Grazed Knees, Part Five, two.
The final part is here!
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?
http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=roxierocks&keyword=Grazed+Knees&filter=all ...previous parts.
So, the final part is here. Am really sorry about this. You'll understand why when you read it...
“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 more than a little sheepish when he turned up for work the next day.
Meg surveyed him coolly over the bar.
“Those glasses are coming out of your pay check.”
Chas shrugged.
“Fair enough.”
Meg grinned.
“Ah, that asshole deserved it. He’s always hitting on something or other. Don’t worry about it.”
Chas breathed a little sigh of relief. He really hadn’t wanted Meg to be mad at him.
He helped clean the bar area, then stock up for the night ahead. Meg teased him about being a babe magnet and asked how things were going with John.
“Okay actually. I think last night broke something down between us.”
Meg nodded, looking thoughtful.
“So no more mention of Trent, then?”
Chas couldn’t stop his automatic tensing at Trent’s name.
“Um, no. No more mention.”
“So you’re still not ready to tell him what happened, then?”
Chas concentrated very hard on the glass he was polishing.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He could feel Meg’s eyes on him for a long time.
“Okay,” she said finally. “But when you’re ready to talk, I’m here.”
She squeezed his shoulder and Chas listened to her footsteps getting fainter, and suddenly felt like crying.
He found her, five minutes later, in the stock room, getting a crate of mountain dew.
“I didn’t sleep with him.”
“I know.”
He regarded her suspiciously.
“How do you know?”
”Because you love John.”
“But I was really wasted that night,” he pointed out.
“I still don’t think you slept with him.”
Chas blew out a nervous breath.
“I didn’t.”
“I know,” she repeated. She stopped tugging at the crate and came to stand in front of him.
“So what’s really going on?”
“I-” Chas floundered for words. “Nothing.”
“So the fact that you were practically catatonic for two weeks after you and Trent allegedly ‘hooked up’, that now any guy who so much as looks at you completely freaks you out, that you are so very obviously hiding something. That all means nothing?”
Chas squeezed his eyes shut, and he knew that he was about to break.
“Did he hurt you?”
He shook his head desperately, still not ready to relive that night.
“I can’t do this right now.”
He turned, blindly, to leave, but Meg latched onto his wrist.
“What did he do to you, Chas?”
“I can’t.”
“You have to! This is destroying you. Please Chas.”
He opened his eyes and was surprised to see the tears on her cheeks.
“Please.”
There was a very long pause.
“He said it was just one last drink,” he whispered. He felt Meg’s hand on his wrist tighten, but she didn’t interrupt.
“I was so fucking gone, I didn’t even realise how many I’d had. And then when he tried to kiss me I-” He took a deep breath, forced himself to continue. “I pushed him away, told him no.” He laughed grimly. “But if there’s one thing you don’t do with Trent it’s tell him no.”
“Oh God.”
They were both crying now, and Chas didn’t try to hide it as she pulled him to her, wrapping his arms around him.
“I tried to stop him. I did. I did.”
“Of course you did,” Meg whispered fiercely. “This is not your fault.”
“I drank too much,” Chas mumbled, and despite the immediate pain, he felt glad that he was finally able to tell someone. “If I hadn’t been so drunk he wouldn’t have-”
“No!”
Meg took his face in her hands, forcing him to look at her.
“This is not your fault. You did not ask for this. There is nothing you could have done.”
“I could have been a bit stronger. A bit less stupid.”
Meg shook her head.
“It was him Chas. He did this. He fucking did this. Not you. Him.”
She held him, her hands pressed against his back, his head resting on her shoulder, until they heard the back door clatter, which meant Jennie had arrived for opening up.
“Go home,” Meg said. “You shouldn’t have to be here right now.”
Chas shook his head.
“I want to stay. It helps take my mind off…it.”
Meg stared at him sorrowfully.
“You have to tell the police.”
“No.” Chas’s tone was firm. “You can’t tell anyone.”
“Chas-”
“I mean it, Meg. This is my business. I don’t want police involved.”
“But he could do it again!”
“He won’t.”
“How do you know?”
How did Chas know? He supposed he didn’t, he just felt, somehow, that Trent hadn’t done it for the act itself, that he’d done it to try and show he still had some control over Chas, and that was the only way he knew how. He couldn’t explain it, but he honestly didn’t believe that Trent would do it again.
“I just know, okay?”
He was bending down to pick up the crate of mountain dew when she spoke again, voice soft.
“What about John?”
He straightened up, watching her carefully.
“He doesn’t need to know.”
She shook her head in disbelief.
“You’re crazy. You think you can keep this from him?”
“I’ve done okay so far.” His lips twisted. “It’s alright. He just thinks I fucked the guy.”
Meg closed her eyes briefly.
“You have to tell him.”
“No,” he replied flatly. “And don’t you even think about it. This is my problem. It has nothing to do with either of you.”
“How can you say that?”
“Because that’s the way it is.”
Chas picked up the crate and walked out to the bar, pretending not hear Meg’s dry sob behind him.
*
John went down to Cosmo’s again that night, more worried about Chas than he would be pressed to admit.
There was just something that wasn’t quite right about him, though admittedly something hadn’t been right since the night they went to that party.
John had been so sure Chas had slept with Trent that night, but in the weeks following he began to wonder. He knew something had happened, he was just no longer sure what.
And he wanted more than anything to forget it, to move on, but he couldn’t. He just couldn’t let it go.
Chas had acted so strangely last night. One minute he’d been all over John, the next pushing him as far away as possible.
No, something definitely wasn’t right.
And he was determined to find out what.
Chas saw him as he walked into Cosmos’, and gave him a quick wave.
It was busy again, but then when was it not busy?
John slouched by the bar, hoping to grab a quick word in between customers.
“Hey.”
Chas leaned over, brushing John’s cheek with his lips, and John smiled sadly, think how easy it would suddenly be to forget the last three weeks had ever happened.
“Do you want a drink?”
John shrugged.
“Just a soda.”
Chas nodded and got him a coke from one of the fridges, pouring it into a glass with ice.
“I need to talk to you.”
Chas glanced nervously at him.
“Now? I’m working.”
“Whenever you get a break. It’s no hurry.”
Chas relaxed marginally at that.
“I should get a break in about fifteen minutes, though it depends if there’s a sudden rush. We can talk in back, in the stock room, okay?”
John nodded, and took his drink into a corner table to wait.
After the fifteen minutes had passed he craned his neck at the bar, but couldn’t see Chas.
He stood, weaving through the crowd, towards the staff door, figuring Chas must be waiting for him there.
He approached the stock room quietly, aware of raised voices coming from inside of it.
“Will you stop?”
“No Chas, I will not stop.”
John recognised Meg’s voice.
“This is important.”
“You just don’t get it, do you? I don’t want him to know.”
“How do you think he’ll feel when he finds out the truth? When he finds out you kept something this huge from him. What do you think he’ll do when he finds out Trent’s involved?”
John felt his stomach clench painfully.
“He has to know. You have to tell him.”
“Tell me what?”
The both jumped guiltily as John entered the room, Chas’s face paling significantly.
“John, what are you doing back here?”
“Tell me what, Chas?”
He took a step forward, and Chas reflexively took one back.
“Nothing.”
“Don’t lie to me. Not now. Not when it has to do with Trent.”
“I’m not,” Chas protested, and John felt the words like a slap in the face, because he had just heard Chas say it. “I have to get back to work.”
He tried to edge around John to the door, but John stopped him, gripping his arm tightly, and a look of pure terror flashed across Chas’s face.
John let go, stepping back suddenly, because that look of fear had been directed at him, John.
Chas was afraid of him.
Chas looked hesitantly at him, as if he wanted to explain, then hurried from the room.
John advanced on Meg, who had been silent the entire time.
“You’d better tell me what the fuck is going on right now.”
Meg shook her head.
“I can’t. It isn’t my place to-”
“Don’t give that shit!” John roared. “Fucking tell me what’s going on!”
Meg closed her eyes.
“That night,” she said, her voice raspy. “The night of the party. When Chas left with Trent. He did go back to Trent’s, but they didn’t sleep together.”
John held his breath, and suddenly, irrationally, he wanted to take his demand back, because he really, really didn’t want to know what happened that night. He already knew that it couldn’t be good.
Meg opened her eyes, and they were glassy with tears.
“He raped him, John,” she whispered. “Trent fucking raped him.”
There was a strange sort of ringing in John’s ears, and he couldn’t quite see properly. He wanted to take Meg by the arms and shake her, to tell her to stop lying to him, to stop trying to hurt them.
But he knew he couldn’t. Because she wasn’t lying.
“John…”
He was moving without even being aware of it, going to the door, and then along the corridor, looking out over the bar, at Chas, who was smiling as he served the drinks, smiling and laughing and pretending, pretending, pretending.
He ploughed through the crowd, vaguely aware of Meg shouting at him, of Chas’s voice, telling him to stop.
He didn’t stop.
Chas caught up with him outside the club, the crisp night air doing nothing to cut through his red haze.
“John, please. Just fucking stop. We can talk about it, please. Please don’t do anything stupid.”
He ignored Chas, focused instead on walking, one foot in front of the other.
“Please, just fucking listen to me!”
He felt Chas’s hand on his arm, and shook it off.
A taxi. He needed a taxi.
“John! For God’s sake, you have to calm down!”
He stopped a passing cab, climbed into the back seat and closed the door. Chas was banging on the window, but John couldn’t quite hear the words.
He told the driver Trent’s address and the cab screeched away from the curb.
The last picture he had was Chas opening and closing his fists on the sidewalk, looking hopelessly, completely lost.
*
Chas stood for a full minute after John’s cab had left, just feeling so stupidly helpless.
When he finally came to his senses, he raced back into the club, and into the office, ignoring Meg’s questions as he scrambled through his bag for his wallet.
“I have to go after him,” he said, as he ran for the door again. Meg was yelling after him, but he couldn’t hear what she was saying, jumping in the nearest taxi and shouting out Trent’s address.
The fifteen minute ride was the longest of his life.
He leapt out of the cab as it pulled up outside of Trent’s building, thrusting some cash at the driver, then tearing inside and towards the elevator, waiting impatiently for it to arrive, tapping his foot in agitation as it travelled the sixty six floors, which were sixty five too many in Chas’s opinion.
He ran into the corridor, already hearing the shouts from Trent’s open door, and burst into the apartment, into the living room, where John had Trent pinned against the wall, his hands wrapped around his throat.
Trent’s face was beginning to turn purple, his hands scrabbling across John’s arms and face, leaving thin, red lines across his cheeks, but John’s hold didn’t lesson.
“John, stop!”
John didn’t seem to hear him, his thumbs pressing into Trent’s windpipe.
“John!”
Chas pulled desperately at John’s wrists, trying to alleviate the pressure around Trent’s neck, and one of Trent’s flailing arms hit him in the side of the face.
He staggered backwards, a little stunned, and John’s head turned with the movement, his eyes seeming to see Chas for the first time.
“He’s not worth it,” Chas gasped. “He’s not worth killing for.”
Something uncertain hovered in John’s eyes and his fingers relaxed slightly.
Trent pushed him back, doubling over and gasping for breath, hands massaging his injured throat, and John watched him guardedly, the sudden silence only broken by harsh panting.
Trent looked up, and Chas only caught the look in his eyes a split second before he moved, too late to interpret it, too late to stop him.
Trent leapt at John, an angry roar unleashed as he landed his full weight on him, propelling them both backwards, his fists punching into John’s stomach.
The momentum carried them back, back into the floor to ceiling glass windows that lined the far wall, and the glass shattered around them, every piece splintering Chas’s mind as he watched, helpless, as they seemed suspended for an eternal moment, surrounded by glass shards, hopelessly entwined together before they were falling out of sight, and Chas stood frozen, empty hand stretched out, grasping at air as the still night was split by broken screams.
*
John’s funeral was small and empty, but Chas didn’t expect anything else.
He didn’t know what Trent’s funeral was like. He didn’t care.
Meg sat beside him and held his hand through the service, but he barely noticed, staring out into the rain under the cover of the large black umbrella and remembering how small John had looked on the sidewalk, red streaks bursting across the dull grey stone like some grotesque art work.
The police report had been quick and concise. Chas had answered their questions with no emotion. He couldn’t feel anything.
Meg gave him compassionate leave for a week. She took him home and cried into his shoulder and he felt numb.
After she left he locked the door, took the phone off the hook and drank.
*
It was Meg who found him.
When he wouldn’t answer the door and his phone seemed to be constantly engaged, she became worried. The guy who owned the bowling alley had a spare key and he let her in.
Chas’s skin was faintly blue. He was lying face up on the wooden floor, a half full bottle of vodka at his side, several empties next to it. His face was turned to the side, and a pool of bloody vomit had dried up next to his mouth. Flies swarmed around it, crawling over his face and closed eye lids.
“Alcohol poisoning,” the coroner announced, snapping off his white surgical gloves. “Choked on his own vomit. Bag him up and put him in the refrigerator.”
He gazed down at the body on the table for a moment, regret in his eyes.
“So young,” he said. “Such a waste.”
His assistant murmured in sympathetic agreement, then presented him with the necessary paperwork.
He signed his name with a flourish and strode through the swinging door without a backward glance.
After all, for him Chas Kramer was just another day’s work.
*
Fin.
*