FIC: Jagged and Endlessly New (JC Chasez/Chace Crawford, Chace Crawford/Ed Westwick)
This took WAY longer that I thought it would when I started writing it. That's because it's been rewritten like . . . four times. Thrilling, I know. Anyway, this is pretty different than the story I thought I was going to write when I started it, but it still ends up in the same place. So, cool.
Title: Jagged and Endlessly New
Author: causeways
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: JC Chasez/Chace Crawford, Chace Crawford/Ed Westwick
Word Count: 4,054
Disclaimer: None of these men have ever had any sort of homosexual relations with each other whatsoever.
Summary: "I think I'm moving out of my apartment," Ed says one afternoon on set. They're huddling in Chace's trailer between takes.
Author's Notes: This is the sequel to Some Surreal Country, but it should stand alone pretty well. walkawayslowly would have betaed this if she'd been around.
Jagged and Endlessly New
"I think I'm moving out of my apartment," Ed says one afternoon on set. They're huddling in Chace's trailer between takes. It's still cold enough that filming outdoors is miserable.
"Okay," Chace says. He takes a big bite of his roast beef sandwich and chews it slowly.
"I'm thinking about downtown. TriBeCa, maybe. How do you feel about TriBeCa?"
"Fine," Chace says, swallowing. "How do you feel about TriBeCa? You're the one who's going to be living there."
"Ah, that's the thing," Ed says. "How you feel about moving in with me?"
There isn't any more sandwich in Chace's mouth. He chokes anyway. "Why?" he manages finally, after Ed hands him a bottle of water.
Ed shrugs. "It seems like it would be fun to have a roommate," he says lightly.
Chace gulps half the bottle of water before replying. "Having a roommate is one of those things that everyone tells you is fun, a good life experience, except it's really not."
"Oh yeah?" Ed says. His expression isn't giving anything away.
"I had roommates at college," Chace says. He spent half of freshman year walking in Mark and Mark's girlfriend; he spent most of his sophomore year as far away from his dorm as possible, so he wouldn't be around when Dave got caught dealing coke. Not that he thinks Ed is a nympho or a drug dealer, and they'd be sharing an apartment and not a room. He knows it's a different thing. He's still not really sure how to get all that across, so he settles for, "It sucked. Look, man, if you want to hang out more, we'll hang out more. We don't have to be roommates to hang out."
But Ed shakes his head. "It's not that. Just think about it."
"Sure," Chace says, watching Ed's back as he disappears back into the costume trailer to get ready for the next take. He keeps staring at the door for a long time after it's closed behind Ed, as if staring at the door long enough will help him figure out why Ed wanted to do this.
*
Chace doesn't think about it that afternoon, but he thinks about it when he gets home. When he's at work, time passes quickly. He's doing something constantly. He feels good, useful.
But it's a different story at the apartment. Chace has been doing his best not to think about it, because what's the point, but he's lonely for the first time in the half-year he's lived there. It's stupid; it's completely stupid. JC has never been to Chace's apartment in the first place.
Chace gives himself a couple of days to see if it will get better. It doesn't. It's like, now that Ed's given him another option, he can't help thinking that anything has got to be better than this. And Ed's not just anything. Ed's his best friend on the set, one of his best friends, period. Ed's never asked about the rumors-no one on the set really has-and now that Chace thinks about it he's been kind of a dick to the guy for a while. He hasn't been telling Ed where he's been, what's distracting him. Moving in with Ed maybe isn't the best way to make it up to him, but Chace isn't the one who put the offer on the table.
"Okay," Chace says to Ed the next morning.
"Okay?"
"To the apartment," Chace clarifies, even though he's pretty sure Ed knew exactly what he meant. Ed started smiling the moment Chace said okay.
"Excellent," Ed says. "I'll book an appointment with a broker. How does Saturday sound?"
"Sure," Chace says. He still feels sort of like a dick.
*
By all rights, the apartment search should be a bitch. It took weeks before Chace found his studio last year. But maybe Ed's got the touch for it or maybe the broker's got a deal with the devil, because the third apartment they look at is the one, no question about it. The building is old, with a fire escape that looks like latticework crawling up the exterior wall. The elevator is tiny and creaks unhappily to life, but the apartment is big and bright and has a whole room just for a beer pong table.
"Do we really need a whole room for a beer pong table?" Chace says.
Ed gives him the eye. "I cannot believe you just asked that question."
They sign the lease the next morning. Chace feels about eight times better after that's done. He's still a dick, still doing this for the wrong reasons, but at least he's committed to it now, has something concrete to apologize for. That makes it better.
*
It takes an entire day to move into the new apartment. Ed talked Chace into renting a U-Haul instead of hiring movers, which hadn't sounded like a terrible idea until Chace has spent hours trying to maneuver Ed's enormous mattress into the microscopic elevator in the new building.
"Unless you want to ditch your bed, we're hiring movers next time," Chace says. It's about forty degrees out, and he's so hot that he's wearing nothing but a t-shirt and still sweating.
"We've got months before we have to think about that," Ed says. "Possibly years."
Chace has a reply all ready, getting a little ahead of yourself there, aren't you?, but he catches Ed smiling and doesn't say it. Ed's grin isn't even for him, specifically; he's just looking around the apartment, surveying the place, and he looks so pleased to be there that Chace swallows his guilt, smiles back a little, and says, "I guess we do."
*
It's been more than a month since the last time Chace talked to JC. He's long since quit expecting to see JC's number when his cell phone buzzes in his pocket. The twinge of disappointment every time it isn't him, though-that's still there.
*
"We're going to need to throw a housewarming party," Ed says during lunch break.
"It looks like we're squatting," Chace says. The apartment is way bigger than where either of them used to live, and the amount of furniture they brought doesn't even come close to filling the amount of space they've got now. The rooms still look stripped down, bare.
Ed takes a thoughtful bite of pasta salad. "Obviously this is a problem," he says.
*
On Saturday, Ed drags Chace to IKEA Brooklyn.
The last IKEA Chace went to was the one in Burbank, his freshman year. It was a hellhole. IKEA Brooklyn is worse. It's like wandering through seven traffic-jam miles of labyrinth, plus at the end of it all Chace is still going to have to assemble the freaking furniture. Chace always kind of figured that one of the major perks of being a TV star was being able to pay someone else to do this kind of shit for you.
But Ed has some kind of unholy love for the place, possibly because he was dropped on his head as a child, so Chace trails along while Ed picks out more boxes of furniture parts than they're ever going to need in a lifetime. Under pain of death Ed agrees to have most of it delivered, but he insists on bringing the beer pong table back with them right then.
So they lug the thing down to the water taxi, because apparently cabs haven't heard of IKEA.
"You've never been on the water taxi, have you?" Ed says. "You'll like it."
It's a good view, Chace has to admit. He's been in New York long enough now that the skyline is familiar to him, that he's past the point of wonder. But he doesn't spend much time downtown, and he's never been right on the East River, looking south with the sun low in the sky and the whole harbor opening up before him, and somehow he hadn't realized until this very moment that he loved this place, that he loves it more than any other.
"Pretty cool, huh?" Ed says, next to him.
"Yeah," Chace says. He doesn't even try to put the rest into words. He has the feeling that Ed gets it, anyway.
*
The beer pong table takes two hours and three bottles of Six Point apiece to assemble, and it still wobbles when they're done.
"I don't even care," Ed says. "It is a masterpiece of craftsmanship. You know what we need to do now."
"We need to break it in," Chace says.
Ed grins. "Good man." He gets the cheap beer, the cups, and the ping-pong balls.
After three games, the exhaustion of IKEA creeps up on them. Ed sprawls on the couch with his head on Chace's shoulder, no sense of personal space, and says, "This is good."
Chace shifts back against the couch, sinking farther into the cushions. He's perfectly comfortable here, with Ed beside him.
"All of it," Ed elaborates. "This is good."
"Yeah," Chace agrees, and means it.
*
They wait until the next weekend to have the housewarming party, so that they have plenty of time to stock up on Miller Lite. They've got a pretty good supply laid in by the time Leighton and Blake show up, which is good, because they bring about nine hundred of their closest friends.
Ed and Chace rule the beer pong table for a while, Ed pressed up against Chace's side as he shoots-maybe for balance, maybe for luck. Five games later they abandon the table. "Got to give someone else a chance," Ed says. He pauses and adds, "Because we are the champions!"
Chace grins, leaning against the wall with a bottle of Grey Goose. He talks to whoever's near him and is surprised, as always, by how much larger a room feels during a party, how many more people it can fit.
By the time he abandons the vodka he's solidly drunk, a level he'll be able to maintain all night, and he's feeling good. He's happy. He's glad that he lives here, that it's with Ed, that he's in their apartment at this moment, in the middle of this crowd. There's no reason to move away from the wall, to move anywhere; he's content.
When his phone vibrates in his pocket, he answers it without thinking. There's silence on the other end and then JC says, "Chace?"
For a split second, in his mind, Chace hangs up the phone. He turns the phone off. He gets back into the party, gets a little drunker, and pretends he didn't get the call until he forgets it happened in the first place.
Instead, Chace elbows his way onto the tiny balcony. "Hi," he says.
"Hi," JC says. More silence on the line. "I'm in the city."
Chace is drunk. He's completely falling-over-himself drunk; drunk and stupid. Knowing it isn't enough to stop himself from saying, "Where?"
The cab ride is way quicker than he'd thought it would be; only minutes, maybe seconds, before he's pressing the buzzer on JC's hotel door and JC is pulling him inside, pressing him down into the mattress.
*
Chace wakes up with a throbbing headache and JC's mouth on his dick. He hates himself for being there in the first place, but not enough to tell JC to stop before Chace comes.
JC pulls off after swallowing, wipes his mouth, and says, "Good morning."
"Hi," Chace says, wary, waiting JC out.
"I'm sorry," JC says.
"The blowjob was fine," Chace says, even though he's certain JC's not talking about the blowjob.
"I freaked out," JC says. He leans back against the headboard. "I didn't mean it like, we should never see each other again."
"Really," Chace says, meanly.
"I'm going to be in the city for a couple more days, if you want to . . . ?"
"Yeah, not so much," Chace says, rolling out of bed and looking for his pants. They're right by the door, along with his jacket and his cell phone, which is lying on the carpet, open and out of battery.
"Chace-"
"See you around," Chace says. He's got his pants mostly on as he pushes the door open.
By the time Chace gets back to the apartment, Ed's awake, sitting on the couch and clinging to a huge mug of coffee. His hair's sticking up and he looks like he kind of wants to die. The apartment doesn't look much better. The floor is sticky with spilled beer, and someone duct taped a bunch of empty cans to the wall.
"Where'd you get off to?" Ed says, his voice raspy-the way they always want him to sound on the show.
"Long story," Chace says. He eyes the coffee. "Any more where that came from?"
Ed points at the coffeemaker. Chace drinks a cup way too fast then takes a shower so long and hot it feels like he's melting. He feels way better afterwards. "You want brunch?" he says to Ed, shrugging a t-shirt on.
"Sure." Ed still looks like death as he shuffles out of the apartment, and his hair's still sticking up ridiculously.
Everything's better after they've eaten omelets from the place across the street, full of chorizo and onion and cheese. Ed doesn't ask anything else about what happened at the end of last night, and Chace doesn't tell him. He remembers, now, his memory coming back in flashes, that the sex was hard and rough and good, that JC had mouthed words against his ear-I want you, I'm sorry, I need this-and that in the middle of the night, with JC fucking him, Chace had believed him.
*
When JC calls again, Chace picks up. He isn't entirely surprised at himself.
"Hi," JC says. "I'm going to go on a helicopter tour. Do you want to come?"
"A helicopter tour," Chace repeats, to make sure he heard it right.
"Of the city," JC explains. "It's a private tour."
Chace exhales, weighing his options, but he's oddly intrigued. There was this guy at Pepperdine, Ryan, who lived in the Palisades and whose family had a helicopter, and he kept telling Chace he should fly down to San Diego with him, it'd be fucking sweet-but then Ryan crashed the thing into his neighbor's backyard, broke his collarbone and more importantly the helicopter, so all things considered Chace figures it's for the best that he never took him up on the offer.
"Okay," Chace says.
They take off from the heliport at 34th Street and circle down the East River and around the bottom of the island, back up the Hudson. It's too loud to speak, too loud for anything but the rush of blood in Chace's ears as he looks down at the city laid out before him, huge and jagged and endlessly new.
He's still dizzy with the feeling as JC hails a cab and takes him to the hotel. They fuck into the wee hours of the morning, when it turns into Monday and Chace has to work in the morning.
"I'm probably going to be back in a few weeks," JC says, watching Chace get dressed.
"Okay," Chace says. He feels strange as he leaves, overly full and not satisfied all at once, like he's still spinning in the air over Manhattan.
*
Pictures surface again, of them grinning and exiting the helicopter. Chace's publicist calls and says, "Seriously, I thought we were done with this." Chace barely glances at his statements before signing off on them.
It's familiar, going through this again, except that this time, JC doesn't stop texting. we should go somewhere soon, he says.
where, Chase texts back.
i'll let u know when i figure it out, JC says.
*
"You're pretty busy lately," Ed says. It's a Saturday night and they're eating shitty Chinese. Chace has never been able to figure out how they can live in New York and still order shitty takeout every time.
Chace swallows carefully, not looking at him. "Not really," he says.
"What are you doing next weekend?"
"I'm going to be out of town," Chase says. He's busted.
"You don't have to tell me what's going on," Ed says. He's looking at the TV and not at Chace. "Not if you don't want to, I mean."
"Yeah." Chace takes another couple bites of Chinese. It's really awful food. "I'm sorry," he adds.
Ed shrugs, and passes Chace the rest of the beef and broccoli-Chace's favorite of the lot-and Chace feels even worse than before, for taking Ed up on all of this.
*
"NASCAR," JC says when Chace picks up the phone.
"What?"
"That's what we're doing this weekend," JC explains.
"Where?" Chace says. It's an odd frigid day in spring, and he's on the balcony in a t-shirt, shivering. He didn't really think the weather through when he went outside.
"Atlanta."
Chace can't think of any reason to say no. "Okay. Sure," he says. After a beat he adds, "You like NASCAR?"
"Love it," JC says. "See you on Friday?"
"Yeah," Chace says, hanging up the phone before JC can say anything else. He stays on the balcony for a long time afterwards, like maybe freezing half to death will tell him why he's such a dumbass.
"I'm heading to Atlanta this weekend," Chace tells Ed when he goes back inside.
"Okay," Ed says, and a thought flashes through Chace's head, fast and bright: If he asked, I would tell him; if he wanted to know-
But Ed doesn't ask. He leaves it at okay, and Chace falls into watching True Hollywood Story with him and doesn't say anything else at all.
*
They're nearing the end of filming for the day. Chace has some downtime, a stretch of scenes they don't need him for, so he's watching TV and checking his cell phone compulsively when the door opens and Ed comes into the trailer.
"Ignore anything I do right now," Ed says.
"What?" Chace says, standing up, as Ed walks across the room with purpose, puts his hands on Chace's shoulders, and kisses him. Chace had his mouth opening, questioning, and now Ed's tongue is in it. Ed pushes against him, briefly, and then Ed's pulling away, backing up.
"What the-" Chace says, staring. He wants to touch his mouth; he wants proof that he didn't make this up, that this actually happened.
"Sorry," Ed says. "I'm really sorry-Leighton bet me a hundred dollars I wouldn't do it. I shouldn't have let her talk me into it, it was stupid-"
"No, don't worry about it, it's fine," Chace says reflexively. After the words are out of his mouth he's not sure if he means them, but then there's a PA knocking on the door and saying that they're due in makeup in five, and there's no time to think about it.
*
There's not really time to think about the kiss before Chace leaves for Atlanta, either, but on the plane there is. There's time then to remember the way Ed's mouth felt against his-solid and real, a kiss that didn't much feel like a dare at all. He must have been aware of it on some level while it was happening, but not the way he is now; he wasn't this certain. He's not sure what to do about that knowledge, now that he has it.
The air in Atlanta is thick and humid when Chace lands, like it's August and not just barely spring. When he arrives at the hotel JC lets him put his carry-on down and then jumps him, pinning him to the bed. Chace comes with JC's hand on his dick. The sex is good, it's always good, but his head's not in it.
He's trying to think of why he came here and the best he's got is that it was easier than refusing, which isn't any reason at all, not really.
Chace lets JC fuck him again the next morning-and that probably says more than anything else, that it's letting and not wanting.
But then they're at the race and JC's got people to chat up, plenty of other things to do. Chace gets a beer and wanders, watching the cars turn lap after endless lap. He makes his way back to JC once it's getting toward the end and watches the finish with him.
"You up for a big night?" JC says afterwards, as they're driving back to the hotel. "Dinner, parties, the works." He hasn't stopped grinning yet, giddy like a kid.
"Sure," Chace says reflexively.
But he's not sure, not at all, and he's more certain of it as they get closer to the hotel. By the time they're upstairs he's positive. He can't keep letting this be easy.
"JC," Chace says, waiting until JC looks at him to continue. "I have to go."
JC pauses in the middle of pulling clothes out of the closet. "What do you mean, you have to go?"
"I'm leaving," Chace says.
"Leaving, as in . . . ?"
"Leaving," Chace says. "This isn't going anywhere. Us, I mean. We're not going anywhere."
JC's expression is very carefully neutral as Chace picks up his suitcase. This is why he never unpacked it, he thinks; he'd never really intended to stay the whole weekend. Somehow he must have known that this was going to happen now, that it was going to be over-and it had to have been now, had to have been in person. This was the only way it could have gone.
"I'll see you around," Chace says, and gets out of there without looking at JC again. He breathes easier as soon as he's in a cab; he'll feel a million times better once he's in the air over Georgia, headed north.
Chace changes his ticket to one for a flight that leaves soon, but it's delayed; there are thunderstorms in Alabama. Chace wanders through the airport for five hours. He buys fried chicken that he throws out after eating three bites and two different novels he's not going to read. He's itchy, dissatisfied. He's been tapping his foot against the floor, staccato, for an hour by the time his plane loads.
On board he buys three bottles of red wine in the hopes of passing out. He remembers too late that plane wine is shit and has to chug it. He feels sick more than anything else after that. The plane ride is too long, and getting back to New York is so urgent he can't even breathe. The feeling doesn't dissipate after he lands, or during the taxi ride back to Manhattan, and it's definitely not any better once he's standing in the lobby of his building, waiting for the elevator.
It's only better once he actually gets in the door and Ed is there in front of him. There's an infomercial on the TV screen and Ed's got the volume way too loud for four a.m.; he hits the mute button before saying, "Hi. I thought you weren't getting back until tomorrow."
Chace looks at Ed, his facial features blurred in the low light from the window and the television, but there's no complication there, nothing but happiness at seeing Chace in the doorway. Chace could tell him right now, if he wanted to; he could tell Ed that he's worked it out, now, that he knows the kiss wasn't a dare, not really, or that even if it was it didn't matter-that he knows the kiss was saying, You don't have to do what you're doing, and I'm here-but it's four in the morning and there are people chopping vegetables silently on his TV screen, their TV screen; and Ed will be here in the morning, and so will Chace, and all that really matters is that they both know this, now.
Chace just says, "Yeah, I came back early," and lets a smile light up across his face, feeling the way it tugs at the corners of his mouth and watching Ed's smile rise and meet his. He is home, all is well, and he knows, finally, beyond any sort of question, that this is going to be good, better even than it is already.
the end
Also, I can move on now. THANK GOD.
Title: Jagged and Endlessly New
Author: causeways
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: JC Chasez/Chace Crawford, Chace Crawford/Ed Westwick
Word Count: 4,054
Disclaimer: None of these men have ever had any sort of homosexual relations with each other whatsoever.
Summary: "I think I'm moving out of my apartment," Ed says one afternoon on set. They're huddling in Chace's trailer between takes.
Author's Notes: This is the sequel to Some Surreal Country, but it should stand alone pretty well. walkawayslowly would have betaed this if she'd been around.
Jagged and Endlessly New
"I think I'm moving out of my apartment," Ed says one afternoon on set. They're huddling in Chace's trailer between takes. It's still cold enough that filming outdoors is miserable.
"Okay," Chace says. He takes a big bite of his roast beef sandwich and chews it slowly.
"I'm thinking about downtown. TriBeCa, maybe. How do you feel about TriBeCa?"
"Fine," Chace says, swallowing. "How do you feel about TriBeCa? You're the one who's going to be living there."
"Ah, that's the thing," Ed says. "How you feel about moving in with me?"
There isn't any more sandwich in Chace's mouth. He chokes anyway. "Why?" he manages finally, after Ed hands him a bottle of water.
Ed shrugs. "It seems like it would be fun to have a roommate," he says lightly.
Chace gulps half the bottle of water before replying. "Having a roommate is one of those things that everyone tells you is fun, a good life experience, except it's really not."
"Oh yeah?" Ed says. His expression isn't giving anything away.
"I had roommates at college," Chace says. He spent half of freshman year walking in Mark and Mark's girlfriend; he spent most of his sophomore year as far away from his dorm as possible, so he wouldn't be around when Dave got caught dealing coke. Not that he thinks Ed is a nympho or a drug dealer, and they'd be sharing an apartment and not a room. He knows it's a different thing. He's still not really sure how to get all that across, so he settles for, "It sucked. Look, man, if you want to hang out more, we'll hang out more. We don't have to be roommates to hang out."
But Ed shakes his head. "It's not that. Just think about it."
"Sure," Chace says, watching Ed's back as he disappears back into the costume trailer to get ready for the next take. He keeps staring at the door for a long time after it's closed behind Ed, as if staring at the door long enough will help him figure out why Ed wanted to do this.
*
Chace doesn't think about it that afternoon, but he thinks about it when he gets home. When he's at work, time passes quickly. He's doing something constantly. He feels good, useful.
But it's a different story at the apartment. Chace has been doing his best not to think about it, because what's the point, but he's lonely for the first time in the half-year he's lived there. It's stupid; it's completely stupid. JC has never been to Chace's apartment in the first place.
Chace gives himself a couple of days to see if it will get better. It doesn't. It's like, now that Ed's given him another option, he can't help thinking that anything has got to be better than this. And Ed's not just anything. Ed's his best friend on the set, one of his best friends, period. Ed's never asked about the rumors-no one on the set really has-and now that Chace thinks about it he's been kind of a dick to the guy for a while. He hasn't been telling Ed where he's been, what's distracting him. Moving in with Ed maybe isn't the best way to make it up to him, but Chace isn't the one who put the offer on the table.
"Okay," Chace says to Ed the next morning.
"Okay?"
"To the apartment," Chace clarifies, even though he's pretty sure Ed knew exactly what he meant. Ed started smiling the moment Chace said okay.
"Excellent," Ed says. "I'll book an appointment with a broker. How does Saturday sound?"
"Sure," Chace says. He still feels sort of like a dick.
*
By all rights, the apartment search should be a bitch. It took weeks before Chace found his studio last year. But maybe Ed's got the touch for it or maybe the broker's got a deal with the devil, because the third apartment they look at is the one, no question about it. The building is old, with a fire escape that looks like latticework crawling up the exterior wall. The elevator is tiny and creaks unhappily to life, but the apartment is big and bright and has a whole room just for a beer pong table.
"Do we really need a whole room for a beer pong table?" Chace says.
Ed gives him the eye. "I cannot believe you just asked that question."
They sign the lease the next morning. Chace feels about eight times better after that's done. He's still a dick, still doing this for the wrong reasons, but at least he's committed to it now, has something concrete to apologize for. That makes it better.
*
It takes an entire day to move into the new apartment. Ed talked Chace into renting a U-Haul instead of hiring movers, which hadn't sounded like a terrible idea until Chace has spent hours trying to maneuver Ed's enormous mattress into the microscopic elevator in the new building.
"Unless you want to ditch your bed, we're hiring movers next time," Chace says. It's about forty degrees out, and he's so hot that he's wearing nothing but a t-shirt and still sweating.
"We've got months before we have to think about that," Ed says. "Possibly years."
Chace has a reply all ready, getting a little ahead of yourself there, aren't you?, but he catches Ed smiling and doesn't say it. Ed's grin isn't even for him, specifically; he's just looking around the apartment, surveying the place, and he looks so pleased to be there that Chace swallows his guilt, smiles back a little, and says, "I guess we do."
*
It's been more than a month since the last time Chace talked to JC. He's long since quit expecting to see JC's number when his cell phone buzzes in his pocket. The twinge of disappointment every time it isn't him, though-that's still there.
*
"We're going to need to throw a housewarming party," Ed says during lunch break.
"It looks like we're squatting," Chace says. The apartment is way bigger than where either of them used to live, and the amount of furniture they brought doesn't even come close to filling the amount of space they've got now. The rooms still look stripped down, bare.
Ed takes a thoughtful bite of pasta salad. "Obviously this is a problem," he says.
*
On Saturday, Ed drags Chace to IKEA Brooklyn.
The last IKEA Chace went to was the one in Burbank, his freshman year. It was a hellhole. IKEA Brooklyn is worse. It's like wandering through seven traffic-jam miles of labyrinth, plus at the end of it all Chace is still going to have to assemble the freaking furniture. Chace always kind of figured that one of the major perks of being a TV star was being able to pay someone else to do this kind of shit for you.
But Ed has some kind of unholy love for the place, possibly because he was dropped on his head as a child, so Chace trails along while Ed picks out more boxes of furniture parts than they're ever going to need in a lifetime. Under pain of death Ed agrees to have most of it delivered, but he insists on bringing the beer pong table back with them right then.
So they lug the thing down to the water taxi, because apparently cabs haven't heard of IKEA.
"You've never been on the water taxi, have you?" Ed says. "You'll like it."
It's a good view, Chace has to admit. He's been in New York long enough now that the skyline is familiar to him, that he's past the point of wonder. But he doesn't spend much time downtown, and he's never been right on the East River, looking south with the sun low in the sky and the whole harbor opening up before him, and somehow he hadn't realized until this very moment that he loved this place, that he loves it more than any other.
"Pretty cool, huh?" Ed says, next to him.
"Yeah," Chace says. He doesn't even try to put the rest into words. He has the feeling that Ed gets it, anyway.
*
The beer pong table takes two hours and three bottles of Six Point apiece to assemble, and it still wobbles when they're done.
"I don't even care," Ed says. "It is a masterpiece of craftsmanship. You know what we need to do now."
"We need to break it in," Chace says.
Ed grins. "Good man." He gets the cheap beer, the cups, and the ping-pong balls.
After three games, the exhaustion of IKEA creeps up on them. Ed sprawls on the couch with his head on Chace's shoulder, no sense of personal space, and says, "This is good."
Chace shifts back against the couch, sinking farther into the cushions. He's perfectly comfortable here, with Ed beside him.
"All of it," Ed elaborates. "This is good."
"Yeah," Chace agrees, and means it.
*
They wait until the next weekend to have the housewarming party, so that they have plenty of time to stock up on Miller Lite. They've got a pretty good supply laid in by the time Leighton and Blake show up, which is good, because they bring about nine hundred of their closest friends.
Ed and Chace rule the beer pong table for a while, Ed pressed up against Chace's side as he shoots-maybe for balance, maybe for luck. Five games later they abandon the table. "Got to give someone else a chance," Ed says. He pauses and adds, "Because we are the champions!"
Chace grins, leaning against the wall with a bottle of Grey Goose. He talks to whoever's near him and is surprised, as always, by how much larger a room feels during a party, how many more people it can fit.
By the time he abandons the vodka he's solidly drunk, a level he'll be able to maintain all night, and he's feeling good. He's happy. He's glad that he lives here, that it's with Ed, that he's in their apartment at this moment, in the middle of this crowd. There's no reason to move away from the wall, to move anywhere; he's content.
When his phone vibrates in his pocket, he answers it without thinking. There's silence on the other end and then JC says, "Chace?"
For a split second, in his mind, Chace hangs up the phone. He turns the phone off. He gets back into the party, gets a little drunker, and pretends he didn't get the call until he forgets it happened in the first place.
Instead, Chace elbows his way onto the tiny balcony. "Hi," he says.
"Hi," JC says. More silence on the line. "I'm in the city."
Chace is drunk. He's completely falling-over-himself drunk; drunk and stupid. Knowing it isn't enough to stop himself from saying, "Where?"
The cab ride is way quicker than he'd thought it would be; only minutes, maybe seconds, before he's pressing the buzzer on JC's hotel door and JC is pulling him inside, pressing him down into the mattress.
*
Chace wakes up with a throbbing headache and JC's mouth on his dick. He hates himself for being there in the first place, but not enough to tell JC to stop before Chace comes.
JC pulls off after swallowing, wipes his mouth, and says, "Good morning."
"Hi," Chace says, wary, waiting JC out.
"I'm sorry," JC says.
"The blowjob was fine," Chace says, even though he's certain JC's not talking about the blowjob.
"I freaked out," JC says. He leans back against the headboard. "I didn't mean it like, we should never see each other again."
"Really," Chace says, meanly.
"I'm going to be in the city for a couple more days, if you want to . . . ?"
"Yeah, not so much," Chace says, rolling out of bed and looking for his pants. They're right by the door, along with his jacket and his cell phone, which is lying on the carpet, open and out of battery.
"Chace-"
"See you around," Chace says. He's got his pants mostly on as he pushes the door open.
By the time Chace gets back to the apartment, Ed's awake, sitting on the couch and clinging to a huge mug of coffee. His hair's sticking up and he looks like he kind of wants to die. The apartment doesn't look much better. The floor is sticky with spilled beer, and someone duct taped a bunch of empty cans to the wall.
"Where'd you get off to?" Ed says, his voice raspy-the way they always want him to sound on the show.
"Long story," Chace says. He eyes the coffee. "Any more where that came from?"
Ed points at the coffeemaker. Chace drinks a cup way too fast then takes a shower so long and hot it feels like he's melting. He feels way better afterwards. "You want brunch?" he says to Ed, shrugging a t-shirt on.
"Sure." Ed still looks like death as he shuffles out of the apartment, and his hair's still sticking up ridiculously.
Everything's better after they've eaten omelets from the place across the street, full of chorizo and onion and cheese. Ed doesn't ask anything else about what happened at the end of last night, and Chace doesn't tell him. He remembers, now, his memory coming back in flashes, that the sex was hard and rough and good, that JC had mouthed words against his ear-I want you, I'm sorry, I need this-and that in the middle of the night, with JC fucking him, Chace had believed him.
*
When JC calls again, Chace picks up. He isn't entirely surprised at himself.
"Hi," JC says. "I'm going to go on a helicopter tour. Do you want to come?"
"A helicopter tour," Chace repeats, to make sure he heard it right.
"Of the city," JC explains. "It's a private tour."
Chace exhales, weighing his options, but he's oddly intrigued. There was this guy at Pepperdine, Ryan, who lived in the Palisades and whose family had a helicopter, and he kept telling Chace he should fly down to San Diego with him, it'd be fucking sweet-but then Ryan crashed the thing into his neighbor's backyard, broke his collarbone and more importantly the helicopter, so all things considered Chace figures it's for the best that he never took him up on the offer.
"Okay," Chace says.
They take off from the heliport at 34th Street and circle down the East River and around the bottom of the island, back up the Hudson. It's too loud to speak, too loud for anything but the rush of blood in Chace's ears as he looks down at the city laid out before him, huge and jagged and endlessly new.
He's still dizzy with the feeling as JC hails a cab and takes him to the hotel. They fuck into the wee hours of the morning, when it turns into Monday and Chace has to work in the morning.
"I'm probably going to be back in a few weeks," JC says, watching Chace get dressed.
"Okay," Chace says. He feels strange as he leaves, overly full and not satisfied all at once, like he's still spinning in the air over Manhattan.
*
Pictures surface again, of them grinning and exiting the helicopter. Chace's publicist calls and says, "Seriously, I thought we were done with this." Chace barely glances at his statements before signing off on them.
It's familiar, going through this again, except that this time, JC doesn't stop texting. we should go somewhere soon, he says.
where, Chase texts back.
i'll let u know when i figure it out, JC says.
*
"You're pretty busy lately," Ed says. It's a Saturday night and they're eating shitty Chinese. Chace has never been able to figure out how they can live in New York and still order shitty takeout every time.
Chace swallows carefully, not looking at him. "Not really," he says.
"What are you doing next weekend?"
"I'm going to be out of town," Chase says. He's busted.
"You don't have to tell me what's going on," Ed says. He's looking at the TV and not at Chace. "Not if you don't want to, I mean."
"Yeah." Chace takes another couple bites of Chinese. It's really awful food. "I'm sorry," he adds.
Ed shrugs, and passes Chace the rest of the beef and broccoli-Chace's favorite of the lot-and Chace feels even worse than before, for taking Ed up on all of this.
*
"NASCAR," JC says when Chace picks up the phone.
"What?"
"That's what we're doing this weekend," JC explains.
"Where?" Chace says. It's an odd frigid day in spring, and he's on the balcony in a t-shirt, shivering. He didn't really think the weather through when he went outside.
"Atlanta."
Chace can't think of any reason to say no. "Okay. Sure," he says. After a beat he adds, "You like NASCAR?"
"Love it," JC says. "See you on Friday?"
"Yeah," Chace says, hanging up the phone before JC can say anything else. He stays on the balcony for a long time afterwards, like maybe freezing half to death will tell him why he's such a dumbass.
"I'm heading to Atlanta this weekend," Chace tells Ed when he goes back inside.
"Okay," Ed says, and a thought flashes through Chace's head, fast and bright: If he asked, I would tell him; if he wanted to know-
But Ed doesn't ask. He leaves it at okay, and Chace falls into watching True Hollywood Story with him and doesn't say anything else at all.
*
They're nearing the end of filming for the day. Chace has some downtime, a stretch of scenes they don't need him for, so he's watching TV and checking his cell phone compulsively when the door opens and Ed comes into the trailer.
"Ignore anything I do right now," Ed says.
"What?" Chace says, standing up, as Ed walks across the room with purpose, puts his hands on Chace's shoulders, and kisses him. Chace had his mouth opening, questioning, and now Ed's tongue is in it. Ed pushes against him, briefly, and then Ed's pulling away, backing up.
"What the-" Chace says, staring. He wants to touch his mouth; he wants proof that he didn't make this up, that this actually happened.
"Sorry," Ed says. "I'm really sorry-Leighton bet me a hundred dollars I wouldn't do it. I shouldn't have let her talk me into it, it was stupid-"
"No, don't worry about it, it's fine," Chace says reflexively. After the words are out of his mouth he's not sure if he means them, but then there's a PA knocking on the door and saying that they're due in makeup in five, and there's no time to think about it.
*
There's not really time to think about the kiss before Chace leaves for Atlanta, either, but on the plane there is. There's time then to remember the way Ed's mouth felt against his-solid and real, a kiss that didn't much feel like a dare at all. He must have been aware of it on some level while it was happening, but not the way he is now; he wasn't this certain. He's not sure what to do about that knowledge, now that he has it.
The air in Atlanta is thick and humid when Chace lands, like it's August and not just barely spring. When he arrives at the hotel JC lets him put his carry-on down and then jumps him, pinning him to the bed. Chace comes with JC's hand on his dick. The sex is good, it's always good, but his head's not in it.
He's trying to think of why he came here and the best he's got is that it was easier than refusing, which isn't any reason at all, not really.
Chace lets JC fuck him again the next morning-and that probably says more than anything else, that it's letting and not wanting.
But then they're at the race and JC's got people to chat up, plenty of other things to do. Chace gets a beer and wanders, watching the cars turn lap after endless lap. He makes his way back to JC once it's getting toward the end and watches the finish with him.
"You up for a big night?" JC says afterwards, as they're driving back to the hotel. "Dinner, parties, the works." He hasn't stopped grinning yet, giddy like a kid.
"Sure," Chace says reflexively.
But he's not sure, not at all, and he's more certain of it as they get closer to the hotel. By the time they're upstairs he's positive. He can't keep letting this be easy.
"JC," Chace says, waiting until JC looks at him to continue. "I have to go."
JC pauses in the middle of pulling clothes out of the closet. "What do you mean, you have to go?"
"I'm leaving," Chace says.
"Leaving, as in . . . ?"
"Leaving," Chace says. "This isn't going anywhere. Us, I mean. We're not going anywhere."
JC's expression is very carefully neutral as Chace picks up his suitcase. This is why he never unpacked it, he thinks; he'd never really intended to stay the whole weekend. Somehow he must have known that this was going to happen now, that it was going to be over-and it had to have been now, had to have been in person. This was the only way it could have gone.
"I'll see you around," Chace says, and gets out of there without looking at JC again. He breathes easier as soon as he's in a cab; he'll feel a million times better once he's in the air over Georgia, headed north.
Chace changes his ticket to one for a flight that leaves soon, but it's delayed; there are thunderstorms in Alabama. Chace wanders through the airport for five hours. He buys fried chicken that he throws out after eating three bites and two different novels he's not going to read. He's itchy, dissatisfied. He's been tapping his foot against the floor, staccato, for an hour by the time his plane loads.
On board he buys three bottles of red wine in the hopes of passing out. He remembers too late that plane wine is shit and has to chug it. He feels sick more than anything else after that. The plane ride is too long, and getting back to New York is so urgent he can't even breathe. The feeling doesn't dissipate after he lands, or during the taxi ride back to Manhattan, and it's definitely not any better once he's standing in the lobby of his building, waiting for the elevator.
It's only better once he actually gets in the door and Ed is there in front of him. There's an infomercial on the TV screen and Ed's got the volume way too loud for four a.m.; he hits the mute button before saying, "Hi. I thought you weren't getting back until tomorrow."
Chace looks at Ed, his facial features blurred in the low light from the window and the television, but there's no complication there, nothing but happiness at seeing Chace in the doorway. Chace could tell him right now, if he wanted to; he could tell Ed that he's worked it out, now, that he knows the kiss wasn't a dare, not really, or that even if it was it didn't matter-that he knows the kiss was saying, You don't have to do what you're doing, and I'm here-but it's four in the morning and there are people chopping vegetables silently on his TV screen, their TV screen; and Ed will be here in the morning, and so will Chace, and all that really matters is that they both know this, now.
Chace just says, "Yeah, I came back early," and lets a smile light up across his face, feeling the way it tugs at the corners of his mouth and watching Ed's smile rise and meet his. He is home, all is well, and he knows, finally, beyond any sort of question, that this is going to be good, better even than it is already.
the end
Also, I can move on now. THANK GOD.