Popslash Fic: Your Feet Know the Rhythm (Chris/JC, R)
OMG! Zombies have broken into my house and made me write TrickC fic! My favorite kind of zombies. :D
Title: Your Feet Know the Rhythm
Pairing: Chris/JC (Popslash)
Length: 3200 words
Notes: audrarose still loves me enough to beta boyband fics for me! Thanks, hon! *hugs*
Summary: It was always a shame to cover up cute toes with socks.
Your Feet Know the Rhythm
By Sori
It was always a shame to cover up cute toes with socks. At least, that was one of JC’s life mottos. Maybe not the most important motto, no, but it was hard to argue with something that had generally worked pretty well so far.
So, really, he wasn’t shocked when Chris said, “You want me to wear what for the shoot?” because Chris, the poor guy, just did not have cute feet. They were stubby and small, squat like his body, and he had dark hair on his toes that the make-up women were debating whether to shave or to wax.
JC probably wouldn’t feel much love for open-toed shoes if toe waxing was the lead-in conversation.
But Chris had always been dedicated to the band so he smiled at them evilly, grabbed the nearest razor, and settled the argument with ten quick swipes of the blade. “Behold, women. Cute, hairless toes,” he said, walking over to where Joey was curled over in laughter and poked him hard in the side. “You’re next man. Just wait.”
Eventually, the photographer lined them up and sat them down; their hair was scrunched more on top, jackets were moved an inch to the left, and Chris bitched about the wrongness of cold feet and sweaty ‘pits because it was just not natural for leather jackets and flip-flops to go together.
JC laughed when Joey nudged him with his knee, and JC made a point of noticing Joey’s newly smooth-as-a-baby’s-ass big toes, and somehow the two hours went by faster than usual.
Later, Chris flopped down on the couch in their dressing room and kicked his legs into JC’s lap. “Hey, check out my toes. I think I need a toe ring.”
“Man, you need socks,” JC said, pushing at Chris’ toes and trying not to laugh. “I’ll even go get them for you.”
**
“Dude, I think I’m dying. Come help me,” Chris said, sounding like it was obvious that JC would be rushing immediately to the rescue.
JC scratched a hand across his eyes and curled the phone closer to his ear. Six in the morning, and he was right on the edge between awake and asleep, and he could still hear the distant thrumming of a new song from his dreams, pounding in his head, the same one he’d been hearing over and over for the last three weeks. It was familiar, sort of, and JC couldn’t help think but think it sounded an awful lot like home. Never mind that he’d grown up listening to Barry Manilow and, sometimes, Roger Whittaker when his parents were feeling daring.
He blinked against the dim light shining through the curtains and pulled the blanket up over this head.
“Uh huh,” JC said. “Are you dying, like, right now?” And Chris just choked out a cough but JC could still hear him breathing, the asshole, so he said, “later, man” and hung up the phone.
He was pretty sure Chris would still need help in the morning; he could rush to the rescue then. Wrapping his arms around his pillow, he went back to sleep with the deep pulsing music from his dream still strumming in his body.
**
Apparently, Chris actually wasn’t dying. But when he showed up the next morning with news of two stress fractures and doctor’s orders to stay off his foot, JC couldn’t help but feel vaguely guilty. The guilt didn’t last long. Especially when Chris, who always had been one to take doctor’s orders to heart when they served his purposes, settled loudly onto the couch of the bus, surrounding himself with remotes and pillows, and tossing random objects across the small space at Justin and JC.
“I’m crippled. Serve me, you fools,” Chris yelled, until Justin brought him a beer, three bowls of Frosted Flakes and a bottle of water.
“Ow, ow, ow,” he moaned, later, until JC couldn’t help but walk over and softly scratch his fingers through Chris’ hair. “I’m dying. I’m going to die in pain and agony and then where will you all be?” He grabbed JC’s hand and held it tightly to his chest. JC was pretty sure he imagined the soft brush of lips against his knuckles.
“Stress fracture, yo,” Justin interrupted, throwing a pillow at Chris.
“Death by shattered bones, yo.” Chris said, gallantly kissing JC’s hand before letting it go, and throwing the pillow back hard.
His aim was way better than Justin’s.
The show must always go on, though, and Chris ended up whining through sound check, hollering about the end of the end on the walk to the staging area, and then tearfully hugging JC goodbye before stepping out on stage to the roar of the crowd.
JC shook his head and couldn’t help smiling when Chris jumped out onto center stage, landing on his hurt foot, and grinning like an idiot. It’d always been pretty much impossible for JC to not stop and stare at that much passion and energy. He’d always sort of wondered what it’d feel like to have all that directed at him.
And, yeah, as much as things had changed, JC was pretty sure some things never would.
**
It’s not like JC had ever spent much time thinking about Chris’ feet. A few random thoughts about toes and hair, and maybe a few less than complimentary thoughts about choices in footwear, but it didn’t add up to much time at all. Chris had never been one to randomly wear flip-flops around, and even on the bus, Chris didn’t walk around flashing his bare feet at just anyone.
Of course, Chris’ feet were the first thing JC noticed when he pushed open the door to his hotel room later that night and found Chris huddled on the bed, feet unnaturally angled straight up, not moving, not shifting, pain hovering almost visibly in the air.
“You okay?” He asked, not even really curious why Chris was huddled on JC’s bed and not his own. That was just Chris, and JC had stopped questioning long ago.
Walking closer, he frowned at the tight line of Chris’ mouth, the unnatural stillness. “Wait, hey, you’re actually hurt?” And he’d be the first to admit that, okay, maybe Chris didn’t usually ham up the injuries, but he’d hugged JC goodbye and that seemed like the set-up for any of Chris’ top ten practical jokes.
“Oh, yeah, I’m fine. Obviously.” And the words weren’t so much spoken as growled, not even angry sounding, just tight and rough. Chris kept staring at the ceiling, taking slow, deep breaths, not even bothering to turn his head to look at JC.
“Man,” JC reached down and touched Chris’ foot, just a quick swipe of his fingers and Chris hissed in pain. “Your foot, yeah? How bad is it?”
Chris rolled his eyes and flipped him the finger, and JC couldn’t help feeling a little relieved. Hurt and in pain, but not so bad he couldn’t still be an ass.
“Okay, yeah. That bad, huh? I got it.” JC slid onto the foot of the bed, winding around Chris’ legs, careful not to move the bed, just sliding in and settling down, and lifting Chris’ foot into his lap.
“Fuck, JC, that hurts--.”
“Shut up, you big baby,” JC said, cutting off Chris with a long, slow swipe up the middle of Chris’ foot with his thumb.
It wasn’t much of a foot rub, really, since any firm touch made Chris gasp in pain; mostly it was just soft brushes of skin, up and down, not going near the arch, staying away from the bruises along the heel, just careful touches, more contact that actual rubbing. JC figured Chris was done bitching when his hands slowly relaxed and he closed his eyes on a sigh.
“You could have just told us,” JC said, not stopping his hands as they climbed up around Chris’ ankle. “About how bad this was.”
“I did,” Chris said, and JC could hear the duh tacked onto the end like it hadn’t been silent. “What did you want me to do? Cancel the show?”
It took a while, but JC knew the second the pain started to ease. Chris’ leg started to twitch and his fingers started to tap out a beat on the bedside; he could almost see the energy coiling up inside Chris, barely contained, like a spring at capacity. But Chris didn’t pull away, just sprawled out on the bed, letting JC keep up the soft, slow touches, up the bottom of Chris’ foot onto the heel and up to the ankle, more a tickle than a rub really. JC grinned when Chris snorted into his arm.
“Dude, that tickles,” Chris said and JC could hear him holding back the laughter.
“Yeah,” JC said happily. He let his fingers smooth along the top of Chris’ toes, feeling the soft stubble of the hair growing back from the photo shoot, enjoying the way it felt against his fingers, scratchy and soft, prickly in all the right ways.
JC could just see Chris’ mouth turned up into the familiar grin, the same one JC had spent years watching, all easy and honest and content, and sort of layered with something darker and grimmer that JC didn’t like to think too hard about. It was a smile that was unlike Chris in all the unimportant ways and exactly like Chris in all the really important ways.
“What’s going on, Jayce? Are you trying to distract me from my imminent demise or what?” Chris was staring at him, sharply curious. Never a good thing really, especially when JC was starting to think that maybe there really was something more than the usual going on here. He just wasn’t sure what it was.
“Just…talk to me, C.” Chris said finally, like that was all he really wanted. And maybe it was. It was hard to tell sometimes.
“I…okay. There’s this song...,” JC started because distraction was always a good thing, and, yeah, there was always a song and, yeah, there had been this one particular song that’d been sort of driving him crazy for a few weeks now. Wasn’t like he had anything better to do right now.
Rubbing Chris’ feet didn’t take all that much concentration.
And so JC talked: about the music, the new song with the too loud baseline that always drowned out the harmony, that rolled through his head at strange hours of the day and night, always the same, never changing, and so familiar that JC felt like he knew the song but couldn’t remember how to end it, fix it, make it right.
He beatboxed out the first few bars, and even out loud the sound was rough, almost savage, but Chris was already bobbing his head and his fingers were tapping out the beat on the bed. And as JC watched, listened, his fingers moving along Chris’ foot and up his leg, around his knee and touching the strong muscle at the base of his thigh, he realized, no, Chris wasn’t tapping out the rhythm, he was creating the counter-rhythm and it was filling up the empty spaces, softening the harsh notes and turning noise into music, almost a song -
“Fuck,” JC said, pushing away Chris’ legs, stroking his fingers across the arch of Chris’ foot when he hissed in pain, and lunging for the notebook sitting on the bedside table. “Keep going.”
JC got the notebook open, a little stub of a pencil held between his fingers, and fucking Chris, because he never threw out a pencil until it was gone completely, kept using it until fingers could barely fit around the wood and it was a pain in the ass to write with. It was making JC clench his fingers painfully to get the notes down.
“You are such a freak. You know that, right?” Chris asked, and he’d stopped tapping out the rhythm and was just sitting up, looking at JC, but he had a grin on his face and looked more amused than irritated so JC just waved his fingers in the air and said:
“Yeah, fine. I’m a freak. Now, do that again.”
And Chris did.
It took an hour-and-a-half until JC had a rough sketch of music. Filled with counter-rhythms and main beats and a bridge that fucking rocked, and already JC was starting to hum in some lyrics. And no doubt, it was a little raw, and it felt weirdly unfinished, like the song was fading out a bar too soon, but JC thought he liked it partly because of that unfinished feel, rolling over the notes and just never ending.
Liked how it sounded vaguely like a sex song, all orgasm inside the notes and harmonies
Chris kept saying, “freak, freak, freak,” every time JC started to fill in the words; kept shaking his head and laughing at JC’s scribbled all night and throes of ecstasy, and he almost fell off the bed laughing when JC tried to rhyme pulsating with fascinating.
JC didn’t even mind when Chris grabbed the pencil from his hands and took over the writing; he filled in the bars and added in the notes and copied JC’s words down exactly. He shoved his foot back into JC’s lap and whined, “JC, it hurts,” and sang, “I need your magic, loving fingers, baby,” until JC stopped laughing and carefully picked up Chris’ foot again.
He let his hands wander absently up onto Chris’ shin, not even pretending that this was only a foot rub anymore, just scratching through the hair on Chris’ legs, digging his fingers into the thick calf muscles. Chris sighed in bliss and JC rubbed harder. Chris’ skin was surprisingly soft, coarse hair and hard muscle, and it felt all kinds of good under JC’s fingers.
JC looked up to see Chris looking at him steadily, not bothering to try and hide the fact that he’d been staring. And how many things could JC think of to say? The possibilities were endless, and he opened his mouth to say - something, anything, but everything got tangled up and no words could find their way out, just tripped over all his other thoughts, and he knew that he probably looked like a complete ass.
But he pulled Chris’ foot closer, letting his fingers wander higher, softer, more, not bothering to worry about anything beyond the fact that Chris was still looking, still staring, still being Chris.
“Are you trying to tell me something?” Chris finally asked, his voice loud, almost echoing in the silences.
“Yeah, okay. Possibly? Or not.” JC shrugged his shoulders.
Chris pushed up onto his elbows, not pulling away from JC’s hands, just waiting patiently. Which freaked JC out since Chris wasn’t really known for his patience.
“JC?” Chris asked, pushing closer, hand reaching out and almost touching. Almost, but not quite. “I want you to be trying to tell me something.”
And JC closed his eyes and leaned forward, closing the distance between them, and deciding that right now, this moment, was the moment he got to have just for himself. He let his lips slide against Chris’, his tongue reaching out and licking into Chris’ mouth, heat and wet, and Chris wasn’t pushing him away, was pulling him in instead, closer and tighter, and kissing JC back with his entire body.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he could still hear the song, slamming around silently, getting louder and louder until Chris’ hands were moving along his body to the rhythm and their moans were filling in the counters, and, fuck, JC didn’t care; he just wanted Chris and this and everything he could have.
And it was the kiss that got JC because Chris kissed exactly like Chris, which was weird and sort of mind-blowing, all hot touches and quick moves, and humor and energy, where the sex was important, yeah, but the they was more important.
It wasn’t two people in bed; it was JC and Chris, and Chris never let him forget.
The smooth brush of skin that JC felt, fuck, all over, and Chris’ hand, rough and callused, and how did a singer’s hand get callused, JC wondered, closing his eyes and feeling Chris’ fingers roll down his skin, wind around his waist, touching everywhere, all at once, and it wasn’t so much a moment as an eternity.
JC groaned into Chris’ kiss, pushing up and wrapping his body against Chris’ tightly, until there was no space between them, and he had Chris thrusting up into his hips, whispering in his ears, making “JC, fuck, yes, please,” sound like the most perfect dirty talk ever.
And Chris flipped him over and pushed him back, and climbed on top, and JC stuttered out, “wait, your foot, are you-,” and Chris said, “JC, focus” before stripping off JC’s pants.
Then Chris’ mouth swallowed him down and JC managed to say, “yeah, focus,” as he wound his fingers through Chris’ hair and held on tight.
**
JC couldn’t remember how he got from almost dressed and getting a blowjob to naked and stretched out along Chris’ body, but it wasn’t like he was going to complain. He could just see his clothes tossed off the edge or the bed, tangled up with Chris’ sweats and Chris’ ugly Surf Shop t-shirt, and it was sort of weirdly intimate to see his clothes sharing space with Chris’. Weird because he still tasted Chris on his tongue, could look down and see Chris’ come on his chest, and there really wasn’t much that should be more intimate than that.
He buried his face in Chris’ shoulder and grinned because yeah.
Chris shifted, wrapped his arm around JC’s back, and pulled him in close.
“JC? That song of yours? No offense, babe, but it fucking sucks.” Chris’ fingers were rubbing up and down JC’s side, long, slow glides, easy and comfortable.
“Yeah.” JC smiled, stroked his fingers along Chris’ chest, and pressing a soft kiss to the skin right above his nipple. “So, think you can help me forget my horrible song failure?”
Chris nodded and said, very seriously, “I’ll give it my best shot.” Then he grinned, and let his mouth trace out a whole new song onto JC’s skin.
**
Eventually, the hair grew back on Chris’ toes and JC started to think that was pretty okay. He’d watch TV and Chris would swing his feet into JC’s lap, sliding his toes up underneath JC’s shirt, rubbing softly against his skin, tickling through the hair below his belly button. JC would laugh and softly rub along the arches of Chris’ feet and they’d both shiver deliciously.
Chris’ toes would never be cute, they’d always be stubby and short, but they were Chris’ toes - and JC thought he was maybe starting to love them.
Title: Your Feet Know the Rhythm
Pairing: Chris/JC (Popslash)
Length: 3200 words
Notes: audrarose still loves me enough to beta boyband fics for me! Thanks, hon! *hugs*
Summary: It was always a shame to cover up cute toes with socks.
Your Feet Know the Rhythm
By Sori
It was always a shame to cover up cute toes with socks. At least, that was one of JC’s life mottos. Maybe not the most important motto, no, but it was hard to argue with something that had generally worked pretty well so far.
So, really, he wasn’t shocked when Chris said, “You want me to wear what for the shoot?” because Chris, the poor guy, just did not have cute feet. They were stubby and small, squat like his body, and he had dark hair on his toes that the make-up women were debating whether to shave or to wax.
JC probably wouldn’t feel much love for open-toed shoes if toe waxing was the lead-in conversation.
But Chris had always been dedicated to the band so he smiled at them evilly, grabbed the nearest razor, and settled the argument with ten quick swipes of the blade. “Behold, women. Cute, hairless toes,” he said, walking over to where Joey was curled over in laughter and poked him hard in the side. “You’re next man. Just wait.”
Eventually, the photographer lined them up and sat them down; their hair was scrunched more on top, jackets were moved an inch to the left, and Chris bitched about the wrongness of cold feet and sweaty ‘pits because it was just not natural for leather jackets and flip-flops to go together.
JC laughed when Joey nudged him with his knee, and JC made a point of noticing Joey’s newly smooth-as-a-baby’s-ass big toes, and somehow the two hours went by faster than usual.
Later, Chris flopped down on the couch in their dressing room and kicked his legs into JC’s lap. “Hey, check out my toes. I think I need a toe ring.”
“Man, you need socks,” JC said, pushing at Chris’ toes and trying not to laugh. “I’ll even go get them for you.”
**
“Dude, I think I’m dying. Come help me,” Chris said, sounding like it was obvious that JC would be rushing immediately to the rescue.
JC scratched a hand across his eyes and curled the phone closer to his ear. Six in the morning, and he was right on the edge between awake and asleep, and he could still hear the distant thrumming of a new song from his dreams, pounding in his head, the same one he’d been hearing over and over for the last three weeks. It was familiar, sort of, and JC couldn’t help think but think it sounded an awful lot like home. Never mind that he’d grown up listening to Barry Manilow and, sometimes, Roger Whittaker when his parents were feeling daring.
He blinked against the dim light shining through the curtains and pulled the blanket up over this head.
“Uh huh,” JC said. “Are you dying, like, right now?” And Chris just choked out a cough but JC could still hear him breathing, the asshole, so he said, “later, man” and hung up the phone.
He was pretty sure Chris would still need help in the morning; he could rush to the rescue then. Wrapping his arms around his pillow, he went back to sleep with the deep pulsing music from his dream still strumming in his body.
**
Apparently, Chris actually wasn’t dying. But when he showed up the next morning with news of two stress fractures and doctor’s orders to stay off his foot, JC couldn’t help but feel vaguely guilty. The guilt didn’t last long. Especially when Chris, who always had been one to take doctor’s orders to heart when they served his purposes, settled loudly onto the couch of the bus, surrounding himself with remotes and pillows, and tossing random objects across the small space at Justin and JC.
“I’m crippled. Serve me, you fools,” Chris yelled, until Justin brought him a beer, three bowls of Frosted Flakes and a bottle of water.
“Ow, ow, ow,” he moaned, later, until JC couldn’t help but walk over and softly scratch his fingers through Chris’ hair. “I’m dying. I’m going to die in pain and agony and then where will you all be?” He grabbed JC’s hand and held it tightly to his chest. JC was pretty sure he imagined the soft brush of lips against his knuckles.
“Stress fracture, yo,” Justin interrupted, throwing a pillow at Chris.
“Death by shattered bones, yo.” Chris said, gallantly kissing JC’s hand before letting it go, and throwing the pillow back hard.
His aim was way better than Justin’s.
The show must always go on, though, and Chris ended up whining through sound check, hollering about the end of the end on the walk to the staging area, and then tearfully hugging JC goodbye before stepping out on stage to the roar of the crowd.
JC shook his head and couldn’t help smiling when Chris jumped out onto center stage, landing on his hurt foot, and grinning like an idiot. It’d always been pretty much impossible for JC to not stop and stare at that much passion and energy. He’d always sort of wondered what it’d feel like to have all that directed at him.
And, yeah, as much as things had changed, JC was pretty sure some things never would.
**
It’s not like JC had ever spent much time thinking about Chris’ feet. A few random thoughts about toes and hair, and maybe a few less than complimentary thoughts about choices in footwear, but it didn’t add up to much time at all. Chris had never been one to randomly wear flip-flops around, and even on the bus, Chris didn’t walk around flashing his bare feet at just anyone.
Of course, Chris’ feet were the first thing JC noticed when he pushed open the door to his hotel room later that night and found Chris huddled on the bed, feet unnaturally angled straight up, not moving, not shifting, pain hovering almost visibly in the air.
“You okay?” He asked, not even really curious why Chris was huddled on JC’s bed and not his own. That was just Chris, and JC had stopped questioning long ago.
Walking closer, he frowned at the tight line of Chris’ mouth, the unnatural stillness. “Wait, hey, you’re actually hurt?” And he’d be the first to admit that, okay, maybe Chris didn’t usually ham up the injuries, but he’d hugged JC goodbye and that seemed like the set-up for any of Chris’ top ten practical jokes.
“Oh, yeah, I’m fine. Obviously.” And the words weren’t so much spoken as growled, not even angry sounding, just tight and rough. Chris kept staring at the ceiling, taking slow, deep breaths, not even bothering to turn his head to look at JC.
“Man,” JC reached down and touched Chris’ foot, just a quick swipe of his fingers and Chris hissed in pain. “Your foot, yeah? How bad is it?”
Chris rolled his eyes and flipped him the finger, and JC couldn’t help feeling a little relieved. Hurt and in pain, but not so bad he couldn’t still be an ass.
“Okay, yeah. That bad, huh? I got it.” JC slid onto the foot of the bed, winding around Chris’ legs, careful not to move the bed, just sliding in and settling down, and lifting Chris’ foot into his lap.
“Fuck, JC, that hurts--.”
“Shut up, you big baby,” JC said, cutting off Chris with a long, slow swipe up the middle of Chris’ foot with his thumb.
It wasn’t much of a foot rub, really, since any firm touch made Chris gasp in pain; mostly it was just soft brushes of skin, up and down, not going near the arch, staying away from the bruises along the heel, just careful touches, more contact that actual rubbing. JC figured Chris was done bitching when his hands slowly relaxed and he closed his eyes on a sigh.
“You could have just told us,” JC said, not stopping his hands as they climbed up around Chris’ ankle. “About how bad this was.”
“I did,” Chris said, and JC could hear the duh tacked onto the end like it hadn’t been silent. “What did you want me to do? Cancel the show?”
It took a while, but JC knew the second the pain started to ease. Chris’ leg started to twitch and his fingers started to tap out a beat on the bedside; he could almost see the energy coiling up inside Chris, barely contained, like a spring at capacity. But Chris didn’t pull away, just sprawled out on the bed, letting JC keep up the soft, slow touches, up the bottom of Chris’ foot onto the heel and up to the ankle, more a tickle than a rub really. JC grinned when Chris snorted into his arm.
“Dude, that tickles,” Chris said and JC could hear him holding back the laughter.
“Yeah,” JC said happily. He let his fingers smooth along the top of Chris’ toes, feeling the soft stubble of the hair growing back from the photo shoot, enjoying the way it felt against his fingers, scratchy and soft, prickly in all the right ways.
JC could just see Chris’ mouth turned up into the familiar grin, the same one JC had spent years watching, all easy and honest and content, and sort of layered with something darker and grimmer that JC didn’t like to think too hard about. It was a smile that was unlike Chris in all the unimportant ways and exactly like Chris in all the really important ways.
“What’s going on, Jayce? Are you trying to distract me from my imminent demise or what?” Chris was staring at him, sharply curious. Never a good thing really, especially when JC was starting to think that maybe there really was something more than the usual going on here. He just wasn’t sure what it was.
“Just…talk to me, C.” Chris said finally, like that was all he really wanted. And maybe it was. It was hard to tell sometimes.
“I…okay. There’s this song...,” JC started because distraction was always a good thing, and, yeah, there was always a song and, yeah, there had been this one particular song that’d been sort of driving him crazy for a few weeks now. Wasn’t like he had anything better to do right now.
Rubbing Chris’ feet didn’t take all that much concentration.
And so JC talked: about the music, the new song with the too loud baseline that always drowned out the harmony, that rolled through his head at strange hours of the day and night, always the same, never changing, and so familiar that JC felt like he knew the song but couldn’t remember how to end it, fix it, make it right.
He beatboxed out the first few bars, and even out loud the sound was rough, almost savage, but Chris was already bobbing his head and his fingers were tapping out the beat on the bed. And as JC watched, listened, his fingers moving along Chris’ foot and up his leg, around his knee and touching the strong muscle at the base of his thigh, he realized, no, Chris wasn’t tapping out the rhythm, he was creating the counter-rhythm and it was filling up the empty spaces, softening the harsh notes and turning noise into music, almost a song -
“Fuck,” JC said, pushing away Chris’ legs, stroking his fingers across the arch of Chris’ foot when he hissed in pain, and lunging for the notebook sitting on the bedside table. “Keep going.”
JC got the notebook open, a little stub of a pencil held between his fingers, and fucking Chris, because he never threw out a pencil until it was gone completely, kept using it until fingers could barely fit around the wood and it was a pain in the ass to write with. It was making JC clench his fingers painfully to get the notes down.
“You are such a freak. You know that, right?” Chris asked, and he’d stopped tapping out the rhythm and was just sitting up, looking at JC, but he had a grin on his face and looked more amused than irritated so JC just waved his fingers in the air and said:
“Yeah, fine. I’m a freak. Now, do that again.”
And Chris did.
It took an hour-and-a-half until JC had a rough sketch of music. Filled with counter-rhythms and main beats and a bridge that fucking rocked, and already JC was starting to hum in some lyrics. And no doubt, it was a little raw, and it felt weirdly unfinished, like the song was fading out a bar too soon, but JC thought he liked it partly because of that unfinished feel, rolling over the notes and just never ending.
Liked how it sounded vaguely like a sex song, all orgasm inside the notes and harmonies
Chris kept saying, “freak, freak, freak,” every time JC started to fill in the words; kept shaking his head and laughing at JC’s scribbled all night and throes of ecstasy, and he almost fell off the bed laughing when JC tried to rhyme pulsating with fascinating.
JC didn’t even mind when Chris grabbed the pencil from his hands and took over the writing; he filled in the bars and added in the notes and copied JC’s words down exactly. He shoved his foot back into JC’s lap and whined, “JC, it hurts,” and sang, “I need your magic, loving fingers, baby,” until JC stopped laughing and carefully picked up Chris’ foot again.
He let his hands wander absently up onto Chris’ shin, not even pretending that this was only a foot rub anymore, just scratching through the hair on Chris’ legs, digging his fingers into the thick calf muscles. Chris sighed in bliss and JC rubbed harder. Chris’ skin was surprisingly soft, coarse hair and hard muscle, and it felt all kinds of good under JC’s fingers.
JC looked up to see Chris looking at him steadily, not bothering to try and hide the fact that he’d been staring. And how many things could JC think of to say? The possibilities were endless, and he opened his mouth to say - something, anything, but everything got tangled up and no words could find their way out, just tripped over all his other thoughts, and he knew that he probably looked like a complete ass.
But he pulled Chris’ foot closer, letting his fingers wander higher, softer, more, not bothering to worry about anything beyond the fact that Chris was still looking, still staring, still being Chris.
“Are you trying to tell me something?” Chris finally asked, his voice loud, almost echoing in the silences.
“Yeah, okay. Possibly? Or not.” JC shrugged his shoulders.
Chris pushed up onto his elbows, not pulling away from JC’s hands, just waiting patiently. Which freaked JC out since Chris wasn’t really known for his patience.
“JC?” Chris asked, pushing closer, hand reaching out and almost touching. Almost, but not quite. “I want you to be trying to tell me something.”
And JC closed his eyes and leaned forward, closing the distance between them, and deciding that right now, this moment, was the moment he got to have just for himself. He let his lips slide against Chris’, his tongue reaching out and licking into Chris’ mouth, heat and wet, and Chris wasn’t pushing him away, was pulling him in instead, closer and tighter, and kissing JC back with his entire body.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he could still hear the song, slamming around silently, getting louder and louder until Chris’ hands were moving along his body to the rhythm and their moans were filling in the counters, and, fuck, JC didn’t care; he just wanted Chris and this and everything he could have.
And it was the kiss that got JC because Chris kissed exactly like Chris, which was weird and sort of mind-blowing, all hot touches and quick moves, and humor and energy, where the sex was important, yeah, but the they was more important.
It wasn’t two people in bed; it was JC and Chris, and Chris never let him forget.
The smooth brush of skin that JC felt, fuck, all over, and Chris’ hand, rough and callused, and how did a singer’s hand get callused, JC wondered, closing his eyes and feeling Chris’ fingers roll down his skin, wind around his waist, touching everywhere, all at once, and it wasn’t so much a moment as an eternity.
JC groaned into Chris’ kiss, pushing up and wrapping his body against Chris’ tightly, until there was no space between them, and he had Chris thrusting up into his hips, whispering in his ears, making “JC, fuck, yes, please,” sound like the most perfect dirty talk ever.
And Chris flipped him over and pushed him back, and climbed on top, and JC stuttered out, “wait, your foot, are you-,” and Chris said, “JC, focus” before stripping off JC’s pants.
Then Chris’ mouth swallowed him down and JC managed to say, “yeah, focus,” as he wound his fingers through Chris’ hair and held on tight.
**
JC couldn’t remember how he got from almost dressed and getting a blowjob to naked and stretched out along Chris’ body, but it wasn’t like he was going to complain. He could just see his clothes tossed off the edge or the bed, tangled up with Chris’ sweats and Chris’ ugly Surf Shop t-shirt, and it was sort of weirdly intimate to see his clothes sharing space with Chris’. Weird because he still tasted Chris on his tongue, could look down and see Chris’ come on his chest, and there really wasn’t much that should be more intimate than that.
He buried his face in Chris’ shoulder and grinned because yeah.
Chris shifted, wrapped his arm around JC’s back, and pulled him in close.
“JC? That song of yours? No offense, babe, but it fucking sucks.” Chris’ fingers were rubbing up and down JC’s side, long, slow glides, easy and comfortable.
“Yeah.” JC smiled, stroked his fingers along Chris’ chest, and pressing a soft kiss to the skin right above his nipple. “So, think you can help me forget my horrible song failure?”
Chris nodded and said, very seriously, “I’ll give it my best shot.” Then he grinned, and let his mouth trace out a whole new song onto JC’s skin.
**
Eventually, the hair grew back on Chris’ toes and JC started to think that was pretty okay. He’d watch TV and Chris would swing his feet into JC’s lap, sliding his toes up underneath JC’s shirt, rubbing softly against his skin, tickling through the hair below his belly button. JC would laugh and softly rub along the arches of Chris’ feet and they’d both shiver deliciously.
Chris’ toes would never be cute, they’d always be stubby and short, but they were Chris’ toes - and JC thought he was maybe starting to love them.