looked uninviting, and not at all how she'd been picturing it the entire time she'd been out of town. After being in smaller rooms and rarely alone for a few days in a row, the empty, open-concept room looked lonely instead of chic. Ignoring the thought and digging through the wicker basket of movies next to the television stand, Fallon flicked aside classic after classic, her hands pausing over the copy of Splintered Men that she'd never returned.
Tugging it out and putting it into the player before she could stop herself, she made her way back to the couch and settled in, finding herself mouthing the words along with the opening monologue from the lead actor.
Her brain had completely separated the Kirby in the movie to the Kirby that she knew in her day-to-day life by then. Seeing her on the screen was no longer as startling as it had been the first couple of times she'd watched it. Even the feeling of guilt and embarrassment that pooled in her stomach every time the sex scene came up was beginning to lessen with each watch through, though Fallon didn't even make it that far in before she was lulled into a deep, and almost sudden, sense of comfortable drowsiness.
Curling up on her side and pulling one of the couch cushions closer to tuck under her cheek, she listened to the other woman's voice, and finally fell asleep.