fic: music again [zach in the city, 2/6]
Title: Music Again [Zach in the City 2/6]
Fandom: ST RPF
Rating: PG-13 (eventual NC-17)
Pairings: Zach/Chris, Zach/Jesse Tyler Ferguson
Word Count: ~4000 of ~28k (completed, but staggered posting)
Summary: Zach builds himself a life in New York. (AO3)
New Yorkers can find Zachary Quinto at The High Line every night for at least an hour.
Sometimes he's in the public art gallery with a cigarette.
At night when the blue lights are turned on, he goes to the patio overlooking the rest of the city, drags a table and chair to the edge, and sits there with a coffee to keep him lucid for whatever the rest of the night holds: concert or show or performance, after party, after after party, walking back to his apartment, waking up four hours later for production meetings or yoga or staring at his bedroom ceiling.
If a fan interrupts him while he's there, he just nods at them and smiles a little, then turns back to what he was or wasn't doing. Fan skitters back to their friends and asks what kind of hipster douche has his sunglasses on at eight o'clock at night and seriously, he's not that famous. Jude Law wouldn't be such a cunt.
All Zach asks for is five minutes a day when he can not be himself, and if he sits there long enough, he gets it. There's so much more to the planet than his jeans, his hair, his sex life, his jobs, his people, his pets -- he needs to remember that, if only for five minutes a day.
*
i need a drink badly please. are you free?
Yeah. How about the Ritz on 9th and W. 46th? I can be there in like 20.
i'll be there.
*
Zach waves Jesse over to his table, his suit jacket hanging off the back of a stool.
"Is that whiskey?" Jesse asks as he sits. "Are you still in character or just a secret whiskey man? I thought I would have noticed, you know?"
"Mmm," Zach hums into his glass. "TV has taught me that when a man has had a hard day at work, he runs into a glass of whiskey. Being a big old 'mo has taught me that cocktails are strictly for dance nights. Beer is… well, I don't know, I've never found a good reason for drinking beer except being poor."
"That's funny," Jesse says. "I would have taken you for a beer connoisseur, actually. Maybe even one of those people with a special beer fridge."
"I have a wine fridge," Zach says. "I forgot wine. Wine is lovely."
"Do you want to switch over to wine? I think I'm getting a beer for reasons totally unrelated to my finances."
"Red, please." Jesse gets up and Zach takes the opportunity to down the rest of his whiskey and lick the inside of the glass thoroughly -- which is how Jesse finds him a few minutes later.
"Now that's impressive," Jesse says before sitting on the stool again. "And I definitely think you've intrigued the patrons in a ten dude radius."
Zach looks smug and makes grabby hands for the wine, which Jesse keeps away.
"Not until you tell me why. No sad drinking. Forbidden. I don't do that, and I certainly don't enable it."
They raise their eyebrows at each other, even if Zach has Jesse beat because he can do the raise-one-then-the-other eyebrow trick. Jesse doesn't seem to mind and doesn't bring the wine any closer.
"I think my wife is pulling out of the movie," Zach says.
"Your what?" Jesse shrieks.
"No, like -- movie wife -- actress lady -- because they just keep cutting her part down and down, right, and I don't know if it's because like, they can't afford her or if I can't play straight enough to have a fucking wife. Like. And we haven't even started filming, these are just read-throughs and shit." Zach sighs and asks, "Do you ever have those days when you just feel like a fucking alien among a bunch of humans, and no matter how much you try, you still can't like, do human things flawlessly and --"
"Whoa, slow down the metaphor express, okay?"
"I just have barely any experience acting with women I'm not horribly familiar with," Zach says. "Who were my big love interests in things? Zoe and Kristen? And I've known them like, my entire adult life -- they're like my sisters, you know? So -- am I so horrible at this that I'm driving this actress away, or are my friends driving her away to spare my feelings, and then there's the whole 'I'm a producer' part where I'm helping to pay for this clusterfuck and no one wants to tell --"
"Okay, sip of wine, then back to me," Jesse says as he hands over the glass.
"Ugh, seriously, Dad, I'm not that bad at --" Jesse takes the wine back anyway after Zach takes a sip. Zach rolls his eyes. "Yeah. So. That's that."
"You're a good actor," Jesse says. "You wouldn't be where you are -- no, ignore the whole 'sad in a bar' part, okay -- if you weren't at least a little talented."
"Really?" Zach asks and he knows his voice sounded too soft and pleading.
"Honestly, you're not that good looking," Jesse says, and Zach laughs because, hello, he totally is. "I mean, I don't get your appeal, frankly."
"Well, do you want to dance with this fugly drunk tonight? Some pity grinding?"
Jesse hands the wine glass over and they clink glasses.
*
Zach laughs and almost trips over the step leading into/out of the bar, and can feel his forty-foot-long legs propelling him towards one of the newspaper dispensers. He laughs and groans when he collides with it, and sits on it, his legs swinging back and forth.
Jesse is a quiet drunk who looks down as he stands on the stoop, steps down carefully, and walks slowly over to Zach. He keeps his distance but Zach can see he's smiling somewhere under the beard.
"So you can dance," Zach says. "Not too much use of the disco fingers and you didn't like, hump me into the Hudson."
"Didn't see the point," Jesse replies. "The actual Hudson is right there." Jesse stops and looks up, and says, "Oh, pretend there's a joke there. About. Literal. Metaphor. Humping rivers. Jizz. Something."
"Mmm, okay," Zach says. He uses his legs to hook his feet around the backs of Jesse's knees, and Jesse laughs and stumbles into Zach. He has no choice but to wrap his arms around Zach and be centimeters from his face, but just like the diner the other day, someone has to make the first --
Zach grins and leans in, and he digs his hands into Jesse's hair, ignoring Jesse's momentary shock and pulling him into the kiss until they're both about to tip the dispenser over and fall into the street. A bouncer pulls Jesse back, tells them to get lost, and sends them off vaguely southward. Zach laughs and leads the way.
"Uh, so that was intense," Jesse says as he walks carefully and trips on every crack in the sidewalk.
"Yup," Zach says.
"Glad you think so, too," Jesse says.
When they're about a block away in front of a boarded up store front, Zach turns around and pulls Jesse in again for another kiss, closing his eyes and pressing not just their mouths but their faces together, Zach's nose and forehead digging into Jesse but he can't help it, something -- he just kind of wants to consume this man alive or like, absorb him into his chest. Barring that, he wraps his arms even tighter around Jesse, one hand still digging into his hair and the other around his back, clawing desperately at his shirt and the skin underneath.
Jesse pulls away to breathe, but Zach only lets him move his face away a few centimeters. He keeps their foreheads together, and they breathe each other in, Zach still clinging really hard.
"I haven't been this drunk in a while," Jesse gasps. "Like, a really long while."
"That's okay," Zach says, and he kisses him again. It's that kind of drunk, Zach manages to reflect, where his brain randomly screams instructions and he has no choice but to follow through 9000%: KISS HIM, he hears. TOUCH HIM. And Zach obliges, and grins against Jesse's mouth because every nerve is singing, kind of drunkenly, about how awesome it is to fucking feel another human being.
"Hey, here's a cab," Jesse says, and Zach flails an arm out to hail it.
The cab pulls over and Jesse shoves Zach inside, like it's some episode of Cops. He gives the cabbie Zach's cross street and leans inside a little bit. Zach tries to pull him in, but Jesse is holding on to the door and the outside of the cab.
"Get home, drink water, sleep on your side, text me, and I'll call you tomorrow, okay?"
"Eating helps, too," Zach says. "If I liked food."
"Like it for me, okay," Jesse says, and he leans in for another kiss. He pushes Zach further inside, slams the door closed, and Zach slides down in the backseat. He watches Jesse lean in through the passenger side window and give the cabbie a few bills and repeat the cross street.
Zach slides even further down into the backseat and wraps his arms around himself, and something is wrong with his face because he can't stop grinning and has no idea why.
*
gkt hkmdhyeeeeeee thanskss ivliksd kissjngf tyuuuuu omg tyongf
This is why you should turn on autocorrect.
*
"I'll sing," Jesse says. "You guys'll be my chorus."
"Uhh, what are we singing?" Zach asks.
"I can sing," Eric protests. It's Eric as in Eric-Jesse's-co-star-and-bff. Tonight it's mostly Jesse's friends as most of the past week has been Carnegie Mellon people and they're getting a little tired of each other.
"Honey," Jesse says as he rubs Eric's shoulder soothingly. "Come on, you know you want to be my doo-wop girl."
"Little bit, can't lie," Eric replies.
"Yes, but what --"
Jesse has already run up to the stage and handed in a slip with their mystery artist and song on it.
"Is he always like this?" Zach asks Eric and the other girl whose name he can't remember because he's a horrible person who is a little too caught up in winning over The Best Friend to bother with anyone less. Oh, and Eric's girlfriend, who is nice but quiet.
"…what do you mean?" Eric asks.
"Like…" Zach makes some waving gestures and Eric raises his eyebrows.
"No idea. Grunts would help complete the picture."
"Like, happy and --"
"Oh, yeah! He's my ginger sunshine," Eric says casually.
Zach really doesn't know what to do with that, and he's not 100% sure what "that" is: the cute nicknames these hetero lifemates have for each other, or the fact that they're so fucking functional. He and Chris were never that functional, not even when they were platonic, and especially not in front of people the other was trying to nail.
He's about to take out his phone and text Chris, but Jesse is waving them up on stage frantically.
"There's a line forty people deep and he got us in just like that," Eric sighs. "What a charmer. He's singing at Carnegie Hall next month, you know."
He and Eric get on stage and Jesse directs them: they can stand a little off to the side with their mike stands, and the words are on the screen and Zach is fucking terrified because he doesn't know what the fuck he's going to humiliate himself singing.
"But what are we singing?" he hisses to Eric.
"Oh, probably Manilow," Eric says. "Guilty pleasure of his -- but without the guilt. He's seen him in concert like, ten times. It's a little terrifying. Jesse won't leave this plane of existence until Barry Manilow is officially a god."
*
It's totally a goddamn musical sexcapade up on stage with Jesse losing himself in a Barry Manilow song -- hell, Zach is losing himself in keeping up, too, and he and Eric doo-wop the shit out of it -- essentially, it's fucking awesome.
The host comes back out on stage during their standing ovation (because disaffected fedora-wearing unshaven New York now loves Barry Manilow and they did it -- Jesse did it) with a bottle of champagne.
"You win a bottle of champagne for you and your friends," she says as she hands the bottle to Jesse, who passes it to Eric, who lifts it over his head and lets out a woo any sororislut would kill to emulate. "Exit the stage."
They sit back down as Jesse and Eric fight over who will open the champagne before another friend takes over and does it for them.
"No more from this table for the rest of the night!" the host shouts at them from the stage. "You brought Manilow into this hallowed space and God only knows what you would come up with next!"
"Coldplay!" Jesse shouts back. "Mandy Moore --" He suddenly sits down again and shakes Zach's arm furiously. "Oh my God, you want to do 'Candy', you know it, just run up there and do it."
Zach laughs and Jesse takes over champagne distribution again. He takes the moment to pull out his phone and, speak of the devil, there's a text from Chris:
Heard it's raining in NY. Hope you're having fun, loser. So don't miss you.
"And I don't miss you either," Zach kind of growls at his phone as he slips it back into his pocket. "Champagne, please, I think I earned at least two glasses."
"Two?" Jesse asks incredulously. "And why, if I may be so bold as to ask?"
"One for being amazing with Eric up there," Zach says with a little tip of his glass towards Eric, who nods right back. "And one for letting you take me up there in front of a hundred people to sing Barry fucking Manilow."
"You just don't know him like I do," Jesse replies.
Zach grins and begins talking to Jesse's friend next to him and Jesse turns to talk to Eric's girlfriend, and their hands brush against each other under the table between their chairs. They brush a bit more and finally just outright hold each other, Zach sipping from his champagne with his other hand and carrying on like it's nothing, and he doesn't have to glance at Jesse to know he's doing the same.
He's never even liked redheads, what.
*
Life falls into an insane kind of routine, but a routine nonetheless: up hideously early for meetings or filming or yoga, working until sunset, his one hour of peace at the High Line, dinner plans, pre-party plans, whatever performance he's been invited to, then the after parties, and then some sleep before it all starts again.
There's a lot of music in there -- it's a phenomenon among actors, or at least among Zach and the ones he knows. They would rather go to a concert or a musical than a movie or a play. It's difficult for Zach to lose himself in something when in the audience and thinking things like, "He just forgot his line" or "This direction could be better" or whatever.
Jesse and a fuckload of other celebrities perform at the Highline Ballroom one night (a different Highline, because New York can't get enough of its high lines and Bowerys, etc.) Anyway, it's a night featuring the songs of Burt Bacharach. He isn't sure what the people running his musical life this month are smoking, exactly, that he's going to see a medley of Burt Bacharach performances less than a week after being bribed off stage with champagne because he helped sing some Barry Manilow. (Barry Manilow, fuck, Joe could not stop laughing and Zach's lucky video hasn't surfaced yet.)
Jesse sings "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" and then joins Zach in the wings. They're sitting on a pair of tall stools waiting for Alan Cumming and Sandra Bernhard to perform together, but first, Kim Kuzma has to hijack their entire evening with the sexiest rendition of "Say a Little Prayer for You".
"This isn't sexy," Zach states as he crosses his legs.
"No… no, it's not a sexy song. It's not up there on my list of 'songs to fuck by,'" Jesse says. Zach looks at him and raises an eyebrow, and Jesse rolls his eyes. "Not that that list exists. I like music but not that much."
"Not even 'No Diggity'?" Zach asks.
"Aw, 'No Diggity'," Jesse sighs nostalgically. "That song came out when I was 20 and at AMDA here in the city -- oh my God, best year of my life. That was a sexy year." He leans against Zach's shoulder a little and sighs again. "If I only I'd been sexy enough to enjoy it."
"Aw," Zach says. "Pre-beard?"
"Beards happened to old people," Jesse replies. "Then hipsters happened, and beards happened to everyone."
"Total game changer," Zach agrees.
They laugh at Kim Kuzma on stage imitating Celine Dion and then she goes right back into the soft, warm, jazzy performance she's giving, reminding them of the matter at hand.
Reminding Zach, anyway, that he's 'gone out' with Jesse in various settings and with various crowds like, ten times, and seen Jesse one on one a lot but sex --
Jesse crosses his legs and arms and one of his hands lands on Zach's upper thigh, the back of his hand running gently back and forth and maybe --
Zach looks over and it takes Jesse a few seconds to look at him and then look down, and then flush bright red as he laughs. He leans over to Jesse and presses his face against Jesse's beard before whispering, "If you want to wait for Sandra Bernhard, I totally --"
"It'll be on youtube, I think," Jesse says, turning his head to look at Zach, though his gaze is fixed on Zach's mouth. "The Internet is kind of amazing like that, isn't it?"
"Totally," Zach mumbles because they're doing that dumb ass Sound of Music thing where people try to make out and hold a conversation simultaneously, when all they really want to do is fuck. "So, my place?"
"Hm, why not," and fuck, Jesse's beard feels kind of stupidly amazing even if he'll need a fuckload of moisturizer tomorrow.
Outside, the song rings in Zach's ears a little -- more like the feel of it kind of still tingles in his skin, especially when Jesse just stands behind him, pressed against his back, and clutches his biceps for a moment before he hails a cab. When Jesse steps away to open the door of the cab and slide in, that's when things begin to get unreal, fuzzy, fast, and he becomes hypersensitive in the most literal sense of the word. The cabbie's radio seems louder; Jesse feels warmer at his side with the lengths of their thighs pressed against each other; the smell of the seat's leather, the cabbie's dinner, whatever soap Jesse uses, the smell of his own skin; he can hear every creak of the cab, every shriek of the brakes --
He leans over and turns Jesse's face to his and kisses him, not chastely but not quick and furiously, just an inquisitive and probing kiss. He tastes like the wine they had backstage and that particular taste of him, and tastes like the smell -- Jesse pulls away as the cab stops at Zach's cross street, and Zach is going to have to remember how to walk and where his apartment is.
*
In Zach's apartment, they fall over each other laughing because they both wore hightops -- Zach's are so broken in he can slip them off with little struggle, but Jesse has tightly laced Converse and flops back on the couch, momentarily defeated by them.
"Aw, come on," Zach says, and he slides over the hardwood floor on his knees, barefoot, and starts unlacing Jesse's shoes while they both laugh stupidly.
"Mmm, this Victorian striptease, I can't bear to look," Jesse laughs.
Zach rolls his eyes, takes off Jesse's shoes and socks for him, and leans up to press the lengths of their bodies together. Jesse seems to notice he's turning it into some kind of yoga stretch and tries to kick his feet out from under him.
"Come on," Zach urges against Jesse's mouth before he stands up. "I've still got a button fly that needs undoing."
"Now you're just being difficult," Jesse says, but lets himself be pulled up off the couch and led to the bedroom.
It's the tenth floor and Zach's bedroom is mostly grey, like every city-at-night bedroom scene ever included in a movie. Zach sits on the edge of his bed, spreads his legs open, and simply says, "Undress me."
And they would have been fucking five minutes sooner had Jesse not walked over, pulled Zach's shirt off over his head, thrown it to the side, and then burst out laughing when he actually looked at Zach.
Zach raises both eyebrows and looks down at himself, and then back at Jesse. He tries to suck in his stomach a little but that only makes Jesse laugh harder.
"Are you kidding?" Jesse laughs, and Zach thinks maybe his ego won't be irreparably damaged after all because Jesse kneels in front of him and runs his hands over his whole upper body. "Spoiler alert," Jesse begins, his eyes fixed on Zach's skin as his hands touch every inch of his chest, "I am not… even a little beautiful like you are."
"What are you talking about?" Zach asks. A little too late, he reaches a hand out to cup the back of Jesse's head and scratch at his scalp, considering pulling him into a kiss.
"I'm a pale, pudgy faggy actor playing a pale, pudgy faggy lawyer on TV," Jesse says, his eyes moving up from Zach's body to make eye contact. "You're like from another planet, you're so fucking gorgeous."
"Planet obsessive gym membership," Zach says.
"God, whatever," Jesse says as he strips off Zach's jeans and briefs.
*
Mediocre sex doesn't exist: the three accepted categories are phenomenal, great, and bad.
Zach is on his side in bed, wrapped around Jesse and staring blankly out the bedroom window at the moon and rooftops outside. He tries to breathe a little quieter, yawns three or four times instead, and keeps staring trying to think why fucking Jesse was bad.
Fuck, it wasn't through lack of trying. Technique was fine, if a little slow and gentle for his taste -- and he wasn't allowed to bite because of costume fittings for the next few days.
It's afterwards, now, that Zach wonders if it was a mistake because he feels so -- so indifferent. No, not indifferent, but. Confused. Thinky. This isn't blissful, fucked out afterglow, nor is it an I-need-to-get-this-person-out sensation -- what is this?
"Is there construction outside," Jesse asks, "Or is that the sound of you freaking out?"
That's annoying. Zach is surprised at how annoyed he is by that little comment.
"I'm going back to LA in like, four or five days for show stuff," Jesse says, his eyes still shut. "Then I'm coming back for Tribeca so you have time to get your shit together." Jesse yawns, too, and adds, "Still can't bite me."
"Good to know," Zach replies dryly.
He kind of wants to punch Jesse; instead, he yawns loudly and disentangles himself, then turns over onto his other side.
"Finally," Jesse says and seriously, what is it with him wanting to punch everyone he fucks lately? Is this a new trend? Does he have some kind of superpower where his dick turns people mean?
"My alarm's set for 4:40," Zach says as he adjusts his grip on his pillow, his back still to Jesse.
"Sounds good," Jesse says, and he yawns again.
*
See you tonight @TheRealNimoy, I'm looking forward to a delicious meal and your company. My best, Bill
@WilliamShatner How about those lamb chops ? llap
@TheRealNimoy Lamb chops? I thought they were artichokes. My best, Bill
@WilliamShatner So that's why you kept calling them arti-chops !! llap
"I am never going to find a love like that," Zach sighs as he stares at his phone and leans his head against John's shoulder.
"See, I don't know -- I think that's totally something Chris would say," John muses. "You've just had a look into the future, Zach. You're so Shatner. Do you want me to try and find you a lucrative recording deal? We could even --"
"Shut up," Zach says. He doesn't lift his head from John's shoulder, which tips John off at something being wrong; luckily, John is a good friend who just takes his phone and starts looking for interesting things to reply to on Twitter.
Notes:
Zach's text?
gkt hkmdhyeeeeeee thanskss ivliksd kissjngf tyuuuuu omg tyongf
Roughly translated as: "got home hi thanks i liked kissing you omg typing."
...I think, as I was kind of buzzed myself when I tried typing something along those lines on my smartphone.
The song Jesse sings at karaoke is Barry Manilow's Tryin' To Get the Feeling Again. MP3s and a playlist for the story coming alllll the way at the end, after the last part.
Here's Kim Kuzma performing Say a Little Prayer for You at the Highline Ballroom.
Fandom: ST RPF
Rating: PG-13 (eventual NC-17)
Pairings: Zach/Chris, Zach/Jesse Tyler Ferguson
Word Count: ~4000 of ~28k (completed, but staggered posting)
Summary: Zach builds himself a life in New York. (AO3)
New Yorkers can find Zachary Quinto at The High Line every night for at least an hour.
Sometimes he's in the public art gallery with a cigarette.
At night when the blue lights are turned on, he goes to the patio overlooking the rest of the city, drags a table and chair to the edge, and sits there with a coffee to keep him lucid for whatever the rest of the night holds: concert or show or performance, after party, after after party, walking back to his apartment, waking up four hours later for production meetings or yoga or staring at his bedroom ceiling.
If a fan interrupts him while he's there, he just nods at them and smiles a little, then turns back to what he was or wasn't doing. Fan skitters back to their friends and asks what kind of hipster douche has his sunglasses on at eight o'clock at night and seriously, he's not that famous. Jude Law wouldn't be such a cunt.
All Zach asks for is five minutes a day when he can not be himself, and if he sits there long enough, he gets it. There's so much more to the planet than his jeans, his hair, his sex life, his jobs, his people, his pets -- he needs to remember that, if only for five minutes a day.
*
i need a drink badly please. are you free?
Yeah. How about the Ritz on 9th and W. 46th? I can be there in like 20.
i'll be there.
*
Zach waves Jesse over to his table, his suit jacket hanging off the back of a stool.
"Is that whiskey?" Jesse asks as he sits. "Are you still in character or just a secret whiskey man? I thought I would have noticed, you know?"
"Mmm," Zach hums into his glass. "TV has taught me that when a man has had a hard day at work, he runs into a glass of whiskey. Being a big old 'mo has taught me that cocktails are strictly for dance nights. Beer is… well, I don't know, I've never found a good reason for drinking beer except being poor."
"That's funny," Jesse says. "I would have taken you for a beer connoisseur, actually. Maybe even one of those people with a special beer fridge."
"I have a wine fridge," Zach says. "I forgot wine. Wine is lovely."
"Do you want to switch over to wine? I think I'm getting a beer for reasons totally unrelated to my finances."
"Red, please." Jesse gets up and Zach takes the opportunity to down the rest of his whiskey and lick the inside of the glass thoroughly -- which is how Jesse finds him a few minutes later.
"Now that's impressive," Jesse says before sitting on the stool again. "And I definitely think you've intrigued the patrons in a ten dude radius."
Zach looks smug and makes grabby hands for the wine, which Jesse keeps away.
"Not until you tell me why. No sad drinking. Forbidden. I don't do that, and I certainly don't enable it."
They raise their eyebrows at each other, even if Zach has Jesse beat because he can do the raise-one-then-the-other eyebrow trick. Jesse doesn't seem to mind and doesn't bring the wine any closer.
"I think my wife is pulling out of the movie," Zach says.
"Your what?" Jesse shrieks.
"No, like -- movie wife -- actress lady -- because they just keep cutting her part down and down, right, and I don't know if it's because like, they can't afford her or if I can't play straight enough to have a fucking wife. Like. And we haven't even started filming, these are just read-throughs and shit." Zach sighs and asks, "Do you ever have those days when you just feel like a fucking alien among a bunch of humans, and no matter how much you try, you still can't like, do human things flawlessly and --"
"Whoa, slow down the metaphor express, okay?"
"I just have barely any experience acting with women I'm not horribly familiar with," Zach says. "Who were my big love interests in things? Zoe and Kristen? And I've known them like, my entire adult life -- they're like my sisters, you know? So -- am I so horrible at this that I'm driving this actress away, or are my friends driving her away to spare my feelings, and then there's the whole 'I'm a producer' part where I'm helping to pay for this clusterfuck and no one wants to tell --"
"Okay, sip of wine, then back to me," Jesse says as he hands over the glass.
"Ugh, seriously, Dad, I'm not that bad at --" Jesse takes the wine back anyway after Zach takes a sip. Zach rolls his eyes. "Yeah. So. That's that."
"You're a good actor," Jesse says. "You wouldn't be where you are -- no, ignore the whole 'sad in a bar' part, okay -- if you weren't at least a little talented."
"Really?" Zach asks and he knows his voice sounded too soft and pleading.
"Honestly, you're not that good looking," Jesse says, and Zach laughs because, hello, he totally is. "I mean, I don't get your appeal, frankly."
"Well, do you want to dance with this fugly drunk tonight? Some pity grinding?"
Jesse hands the wine glass over and they clink glasses.
*
Zach laughs and almost trips over the step leading into/out of the bar, and can feel his forty-foot-long legs propelling him towards one of the newspaper dispensers. He laughs and groans when he collides with it, and sits on it, his legs swinging back and forth.
Jesse is a quiet drunk who looks down as he stands on the stoop, steps down carefully, and walks slowly over to Zach. He keeps his distance but Zach can see he's smiling somewhere under the beard.
"So you can dance," Zach says. "Not too much use of the disco fingers and you didn't like, hump me into the Hudson."
"Didn't see the point," Jesse replies. "The actual Hudson is right there." Jesse stops and looks up, and says, "Oh, pretend there's a joke there. About. Literal. Metaphor. Humping rivers. Jizz. Something."
"Mmm, okay," Zach says. He uses his legs to hook his feet around the backs of Jesse's knees, and Jesse laughs and stumbles into Zach. He has no choice but to wrap his arms around Zach and be centimeters from his face, but just like the diner the other day, someone has to make the first --
Zach grins and leans in, and he digs his hands into Jesse's hair, ignoring Jesse's momentary shock and pulling him into the kiss until they're both about to tip the dispenser over and fall into the street. A bouncer pulls Jesse back, tells them to get lost, and sends them off vaguely southward. Zach laughs and leads the way.
"Uh, so that was intense," Jesse says as he walks carefully and trips on every crack in the sidewalk.
"Yup," Zach says.
"Glad you think so, too," Jesse says.
When they're about a block away in front of a boarded up store front, Zach turns around and pulls Jesse in again for another kiss, closing his eyes and pressing not just their mouths but their faces together, Zach's nose and forehead digging into Jesse but he can't help it, something -- he just kind of wants to consume this man alive or like, absorb him into his chest. Barring that, he wraps his arms even tighter around Jesse, one hand still digging into his hair and the other around his back, clawing desperately at his shirt and the skin underneath.
Jesse pulls away to breathe, but Zach only lets him move his face away a few centimeters. He keeps their foreheads together, and they breathe each other in, Zach still clinging really hard.
"I haven't been this drunk in a while," Jesse gasps. "Like, a really long while."
"That's okay," Zach says, and he kisses him again. It's that kind of drunk, Zach manages to reflect, where his brain randomly screams instructions and he has no choice but to follow through 9000%: KISS HIM, he hears. TOUCH HIM. And Zach obliges, and grins against Jesse's mouth because every nerve is singing, kind of drunkenly, about how awesome it is to fucking feel another human being.
"Hey, here's a cab," Jesse says, and Zach flails an arm out to hail it.
The cab pulls over and Jesse shoves Zach inside, like it's some episode of Cops. He gives the cabbie Zach's cross street and leans inside a little bit. Zach tries to pull him in, but Jesse is holding on to the door and the outside of the cab.
"Get home, drink water, sleep on your side, text me, and I'll call you tomorrow, okay?"
"Eating helps, too," Zach says. "If I liked food."
"Like it for me, okay," Jesse says, and he leans in for another kiss. He pushes Zach further inside, slams the door closed, and Zach slides down in the backseat. He watches Jesse lean in through the passenger side window and give the cabbie a few bills and repeat the cross street.
Zach slides even further down into the backseat and wraps his arms around himself, and something is wrong with his face because he can't stop grinning and has no idea why.
*
gkt hkmdhyeeeeeee thanskss ivliksd kissjngf tyuuuuu omg tyongf
This is why you should turn on autocorrect.
*
"I'll sing," Jesse says. "You guys'll be my chorus."
"Uhh, what are we singing?" Zach asks.
"I can sing," Eric protests. It's Eric as in Eric-Jesse's-co-star-and-bff. Tonight it's mostly Jesse's friends as most of the past week has been Carnegie Mellon people and they're getting a little tired of each other.
"Honey," Jesse says as he rubs Eric's shoulder soothingly. "Come on, you know you want to be my doo-wop girl."
"Little bit, can't lie," Eric replies.
"Yes, but what --"
Jesse has already run up to the stage and handed in a slip with their mystery artist and song on it.
"Is he always like this?" Zach asks Eric and the other girl whose name he can't remember because he's a horrible person who is a little too caught up in winning over The Best Friend to bother with anyone less. Oh, and Eric's girlfriend, who is nice but quiet.
"…what do you mean?" Eric asks.
"Like…" Zach makes some waving gestures and Eric raises his eyebrows.
"No idea. Grunts would help complete the picture."
"Like, happy and --"
"Oh, yeah! He's my ginger sunshine," Eric says casually.
Zach really doesn't know what to do with that, and he's not 100% sure what "that" is: the cute nicknames these hetero lifemates have for each other, or the fact that they're so fucking functional. He and Chris were never that functional, not even when they were platonic, and especially not in front of people the other was trying to nail.
He's about to take out his phone and text Chris, but Jesse is waving them up on stage frantically.
"There's a line forty people deep and he got us in just like that," Eric sighs. "What a charmer. He's singing at Carnegie Hall next month, you know."
He and Eric get on stage and Jesse directs them: they can stand a little off to the side with their mike stands, and the words are on the screen and Zach is fucking terrified because he doesn't know what the fuck he's going to humiliate himself singing.
"But what are we singing?" he hisses to Eric.
"Oh, probably Manilow," Eric says. "Guilty pleasure of his -- but without the guilt. He's seen him in concert like, ten times. It's a little terrifying. Jesse won't leave this plane of existence until Barry Manilow is officially a god."
*
It's totally a goddamn musical sexcapade up on stage with Jesse losing himself in a Barry Manilow song -- hell, Zach is losing himself in keeping up, too, and he and Eric doo-wop the shit out of it -- essentially, it's fucking awesome.
The host comes back out on stage during their standing ovation (because disaffected fedora-wearing unshaven New York now loves Barry Manilow and they did it -- Jesse did it) with a bottle of champagne.
"You win a bottle of champagne for you and your friends," she says as she hands the bottle to Jesse, who passes it to Eric, who lifts it over his head and lets out a woo any sororislut would kill to emulate. "Exit the stage."
They sit back down as Jesse and Eric fight over who will open the champagne before another friend takes over and does it for them.
"No more from this table for the rest of the night!" the host shouts at them from the stage. "You brought Manilow into this hallowed space and God only knows what you would come up with next!"
"Coldplay!" Jesse shouts back. "Mandy Moore --" He suddenly sits down again and shakes Zach's arm furiously. "Oh my God, you want to do 'Candy', you know it, just run up there and do it."
Zach laughs and Jesse takes over champagne distribution again. He takes the moment to pull out his phone and, speak of the devil, there's a text from Chris:
Heard it's raining in NY. Hope you're having fun, loser. So don't miss you.
"And I don't miss you either," Zach kind of growls at his phone as he slips it back into his pocket. "Champagne, please, I think I earned at least two glasses."
"Two?" Jesse asks incredulously. "And why, if I may be so bold as to ask?"
"One for being amazing with Eric up there," Zach says with a little tip of his glass towards Eric, who nods right back. "And one for letting you take me up there in front of a hundred people to sing Barry fucking Manilow."
"You just don't know him like I do," Jesse replies.
Zach grins and begins talking to Jesse's friend next to him and Jesse turns to talk to Eric's girlfriend, and their hands brush against each other under the table between their chairs. They brush a bit more and finally just outright hold each other, Zach sipping from his champagne with his other hand and carrying on like it's nothing, and he doesn't have to glance at Jesse to know he's doing the same.
He's never even liked redheads, what.
*
Life falls into an insane kind of routine, but a routine nonetheless: up hideously early for meetings or filming or yoga, working until sunset, his one hour of peace at the High Line, dinner plans, pre-party plans, whatever performance he's been invited to, then the after parties, and then some sleep before it all starts again.
There's a lot of music in there -- it's a phenomenon among actors, or at least among Zach and the ones he knows. They would rather go to a concert or a musical than a movie or a play. It's difficult for Zach to lose himself in something when in the audience and thinking things like, "He just forgot his line" or "This direction could be better" or whatever.
Jesse and a fuckload of other celebrities perform at the Highline Ballroom one night (a different Highline, because New York can't get enough of its high lines and Bowerys, etc.) Anyway, it's a night featuring the songs of Burt Bacharach. He isn't sure what the people running his musical life this month are smoking, exactly, that he's going to see a medley of Burt Bacharach performances less than a week after being bribed off stage with champagne because he helped sing some Barry Manilow. (Barry Manilow, fuck, Joe could not stop laughing and Zach's lucky video hasn't surfaced yet.)
Jesse sings "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" and then joins Zach in the wings. They're sitting on a pair of tall stools waiting for Alan Cumming and Sandra Bernhard to perform together, but first, Kim Kuzma has to hijack their entire evening with the sexiest rendition of "Say a Little Prayer for You".
"This isn't sexy," Zach states as he crosses his legs.
"No… no, it's not a sexy song. It's not up there on my list of 'songs to fuck by,'" Jesse says. Zach looks at him and raises an eyebrow, and Jesse rolls his eyes. "Not that that list exists. I like music but not that much."
"Not even 'No Diggity'?" Zach asks.
"Aw, 'No Diggity'," Jesse sighs nostalgically. "That song came out when I was 20 and at AMDA here in the city -- oh my God, best year of my life. That was a sexy year." He leans against Zach's shoulder a little and sighs again. "If I only I'd been sexy enough to enjoy it."
"Aw," Zach says. "Pre-beard?"
"Beards happened to old people," Jesse replies. "Then hipsters happened, and beards happened to everyone."
"Total game changer," Zach agrees.
They laugh at Kim Kuzma on stage imitating Celine Dion and then she goes right back into the soft, warm, jazzy performance she's giving, reminding them of the matter at hand.
Reminding Zach, anyway, that he's 'gone out' with Jesse in various settings and with various crowds like, ten times, and seen Jesse one on one a lot but sex --
Jesse crosses his legs and arms and one of his hands lands on Zach's upper thigh, the back of his hand running gently back and forth and maybe --
Zach looks over and it takes Jesse a few seconds to look at him and then look down, and then flush bright red as he laughs. He leans over to Jesse and presses his face against Jesse's beard before whispering, "If you want to wait for Sandra Bernhard, I totally --"
"It'll be on youtube, I think," Jesse says, turning his head to look at Zach, though his gaze is fixed on Zach's mouth. "The Internet is kind of amazing like that, isn't it?"
"Totally," Zach mumbles because they're doing that dumb ass Sound of Music thing where people try to make out and hold a conversation simultaneously, when all they really want to do is fuck. "So, my place?"
"Hm, why not," and fuck, Jesse's beard feels kind of stupidly amazing even if he'll need a fuckload of moisturizer tomorrow.
Outside, the song rings in Zach's ears a little -- more like the feel of it kind of still tingles in his skin, especially when Jesse just stands behind him, pressed against his back, and clutches his biceps for a moment before he hails a cab. When Jesse steps away to open the door of the cab and slide in, that's when things begin to get unreal, fuzzy, fast, and he becomes hypersensitive in the most literal sense of the word. The cabbie's radio seems louder; Jesse feels warmer at his side with the lengths of their thighs pressed against each other; the smell of the seat's leather, the cabbie's dinner, whatever soap Jesse uses, the smell of his own skin; he can hear every creak of the cab, every shriek of the brakes --
He leans over and turns Jesse's face to his and kisses him, not chastely but not quick and furiously, just an inquisitive and probing kiss. He tastes like the wine they had backstage and that particular taste of him, and tastes like the smell -- Jesse pulls away as the cab stops at Zach's cross street, and Zach is going to have to remember how to walk and where his apartment is.
*
In Zach's apartment, they fall over each other laughing because they both wore hightops -- Zach's are so broken in he can slip them off with little struggle, but Jesse has tightly laced Converse and flops back on the couch, momentarily defeated by them.
"Aw, come on," Zach says, and he slides over the hardwood floor on his knees, barefoot, and starts unlacing Jesse's shoes while they both laugh stupidly.
"Mmm, this Victorian striptease, I can't bear to look," Jesse laughs.
Zach rolls his eyes, takes off Jesse's shoes and socks for him, and leans up to press the lengths of their bodies together. Jesse seems to notice he's turning it into some kind of yoga stretch and tries to kick his feet out from under him.
"Come on," Zach urges against Jesse's mouth before he stands up. "I've still got a button fly that needs undoing."
"Now you're just being difficult," Jesse says, but lets himself be pulled up off the couch and led to the bedroom.
It's the tenth floor and Zach's bedroom is mostly grey, like every city-at-night bedroom scene ever included in a movie. Zach sits on the edge of his bed, spreads his legs open, and simply says, "Undress me."
And they would have been fucking five minutes sooner had Jesse not walked over, pulled Zach's shirt off over his head, thrown it to the side, and then burst out laughing when he actually looked at Zach.
Zach raises both eyebrows and looks down at himself, and then back at Jesse. He tries to suck in his stomach a little but that only makes Jesse laugh harder.
"Are you kidding?" Jesse laughs, and Zach thinks maybe his ego won't be irreparably damaged after all because Jesse kneels in front of him and runs his hands over his whole upper body. "Spoiler alert," Jesse begins, his eyes fixed on Zach's skin as his hands touch every inch of his chest, "I am not… even a little beautiful like you are."
"What are you talking about?" Zach asks. A little too late, he reaches a hand out to cup the back of Jesse's head and scratch at his scalp, considering pulling him into a kiss.
"I'm a pale, pudgy faggy actor playing a pale, pudgy faggy lawyer on TV," Jesse says, his eyes moving up from Zach's body to make eye contact. "You're like from another planet, you're so fucking gorgeous."
"Planet obsessive gym membership," Zach says.
"God, whatever," Jesse says as he strips off Zach's jeans and briefs.
*
Mediocre sex doesn't exist: the three accepted categories are phenomenal, great, and bad.
Zach is on his side in bed, wrapped around Jesse and staring blankly out the bedroom window at the moon and rooftops outside. He tries to breathe a little quieter, yawns three or four times instead, and keeps staring trying to think why fucking Jesse was bad.
Fuck, it wasn't through lack of trying. Technique was fine, if a little slow and gentle for his taste -- and he wasn't allowed to bite because of costume fittings for the next few days.
It's afterwards, now, that Zach wonders if it was a mistake because he feels so -- so indifferent. No, not indifferent, but. Confused. Thinky. This isn't blissful, fucked out afterglow, nor is it an I-need-to-get-this-person-out sensation -- what is this?
"Is there construction outside," Jesse asks, "Or is that the sound of you freaking out?"
That's annoying. Zach is surprised at how annoyed he is by that little comment.
"I'm going back to LA in like, four or five days for show stuff," Jesse says, his eyes still shut. "Then I'm coming back for Tribeca so you have time to get your shit together." Jesse yawns, too, and adds, "Still can't bite me."
"Good to know," Zach replies dryly.
He kind of wants to punch Jesse; instead, he yawns loudly and disentangles himself, then turns over onto his other side.
"Finally," Jesse says and seriously, what is it with him wanting to punch everyone he fucks lately? Is this a new trend? Does he have some kind of superpower where his dick turns people mean?
"My alarm's set for 4:40," Zach says as he adjusts his grip on his pillow, his back still to Jesse.
"Sounds good," Jesse says, and he yawns again.
*
See you tonight @TheRealNimoy, I'm looking forward to a delicious meal and your company. My best, Bill
@WilliamShatner How about those lamb chops ? llap
@TheRealNimoy Lamb chops? I thought they were artichokes. My best, Bill
@WilliamShatner So that's why you kept calling them arti-chops !! llap
"I am never going to find a love like that," Zach sighs as he stares at his phone and leans his head against John's shoulder.
"See, I don't know -- I think that's totally something Chris would say," John muses. "You've just had a look into the future, Zach. You're so Shatner. Do you want me to try and find you a lucrative recording deal? We could even --"
"Shut up," Zach says. He doesn't lift his head from John's shoulder, which tips John off at something being wrong; luckily, John is a good friend who just takes his phone and starts looking for interesting things to reply to on Twitter.
Notes:
Zach's text?
gkt hkmdhyeeeeeee thanskss ivliksd kissjngf tyuuuuu omg tyongf
Roughly translated as: "got home hi thanks i liked kissing you omg typing."
...I think, as I was kind of buzzed myself when I tried typing something along those lines on my smartphone.
The song Jesse sings at karaoke is Barry Manilow's Tryin' To Get the Feeling Again. MP3s and a playlist for the story coming alllll the way at the end, after the last part.
Here's Kim Kuzma performing Say a Little Prayer for You at the Highline Ballroom.