Grazed Knees, Part Four
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
Warning: this part does contain rape. Yes, I'm jumping on the non-con bandwagon...Urgh, have had to split this into two mini parts. Grrr.
“Just say you love me now, and forget this whole row. Just save your energy for making up with me.” -Grazed Knees, Snow Patrol.
Chas felt Meg’s hard stare as he hung the phone and began to polish the glasses stacked up on the bar.
“What?” he snapped finally, whirling to face her.
Her hands were on her hips, lips pursed in disapproval.
“I would have given you the night off.”
Chas scowled.
“I didn’t ask for it.”
Meg narrowed her eyes.
“Don’t treat me like an idiot, Chas. What’s going on?”
For a moment Chas remained defiant, then he sighed and leant against the bar.
Despite being two tears younger than him, Meg had very much become his confident since he’d started at Cosmo’s. Sometimes he forgot she was only twenty one.
“I just…I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“No, okay? I don’t’ know.”
The hard lines on Meg’s face relaxed slightly.
“Problems?”
Chas shrugged.
“Not as such. We just never seem to have time for each other anymore. And when we do have time, I seem to be going out of my way to avoid him.” He laughed dryly. “And to think, I left him for being the commitment phobic.”
The flat of Meg’s hand against the back of his head was not what he’d been expecting.
“You are being an ass.”
Chas stared at her.
“You love John, he loves you. Stop fucking it up.”
“It’s not that simple-”
“Yes it is. Stop fucking moping around and show him you love him.”
She scribbled something down on a piece of paper.
“Here.”
Chas stared.
“What is it?”
She rolled here eyes impatiently.
“It’s a fucking break, Chas. The address of my brother. He’s having a blow out tonight. Now go home, have sex and have a fucking good night out.”
Chas gaped at her.
“Meg…”
“Go! Now!”
He didn’t dare argue with that tone, and quickly gathered up his bag and coat, aware of Meg glaring at him as he went.
On the way to the apartment, he nearly turned back several times, then wished fervently that Meg was there to give him another slap.
What was wrong with him?
This was John. Hadn’t he spent four years pining after him? Why the hell was he hesitating now?
He opened the door quietly, half hoping John had gone out, or was asleep, or in the bath.
John was sitting at the table, a glass of vodka in front of him.
Chas held his breath and leant back against the door.
“I didn’t drink it,” John said.
Chas nodded, then realised John couldn’t see him.
“Why did you change your mind?” John asked.
“Because you’re right. Because we haven’t spent any time together for a while. Because I love you.”
He heard John’s slight intake of breath. They didn’t say it to each other very often. They didn’t need to.
Chas moved behind John, wrapping his arms round him and resting his head on his shoulder.
“I’m sorry.”
John turned his head, kissing him deeply, and Chas knew he’d been forgiven.
*
The party was in the Valley, and John had been more then a little reluctant when Chas had told him about.
“Come on! It’ll be fun.”
“Fun?” John asked dryly.
Chas attempted puppy dog eyes.
“I reeeally want to go.”
“Don’t whine,” John said, but didn’t resist when Chas pulled him out of the door.
The music was blaring across the front lawn, windows wide open, several naked people in the pool when they arrived.
John raised an eyebrow at Chas, but Chas just grinned and headed into the house.
John shook his head. He must be getting old.
Inside was even more insane.
Furniture was upturned, drink everywhere, several couples engaged in rather questionable activities on the floor.
John leant towards Chas.
“Are you sure this is where you want to spend your night off?”
Chas just laughed and kissed him.
“Be right back.”
John watched helplessly as he disappeared into the heaving crowd.
John hadn’t been to a party like this in a long time, and he realised, as he tried to find somewhere to sit, that he hated them now as much as he had when he was sixteen.
He stepped around two gyrating girls in bikinis, heading in the direction of what he hoped was the bathroom. In the kitchen, two young looking guys were funnelling beer from a large keg, much to the delight of the gathered crowd.
John grimaced and turned away.
Since he’d kicked the drink, he’d found it almost unbelievable the state some people could get into after drinking, made worse because he knew he used to be exactly the same. That was why Chas’s constant drinking worried him so much. He didn’t want Chas to end up like him.
Eventually he managed to find the bathroom, and pushed the wooden door open only to be presented with a guy and a girl in flagrante, so to speak, in the sink.
He coughed, and averted his eyes.
“Sorry.”
Outside, he leant against the wall and closed his eyes.
This really, really wasn’t his scene.
“John!”
Chas stumbled towards him, and John caught him by his arms as he tripped over the edge of a rug.
“Where’d you go?” Chas slurred, and John wondered how he could of possibly got wasted in the half hour they’d been apart. “I missed you.’
Chas pressed himself close, his arms looping around John’s neck, and John winced at his body’s involuntary response.
“Chas,” he groaned. “Not here, okay?”
“Yes,” Chas replied, moving against John. “Right here.”
His hand snaked between them, and John closed his eyes at the contact.
“Shit Chas,” he gasped. “You can’t just-”
Chas kissed him roughly, working the buttons on John’s pants, slipping his hand inside.
John moaned into his mouth as Chas began to work him, eyes lazy slits, aware that anyone could just turn the corner and see them.
He bucked into Chas’s hand, head hitting the wall as he threw it back, stars bursting across his vision.
Chas kissed him harder, moved his hand faster, rubbing himself on John’s thigh at an almost frantic pace. John gave up any resistance, closed his eyes and allowed it to happen.
At the last moment Chas stopped, dropping to his knees and taking John in his mouth, sucking him dry, and John sagged against the wall, panting.
“Jesus,” he murmured, when he finally found his voice.
He pulled Chas to his feet, flush against him, and Chas groaned and wiggled his hips.
“Let me fuck you,” he whispered, and John buried his lips in the crook of Chas’s neck, nipping at the skin there as Chas ground his hardness against him.
He let Chas pull him outside, into the shadowy garden, and Chas pushed him against the side of the house, kissing him fiercely as his hand scrabbled across John’s chest and back down into his pants, teasing him with feather light touches, causing him to stir again despite Chas’s earlier ministrations.
Chas was undoing his own pants, kicking them off and John groaned at the sudden display of skin.
“Don’t you wear fucking underwear?”
Chas, sucking hard on his fingers, smiled through his mouthful, then slipped his hand around John’s hips, pushing his pants down the rest of the way, before penetrating him.
“Chas,” John gasped through the unexpected pain. “We can’t screw out here. I don’t have anything.”
“My pants pocket,” Chas gasped, fingers working steadily.
John pushed him away long enough to retrieve the condom and small tube from Chas’s jeans.
“A little presumptuous, aren’t you?”
Chas flashed him a lazy, sexy smile.
“Hopeful,” he corrected, pushing John back against the grass.
It was cold and tickly, and John didn’t want to think about what would happen if it got in unmentionable places, but found himself past caring as Chas pushed inside of him, arms braced either side of his head, and then his back was arching, hips pushing up to meet each of Chas’s thrusts and there was only that desperate, spinning, reaching sensation until they were both pushed over the edge.
Chas flopped back onto grass, their legs touching, and they lay there until they heard the back door bang open, voices and laughter floating across the lawn, and they scrambled for their clothes, yanking them on and hurrying back into the house, like teenagers caught behind the bike sheds at school.
John reflected that maybe he wasn’t too old after all.
*
Chas was having the best evening of his life.
He was completely trashed, having been given some fucked up concoction of God knows what the moment he walked in the door, and then there was the sex on the back lawn.
He was dancing now, carefree with no inhibitions, the alcohol buzzing through his system, the high from the great sex still coursing through him.
He grinned as he felt a hand on his hip, turning to meet John with a lazy kiss.
“Having fun?” he yelled, over the blare of music.
“You hungry?” John asked, lips close to Chas’s ear.
Chas shook his head.
“I’m good thanks.”
John nodded and said something Chas couldn’t hear.
“What?”
“I’m going to go and find something to eat. Will you be okay?”
He was so close to Chas’s ear now that Chas could feel the brush of his lips as he spoke, and was having a little trouble concentrating.
“Fine!” he yelled happily. “I’ll be right here.”
John kissed him briefly, and Chas watched his ass with appreciation as he pushed through the crowd.
He went across to the makeshift bar, covered with half full bottles, cups and straws, and joined a group of girls doing tequila shots.
“Got a spare glass?”
One of them giggled, pulling Chas into a chair and settling herself on his lap.
“Bring it on, girls!” she called, and tipped the burning shot down Chas’s throat.
He wasn’t sure how much tequila he did, he only knew it took less time without the salt and the lime, and the girls pressed shot upon shot of alcohol in various colours at him until everything was kind of blurry, and he could no longer walk so well.
“Woah, dude. You’re, like, totally wasted.”
Chas leant against the masculine body supporting him. It smelt a little like John.
“You want a real party?” the guy asked, and Chas was vaguely aware of nodding, of being led upstairs to a bedroom and pushed back onto a bed, of someone’s lips and tongue on him that definitely shouldn’t be.
“Hey,” he slurred, pushing at the guy, and the guy relaxed.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m just playing.”
He reached into his pocket, pulling out a small white packet that Chas couldn’t completely focus on.
“This’ll take you any place you want to go,” he said, tipping small amounts of the powder onto the dresser top, arranging it into neat lines, and Chas leant forward, touching it with his fingertips, fascinated by the softness. It fizzed on his tongue as he put his fingers to his mouth, and the guy laughed.
“Not like that. Here, let me show you.”
He bent down, the thin white line disappearing into his nostril, and Chas watched in amazement.
“Go ahead,” the guy said. “Your turn.”
And Chas leant forward.
*
John couldn’t find Chas anywhere.
He had only been gone about half an hour, but when he had got back, Chas was no longer on the dance floor, nor was he anywhere downstairs.
He was turning to look outside when someone fell against him, and he recognised the flash of long dark hair.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
Trent was obviously drunk, his eyes wide as he stared up at John.
“Hey, it’s the asshole who stole my boyfriend!”
John looked at him with disgust.
“I didn’t steal anything,” he snapped. “Chas came to me willingly.”
“You mean the way he left you willingly?” Trent asked.
John felt his hand form a tight fist, then forced himself to relax. Trent wasn’t worth it.
“Yeah, I know you were ashamed of him. That’s why he left you, wasn’t it? Because you told him that he wasn’t really gay, that your relationship wasn’t real because Chas was going through a phase?”
“Shut up.”
“Oh, but it’s the truth, isn’t it, Constantine? You accused Chas of not being his true self, when you were the one who was lying about who you were. You were the one who couldn’t admit you were gay. You were the one who turned him into a fucking alcoholic.”
John’s fist hit him in the side of the jaw, and he stared impassively down at Trent, who seemed dazed.
“Don’t go near Chas,” he said, then turned and pushed his way to the stairs, trying to put as much distance between himself and Trent as possible, because he didn’t want to hear the truth of Trent’s burning words.
He pushed open the first door he came to, intending to hide for a bit, and stopped short at the scene that confronted him.
Chas was sitting at the edge of the bed, next to some blonde boy, his head bent low over a line of thin white powder.
John crossed the room in three easy steps, yanking Chas backwards, hard, ripping his hand from the dresser.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he roared, and Chas blinked at him, confused.
“John?”
“Answer the fucking question, Chas.”
”I…” He looked around, as if he was only just aware of his surroundings, and John realised that he was completely gone. “I don’t…”
“Did you take any?” John gripped his chin in his hand, forcing Chas to look at him.
“Chas? Did you take any?”
“Relax, dude,” the blonde guy drawled. “He’s clean.”
“You fucking talk to me again and I’ll rip your head off,” John said. He pulled Chas up. “We’re going home.”
Chas protested weakly, but John ignored him, pulling him harshly along the landing.
“You’ve fucked up Chas. This is the last fucking straw, do you understand?”
Chas pulled back suddenly.
“Don’t talk to me like that,” he said.
John scowled.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re my fucking father. You’re not.”
He swayed on his feet, but pulled away when John reached for him.
“Jesus Chas! Do you even know what you were doing back there? That was cocaine you were about to take. Drugs. Do you even know your own fucking name right now?”
“Stop yelling at me!”
Chas pushed past him, lurching towards the stairs, and John grabbed him.
“Let go!”
“You’re going to hurt yourself.”
“Stop treating me like a child!”
“Then stop fucking acting like one!”
Chas yanked his arm free and began to stagger down the stairs. Halfway down he tripped, and John ran towards him, even as several people were steadying Chas, helping him down the rest of the way.
“Stop walking away from me,” John said.
“Stop following me,” Chas snapped back and John reached the end.
“For fucks sake! I can’t take this bullshit any longer. You want to be alone? Fine. But don’t fucking come crawling back to me when you’re done.”
Chas stared at him, but John was past caring.
“You’re on your fucking own,” he said, then turned and pushed his way through the crowd, to the front door, not looking back.
*