Lipstick Traces, Pt. 1b (RPF AU)
Darren smiled and rolled onto his side as he felt the bed dip. "Rough day?"
Ceecee sighed and pulled the covers over her. "The worst. We lost two tonight."
"Do you want to talk about it?" He reached out and ran a hand over her arm, stroking gently as she got herself comfortable.
"Not really, but I think I should." She screwed her eyes shut and let her head fall against the pillow. "She was eighty-four years old. I've never seen someone that old with a mark before. Her son said she'd had it as long as he could remember. The name Trevor in perfect blue letters on the inside of her wrist. He used to think it was a tattoo of his dad's name because she refused to talk about either one."
Ceecee heaved a sigh and wriggled out of Darren's arms, lying flat on her back and staring at the ceiling. "About twenty years ago, she began to tell her grandkids stories about a young man named Trevor who lived inside her heart. Her son thought her mind might be starting to wander; that she might have Alzheimer's and was remembering someone from her past. He took her to a few doctors but they all said she was fine." She bit her lip and reached for Darren's hand. "About three months ago, her nursing home hired a new CNA."
"Oh, god," Darren said, a dull ache in his chest. "Don't tell me…"
"Yeah," Ceecee said, lifting a hand to rub at her tears. "Trevor Reynolds, twenty-three, fresh out of school, and so beautiful you'd want to cry." She traced a circle over the top her left breast. "He had the name Olga flowing over his heart, like his love for her was so strong, it burst right out of his chest."
Darren shook his head in disbelief. "Sixty-one years apart, and they still found each other."
Ceecee sniffed. "For a little while. No one seems to know the details, but from what they were able to guess, the two of them had a thing ever since he started working there. He'd take his breaks in her room and always wanted to be assigned to her wing for his duties. People began to talk, and someone called her son to say they thought the guy might be taking advantage of her. Old, probably senile, decent amount of money put away. Her son showed up without telling her he was coming and he found-"
"No."
"Yep. His octogenarian mother in bed with a guy young enough to be her great-grandson."
"That's-"
"Kind of sick?"
Darren shook his head. "I was going to say amazing. Imagine spending that many years dreaming of someone who wasn't even born, only to find them at the very end. It's probably when she needed the love the most."
Ceecee reached out and swept a finger down the bridge of his nose. "You're a romantic fool. I love you for it."
"Love you, too," Darren said, taking her into his arms again. He traced the scar on her elbow with the tip of a finger and kissed her gently. "So what happened?"
"With what?"
"The couple," he said. "How did they-"
"Oh." Ceecee looked away and took a deep breath, letting it out as slowly as she could. "Her son thought the worst when he walked in on them. They were just holding each other, but he thought Trevor was…you know. He yelled for security and they threw the guy off her. He hit his head and suffered an aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage. They still need to run some tests on her, but the truth is, her heart probably just gave out. It was a lot of excitement for someone of her age."
"Maybe she didn't want to spend any more of her life without him." Darren snuggled closer. "It's beautiful."
Ceecee looked at him and sighed. "Don't confuse tragedy with beauty, Darren. They're two different things."
"Who says?" Darren asked. "I think it all depends on how you look at it."
"You're probably right," she said quietly as she wrapped her arms around him. "It'd be a better world, if you were."
---
"Sorry I'm late. Get in."
Christopher bent over and leaned forward, his arms crossed as they rested on the open edge of Darren's window. "I'm not sure I should. I don't usually get in cars with strange men."
"The way Marley and Ashley talk about it, you seem to do that pretty often."
"Those men aren't strange. You are." He got up and walked around the front of Darren's car so he could climb into the passenger seat. "Nice car."
"Thanks. My one splurge when I was working on 'Eastwick.' Before that, I was driving a Honda with like, a hundred and fifty thousand miles on it." He laughed. "It was brand new when my parents gave it to me."
"Huh."
"What?"
Christopher pulled out a pair of sunglasses and slipped them on. "Nothing. We have that in common. That's all."
"Oh yeah? What did you get? Let me guess. Something flashy, but understated. A middle finger on wheels - am I right?"
Christopher laughed. "Only if you own stock in BP. Which, come to think of it, also describes what I drive."
Darren frowned. "Come again?"
"Blue Prius. I wouldn't call it flashy, but it gets me where I need to go."
Darren grinned. "A hybrid, huh? Watching out for the happy little trees?"
Christopher turned and peered at him over his shades. "Thank you, Bob Ross."
Darren ran a hand over his head. "My hair's not that big. Anymore."
"Eat more grilled cheese. Maybe the spike in your awesome level will make your hair inflate."
"Ha-ha. You're so funny, I forgot to laugh."
"You're so funny, I- what does that word mean? Laugh?"
Darren reached out and playfully shoved Christopher's head toward the window. "You're such a buttlick."
Christopher shook his head. "Tsk, tsk, tsk. I already told you I wasn't putting out."
Darren pursed his lips and nodded. "Kind of walked into that one, didn't I?"
"At least you can admit it. So, mind telling me where we're going?"
Darren pulled up to curb. "Here."
Christopher unfastened his seatbelt and stretched across Darren to stare out the window. "A crappy apartment building?"
"Excuse you," a young man with café au lait skin and chin-length dreads said as he leaned into Darren's window. "Don't be calling my castle crappy. Not with those highlights."
Darren opened his door and put out his hand. "Are you Curtis?"
"The one and only. You said your name was Darren, right?" He looked at Christopher and back to Darren. "Come on up. Your friend looks like he needs to use the bathroom."
"My bladder's fine, thanks."
"Oh, I wasn't talking about your bladder. I was talking about whatever's got you lookin' so constipated."
"Ow! What was for?" Darren asked, rubbing his upper arm after Christopher punched him in it. "He's the one who said it!"
Chris glared at him. "You laughed."
Curtis walked backward up the stairs to the front door. "Whatever. Come on in. Elevator's not working, so we'll have to take the stairs." He hopped up the stairs, two at a time, and Darren couldn't help but notice Christopher's eyes locked firmly upward.
"What are you doing?"
"Enjoying the view."
Curtis turned to look over his shoulder. "You boys are terrible whisperers," he said, not missing a step. "And thank you. I do work out." His foot made contact with the second floor and he pulled a keychain from his pocket. "His sister's coming up tomorrow to take some stuff home, but he didn't have much. I don't know what y'all are lookin' for, but look all you like." He ran his eyes up and down Christopher and nodded appreciatively. "And I do mean that. If I didn't have my Mickey…"
Christopher looked intrigued. "If you didn't have Mickey?"
"My fiancé. He's working with the Peace Corps in Malawi right now, but he'll be home soon." He sighed wistfully. "We're gonna get married and move to a nice little bungalow out in Silver Lake."
"What about your castle?" Christopher asked, waving a hand at the hallway.
"Fuck my castle. This place is like family. Imma rip you a new one if you say anything about it, but I can talk as much shit as I like."
Christopher nodded. "Then it's like the bar where we work."
Darren spun to face him. "Hey - I like the bar."
"Give it a few more months," Christopher said as Curtis unlocked the door and waved them through. "You'll still love it, but you'll stop pretending the cracks and quirks aren't there."
"You mean like the drag queen with the Canada-sized chip on his shoulder?"
Christopher rolled his eyes. "Please. It's California-sized, at best."
"So this is - was his room," Curtis said, pointedly ignoring them as he opened a door just to the left of the entrance. "I don't know what you're looking for, but I want a copy of your book when you finish it."
"Our book?"
Darren elbowed Christopher in the ribs. "Yes, yes, the book. We'll be sure to send you a copy. Care of Silver Lake."
Curtis waved his hands and spun away from them into the living room. "Whatever. Y'all can let yourselves out when you're done doing whatever needs doin'."
"Will do," Darren said, shutting the bedroom door and taking a look around. "Man. He wasn't kidding. The guy really didn't have a lot." The room was small, but felt bigger for being so empty. A single futon rested in the corner, a small night table beside it, the only other article of furniture a small bookcase beside the closet.
"I have two questions. Whose room is this, and why are we in it?"
Darren squatted in front of the bookcase. "His name was Trevor. Ceecee told me about him. He passed away a few days ago."
Christopher picked up a silver picture frame from the nightstand. "Huh. Guess he loved his grandmother."
Darren's head perked up, and he rushed to look around Christopher's arm. "So that's Olga," he said, looking at the picture. It was an elderly woman in a white robe, hands in her lap as she gazed out the window. Her face was bathed in sunlight, and she looked as calm and peaceful as Darren thought a human being could possibly be allowed. He caught sight of something and pointed. "Look, there it is. Her mark."
Christopher squinted. "She has one? I can't tell. I left my reading glasses at home. We came here to look at a picture of a dead guy's grandmother?"
Darren took the frame from Christopher's hand and put it back on the table. "She wasn't his grandmother. She was his match."
Christopher's mouth fell open. "You're shitting me."
"Nope." Darren opened the nightstand's drawer and pulled out a Moleskine notebook. He pulled the elastic over the cover and sat down on the futon. "He kept a journal. Listen to this. 'I finally got a picture of her I like. None of the ones I took last week really captured her, but this one does. She's elegant and graceful, just like I knew she would be. I told her I want to take her from that place and spend every minute she has left together, but she says her family won't understand. That's my Olga. Always right.'"
Darren flipped the book shut and looked up at Christopher. "They were a pair. Matching names and crazy about each other from the moment they met. How else do you explain it?"
Christopher shrugged. "A lonely old woman and an unstable young man made a mountain out of a molehill?"
"But the names!"
"I don't know. Power of suggestion? Spend enough years thinking you're meant to be with someone, and maybe you'll fall for the first person to fit the bill. Olga and Trevor aren't exactly Jack and Jill, you know."
Darren shook his head. "That's so not true. I've met dozens of people with the name on my mark, and I've only loved one of them."
"Ah, yes. The one who doesn't like being addressed by it."
"What does that even matter? It's still her name. She's on me. I'm on her. We're meant to be together."
"Whether you really want to be or not."
Darren fell back onto the futon and groaned. "I want to be with her. Why is that so hard for you to understand?"
Christopher sat down beside him and sighed. "It isn't. I just want you to understand why you love her. For who she is; not because you think you have to."
"I don't think that. Well, I do, but that's not why I love her."
"Good," Christopher said, patting Darren's knee. "Keep it that way."
Darren sighed. "Are you ready for lunch?"
"I think so," Christopher said, getting up and checking his reflection in the mirrored closet doors. "Do you like Thai? I think I want Thai." He grinned. "Don't forget - you're paying."
---
"She came to party. Wanted all fame and money. Want to see her face on the screen tonight. But when she looks in the mirror, she looks such a fright."
"He's doing better," Ashley said, nodding appreciatively as Izzy writhed around the stage in a metallic gold corset.
"How can you tell?" Darren asked, filling a plastic cup with cider from the tap and handing it to the man in front of him. "Eight dollars, please."
The man slid a twenty on the counter. "If you turn around and bend over, I'll let you keep the change."
Darren laughed and did as he was told. "This good?" he asked, bracing his hands against the bar back and thrusting his ass into the air.
The man cleared his throat and adjusted his glasses. "I'll be back."
"I'll be waiting," Darren said, beaming as he turned back to face Ashley. "Sorry. You were saying?"
Ashley pointed at the stage. "I think we've seen the worst of it."
"Yeah?"
"Yep. He's gone past broken and back to bitchy."
"No more wigs, either."
"That, too."
"Guess he's in the right mood, again."
"I guess." Ashley crossed her arms and drummed her fingers against her upper arms. "So how's things?"
Darren looked away from Izzy's undulating hips to face her. "Good." He nodded. "Really good. I'm thinking about asking Ceeseto move in with me."
Ashley jolted, obviously taken aback. "Really? What triggered that?"
Darren shrugged. "She's been so busy with her residency that we never get to see each other. My place is closer to the hospital than hers, so most of the time we spend together is when she lets herself in after a long shift. If she moved in, we could enjoy ourselves a little more and she could stop paying so much money for a place she almost never sees." He rolled his eyes toward the ceiling and nodded thoughtfully. "We could probably buy a house in a couple of years with all the money we'd save."
She shook her head at him. "You've been dating for six months, and you guys are already talking about buying a house?"
Darren hesitated. "Not exactly. I just assume we will, you know? I mean, we can't live in my crappy apartment forever."
Ashley reached out and punched him in the arm. "Your apartment is exactly the same as mine and I wouldn't call it crappy."
"You know what I mean," Darren said, rubbing his bicep. "I meant small. Not-fancy. Basic."
"I kinda like my small, non-fancy, basic apartment. It's cozy."
"I like mine, too. I just don't think it's the kind of place she'd want to live for too long."
Ashley paused to clap as Izzy took his bows and walked off stage. "Look, not to sound too much like our friend over there, but I don't think that's how it's supposed to be."
Darren threw his head back and laughed. "You've got to be kidding me. Ash, just because two people are supposed to be together, it doesn't mean they have to agree on everything or have the same taste. We're allowed to like different things, you know."
"Well yeah, but where you live is kind of a big deal. If you're gonna live with someone, it should be a place you can both agree on."
Darren groaned. "You're blowing this out of proportion. She likes my place. She wouldn't spend so much time there if she didn't. I just think we'd eventually need a place where we could each do our own things. Besides, what if we ended up having kids?"
"Please don't tell me you're planning to breed."
Darren sighed. "Hello, Christopher."
"Hello, yourself. Can I get one of the usual?"
Darren grabbed the bottle and poured him a shot. "We still on for later?"
Christopher nodded. "Marley's saving us her best booth."
Ashley looked back and forth between them. "What're you talking about?"
Christopher smiled and bounced on the balls of his feet. "Darren's buying me dinner."
Darren looked at Ashley. "We don't know that yet."
Christopher grinned. "Yes, we do. How many of these meetings is it going to take for you to realize I'm only going along with them because it means free food?"
"As many as it takes for you to admit that I might be right."
"Terrific," Christopher said. "We should have these meetings more often. I'll save so much money on groceries."
---
The bells on the door jingled as Darren pushed it open. "Hey, Marley."
Marley blew a huge bubble and snapped her gum as it popped. "Hey, Galahad. How's your quest for the grail?"
"Don't be mean," Christopher said. "Finding the grail would be easier."
Darren looked at the two of them. "Do you two spend a lot of time making fun of me when I'm not here?"
"Yes."
"No."
Darren sighed. "Good to know. Apple juice, please."
Marley flashed him a grin. "Already at the table." She led them to the corner booth and sure enough, his apple juice and Christopher's Diet Coke were already in place. "Are we doing wet fries again?"
Darren slid into his seat and looked up at her. "I don't know about him, but I think I need some mozzarella sticks."
Christopher nodded. "Those sound good. Share a large order?"
"Works for me."
"Coming right up," Marley said. "You can let me know what else you want when I bring 'em by."
Darren watched as she walked away. "I've waited a lot of tables, and I don't think I've ever seen a waitress who wears heels that high."
Christopher took a pull from his soda. "She does it because she knows they make her ass stick out. More ass, more tips." He looked at Darren and raised an eyebrow. "Not that you'd know anything about how that works."
"Nope. Not a thing," Darren said, rubbing a clear path through the condensation on his glass. "The generosity of my customers is based entirely on my ability to pour beer without letting the foam make a mess."
Christopher shook his head. "There are a lot of jokes I could make about the kinds of messes the customers would like you to make so I'm just going to point that out and we can pretend I made them all, okay?"
"Agreed." Darren reached into his tote bag and pulled out a laptop. "So I did some searching, and I found this couple-"
"Do we have to do this now?" Christopher asked. "You're going to make me lose my appetite."
"What? We've got a lot of ground to cover." He brought it to life and opened Chrome. "It's a good thing this place has wifi. I forgot to ask Ceecee for her mobile broadband."
Christopher reached out and pushed the laptop shut. "Can we stop pretending with all of this stuff?"
Darren frowned. "Pretending what?"
"That you have a snowball's chance in the Central Valley of convincing me this stuff's for real." Christopher picked up a napkin and began shredding it between his fingernails. "I'm not changing my mind on this. It would hurt too much."
Darren's face fell. "Don't you see, Christopher? That's the exact opposite of what would happen. If you could just admit that this is real, you would know there's someone out there for you and you could stop feeling like the world's against you."
Christopher shoved the laptop aside and leaned over the table. "Don't you think I want to believe in that? Did you ever wonder why Ashley and Marley give the stink eye to every guy besides you who talks to me? It's because they know how much I want to be loved, and how easy it is for people to use that to fuck with my head."
He let out a deep breath and sank his hands into his hair, staring at the table. "Life really sucked when I was young. I was a short, fat kid who liked musicals and sounded like a girl. Stuff like that doesn't go over well in a place like Clovis. For years, I used to lie in bed every night and wish that I'd wake up with a mark. That I could have some kind of proof that things would get better and I wouldn't always feel so alone." He gave a dark laugh under his breath. "And then it happened. Junior year, and it was class picture day. I hated class picture day. The only thing class pictures and yearbooks are good for is preserving your most unattractive and awkward moments for years to come." He shook his head. "I didn't even see it before I sat at the table for breakfast. My mother had to point it out for me. She didn't realize what it was at first, so she did that whole thing moms do. You know, where they lick their thumbs and rub your face to try and get something off?"
Darren winced. "Oh, man, I hate that!"
"Me too! It's so gross, right?" He took another drink from his straw and cleared his throat. "Anyway, there I was, sitting at the table with my Froot Loops getting soggy, and my mom's rubbing my lip almost raw trying to get it off before she realizes it's not going to. The look on her face." He shook his head. "It was the kind of look someone gets when the doctor says the medication isn't working, or the bank says the extension on the loan hasn't been approved. This awful blend of disappointed and sad that would never really go away. It still hasn't. I see it every time I go home to visit and she looks at my mouth."
"But how do you know it means what you think it means? There have been all kinds of cases right here in LA where people had marks in languages like Hebrew, Cyrillic, Korean - there's even a man from Pennsylvania who was raised Amish and never saw another language in his life, but still met and fell in love with his match while on his Rumspringa - and don't give me that power of suggestion line again, because he didn't even know he had a marking. Even if he did, it was in Arabic, so no one he knew would have been able to read it. She was the first one who did, when he left the church and they celebrated their wedding night a few years later."
"What part of not helping don't you understand?" Christopher yelled. "How many times do I have to tell you? It's not a name! It's not Hebrew, or Swahili, or binary - it's nothing! No one, and that's exactly what I have to look forward to for the rest of my life if I let myself believe in everything you're selling!"
"Hey, hey," Darren said, leaning across the table to rest a hand on Christopher's shoulder and try to soothe him. "Okay. I promise. I won't try and convince you any more. I only wanted to help. You know that, right?"
"Yeah. I guess." Christopher finished his soda and set the glass aside. "After the mark appeared, I told myself it was time to stop waiting for things to get better, and make them better on my own. I went on a diet, joined a gym, and talked my parents into letting me see a dermatologist. I took more interest in what I was wearing and forced myself to be more bold. I did everything I could to make myself more attractive because I knew I couldn't count on the soulmate thing to make someone fall for me. I have to make it happen on my own."
Darren shook his head. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know."
"Yeah, well, now you do."
Marley slid a platter of mozzarella sticks between them and shot Darren a questioning look. "Everything okay over here? If we had more customers, they would have been pretty freaked."
"Fine, fine," Darren said, shaking his head and waving a hand. "Look, can we get a banana split over here?"
Marley looked at Christopher and frowned. "I thought you were over the ice cream stage."
Darren slid his menu toward her. "He is, I'm not."
"Ah, gotcha." Marley sighed and fanned herself with the menu as she walked away, muttering about "stupid boys" under her breath.
"So -" Darren broke off, searching for the right words. "If you were never going to consider anything I said, why did you agree to meet with me for these things?"
Christopher hung his head. "Truth?"
"No, I want you to lie."
"I wasn't lying when I told you I didn't have a lot of friends. There's Ashley and Marley, and that's about it. I know I give you a lot of shit, but that's just how I am." He shrugged. "You may be so nice it's sometimes annoying, but I don't know. I kind of like hanging out with you. I also like free food."
Darren smiled. "Yeah? Then cool. We'll keep hanging out. No ulterior motives, just good, clean fun."
Christopher bit carefully into a mozzarella stick and ducked forward to catch a string of melted cheese on his tongue before it could hit his lip. "What do you consider fun?"
"Fun, natural fun."
Chrstopher grinned. "Thank you, Tom Tom Club."
Darren threw his arms wide across the back of the booth. "Hey, I am a music guy. Always have been."
"I wasn't really before I started performing at the bar. I got bored with really obvious stuff a few months after I started, so I began going to Amoeba Records and asking them for suggestions. I go a couple of times a month and pick up a few things to try out."
Darren took a big drink of his juice and nodded enthusiastically. "I love Amoeba. We should totally go sometime. No talk about soulmates or marks or anything, just two bros having a good time checking out some tunes. What do you say?"
Christopher smiled. "Why not? I think I'm about due for another trip, anyway."
Darren shoved a mozzarella stick into his mouth and chewed it as quickly as he could before swallowing. "How's your Wednesday? Ceecee's going to be in rounds all day and I don't have to be at the bar until six."
Christopher pulled out his phone and checked his calendar. "Wednesday works. Meet you there?"
Darren shook his head. "Why don't you pick me up? I don't live too far and it doesn't make sense to take two cars. You've been to Ashley's place before, right? I'm in the apartment right above her."
"Okay," Christopher said, nodding slowly and smiling into the distance. "I'll see you then."
"One banana split," Marley said as she slid a dish of ice cream in front of Darren. "Heavy on the whipped cream and easy on the drama - I hope."
"No drama," Darren said, spooning a fluffy pile of whipped cream and wrapping his lips around it as deliberately as he could. "Mmmmmmm!"
"What drama?" Christopher asked, feigning innocence.
The corner of Marley's mouth pulled unflatteringly as she shook her head. "If you say so. You guys want anything else?"
"Nothing for me, thanks," Christopher said. "I think the mozzarella's enough. Maybe some of his ice cream, if he's willing to share."
"Hey," Darren said, sliding the dish closer to the center of the table. "Mi ice cream es su ice cream. Help yourself."
Marley handed Christopher a bundle of silverware from her pocket and he dug the spoon into the dessert. "Thanks," he said. "I think I will."
Part 2
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