Sequel to Show Me
"is this how it feels? is this how a star falls?"
Chris cut his palm on a sharp pebble but it was too dark to tell how badly. "Let me see," JC said, dragging Chris' hand until it bumped JC's nose. Chris felt the whisper of breath across his knuckles.
Chris could see the squint of JC's eyes by the narrowing gleam of white reflecting a sliver of moon. "I'm fine," he said, pulling his hand away. "It's just a scratch."
"You're bleeding," JC said, suddenly nuzzling Chris' neck, and Chris tried not to flinch. It was just so dark that he hadn't realized JC was so close, was even leaning in. JC's lips pressed against his own and Chris leaned back on his hands, letting crushed shells dig into his skin.
the night turns as i try to explain irresistible attraction and orbital plane
He'd thought the making out part being new and perfect would last longer. It'd been three days, and his lips were swollen because JC bit a lot, like he thought Chris was so hard on the outside that he had to be rough to break through.
Chris shut his mouth and JC thrust his tongue against closed lips once, twice, finally let Chris guide his neck so his head rested on Chris' chest. JC sighed like he was content and Chris said, "So how'd you find this place, anyway," regretting it before his voice even trailed off because JC's forearm twitched and Chris knew the answer.
"We used to come out here sometimes for a night launch, or real real early for a morning one," JC said.
Chris licked his lip and winced. "You and Lance," he said. It was what he got, he guessed, for wondering aloud what was around the next curve.
JC nodded under his chin. "When we were all, way back, we'd come down from the house, in Joey's car if he'd let us."
Chris closed his eyes and let wisps of JC's curls tickle his cheeks. "You took mine once," he said, suddenly sure. The keys had been on the hook just like always, the car parked in exactly the same place, but Chris remembered climbing in one hot morning, groaning at the sticky vinyl and rolling down the window right away. Quick glance to make sure the driveway was clear of kids on the way to school. He'd had to tilt the rearview mirror way down, sharp little pricks of fear up the back of his neck, sure he'd turn and find someone in the backseat. He remembered hoping it was just some homeless guy who'd been looking for a dry place to sleep. The only other time he'd found someone in his car he'd gotten his ass kicked over fifty bucks worth of auto parts he'd lifted to fix his mom's Buick.
JC tilted his head back. "How'd you --"
"Never mind." Chris didn't understand how it had happened so fast, how a week before he would have told JC the whole story and found that significant and now he was sure it would ruin everything to lose one more piece to the thing they were doing, whatever it was. "So you were all rebels without a clue and into grand theft auto and then what? You'd drive down here..."
JC played with Chris' fingers but Chris didn't twist them back around JC's, just let them lay heavy and stiff until JC just picked at the zipper on Chris' jacket instead. "Yeah, we'd just come down and sit on the hood of the car and watch the launch and, you know. Talk and stuff."
"And stuff."
JC slipped a hand inside Chris' jacket to rest on his stomach and just said, "yeah."
"I know what happens next," Chris said. "I saw Space Camp. You, like, made out and talked about how if he was an astronaut he'd name a star after you."
"Not, well. Not really," JC said. "It was the first time he told me, though. That, you know." It was funny because JC was the one always so sure that the right words made all the difference. But there were things that he never said.
Chris pronounced the words carefully. He supposed someone might have said mockingly. "This is where Lance told you he was gay?"
"Yeah. Well, yeah, that he might be."
"Okay..." Chris wanted to cross his arms but JC was still leaning on him. "You know, you couldn't pay me twenty million bucks to get in one of those things, not even for a tour," he said. He shrugged until JC moved away and JC's body heat faded like a dimmed light. If JC was let go in space, his hair would float around his head like he was underwater, Chris thought, and a tap on the shoulder to push him away would propel him towards the end of the universe.
"Are you cold?" JC asked, and Chris shook his head. "You wanna go?"
"Just, yeah, my ass is totally numb from all these fucking rocks. Let's get out of here."
or maybe it's more like a moth to a flame
The sex was still really good, though. Well, it was pretty good. It was better than Chris had had in a long time, and when his nose was buried in the hair on JC's stomach sometimes he'd forget how little it made sense that a boy who looked like that would want to fuck a guy like Chris. JC was so fucking pretty it scared him, and Chris kept turning off the lights because if he looked at JC too much while they were in bed he'd never get through it all in one piece.
"was that it? was that the jupiter show? it kinda wasn't quite what i'd hoped for you know"
Justin wiped his mouth with the back of his hand like some photographer had taught him a million pictures ago and then ran his bandanna under the drinking fountain. He wrung out the cloth and tied it around his neck like they were on a cattle drive, not a bike ride on some back road. Chris remembered, then, why they'd started sleeping together.
Chris stuck his face under the faucet and splashed water down the front of his shirt, and when he looked up Justin was untying the handkerchief and leaning in to do the same, and Chris remembered why they'd stopped.
Wet drops down the front of his faded blue t-shirt and Justin just looked like Justin after all these years, nothing magical or perfectly pretty about him at all. "You ready?" Chris asked, one palm on his seat. Justin's bike was the same, a year newer, parked in the shadow of his own.
"I thought," Justin started, slinging a leg up and over. "I thought maybe you'd stop pussying around whatever it is you wanna talk about sooner or later, you know."
"Who you callin' a pussy?" Chris said, picking at the stitching in the thick leather. Three days before, he’d dropped JC off and gone right over to Justin's, still sticky and sandy and flying like nothing could tie him to the earth because all that time, all that time and JC'd just been waiting for the planets to align, to make some kind of sense, and they had, and they were. They'd both done it all before and they were supposed to know how not to fuck it up when it mattered for real.
All Justin had said was "about fucking time" and "did he wear you out too much to shoot the back nine with me or what?" There was a reason they'd stopped sleeping together, him and Justin, and even when he couldn't pinpoint it he didn't question that it had been the right move.
Justin had one foot flat on the ground and leaned toward Chris, pointing. "You. Callin' you a pussy. What'd you drag me out here for?"
It was fucking bright outside, even with his sunglasses on. Chris closed his eyes behind them and remembered there was a good reason for having a best friend you weren't fucking. "I think maybe we ran out of things to talk about already," he said.
"Don't do that," Justin said, obviously annoyed. Chris' eyes were still closed but he'd have laid money on Justin wearing an impatient snarl to go along with the tone of voice.
"Yeah, fuck you," Chris said, "I forgot, this is all supposed to be easy."
"I didn't --" Justin sighed, and Chris opened his eyes because contrite had always looked good on Justin. "You guys had, like, the longest first date in the world, man. You're not gonna run out of things to talk about. You get real desperate, you can talk about me."
Chris tried not to smile. "Real fucking desperate."
"Fuck off."
"Naw, I'm serious," Chris said. "This, I don't know. This morning he started telling stories about Lance."
"And?"
"And I just don't, I. I don't need to hear about Lance, you know, when it's all still so, when we're. I just. Fuck."
"Man," Justin laughed lightly. "Dude, you're really, you're. Lo and behold, ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner."
"I knew this was a stupid idea," Chris muttered, flipping up his kickstand. "You know, J, just once, I'd, do you think we could have an actual conversation that doesn't revolve around the world according to Justin?"
Justin put his hands up in surrender and Chris leaned heavily on one leg, sure if he closed his eyes again he'd feel JC's warm breath in his ear.
"Chris," Justin said, totally serious. "Lance doesn't, he's not looking to steal JC away from you." Chris looked up and Justin was staring at his fingernails, and Chris thought, oh.
"Oh," he said.
"And anyway," Justin rushed, "anyway they were like, the worst idea in the world." He smiled then and glanced up. "After you and me, I mean."
Chris started his engine. "Race you home," he said, and Justin laughed loudly. Down the long flat highway, afternoon clouds growing heavier, and Chris thought it was nice how they could talk like that, just two guys side by side on a road to nowhere.
He'd thought they were done, but then idling in Justin's driveway he called Justin back from the open garage, Justin's face hot and forehead sunburned. "Why?" Chris asked slowly.
Justin didn't ask what Chris meant, or who. "Cause, I mean, you know Lance. Lance was all trying to have everything at once and getting sloppy and distracted, fucking things up, and C wanted to fix that. And you can't, you can't fix Lance. You gotta watch him do it for himself."
"You saying I need to be fixed?"
"I'm sayin'. I'm sayin', don't fuck this up so fast, okay? Cause, you might think you know what you want, or that it's all gonna flame out so why the hell not just quit now, or however it is that you make these things make sense in your twisted little brain --"
Justin waved him off before Chris could even make a token protest.
"And I'm not talkin' about me here, I'm really not. But he mentions Lance, and, Chris, it's not like we weren't all there for that, it's not like we didn't know that happened. He mentions Lance and you're so terrified you drag my ass out for the afternoon, just assuming I don't have other plans, which for the record I did. And you're thinking I'll, what? Reassure you that you'd be doing it for his own good to walk away now?"
One more piece of Chris and JC would maybe have it all, and then when it all fell apart Chris would be back to stealing parts, left with nothing but hand-to-mouth happiness cobbled from memory and fantasy and held together with duct tape. Chris breathed in the smell of rain and exhaled hard. "I think," he said carefully. "That he might need me too much. That's what scares me."
Justin put a palm against Chris' shoulder, like he might push him and the bike over. Chris waited, then flipped his sunglasses up on his head and met Justin's eyes. "No it's not," Justin said. "You're just scared that's what he's thinking about you."
just a few bruises in the region of the splash
The last thing Justin said to Chris was "Don't fuck this up just because you can," which made it a lot harder to remember all the things Justin'd said first even if they made a lot of sense at the time.
JC came in through the back glass sliding doors, no shirt, frayed jeans, bouncing on his toes with excitement. Chris said it fast and neat and mean so there was no question.
JC stared at the floor. "I thought. I know you want me."
"Don't be an idiot," Chris said. "This isn't -- it's. It's not. We're not. This was a stupid fucking idea to start off with and we should have figured that out right away."
JC slapped him then, across the face, all that buoyant energy coiled and unleashed in one smooth swing and Chris skidded back on his heels, trying to find his center of gravity.
"What the -- jesus, man, what the fuck? You hit me."
JC looked up through lashes and his face was wet. "Not hard," he said.
Chris felt a low bitter laugh in his mouth and swallowed it back. "What does that mean?"
JC ran a shaky hand through his hair. "Not as hard as I wanted to," he said. "I, you, man, Chris. You can't. Why are you."
Chris touched the pads of his fingers to his stinging cheek. "You hit me," he said again, softly.
JC walked up so close that Chris could feel the heat of JC's chest against his own. "Hit me back," JC said. "Hit me back and we'll be even."
"I'm not gonna --" Chris pushed with his fingers against JC. "Seriously, I don't know what has gotten into you, but I'm not gonna deck you. I should, if you're gonna pull shit like that maybe I fucking should, but I won't."
"Fine," JC said, fingers in Chris' beltloops and then he yanked down, hard, pulling Chris' jeans with him as he slid to his knees. Chris grabbed JC by the hair and yanked him back, pushing so JC fell.
"Is this -- this is what you think I want? This is how you think I think love is supposed to look? Get up off the goddamned floor, C."
JC just rolled to his side, curling his knees up and hugging them to his chest. Chris sighed and thought that sleeping with JC was maybe the worst mistake he'd ever made, or second worst if he counted falling in love with JC in the first place. Or third worst if he counted the time he'd gotten high, cornered Lance and told him to leave JC the fuck alone if he wasn't ever going to get his shit together.
Chris pulled up his pants, then squatted back down. "Get up, man, come on."
JC pushed his hand to the carpet but stayed sitting. Chris kneeled in front of him. "I don't understand," JC said, and then said Chris’ name soft and serious. Chris put a hand on JC’s shoulder for balance. "Chris," he said again. "We’re not here because there’s nowhere else we could go."
Falling, crashing, burning white-hot and a star exploded in Chris’ chest. He closed his eyes against the pain and saw Lance in a little tin can at a million miles an hour, just on and fucking on to the edges of the world. He felt JC’s collarbone under his fingers, pebbled with chill and fright like someone’d left the window open all night. He wanted his arms around JC at two a.m. He wanted JC’s legs around his waist and JC’s mouth against his chest, and he wanted that to be enough.
Chris wanted inertia, all the forces balanced against each other. He needed some kind of indelible gravity to hold him to JC before he found a way to fuck things up just because he could.
He pressed his lips to JC’s forehead. JC tangled his hands in Chris’ hair. They lay down together on the carpet and JC licked the long red lines he’d left on Chris’ cheek. "I won’t let you," JC said before Chris could even ask. JC kissed Chris’ jaw and Chris closed his eyes. JC dug fingers into the back of Chris’ neck and said, "Look at me."
"I can’t." That mumbled into the stubble on JC’s chin.
"I want you to see this."
"Unh-uh." Stolen parts and nothing left and he can’t. He can’t.
JC loosened his grip and waited. "Look at me," he said. "I want you to watch. I want you to see how you make me."
Up close JC’s nose was huge, cheekbones like uncharted mountains. Pores like craters in the moon and half-grown sideburns that cast shadows. Blue watery oceans that flickered and shone and a great weight dropped from Chris chest down along his spine and settled at the base of his back. Heavy and hot and it held him to JC like a force of nature.
He kept his eyes open and JC was flushed and breathless and twisting beneath him. Chris held himself back, waiting, wanting, and JC whispered, "go, let go, let go." Gentle hands skimming his tailbone and Chris let go.
END.
Credits: This has been hanging around waiting for an ending for a while. I'm pretty sure that the Sandys, JaeW, Kel and Lise all took a crack at it at some point. "Jupiter Crash" by The Cure. "You hit me" courtesy Sam and Diane and Cheers.