Maddening Shroud (Details) Part 7
Title: Maddening Shroud (Details)
Fandom: RPF
Pairing: Pinto
Series Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em, just love 'em
Warnings: , long-term angst, Chris/OFC
Summary: Part 7 of 11. Zach has a crush on Chris but Chris really doesn't want to know. A lot of angst, UST and crappy decision making follows and eventually, Zach has to make a choice.
Follows the songs from Frou Frou's album, Details - which is my favourite album of all time, just to be melodramatic. The song's aren't in order, I sorted them as needed for the story arc. Normally I don't do songfics but this story just flowed out of the album for me, so I went for it.
Maddening Shroud is track 9 on the album and the lyrics for all the songs on Details can be found here. If you haven't heard it and you can get your hands (electronic or otherwise) on the album, I thoroughly recommend it.
Download Maddening Shroud
A/N:I AM SO SORRY TO ALL OF YOU WHO HAVE BEEN READING THIS! Real life got crazy a couple of weeks ago and non-essential-type-things had to take a back seat for a little while. This is why normally, I would finish a series before beginning to post it but I know in my heart of hearts that if I had tried that with this one, it would have never been completed. Another apology as this is quite a short chapter and quite possibly the weakest (should I be telling you guys this?) of the series. Still, it sets up the next chapter quite well and that chapter will transition into the last section of the story (we're almost on the home stretch people!) and I'm going to start writing it as soon as I post this one, so fingers crossed it'll be up Friday or Saturday.
“Another one?”
“Yup.”
Zach dropped a sheaf of papers onto the dining room table - the twelfth offer from a magazine, bidding to publish their ‘story’. The money was getting ridiculous but far from making things better, it was setting an already nervy Chris further on edge.
“We really need to decide who we’re going to give the story to,” Chris muttered. “I can’t take much more of this and the sooner we get our side of the story out, the sooner all this will die down.”
Zach nodded and turned back towards the kitchen, his hands tugging at the neck of his shirt. Chris couldn’t stand the idea of sitting still for a second longer, he leapt out of his chair and began to pace by the lounge room window. Another week of this and he would go crazy. Zach seemed to be handling it very well, considering. Then again, it was sometimes hard to read what Zach was thinking - his face could shut down so quickly. Chris’ mouth twisted into a grimace - if Zach ever discovered poker, he and all their friends were screwed.
The papers glared at him from the table, taunting him with his future. Zach kept insisting that given a few weeks, their lives would return to normal - or as close to normal as was possible given the lives that they led - but all that Chris could feel was his world spinning out of control. This wasn’t where he thought his life would be - Zach should be someone that he could turn to, a part of his life that was a refuge from all the chaos that was the rest of his existence. Instead, Zach was part of the problem. And if he’d thought the paparazzi were bad before well, wait until he and Zach started going out in public - the frenzy would be unimaginable.
The whole thing was just too much and Chris could feel his patience slipping. He stared at the small but ominous pile of letters sitting on the table - waiting for something to fall, something to break.
“I can’t do this, I can’t I just can’t.”
Zach turned around and looked at Chris, a puzzled expression riding his face.
“Chris? Did you say something?”
“I can’t do this, Zach.”
Zach’s expression morphed into one of well worn patience.
“It’ll all be over soon, it’ll die down, we just have to wait it out.”
“No, no, no, no, no! I can’t do this anymore. Look, I grew up in this weird-ass town - and it never really got to me. I don’t know how you do it, you didn’t grow up here, surrounded by all the shit that goes on. You’re just coasting through all of this like it’s just one more hurdle to jump.” Chris stalked into the bedroom and Zach followed him, his steps unsure.
“What... what are you doing?”
Chris was rummaging through Zach’s wardrobe and pulling out the two or three pieces of clothing that were his. Turning around, he headed for the bedside table and swept his watch, keys and other minutiae into his hand.
“Are you going somewhere?” Zach joked but his voice was strung tight.
“I just have to... get out of here for a while. It’s like this weight is sitting on my head and I’m about to be crushed by it. Zach, I have to get out before I’m crushed.”
“So... what, you’re just going to leave me here to face everyone on my own?”
Chris sat down on the edge of the bed and tried to avoid Zach’s gaze.
“Don’t you ever feel like you could just throw it all away?”
Zach paused from a moment, uncertain before he quietly exhaled and sat down beside Chris.
“You mean everything? All of it?”
“Some days my strength just walks out, you know? And these last few days... Sometimes I just can’t even contemplate leaving the house. And then I feel so fucking weak for not being able to deal with this! Fuck, it all seems so futile!”
Chris dared to look over at Zach. His lips were pressed tightly together and he looked solemn. If they had still been only friends Chris thought, that would have been all that he saw but now he had seen that face with all its barriers broken down, seen it as it smiled in unabashed joy, those dark eyes molten with desire - desire for him, now he had seen that he could read Zach’s body like it was his own. So it broke his heart a little to see that underneath Zach’s solemn face and stilled body was a lot of confusion and a lot of hurt.
“Zach, I just think that maybe it’s time I took a break. With all of this stuff that’s happened between us and around us... I think I need to distance myself from it all for a bit, it’s all so insane.”
“So that’s it? Things get a bit tough and you’re going to bail.”
Zach didn’t look up, didn’t even raise his voice. He just stated what he already knew in a soft, low monotone, before he quietly stood up, padded over to the door and left Chris sitting on the bed.
He wasn’t expecting it, wasn’t waiting for the sound, so when the front door shut, the noise echoing in the silence, Chris flinched.
He wasn’t sure how long he sat on the bed, with only the hum of outside traffic to keep him company but eventually he looked around for his bag and found it, half-kicked under the bed. As he knelt down on the carpet, his arm hooked on the top of the bedspread, he caught the slightest scent of Zach, trapped in the ice-grey sheets of the bed. All dark cologne and something else that was Zach, only Zach.
Chris shook his head violently and staggered to his feet. He had to get out of this apartment, out of this city if only for a little while.
The door shut in much the same way that it had when Zach left, heavily and with a disturbing sound of finality. Chris already had his sunglasses on but the light was so piercingly bright outside that he could feel himself squinting regardless. The well known sound of camera shutters clicked from across the street so Chris put on his game face and did what he did best.
He pretended.
He pretended as he drove to his apartment, he pretended as he packed. He pretended as he flew to the other side of the country and as he threw his hastily-packed bags on the floor of his New York hotel room. It was raining outside his window but even that broken-hearted cliché wasn’t enough to spark any sort of emotion inside him, he was still pretending. Pretending that everything was fine when it patently wasn’t.
Chris kept on pretending that everything was fine as he ordered a three course dinner with champagne for one. The bubbly was lightly aerated and beautifully flavoured and the food cooked to perfection but it all tasted like ashes and water in his mouth.
He spent the better part of the next week in NY, mostly in the hotel but occasionally venturing out into the local cafes and shops. He avoided the clubs with a vengeance.
Zach hadn’t called him at all and to be honest, Chris was slightly relieved. What could he have said to Zach on the phone that he couldn’t manage to tell him in person? He’d also managed to avoid any magazines that might have had references to him or Zach but something at the back of his head was niggling at him, telling him that he could only do this for so long. Sooner or later he’d have to make a decision to go back - to Hollywood and Zach, or to tear himself away from it all for good. Chris had never been one to prevaricate over a decision, so as the week had progressed, his self-loathing had risen sharply until one day, he metaphorically kicked himself in the ass and booked a flight back to Los Angeles, before going down the hotel bar to while away the last of his New York hours.
That was where he met her and she was nothing like Michelle or Zach. Dark red hair and a molten-gold laugh that rolled warmly around the room. She was short as well, with curves that would have made a comic heroine cry with envy. She recognised Chris - he could tell when she turned to look at him. Recognition and... that was it. She knew who he was but all that meant to her was that she knew his name.
“Hi. Chris, right?”
This was where he could bail - be polite but firm and head back to his room, spend his last hours there. But he was still pretending and what did it matter if he pretended for just a little bit longer?
“Yeah. Nice to meet you,” he replied as they shook hands. “What’s your name?”
“Celia. Celia Lewis. Pleased to meet you too.”
She smiled and it was like rain on parched earth to Chris.
He could feel himself relaxing as they settled down into the well know rhythm of questions and answers, their light flirtation gracing it all with an edge of possibility. He felt so confident here - this was something that he’d done so many times before and he could feel his sense of self reforming in his mind, solidifying as he placed his hand over hers in an almost unconscious gesture of invitation.
It was hot and perfect and so desperately, desperately wrong that Chris wasn’t sure whether the tears sliding out of the edge of his eyes and into his hair as he lay naked beside her sleeping body were ones of happiness or of total despair. Whatever they were, he knew that he couldn’t pretend anymore. He needed to go home.
She was gone before he woke and all that was left of her was her subtle perfume as he packed his bags and silently left the room. The flight was uneventful and there were less paparazzi than he expected waiting for him at the airport. They didn’t bother him as much as he thought either - they couldn’t make him into someone he wasn’t, they couldn’t threaten his sense of being unless he wasn’t sure himself. And he was sure now, he was a sure as the sun that was rising to his east. But telling Zach? The very thought of what he was going to do to him made his heart ache.
Part Eight
Fandom: RPF
Pairing: Pinto
Series Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em, just love 'em
Warnings: , long-term angst, Chris/OFC
Summary: Part 7 of 11. Zach has a crush on Chris but Chris really doesn't want to know. A lot of angst, UST and crappy decision making follows and eventually, Zach has to make a choice.
Follows the songs from Frou Frou's album, Details - which is my favourite album of all time, just to be melodramatic. The song's aren't in order, I sorted them as needed for the story arc. Normally I don't do songfics but this story just flowed out of the album for me, so I went for it.
Maddening Shroud is track 9 on the album and the lyrics for all the songs on Details can be found here. If you haven't heard it and you can get your hands (electronic or otherwise) on the album, I thoroughly recommend it.
Download Maddening Shroud
A/N:I AM SO SORRY TO ALL OF YOU WHO HAVE BEEN READING THIS! Real life got crazy a couple of weeks ago and non-essential-type-things had to take a back seat for a little while. This is why normally, I would finish a series before beginning to post it but I know in my heart of hearts that if I had tried that with this one, it would have never been completed. Another apology as this is quite a short chapter and quite possibly the weakest (should I be telling you guys this?) of the series. Still, it sets up the next chapter quite well and that chapter will transition into the last section of the story (we're almost on the home stretch people!) and I'm going to start writing it as soon as I post this one, so fingers crossed it'll be up Friday or Saturday.
“Another one?”
“Yup.”
Zach dropped a sheaf of papers onto the dining room table - the twelfth offer from a magazine, bidding to publish their ‘story’. The money was getting ridiculous but far from making things better, it was setting an already nervy Chris further on edge.
“We really need to decide who we’re going to give the story to,” Chris muttered. “I can’t take much more of this and the sooner we get our side of the story out, the sooner all this will die down.”
Zach nodded and turned back towards the kitchen, his hands tugging at the neck of his shirt. Chris couldn’t stand the idea of sitting still for a second longer, he leapt out of his chair and began to pace by the lounge room window. Another week of this and he would go crazy. Zach seemed to be handling it very well, considering. Then again, it was sometimes hard to read what Zach was thinking - his face could shut down so quickly. Chris’ mouth twisted into a grimace - if Zach ever discovered poker, he and all their friends were screwed.
The papers glared at him from the table, taunting him with his future. Zach kept insisting that given a few weeks, their lives would return to normal - or as close to normal as was possible given the lives that they led - but all that Chris could feel was his world spinning out of control. This wasn’t where he thought his life would be - Zach should be someone that he could turn to, a part of his life that was a refuge from all the chaos that was the rest of his existence. Instead, Zach was part of the problem. And if he’d thought the paparazzi were bad before well, wait until he and Zach started going out in public - the frenzy would be unimaginable.
The whole thing was just too much and Chris could feel his patience slipping. He stared at the small but ominous pile of letters sitting on the table - waiting for something to fall, something to break.
“I can’t do this, I can’t I just can’t.”
Zach turned around and looked at Chris, a puzzled expression riding his face.
“Chris? Did you say something?”
“I can’t do this, Zach.”
Zach’s expression morphed into one of well worn patience.
“It’ll all be over soon, it’ll die down, we just have to wait it out.”
“No, no, no, no, no! I can’t do this anymore. Look, I grew up in this weird-ass town - and it never really got to me. I don’t know how you do it, you didn’t grow up here, surrounded by all the shit that goes on. You’re just coasting through all of this like it’s just one more hurdle to jump.” Chris stalked into the bedroom and Zach followed him, his steps unsure.
“What... what are you doing?”
Chris was rummaging through Zach’s wardrobe and pulling out the two or three pieces of clothing that were his. Turning around, he headed for the bedside table and swept his watch, keys and other minutiae into his hand.
“Are you going somewhere?” Zach joked but his voice was strung tight.
“I just have to... get out of here for a while. It’s like this weight is sitting on my head and I’m about to be crushed by it. Zach, I have to get out before I’m crushed.”
“So... what, you’re just going to leave me here to face everyone on my own?”
Chris sat down on the edge of the bed and tried to avoid Zach’s gaze.
“Don’t you ever feel like you could just throw it all away?”
Zach paused from a moment, uncertain before he quietly exhaled and sat down beside Chris.
“You mean everything? All of it?”
“Some days my strength just walks out, you know? And these last few days... Sometimes I just can’t even contemplate leaving the house. And then I feel so fucking weak for not being able to deal with this! Fuck, it all seems so futile!”
Chris dared to look over at Zach. His lips were pressed tightly together and he looked solemn. If they had still been only friends Chris thought, that would have been all that he saw but now he had seen that face with all its barriers broken down, seen it as it smiled in unabashed joy, those dark eyes molten with desire - desire for him, now he had seen that he could read Zach’s body like it was his own. So it broke his heart a little to see that underneath Zach’s solemn face and stilled body was a lot of confusion and a lot of hurt.
“Zach, I just think that maybe it’s time I took a break. With all of this stuff that’s happened between us and around us... I think I need to distance myself from it all for a bit, it’s all so insane.”
“So that’s it? Things get a bit tough and you’re going to bail.”
Zach didn’t look up, didn’t even raise his voice. He just stated what he already knew in a soft, low monotone, before he quietly stood up, padded over to the door and left Chris sitting on the bed.
He wasn’t expecting it, wasn’t waiting for the sound, so when the front door shut, the noise echoing in the silence, Chris flinched.
He wasn’t sure how long he sat on the bed, with only the hum of outside traffic to keep him company but eventually he looked around for his bag and found it, half-kicked under the bed. As he knelt down on the carpet, his arm hooked on the top of the bedspread, he caught the slightest scent of Zach, trapped in the ice-grey sheets of the bed. All dark cologne and something else that was Zach, only Zach.
Chris shook his head violently and staggered to his feet. He had to get out of this apartment, out of this city if only for a little while.
The door shut in much the same way that it had when Zach left, heavily and with a disturbing sound of finality. Chris already had his sunglasses on but the light was so piercingly bright outside that he could feel himself squinting regardless. The well known sound of camera shutters clicked from across the street so Chris put on his game face and did what he did best.
He pretended.
He pretended as he drove to his apartment, he pretended as he packed. He pretended as he flew to the other side of the country and as he threw his hastily-packed bags on the floor of his New York hotel room. It was raining outside his window but even that broken-hearted cliché wasn’t enough to spark any sort of emotion inside him, he was still pretending. Pretending that everything was fine when it patently wasn’t.
Chris kept on pretending that everything was fine as he ordered a three course dinner with champagne for one. The bubbly was lightly aerated and beautifully flavoured and the food cooked to perfection but it all tasted like ashes and water in his mouth.
He spent the better part of the next week in NY, mostly in the hotel but occasionally venturing out into the local cafes and shops. He avoided the clubs with a vengeance.
Zach hadn’t called him at all and to be honest, Chris was slightly relieved. What could he have said to Zach on the phone that he couldn’t manage to tell him in person? He’d also managed to avoid any magazines that might have had references to him or Zach but something at the back of his head was niggling at him, telling him that he could only do this for so long. Sooner or later he’d have to make a decision to go back - to Hollywood and Zach, or to tear himself away from it all for good. Chris had never been one to prevaricate over a decision, so as the week had progressed, his self-loathing had risen sharply until one day, he metaphorically kicked himself in the ass and booked a flight back to Los Angeles, before going down the hotel bar to while away the last of his New York hours.
That was where he met her and she was nothing like Michelle or Zach. Dark red hair and a molten-gold laugh that rolled warmly around the room. She was short as well, with curves that would have made a comic heroine cry with envy. She recognised Chris - he could tell when she turned to look at him. Recognition and... that was it. She knew who he was but all that meant to her was that she knew his name.
“Hi. Chris, right?”
This was where he could bail - be polite but firm and head back to his room, spend his last hours there. But he was still pretending and what did it matter if he pretended for just a little bit longer?
“Yeah. Nice to meet you,” he replied as they shook hands. “What’s your name?”
“Celia. Celia Lewis. Pleased to meet you too.”
She smiled and it was like rain on parched earth to Chris.
He could feel himself relaxing as they settled down into the well know rhythm of questions and answers, their light flirtation gracing it all with an edge of possibility. He felt so confident here - this was something that he’d done so many times before and he could feel his sense of self reforming in his mind, solidifying as he placed his hand over hers in an almost unconscious gesture of invitation.
It was hot and perfect and so desperately, desperately wrong that Chris wasn’t sure whether the tears sliding out of the edge of his eyes and into his hair as he lay naked beside her sleeping body were ones of happiness or of total despair. Whatever they were, he knew that he couldn’t pretend anymore. He needed to go home.
She was gone before he woke and all that was left of her was her subtle perfume as he packed his bags and silently left the room. The flight was uneventful and there were less paparazzi than he expected waiting for him at the airport. They didn’t bother him as much as he thought either - they couldn’t make him into someone he wasn’t, they couldn’t threaten his sense of being unless he wasn’t sure himself. And he was sure now, he was a sure as the sun that was rising to his east. But telling Zach? The very thought of what he was going to do to him made his heart ache.
Part Eight