Hear Me Out (Details) Part 9
Title: Hear Me Out (Details)
Fandom: RPF
Pairing: Pinto
Series Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em, just love 'em
Warnings: long-term angst
Summary: Part 9 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.
Hear Me Out is track 8 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 Hear Me Out
A/N:Phew. Okay so some of you may love this chapter, some of you may hate it. I hope I found a balance.
“You have... six new messages...”
“Hey. I’m joining the queue on your answer phone... and all I am is holding breath.”
It felt like he’d been home for weeks - trapped in the same pattern of thought: ‘I have to find a way to fix this, I have to find a way, I have to.’
He’d spent the first day walking around his house, tracing the same route over and over, picking apart everything that he and Zach had said to each other. He tried to concentrate on how he could fix things and get Zach to forgive him but every time he tried, every time, all he could hear were Zach’s bitter words whispered in his ear:
‘I didn’t think you were that much of a coward, Pine... Any chance we had, you ruined’.
There had to be a way to fix this. He’d done a terrible thing but Zach loved him, he’d forgive him, he’d understand what happened, if Chris could just find the right thing to say.
His New York luggage still lay unpacked on the floor of his bedroom that night when he went to sleep. Or rather, tried to sleep - peaceful oblivion seemed wrong and the Sandman was nowhere to be seen. In his absence he left an eternal loop of that soul-ripping moment, when a solitary tear had slid down Zach’s face.
Eventually he fell into dreams but they were dark and unforgiving - trails of aching pain and moans unheard in the dark. He dreamt that Zach and he stood on the edge of a waterfall, the roar of it filling their ears with thunderous power. Zach turned to him, his face spattered with droplets of water and smiled so beautifully at Chris that he felt his fear at standing by the precipice melt away. Zach said something to him as his smile fell into solemnity but Chris couldn’t hear it over the roar of the water. He shouted at Zach to repeat it and Zach tried again... and again... and again but every time Chris felt only the faintest of voices grace his ears. When he again shook his head in frustration, Zach placed his hands over his heart and smiled once more but this time it gave Chris no comfort to witness. If the first had been full of laughter and light, this was filled with the most unbearable sadness, sadness and soul-shattering resignation. Before Chris could reach out a hand to bring Zach to him, Zach had turned and stepped, without hesitation over the edge of the roaring waterfall, leaving Chris screaming into the mists of water and dreams.
He was covered in cold sweat when he woke and before he had even registered the thought, he was turning to the bedside phone, searching for waiting messages in the lights of the LCD display. Nothing there and the cold dread of the dream washed over him again. The shadows were pale and long as they speared through his window - very early morning.
There was nothing to keep him in bed so he forced himself to get up, get dressed, have breakfast. His New York bags were taunting him when he returned to the bedroom so he dumped their contents onto the bed and made a pile for washing and one for putting away.
Opening the door of his walk in closet he began to systematically put away all of his shirts, pausing when he hung his steel blue shirt next to a very familiar skin tight top with black and white stripes. It was quirky and a little Village People and so undeniably Zach that it looked out of place, cast as it was against the backdrop of his own orderly shirts and cardigans. Chris stood frozen in the fear of that moment, the fear that very soon the shirt could be gone from his wardrobe, along with all of the other small minutiae that reminded Chris of Zach’s presence in his life. That god awful hat that still hung on the stand by his front door, the pillow that Zach had insisted made sitting on his couch more comfortable.
And all of a sudden putting his shirts away beside Zach’s seemed wrong.
Chris reached out a hand and pulled a black and white sleeve closer to him, rubbing his thumb over the thin, stretchy material. The desire to bury his face in the shirt and inhale Zach’s scent was almost overwhelming and Chris found himself unwilling to fight it.
Pulling the shirt to him, he closed his eyes and took the deepest breath he could, letting the flashing stream of images and memories it provoked wash over him like water. And Chris knew that for as long as he lived, if he ever caught that scent riding on the wind he would think of Zach, would expect him to be standing there, waiting for him as he turned to meet that perfume.
He made a sound of frustration and let the shirt slip back amongst the forest of tops, its monochrome appearance still standing out starkly against the muted colours.
“Just pick up, I know you’re there. Can’t you tell? I’m not myself...”
That second day Chris spent cleaning up his house, doing the washing, tidying floors and shelves, cleaning out the refrigerator. Every step, every moment felt wrong - the sweep of a broom over his kitchen floor felt like patting a dog’s fur the wrong way. Once he was done he found himself sitting on the edge of the couch, clutching Zach’s pillow to his chest. He stared into space for who knew how long, willing himself to come up with something, anything. An idea or the shadow of a plan but Zach’s voice kept intruding:
‘Fuck, I don’t know if I can believe a word you say sometimes...’
Chris groaned and pulled his hands through his hair, this wasn’t helping - he need to get out and actually do something.
He headed into the city, walking by shop after shop - each one feeling wrong, feeling off. Finding a small cafe he sat down and ordered one, then two, then four lattes and lost himself in the coffee rings and fingerprints until the light began to fade over the tops of the trees. He took out his cell phone and scrolled to Zach’s number, staring at it in the late afternoon LA light.
“Go ahead and lie to me, you can say anything. Small talk would be just fine. It’s your voice that’s everything.”
By the third day, the ache in Chris’ chest was a dull, constant companion, the lost little brother of Zach’s grief. Life was moving on as it always did - a pitiless slave driver, cold to pleas for sympathy. Chris found himself jogging by Zach’s house on his morning run but he didn’t dare stop - Zach’s curtains were drawn tight and there were no reassuring barks from Noah, a cacophony of sound welcoming friends and burglars alike. The house felt wrong as did the presence of the paparazzi outside and Chris spared a moment to wonder how all of this heartbreak would play after their official statement announcing that he and Zach were involved. They had worded that document so carefully. Revealing everything that they couldn’t hide but making no allusions to a ‘relationship’ or anything more than the kiss that had been witnessed would reveal. Chris had made sure that love wasn’t mentioned at all. Oh, he’d been so careful to shield himself - to take the revelations over his sexuality but not the seriousness of his feelings for Zach... or Zach’s feelings for him. He’d managed to keep himself so distant from Zach that this infidelity must seem like the last nail in the coffin for Zach. This wasn’t just one show of unreliability on his part; it was the culmination of their entire relationship, from beginning to end.
Chris made sure he was around the corner and well out of sight of the cameras before he stumbled to a halt and grabbed for balance against the cool scrape of a white stucco wall.
From beginning to end. He been friendly to Zach on set, then he’d shut him out, ignored him, accused him, wished him away. Zach threw all of his feelings into one desperate last chance and Chris dismissed him, got angry, got scared, got Zach away from him. Then they finally found a way to be friends again and Chris pushed Zach into breaking all of the delicate walls he had put up to shield himself from getting hurt in one selfish moment of desperate need, only to throw it back in his face when the world discovered what Chris had seen as shame. But Zach had taken it all in stride, had seen that Chris was taking the Big Reveal harder than he was. So he had been patient with him, gentle, his rock, his guide through waters that were too deep for him to swim alone. Even when Chris pushed him away and declared that really, Zach was part of the problem, he had let him go - Chris’ needs over his own once again.
And then he’d come home, declaring his love like a bloodstained warrior - the guilt of his actions still running red down his own personal armour. Oh yes, he loved Zach with everything that was in him but not enough for him to be the one he turned to, the one whom, with one night of passion could reveal the very centre of him. No, he proved all of Zach’s fears right when he left him to fend for himself, one wolf amongst a pack of hyenas.
There was no fourth day of waiting or planning. Chris just sat at home, with the phone cradled in his hand. One phone call after the other, until the answer tape filled up and he was cut off, letting the phone fall with a muffled thunk to the carpet. Everything felt so wrong as he lay down on the couch, one arm flung over his eyes, the other fisted tightly around Zach’s pillow.
“So listen up, Zach. I refuse to believe that’s it’s only me that’s feeling this. It’s love on the line, okay? Please just hear me out. I’m not over you yet.”
The call was unexpected and it woke Chris abruptly from his cramped sleep on the couch. Blindly sweeping the floor for the phone, he managed instead to knock it under the sofa in his haste. Panicking now, he rolled himself onto the floor and reached into the dust-filled darkness beneath the couch. The phone kept insisting in strident tones that he answer it and Chris grunted in satisfaction when the tips of his fingers finally found it.
“Hello?”
“It’s me.”
Well? Chris had been waiting, praying for days that Zach would speak to him, answer his calls and now as he sat, legs outstretched on the floor of his living room, his mind was a blank slate. Not a single coherent thought crossed his mind and all he was, all he could be now was holding breath.
Neither man seemed anxious to break the silence; instead each listened to the quiet murmur of breath from the other, as it crossed the stretch of the phone lines.
A shift of movement from Zach’s end spurred Chris’ mouth into motion and he blurted the first thing he could think of.
“How’s Noah?”
“Noah’s good, he’s fine.”
Such short sentences, Chris thought, from a man so gifted in language.
“And you? How are you... doing?”
A shift into more dangerous territory here and Chris could only pray that the little luck he had left would hold with him a little longer.
“You know me,” Zach said, “I always bounce back.”
A shiver of something ran down Chris’ spine like ice dropped down the back of a shirt.
“I’m glad that you’re letting me talk to you.”
That had to be a good sign, right?
“No point leaving you hanging, Chris. I don’t hate you, as much as Joe says I should.”
That hurt Chris more than he had expected - losing Joe’s respect was second only to losing Zach’s.
“No,” Zach continued, “I don’t hate you and as much as what you did hurt me... I owe you this conversation.”
“Did... did you get my messages?” Chris asked. It seemed important that Zach understand how hard he was trying.
Silence on the line, then:
“Yes... yes I did get them but... I needed time to get my head together, take a few steps back, you know?”
Oh how well Chris knew - Zach’s words were a passionless echo of his own foolish sentiments a week earlier.
“Yeah, sure,” he stammered.
“Yeah. Anyway - there’s a job that’s Sarah’s been trying to get me to do for a while and I’ve decided to take it. It’s-uh... it’s in New York,” Zach nearly scoffed the last few words, “which I s’pose should be funny. I’m heading out this Friday.”
Friday. Friday? That was three days away.
“For how long?” Chris’ voice was strangled.
“Don’t know exactly, a few months at least.”
And so this was how they were going to end - not with a bang but a whimper. Everything he had hoped for, stripped away by his own stupidity.
“What about us? This?... You’re just leaving?”
“Sound familiar does it?” Zach accused before he sighed in exhaustion, “Look, let’s not do this, okay? Let’s just end this quietly - no screaming, no accusations. I’m tired of all the emotions that I have to feel around you, Chris, I want to feel steady again, I want to be on solid ground again. I never really was with you.”
The plastic shell of the phone creaked as Chris held it in a bone-crushingly tight embrace, while words fled from his lips.
“Maybe in a year or so, when Trek comes back around we can be friends again. I’d like that,” Zach said, sounding almost surprised at is own wish.
“What do I do?” Chris asked, lost in the blinding sunlight of his living room.
“Just... go back to normal,” Zach replied, “everything should be easier for you now. No big decisions, no friends asking more than you can give. Just go back to being Chris Pine.”
The way Zach said it, as if he really meant it...
“Normal. So how do I do normal? Fake a smile? Take a new job and follow that eternal line of cue cards and fix it kits? Can’t you tell? That’s not me anymore!”
Another sigh coasting over the phone.
“I don’t think you know who you are, Chris. I hope someday you figure it out, I really do - truly but I can’t let you drag me through all of that with you. Nearly a year of it - watching from near and far and... It’s too intense, too painful. You’re like a constant arrow through my heart.
“Let me fix it, please,” Chris pleaded. “These last few days... I’ve been like a slow motion accident - everything I do feels so catastrophically wrong without you. God I don’t wanna feel anything, Zach but I do. And it all comes back to you; it always comes back to you.”
“Finally we agree,” Zach replied calmly, “because I don’t want to feel this anymore either.”
“Please!” Chris whispered - he could feel his throat tightening as tears threatened but he shut them down with a ruthless force of will - he wouldn’t let Zach hear him like this, he wouldn’t play that card, “just hear me out.”
“I can’t.”
“We’re in this together.”
“Not anymore.”
“This is love on the line!”
“I know.”
“Please, I can’t take this!”
“Neither can I!”
“I can’t do this without you, Zach.”
“You have to - because you’re no good for me. I have to move on from you, Chris. I have to strive for something safer, something better.”
Something stuck hard in his throat and Chris wanted to reach through the phone for Zachary’s hand. Even now, at the end of all things, he reached for Zach - that one, last shining strand of light in his life.
“Is that your final answer?” he asked but it was a formality - that light was already dimming.
“Goodbye Chris,” Zach replied, “Stay safe. Please.”
Then there was only the dial tone and the harsh sound of a man who refuses to cry as his world falls down around him.
It was the day of Zach’s departure and Chris found himself walking along a beach while the sharp wind pulled eddies of sand into existence around his legs.
Near five o’clock he found a dune that was reasonably uncrowded and settled down, his arms wrapped around his legs. He stared out at the gently washing sea as it shimmered with orange-gold fire and conjured images of dark hair and darker eyes emerging from the water - salt-washed and sun-warmed - just another chance at memory that he’d destroyed. There would be no gold-washed beach remembrances, no crazy restaurant anecdotes, no bizarre at-home antics, told to friends on a drunken night of beer and movies.
At five-fifteen only the sky and his watch held his attention. He liked to think that he knew when Zachary’s feet left LA soil but some harsher part of him pulled his romantic wishes apart - they had done him no good, they had no place here anymore.
At five-thirty Chris Pine left his gold and silver dreams behind in the swirling sand of the ever-shifting dunes.
Part Ten
Fandom: RPF
Pairing: Pinto
Series Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em, just love 'em
Warnings: long-term angst
Summary: Part 9 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.
Hear Me Out is track 8 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 Hear Me Out
A/N:Phew. Okay so some of you may love this chapter, some of you may hate it. I hope I found a balance.
“You have... six new messages...”
“Hey. I’m joining the queue on your answer phone... and all I am is holding breath.”
It felt like he’d been home for weeks - trapped in the same pattern of thought: ‘I have to find a way to fix this, I have to find a way, I have to.’
He’d spent the first day walking around his house, tracing the same route over and over, picking apart everything that he and Zach had said to each other. He tried to concentrate on how he could fix things and get Zach to forgive him but every time he tried, every time, all he could hear were Zach’s bitter words whispered in his ear:
‘I didn’t think you were that much of a coward, Pine... Any chance we had, you ruined’.
There had to be a way to fix this. He’d done a terrible thing but Zach loved him, he’d forgive him, he’d understand what happened, if Chris could just find the right thing to say.
His New York luggage still lay unpacked on the floor of his bedroom that night when he went to sleep. Or rather, tried to sleep - peaceful oblivion seemed wrong and the Sandman was nowhere to be seen. In his absence he left an eternal loop of that soul-ripping moment, when a solitary tear had slid down Zach’s face.
Eventually he fell into dreams but they were dark and unforgiving - trails of aching pain and moans unheard in the dark. He dreamt that Zach and he stood on the edge of a waterfall, the roar of it filling their ears with thunderous power. Zach turned to him, his face spattered with droplets of water and smiled so beautifully at Chris that he felt his fear at standing by the precipice melt away. Zach said something to him as his smile fell into solemnity but Chris couldn’t hear it over the roar of the water. He shouted at Zach to repeat it and Zach tried again... and again... and again but every time Chris felt only the faintest of voices grace his ears. When he again shook his head in frustration, Zach placed his hands over his heart and smiled once more but this time it gave Chris no comfort to witness. If the first had been full of laughter and light, this was filled with the most unbearable sadness, sadness and soul-shattering resignation. Before Chris could reach out a hand to bring Zach to him, Zach had turned and stepped, without hesitation over the edge of the roaring waterfall, leaving Chris screaming into the mists of water and dreams.
He was covered in cold sweat when he woke and before he had even registered the thought, he was turning to the bedside phone, searching for waiting messages in the lights of the LCD display. Nothing there and the cold dread of the dream washed over him again. The shadows were pale and long as they speared through his window - very early morning.
There was nothing to keep him in bed so he forced himself to get up, get dressed, have breakfast. His New York bags were taunting him when he returned to the bedroom so he dumped their contents onto the bed and made a pile for washing and one for putting away.
Opening the door of his walk in closet he began to systematically put away all of his shirts, pausing when he hung his steel blue shirt next to a very familiar skin tight top with black and white stripes. It was quirky and a little Village People and so undeniably Zach that it looked out of place, cast as it was against the backdrop of his own orderly shirts and cardigans. Chris stood frozen in the fear of that moment, the fear that very soon the shirt could be gone from his wardrobe, along with all of the other small minutiae that reminded Chris of Zach’s presence in his life. That god awful hat that still hung on the stand by his front door, the pillow that Zach had insisted made sitting on his couch more comfortable.
And all of a sudden putting his shirts away beside Zach’s seemed wrong.
Chris reached out a hand and pulled a black and white sleeve closer to him, rubbing his thumb over the thin, stretchy material. The desire to bury his face in the shirt and inhale Zach’s scent was almost overwhelming and Chris found himself unwilling to fight it.
Pulling the shirt to him, he closed his eyes and took the deepest breath he could, letting the flashing stream of images and memories it provoked wash over him like water. And Chris knew that for as long as he lived, if he ever caught that scent riding on the wind he would think of Zach, would expect him to be standing there, waiting for him as he turned to meet that perfume.
He made a sound of frustration and let the shirt slip back amongst the forest of tops, its monochrome appearance still standing out starkly against the muted colours.
“Just pick up, I know you’re there. Can’t you tell? I’m not myself...”
That second day Chris spent cleaning up his house, doing the washing, tidying floors and shelves, cleaning out the refrigerator. Every step, every moment felt wrong - the sweep of a broom over his kitchen floor felt like patting a dog’s fur the wrong way. Once he was done he found himself sitting on the edge of the couch, clutching Zach’s pillow to his chest. He stared into space for who knew how long, willing himself to come up with something, anything. An idea or the shadow of a plan but Zach’s voice kept intruding:
‘Fuck, I don’t know if I can believe a word you say sometimes...’
Chris groaned and pulled his hands through his hair, this wasn’t helping - he need to get out and actually do something.
He headed into the city, walking by shop after shop - each one feeling wrong, feeling off. Finding a small cafe he sat down and ordered one, then two, then four lattes and lost himself in the coffee rings and fingerprints until the light began to fade over the tops of the trees. He took out his cell phone and scrolled to Zach’s number, staring at it in the late afternoon LA light.
“Go ahead and lie to me, you can say anything. Small talk would be just fine. It’s your voice that’s everything.”
By the third day, the ache in Chris’ chest was a dull, constant companion, the lost little brother of Zach’s grief. Life was moving on as it always did - a pitiless slave driver, cold to pleas for sympathy. Chris found himself jogging by Zach’s house on his morning run but he didn’t dare stop - Zach’s curtains were drawn tight and there were no reassuring barks from Noah, a cacophony of sound welcoming friends and burglars alike. The house felt wrong as did the presence of the paparazzi outside and Chris spared a moment to wonder how all of this heartbreak would play after their official statement announcing that he and Zach were involved. They had worded that document so carefully. Revealing everything that they couldn’t hide but making no allusions to a ‘relationship’ or anything more than the kiss that had been witnessed would reveal. Chris had made sure that love wasn’t mentioned at all. Oh, he’d been so careful to shield himself - to take the revelations over his sexuality but not the seriousness of his feelings for Zach... or Zach’s feelings for him. He’d managed to keep himself so distant from Zach that this infidelity must seem like the last nail in the coffin for Zach. This wasn’t just one show of unreliability on his part; it was the culmination of their entire relationship, from beginning to end.
Chris made sure he was around the corner and well out of sight of the cameras before he stumbled to a halt and grabbed for balance against the cool scrape of a white stucco wall.
From beginning to end. He been friendly to Zach on set, then he’d shut him out, ignored him, accused him, wished him away. Zach threw all of his feelings into one desperate last chance and Chris dismissed him, got angry, got scared, got Zach away from him. Then they finally found a way to be friends again and Chris pushed Zach into breaking all of the delicate walls he had put up to shield himself from getting hurt in one selfish moment of desperate need, only to throw it back in his face when the world discovered what Chris had seen as shame. But Zach had taken it all in stride, had seen that Chris was taking the Big Reveal harder than he was. So he had been patient with him, gentle, his rock, his guide through waters that were too deep for him to swim alone. Even when Chris pushed him away and declared that really, Zach was part of the problem, he had let him go - Chris’ needs over his own once again.
And then he’d come home, declaring his love like a bloodstained warrior - the guilt of his actions still running red down his own personal armour. Oh yes, he loved Zach with everything that was in him but not enough for him to be the one he turned to, the one whom, with one night of passion could reveal the very centre of him. No, he proved all of Zach’s fears right when he left him to fend for himself, one wolf amongst a pack of hyenas.
There was no fourth day of waiting or planning. Chris just sat at home, with the phone cradled in his hand. One phone call after the other, until the answer tape filled up and he was cut off, letting the phone fall with a muffled thunk to the carpet. Everything felt so wrong as he lay down on the couch, one arm flung over his eyes, the other fisted tightly around Zach’s pillow.
“So listen up, Zach. I refuse to believe that’s it’s only me that’s feeling this. It’s love on the line, okay? Please just hear me out. I’m not over you yet.”
The call was unexpected and it woke Chris abruptly from his cramped sleep on the couch. Blindly sweeping the floor for the phone, he managed instead to knock it under the sofa in his haste. Panicking now, he rolled himself onto the floor and reached into the dust-filled darkness beneath the couch. The phone kept insisting in strident tones that he answer it and Chris grunted in satisfaction when the tips of his fingers finally found it.
“Hello?”
“It’s me.”
Well? Chris had been waiting, praying for days that Zach would speak to him, answer his calls and now as he sat, legs outstretched on the floor of his living room, his mind was a blank slate. Not a single coherent thought crossed his mind and all he was, all he could be now was holding breath.
Neither man seemed anxious to break the silence; instead each listened to the quiet murmur of breath from the other, as it crossed the stretch of the phone lines.
A shift of movement from Zach’s end spurred Chris’ mouth into motion and he blurted the first thing he could think of.
“How’s Noah?”
“Noah’s good, he’s fine.”
Such short sentences, Chris thought, from a man so gifted in language.
“And you? How are you... doing?”
A shift into more dangerous territory here and Chris could only pray that the little luck he had left would hold with him a little longer.
“You know me,” Zach said, “I always bounce back.”
A shiver of something ran down Chris’ spine like ice dropped down the back of a shirt.
“I’m glad that you’re letting me talk to you.”
That had to be a good sign, right?
“No point leaving you hanging, Chris. I don’t hate you, as much as Joe says I should.”
That hurt Chris more than he had expected - losing Joe’s respect was second only to losing Zach’s.
“No,” Zach continued, “I don’t hate you and as much as what you did hurt me... I owe you this conversation.”
“Did... did you get my messages?” Chris asked. It seemed important that Zach understand how hard he was trying.
Silence on the line, then:
“Yes... yes I did get them but... I needed time to get my head together, take a few steps back, you know?”
Oh how well Chris knew - Zach’s words were a passionless echo of his own foolish sentiments a week earlier.
“Yeah, sure,” he stammered.
“Yeah. Anyway - there’s a job that’s Sarah’s been trying to get me to do for a while and I’ve decided to take it. It’s-uh... it’s in New York,” Zach nearly scoffed the last few words, “which I s’pose should be funny. I’m heading out this Friday.”
Friday. Friday? That was three days away.
“For how long?” Chris’ voice was strangled.
“Don’t know exactly, a few months at least.”
And so this was how they were going to end - not with a bang but a whimper. Everything he had hoped for, stripped away by his own stupidity.
“What about us? This?... You’re just leaving?”
“Sound familiar does it?” Zach accused before he sighed in exhaustion, “Look, let’s not do this, okay? Let’s just end this quietly - no screaming, no accusations. I’m tired of all the emotions that I have to feel around you, Chris, I want to feel steady again, I want to be on solid ground again. I never really was with you.”
The plastic shell of the phone creaked as Chris held it in a bone-crushingly tight embrace, while words fled from his lips.
“Maybe in a year or so, when Trek comes back around we can be friends again. I’d like that,” Zach said, sounding almost surprised at is own wish.
“What do I do?” Chris asked, lost in the blinding sunlight of his living room.
“Just... go back to normal,” Zach replied, “everything should be easier for you now. No big decisions, no friends asking more than you can give. Just go back to being Chris Pine.”
The way Zach said it, as if he really meant it...
“Normal. So how do I do normal? Fake a smile? Take a new job and follow that eternal line of cue cards and fix it kits? Can’t you tell? That’s not me anymore!”
Another sigh coasting over the phone.
“I don’t think you know who you are, Chris. I hope someday you figure it out, I really do - truly but I can’t let you drag me through all of that with you. Nearly a year of it - watching from near and far and... It’s too intense, too painful. You’re like a constant arrow through my heart.
“Let me fix it, please,” Chris pleaded. “These last few days... I’ve been like a slow motion accident - everything I do feels so catastrophically wrong without you. God I don’t wanna feel anything, Zach but I do. And it all comes back to you; it always comes back to you.”
“Finally we agree,” Zach replied calmly, “because I don’t want to feel this anymore either.”
“Please!” Chris whispered - he could feel his throat tightening as tears threatened but he shut them down with a ruthless force of will - he wouldn’t let Zach hear him like this, he wouldn’t play that card, “just hear me out.”
“I can’t.”
“We’re in this together.”
“Not anymore.”
“This is love on the line!”
“I know.”
“Please, I can’t take this!”
“Neither can I!”
“I can’t do this without you, Zach.”
“You have to - because you’re no good for me. I have to move on from you, Chris. I have to strive for something safer, something better.”
Something stuck hard in his throat and Chris wanted to reach through the phone for Zachary’s hand. Even now, at the end of all things, he reached for Zach - that one, last shining strand of light in his life.
“Is that your final answer?” he asked but it was a formality - that light was already dimming.
“Goodbye Chris,” Zach replied, “Stay safe. Please.”
Then there was only the dial tone and the harsh sound of a man who refuses to cry as his world falls down around him.
It was the day of Zach’s departure and Chris found himself walking along a beach while the sharp wind pulled eddies of sand into existence around his legs.
Near five o’clock he found a dune that was reasonably uncrowded and settled down, his arms wrapped around his legs. He stared out at the gently washing sea as it shimmered with orange-gold fire and conjured images of dark hair and darker eyes emerging from the water - salt-washed and sun-warmed - just another chance at memory that he’d destroyed. There would be no gold-washed beach remembrances, no crazy restaurant anecdotes, no bizarre at-home antics, told to friends on a drunken night of beer and movies.
At five-fifteen only the sky and his watch held his attention. He liked to think that he knew when Zachary’s feet left LA soil but some harsher part of him pulled his romantic wishes apart - they had done him no good, they had no place here anymore.
At five-thirty Chris Pine left his gold and silver dreams behind in the swirling sand of the ever-shifting dunes.
Part Ten