Fic: Five Reasonably Interesting... (Chris/Mitch, R)
Title: Five Reasonably Interesting, Albeit Useless, Things Mitch Taylor Has Learned About Chris Knight
Author: Aspen (humanhosepipe@gmail.com)
Pairing: Chris/Mitch
Rating: R
Warnings: Slash.
Notes: My second RG fic. I like this one much more. Tons of thanks to allthewayhome for the encouragement.
-01-
"I don't really want the Darlington job," said Chris one day.
"What?" Mitch was aghast. "Why not? It's a job most graduates would kill for! A high-paying position in a specialized corporation like Darlington doesn't come along every day, and you're seriously saying you don't want it?"
"Well," said a cross-eyed Chris, concentrating hard on the pencil he was balancing on the bridge of his nose, "I only wanted it for two reasons. One, Sherry Nugil. Two, the Jacuzzi. Three, Kent wanted it, and I take hedonistic pleasure in denying Kent his fondest desires."
"...That's three reasons," said Mitch.
"Well, Sherry Nugil is no longer in the picture," Chris replied. "Unless, of course, we are referring to 'the wedding picture,' in which case she is in several."
Mitch took a moment to shake his head, as if it would help him clear his thoughts. Chris, apparently, also took pleasure in putting Mitch's thoughts into a disarray not unlike the mess of laundry and soda cans on the floor.
"Wait, though," he insisted, slamming a library book shut and turning in his desk seat so he could look at Chris, who lost the pencil with a clatter when he straightened and stared back at Mitch. "Are you saying you aren't going to take it? You're going to let Kent have it?"
"Well, I don't really think he's is in the proper state of mind to take the job, do you?" Chris asked. "Besides, Kent only answers to one man now: Jesus Christ. That could prove problematic for the head honchos at Darlington."
"Don't dodge the question," grinned Mitch. "Are you taking the job, or not?"
"Oh, I suppose!" Chris huffed. "Has anyone ever told you that it's rude to hound?"
-02-
Chris's parents were divorced, and his father worked on Wall Street as a professional yuppie. His mother lived in West Virginia, and she was a secretary who wore large shoulder pads and was involved in an adulterous affair with her boss, and who was also often on the phone when Mitch visited Chris's office at Darlington for lunch.
"Yes, Mother, I know," Chris would say, pulling at his ragged flamingo tie and miming hanging himself for Mitch's amusement. "Yes... I know. Well, we can't all be engineers working tirelessly for the betterment of mankind... No, I'm sorry, I'm just too busy right now - I've got a dozen projects on the line. Now, I have to go, my boss is here, looking at me sternly! ...Yes, Mother, I love you too. 'Bye."
Chris's lunch hour was directly after Mitch's last class of the morning on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and Darlington was down the street from Luigi's Pizza, so Mitch would ride his bike to the Darlington building, with its basket full of his text books and legal pads, and they'd walk to Luigi's for a fat, cheesy fifty-cent slice or two. Mitch had shot up over the summer, but they still looked a mismatched pair, with skinny Mitch tripping in his own Reeboks and Chris shrugging along in his loose-fitting business suit, tie lank and loose, gold hair a mess of Einsteinian proportions.
"Why does your mom call you so much?" Mitch had asked once, bewildered.
Chris drizzled his pizza in ranch dressing, which was one of his more disgusting quirks. Mitch had never quite gotten used to it.
"Oh, she's trying to set me up with her friend Linda's receptionist," he replied, through licks of his fingers. "She keeps saying, 'She's just entry-level, and she can't work the phones very well, but she's such a nice, sweet girl, Chrissy!'"
"But you live in California," said Mitch. "Thousands of miles away."
Chris eyed him as he took a long sip of Dr. Pepper through his straw.
"The farthest I can get without crossing an ocean."
Other than the receptionist, there were numbers for a co-worker's niece, a sister, someone's nurse practitioner, a lonely mother-in-law, and a hairdresser on Chris's Rolodex. As far as Mitch knew, though, Chris still preferred Wanda Trussler co-eds.
-03-
Chris was not above scheming and bribing and manipulation, which he said he learned by working at Darlington.
"I'm thinking of moving in with Ick. Also, I'm thinking of growing a full beard. I think it would be better for my image."
"Really?"
"By 'my image' I of course mean 'my work clothes.'" Frowning, Chris used Mitch's napkin to dab at the ketchup spot that sat over his heart like a bullet wound. "They could really use the rugged protection a beard would provide -- hey. There's no need to actually grow one, is there? I'll just steal some of Kent's dickies."
"But I thought you wanted, you know, a bachelor pad. What are you moving in with Ick for?" Mitch asked, his Big Mac forgotten.
"I'm not."
"But you said you're thinking of it."
"I am. There's something I've discovered about 'real life,' Mitch. Something that really depresses me."
Even with a piece of french fry hanging out of his mouth and sipping on a Coca-Cola, Chris somehow managed to look serious enough that Mitch felt a flicker of worry, imagining how unable he would be to handle real life if Chris Knight was depressed by it. "What is it?"
Chris said, "It's called... dishes."
"You eat out every day," Mitch pointed out flatly.
"Yes," Chris acknowledged with a ketchup-cornered smile, "because I've run out of dishes."
Mitch had only been to Chris' apartment twice. The first time had been when Chris had only just moved in and everything was still somewhat empty; the second time it had greatly resembled what had been their dorm room until the beginning of the school year, which was Mitch's second. There were posters on all the walls, a disturbing life-size cardboard cut-out of Leia Organa in her metal bikini, at least five immediately visible cans of soda, and a pair of panties on the arm of the saggy blue couch. He could easily imagine a mountain of dishes in the sink.
"Have you tried... you know, washing some?"
"Mitch!" exclaimed Chris. "Don't complicate things."
This just made Mitch laugh. Under the too-small, plasticy McDonald's table, his knee struck Chris's, and Chris lifted an eyebrow and responded with a challenging, rather-bone rattling whack back. Grinning, Mitch gallantly kicked Chris in the shin, prompting Chris to mouth "Ow!" and mock-angrily throw Mitch's napkin back at him. It was swatted aside.
"So you're moving in with Ick because you think he'll do dishes for you?"
"That is not at all what I said. Your brain works in mysterious ways."
"Well, why are you thinking of moving in with him, then?" asked Mitch pointedly.
"You've seen Ick, right?" said Chris. "He's a good-looking man."
Mitch had just remembered his Big Mac, and paused mid-bite to stare at Chris, who held his measuring expression for another moment before cracking into a smile. Chewing clumsily, Mitch gave an annoyed exhale through his nostrils and a good, resentful stare to Chris.
"Nah, I need a roommate for top-secret my-rent's-been-raised purposes," said Chris lightly. "I require my paycheck be split among pain and pleasure, and lately there's been a little too much pain in the form of electricity bills. Who knew experimenting with laser technology would use up so much power?"
That made Mitch forget totally about trying to find Ick attractive. "You're experimenting with laser tech at home? In your apartment? Are you sure that's safe? What if you blast a hole through your wall and hit the person in the apartment next to you?"
"Well, that's a chance I'm willing to take." As Mitch's eyebrows inched up higher and higher, Chris added, "You won't let that happen, though, will you, Mitch? Think about it. We've already proven that we can co-exist in relative harmony. Also consider, if you please, life without Jerry Hathaway knocking on your door in the middle of the night wanting you to construct a papier mâché model of the inner ear for his show."
He just smiled, and after polishing off his Big Mac and enduring five minutes of Chris smiling at him, Mitch said, "Oh, all right. I just gotta ask my parents."
-04-
"What? Oh, I never wear underwear anymore," said Chris. "Too constricting. Mitch, what? It's just a penis."
-05-
Chris laughed when he came.
It was just another one of those things that weirded Mitch out at first, much like the ranch dressing on things ranch dressing ought never touch, the daily phone calls from Chris's mother, Princess Leia staring relentlessly from the corner of the living room, and the fact that Chris often liked to walk around in nothing but fuzzy slippers in the morning.
These things aside, it was extremely easy to move in with him; Mitch did the dishes, provided Chris took out the garbage, and while Mitch went to class, Chris worked. When Mitch had a test coming up, Chris would quiz him, and when Chris had a morning business meeting, Mitch would buy him a pity slice of pizza. There was always laundry everywhere, and sometimes Jordan would come over and maniacally wash and fold it all in tight, neat little stacks. Their underwear would end up rolled together. It worked.
Mitch had his own room, but often, Chris was in it, and they would lay side-by-side on Mitch's twin bed, crammed together at the elbows and staring up at the ceiling (which had been affixed with glow-in-the-dark stars, courtesy of Mitch's mother and arranged in constellations at Chris's insistence). In the dark, the noises of their hands working, slicked with lotion, seemed overwhelmingly loud, and their knees would knock and grind together slowly, and Chris would laugh, haltingly, hysterically under his breath as he lost it.
Definitely weird at first, and then, it would make Mitch groan, and Chris would reach over, hand sticky, and pull him along, as always.
These things just sort of happened when you lived with an experimental nudist who never took no for an answer.
Author: Aspen (humanhosepipe@gmail.com)
Pairing: Chris/Mitch
Rating: R
Warnings: Slash.
Notes: My second RG fic. I like this one much more. Tons of thanks to allthewayhome for the encouragement.
-01-
"I don't really want the Darlington job," said Chris one day.
"What?" Mitch was aghast. "Why not? It's a job most graduates would kill for! A high-paying position in a specialized corporation like Darlington doesn't come along every day, and you're seriously saying you don't want it?"
"Well," said a cross-eyed Chris, concentrating hard on the pencil he was balancing on the bridge of his nose, "I only wanted it for two reasons. One, Sherry Nugil. Two, the Jacuzzi. Three, Kent wanted it, and I take hedonistic pleasure in denying Kent his fondest desires."
"...That's three reasons," said Mitch.
"Well, Sherry Nugil is no longer in the picture," Chris replied. "Unless, of course, we are referring to 'the wedding picture,' in which case she is in several."
Mitch took a moment to shake his head, as if it would help him clear his thoughts. Chris, apparently, also took pleasure in putting Mitch's thoughts into a disarray not unlike the mess of laundry and soda cans on the floor.
"Wait, though," he insisted, slamming a library book shut and turning in his desk seat so he could look at Chris, who lost the pencil with a clatter when he straightened and stared back at Mitch. "Are you saying you aren't going to take it? You're going to let Kent have it?"
"Well, I don't really think he's is in the proper state of mind to take the job, do you?" Chris asked. "Besides, Kent only answers to one man now: Jesus Christ. That could prove problematic for the head honchos at Darlington."
"Don't dodge the question," grinned Mitch. "Are you taking the job, or not?"
"Oh, I suppose!" Chris huffed. "Has anyone ever told you that it's rude to hound?"
-02-
Chris's parents were divorced, and his father worked on Wall Street as a professional yuppie. His mother lived in West Virginia, and she was a secretary who wore large shoulder pads and was involved in an adulterous affair with her boss, and who was also often on the phone when Mitch visited Chris's office at Darlington for lunch.
"Yes, Mother, I know," Chris would say, pulling at his ragged flamingo tie and miming hanging himself for Mitch's amusement. "Yes... I know. Well, we can't all be engineers working tirelessly for the betterment of mankind... No, I'm sorry, I'm just too busy right now - I've got a dozen projects on the line. Now, I have to go, my boss is here, looking at me sternly! ...Yes, Mother, I love you too. 'Bye."
Chris's lunch hour was directly after Mitch's last class of the morning on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and Darlington was down the street from Luigi's Pizza, so Mitch would ride his bike to the Darlington building, with its basket full of his text books and legal pads, and they'd walk to Luigi's for a fat, cheesy fifty-cent slice or two. Mitch had shot up over the summer, but they still looked a mismatched pair, with skinny Mitch tripping in his own Reeboks and Chris shrugging along in his loose-fitting business suit, tie lank and loose, gold hair a mess of Einsteinian proportions.
"Why does your mom call you so much?" Mitch had asked once, bewildered.
Chris drizzled his pizza in ranch dressing, which was one of his more disgusting quirks. Mitch had never quite gotten used to it.
"Oh, she's trying to set me up with her friend Linda's receptionist," he replied, through licks of his fingers. "She keeps saying, 'She's just entry-level, and she can't work the phones very well, but she's such a nice, sweet girl, Chrissy!'"
"But you live in California," said Mitch. "Thousands of miles away."
Chris eyed him as he took a long sip of Dr. Pepper through his straw.
"The farthest I can get without crossing an ocean."
Other than the receptionist, there were numbers for a co-worker's niece, a sister, someone's nurse practitioner, a lonely mother-in-law, and a hairdresser on Chris's Rolodex. As far as Mitch knew, though, Chris still preferred Wanda Trussler co-eds.
-03-
Chris was not above scheming and bribing and manipulation, which he said he learned by working at Darlington.
"I'm thinking of moving in with Ick. Also, I'm thinking of growing a full beard. I think it would be better for my image."
"Really?"
"By 'my image' I of course mean 'my work clothes.'" Frowning, Chris used Mitch's napkin to dab at the ketchup spot that sat over his heart like a bullet wound. "They could really use the rugged protection a beard would provide -- hey. There's no need to actually grow one, is there? I'll just steal some of Kent's dickies."
"But I thought you wanted, you know, a bachelor pad. What are you moving in with Ick for?" Mitch asked, his Big Mac forgotten.
"I'm not."
"But you said you're thinking of it."
"I am. There's something I've discovered about 'real life,' Mitch. Something that really depresses me."
Even with a piece of french fry hanging out of his mouth and sipping on a Coca-Cola, Chris somehow managed to look serious enough that Mitch felt a flicker of worry, imagining how unable he would be to handle real life if Chris Knight was depressed by it. "What is it?"
Chris said, "It's called... dishes."
"You eat out every day," Mitch pointed out flatly.
"Yes," Chris acknowledged with a ketchup-cornered smile, "because I've run out of dishes."
Mitch had only been to Chris' apartment twice. The first time had been when Chris had only just moved in and everything was still somewhat empty; the second time it had greatly resembled what had been their dorm room until the beginning of the school year, which was Mitch's second. There were posters on all the walls, a disturbing life-size cardboard cut-out of Leia Organa in her metal bikini, at least five immediately visible cans of soda, and a pair of panties on the arm of the saggy blue couch. He could easily imagine a mountain of dishes in the sink.
"Have you tried... you know, washing some?"
"Mitch!" exclaimed Chris. "Don't complicate things."
This just made Mitch laugh. Under the too-small, plasticy McDonald's table, his knee struck Chris's, and Chris lifted an eyebrow and responded with a challenging, rather-bone rattling whack back. Grinning, Mitch gallantly kicked Chris in the shin, prompting Chris to mouth "Ow!" and mock-angrily throw Mitch's napkin back at him. It was swatted aside.
"So you're moving in with Ick because you think he'll do dishes for you?"
"That is not at all what I said. Your brain works in mysterious ways."
"Well, why are you thinking of moving in with him, then?" asked Mitch pointedly.
"You've seen Ick, right?" said Chris. "He's a good-looking man."
Mitch had just remembered his Big Mac, and paused mid-bite to stare at Chris, who held his measuring expression for another moment before cracking into a smile. Chewing clumsily, Mitch gave an annoyed exhale through his nostrils and a good, resentful stare to Chris.
"Nah, I need a roommate for top-secret my-rent's-been-raised purposes," said Chris lightly. "I require my paycheck be split among pain and pleasure, and lately there's been a little too much pain in the form of electricity bills. Who knew experimenting with laser technology would use up so much power?"
That made Mitch forget totally about trying to find Ick attractive. "You're experimenting with laser tech at home? In your apartment? Are you sure that's safe? What if you blast a hole through your wall and hit the person in the apartment next to you?"
"Well, that's a chance I'm willing to take." As Mitch's eyebrows inched up higher and higher, Chris added, "You won't let that happen, though, will you, Mitch? Think about it. We've already proven that we can co-exist in relative harmony. Also consider, if you please, life without Jerry Hathaway knocking on your door in the middle of the night wanting you to construct a papier mâché model of the inner ear for his show."
He just smiled, and after polishing off his Big Mac and enduring five minutes of Chris smiling at him, Mitch said, "Oh, all right. I just gotta ask my parents."
-04-
"What? Oh, I never wear underwear anymore," said Chris. "Too constricting. Mitch, what? It's just a penis."
-05-
Chris laughed when he came.
It was just another one of those things that weirded Mitch out at first, much like the ranch dressing on things ranch dressing ought never touch, the daily phone calls from Chris's mother, Princess Leia staring relentlessly from the corner of the living room, and the fact that Chris often liked to walk around in nothing but fuzzy slippers in the morning.
These things aside, it was extremely easy to move in with him; Mitch did the dishes, provided Chris took out the garbage, and while Mitch went to class, Chris worked. When Mitch had a test coming up, Chris would quiz him, and when Chris had a morning business meeting, Mitch would buy him a pity slice of pizza. There was always laundry everywhere, and sometimes Jordan would come over and maniacally wash and fold it all in tight, neat little stacks. Their underwear would end up rolled together. It worked.
Mitch had his own room, but often, Chris was in it, and they would lay side-by-side on Mitch's twin bed, crammed together at the elbows and staring up at the ceiling (which had been affixed with glow-in-the-dark stars, courtesy of Mitch's mother and arranged in constellations at Chris's insistence). In the dark, the noises of their hands working, slicked with lotion, seemed overwhelmingly loud, and their knees would knock and grind together slowly, and Chris would laugh, haltingly, hysterically under his breath as he lost it.
Definitely weird at first, and then, it would make Mitch groan, and Chris would reach over, hand sticky, and pull him along, as always.
These things just sort of happened when you lived with an experimental nudist who never took no for an answer.