Yes / Decisions / Present (3 Ficlets in the Cofffee Fix 'verse)
Title: Yes / Decisions / Present
Author: therumjournals
Fandom: Star Trek RPF
Pairing: Chris/Zach
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2,050
Description: Figuring it out. Coffee Fix verse
A/N: I take no responsibility for any whiplash you may get from riding this emotional rollercoaster.
Yes
The wrap party was in full swing, and Zach was so buzzed on friends and happiness and cosmos that it took him a while to even wonder what Chris was up to. He was there, an arm around Zach’s waist, a peck on his cheek, then he was gone again, and Zoe would disappear with him, or Karl, or JJ. But Zach didn’t really care, he was enjoying himself, and Chris would catch his eye and smile at him from across the room before he leaned closer to Karl to whisper something in his ear. Zach furrowed his brow for a second, but he shook it off, and then Zoe pulled the drink from his hand and asked him why he looked so distracted.
“Oh, um, no, nothing, everything’s fine.” He looked at the bar, then back at her. “Why did you take my drink?”
She smiled like she was about to answer, but then he felt a hand on his shoulder and Chris’s warm breath on his ear. “Come out on the balcony with me,” he whispered.
“Okay, sure. But I need a drink.”
Chris slid his hand down Zach’s arm and tugged at his wrist. “Come on, I’ll get you a drink later, come make out with me,” he said, smiling, and Zach couldn’t resist an invitation like that.
*
A warm breeze hit them as they stepped onto the balcony. Zach leaned against the railing and drew Chris into his arms, and they kissed quietly for a few minutes before Chris pulled away to rest his chin on Zach’s shoulder.
“I can’t believe filming is over,” he said quietly.
“Me neither.”
Chris’s heart was pounding in his chest and he swallowed hard. “You know, since it’s the end and everything, I thought-
“Well, it’s not really the end,” Zach said, leaning back to look at him. “I mean, there’s still tons of stuff to do, and all the press stuff and-“
“Zach.”
“What?”
“Shut up for a minute.”
Zach closed his mouth obediently.
“It’s the end of filming, but I was thinking…well, I thought that this might be a good time to start-“ he took a deep breath “-to start the rest of our lives together-“ he risked a look at Zach to catch a glimpse of his eyes widening. Chris dropped one hand from around Zach’s neck and reached down to tangle their fingers together. “If you want…I mean, do you…I mean, will you spend the rest of your life with me, Zach?”
Zach’s mouth was hanging open a little and it took him a second to speak. “Are you…are you seriously asking me to….to…”
“Yeah. To…yeah.”
Zach pulled Chris in, hugged him tighter than maybe he ever had before, and said “Yes, Chris, god, yes.” He felt Chris shudder a little in his arms and tipped his head back to see a tear sliding down his cheek. His own eyes felt moist and he kissed Chris on the lips, smiling.
“Sorry,” Chris said, pulling a corner of his sleeve across his face. “I didn’t know what you’d say. I was really nervous,” he confessed.
“You really didn’t know what I’d say?” Chris shook his head, and Zach murmured in his ear, “Silly bear.” Chris sniffed and buried his smile in Zach’s shoulder. “So I guess it would surprise you to know that I was planning an elaborate proposal?”
“Shut up.” Chris gaped at him.
“I’m serious. You beat me to it, fucker.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be. Now I don’t have to pay for the interpretive dancers.”
Chris laughed at that. “I love you, Zach.”
“I love you, too.” He kissed Chris on the lips and pulled back with a sigh. “Are you going to make me go back in there and admit what I just agreed to?”
“Yep. You ready?”
“So ready.”
*
Everyone was waiting for them, watching expectantly when they stepped back inside. Chris raised their joined hands in victory. “He said yes!”
The room broke out into cheers and Karl popped a bottle of champagne and Chris kissed Zach on his flushed cheek. Karl came over with glasses for them and said, “Stop smiling so hard, you two, your faces might freeze like that.”
“Such a dad,” Chris said.
Zach squeezed his hand a little harder, and Chris squeezed back.
Decisions
“Alright, come on guys, let’s go brush our teeth.”
Chris helped Gavin squirt the right amount of bubblegum toothpaste onto his brush and they brushed their teeth together, making frothy faces in the mirror.
“Is Dad going to read to us?” Gavin asked.
“Gavin, you’re going to see Dad tomorrow, remember? Can you wait until tomorrow?”
“Yeah.”
“Is Dad coming to the aquarium with us?” Jesse asked.
Fuck. “Um, I don’t think so, Jess. Dad’s busy with other stuff this weekend.” He had no idea whether Zach was busy. He hadn’t told him about the aquarium.
“Can I ask him if he can come?”
Chris’s mind raced. Questions and convictions and choices that had already been made crashed together in his mind, but it all came down to Jesse’s face looking up at him, innocently hopeful. “Sure, you can ask him.”
*
“Chris, what the hell?” Zach’s pissed off voice, all too familiar over the phone.
“What now?”
“Did you tell Jesse to ask me if I could go to the aquarium with you this weekend or something?”
“Uh, I guess? I didn’t tell him to ask you, I told him he could ask you if he wanted to.”
“Well, I really wish you wouldn’t do that.”
“Why? What am I supposed to do?”
“You’re supposed to tell them you’re going to ask me. Because I’m capable of saying ‘No’ to you!”
“I’d noticed.”
“Chris, look, I’m sorry. I’m already going to Jesse’s t-ball game on Friday, and forgive me if I don’t feel like spending excessive amounts of time with you right now.”
“Fine! It’s not like I want you to come to the aquarium!”
“Gee, thanks for clearing that up.”
“Jesus, Zach, I don’t fucking know what I’m doing, here! I’ve never done this before! How does this work?! How am I supposed to figure this shit out?”
“I don’t know, I would have thought you’d have a whole elaborate plan for -.” He almost said “custody” but thank god his throat closed up on the word, and he was almost glad for the distraction of Chris yelling in his ear.
“When the fuck was I supposed to think about this? It’s not like I fucking asked you to leave!”
“You didn’t…? You’re a fucking passive-aggressive asshole, Chris, you know that? That’s really nice, you didn’t ask me to leave, no, okay, you didn’t say ‘Zach, please get the fuck out of my house’, instead you just made living there fucking unbearable and then in the end it’s all my fault for leaving. Utter bullshit,” he added, trailing off in the end like he was talking to himself.
“I wasn’t trying to make it unbearable, Zach, I just wanted…”
“I know, I know what you wanted, you wanted me to do what you wanted, and you know what, no, fuck this, I’m not doing this again. There’s a reason I left, and it was to avoid conversations like these.”
“We can’t avoid it, Zach.”
“I understand that we need to talk and communicate about the boys, but we don’t need to do this, this sniping at each other, blaming each other shit. So can we just skip that part and figure out what the fuck we’re doing about the boys and planning and…avoiding each other or whatever the fuck it is we plan to do now that…What are we, even? Divorced, separated? Broken up like we’re fucking 16 years old, what?”
Zach heard rustling on the phone as Chris fidgeted. “Separated, I guess?”
“Separated. Jesus Christ, fucking…” Zach made a sound of frustration. Chris pictured him running his hand through his hair, clutching at it. He knew the feeling. “Look, I gotta go. Tell Jesse I’m sorry about the aquarium, okay? Just…tell him I’m sorry.” Zach breathed in a shaky breath. “And…would you call me tonight when you’re tucking them in?”
“Alright.”
“Thanks.”
“Zach…we still need to talk.”
“We’ll talk, Chris.” Sometime, later, when he couldn’t feel tears prickling at the corners of his eyes and something like an itch in his chest that even yelling didn’t seem to scratch. “We’ll talk.”
Present
Chris woke up and stretched and ran a hand up Zach’s chest to his scruffy cheek. Zach opened his eyes and smiled.
“Morning, gorgeous,” Chris said.
“Merry Christmas,” Zach said, smiling.
Chris rested their foreheads together as a thousand corny lines ran through his head, about how waking up with Zach was like Christmas every day, about already having the best gifts anyone could ever want, about family and kids and love, but instead of saying anything, he pressed a soft kiss to Zach’s lips, saying it all.
“Time is it?” Zach murmured.
“Too fucking early,” Chris said, glancing at the clock.
“Time for…?” Zach wrapped his arms around Chris, pressing their naked bodies against each other under the warm blankets.
“Nope.” He indulged Zach with a long kiss before he pulled away with a grin. “We’ve got work to do.”
They got ready quietly, and Zach slipped out the door to make a quick trip. Chris was waiting for him when he got back, helped him get everything into the garage.
“The boys up?”
“They’re awake. I let them open the Transformers to keep them in their room, hope that’s okay.”
“Yeah, yeah. Good idea.” Zach grinned at the tree and the presents laid out around it. “Ready?”
“Let’s do it.”
*
Gavin and Jesse thundered down the stairs and came to a halt in front of the tree, looking around frantically.
“Merry Christmas, guys!”
Jesse had a panic-stricken look on his face. Gavin just looked confused. “Where is it?”
“Where’s what?”
“Where’s…um…I thought…”
“What? You don’t think there are enough presents or something?” Which was ridiculous, because there were only about two square feet of floor visible in the living room.
“Well, no…we just thought you said…”
Zach slapped a hand over his mouth dramatically. “Papa!” He pulled Chris toward him and said in a mock whisper, “I almost forgot. Santa told me there’s one more present that he didn’t put under the tree!”
“There is?” Chris asked, fighting hard to keep the smile off his face. “Where is it?”
“Hold on a sec. Let me go get it.”
Chris could feel Gavin and Jesse practically vibrating with excitement as Zach disappeared into the garage. Jesse was biting his lip, bouncing on the balls of his feet, and Gavin was actually clasping his hands in front of his chest. Chris watched them out of the corner of his eye as he waited, trying to contain his own excitement.
They heard the door open and Chris saw Zach laughing as a golden ball of fur hurtled into the living room. Jesse and Gavin whooped and fell to their knees to let the puppy jump on them and lick eagerly at their faces.
“Oh man!” Gavin exclaimed, trying to wrap his arms around the wriggling pup. “This is the best Christmas EVER!”
*
“I think we should name him after Uncle Joe,” Zach said. He was sprawled in the comfy chair, clutching his coffee out of the way of energetic puppies and children.
“You don’t get a say in the matter, mister,” Chris said, lobbing a wadded up ball of wrapping paper at him.
“YEAH!” said Jesse and Gavin, eagerly joining in.
“Ahh, quit it, you…fluffing monkeys!” he yelled, shielding himself with his arms. “Alright, alright! You can decide! Stop throwing things at me and pick a name!”
“What should we name him, Gav?” Jesse asked.
Gavin thought about it for a moment. “Um, um, I think we should name him…Chewbacca!”
“Traitor!” Chris exclaimed.
“We have to name him something from Star Trek,” Jesse hissed, elbowing him.
“Well, no, you don’t have to,” Chris said, laughing.
“Spock!”
“Veto,” Zach said lazily.
Jesse leaned over to Gavin and whispered something in his ear, and they watched Gavin’s face light up. “Okay!”
“Tell them.”
“Tell us!” demanded Chris
“We’re going to name him Bones!”
(Continued...)
Author: therumjournals
Fandom: Star Trek RPF
Pairing: Chris/Zach
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2,050
Description: Figuring it out. Coffee Fix verse
A/N: I take no responsibility for any whiplash you may get from riding this emotional rollercoaster.
Yes
The wrap party was in full swing, and Zach was so buzzed on friends and happiness and cosmos that it took him a while to even wonder what Chris was up to. He was there, an arm around Zach’s waist, a peck on his cheek, then he was gone again, and Zoe would disappear with him, or Karl, or JJ. But Zach didn’t really care, he was enjoying himself, and Chris would catch his eye and smile at him from across the room before he leaned closer to Karl to whisper something in his ear. Zach furrowed his brow for a second, but he shook it off, and then Zoe pulled the drink from his hand and asked him why he looked so distracted.
“Oh, um, no, nothing, everything’s fine.” He looked at the bar, then back at her. “Why did you take my drink?”
She smiled like she was about to answer, but then he felt a hand on his shoulder and Chris’s warm breath on his ear. “Come out on the balcony with me,” he whispered.
“Okay, sure. But I need a drink.”
Chris slid his hand down Zach’s arm and tugged at his wrist. “Come on, I’ll get you a drink later, come make out with me,” he said, smiling, and Zach couldn’t resist an invitation like that.
*
A warm breeze hit them as they stepped onto the balcony. Zach leaned against the railing and drew Chris into his arms, and they kissed quietly for a few minutes before Chris pulled away to rest his chin on Zach’s shoulder.
“I can’t believe filming is over,” he said quietly.
“Me neither.”
Chris’s heart was pounding in his chest and he swallowed hard. “You know, since it’s the end and everything, I thought-
“Well, it’s not really the end,” Zach said, leaning back to look at him. “I mean, there’s still tons of stuff to do, and all the press stuff and-“
“Zach.”
“What?”
“Shut up for a minute.”
Zach closed his mouth obediently.
“It’s the end of filming, but I was thinking…well, I thought that this might be a good time to start-“ he took a deep breath “-to start the rest of our lives together-“ he risked a look at Zach to catch a glimpse of his eyes widening. Chris dropped one hand from around Zach’s neck and reached down to tangle their fingers together. “If you want…I mean, do you…I mean, will you spend the rest of your life with me, Zach?”
Zach’s mouth was hanging open a little and it took him a second to speak. “Are you…are you seriously asking me to….to…”
“Yeah. To…yeah.”
Zach pulled Chris in, hugged him tighter than maybe he ever had before, and said “Yes, Chris, god, yes.” He felt Chris shudder a little in his arms and tipped his head back to see a tear sliding down his cheek. His own eyes felt moist and he kissed Chris on the lips, smiling.
“Sorry,” Chris said, pulling a corner of his sleeve across his face. “I didn’t know what you’d say. I was really nervous,” he confessed.
“You really didn’t know what I’d say?” Chris shook his head, and Zach murmured in his ear, “Silly bear.” Chris sniffed and buried his smile in Zach’s shoulder. “So I guess it would surprise you to know that I was planning an elaborate proposal?”
“Shut up.” Chris gaped at him.
“I’m serious. You beat me to it, fucker.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be. Now I don’t have to pay for the interpretive dancers.”
Chris laughed at that. “I love you, Zach.”
“I love you, too.” He kissed Chris on the lips and pulled back with a sigh. “Are you going to make me go back in there and admit what I just agreed to?”
“Yep. You ready?”
“So ready.”
*
Everyone was waiting for them, watching expectantly when they stepped back inside. Chris raised their joined hands in victory. “He said yes!”
The room broke out into cheers and Karl popped a bottle of champagne and Chris kissed Zach on his flushed cheek. Karl came over with glasses for them and said, “Stop smiling so hard, you two, your faces might freeze like that.”
“Such a dad,” Chris said.
Zach squeezed his hand a little harder, and Chris squeezed back.
Decisions
“Alright, come on guys, let’s go brush our teeth.”
Chris helped Gavin squirt the right amount of bubblegum toothpaste onto his brush and they brushed their teeth together, making frothy faces in the mirror.
“Is Dad going to read to us?” Gavin asked.
“Gavin, you’re going to see Dad tomorrow, remember? Can you wait until tomorrow?”
“Yeah.”
“Is Dad coming to the aquarium with us?” Jesse asked.
Fuck. “Um, I don’t think so, Jess. Dad’s busy with other stuff this weekend.” He had no idea whether Zach was busy. He hadn’t told him about the aquarium.
“Can I ask him if he can come?”
Chris’s mind raced. Questions and convictions and choices that had already been made crashed together in his mind, but it all came down to Jesse’s face looking up at him, innocently hopeful. “Sure, you can ask him.”
*
“Chris, what the hell?” Zach’s pissed off voice, all too familiar over the phone.
“What now?”
“Did you tell Jesse to ask me if I could go to the aquarium with you this weekend or something?”
“Uh, I guess? I didn’t tell him to ask you, I told him he could ask you if he wanted to.”
“Well, I really wish you wouldn’t do that.”
“Why? What am I supposed to do?”
“You’re supposed to tell them you’re going to ask me. Because I’m capable of saying ‘No’ to you!”
“I’d noticed.”
“Chris, look, I’m sorry. I’m already going to Jesse’s t-ball game on Friday, and forgive me if I don’t feel like spending excessive amounts of time with you right now.”
“Fine! It’s not like I want you to come to the aquarium!”
“Gee, thanks for clearing that up.”
“Jesus, Zach, I don’t fucking know what I’m doing, here! I’ve never done this before! How does this work?! How am I supposed to figure this shit out?”
“I don’t know, I would have thought you’d have a whole elaborate plan for -.” He almost said “custody” but thank god his throat closed up on the word, and he was almost glad for the distraction of Chris yelling in his ear.
“When the fuck was I supposed to think about this? It’s not like I fucking asked you to leave!”
“You didn’t…? You’re a fucking passive-aggressive asshole, Chris, you know that? That’s really nice, you didn’t ask me to leave, no, okay, you didn’t say ‘Zach, please get the fuck out of my house’, instead you just made living there fucking unbearable and then in the end it’s all my fault for leaving. Utter bullshit,” he added, trailing off in the end like he was talking to himself.
“I wasn’t trying to make it unbearable, Zach, I just wanted…”
“I know, I know what you wanted, you wanted me to do what you wanted, and you know what, no, fuck this, I’m not doing this again. There’s a reason I left, and it was to avoid conversations like these.”
“We can’t avoid it, Zach.”
“I understand that we need to talk and communicate about the boys, but we don’t need to do this, this sniping at each other, blaming each other shit. So can we just skip that part and figure out what the fuck we’re doing about the boys and planning and…avoiding each other or whatever the fuck it is we plan to do now that…What are we, even? Divorced, separated? Broken up like we’re fucking 16 years old, what?”
Zach heard rustling on the phone as Chris fidgeted. “Separated, I guess?”
“Separated. Jesus Christ, fucking…” Zach made a sound of frustration. Chris pictured him running his hand through his hair, clutching at it. He knew the feeling. “Look, I gotta go. Tell Jesse I’m sorry about the aquarium, okay? Just…tell him I’m sorry.” Zach breathed in a shaky breath. “And…would you call me tonight when you’re tucking them in?”
“Alright.”
“Thanks.”
“Zach…we still need to talk.”
“We’ll talk, Chris.” Sometime, later, when he couldn’t feel tears prickling at the corners of his eyes and something like an itch in his chest that even yelling didn’t seem to scratch. “We’ll talk.”
Present
Chris woke up and stretched and ran a hand up Zach’s chest to his scruffy cheek. Zach opened his eyes and smiled.
“Morning, gorgeous,” Chris said.
“Merry Christmas,” Zach said, smiling.
Chris rested their foreheads together as a thousand corny lines ran through his head, about how waking up with Zach was like Christmas every day, about already having the best gifts anyone could ever want, about family and kids and love, but instead of saying anything, he pressed a soft kiss to Zach’s lips, saying it all.
“Time is it?” Zach murmured.
“Too fucking early,” Chris said, glancing at the clock.
“Time for…?” Zach wrapped his arms around Chris, pressing their naked bodies against each other under the warm blankets.
“Nope.” He indulged Zach with a long kiss before he pulled away with a grin. “We’ve got work to do.”
They got ready quietly, and Zach slipped out the door to make a quick trip. Chris was waiting for him when he got back, helped him get everything into the garage.
“The boys up?”
“They’re awake. I let them open the Transformers to keep them in their room, hope that’s okay.”
“Yeah, yeah. Good idea.” Zach grinned at the tree and the presents laid out around it. “Ready?”
“Let’s do it.”
*
Gavin and Jesse thundered down the stairs and came to a halt in front of the tree, looking around frantically.
“Merry Christmas, guys!”
Jesse had a panic-stricken look on his face. Gavin just looked confused. “Where is it?”
“Where’s what?”
“Where’s…um…I thought…”
“What? You don’t think there are enough presents or something?” Which was ridiculous, because there were only about two square feet of floor visible in the living room.
“Well, no…we just thought you said…”
Zach slapped a hand over his mouth dramatically. “Papa!” He pulled Chris toward him and said in a mock whisper, “I almost forgot. Santa told me there’s one more present that he didn’t put under the tree!”
“There is?” Chris asked, fighting hard to keep the smile off his face. “Where is it?”
“Hold on a sec. Let me go get it.”
Chris could feel Gavin and Jesse practically vibrating with excitement as Zach disappeared into the garage. Jesse was biting his lip, bouncing on the balls of his feet, and Gavin was actually clasping his hands in front of his chest. Chris watched them out of the corner of his eye as he waited, trying to contain his own excitement.
They heard the door open and Chris saw Zach laughing as a golden ball of fur hurtled into the living room. Jesse and Gavin whooped and fell to their knees to let the puppy jump on them and lick eagerly at their faces.
“Oh man!” Gavin exclaimed, trying to wrap his arms around the wriggling pup. “This is the best Christmas EVER!”
*
“I think we should name him after Uncle Joe,” Zach said. He was sprawled in the comfy chair, clutching his coffee out of the way of energetic puppies and children.
“You don’t get a say in the matter, mister,” Chris said, lobbing a wadded up ball of wrapping paper at him.
“YEAH!” said Jesse and Gavin, eagerly joining in.
“Ahh, quit it, you…fluffing monkeys!” he yelled, shielding himself with his arms. “Alright, alright! You can decide! Stop throwing things at me and pick a name!”
“What should we name him, Gav?” Jesse asked.
Gavin thought about it for a moment. “Um, um, I think we should name him…Chewbacca!”
“Traitor!” Chris exclaimed.
“We have to name him something from Star Trek,” Jesse hissed, elbowing him.
“Well, no, you don’t have to,” Chris said, laughing.
“Spock!”
“Veto,” Zach said lazily.
Jesse leaned over to Gavin and whispered something in his ear, and they watched Gavin’s face light up. “Okay!”
“Tell them.”
“Tell us!” demanded Chris
“We’re going to name him Bones!”
(Continued...)