[drabble] Please Don't Take My Sunshine Away - 1/1
Title: Please Don't Take My Sunshine Away
Author: garnetice
Pairing: Past Jett/Dak, current offscreen Jo/Kendall (implied onesided Kendall/Jett and Kendall/Lucy, I guess?) Really gen!fic.
Rating: G
Word Count: 2,058
Warnings: Uh. Melancholy?
Summary: “Kendall always chooses Jo,” Jett agrees. “And Jo always chooses Kendall. It makes no sense, not when I-“ He cuts himself off. Not when I’m right here, is what he wanted to say, but this girl doesn’t need to know that. She’s a newbie, a nobody. She’s got the weight of Hollywood on her shoulders and she doesn’t even know what it means.
Disclaimer: BTR is not mine.
Author Notes: I was sad. And kind of bored. So I wrote a drabble that doesn't make much sense about Jett and Lucy trying to be friends. The drabble isn't really sad? Maybe? I don't know, You Are My Sunshine, to me, is a sad song (they played it at my grandma's funeral, because it was also her favorite song), and I've been listening to the Chelsea Wolfe version (which is pretty damned creepy), so that might have influenced me a little.
---
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are gray…
Humming under his breath, Jett touches the window pane, wondering if the rain will ever let up. He wants to run, to feel the stretch of muscle from his thighs to his knees to his ankles, but the constant, pounding rain is conspiring to keep him indoors. How dull.
He could visit the Palmwoods gym, do a few laps on the treadmill, but somehow it’s not quite the same. That big, brawny friend of Kendork’s will probably be there, perspiring, and Jett doesn’t like the smell of another man’s sweat.
At least, not when it’s a man he has no interest in, a man without dimples and light, light eyes, all white teeth and Midwestern charm.
Jett lets loose with a more profound sigh, but it has no effect. There’s no one else in the apartment with him. His parents are long gone, using Jett’s earnings to take separate-but-together-in-spirit cruises to sunny, tropical destinations, strategic maneuvers on both their parts. There’s no cellphone reception in the middle of the ocean, and neither his mom nor his dad has made a secret of how needy they think Jett is.
Needy. Pshaw. Like that’s an adjective that comes even close to describing Jett Stetson, who’s been funding their little getaways since he was old enough to walk. He’s a superstar, and he doesn’t need anyone or anything. He can occupy himself on a rainy day.
Probably. It’s not his fault that there’s nothing on TV other than Gilligan’s Island reruns, and the thought of reading a book with words turns his stomach. He has it on very good authority (Doc Hollywood’s) that literacy ruins eyesight. Jett has twenty-twenty vision, and he plans on keeping it that way.
He decides a leisurely stroll down to the lobby is in order. At the very least, he can harangue that horrible little hotel manager into calling him a car to somewhere trendy, somewhere fun, somewhere…oh, what’s the use? Jett knows perfectly well that there’s not actually anywhere he can go, at least not any place that he wants to go. The City of Angels is really a tiny town, and the problem with pissing off one of its biggest, burgeoning stars is that there’s not really anywhere to run.
…you’ll never know dear, how much I love you…
He never meant to piss Dak off, is the thing. After Jo, Jett was worked up, annoyed that he’d lost his pretty co-star to an equally lovely boy, plush lips and wicked eyes, flashing greengreengreen in the sunlight. He knew Dak from the circuit, from all those parties that young Hollywood is supposed to frequent. They were friends, insofar as Jett had Dak’s number and sometimes their publicists told them to go get sushi together, or to get caught shopping for skinny ties and Cartier cufflinks, oops, oh my.
Jett went along with it because he’s enough of a nonentity that he has no choice about such things, and Dak went along with it because - well. Who the fuck knows what makes Dak Zevon do anything? Post Kendallgate, Jett dialed Dak up, asked him if he was interested in hitting up Chateau Marmont for drinks.
He wasn’t thinking anything other than that it would be nice to have a friend. A friend like Big Time Rush are friends, brothers in arms, super bests for life. Jett’s never had anyone like that, and at the time, he thought he could. He thought it might be nice.
Jett had no idea that after a few Manhattans, Dak would take him back to his mansion in Toluca Lake.
Or that he’d ask Jett why he was so torn up over that Kendall kid anyway?
Or that he’d bend Jett over an armchair and fuck him so hard that he’d see stars.
Needless to say, Dak and Jett did not end up being best friends. But what they had wasn’t half bad, for a while. As far as lovers go, one could certainly do worse than a B-list teen star. Jett likes boys with dimples and light eyes, and he certainly liked having an all access pass to all the best parties in Hollywood. He and Dak could never go public with anything, but Jett’s never been interested in the long term. What use is a future he can’t reach and touch?
He was content to exist in an in-between place, Dak’s hands and Dak’s lips and Dak’s knees on either side of his hips. He called Jett bitch and he called Jett baby, and both sounded like terms of endearment from his mouth. Maybe this was why Jo and Kendall laughed in his face, because a relationship is a magic spell, a thing that fries brain circuits and leaves a person wanting, wanting, endlessly wanting; his fingers, his mouth, and the crook of his smile.
Washington DC was a mistake that was never supposed to happen, and nothing did happen, but try telling Dak that. Kendall never wanted Jett, not the way that Jett wanted Kendall, and that was probably the issue in the first place.
Dak said, you’re sleeping in the same room.
Dak said, you always wanted him.
Dak said, how am I supposed to trust you? You’re Jett Stetson.
And that was the end of Dak. Because he is Jett Stetson, and no one, not even his own parents, will ever be allowed to put him down. He grew up in Hollywood’s teeth, tucked tight in its jowls, and he’s known what it means to be treated like dirt since before he could even form words. Jett’s down with getting fucked, but he will not get fucked over.
He’s been blacklisted from all his favorite places ever sense.
The lobby is empty except for a single girl, staring out at the miserable drizzle with her suitcases gathered around her legs. Jett slumps onto a couch beside her and says, “You look hideous.”
Lucy’s eyes flick skyward in askance before she patiently meets Jett’s gaze. “Thanks. I’ll try to overcome my disappointment; I was so hoping to impress you today.”
As it should be, really. Jett kicks up his legs on one of her suitcases. “Where are you going? I hear Cabo’s nice this time of year.”
“I’m moving.”
“Ah. That’s less exciting,” he decides, and moves to get up.
Then she says, “Kendall chose Jo, in case you were wondering,” and she is much too forlorn for a girl with red streaks in her hair. Red means fire and rage and war, not this. Not sorrow stained cheeks and white knuckles and knees.
“Kendall always chooses Jo,” Jett agrees. “And Jo always chooses Kendall. It makes no sense, not when I-“
He cuts himself off. Not when I’m right here, is what he wanted to say, but this girl doesn’t need to know that. She’s a newbie, a nobody. She’s got the weight of Hollywood on her shoulders and she doesn’t even know what it means. All these young kids blow into town, ready to find their dreams, when people like Jett have been working hard every single day of their life, screaming out notice me, notice me, notice me! Pretty little Lucy Stone probably stole her record deal away from a more deserving local, without even knowing that local existed, or how lucky she is for all her easy talent and beauty.
Lucy says, “I really thought he liked me.”
It’s the same old line every time, in soap operas and scripted dramas and all the movies Jett deigns to watch. It’s exactly what he thought before Dak freaked out, wondering why doesn’t he trust me and I thought we were - no.
Dak’s gone and Jett’s going his own way. “So what are you going to do about it? Are you really leaving the Palmwoods because of it?”
“Is that what you heard?” Lucy raises a single black eyebrow.
“Honey, please,” Jett snaps out his best imitation of ever sassy girlfriend in every movie he’s ever had a bit role in. “No one here knows how to keep a secret.”
“I’m not moving because of Kendall.” She snorts derisively, smacking her palms against her thighs. “My studio found me a loft apartment downtown. Big, breezy, beautiful. Free. It’s been in the works for a while. I guess, if anything, I was thinking about staying because of him. To be with him. Stupid.”
Jett doesn’t want to empathize, but he’s been right in this spot, rejected by Jo and then Jo’s gorgeous boyfriend in turn, with no friends to fall back on and no one to turn to. Camille’s not here, and he knows that she should be, because Camille and Lucy are friends. Jett pays attention. Sometimes. He makes a sympathetic noise.
It must not sound very convincing. Lucy asks, “Do you even know what it’s like to be second best?
“No,” Jett replies, with such surety that even he’s convinced, for a moment, that Jett Stetson always comes in first place.
“Must be nice, living in your head.”
Jett doesn’t know how to reply, because what he will never admit out loud is that nice isn’t the word he’d use. He relies on his fallback plan to save the day; his fallback plan, of course, being to act like an utter ass. “So. This would be a really inappropriate time to ask you out on a date, right?”
Lucy doesn’t bat an eyelash, completely unsurprised, because how could anyone ever trust his motives? He’s Jett Stetson. “Has that ever stopped you before?”
Jett considers this. “No, not really. Want to go out?”
“No, not really,” Lucy echoes archly.
That’s the end of it then, Jett knows, already resolving to put this behind him.
Then her lips quirk into a grin. “But we can go eat. As friends.”
She cuts a tiny figure in black, hope a recognizable thing in her eyes. She obviously doesn’t know that Jett’s not very good at being friendly.
Lucy tacks on, “Somewhere nice. You’re paying.”
“I thought you said as friends,” Jett objects immediately.
“Yeah, well, one of us friends makes a hell of a lot more than the other right now. Hint, hint, it’s the one who works on New Town High.” Lucy slaps Jett on the back. Then she throws a suitcase in his face. “You can also help me get my stuff in the cab.”
Voice muffled under the zipper of Lucy’s bag, Jett accuses, “You’re not acting very broken-hearted.”
Lucy shrugs, dragging a few of her suitcases out into the dewy morning, where a taxi awaits. Jett stumbles after her. “Why should I be? I’ve got a new apartment, my album’s dropping soon, and my new friend’s going to listen to me complain all about that guy who screwed me over.”
“I’m not seeing what’s in this for me,” Jett mutters, but he obligingly hands over the suitcase to a disgruntled cabbie with grubby, grease-blackened fingers.
Lucy bumps her shoulder against Jett’s. “I bet you have a girl or two who’s broken your heart. You do have one, right?” She pokes him right in the center of his chest, and does not miss the way Jett flinches. “Come on, this will be great. We can bitch, we can whine, we can eat. It’ll be a time, and it might even be fun.”
“Great,” Jett repeats dubiously. “I guess that’s alright…”
Lucy brightens. “Then get your butt in the car, Stetson. We’ll drop my stuff off and get this crazy party started.”
He’s got a thousand things that jump to his lips as he stares at Lucy Stone, some dickish, some sort of pathetic. Jett wants to tell her that there aren’t many places he’s allowed to go, that Kendall Knight’s fucked up his life plenty too, that he really hates rock and roll. He wants to say that no one should wear quite so much black in LA and if being friends means he has to attend her gigs, he might die of mortification. He wants to shout it all out loud, but instead, Jett slides in the taxi cab. He decides he’s going to give this friends thing a try.
Through a break in the clouds, there is warmth, there is hope. The rain will be gone soon.
Author: garnetice
Pairing: Past Jett/Dak, current offscreen Jo/Kendall (implied onesided Kendall/Jett and Kendall/Lucy, I guess?) Really gen!fic.
Rating: G
Word Count: 2,058
Warnings: Uh. Melancholy?
Summary: “Kendall always chooses Jo,” Jett agrees. “And Jo always chooses Kendall. It makes no sense, not when I-“ He cuts himself off. Not when I’m right here, is what he wanted to say, but this girl doesn’t need to know that. She’s a newbie, a nobody. She’s got the weight of Hollywood on her shoulders and she doesn’t even know what it means.
Disclaimer: BTR is not mine.
Author Notes: I was sad. And kind of bored. So I wrote a drabble that doesn't make much sense about Jett and Lucy trying to be friends. The drabble isn't really sad? Maybe? I don't know, You Are My Sunshine, to me, is a sad song (they played it at my grandma's funeral, because it was also her favorite song), and I've been listening to the Chelsea Wolfe version (which is pretty damned creepy), so that might have influenced me a little.
---
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are gray…
Humming under his breath, Jett touches the window pane, wondering if the rain will ever let up. He wants to run, to feel the stretch of muscle from his thighs to his knees to his ankles, but the constant, pounding rain is conspiring to keep him indoors. How dull.
He could visit the Palmwoods gym, do a few laps on the treadmill, but somehow it’s not quite the same. That big, brawny friend of Kendork’s will probably be there, perspiring, and Jett doesn’t like the smell of another man’s sweat.
At least, not when it’s a man he has no interest in, a man without dimples and light, light eyes, all white teeth and Midwestern charm.
Jett lets loose with a more profound sigh, but it has no effect. There’s no one else in the apartment with him. His parents are long gone, using Jett’s earnings to take separate-but-together-in-spirit cruises to sunny, tropical destinations, strategic maneuvers on both their parts. There’s no cellphone reception in the middle of the ocean, and neither his mom nor his dad has made a secret of how needy they think Jett is.
Needy. Pshaw. Like that’s an adjective that comes even close to describing Jett Stetson, who’s been funding their little getaways since he was old enough to walk. He’s a superstar, and he doesn’t need anyone or anything. He can occupy himself on a rainy day.
Probably. It’s not his fault that there’s nothing on TV other than Gilligan’s Island reruns, and the thought of reading a book with words turns his stomach. He has it on very good authority (Doc Hollywood’s) that literacy ruins eyesight. Jett has twenty-twenty vision, and he plans on keeping it that way.
He decides a leisurely stroll down to the lobby is in order. At the very least, he can harangue that horrible little hotel manager into calling him a car to somewhere trendy, somewhere fun, somewhere…oh, what’s the use? Jett knows perfectly well that there’s not actually anywhere he can go, at least not any place that he wants to go. The City of Angels is really a tiny town, and the problem with pissing off one of its biggest, burgeoning stars is that there’s not really anywhere to run.
…you’ll never know dear, how much I love you…
He never meant to piss Dak off, is the thing. After Jo, Jett was worked up, annoyed that he’d lost his pretty co-star to an equally lovely boy, plush lips and wicked eyes, flashing greengreengreen in the sunlight. He knew Dak from the circuit, from all those parties that young Hollywood is supposed to frequent. They were friends, insofar as Jett had Dak’s number and sometimes their publicists told them to go get sushi together, or to get caught shopping for skinny ties and Cartier cufflinks, oops, oh my.
Jett went along with it because he’s enough of a nonentity that he has no choice about such things, and Dak went along with it because - well. Who the fuck knows what makes Dak Zevon do anything? Post Kendallgate, Jett dialed Dak up, asked him if he was interested in hitting up Chateau Marmont for drinks.
He wasn’t thinking anything other than that it would be nice to have a friend. A friend like Big Time Rush are friends, brothers in arms, super bests for life. Jett’s never had anyone like that, and at the time, he thought he could. He thought it might be nice.
Jett had no idea that after a few Manhattans, Dak would take him back to his mansion in Toluca Lake.
Or that he’d ask Jett why he was so torn up over that Kendall kid anyway?
Or that he’d bend Jett over an armchair and fuck him so hard that he’d see stars.
Needless to say, Dak and Jett did not end up being best friends. But what they had wasn’t half bad, for a while. As far as lovers go, one could certainly do worse than a B-list teen star. Jett likes boys with dimples and light eyes, and he certainly liked having an all access pass to all the best parties in Hollywood. He and Dak could never go public with anything, but Jett’s never been interested in the long term. What use is a future he can’t reach and touch?
He was content to exist in an in-between place, Dak’s hands and Dak’s lips and Dak’s knees on either side of his hips. He called Jett bitch and he called Jett baby, and both sounded like terms of endearment from his mouth. Maybe this was why Jo and Kendall laughed in his face, because a relationship is a magic spell, a thing that fries brain circuits and leaves a person wanting, wanting, endlessly wanting; his fingers, his mouth, and the crook of his smile.
Washington DC was a mistake that was never supposed to happen, and nothing did happen, but try telling Dak that. Kendall never wanted Jett, not the way that Jett wanted Kendall, and that was probably the issue in the first place.
Dak said, you’re sleeping in the same room.
Dak said, you always wanted him.
Dak said, how am I supposed to trust you? You’re Jett Stetson.
And that was the end of Dak. Because he is Jett Stetson, and no one, not even his own parents, will ever be allowed to put him down. He grew up in Hollywood’s teeth, tucked tight in its jowls, and he’s known what it means to be treated like dirt since before he could even form words. Jett’s down with getting fucked, but he will not get fucked over.
He’s been blacklisted from all his favorite places ever sense.
The lobby is empty except for a single girl, staring out at the miserable drizzle with her suitcases gathered around her legs. Jett slumps onto a couch beside her and says, “You look hideous.”
Lucy’s eyes flick skyward in askance before she patiently meets Jett’s gaze. “Thanks. I’ll try to overcome my disappointment; I was so hoping to impress you today.”
As it should be, really. Jett kicks up his legs on one of her suitcases. “Where are you going? I hear Cabo’s nice this time of year.”
“I’m moving.”
“Ah. That’s less exciting,” he decides, and moves to get up.
Then she says, “Kendall chose Jo, in case you were wondering,” and she is much too forlorn for a girl with red streaks in her hair. Red means fire and rage and war, not this. Not sorrow stained cheeks and white knuckles and knees.
“Kendall always chooses Jo,” Jett agrees. “And Jo always chooses Kendall. It makes no sense, not when I-“
He cuts himself off. Not when I’m right here, is what he wanted to say, but this girl doesn’t need to know that. She’s a newbie, a nobody. She’s got the weight of Hollywood on her shoulders and she doesn’t even know what it means. All these young kids blow into town, ready to find their dreams, when people like Jett have been working hard every single day of their life, screaming out notice me, notice me, notice me! Pretty little Lucy Stone probably stole her record deal away from a more deserving local, without even knowing that local existed, or how lucky she is for all her easy talent and beauty.
Lucy says, “I really thought he liked me.”
It’s the same old line every time, in soap operas and scripted dramas and all the movies Jett deigns to watch. It’s exactly what he thought before Dak freaked out, wondering why doesn’t he trust me and I thought we were - no.
Dak’s gone and Jett’s going his own way. “So what are you going to do about it? Are you really leaving the Palmwoods because of it?”
“Is that what you heard?” Lucy raises a single black eyebrow.
“Honey, please,” Jett snaps out his best imitation of ever sassy girlfriend in every movie he’s ever had a bit role in. “No one here knows how to keep a secret.”
“I’m not moving because of Kendall.” She snorts derisively, smacking her palms against her thighs. “My studio found me a loft apartment downtown. Big, breezy, beautiful. Free. It’s been in the works for a while. I guess, if anything, I was thinking about staying because of him. To be with him. Stupid.”
Jett doesn’t want to empathize, but he’s been right in this spot, rejected by Jo and then Jo’s gorgeous boyfriend in turn, with no friends to fall back on and no one to turn to. Camille’s not here, and he knows that she should be, because Camille and Lucy are friends. Jett pays attention. Sometimes. He makes a sympathetic noise.
It must not sound very convincing. Lucy asks, “Do you even know what it’s like to be second best?
“No,” Jett replies, with such surety that even he’s convinced, for a moment, that Jett Stetson always comes in first place.
“Must be nice, living in your head.”
Jett doesn’t know how to reply, because what he will never admit out loud is that nice isn’t the word he’d use. He relies on his fallback plan to save the day; his fallback plan, of course, being to act like an utter ass. “So. This would be a really inappropriate time to ask you out on a date, right?”
Lucy doesn’t bat an eyelash, completely unsurprised, because how could anyone ever trust his motives? He’s Jett Stetson. “Has that ever stopped you before?”
Jett considers this. “No, not really. Want to go out?”
“No, not really,” Lucy echoes archly.
That’s the end of it then, Jett knows, already resolving to put this behind him.
Then her lips quirk into a grin. “But we can go eat. As friends.”
She cuts a tiny figure in black, hope a recognizable thing in her eyes. She obviously doesn’t know that Jett’s not very good at being friendly.
Lucy tacks on, “Somewhere nice. You’re paying.”
“I thought you said as friends,” Jett objects immediately.
“Yeah, well, one of us friends makes a hell of a lot more than the other right now. Hint, hint, it’s the one who works on New Town High.” Lucy slaps Jett on the back. Then she throws a suitcase in his face. “You can also help me get my stuff in the cab.”
Voice muffled under the zipper of Lucy’s bag, Jett accuses, “You’re not acting very broken-hearted.”
Lucy shrugs, dragging a few of her suitcases out into the dewy morning, where a taxi awaits. Jett stumbles after her. “Why should I be? I’ve got a new apartment, my album’s dropping soon, and my new friend’s going to listen to me complain all about that guy who screwed me over.”
“I’m not seeing what’s in this for me,” Jett mutters, but he obligingly hands over the suitcase to a disgruntled cabbie with grubby, grease-blackened fingers.
Lucy bumps her shoulder against Jett’s. “I bet you have a girl or two who’s broken your heart. You do have one, right?” She pokes him right in the center of his chest, and does not miss the way Jett flinches. “Come on, this will be great. We can bitch, we can whine, we can eat. It’ll be a time, and it might even be fun.”
“Great,” Jett repeats dubiously. “I guess that’s alright…”
Lucy brightens. “Then get your butt in the car, Stetson. We’ll drop my stuff off and get this crazy party started.”
He’s got a thousand things that jump to his lips as he stares at Lucy Stone, some dickish, some sort of pathetic. Jett wants to tell her that there aren’t many places he’s allowed to go, that Kendall Knight’s fucked up his life plenty too, that he really hates rock and roll. He wants to say that no one should wear quite so much black in LA and if being friends means he has to attend her gigs, he might die of mortification. He wants to shout it all out loud, but instead, Jett slides in the taxi cab. He decides he’s going to give this friends thing a try.
Through a break in the clouds, there is warmth, there is hope. The rain will be gone soon.