More AU shit...

[just_displaced]

 With a variety of (okay, two) options!

I.

After three weeks of being back, he finally has his own office. There's a name plaque on his door. It says Michael Ginsberg, of course, but he's been tempted to tape a piece of paper over the part that says "Michael." Some irritating new kid around the office had stared at the name on the door one afternoon and loudly declared that he hadn't known that Ginsberg's first name was Michael. Irritating as that kid had been, Ginsberg can't say he's distressed by the fact that people only know him by his last name. It reminds him of the army.

Being reminded of the army, as it turns out, isn't always the worst thing he can possibly imagine.

He stays in his office at night sometimes. Okay, most nights. He's realized that the floor isn't so uncomfortable, if he puts some pillows down on it, remembers to bring a blanket, lies in the right position. It's more comfortable than sleeping in the jungle, anyway, and hadn't he done that for eighteen months? The office floor seems positively cushy in comparison.

He stays here because he can't go home, because he can't let his father see him the way he is now, not for long periods of time. Morris Ginsberg is too perceptive by half, would recognize that there's something missing in his son, would see what the war had taken out of him, and there would have to be a conversation that he has no interest in having. So he lies and says he has too much work or he's going to see some friends or he's got a date and he won't be home till late or he won't be home at all. And then he camps out on his office floor.

Tonight, it's late. Midnight, maybe. He's not keeping track. Everyone's gone, the place is quiet, most of the lights are out. He's not tired yet, can't possibly fathom going to bed, so after pounding the keys of his typewriter in fruitless frustration at being unable to come up with a slogan for a new weight-loss drink, he pushes open the door to his office and walks almost soundlessly down the dark hallway, unsure of where he's headed, simply liking the feeling of walking alone in the dark, in a place where he feels relatively safe. 

II.

There are days he can't face going to work. They don't happen as often as he might have expected them to, but they do happen. On days like that, he just can't bring himself to walk into that lobby, to press that button for the elevator, to go upstairs, to go into his office, to face the same old people with the same old routine. On days like that, he feels the pressure of the whispers in his head much stronger, the insidious, harsh things they say becoming so much clearer in his distress. On days like that, the faces of everyone he sees seem distorted and somehow dangerous, as though they're all staring into him, as though they're all hearing his thoughts, too.

That's when he finds himself somewhere else, places he can't always remember deciding to go. It's strange, this sensation he sometimes has that he's losing time. He knows he must have gotten himself to this coffee-shop of his own accord, on his own two feet, but he'll be damned if he can remember why he'd chosen to come here or what had possessed him to order a white chocolate coffee (whatever the hell that is.)

All he knows is that he's sitting there, staring at his stupid drink that he's not even going to enjoy, idly toying with the two things he wears around his neck, which somehow seem to have gotten tangled together in a way that means he can't quite figure out how to untangle them without taking them off, and he doesn't particularly want to remove them. It's just his dogtags and the Star of David necklace his dad had given him before he'd left for the army (it was supposed to keep him safe, apparently, and he didn't know whether he believed that, not exactly, but hey, he wasn't dead yet, so maybe he might as well keep on wearing it.)

Eventually, the people who run this coffee-shop are probably going to get sick and tired of him sitting there and taking up space and not even drinking his coffee, but for now, he's content just to sit. And stare. And pretend that he never has to go back to work, never, never again.  

Comments

[knockfourtimes]

He doesn’t know what to do about that terror. He doesn’t know what to do with what looks like shock, with the suddenness of Ginsberg’s transformation and the cold distance it suggests. When the pallor had first set in, Don had taken half a step forward, setting his cup on the counter because he’d been certain Ginsberg was going to hit the floor. When Ginsberg remained standing – half-dead by all appearances (jesus that had been so easy, shouldn’t have happened like that, shouldn’t have come on so hard) but somehow still upright – Don had kept his distance, and now he continues to hold his position, waiting for a sign to move in, hoping he won’t have to. It would be safer not to touch Ginsberg. Better to maintain this space between them.

(Where has Ginsberg gone? Don probably doesn’t want to know.)

It’s amazing, it’s incredible – or absurdly apt – that Ginsberg begins speaking again, that he even flashes something like humor. Nothing, nothing can keep this man silent. And while part of Don wishes that Ginsberg would put an end to these words, he’s relieved to find that Ginsberg hasn’t been thrown that far out of himself. These words might suggest the struggles of a drowning man trying to keep his head above water, but at least they suggest that Ginsberg is still functional.

Granted that beyond the words, Ginsberg still looks a wreck (and now it is, yes, now wreck is the right word for it; always amazing what a word or two can do). Granted that Ginsberg isn’t exactly backing away from his line of inquiry. There has been so much rage and blankness from Ginsberg tonight. What do you even do with this situation. What is there to say? Words can’t heal (not really, not unless you believe in them, and Ginsberg seems chronically unable or unwilling to believe; a situation perhaps not far removed from his own), and there are no answers.

Words are what he has, though, words are just about all he has to work with, and he reaches for a start. There's exasperation again, but this time it's more with himself, maybe with the situation. "I didn't say you were—"

But of course that had been the implication, and this the intended effect. Consciously or not, Don had selected the words because he'd known (he hadn't been thinking it directly, but on a lower level he's always working, on a lower level he always chooses with care) how they might strike Ginsberg. Because he’s always understood the worth of words and where they hit the hardest. Because he knows that even where words cannot heal, they can wound and confound, because doubt creates a blindness of its own. And, yes, because he'd hoped to silence Ginsberg, and there's something unworthy about that, something at which he cringes internally.

He’d pushed too far this time. Jesus, it isn’t the first time, it isn’t as if he hasn’t made a life of seeing how far he can press his words, how far provoke without surface-level aggression. But this… He’d seen the state Ginsberg was in. He should have known better. There are better ways of dealing with situations.

It’s only (only?) that Don doesn’t care to have this conversation. That opening his own situation wouldn’t do either of them a goddamn bit of good. ‘Whoever the fuck you are.’ The answer to that would be smoke and instability, and Don doubts that he has an answer. How many times has he heard the question? And his response – whispered through his mind only, at night and unbidden – becomes more uncertain with every passing year. If he’d ever known, his knowing has been uprooted, his image strained and separated until he can hardly believe in his own solidity.

And Don isn’t certain that it – it, this bigger question, it, this idea of his own emptiness and memory – does matter to him, not anymore. Because everything is distant. Because nothing can change what has been and nothing, nothing stands to stop him in this down-slope. Nothing needs to. Because it doesn’t… What would be the worth otherwise?

Don doesn’t want to talk about it. Certainly, he isn’t about to share this depth of un-mattering with Ginsberg. He wants to solve the problem and put an end to the vague worry of it (more than vague, though he won’t admit that, won’t allow the thought). Jesus, why is this so hard? (That is, that is a ridiculous question.)

“Maybe I don’t want to have that conversation.

“You could have been clearer about the conversation you wanted to have. But what I said—It’s late. I didn’t mean that. You aren’t the only one who asks questions, Ginsberg. Even the most blissfully ignorant schoolgirls have their moments of crisis. We all live on the edge of these questions, and on the edge of recognizing that the answers aren’t clear. That we don’t always know who we are.

“The difference is that you’re more aware of this edge right now. You think with more intensity than most people. And you were in a shitty situation. That’s all.

“I’m not going to say I don’t have questions. But I’m not going to open myself for you to dissect because you’re having trouble finding perspective. That isn’t what I’m here for.”

He shakes his head, exhales. “Jesus, will you sit down?”

[just_displaced]

He understands it. To some extent. Maybe not fully. Perhaps he owes Don an apology. He, too, had pushed things too far. It's an ingrained habit, and even when he'd been over there, he'd been guilty of doing it. He was always treading that line of insubordination just a little too closely, always trying to see how far over the line he could edge himself before someone yelled at him or threatened him. It had been his talent as a medic that had stopped him from getting in trouble more than he did, he suspects, just as it's his talent as an advertiser that saves his ass over and over again at SC&P. There shouldn't be so many similarities between the places and the people, but there are. Is that reassuring or concerning? He's not sure.

"I'm..."

But he's not sorry, not really. And whether Don had meant what he'd said about him being... crazy -- deranged, yes, that's what he'd said, and it's not a word that should strike him so hard since he's heard it so many times before in so many different iterations -- it had served its purpose. He never feels certain of anything anymore, but he feels even more uncertain now.

And yet, and yet, when Don tells him to sit down, he doesn't even think about questioning it. He just sits -- slides, really, slides his back down the cabinet slowly -- and sits on the floor, knees up against his chest, fighting the urge to wrap his arms around them and rock back and forth. He can't let Don see him like that. Not when Don already thinks he's deranged (no matter that he says he hadn't meant it. He knows exactly what words can do. It hadn't been unintentional. He could have used any other word.) He should be angry at Don, maybe.

He's not.

"I used to want to be you," he points out, almost conversationally, despite his visible trembling. "I thought you were a genius. I still think you're a genius, but I think I've started to realize what it really means to be a natural at something, what it means to have a talent. And now I'm..."

Now he's what? Now he's becoming Don? No, that's a little too simple of an answer. He'll never be exactly like Don, not just because he'll never possess Don's ability for subjugating his own emotions but because he never expects to be half as charming or commanding as Don. There had been a time he'd probably have been sad about that fact, have wished that he could change it. Now, he's almost glad. He may not know who he is, but he knows he doesn't want to be the next Don Draper.

And yet he still wants to please him.

"I don't want to dissect you."

Is that true? Maybe. He likes getting inside of peoples' heads, seeing what makes them tick, trying to form some kind of understanding, but sometimes it's... too close. Sometimes the intensity of emotion he feels from other people once he starts exploring them practically physically injures him. It had happened all the time over there. He'd always been good at getting guys to talk, either to distract themselves from their wounds or to distract themselves from their fear or just to pass the time, and people had appreciated it, they had, the opportunity to get things off their chests, the opportunity to let out some of that choking, stifling fear and pain, but what had the tradeoff been?

The tradeoff had been that he had taken it all upon himself, of course. He doesn't even have to think about that for long to recognize that that's exactly what he'd done. When he'd been confronted with a man who had a bullet through his knee, he couldn't take the physical wound away from him, couldn't give it to himself instead (but he would have, he would have) but he could take some of the emotional turmoil. He was just so goddamn good at understanding what people wanted, what they needed.

And he doesn't want to take on Don's darkness, so no, perhaps he doesn't want to dissect him. That darkness, combined with his own, would drown him. He knows it, the same way he knows anything else: pure, unfettered emotional instinct. Maybe that's the only talent he truly has.

"Can we just... talk? I won't pry--" As though that's possible, as though he's capable of restraining that instinct. "--and you won't... you won't call me crazy. I just want to have a conversation with someone. I can't talk to anyone else."

Has he tried to talk to anyone else? Or has he just locked himself in his office and avoided everyone? It's a good question, and yet he doesn't even have an answer to something that simple.

"Just... if you don't want to talk to me about the big stuff, if you don't want to tell me who you are, if you don't want to talk about my war or your war or any war, just tell me what's been going on around the office. Tell me anything. I can't stand the silence."

He hates the plaintive tone in his voice, but there's no erasing it. He's always been so pathetic at hiding his feelings. And what's the alternative? Talking to himself? He'll do it, and they both know it. He needs noise. He needs conversation, even something inane, to smooth over the jagged edges of everything else. It may not help him find perspective, but it'll help him from becoming more... deranged.

[knockfourtimes]

'I used to want to be you.' Why would you ever, why would you ever. 'You,' whoever that is, back to that question and wondering whether he'd ever been that person, himself, thinking it isn't the case. Because of course the you in question is only an image, an empty but serviceable display crafted to accompany his name. Not even his own name, exactly.

It had begun as a way of re-creating himself, a way of ripping some path out of the benign malignancy of a dead-end existence. He'd learned how to thrive by packaging his particular skills in the guise of a man who could only be called enigmatic. (It was a way of selling himself, though of course he hadn't thought of it that way; at one time, it had almost seemed an admirable struggle, the classic tale of the self-made mad.) A man whose very silence suggested that he held answers, who garnered attention and a perhaps-grudging respect precisely because he kept himself distant. The more removed he'd been, the harder it had been for anyone to attack, and the stronger his image became.

Until it was all that anyone knew of him (almost anyone, but the one who'd really known is gone now, and those who had begun to know have been driven away). Until he fell to believing it himself and lived for a time as that self-crafted shadow, hardly realizing that by severing from everything and holding only to this image, he'd lost contact with the ground. When he'd awakened from belief in the image, he'd found himself disorientated. Nothing to go back to. Nothing to believe. Hardly anything he knew about himself, and nowhere he wanted to go.

In any case, it's the image that Ginsberg has referenced - it must be - and this isn't the first time Don has heard the sentiment. Craft an effective mask, present yourself as a worldly success, and others will clamor to echo your image. That someone as outwardly (and, yes, inwardly, but it's the exterior that counts) chaotic as Ginsberg should even think of emulating Don Draper seems almost laughable, but wishfulness and actuality rarely align, and there's no way of telling exactly what Ginsberg had seen in Don. Even if Ginsberg hadn't seen down to the bottom, he might have held a different view of the image; Ginsberg has always seemed too acute for his own good.

Isn't that what's going on here? Ginsberg sees too far and with too much intensity. It's probably a part of what fires and distinguishes Ginsberg's creative work - and Ginsberg's work is better than good, speaks with an agile, heavy-hitting resonance that had at one time seemed threatening (and maybe still does, in moments) - but it's also left him here, curled against a break room cabinet in a show of vulnerability that almost (almost?) hurts to see.

Don doesn't know what to do about this. He wishes Ginsberg would pull himself together, shake it off, and go back to his office (that sounds absurd, too simple, and Don knows it). What do you do when an employee - and an employee with whom you don't have a particularly positive history - starts falling apart like this? Don won't leave him. He wants to, mostly, but he won't.

He just wants to talk. Whatever that means - it's a plea, there isn't any hiding that it's a plea, and how did Ginsberg reach this point? - he just wants to talk. And he is, at least, being more reasonable about subject matter. (Had he been especially unreasonable? Of course. Of course, Don's life isn't any of his business. Nothing gave him the right to ask.)

Something about Ginsberg's talk of what it means to be a natural, something about the unfinished sentence('now I'm') leaves Don uneasy, though he doesn't want to venture into that mire. Don has finally gotten Ginsberg away from prying at his life; inviting Ginsberg to expand on his half-sentence seems a sure way of bringing Ginsberg right back to prodding at Don's life. So Don lets it go without remark, those he can't shake it from his head.

Now you're what?

There's a price for everything. Never mind.

When he speaks, his voice is gentler than it had been. "Ginsberg, I don't think you're crazy."

Ginsberg's idiosyncrasies and impulses are particularly - sometimes painfully - noticeable, but in the end, he probably isn't crazier than anyone else around the office. He just doesn't know how to hide, or doesn't bother doing so... Though maybe that isn't quite true. Maybe that's what he's been doing since his return, maybe that's why he's supposedly been so quiet. Jesus, is this what happens when Ginsberg tries to mute himself?

"I also don't think spending the night in a deserted office is the best way of avoiding silence."

Don takes a step forward before lowering himself to crouch near Ginsberg. Somehow, this is easier than looking down on him; that distance makes Ginsberg look more exposed, more lost in the space of the half-lit break room. Ginsberg doesn't look especially great up close, but this proximity is better than that sense of loss.

"You can talk about the war. You can talk about your own life all you want." That's a dangerous door to open, and Don hopes that Ginsberg will leave it shut. He thinks he will; Ginsberg has seemed more interested in discussing Don's affairs than his own. It should be safe.

"As far as the office goes, you probably know as much as I do. Joan's started the search for a new office manager. Peggy's taking Ken to Indianapolis to scope out Mallory Batteries." There had been rumors of fractures in the relationship with their current ad agency, though no one is especially hopeful, and it wouldn't be a major account. "And Harry Crane is doing everything in his power to convince us that we need to expand the television department."

[just_displaced]

Don is... Don is crouching beside him and for a second he thinks that he must look terrible, that he must look so bad that Don has no choice but to stick around instead of leaving like he so obviously must want to. There's no way Don could want to be here, no way he could want to stay in this room, no way he could want to get closer instead of backing away. Ginsberg knows he looks like a mess, knows he's crumpled on the floor like the goddamned wreck that he is, and if he were more like Don (but he doesn't want that, he doesn't want that, he shouldn't want that) he'd be able to pull himself together.

But he's not. And he can't.

What he can do is cling to those words. I don't think you're crazy. Maybe it's true, maybe it's not, but it doesn't matter. What matters is that someone has said it. What matters is that maybe if he hears it enough times, he can start believing it himself (but that's bullshit, isn't it, because it never works that way. No matter what other people say, he stubbornly thinks what he wants. Isn't that what people always complain about?)

And... maybe Don's right. Maybe spending the night alone in the office isn't the best choice, not if he wants to talk to anyone, but that opens up that nagging question again: does he really want to talk? Or does he simply think he needs to? Does he simply not know how to be silent? Is he willing to spill out all of his thoughts? Obviously he's doing a pretty good job of dumping these things on Don, on the one person who very likely never wanted to hear them. Is that why he's so insistent upon doing it?

"I don't have..."

What? What? Come up with something to say. Speak or Don's going to walk away and he's going to miss his chance. He needs to say something. He needs to keep him close because right now Don crouching beside him is the only anchor he has in the world and that's terrifying, terrifying and wrong and awful, not because Don is a bad anchor but because Don would hate to know that, and he's probably already starting to sense it.

It's not right, it's not right at all, that he should feel more scared here, curled against the cabinets in the break room, wishing he could disappear entirely, than he ever had over there. Over there he'd had a purpose. Being scared had been a part of everything else, inseparable from the rest of life, and while he hadn't liked it (no, of course he hadn't liked it, no, there was nothing to like about it, he needs to quash the little voice in his head that tells him that there had been something that had felt good about it, had felt fulfilling, had felt... stopstopstop) he'd understood what he'd needed to do. He saved people. Or he didn't.

And here? What is there? What is there but a half-dark break-room and an empty office and someone crouched beside him who clearly doesn't want to be here and a bunch of ad ideas that will never, never amount to anything anyway and fuck, he feels like he's going to be sick, but he won't. He can hold it in. He's gotten good at that.

"I don't have anywhere else to go."

There it is. The reason he's here instead of at home. It's not entirely true that he has nowhere else to go. He could go back home to his father. He knows that's what his father expects. He knows he can go there any time he wants to. And he knows he could look for his own apartment, too. But it's deeper than simply the literal meaning of nowhere else to go. It's all wrapped up in his mind, all tangled up in the fact that he doesn't know who or what or sometimes even where he is. Where the fuck do you go when you're nobody and nothing at all?

But concentrate on what Don's saying. He's talking about the job. This is good. This is what he'd wanted to come back to all along. This is what he'd dreamt about (yes, literally and figuratively) when he'd been over there. This is what he'd regaled the guys over there with stories about. They'd known more about some of the people around the office than anybody else outside of the office ever would. Maybe he'd exaggerated some of it, sure, but he hadn't needed to exaggerate the important parts, the key aspects of people, the things that mattered the most. And now he's back here, and Don's telling him things about all of these people, and he should listen, because this is what he cares about, isn't it?

Well, isn't it?

He still feels like he's going to be sick, and so he turns his head away from Don for a moment, intending to politely throw up off to the side if he's going to at all, but he's still clinging to Don's words, letting the nausea pass over him in waves, and finally, finally, he thinks he can respond with some semblance of sense.

"Mallory Batteries." He tries to think about it. Somehow, remarkably, he seems to remember hearing someone mentioning something about it in one of those meetings he'd barely been paying attention for. "I heard the head of their marketing department can be a real sleaze, but Peggy'll probably break his fingers if he tries anything. I also heard a rumor that we were in unofficial talks with some--"

The words are coming to him too quickly now, and he has to consciously dial it back so that he doesn't sound completely insane, so that he doesn't trip over his own tongue and make himself sound worse. This is good. This is talking about work. He can do this.

"--some company that makes socks, or sells socks. Socks, right? Maybe they make other things, too, I wasn't quite clear on that. Hammett & Sons, or something. Stan said they kept wanting to do some placement in TV shows about their socks, and all their ideas were really awkward and obvious. Harry might like that, though. He could expand the television department with jobs entirely devoted to finding ways to namedrop sock brands into every television show on the planet."

It's relatively irrelevant, in the big scheme of things, but it's work talk. It's the kind of talk that can't bring up anything painful. It's something to hold onto. He's trying. Surely Don must see it in his eyes, how hard he's trying.

[knockfourtimes]

This is uncomfortable. To put it mildly, and just as a way of trying to define the situation. (It's difficult, of course, when the fact is that this situation simply shouldn't be occurring, when the pieces still don't seem entirely possible, but when has actuality ever made much sense? The truth of life is that it's pieces never fit the way they should. The truth of life is that everything is more absurd than could be imagined, and that the absurdity is ordinary.) If he can define the situation, Don thinks he can continue to manage it. So long as he continues to search for understandable terms and definitions, he can remain removed from the situation. And he needs to. This isn't anything he should fall into.

It's clear enough that Ginsberg has tumbled into something, though he seems to be attempting to pull himself back out. (Is that surprising? Is that almost... admirable, in a way? Don might not have thought that Ginsberg possessed the wherewithal to regain himself like this, if Don had thought on it at all.) His eyes are still unsettling, so close now that Don almost does pull away, tries to sunder this unstable connection before he has to really face it, before the sensing of it takes on the guise of responsibility. It's like looking into the eyes of a drowning man, or at least a man who thinks he's drowning. It's painfully familiar.

'I don't have anywhere else to go.' Of course he doesn't. Of course it isn't that easy, and Don suspects Ginsberg means more than that he lacks an actual home (though maybe he doesn't have anywhere to go, maybe he really doesn't). Because a part of Ginsberg is clearly still caught overseas. Because he apparently can't rid himself of what happened there ('because there's no help for it') and doesn't know what to do with it, maybe doesn't know what to make of himself in the wake of those events. Things happen. You change with whatever events you encounter... But if Ginsberg can't accept what happened, maybe he doesn't know what or where he is.

Such a fucking mess. And while Don would like to offer words, to present a solution that could wrap away the problem and shake Ginsberg out of this awkward despondency, he doesn't think this is a time to dwell on the matter. Every answer he's given thus far has only incited Ginsberg further. And what is there to say? Don doesn't have open-and-shut answers, and Don isn't convinced that Ginsberg is capable of accepting anything less than some clear-cut approach.

Maybe it’s better to stick with talk about work right now. Maybe he'll come back to the rest if the time feels right, or if he can't avoid it any longer (some issues press, demand expression like that).

All right, he can talk about work. They were doing well enough with that before, weren't they? So Don nods, elbows resting on his knees, and speaks in an almost casual tone. "Jeff Franklin. He keeps a stack of porno magazines on his desk."

Of course Ginsberg was right; Peggy would be fine. There was no question of that, though Ted had insisted on making absolutely certain that she knew what she was getting into, and that she knew she didn't have to go. Peggy hadn't so much as batted an eye. If anything, she'd become more firmly set on winning the account in spite of Franklin's shady reputation. "If Peggy can cut through the licentiousness, we might be running ads for double As in the near future."

"Double As and socks." The news about Hammett & Sons is a surprise, though he betrays the fact only through a moment of silent processing. Either nobody had mentioned the account to him, or he hadn't been listening. Maybe it had come up in a partners' meeting. Maybe it hadn't, and whoever was running the talks (did Peggy know? did Ted?) had simply decided that Don didn't need to know.

He isn't certain that it should matter. It probably should, and it raises worries, suggestions that he's entertained on and off for the past several months. There comes a time when usefulness wears itself out, after all. There comes a time when whatever talent, whatever pull you once had is no longer enough to hold you.

It stings for a moment, and then he pushes it away. Never mind. He can't know what happened (but, Christ, shouldn't this put more pressure on whatever he may or may not come up with for Sunkist? what follows after being removed from news of potential business?). He can't know what it means. There isn't any use in worrying.

"My wife used to swear by Hammett & Sons." He says it without thinking about the statement; it's only something to advance the dialogue. Betty had purchased Hammett & Sons socks often enough that to mark them in Don's mind, after all. "Something about longevity and colorfastness. They weren't uncomfortable, but they weren't exactly memorable, either." So far as Don had been concerned, they'd just been another brand of socks. He hasn't bought them since.

"I can't think of a more boring product to crowd the airwaves with."