FIC: Some Surreal Country (JC Chasez/Chace Crawford)
Hahaha, yes. The first fic I am posting since October REALLY IS JC Chasez/Chace Crawford. EPIC SIGH.
Let me start by saying that I owe walkawayslowly my soul. She's had to hear about this story for way too freaking long, and she could not possibly care less about this pairing, and yet she has sat through every bit of my blabbing about it and has not even said "stfu before I punch you in the face" so much as once. This is because she is a saint.
Merrin not only sat through all of my blathering, but she ALSO looked at this when I said, "I think this is two stories. Do you think this is two stories?" and then after confirming that yes, it was two stories (Story #2, in which Chace Crawford is gay with Ed Westwick, is on its way!), she even freaking betaed. Because she loves me. Anyway! Story!
Title: Some Surreal Country
Author: causeways
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: JC Chasez/Chace Crawford
Word Count: 3,125
Disclaimer: Despite what every magazine and gossip blog ever has said, JC and Chace are not gay with each other. No, really, they're not.
Summary: JC Chasez and Chace Crawford were totally doing it.
Author's Notes: In case it was not clear from the above, I owe walkawayslowly BIG TIME. We're talking, like, a pony here.
Some Surreal Country
Chace first meets JC in New York. Gossip Girl hasn't been filming for long, and the city's still strange to him: too big, too crowded, too much asphalt and steel. He couldn't find the nearest subway entrance if his life depended on it, let alone get anywhere; there are cars to take him to and from the set and wherever else he needs to be. He's got an agent and a publicist to tell him where to go and a manager to get him there, and if he doesn't know where there is, he doesn't worry about it too much. He's not sure it matters.
Chace pretty much does what they want, so he's at some publicity thing his agent thought would be a good idea, some autographing, some smiling for pictures. He's bored out of his skull, and as soon as he can he makes a break for the bathroom, leans against the wall for a couple of minutes and remembers that he's more than bored; he actually totally hates these things.
"You okay there?"
Chace opens his eyes. It's a guy who looks sort of vaguely familiar, though Chace can't place him. He looks to be in his thirties, spiky brown hair, that lean kind of built.
"Yup," Chace says. He doesn't make any effort to push off the wall. "Just taking a breather."
"Still pretty new to this, huh?" the guy says with some sympathy. "You get used to it after a while. It'll get better."
"You sure about that?"
The guy barks out a laugh. "Yeah, actually. Not so much."
"What are you doing here?"
"Told my agent I'd do it," the guy says. "Not the smartest idea, in retrospect."
Chace is only a little surprised when it turns out they've got the same agent.
"So what's your claim to fame?" Chace says.
The guy-JC is his name-says some stuff about albums and tours and music videos, and Chace smiles and nods and thinks the guy looks really freaking familiar, but he just can't place him. And then finally JC says, "And, okay. I was in N*SYNC."
And then Chace knows exactly where he knows JC from: about nine different and equally horrifying boy band posters on his sister's wall when she was a pre-teen.
"I'm pretty sure my sister would kill me if she knew I was talking to you," Chace says.
"Oh yeah?"
"Because she's wanted to marry you since, like, birth," he says.
JC grins a little self-deprecatingly. "All the girls do," he says.
After a while Chace goes back out to the hordes, but he's feeling a little better about it.
*
The next time Chace sees JC, it's in South Beach, Miami. Chace is there for a week, for New Year's and his friend Jeff's birthday. Jeff's been a club promoter since sophomore year of college. He sends out daily volleys of Facebook messages, ladie's nite @ pink panther, $3 shots all nite!! ladies free til 10 and has spent about three times as many hours at clubs as at school, the result of this being that he's on the seven or maybe ten-year plan for graduating from University of Miami but he can throw one serious fucking party. He's been trying to get Chace down there for two and a half years, and a couple months of winter in New York are finally enough to convince him.
Chace has never been that sold on Florida, but now that he's there he can't think of why not. He can't think of much of anything, really. He's drunk something in the range of eighteen shots of Patron, it's three days before New Year's and he's wearing nothing but a shirt and jeans on a freaking roof deck. He's sent texts to everyone he knows, including five or six just to Ed: you should be here, miami is fuckin awesome! And it's true. He's surrounded by about a billion really hot people, the girls are wearing, like, negative nothing. Ed would love this shit. Chace loves this shit. He can't think of a single thing to complain about until someone walks right into him and spills a drink all over his shirt.
"Hey, sorry, man," the guy says.
"It's cool, it's cool," Chace says, looking up, and it's JC.
"Long time, no see," JC says. He pulls Chace into a hug. Chace goes with it. When JC offers to buy him a drink, Chace goes with that, too, because at this point what are another two or three going to hurt?
If he doesn't much remember the end of the night, well. He wasn't going to have remembered it before, anyway.
*
They traded numbers at the end of the night, but Chace is still pretty surprised when JC texts him the next afternoon: you still in miami?
Chace is. He's there through New Year's, and he's even mostly recovered from his hangover. It's totally not at all shocking that Jeff's condo has the best stock of coffee and painkillers Chace has ever seen.
JC texts him the name of a club and sends a limo to get him and Jeff. The bouncer waves them right in, a smoking hot woman leads them to VIP, and JC's lounging in a huge leather booth with eight bottles of Cristal on the table in front of him and the hordes of hot women around him.
"How's it going?" JC says, sliding an arm around Chace's shoulder and a bottle of champagne into Chace's hand. Chace shivers a little at the contact-JC's arm is weirdly cold.
Jeff takes off after a couple drinks. He's got a girl now, a junior at UM who's trying to get into modeling; he shakes his keys in front of Chace's eyes.
"Don't know if you're gonna need these, but I'm sure not," Jeff says, grinning and sliding the keys into Chace's back pocket.
There's something different about being drunk on really fucking expensive alcohol, that's what Chace thinks. Or it's the low thumping of the bass, or the strobe lights on the dance floor as Chace shoulders his way toward the bathroom. It's a crazy kind of drunk, it's wild; he could do anything, would do anything. The bathroom is like floor-to-ceiling mirrors, like some kind of funhouse, and JC's at the urinal next to him.
"Hey," JC says, grinning and zipping up. "How you doin' there?"
"Um," Chace says. He looks at JC and holds the look for way too long. He thinks about doing crazy things, for a second-thinks about touching JC's arm, thinks about going in one of the stalls and grabbing JC's dick. He thinks about it and then he's zipping up and getting the fuck out of there, because there are things he can do and get away with and then there is being batshit-fucking-insane.
*
JC texts the next morning: you good?
yeah man, Chace replies after he's spent half an hour communing with the toilet, trying not to die.
you coming out tonight? party at the beach, JC texts back a minute later. Not even a minute later. Like, thirty seconds.
Chace should just say no, should say he's got something else he's got to do, even though he doesn't-Jeff's having some kind of marathon sex-fest with the model-girlfriend, isn't planning on being home till tomorrow at least. sure, he says.
The party's got sand; it's got tiki torches; it's got girls in bikinis so small they don't even cover their nipples. It's got JC slinging his arm around Chace and leaving it there; it's got JC passing him some huge kind of drink that tastes like nine kinds of fruit died in it, that has Chace staggering drunk by the time he's done with it. It fucking floors him.
At some point they must have left the beach, because they're in a club. It might be the same club as last night; Chace has no idea. All he knows is that there's this moment when he looks up and catches JC's eye and keeps looking, and he thinks: if they were in the bathroom again, if he put his hand on JC's arm, JC wouldn't turn him down. JC would go for it. He's certain.
And then they are in the bathroom, which has all the same black lights and mirrors as last night's bathroom. The stalls are freaking huge, Chace notes as he pulls JC into one.
"You okay there?" JC says as Chace gets the stall door closed behind them.
"I'm great," Chace says. He falls to his knees.
"Hey, what-oh," JC says as Chace works his fly open and gets his mouth on JC's cock.
There's about half a second where Chace thinks JC's going to push him off and maybe freak the fuck out, but then JC's got his hands in Chace's hair and is rocking his hips, these shallow thrusts that push his cock against Chace's cheek and the roof of his mouth. Chace wraps his hand around the root of JC's cock, strokes his balls, and JC puts his hand on top of Chace's, guiding him. It's not long before JC comes, mostly in Chace's mouth but some on his neck and shirt. Afterwards JC palms Chace's cock and it's all of three seconds before Chace shoots in his pants.
Afterward they lean panting against the bathroom door. Chace kind of wants to kiss him, but he's not sure which way this is going now-if it's going back into the club, if it's never speaking again, if it's JC turning to him now and saying, "So, you want to get out of here?"
"Sure," Chace says, grinning and relieved.
He's hard again in the limo, and it's obvious. JC puts up the partition and says, "God, eighteen-year-olds."
"Twenty-one," Chace says on a gasp as JC unzips him and starts to jack him off.
*
JC's staying in this fucking ridiculous hotel right on the beach. His bed is big enough for about eight people, covered with like million-count sheets. JC is halfway out of his clothes before Chace even finishes staring out at the wall of plate-glass windows at the sand and the moon rising over the sea.
JC tugs the curtains all the way shut and Chace gets with the program right quick. JC's naked in front of him, his cock red and hard and pushing against his stomach.
"How do you want to do this?" JC says, but there's not much of a question there, really: Chace gets on the bed on his hands and knees, looks over his shoulder at JC.
Chace has never been fucked before, but he's spent a damned lot of time fingering himself open and thinking about it. It's different with JC working him open, JC pushing the head of his cock inside and Chace panting and trying to relax until the first burn of too much stretching is past and JC's fucking him in earnest and it's good, it's so good. JC comes first and then strokes Chace to orgasm, pulling out slowly and tying the condom off and then curling around Chace until they both sleep.
*
About three minutes after Chace wakes up, he still isn't freaking out. He's pretty sure freaking out was never an issue for JC. Chace knows this because JC has his hand on Chace's cock and is fondling it sort of lazily until it's all the way hard.
They fuck once on the bed and again in the Jacuzzi in the bathroom, and then Chace heads out a little after noon because he figures he should. Jeff still isn't home; Chace isn't surprised.
JC texts him around six and they get dinner, then get spectacularly drunk at a club that looks the same as all the others. They fuck until they're too wrung out to move.
*
"So who's your girl?" Jeff says. It's the middle of the day on New Year's Eve, and it's the first time Chace has seen him in a couple of days.
"Huh?" Chace says, slamming his cell phone closed.
"A, you were grinning when I walked in. Two, you were totally in the middle of texting her right now. D, you're embarrassed as shit right now, and plus you've got like nine hickeys on your neck, dude, have you seen yourself?"
"Um," Chace says. He can feel himself turning redder by the second; it's not helping his case. He also really was in the middle of texting JC to see if he wants to get lunch.
"It's cool, man, it's cool. What, is she an actress or something?"
"Something like that," Chace says.
"You should bring her out with us tonight," Jeff says. "It's gonna be a blowout. It'll be sick."
Chace is sure JC already had New Year's plans, but he cancels them and spends the night drinking Belvedere with Chace. When Jeff says, "Where's your girl?" Chace tells him she couldn't make it. He and JC don't kiss at midnight but they bring in the dawn with their cocks in each other's mouths. That pretty much makes up for it.
*
Chace flies back to New York late on New Year's Day. He packs the stuff he left at Jeff's and then heads over to JC's hotel on the way to the airport. JC's sitting on his beachside balcony in nothing but a white terrycloth robe, and he sucks Chace off in full view of the beach before Chace jerks him off slowly, until he comes all over his stomach and the robe.
After he cleans himself up and tucks his dick back into his jeans, Chace says, "See you around, I guess?"
"You've got my number," JC says, grinning a little.
"That I do," Chace says. He leans in quickly to kiss JC and then makes a break for it, not sure if he should be freaking out or not leaving at all.
*
It's weird being back on the Gossip Girl set after New Year's. Chace feels like Miami should have changed something, that there should be some sign of him being different, that someone might notice, but there isn't; the hickeys are gone in a couple of days, completely faded.
After a week, Chace texts JC. hows it going in miami, he says, and doesn't realize he's been holding his breath in anticipation until JC replies.
left miami yesterday, get ur facts straight.
It's good after that: he can text JC when he wants to. The pressure's off.
*
They're both pretty busy for a few weeks, so Chace doesn't really think too hard about the itch that's been building slowly under his skin until it hits him in the middle of February: he misses JC. He misses him, and he could do something about it.
where are you going to be next weekend?, he texts.
stuck in L.A. for the foreseeable future, JC replies.
Chace books his ticket the next morning.
*
It's good to be back in L.A., really good. He hasn't spent too much time thinking about California and what it might be like if he'd stayed out here, not when he's got such a good thing going in New York, but the landscape here is jaw-drop gorgeous in a way that only the skyscrapers in New York are. It's seventy degrees in February, and if he's got a little smog to contend with for that, well. It happens.
He gets a room at some no-name hotel in Santa Monica and calls JC. They go to a WeHo club Chace forgets the name of the minute JC buys him three shots of Patron and blows him in the bathroom. By the time they get back to JC's house Chace is too drunk to get it up again but it's great when JC fucks him anyway; it feels wonderful and full.
They make it out for brunch around two o'clock on Saturday afternoon, and then go back to the house and don't leave it. Chace doesn't get back to his hotel until Sunday afternoon, when it's time to go, after he's been fucked so hard he can barely move.
*
JC thinks he's going to be in New York for a couple of weeks at the beginning of April. He's been talking about it for a while, and Chace is feeling pretty good about it. He's too busy with filming to go anywhere before then; having JC in the same city can only be a good thing.
So that's what Chace thinks JC's calling about when he sees a missed call in the middle of the afternoon near the end of March. He's got a little down time between scenes; he heads over to the side of the set.
JC answers on the first ring. "Have you talked to your publicist today?" he says.
Chace is thrown for a second. "No, why?"
"You should talk to your publicist," JC says. He exhales slowly. "There are pictures of us."
Chace's pulse spikes. "Of us . . . ?"
"No, they didn't get that. But there's speculation."
Chace breathes. "Okay, so we're good. I mean, rumors, whatever, right? Par for the course."
JC's silent for a long time. "I'm going to issue a statement," he says. "And I think you should, too. So does my publicist. So will yours, once you've talked to them."
"Sure, man, sure." Chace has a pretty good idea of what the statement's going to sound like already. Absolutely not true, we're both straight, just close friends. He doesn't need to talk to his publicist to know that.
"And," JC begins. "I'm not going to be in New York in April."
Chace is angry all of a sudden. "You're not going to be here or you're not going to be here with me?"
JC's silent, which is really all of the answer Chace needs.
"Fuck you, man," Chace says.
"I'm not gay," JC says.
"Bullshit."
"You're not, either," JC says. He sounds all kinds of tired, and Chace wants to kick something. "You going to come out over this?"
Chace thinks about it for a second, really thinks about it. "No," he says finally, because it's what JC wants him to say, because it's the easy thing to do. But he could, he thinks later. He could come out, and it wouldn't be the end of the world, not really.
*
Chace's publicist slaps the gossip mags down in front of him, fixes him with the hairy eye and says, "You didn't actually," and Chace lies through his teeth and gives the statements everyone wants him to give. He and JC are just friends having some good, drunk, heterosexual fun, and the world doesn't end now, either.
the end
Story #2 is coming soon! Far sooner than walkawayslowly would like.
ETA: Story #2, right here. Jagged and Endlessly New
Let me start by saying that I owe walkawayslowly my soul. She's had to hear about this story for way too freaking long, and she could not possibly care less about this pairing, and yet she has sat through every bit of my blabbing about it and has not even said "stfu before I punch you in the face" so much as once. This is because she is a saint.
Merrin not only sat through all of my blathering, but she ALSO looked at this when I said, "I think this is two stories. Do you think this is two stories?" and then after confirming that yes, it was two stories (Story #2, in which Chace Crawford is gay with Ed Westwick, is on its way!), she even freaking betaed. Because she loves me. Anyway! Story!
Title: Some Surreal Country
Author: causeways
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: JC Chasez/Chace Crawford
Word Count: 3,125
Disclaimer: Despite what every magazine and gossip blog ever has said, JC and Chace are not gay with each other. No, really, they're not.
Summary: JC Chasez and Chace Crawford were totally doing it.
Author's Notes: In case it was not clear from the above, I owe walkawayslowly BIG TIME. We're talking, like, a pony here.
Some Surreal Country
Chace first meets JC in New York. Gossip Girl hasn't been filming for long, and the city's still strange to him: too big, too crowded, too much asphalt and steel. He couldn't find the nearest subway entrance if his life depended on it, let alone get anywhere; there are cars to take him to and from the set and wherever else he needs to be. He's got an agent and a publicist to tell him where to go and a manager to get him there, and if he doesn't know where there is, he doesn't worry about it too much. He's not sure it matters.
Chace pretty much does what they want, so he's at some publicity thing his agent thought would be a good idea, some autographing, some smiling for pictures. He's bored out of his skull, and as soon as he can he makes a break for the bathroom, leans against the wall for a couple of minutes and remembers that he's more than bored; he actually totally hates these things.
"You okay there?"
Chace opens his eyes. It's a guy who looks sort of vaguely familiar, though Chace can't place him. He looks to be in his thirties, spiky brown hair, that lean kind of built.
"Yup," Chace says. He doesn't make any effort to push off the wall. "Just taking a breather."
"Still pretty new to this, huh?" the guy says with some sympathy. "You get used to it after a while. It'll get better."
"You sure about that?"
The guy barks out a laugh. "Yeah, actually. Not so much."
"What are you doing here?"
"Told my agent I'd do it," the guy says. "Not the smartest idea, in retrospect."
Chace is only a little surprised when it turns out they've got the same agent.
"So what's your claim to fame?" Chace says.
The guy-JC is his name-says some stuff about albums and tours and music videos, and Chace smiles and nods and thinks the guy looks really freaking familiar, but he just can't place him. And then finally JC says, "And, okay. I was in N*SYNC."
And then Chace knows exactly where he knows JC from: about nine different and equally horrifying boy band posters on his sister's wall when she was a pre-teen.
"I'm pretty sure my sister would kill me if she knew I was talking to you," Chace says.
"Oh yeah?"
"Because she's wanted to marry you since, like, birth," he says.
JC grins a little self-deprecatingly. "All the girls do," he says.
After a while Chace goes back out to the hordes, but he's feeling a little better about it.
*
The next time Chace sees JC, it's in South Beach, Miami. Chace is there for a week, for New Year's and his friend Jeff's birthday. Jeff's been a club promoter since sophomore year of college. He sends out daily volleys of Facebook messages, ladie's nite @ pink panther, $3 shots all nite!! ladies free til 10 and has spent about three times as many hours at clubs as at school, the result of this being that he's on the seven or maybe ten-year plan for graduating from University of Miami but he can throw one serious fucking party. He's been trying to get Chace down there for two and a half years, and a couple months of winter in New York are finally enough to convince him.
Chace has never been that sold on Florida, but now that he's there he can't think of why not. He can't think of much of anything, really. He's drunk something in the range of eighteen shots of Patron, it's three days before New Year's and he's wearing nothing but a shirt and jeans on a freaking roof deck. He's sent texts to everyone he knows, including five or six just to Ed: you should be here, miami is fuckin awesome! And it's true. He's surrounded by about a billion really hot people, the girls are wearing, like, negative nothing. Ed would love this shit. Chace loves this shit. He can't think of a single thing to complain about until someone walks right into him and spills a drink all over his shirt.
"Hey, sorry, man," the guy says.
"It's cool, it's cool," Chace says, looking up, and it's JC.
"Long time, no see," JC says. He pulls Chace into a hug. Chace goes with it. When JC offers to buy him a drink, Chace goes with that, too, because at this point what are another two or three going to hurt?
If he doesn't much remember the end of the night, well. He wasn't going to have remembered it before, anyway.
*
They traded numbers at the end of the night, but Chace is still pretty surprised when JC texts him the next afternoon: you still in miami?
Chace is. He's there through New Year's, and he's even mostly recovered from his hangover. It's totally not at all shocking that Jeff's condo has the best stock of coffee and painkillers Chace has ever seen.
JC texts him the name of a club and sends a limo to get him and Jeff. The bouncer waves them right in, a smoking hot woman leads them to VIP, and JC's lounging in a huge leather booth with eight bottles of Cristal on the table in front of him and the hordes of hot women around him.
"How's it going?" JC says, sliding an arm around Chace's shoulder and a bottle of champagne into Chace's hand. Chace shivers a little at the contact-JC's arm is weirdly cold.
Jeff takes off after a couple drinks. He's got a girl now, a junior at UM who's trying to get into modeling; he shakes his keys in front of Chace's eyes.
"Don't know if you're gonna need these, but I'm sure not," Jeff says, grinning and sliding the keys into Chace's back pocket.
There's something different about being drunk on really fucking expensive alcohol, that's what Chace thinks. Or it's the low thumping of the bass, or the strobe lights on the dance floor as Chace shoulders his way toward the bathroom. It's a crazy kind of drunk, it's wild; he could do anything, would do anything. The bathroom is like floor-to-ceiling mirrors, like some kind of funhouse, and JC's at the urinal next to him.
"Hey," JC says, grinning and zipping up. "How you doin' there?"
"Um," Chace says. He looks at JC and holds the look for way too long. He thinks about doing crazy things, for a second-thinks about touching JC's arm, thinks about going in one of the stalls and grabbing JC's dick. He thinks about it and then he's zipping up and getting the fuck out of there, because there are things he can do and get away with and then there is being batshit-fucking-insane.
*
JC texts the next morning: you good?
yeah man, Chace replies after he's spent half an hour communing with the toilet, trying not to die.
you coming out tonight? party at the beach, JC texts back a minute later. Not even a minute later. Like, thirty seconds.
Chace should just say no, should say he's got something else he's got to do, even though he doesn't-Jeff's having some kind of marathon sex-fest with the model-girlfriend, isn't planning on being home till tomorrow at least. sure, he says.
The party's got sand; it's got tiki torches; it's got girls in bikinis so small they don't even cover their nipples. It's got JC slinging his arm around Chace and leaving it there; it's got JC passing him some huge kind of drink that tastes like nine kinds of fruit died in it, that has Chace staggering drunk by the time he's done with it. It fucking floors him.
At some point they must have left the beach, because they're in a club. It might be the same club as last night; Chace has no idea. All he knows is that there's this moment when he looks up and catches JC's eye and keeps looking, and he thinks: if they were in the bathroom again, if he put his hand on JC's arm, JC wouldn't turn him down. JC would go for it. He's certain.
And then they are in the bathroom, which has all the same black lights and mirrors as last night's bathroom. The stalls are freaking huge, Chace notes as he pulls JC into one.
"You okay there?" JC says as Chace gets the stall door closed behind them.
"I'm great," Chace says. He falls to his knees.
"Hey, what-oh," JC says as Chace works his fly open and gets his mouth on JC's cock.
There's about half a second where Chace thinks JC's going to push him off and maybe freak the fuck out, but then JC's got his hands in Chace's hair and is rocking his hips, these shallow thrusts that push his cock against Chace's cheek and the roof of his mouth. Chace wraps his hand around the root of JC's cock, strokes his balls, and JC puts his hand on top of Chace's, guiding him. It's not long before JC comes, mostly in Chace's mouth but some on his neck and shirt. Afterwards JC palms Chace's cock and it's all of three seconds before Chace shoots in his pants.
Afterward they lean panting against the bathroom door. Chace kind of wants to kiss him, but he's not sure which way this is going now-if it's going back into the club, if it's never speaking again, if it's JC turning to him now and saying, "So, you want to get out of here?"
"Sure," Chace says, grinning and relieved.
He's hard again in the limo, and it's obvious. JC puts up the partition and says, "God, eighteen-year-olds."
"Twenty-one," Chace says on a gasp as JC unzips him and starts to jack him off.
*
JC's staying in this fucking ridiculous hotel right on the beach. His bed is big enough for about eight people, covered with like million-count sheets. JC is halfway out of his clothes before Chace even finishes staring out at the wall of plate-glass windows at the sand and the moon rising over the sea.
JC tugs the curtains all the way shut and Chace gets with the program right quick. JC's naked in front of him, his cock red and hard and pushing against his stomach.
"How do you want to do this?" JC says, but there's not much of a question there, really: Chace gets on the bed on his hands and knees, looks over his shoulder at JC.
Chace has never been fucked before, but he's spent a damned lot of time fingering himself open and thinking about it. It's different with JC working him open, JC pushing the head of his cock inside and Chace panting and trying to relax until the first burn of too much stretching is past and JC's fucking him in earnest and it's good, it's so good. JC comes first and then strokes Chace to orgasm, pulling out slowly and tying the condom off and then curling around Chace until they both sleep.
*
About three minutes after Chace wakes up, he still isn't freaking out. He's pretty sure freaking out was never an issue for JC. Chace knows this because JC has his hand on Chace's cock and is fondling it sort of lazily until it's all the way hard.
They fuck once on the bed and again in the Jacuzzi in the bathroom, and then Chace heads out a little after noon because he figures he should. Jeff still isn't home; Chace isn't surprised.
JC texts him around six and they get dinner, then get spectacularly drunk at a club that looks the same as all the others. They fuck until they're too wrung out to move.
*
"So who's your girl?" Jeff says. It's the middle of the day on New Year's Eve, and it's the first time Chace has seen him in a couple of days.
"Huh?" Chace says, slamming his cell phone closed.
"A, you were grinning when I walked in. Two, you were totally in the middle of texting her right now. D, you're embarrassed as shit right now, and plus you've got like nine hickeys on your neck, dude, have you seen yourself?"
"Um," Chace says. He can feel himself turning redder by the second; it's not helping his case. He also really was in the middle of texting JC to see if he wants to get lunch.
"It's cool, man, it's cool. What, is she an actress or something?"
"Something like that," Chace says.
"You should bring her out with us tonight," Jeff says. "It's gonna be a blowout. It'll be sick."
Chace is sure JC already had New Year's plans, but he cancels them and spends the night drinking Belvedere with Chace. When Jeff says, "Where's your girl?" Chace tells him she couldn't make it. He and JC don't kiss at midnight but they bring in the dawn with their cocks in each other's mouths. That pretty much makes up for it.
*
Chace flies back to New York late on New Year's Day. He packs the stuff he left at Jeff's and then heads over to JC's hotel on the way to the airport. JC's sitting on his beachside balcony in nothing but a white terrycloth robe, and he sucks Chace off in full view of the beach before Chace jerks him off slowly, until he comes all over his stomach and the robe.
After he cleans himself up and tucks his dick back into his jeans, Chace says, "See you around, I guess?"
"You've got my number," JC says, grinning a little.
"That I do," Chace says. He leans in quickly to kiss JC and then makes a break for it, not sure if he should be freaking out or not leaving at all.
*
It's weird being back on the Gossip Girl set after New Year's. Chace feels like Miami should have changed something, that there should be some sign of him being different, that someone might notice, but there isn't; the hickeys are gone in a couple of days, completely faded.
After a week, Chace texts JC. hows it going in miami, he says, and doesn't realize he's been holding his breath in anticipation until JC replies.
left miami yesterday, get ur facts straight.
It's good after that: he can text JC when he wants to. The pressure's off.
*
They're both pretty busy for a few weeks, so Chace doesn't really think too hard about the itch that's been building slowly under his skin until it hits him in the middle of February: he misses JC. He misses him, and he could do something about it.
where are you going to be next weekend?, he texts.
stuck in L.A. for the foreseeable future, JC replies.
Chace books his ticket the next morning.
*
It's good to be back in L.A., really good. He hasn't spent too much time thinking about California and what it might be like if he'd stayed out here, not when he's got such a good thing going in New York, but the landscape here is jaw-drop gorgeous in a way that only the skyscrapers in New York are. It's seventy degrees in February, and if he's got a little smog to contend with for that, well. It happens.
He gets a room at some no-name hotel in Santa Monica and calls JC. They go to a WeHo club Chace forgets the name of the minute JC buys him three shots of Patron and blows him in the bathroom. By the time they get back to JC's house Chace is too drunk to get it up again but it's great when JC fucks him anyway; it feels wonderful and full.
They make it out for brunch around two o'clock on Saturday afternoon, and then go back to the house and don't leave it. Chace doesn't get back to his hotel until Sunday afternoon, when it's time to go, after he's been fucked so hard he can barely move.
*
JC thinks he's going to be in New York for a couple of weeks at the beginning of April. He's been talking about it for a while, and Chace is feeling pretty good about it. He's too busy with filming to go anywhere before then; having JC in the same city can only be a good thing.
So that's what Chace thinks JC's calling about when he sees a missed call in the middle of the afternoon near the end of March. He's got a little down time between scenes; he heads over to the side of the set.
JC answers on the first ring. "Have you talked to your publicist today?" he says.
Chace is thrown for a second. "No, why?"
"You should talk to your publicist," JC says. He exhales slowly. "There are pictures of us."
Chace's pulse spikes. "Of us . . . ?"
"No, they didn't get that. But there's speculation."
Chace breathes. "Okay, so we're good. I mean, rumors, whatever, right? Par for the course."
JC's silent for a long time. "I'm going to issue a statement," he says. "And I think you should, too. So does my publicist. So will yours, once you've talked to them."
"Sure, man, sure." Chace has a pretty good idea of what the statement's going to sound like already. Absolutely not true, we're both straight, just close friends. He doesn't need to talk to his publicist to know that.
"And," JC begins. "I'm not going to be in New York in April."
Chace is angry all of a sudden. "You're not going to be here or you're not going to be here with me?"
JC's silent, which is really all of the answer Chace needs.
"Fuck you, man," Chace says.
"I'm not gay," JC says.
"Bullshit."
"You're not, either," JC says. He sounds all kinds of tired, and Chace wants to kick something. "You going to come out over this?"
Chace thinks about it for a second, really thinks about it. "No," he says finally, because it's what JC wants him to say, because it's the easy thing to do. But he could, he thinks later. He could come out, and it wouldn't be the end of the world, not really.
*
Chace's publicist slaps the gossip mags down in front of him, fixes him with the hairy eye and says, "You didn't actually," and Chace lies through his teeth and gives the statements everyone wants him to give. He and JC are just friends having some good, drunk, heterosexual fun, and the world doesn't end now, either.
the end
Story #2 is coming soon! Far sooner than walkawayslowly would like.
ETA: Story #2, right here. Jagged and Endlessly New