On Tyler's phone, there's still a string of notifications. He's only double checked them oh, maybe a dozen times.

EmmaDonoghue: Good morning! A friend showed me your video with Dylan, & I had to contact you to tell you how moved I am by your interpretation of my words

EmmaDonoghue: I was brought to tears by the amount of insight you expressed in such subtle gestures. Felicity is wonderful & I wouldn't dream of trying to

EmmaDonoghue: trying to replace her, but we still haven't found our Micah and I'm ready to fight for you. Turning your heart and soul over to a studio is

EmmaDonoghue: always difficult—like sending your child to university!—so I insist on having final say on casting, & after seeing your take I have

EmmaDonoghue: complete faith in your ability to bring Micah to life. I'd like to meet you & talk a little about Micah & your interest in this project.

It's just so unreal. This doesn't happen to Tyler, this hasn't had a chance of happening since—

Tyler fell off the radar as a serious actor before he hit puberty. He's accepted that. There's nothing wrong with the job he does now, the roles he plays. It's good work, satisfying work; everything means something to someone. Even a horror movie Tyler might be embarrassed by sometimes helped someone through something. Derek definitely meant something to huge groups of people. Tyler's not gonna let some elitist Hollywood award system stop him appreciating that.

Of course he wants the big roles, the movies that mean something to him. To be a Johnny Depp or a Joaquin Phoenix or a Heath Ledger? Tyler'd have to be crazy not to want that. He just—didn't think it would ever happen. And was fine with that.

But now...

He'd answered Dylan's call feeling guilty, half-ready to turn it down. To offer to turn it down, to take time to consider.

But—"My agent'll fire me if I don't," he said, tried to—plead with Dylan, make him understand.

And Dylan said, "Good."

And hours later Tyler can't—can't let go of that. He wasn't expecting Dylan to be happy for him, he wasn't expecting—maybe a quiet, "Congratulations," some wallowing, and Tyler would've—helped him through it, offered not to take it, and Dylan would've said, "What, are you crazy? You have to, man, you can't do that to yourself."

And Tyler would make it up to him, find him something better, or they could write something...

But that's not what happened. And that's not what's gonna happen.

Dylan's making it a choice.

Him, and a dozen straight-to-DVDs, Tyler running through a forest with his shirt off, buckets of fake-blood coagulating on his skin, clinging to his abs—zoom in here, get a good shot—wipe him down and reset, go again, more sweat this time.

Or a chance to be in movies Tyler'd actually pay to see if he heard about them. To be the guy who looks down the lens and takes you over, makes you forget you're watching a movie and not just feeling something.

Tyler's seen this choice once before, was paralyzed by it, terrified of making the wrong one. Of choosing and spending the rest of his life stuck reliving that moment, that moment he threw everything away.

It's a good job, a reliable job. It's the man he loves, who he'd take a bullet for without blinking.

So why's every bone in his body screaming to go the other way?

Brittany's got promo for Pitch Perfect 3: Aca-Pocalypse for two weeks; Tyler's got reshoots and ADR. They can't make their schedules sync up. It's fine; Tyler can practically hear Brittany's voice in his head. She never liked Dylan, as much as she denied it, as much as she played nice so well Dylan wanted to hang out sometime, do something for her charity, maybe. She thought he was too jokey, that he couldn't take anything seriously. That Tyler takes everything seriously, which—that's not true. Tyler's got jokes, he can joke. He's sarcastic—people just don't hear it. He's...

But maybe that's the point, he thinks, ears heating so India pulls back from the makeup chair assessingly and asks, "You okay?"

"Fine," Tyler says—blandly, he thinks, but her lips purse.

"You're quiet today," she says. Searches in her tray of adhesives. "Haven't mentioned Dylan once."

One day Tyler will figure out how to blush on command, and how to keep from blushing. This is not something Johnny Depp ever had to deal with. You can be twenty-eight, six-one, bench 210 and look like it, but if your ears go red under pressure, you kinda have to resign yourself to every woman on Earth trying to mother you.

It's fine. Concern is—it's nice, sometimes. It could be a lot worse, there's plenty worse—racial profiling, or having an extremely punchable face, which Dylan claims is definitely a thing.

"He's fine," Tyler says.

India says nothing.

"He," Tyler says, then thinks better of it. "He—I got a job."

She's really examining the different prosthetics now, maybe not listening to him at all.

"Or off—Offered a job," Tyler amends. "That uh—I don't know if I'll..."

"Porn?" India asks, and Tyler chokes on nothing.

"Wha—no. No, I'm—No. Thank god. No," he adds again, starting to laugh. "No, not that."

"I've done porn," India says, noncommittally, and Tyler says, a couple nods later, "I'm not—It's not—People seem to like it," like an idiot. His face is flaming, and he can't facepalm or he'll ruin all her work.

"It's just a job," India says. "Go to work, get through the bullshit, pick up the paycheck, go home. It's about as demoralizing as any 9 to 5."

"Ah," Tyler says intelligently.

"You've been acting for a while," India says. "You've never had a profoundly shitty moment? Where you felt gross and used and just wanted to get out of there? But you couldn't. Cameras were rolling, scene was still playing, so you just stayed there and took it. You don't have to tell me," she says, as the closed-down, interview-ready Tyler swallows up the rest of him. "I've talked to plenty of actors on their worst work day. Someone's gotta fix the makeup after the meltdown. So I can promise you—it's really not that different."

"I'm fine," Tyler says, and hears the tense note in his voice, and apologizes. "It's not—It's nothing like that. It's the opposite."

"Good news," India says. "And he's jealous."

"It was an accident," Tyler says in a rush. "I never meant to—It was his audition, I was just—"

"Oh, honey," India says slowly. "You got Terminal." Her eyes widen. "You'd turn that down for him?"

"I should," Tyler says, and hates how uncertain he sounds. "Shouldn't I?"

"The boy's a saint," India says dramatically. Tyler rolls his eyes.

"I should," he says, again. "I just—can't."

"You're human," India says. "And you earned it as much as he would've. He'll get over it."

"I don't know," Tyler says. "This—He really wasn't expecting—"

"He'll get over it," India promises. "And you'll never forgive him if you turn it down because he was pouting."

"That's not—" Tyler says, a little defensively. "He really wants this. It's not just a job to him."

"Is it ever?" India asks.

"He's not answering my calls," Tyler says. "And then he texts, with some stupid excuse, and he won't—it's like he can't even look at me."

There's a sudden lump in Tyler's throat, that pinching pain in his sinuses that comes just before—

He glares down at his knees, tries to force himself dry-eyed.

"Honey," India says. She's finally found the prosthetic, a long, savage cut she starts applying to his cheek. "Does he love you?"

"I," Tyler says, and regrets it. India's fingers are gentle where they smear the makeup back into place. "Yeah," Tyler decides. He's not—he knows that much.

"Then you'll get past this," India says. "Don't worry about it."

Tyler's phone heats up his pocket like a smoking gun, those notifications daring him to make a move, pick a side, respond.

These kind of offers don't wait around. Authors don't like being your fifth priority.

I really appreciate it, he almost writes, but his fingers stick to the keyboard, muscles too tense to twitch into the right positions.

They move of their own accord, find Dylan's last text. Some joke, some long string of nothing, and usually it would be funny, would be the most funny fucking thing Tyler's seen all day. But now it's just what Dylan does when he's nervous, when he's hiding how he really feels under a million witty distractions.

Some wild instinct takes Tyler over, types, I miss you, and hits send before he can get a grip on himself.

It's not even two full seconds before Dylan responds, i'm sorry

i suck

just do it okay i swear i want you to

please?

prettty pleeeeaaase

Tyler shakes his head, shoves his phone back in his pocket.

Tyler doesn't mope. He's not a moper. If he's stressed out, that's just incentive to work harder, tire yourself out. Push past it.

Four takes of the same running scene, mark to mark, stop, pose.

Aaand cut.

"Change it up," Jackie shouts from behind the monitors. "Lets try a couple new things, give our DP something to work with."

When reshoots turned into filming a second movie, Tyler doesn't know. He turns to Camille, who makes a bemused face at him. There's sweat streaking her hair, a flush high in her cheeks. Her wardrobe's about as original as his. Artfully torn low-cut tank top exposing a lacy bra strap, low-riding jean short shorts. Tyler'd feel more guilty noticing if that wasn't the whole point. If she hadn't eyed him up on their first day of shooting, raised her eyebrows.

"Hollywood equality," she said, laughing. "We're both the whore who gets killed for having sex."

It's fine; it's funny. It's—people seem to like it.

It's not Terminal, so it's not Terminal. It is what it is. There's nothing wrong with that.

India's just putting ideas in his head, encouraging him to negatively re-contextualize everything.

She said it herself, it's like any job. Any job has bad days, or uncomfortable moments, and you just have to keep going until you can leave. Tyler's lucky, whatever shitty movie he's in. That he's in a movie at all. That he can support himself on his body and a little bit of a workout. The character stuff is just a bonus.

And who even knows what becomes big? Tyler predicted Teen Wolf lasting six seasons back when they were shooting the pilot, and even Jeff Davis laughed in his face. You never know what picks up a cult following, what—or what bombs, some movie adaptation of a beloved book that no one can stand. There's no way to predict what it'll look like after the final edit. You're just—running, crying, giving it everything you have, every time. And then it's out of your hands.

Reset cameras, back to one, time to do it all again.

Tyler tries Dylan again outside the ADR booth, kind of praying about it. Fourth ring, he gets a notification.

threw up like 3 times. my throat is literally shredded. can we just text?

Tyler sighs.

You want anything? I'll come over he texts back.

please no, Dylan responds. i feel like shit. like actual excrement

sorry, he adds again. i miss you too. just can't now

Don't worry about it, Tyler texts back.

He takes a second to get his head straight, and heads back to work.