Grazed Knees, Part Three
Title: Grazed Knees
Author: roxierocks
Pairing: John/Chas
Rating: R/NC-17
Disclaimer: I don't own Constantine, or the plots blatantly stolen from the O.C.
Summary: Four years after he walked out in the middle of the night, Chas moves back to LA with his new boyfriend in tow. But is he really as together as he now appears to be, and will he be able to resist John when he sees him again?
Previous Parts:http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=roxierocks&keyword=Grazed+Knees&filter=all
“Just say you love me now, and forget this whole row. Just save your energy for making up with me.” -Grazed Knees, Snow Patrol.
“You should wait down here.”
John raised an eyebrow, and Chas had to bite back his impatience
“Just trust me on this, okay? Trent does not need you to antagonise him right now.”
“I never antagonise.”
Chas rolled his eyes.
“Fine. But you’re staying outside.”
They rode the elevator in silence, and Chas fiddled with his jacket cuffs nervously.
“It’ll be fine,” John said quietly.
“Oh yeah. I know. Fine. It’s fine. Everything’s fine.”
John waited a little down the corridor, at Chas’s request, and Chas hesitated at the door, unsure whether he should just go in, or knock and wait.
He knocked.
Trent’s eyes were bloodshot, and his face was impassive when he saw Chas standing there.
“I’ve come for my things,” Chas said.
There was the briefest flicker of something like disappointment in Trent’s eyes, then he nodded and moved aside, gesturing Chas in.
Chas’s stuff was already piled up in the middle of the living room, and Chas wasn’t sure if he should feel relived or annoyed.
“If anything’s missing it’s because I threw it out of the window last night,” Trent said bluntly, and Chas nodded, wondering just how much Trent might have thrown out of the window, because he was sure he owned more than seven large cardboard boxes.
“I’m keeping the wall clock,” Trent said, and Chas tried not to feel disappointed. He loved that clock. They’d bought it together from a random little store in New York where everything was handmade from old bits of glass. But he was the one in the wrong here. If Trent wanted the clock, Trent should have the clock.
Chas, however, had the sneaking suspicion Trent only wanted the clock because he knew how much Chas loved it.
“That’s fine,” he said calmly.
He went to pick up the first box, but Trent stopped him.
“I think we should talk.”
“I think we pretty much said everything last night.”
”No damn it! We didn’t say anything last night!”
Chas flinched at the raised tone, but Trent ignored it.
“Why Chas? Why the fuck are you leaving me for someone twice your age? Someone who fucking broke your heart last time! What did I do that was so bad you can’t stand being with me anymore?”
“It isn’t like that,” Chas said softly. “I love him. I can’t help it. And believe me, I’ve tried.”
“And what about me? I love you Chas. I fucking love you. Doesn’t that mean anything?”
Chas sighed.
“It means everything,” he said. “But I just…don’t feel the same way.”
Trent stared at him.
“Two years,” he said, and his voice was dangerously soft. “Two years we’ve been together, and you just forgot to mention that you didn’t feel the same way?”
He took a step towards Chas, and Chas backed up involuntarily.
“Trent-” he began.
“Didn’t you think I might notice one day? Didn’t you think I’d get suspicious eventually? Did you honestly believe that I wouldn’t care?”
“Trent, please-”-
“Did you ever fucking think of me once, Chas? Do you give a fuck about anyone but yourself, you alcoholic piece of shit?”
Chas stared at him.
“What did you just call me?”
Trent backed him against the wall.
“You heard me. You’re an alcoholic, Chas. You’re a sad, pathetic alcohol-”
Chas’s palm made a flat, empty sound as it struck Trent’s face, and his fingers left a red imprint on the pale skin, Trent’s head jerking suddenly to the side with the force of the blow.
He looked very slowly back to Chas, and Chas knew he’d made a mistake.
He closed his eyes as the first punch landed, in his mid section, and doubled up as the pain hit him like a pickup truck, then Trent’s hands were shoving him hard against the wall, and there was pain on his head, his shoulders, his back, and someone screaming obscenities.
And Chas was powerless to fight back as the man who had claimed to love now used him as his personal punch bag.
A roar broke through the haze in his mind, and Trent’s weight was suddenly gone, an odd ringing in his ears, his body still feeling the hard fists.
Chas opened his eyes to see John with his hand around Trent’s throat, pinning him to the door, a look of murderous rage on his face.
Chas knew that look, he knew that look well, and as much as he hated Trent right now, letting John kill him wouldn’t exactly solve anything.
“John,” he gasped.
For a moment John seemed torn whether to kill Trent anyway or go to Chas, who was in obvious pain. With a growl he let go of Trent’s neck, watching dispassionately as he slumped to the floor.
John crossed the room in three quick strides, then knelt by Chas, cupping his face with a gentleness very rarely seen in John Constantine.
“Are you alright?” he asked softly.
Chas nodded wearily, John’s hands moving with him.
“Just take me home,” he whispered.
John helped him to his feet.
Trent was still sitting in front of the door, and John kicked him aside with little remorse.
He stopped in the corridor, and turned back to look through the doorway.
“I want all Chas’s things sent to the Bowl Bowl Bowl Alley on Westside, under the name of John Constantine. We’ll accept it as good will gift on your part. And if you ever come near Chas again, I will kill you.”
He didn’t bother to make sure Trent understood.
He would be an idiot not to.
*
Three weeks went by, and Chas sat around the apartment doing nothing.
At first, John hadn’t thought anything of it. Chas had been adjusting, no big deal. He would find a job soon. He just needed a bit of time.
But when one week turned into two, and then three, it became clear that Chas didn’t just need time.
He needed a kick up the ass.
“Are you ever going to find a job?”
Chas rolled his eyes and became miraculously fascinated by the morning paper.
“It’s been three weeks, Chas.”
“I can count, John.”
John sighed. They’d already had this conversation twice this week.
“I have an appointment,” he said, standing. “Please, at least have gotten dressed by the time I get home.”
Chas pretended to read the paper, But John knew his eyes were far away, and that he had no idea what he was looking at.
John went across to the wardrobe, fishing a tie out of its crowded depths, and pretended not to notice the obvious clink of empty bottles hidden in Chas’s side.
When he did get home, later that evening, Chas hadn’t gotten dressed, and was half asleep on the hard floor, in a greying t-shirt and baggy sweat pants.
“Right. That’s enough.”
Chas blinked sleepily.
“Oh, you’re home.”
“Get up.”
“What?”
John grabbed his arm, yanking him unceremoniously to his feet.
“Go and get dressed?”
Chas stared at him.
“Why?”
”Because I fucking said so. Go. NOW!”
Chas jumped slightly, then hurried over to the wardrobe and pulled out a pair of wrinkled pants and a shirt.
When he had them on, Constantine threw pair of shoes at him.
“Do something about your hair,” he snapped.
Chas patted it half heartedly.
“Uh, John? Where are we going?”
John glared at him.
“To a bar.”
He noted with disgust that Chas brightened considerably at this information, and hurried to tie his shoelaces.
Constantine led the way out of the apartment and Chas trailed behind him for four blocks, until they stopped in front of a large, noisy bar. Cosmopolitan.
“Why are we going in here?” Chas asked.
John glared at him, and went inside, expecting Chas to follow.
He went over to the bar, weaving through the thrum of the crowded dance floor.
“You need a bar man?” he asked, gesturing to the sign in the window, somewhere behind him.
The girl behind the bar looked him over. She had bright pink hair and a nose ring.
“You interested?”
“No, but he is.”
He jerked his thumb at Chas, who suddenly seemed to grasp what was going on.
“Oh no. Hell no. No fucking way. You did not get me out of bed for a job interview.”
John glared at him.
“If I come home to find you in your pyjamas one more time this week I’m going to make you sleep in the street. You like bars, you know enough about fucking drink. What’s the problem?”
Chas scowled.
“You have any experience?” the girl behind the bar asked.
“I worked in a bar in Tahiti,” Chas said, shooting John a venomous glare. “And one in New York a couple of months ago.”
The girl regarded him for a moment.
“Okay,” she said. “You’re on a trial. If by the end of tonight you haven’t screwed up, you got the job.”
Chas gaped at her.
“You want me to start now?”
The girl waved an impatient arm.
“Look around, dude. It’s happy hour. We got a bar full of people and about three staff.”
She lifted the edge of the counter, gesturing him through. “So yeah, I want you start now.”
Chas went through the little space, and the counter banged down behind him.
“I’m Meg,” the girl said. “I’m the manager. And you are?”
“Uh…Chas Kramer.”
“Great. You know how to make cocktails, Chas?”
John saw Chas hesitate.
“Uh, yeah…”
“Great,” Meg repeated. “Three tequila sunrises and a high melonball to those girls on the right. You need me, just shout.”
Chas stared wide eyed at Meg’s retreating back, and John laughed.
“Have fun,” he said. “I’ll see you later.”
“I’ll kill you, Chas replied, reaching for four large glass beakers under the bar.
“I’ll look forward to it,” John promised, as he turned and began to make his way to the door.
“I mean it Constantine!” Chas yelled after him, but John only smiled.
*
Chas winced as he tried to balance the five full glasses and carry them the short distance to the bar.
“That’s…uh…fourteen fifty,” he said.
The guy stuffed fifteen dollars into his hand and picked up the glasses with far more ease than Chas had. Chas sighed and the money into the till, tossing the fifty cents into the tips jar.
“What can I get you?” he asked a petite blonde girl.
The girl smiled.
“Four tequila slammers.” Her eyes twinkled. “And one for yourself.
Chas looked uncertainly around for Meg.
“Um, I’m not sure if I’m allowed to-”
The girl laughed.
“I won’t tell if you won’t.”
What the hell.
He lined the shot glasses up on the bar and filled them, placing a sachet of salt and a piece of lime by each glass.
“Come on girls!”
Three more appeared by the blonde, and they poured the salt onto their hands, Chas following suit. The blonde gave him a mock salute with her shot glass, then they all simultaneously licked the salt off their hands, throwing the shots back and sucking on the lime to overpower the bitter taste.
Chas laughed, breathless, the tequila creating a liquid fire down his throat.
“Thank you ladies,” he said.
The blonde smiled.
“The pleasure was all mine.”
Chas grinned and turned to serve the next customer.
“Oh honey, you must be tired, on your feet all night. Have a drink on me.”
His grin widened. He had a feeling he was going to like working here.
*
Chas was nicely buzzed as he made his way home.
It was three am, and he was exhausted from the evening’s work, but at the same time felt oddly energized.
He let himself into the apartment, kicking off his shoes, shirt and pants as he made his way towards the bed, leaving them in a trail across the floor.
He slipped beneath the sheets, reaching for John, wrapping his arms around his waist.
“How was it?” John murmured.
Chas grinned. John was such a light sleeper.
“Surprisingly okay.”
He nuzzled the back of John’s neck, his hands drifting lower.
John groaned.
“Chas, it’s three am.”
“And I’m wiiide awake.”
John groaned again, but this time it was from pleasure, as Chas’s hand began to work him.
“I want you to fuck me,” Chas breathed.
With a growl, John turned over, pressing him against the bed, his hand and lips driving Chas insane as they moved over him.
“Fuck,” Chas gasped. “Oh God, yes.”
John was hovering over him, holding his weight up on his arms, and looking at him Chas felt a sudden hitch in his already breathless breathing.
He’d just wanted a fast fuck when he came home, but something had snapped inside of him in that instant, John’s dark eyes looking down on him, blazing with heat and lust and something altogether different, and Chas’s own eyes were squeezed shut as John moved inside him, and he barely acknowledged the thin streams of tears that leaked into his hairline.
John’s weight collapsed on him, suffocating, and then he rolled to one side, stroking Chas’s face gently, and Chas wondered what the hell had just happened.
It wasn’t like he didn’t already know he loved John, but that…that was intense.
“You won’t leave will you?” he asked suddenly.
John stared at him.
“What are you talking about?”
Chas opened his eyes, and everything seemed glassy, as if it was a dream.
“You won’t leave,” he repeated, voice soft. “Because I couldn’t bare it if you left me now.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“I’m sorry,” Chas said quietly.
John was stroking his hair gently.
“For what?”
“Leaving. I shouldn’t have. It wasn’t fair.”
John’s hand stilled in his hair for a moment, then resumed its caress.
“That doesn’t matter now.”
Chas looked at him.
“Doesn’t it?”
“You’re here now,” John said simply.
Chas closed his eyes, John’s hands still in his hair, and slept.
*
Over the next few months, Chas began to work more and more at the bar. He regularly tumbled into bed at four or five o clock in the morning, and some nights didn’t even bother to come home, sleeping a few hours in the back office before helping set up for the day ahead.
Constantine tried not to take it personally.
He was, after all, the one who had got Chas the job in the first place. He couldn’t exactly complain now that Chas was no longer lounging around in his underwear all day and eating all John’s food, could he?
It was just that he never seemed to see Chas anymore. They never got to spend any time together, and no, he didn’t want to Chas to stick to his side like glue and constantly annoy him, but it would be nice to actually see him once in a while.
They hadn’t had sex in almost a week.
At first it had been great. Chas would come back from the bar all horny and they would do it, and then again when John had to get up in the morning, but now Chas seemed too tired, when he was there, and John had to satisfy himself when he wasn’t.
He sighed and glared out of the window of the small café, shuffling the paper he was pretending to read.
Maybe he could convince Chas to take the night off, call in sick. John wasn’t sure if he could spend one more night alone.
His hands were itching for the drink he knew Chas had stashed on his side of the wardrobe.
Making a sudden decision he stood, tossing a couple of dollars onto the table for his coffee, and quickly began to walk back to the apartment.
It was six o clock. If he called Chas now, they could get someone else to cover the night shift. If John was lucky he would get Meg, and she would probably order Chas home.
She seemed strangely considerate of John, whenever they spoke.
The phone rang three times before it was picked up.
“Cosmo’s.”
“It’s John, calling for Chas.”
“Oh hey John.”
He could hear the warmth in Meg’s tone, and breathed an inward sigh of relief.
“How you doin’?”
“I’m, um, good. Is Chas there?”
He never had been good on the phone.
Meg laughed.
“Just a sec.”
There was a slight clatter, and John could hear muffled voices.
“Hey!”
Chas sounded slightly breathless, like he’d been running.
“Hi. Good day?”
Chas laughed.
“A little crazy. The delivery was totally screwed up.”
“Come home tonight, Chas. Tell them you’re sick.”
There was a long pause.
“John,” Chas said finally, and John already knew what he was going to say. “I’m at work.
I can’t just come home.”
“You’re always at work,” John snapped, before he could stop himself.
Chas sighed, as if they had had this conversation a thousand times before, though John definitely hadn’t brought it up.
“Let’s talk about this when I get home.”
“That’s if you come home.”
”For fuck’s sake, John!”
John bit the inside of his cheek and stared at the wall. He was just making things worse.
“I have to go,” Chas said stiffly.
“Fine.”
Chas put the phone down first, and John listened to the dial tone and wondered exactly when they’d swapped roles, and how he’d managed not to notice.
*