;; 009
apparently, i deal with my real-life angst by writing karl/chris/zach or a variation of it.
so here's chris/karl, chris/zach
and with it, i go hide in my shameful corner.
Sleeping with ghosts
PG-13, 1577 words.
The alarm clock next to the bed reads 3:15. Chris needs to go home; he should be sleeping, in his own bed.
The mattress squeaks as he tries to get up from the bed, and Karl chuckles and smirks at him. It's almost like his favorite part of this arrangement is to see Chris desperately try to untangle himself from the sheets.
There's a blue hue coming from the big windows of Karl's apartment that's covering them, the only light Chris can see is the orange burning tip of Karl's cigarette.
"Isn't it too early to be smoking?"
Karl ashes the cigarette on an empty soda can before handing it to Chris. "Too early, too late. It's all relative."
Laying tangled on the crisp white sheets, all Chris can think of is how everything can seem so simple and complicated at the same time.
;;
Zach was always Chris' first choice. Zach and his big words and crossword puzzles and the luscious hair people would kill for. No matter what, Chris always found himself hovering around Zach. Because Zach had pull and a tongue that tasted like sweet bourbon. He was exciting.
Eventually, the charm begins to wear off.
Both of them are too alike. Zoe says it's hard to see where one ends and the other begins, and Chris stops having his own stories; they're all replaced by the we ones Zach keeps saying over and over.
It makes him want to run, he can't be himself when he is half of something. Trek was supposed to help him become what he was meant to, not the second part of a lumberjack punch line.
I'm not going to be just something you do while we film. Zach says after he sees Chris kissing a blonde at the bar.
And right about that time is when Karl starts offering to take Chris home.
;;
They fuck every once in a while, but Chris never stays long enough to read the paper with Karl. He doesn't go shopping for lampshades with him or out for a jog on the weekends. What they have is pure lust. Being with Karl is all rage and desire and it just stops there. He fills all the excitement gaps that Zach has been failing to fill lately.
When Zach asks where he's been or why the phone was never answered, Chris changes the subject. Omission isn't lying, and as far as he's concerned he's not exactly in a relationship with Zach. What they have is a mixture of bromance and love and affection and lust, all tangled up into a giant question mark.
It's not that one is better than the other, they're both different in their own right. It's like the unmatched chairs tugged below Zach's table, all different and loved from the beginning but each with a history of it's own.
;;
During Karl's goodbye party, Chris' stomach feels like it's in a knot.
It's impossible to pay full attention to his boyfriend when Karl is talking in that accent and tucking cigarettes between his lips, the one's he's traced a million times before. Chris has to stop himself from doing something completely stupid more than once.
They laugh about the same re-hashed stories that happened on set. JJ says the best ones were captured on film; hopefully they'll make the gag reel. In his mind Chris disagrees, nobody knows about the ones with the doctor and the captain.
When they finally say goodbye, Karl whispers something into Chris' ear that makes his mouth curl into a smile. And then before they leave he tells Zach he forgot his glasses in the bathroom.
Bent over the sink, with one hand pushing the tile, is where they have their real goodbye.
;;
A month after filming wraps up, Chris starts noticing things around his apartment. Zach's entire closet seems to have found its way to his bedroom. There's shoes under his bed, jeans on the bathroom floor and t-shirts hanging on the hamper.
"This isn't the Holiday Inn, I'm not doing your laundry for you." He tells Zach, who is currently using him like he is some fucking human-sized pillow.
"I would do your laundry, if I lived here."
He doesn't say anything, which in spork language means he thinks Zach should move in.
Maybe Kirk was a little in love with Spock too.
;;
The living arrangement works like this: Zach gives Chris a key to his place and vice versa, Chris brings his toothbrush and a single pair of underwear to Zach's and Zach makes doubles of all the photographs hanging at his place and puts them up at Chris'. They don't completely give up their own place.
"See? It doesn't matter which apartment we're in, they both feel like home." Zach says as he places the last photo by the bookshelf.
Chris doesn't know what that word means; home. If he is being perfectly honest, he's never known where it is, only where it's not. It wasn't at his parent's house, it wasn't at Beau's, it certainly wasn't Karl's tiny apartment. Now, his own place didn't even feel like his anymore.
He wakes up at 3 am and pulls a chair to the balcony. He smokes naked until his mouth is left dry and the wind starts sending chills down his spine. Even the weather knows something isn't right.
He starts calling Karl, who never picks up, and having long conversations with his voicemail. Cigarette after cigarette, story after story. Chris tells him everything about everything, except the things that really matter. Like how he feels like he is drowning, and Zach is pulling him deeper.
;;
One wednesday, the phone gets picked up.
"I'm coming to LA."
;;
"Tell him what happened last week at the market." Zach says while he maneuvers the chopsticks.
Chris can't stop smiling as he eats his sweet & sour chicken. He licks his fingers and remembers the last time he tasted the sauce, it was in Karl's mouth. "You tell him what happened." His tone somewhere between annoyed and tired.
"We wanted to get a pomegranate, well, Chris wanted to..."
Zach tells the fruit story and Chris is completely zoned out. He looks at him and sees how happy he is; having dinner and referring to them as a couple, telling Chris' stories for him.
He looks over at Karl, who is doing his best to ignore the toes that are rubbing on his ankle and is engaged in Zach's story. He has stubble now and his hair is shorter, but if Chris gets a little closer, he can see that he is still the same. He smells like cheap cigarettes and cologne; and he is still beautiful, in a way Chris can't describe.
He is happy, he should be. He has a superstar boyfriend and a superstar boyfriend. But even then, in his heart, Chris knows this is just the calm before the storm.
The food is gone and eventually the stories run out. Zach picked Karl up from the airport, which means Chris is giving him a ride to the hotel.
They listen to KCRW on the way. "You never know what you'll miss until it's gone." But it's too late to figure out if Karl is being literal or trying to be philosophical.
He digs through the glove compartment, looking for Chris' pack of cigarettes.
"Hey, asshole, be careful with the cd's."
Once he finally finds them, Karl makes sure he lights two and plops one in Chris' mouth.
The rest of the drive is filled with smoke and soft rock, nothing else.
Chris parks the car and helps Karl unload his luggage. They both stand outside the big revolving doors looking at each other.
"What do you need, a formal fucking invitation?"
;;
He slips back into guilt with perfect ease.
;;
Katherine laughs at his love problems. She loves hearing about his antics; they remind her of high school, she says. Katherine offers support and laughter, but never any real advice.
"Sooner or layer, it's going to come back and bite you in the ass," She tells him over the phone. "But you're a big boy, you don't need me to figure out your life for you."
Hi mother, on the other hand, offers perfect advice. Weather she knows it or not.
"Oh Chris." She says in that motherly tone, while handing him a cup of coffee that's still steaming. "I just want you to be happy."
Later, when they're finishing up the banana cream pie and the topic has long since been dropped, she tells him the last of her advice. "It's hard to find someone to love you for yourself." She says while handing him his coat.
"I know, but it's not that simple."
"Well then make it simple, love isn't supposed to be complicated."
It's only then, with his mother's hand over his cheek, that Chris knows what he needs to do.
;;
He quietly grabs a duffle-bag and packs some clothes and a couple of books. Zach is still sleeping, and Noah is waving his tail at him with enthusiasm.
"Don't look at me like that, I have to do this."
He grabs some scrap paper and writes a note to Zach before heading out the door.
I'm staying with my parents for a while, I need
to figure some shit out. I don't even know who I am
anymore, I feel like a ghost of a complete stranger.
Don't forget I still love you.
so here's chris/karl, chris/zach
and with it, i go hide in my shameful corner.
Sleeping with ghosts
PG-13, 1577 words.
The alarm clock next to the bed reads 3:15. Chris needs to go home; he should be sleeping, in his own bed.
The mattress squeaks as he tries to get up from the bed, and Karl chuckles and smirks at him. It's almost like his favorite part of this arrangement is to see Chris desperately try to untangle himself from the sheets.
There's a blue hue coming from the big windows of Karl's apartment that's covering them, the only light Chris can see is the orange burning tip of Karl's cigarette.
"Isn't it too early to be smoking?"
Karl ashes the cigarette on an empty soda can before handing it to Chris. "Too early, too late. It's all relative."
Laying tangled on the crisp white sheets, all Chris can think of is how everything can seem so simple and complicated at the same time.
;;
Zach was always Chris' first choice. Zach and his big words and crossword puzzles and the luscious hair people would kill for. No matter what, Chris always found himself hovering around Zach. Because Zach had pull and a tongue that tasted like sweet bourbon. He was exciting.
Eventually, the charm begins to wear off.
Both of them are too alike. Zoe says it's hard to see where one ends and the other begins, and Chris stops having his own stories; they're all replaced by the we ones Zach keeps saying over and over.
It makes him want to run, he can't be himself when he is half of something. Trek was supposed to help him become what he was meant to, not the second part of a lumberjack punch line.
I'm not going to be just something you do while we film. Zach says after he sees Chris kissing a blonde at the bar.
And right about that time is when Karl starts offering to take Chris home.
;;
They fuck every once in a while, but Chris never stays long enough to read the paper with Karl. He doesn't go shopping for lampshades with him or out for a jog on the weekends. What they have is pure lust. Being with Karl is all rage and desire and it just stops there. He fills all the excitement gaps that Zach has been failing to fill lately.
When Zach asks where he's been or why the phone was never answered, Chris changes the subject. Omission isn't lying, and as far as he's concerned he's not exactly in a relationship with Zach. What they have is a mixture of bromance and love and affection and lust, all tangled up into a giant question mark.
It's not that one is better than the other, they're both different in their own right. It's like the unmatched chairs tugged below Zach's table, all different and loved from the beginning but each with a history of it's own.
;;
During Karl's goodbye party, Chris' stomach feels like it's in a knot.
It's impossible to pay full attention to his boyfriend when Karl is talking in that accent and tucking cigarettes between his lips, the one's he's traced a million times before. Chris has to stop himself from doing something completely stupid more than once.
They laugh about the same re-hashed stories that happened on set. JJ says the best ones were captured on film; hopefully they'll make the gag reel. In his mind Chris disagrees, nobody knows about the ones with the doctor and the captain.
When they finally say goodbye, Karl whispers something into Chris' ear that makes his mouth curl into a smile. And then before they leave he tells Zach he forgot his glasses in the bathroom.
Bent over the sink, with one hand pushing the tile, is where they have their real goodbye.
;;
A month after filming wraps up, Chris starts noticing things around his apartment. Zach's entire closet seems to have found its way to his bedroom. There's shoes under his bed, jeans on the bathroom floor and t-shirts hanging on the hamper.
"This isn't the Holiday Inn, I'm not doing your laundry for you." He tells Zach, who is currently using him like he is some fucking human-sized pillow.
"I would do your laundry, if I lived here."
He doesn't say anything, which in spork language means he thinks Zach should move in.
Maybe Kirk was a little in love with Spock too.
;;
The living arrangement works like this: Zach gives Chris a key to his place and vice versa, Chris brings his toothbrush and a single pair of underwear to Zach's and Zach makes doubles of all the photographs hanging at his place and puts them up at Chris'. They don't completely give up their own place.
"See? It doesn't matter which apartment we're in, they both feel like home." Zach says as he places the last photo by the bookshelf.
Chris doesn't know what that word means; home. If he is being perfectly honest, he's never known where it is, only where it's not. It wasn't at his parent's house, it wasn't at Beau's, it certainly wasn't Karl's tiny apartment. Now, his own place didn't even feel like his anymore.
He wakes up at 3 am and pulls a chair to the balcony. He smokes naked until his mouth is left dry and the wind starts sending chills down his spine. Even the weather knows something isn't right.
He starts calling Karl, who never picks up, and having long conversations with his voicemail. Cigarette after cigarette, story after story. Chris tells him everything about everything, except the things that really matter. Like how he feels like he is drowning, and Zach is pulling him deeper.
;;
One wednesday, the phone gets picked up.
"I'm coming to LA."
;;
"Tell him what happened last week at the market." Zach says while he maneuvers the chopsticks.
Chris can't stop smiling as he eats his sweet & sour chicken. He licks his fingers and remembers the last time he tasted the sauce, it was in Karl's mouth. "You tell him what happened." His tone somewhere between annoyed and tired.
"We wanted to get a pomegranate, well, Chris wanted to..."
Zach tells the fruit story and Chris is completely zoned out. He looks at him and sees how happy he is; having dinner and referring to them as a couple, telling Chris' stories for him.
He looks over at Karl, who is doing his best to ignore the toes that are rubbing on his ankle and is engaged in Zach's story. He has stubble now and his hair is shorter, but if Chris gets a little closer, he can see that he is still the same. He smells like cheap cigarettes and cologne; and he is still beautiful, in a way Chris can't describe.
He is happy, he should be. He has a superstar boyfriend and a superstar boyfriend. But even then, in his heart, Chris knows this is just the calm before the storm.
The food is gone and eventually the stories run out. Zach picked Karl up from the airport, which means Chris is giving him a ride to the hotel.
They listen to KCRW on the way. "You never know what you'll miss until it's gone." But it's too late to figure out if Karl is being literal or trying to be philosophical.
He digs through the glove compartment, looking for Chris' pack of cigarettes.
"Hey, asshole, be careful with the cd's."
Once he finally finds them, Karl makes sure he lights two and plops one in Chris' mouth.
The rest of the drive is filled with smoke and soft rock, nothing else.
Chris parks the car and helps Karl unload his luggage. They both stand outside the big revolving doors looking at each other.
"What do you need, a formal fucking invitation?"
;;
He slips back into guilt with perfect ease.
;;
Katherine laughs at his love problems. She loves hearing about his antics; they remind her of high school, she says. Katherine offers support and laughter, but never any real advice.
"Sooner or layer, it's going to come back and bite you in the ass," She tells him over the phone. "But you're a big boy, you don't need me to figure out your life for you."
Hi mother, on the other hand, offers perfect advice. Weather she knows it or not.
"Oh Chris." She says in that motherly tone, while handing him a cup of coffee that's still steaming. "I just want you to be happy."
Later, when they're finishing up the banana cream pie and the topic has long since been dropped, she tells him the last of her advice. "It's hard to find someone to love you for yourself." She says while handing him his coat.
"I know, but it's not that simple."
"Well then make it simple, love isn't supposed to be complicated."
It's only then, with his mother's hand over his cheek, that Chris knows what he needs to do.
;;
He quietly grabs a duffle-bag and packs some clothes and a couple of books. Zach is still sleeping, and Noah is waving his tail at him with enthusiasm.
"Don't look at me like that, I have to do this."
He grabs some scrap paper and writes a note to Zach before heading out the door.
I'm staying with my parents for a while, I need
to figure some shit out. I don't even know who I am
anymore, I feel like a ghost of a complete stranger.
Don't forget I still love you.