A Wild Rumpus (Star Trek RPF Fanfic)
Title: A Wild Rumpus
Author: therumjournals
Fandom: Star Trek RPF
Pairing: Chris/Zach (and a side of Karl/Zoe)
Rating: R
Word Count: 7,080
Description: Chris runs away from the paparazzi, and into an adventure. Written for reel_startrek, for the movie Where the Wild Things Are. (I would consider this “inspired by” as opposed to a retelling of the movie. Additional influences include Peter Pan and, let’s face it, The Blue Lagoon.)
Warning: strangely naïve/innocent/child-like Zach and Chris
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended; fair use only. Not created for profit.
A/N: Thanks to 1lostone for the read-through!
“Do you love me, Chris?”
“What?”
“Do you love me?”
Chris looked up from his plate, stared at the girl sitting across the table from him like he’d never seen her before.
And maybe he had seen her before, maybe he’d been seeing her for a while, but suddenly it was all a blur, useless hours of his life spent sitting across tables like this one, saying words he didn’t remember seconds later. He furrowed his brow, and before he could stop himself he felt the words leaving his lips. “Why would I love you?”
Then she was yelling something, her face twisted and ugly, and all Chris could think was that he wanted to go, to get as far away as possible from the dull fog that his life had become. A loud crash echoed in his ears, and he was halfway to the door before he realized that he’d knocked his chair to the ground in his haste to leave. He didn’t stop, didn’t even slow down as he pushed his way out the door. Then a sea of blinding lights froze him in his tracks, and he threw an arm up to shield his eyes as laughter surrounded him. Laughing at him, he realized, laughing because he was still clutching his knife and fork in his hands, still had his napkin tucked into his collar, and he wished he could shrink down to nothing as the photographers called out his name. “Look, it’s Chris Pine!” “Hey, Chris!” someone yelled. “What are you going to do? Eat us up?!” Another wave of laughter and the lights flashed in his eyes as he fought his way through the mob and onto the dark street behind them. His silverware clattered to the ground and he ran, as fast as his feet could carry him away.
He wasn’t sure how long he’d been running - minutes, hours, days - when he stumbled, slipped, and slid down a short grassy slope. He landed hard, and it took him a few minutes to catch his breath as he tried to find his bearings in the darkness. A vast lake stretched out in front of him, moonlight glinting off the lightly rippled surface, and he squinted in confusion before he realized where he was - on the shore of the Silverlake Reservoir.
A rowboat bumped softly against the bank, and Chris frowned. He stood, approached it slowly, putting a hand out in front of him as though it might bite. It didn’t. Chris gave the bow a shove and climbed in. The oars were warm under his palms, and they sliced cleanly through the water as he rowed out into the reservoir. He pulled hard, relishing the ache in his muscles as he watched the shore recede, fading into the darkness until the last lights of LA had blinked out and he was alone. A light breeze blew and he let go of the oars, stretched his arms out above his head. He heard a rustling sound and glanced back to see that a small sail had unfurled behind him. He smiled and lay back to watch the stars.
*
The moon hung higher in the night sky when Chris opened his eyes with a start. He wondered briefly what had woken him, then the boat hit something with a gentle clunk and he sat up quickly. For a moment he worried that he’d drifted back to shore, but no - this was different. A sandy beach, spotted with boulders, and behind it a forest, tall trunks of stately trees reaching up into the star-dusted sky. Chris climbed out of the rowboat and dragged it up onto the beach, heedless of the warm water soaking his shoes and the cuffs of his pants. The forest floor was open and unthreatening, and he approached it without fear, leaves crunching softly beneath his feet. The moonlight seemed to travel with him, illuminating a path, and Chris was more than content to follow it into the darkness.
He smelled the bonfire before he saw it - a whiff of smoke on the wind, then a glimpse of flame through the forest. As he approached, he heard voices, laughter and whooping, and his legs moved faster through no conscious decision of his own.
Chris paused on the edge of the clearing and rested his hand on the firm trunk of an ancient tree. His eyes sparkled in the light of the flame as he watched, captivated. They were gathered in a semi-circle around the fire, people, like him, but different - smiling, all of them, laughing without malice. Dirt streaked their clothes and faces and some of them had leaves strewn in their hair, but they didn’t seem to mind. He looked at them all, but his eyes came to rest on the one closest to him, the tall one with dark hair and graceful limbs leaning down to fuss with a paper birthday hat adorning the shaggy gray dog beside him. He spoke earnestly with the dog for a moment as he adjusted the chin strap, and Chris wished he could hear what he was saying. Without intending to, he took a step forward, and a branch cracked loudly under his foot. The group around the fire stopped talking, and Chris felt a heat in his cheeks that wasn't from the fire as a pair of deep brown eyes met his own. He swallowed dryly as he watched the dark-haired man stand to peer curiously into the darkness. Suddenly, the worst thing that Chris could imagine was a frown to mar that face, with Chris as its cause. But instead of frowning, he broke into a smile and reached out his hand.
“Hi!” He gestured him closer. “Come on! How can you join the party if you’re over there?”
Chris stepped closer. He wanted to apologize, to explain his presence, to say something, but his mouth worked silently and no words would come.
“I’m Zach!”
Chris managed a weak whisper. “Chris.”
“Welcome, Chris! This is Noah,” he said, pointing to the dog. “This is his birthday party.”
Chris felt a crooked smile cross his face. “Happy birthday, Noah,” he said respectfully, looking at the dog.
Zach’s smile widened and he nodded his approval. “Come on,” he said again, tugging Chris by the sleeve, pulling him until he was part of the circle. Zach pointed around the fire as he introduced everyone else.
“That’s Karl, and that’s Zoe.” Karl gave a small wave and Zoe smiled at him, and he felt happier than he had in months. “And that’s John - don’t listen to anything he says - and Simon - you can’t understand anything he says anyway, so just smile and nod.” Chris smiled and nodded in Simon’s direction. “This is Anton,” Zach said, reaching out to grab the skinny boy, pulling him in close to ruffle his hair. Anton gave a squeak and squirmed from Zach’s grasp, flushed and smiling. “And there’s Eric, too, but he’s not here,” Zach said, and his smile faltered. “He went away.”
Chris nodded, and let his eyes travel around the circle again. Everyone was still watching him. He gave a little wave. “I’m Chris.”
“Hi Chris!” they said in unison. Simon said something incomprehensible and everybody laughed, Noah barked, and the party was back in full swing.
Chris felt the tension drain from his shoulders as he followed everyone’s lead. They danced around the fire to imaginary music and whooped and cheered when John did a handstand. Simon tackled him and Anton jumped into the fray, and Chris watched and laughed. And he was still laughing when Zach came up behind him and tickled his sides, then he shrieked and jumped and ran around the fire, never letting Zach fall too far behind.
When they were tired, they sat in a circle, their legs sprawled out in front of them, eating huge slices of Noah’s birthday cake with their hands. Zach leaned close to Chris and gestured across the fire to where Zoe was curled comfortably against Karl’s chest.
“They’re in love,” he whispered conspiratorially. “Everybody knows it.”
Chris felt an unpleasant memory crawl up his spine, and he curled his lip. “I don’t like it,” he declared.
“What?”
“Love.”
Zach shrugged and looked away. “It’s not for everyone,” he said quietly. Noah shuffled over, yawned, and flopped down beside them. Zach yawned then, and he laughed as Chris did too, and soon everyone around the dying fire was yawning and stretching and blinking sleepily.
“Bedtime?” Karl asked across the circle, and there were nods all around.
Chris looked nervously at Zach. “Where…um, where should I sleep?” he asked.
Zach cocked his head, confused. “With us,” he said, matter of factly.
“Oh.” He still wasn’t quite sure what Zach meant. “Okay.”
Zach looked at him intently. “Hey, Chris.”
“Yeah?”
“You have birthday cake on your face,” he said, and he reached out to smear a handful of icing and cake across Chris’s cheek. Chris yelped and fell backwards, too surprised to be angry, and before he could recover, Noah was there, licking his birthday dinner off of Chris’s face. Chris laughed, squirming on the ground amongst the crunching leaves, and then Zach leaned down to drag his tongue across Chris’s other cheek and smile at him with a mouthful of icing. Chris’s eyes widened as he felt a rush of warmth flood his chest, but he chalked it up to the fact that everyone was there now, close to him, lying around him on the ground as they settled in for the night. He heard soft footsteps approach and watched as Anton dropped to his knees at Chris’s side. But Zach pushed him away, hissing “No, I want to sleep next to the new one!” and Anton gave a grunt of disappointment as he wiggled over next to John instead. Zach smiled at Chris again and tucked himself comfortably along his side, his head resting on Chris’s chest. Chris let the heat of Zach’s body warm him, and he wrapped an arm around Zach’s back so that he would be warm, too. Something damp snuffled his ear and Noah flopped down on his other side, nudging his head into Chris’s armpit. The rustling of the leaves quieted around him as everyone got comfortable, and darkness fell as the last of the flames flickered out.
An owl hooted quietly in the trees and Chris smiled. This place - he hadn’t put much thought into it, and he didn’t plan to. He knew that it was peaceful, and that he was warm and full and surrounded by people who didn’t want anything from him. Friends, he thought - the word felt foreign to him, but he knew that it applied. The ground beneath his back was softer than any bed he could remember, and he could feel himself drifting off to sleep. Then Zach snored loudly in his ear and Noah sneezed and the owl swooped low overhead, startling him, and he wondered if maybe he wouldn’t sleep so well tonight after all.
But he did fall asleep, and the shapes of monsters haunted his dreams, vague and fuzzy and not unkind. And he woke up expecting to find them there in the woods with him, but instead he blinked his eyes open to the sight of Zach’s face, clear and sharp and smiling upside-down above him, the sun throwing a halo behind his head.
“Hey, sleepyhead! Get up! We have bacon!”
Chris sniffed the air, stretched, and sat up to accept the plate of pancakes and bacon that Zach thrust into his hand.
“Eat!” Zach told him. Then, “Wait.” He picked up a bottle of maple syrup and drizzled it generously over Chris’s plate. “There. Now eat.”
Chris didn’t like being told what to do, but he did love pancakes and bacon, and he was becoming rather fond of Zach, so he ate heartily as Zach looked on, pleased. He was still chewing the last bite when Zach yanked him up by the arm and dragged him away from the clearing. “Where’re we goin’?” Chris mumbled through his food.
“Everyone’s gone already. We have to catch up. But first, here -“ Zach gestured toward the mouth of a small cave. A pile of clothes lay neatly folded in the sandy entrance. “Wear those.”
“Why?”
“Because. You don’t look comfortable.”
It was true, now that Chris thought about it. He was still wearing his dress clothes from the night before, and he suddenly felt itchy and constrained. He quickly changed into the t-shirt and flannel pajama pants - which, now that he thought about it, was what everyone was wearing, and it didn’t seem strange at all. Zach looked him up and down when he stepped out. “Much better. Now come on,” he said, and took off running. Chris raised an eyebrow as he watched Zach disappearing through the trees before he realized that he should follow. He wasn’t sure he had it in him, to be honest, but there must have been something in the forest air, because before he knew it he’d almost caught up to Zach, and he was running and whooping and leaping over logs like he did it every day. He felt a wild exhilaration surging through him, like he could keep running forever, and he kind of wanted to try. But instead he stopped when Zach did, at the top of a long, gently-sloping hill. He could just make out the figures of the others below them, but Zach didn’t seem like he was in any hurry to follow.
Zach looked at him. “So we were talking, this morning. About you.”
Chris wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad one. “Okay.”
“We were wondering-“ He took a breath, thought about what he wanted to say. “We were wondering if you would like to be our king.”
Chris furrowed his brow. "Your king? What does the king do?"
"Well,” Zach said, tilting his head as he considered. “The king decides what we should do. And…and everyone looks up to the king and wants to be like him."
Chris thought about it for a moment. "No, I don't think I'd like to be the king,” he said, deciding. “I just want to be one of you."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
Zach broke into a wicked grin and tackled him, the momentum carrying them both to the ground, and they tumbled down the hill together, head over feet.
When they came to a stop at the bottom, Chris sat up and sucked in a deep breath. That had hurt. He looked over at Zach, who was watching him, cautious. Chris felt something bubbling up inside him and he tipped his head back and laughed. He laughed until his stomach hurt, rolling around on the ground beside Zach, and when he sat up he had leaves in his hair and a smear of dirt across his cheek, and all he wanted was to take the hand that Zach offered to pull him up and never let it go.
But Zach did let go, and he took off running to catch up with the others, and Chris shook his head and followed. When they slid to a stop in the loose leaves, Karl raised an eyebrow at Zach.
“Well?” Karl asked. “Is he going to be our king?”
“No, he’s not.”
“Well…what’s he going to be then?” asked Anton.
Zach took Chris’s hand again and smiled proudly. “He’s going to be my friend.”
*
Chris frowned in concentration. He was, after all, doing something very serious. Determining the correct width of the moat was crucial if they wanted the water to funnel in from the sea without destroying the carefully constructed walls of the sandcastle.
Simon was hard at work on the tunnel (or so he said - to Chris it looked more like he was digging a hole), when he looked up and babbled something important-sounding at Chris.
“What did he say?” Chris asked, squinting in confusion.
“He was telling you that last time, we got an entire school of fish to take up residence in the moat,” John supplied.
Chris raised an eyebrow and looked at Anton. “Is he telling the truth?”
Anton shrugged, disinterested, all of his energy focused on the intricate pattern of sticks and leaves he was creating along the castle walls.
Chris rolled his eyes, then grinned as he saw Zach approaching them from down the beach.
“Zach!” he called. “Come check out our sandcastle!”
Zach glanced at it and nodded. “It looks nice. Last time we got a school of fish to live in the moat though.”
Chris shook his head in disbelief and let Zach tug him up by the arm.
“Come on,” he said, pulling Chris away from the group.
“Where are we going?” Chris asked, letting Zach lead him by the hand, ducking under branches as they headed into a part of the forest that was tangled with undergrowth.
“To make a secret fort,” Zach said.
“A secret fort? Why?”
“Because,” Zach said, as though it were obvious. “That’s what friends do.”
*
It took them three days to make the fort. First they had to find the perfect place. By the end of the day, Chris’s arms and cheeks were covered in scratches and the knees of his pajama pants were caked in dirt from kneeling down to look under every bush and in every hollow log. But they found it, just as the sun was setting, the perfect spot for their fort. A cave, or more accurately, a pile of boulders, but with a space inside big enough for them both to fit quite comfortably on the dry, sandy ground. The next day, they made a door out of grasses and sticks, and they wrote their names on the walls with charcoal and made it their own. On the third day, they gathered the necessary supplies - wood for a fire, and a chew toy in case Noah wanted to visit, and a bottle of maple syrup in case they got hungry. When they were done, Chris collapsed on his back inside the fort and smiled. “It’s the best fort ever, Zach,” he said happily. “I can’t wait to show everyone.”
“No!” Zach said loudly, concern in his eyes. “You can’t tell anyone!”
“Why not?” Chris asked, propping himself up on his elbows.
“Because. Then it wouldn’t be a secret fort. It’s for us, only for us, Chris.”
“No one can even visit?”
“No. Except Noah,” Zach conceded.
Chris licked his lips thoughtfully and looked at their names scrawled on the wall. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to have a secret fort, he decided. “Okay. It’s ours only. I won’t tell.”
“Good,” Zach said, flopping onto his stomach, relieved.
*
When they weren’t at the fort, they spent time with everyone else, running through the forest during the day, climbing trees and putting on plays, laughing and singing by the fire at night, and making any excuse they could to eat cake.
“Is it your birthday?” John asked Chris one day.
“No.”
“Is it your mom’s birthday?”
“No,” Chris said, and he squinted a little. He knew he had a mom, but she seemed so far away, and thinking about her made his stomach feel funny. He decided not to think.
“Your dad’s?”
“Nope.”
“Your dog’s?”
“No. I don’t even have a dog!”
“You don’t?!”
“Nope. Once I had a stuffed dog. His name was Buster.”
“When was his birthday?”
“Um.” Chris thought about it. “I’m not sure.”
“Maybe it was today?”
“Maybe.”
John threw his hands in the air and whooped. “Karl,” he cried. “You can make a cake! It’s Buster’s birthday!”
*
“How long have I been here?” Chris asked as they sat around the fire one night.
Karl looked at him in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, when did I get here? How long ago?”
“I think it was a week,” John said. “Yeah. Definitely you’ve been here for, like, one week.”
Zoe shook her head. “No. No, it’s been much longer than that. A year, I think. Maybe two.”
“What do you think, Zach?” Chris asked.
Zach was hugging his knees to his chest, staring into the fire. “Who cares?”
Chris shrugged. “I was just wondering.”
Because he didn’t care. He liked it here. He liked smiling and laughing and running and playing games. He liked the leaves in his hair and the dirt under his nails, he liked pancakes and bacon every morning and a bonfire every night. He liked Noah, and Karl and Zoe, and the others, too. He liked Zach so much that he thought there should be another word for it. Superlike! He superliked Zach, and he turned to tell him so, only to find Noah sitting beside him, quietly licking the rest of Zach’s dinner from his plate.
He looked around the fire, but Zach was nowhere to be found. The others were laughing amongst themselves, so Chris stood slowly and turned to make his way into the woods. He had a feeling he knew where Zach might be.
A few minutes later, he ducked into their secret fort to find Zach waiting for him, sitting against the wall of their cave, a yellow crown tilted jauntily over one eye. Chris smiled and crawled over to him.
“Are you the king, Zach?” he asked.
“No,” Zach said, sighing wistfully and pulling the crown from his head. “It’s only paper,” he said sadly, bending one of the points down to prove it. “I’m only pretending.”
He turned to Chris and set the crown carefully on his head, giving him an appraising look.
“How do I look?” Chris asked.
Zach shook his head and reached out to lift it gently from his head. “You don’t need it,” he said, setting it down.
“Zach,” Chris said, swallowing. “Did I make you sad before?”
Zach bit his lip and didn’t say anything for a long moment. “A little.”
“Why?”
“You made me think of a time before…before you were here.” He looked at Chris. “I didn’t like it as much then.”
“Me neither,” Chris said seriously. Zach looked at him out of the corner of his eye and he cracked a smile as he thought about what he’d said, and then they were both laughing, clutching their sides as their laughter filled the air of the small cave.
Chris wiped his eyes and shook his head. He hiccupped once and laughed again and looked up to find Zach staring intently at him.
“Do you want to kiss?” Zach asked.
He hiccupped again and swallowed and held Zach’s gaze. “What?”
“Do you want to kiss? You know…like Karl and Zoe do?”
The corner of Chris’s mouth quirked up in a half-smile. “I know what kissing is. I just didn’t think-“
His words were cut off by the soft press of Zach’s lips against his, lingering there for a long moment. The cave was silent except for the sound of Zach’s breathing, and Chris could feel the warm puffs of breath across his skin. Zach didn’t seem to be going anywhere, so Chris opened his mouth a little, just enough to slide his tongue out and run it against Zach’s lips. Zach gasped and pulled back, surprise written across his face as he looked at Chris, at the tongue still peeking out from between his lips. He took a deep breath, and then lunged toward Chris again, this time pressing his open mouth to Chris’s, wiggling his tongue in between lips and teeth to find its way inside. And when their tongues met, it was like a lightning bolt had hit them, sucking the oxygen from their lungs, fusing them together. Chris’s arms wrapped tight around Zach’s waist, trying to pull him closer though they were already chest-to-chest, and Zach was straddling Chris’s lap and wrapping his hands in his hair, licking deeper into his mouth. And if that was lightning, then this must be thunder, Chris thought, this feeling rumbling up in his belly, echoing in the sounds that Zach made as he rolled their hips together, until the ground seemed to shake beneath them. Chris tore his mouth away from Zach’s to suck in lungfuls of humid air, his ears filled with the sounds of their ragged panting. Zach felt heavy on his lap, but Chris couldn’t seem to move his arms to let him go.
“Zach,” Chris gasped, his eyes wide. “What…” He didn’t even know how to end the sentence, but Zach was smiling against his cheek.
“Kissing is awesome.”
*
They kissed a lot, after that. Sand castles and climbing trees were forgotten in favor of hot, sweet kisses in the darkness of their fort, and Simon once spent an hour looking for them during a game of hide-and-seek before he found them on the path, rumpled and grinning with their shirts on inside-out.
“It’s a secret, right?” Chris had asked Zach breathlessly, one day soon after. “Like the fort?”
Zach nodded and licked a salty trail up Chris’s neck, nipping at his earlobe. “It’s only for us,” he whispered.
Chris turned his head to catch Zach’s lips in his, sliding their tongues together. He didn’t want to tell a soul.
He almost forgot one day, when rain poured down and slid over Zach’s skin like rivers. They were all together, dancing in the rain, and Zach spread his arms and whooped and shook his head like Noah, great droplets of water flying around him, and Chris thought it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. And he grabbed Zach by the hand and pulled him away, pulled him behind a tree, pulled him close, but Zach put a hand on his chest and said, “Not here.” Then he broke into a smile and grabbed Chris by the hand, dragging him at a run toward their fort, and they fell inside, and steam rose from their wet clothes as they rolled together in the sand, gritty on their cheeks and lips, but it didn’t matter. Chris kissed Zach harder than ever, and Zach moved across Chris’s body with his tongue and put his mouth on him, and the raindrops were hot on Chris’s cheeks and the thunder above them drowned out his howl of ecstasy.
*
One chilly, crisp afternoon, Zach had the idea to toast marshmallows over the small fire in their fort. Chris volunteered to go collect some wood, and he tromped off into the forest. He had gathered quite an armful by the time he turned back, but he dropped it in fright as Anton stepped into his path.
“Hi, Anton,” he said cautiously, as he stooped to pick up the logs that he’d dropped.
“I know what you and Zach are doing,” Anton said without preamble, his voice low and serious.
Chris’s heart skipped a beat. How could he know? “What?”
“You have a secret fort.”
Oh. Chris swallowed back a sigh of relief. Their real secret was still safe, then.
“How do you know we do?” he asked.
“Because.” Anton looked at the ground and shuffled his feet. “Zach and I used to have one.”
Chris’s jaw dropped a little. “You did?”
“Yeah,” Anton said, his chin jutting out. “It was the best fort ever. And we went to it every day and it was ours. And then you came,” he said, and his face fell.
“I’m sorry,” Chris said, but he was already running, his blood boiling with anger as he left Anton and the wood behind and threw himself into the door of the fort in a rage. Zach stared at him with wide, frightened eyes as he yelled, as he threw their things across the space in a fury. He picked up a piece of charcoal and drew a line through his name, scratched at the wall until it was nothing but a black smear. Then he turned on Zach and tackled him to the ground, pinning him by the shoulders.
“How could you?” he shouted. He hadn’t realized he was crying until he saw his tears dropping onto Zach’s t-shirt, leaving damp circles in the dirty cotton. Zach was holding his arms and shaking his head, frightened. “You didn’t tell me, you…you had a fort with Anton, and you…” he took a deep, heaving breath, “You didn’t tell me and I thought…I thought I was the only one!” He collapsed on Zach’s chest, sobbing.
He felt Zach’s hands in his hair, heard his voice, urgent, “No, Chris, no.” Chris looked up to find him shaking his head, his eyes wide and scared and sad. “Chris, I swear, I …I had a fort with Anton, okay-“ Chris pulled himself off of Zach and away, curling against the wall of the cave, and Zach followed, on his knees beside Chris as he pleaded. “But it wasn’t like this.” He pulled at Chris’s shoulders, trying to get him to look. “Please, Chris, listen to me, look at me.”
Chris glared at him through slitted eyes.
“This-“ Zach said, his voice breaking as he leaned forward to press a whisper of a kiss against the corner of Chris’s lips, “and this-“ again as he tugged Chris’s head back gently to place a trail of damp kisses along the line of his neck, “and this,” and Chris gasped as Zach pressed a palm against the front of his pajamas, gentle at first but then hard, hot friction and Chris squeezed his eyes shut, his body going weak despite himself. “That was only for you, Chris. It’s only ever been for you. I promise.”
Tears slid from behind Chris’s closed eyes and he shook his head even as he fumbled for Zach, slipping his fingers into his waistband and mumbling Zach’s name, “Zach, Zach…please, I want-“ he pushed clumsily into his pajama pants as Zach’s hands ran across his shoulders and chest and up through his hair, and he felt the small press of lips against his scalp. Then he opened his eyes and looked up, and Zach was looking down at him, wary still, and Chris said, “Tell me again.”
Zach kissed him on the mouth and reached down to touch them both, taking them in hand with loose strokes of his sweat-damp palm. “Only you, Chris, you’re the only one, I swear, I never kissed anyone else, I never even wanted to, I…oh Chris, I don’t know , I don’t know why-“ his breath hitched as Chris bucked his hips and they were sliding slickly together, Zach’s fist pumping faster as Chris clutched at his sides, “I don’t know why kissing you feels so good, oh Chris, Chris-“ breathless, they both were, and hot liquid was pouring over Zach’s hand and Chris was shaking beneath him and he buried his face in Chris’s neck and whispered his name.
And Chris held him tight and whispered with a smile, “I don’t think we’re just kissing anymore.”
They didn’t go back to the fire that night. They stayed in their fort, wrapped in each other’s arms, and Zach let Chris stroke his hair and say that he was sorry, and Zach felt something looming in his mind and he pushed it back and back and looked at Chris and smiled. “I superlike you,” he told him.
Chris laughed and nodded and said, “I superlike you, too.”
*
In the morning they awoke to a sound outside their fort, someone calling out their names.
“Zach! Chris! I know you’re in there.”
“Karl?”
“And Zoe. It’s just us. Please let us in, Zach. We want to talk to you.”
Zach bit his lip, but he nodded in response to Chris’s questioning look.
“Come in,” Chris called, and he folded himself in between Zach’s legs, curled up against Zach’s chest where he was leaning on the wall. Zach wrapped his arms loosely around Chris’s chest.
Karl pulled back the door and crawled inside, and Zoe followed. It was a tight fit, but they managed.
“Hi,” Karl said. His hair flopped into his eyes, but he looked serious. “We came as intermediaries. Anton would like to tell you that he is sorry. He wanted to tell you that - oh.” Zach had leaned down to press a kiss to Chris’s cheek, and Chris saw understanding dawn on Karl’s face.
“You have another secret, then,” said Karl.
Zach shook his head. “It’s not a secret anymore,” he declared. “I don’t care who knows.”
“We’re in love,” Chris said, and he wasn’t quite sure where it came from. He certainly had never thought that word before, and now he wondered if he shouldn’t have said it. He turned his head to glance nervously at Zach, but Zach just nodded.
“Yeah,” he agreed, and squeezed Chris a little tighter.
Zoe was smiling, but Karl’s expression was even more serious now. “There’s one other thing, Zach,” he said, looking like he didn’t want to say it. “Eric came back.”
*
Zach held Chris’s hand as they followed Karl and Zoe through the forest, back to their clearing. Zach stopped at the edge of it, squeezing Chris’s fingers, and Chris noticed Eric right away, broad-shouldered and tan, a sad expression on the unfamiliar face.
“Hello, Zach.”
“Hi,” Zach said, looking down as he kicked at the leaves beneath them. “You, uh…you missed Noah’s birthday party,” he said, when he finally got the courage to look Eric in the eye.
“I missed a lot of things,” Eric said.
“Where…where were you?” Zach asked timidly, as though he were afraid to hear the answer.
“I went on an adventure,” Eric said. “By myself.”
“Was it fun?” Zach said, his voice almost a whisper now.
Eric nodded slowly. “Yes. But I got stung by a bee.”
Zach blinked hard and swallowed. “I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t hurt anymore.”
“I’m not sorry about the bee,” Zach clarified, and the others looked at him in surprise. “I mean, I am, I am sorry about the bee, but…I meant, I’m sorry. For before.”
Chris turned to look at him, his eyebrows scrunched in confusion.
“I was going to tell you,” Zach said, dropping Chris’s hand and taking a step forward. “I was, but…you were gone.”
Eric crossed his arms and looked away. “I waited for three days, Zach. I waited in our fort, like you said. Why didn’t you come?”
Chris’s jaw dropped a little, and he felt himself go hot again, and he had to remind himself what Zach had said. Only him, the kisses were only ever for him. Oh, how he hoped that it was true.
“I…” Zach trailed off and looked over, and Chris could see that he was looking at Anton, who was looking at the ground and jabbing at it intently with a sharp stick. “I wanted to be Anton’s friend,” he finished weakly.
“Why?” Eric said, loudly this time, his voice booming across the clearing. “Why couldn’t we all be friends, Zach?”
Zach shifted uneasily on his feet, refusing to meet anyone’s eye. “That’s not how it works!” he cried. “Everyone is regular friends, but you need a special friend, too, a best friend, and I thought it was you,” he said, looking up at Eric. “But then, I thought it was Anton instead, and then-“ he brought his arms up, covering his face like he was trying to hide from then. “…and then I thought it was Chris.”
Chris scowled. “You thought it was me?!”
“I don’t know!” Zach said, shaking his head, “I don’t know, why can’t you all just leave me alone?!” He turned and ran from them, his long legs carrying him out of the clearing and into the woods and he was out of their sight in seconds.
The clearing was silent as they looked around at each other in shock. Chris stared at them all in turn, at Karl and Zoe (still beautiful with her wide, sad eyes and her hands over her mouth), and Simon and John, and he made himself look at Anton and Eric and they looked back at him defiantly.
Chris turned and followed Zach’s footprints through the crackling leaves.
*
He found Zach on a rocky beach, seated on a low gray boulder, tossing pebbles into the sea. The rowboat was there, and it made a dull, repetitive thud against the rocks in the shallow water.
“Hi,” Chris said, climbing up to sit cross-legged beside Zach.
“Hi.”
“Why did you run away?”
Zach shrugged. He glanced at Chris out of the corner of his eye. “I’m a bad person.”
“No,” Chris said, shaking his head. “You’re not.”
“Yes, I am,” Zach said, his voice a little louder. “I hurt Eric and I hurt Anton. I made them sad, and I…I was just doing what I wanted. And I don’t think that’s what you’re supposed to do all the time.”
“Well, I don’t care,” Chris said, leaning back on his arms. “I think you can do whatever you want,” he said. “As long as you want to do it with me.”
“But what if it happens again?” Zach whispered. “What if someone else comes, and I hurt you?”
“That won’t happen, Zach. We’re in love.”
Zach looked at him sadly. “I don’t even know what love is.”
Chris swallowed. “I think I know, now.” He could feel Zach watching him as he tried to describe it, what it felt like, here, with Zach, or when they were in their fort. “It’s like, you want to be with someone, so much, you want to…it’s like you want to eat them up, you know? So they’re a part of you. Yeah,” Chris said, nodding to himself. “Yeah, I think that’s what it is.”
Zach frowned at him. “I don’t want to eat you,” he said, horrified.
Chris laughed. “Not like that, I just mean-“
Zach interrupted him, shaking his head. “I think…I think you should go.” He hopped down from the boulder and waded into the shallows to the rowboat.
Chris blinked in surprise, but he was even more surprised to find that he was standing to follow, that his feet were carrying him toward the boat, that he was gripping the sides and climbing in. Then he was sitting in the boat and looking up at Zach, reaching for him and pulling him into a kiss, and falling forward as Zach gave the rowboat a shove and he floated out onto the water, alone. He watched as the others appeared at the edge of the forest, their eyes going wide with shock, then sadness, before they raised their hands to wave a silent goodbye.
He’d found his way here because his life in LA had stopped making sense. This place…well, this place had never made much sense at all. But now it made even less sense, and somehow he understood that it was time to go home. He knew all this, but it didn’t stop him from huddling in the bottom of the boat, crying into his arms until the gentle swaying of the waves rocked him to sleep.
*
He wasn’t sure why he did it. Why when he got home to his apartment and let himself in, he opened all of the cabinets in his kitchen and frowned and left for the grocery store. Why he bought cake mix and icing and sprinkles and came home and made a cake, slathered it with buttercream, and painstakingly spelled out “Welcome Home” in chocolate syrup. He wasn’t sure why he did it, but somehow it felt right, and he climbed into bed with something that wasn’t sadness in his heart.
*
tap-tap-tap
Chris was in his bed with the covers pulled up over his head when he heard a tapping sound outside. He burrowed deeper, stuffed his head under a pillow and squeezed his eyes shut.
tap-tap-tap
He made a frustrated sound and sat up in bed. A shadow loomed on the balcony, and he got up, forgetting to be afraid. He unlocked the door and slid it open, and he gasped as the moonlight illuminated Zach’s tall figure.
“Zach! What are you doing here?!” Chris reached for him, and he was cold and - “You’re soaking wet!”
Zach nodded. “I followed you,” he said, looking down bashfully, his hands in his pockets. “I hope it’s okay.”
“You…swam here?” Chris said in disbelief.
“Well…yeah. I didn’t have a boat.”
“Zach, god, come in, come inside. Come here,” he said, pulling Zach toward the bathroom. Zach had started to shiver, and Chris helped him out of his wet clothes, wrapped him in the biggest, fluffiest towel that he owned, and held him close. “Zach,” he whispered. “Why did you come?”
“I missed you,” Zach said, and Chris realized that he was crying, tears leaking out of his eyes. “I was wrong, I didn’t want you to go.”
“I never thought you did,” Chris whispered. “But Zach. I can’t go back. You know I can’t.”
“I know,” Zach said defiantly. His eyes blazed. “That’s why I came.”
“It’s not the same here, Zach, you know? I have to work, and you’ll have to find something to do.”
“But could I stay with you? Can we be together sometimes?”
“Yes,” Chris said, laughing, a lightness filling his chest. He felt like he could run for miles, but for once he didn’t want to try. “How did you find where I lived?”
Zach shrugged. “How did you find where I lived?”
“The boat took me there.”
Zach nodded solemnly. “My feet took me here.”
Something clicked in Chris’s mind and he took Zach’s face in his hands and kissed him on the lips and pressed their foreheads together. “Are you hungry?” he asked. “Because I made you a cake.”
*
Later, they climbed onto the bed, and Chris pulled the blanket up over their heads. He turned on his flashlight and the light bounced off the comforter and lit them up, and they tangled their fingers together and smiled at each other.
“Like our fort,” Chris said.
“Just for us.”
“Just for us,” Chris confirmed.
Zach bit his lip. “I’m sorry I told you to leave.”
“Shhh. You’re here now.”
“And you won’t send me away?”
“Never.”
*
Chris hugged him close and promised Zach, “I swear I’ll never let you go.”
Zach held him tight and whispered back - “I’ll eat you up, I love you so.”
Author: therumjournals
Fandom: Star Trek RPF
Pairing: Chris/Zach (and a side of Karl/Zoe)
Rating: R
Word Count: 7,080
Description: Chris runs away from the paparazzi, and into an adventure. Written for reel_startrek, for the movie Where the Wild Things Are. (I would consider this “inspired by” as opposed to a retelling of the movie. Additional influences include Peter Pan and, let’s face it, The Blue Lagoon.)
Warning: strangely naïve/innocent/child-like Zach and Chris
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended; fair use only. Not created for profit.
A/N: Thanks to 1lostone for the read-through!
“Do you love me, Chris?”
“What?”
“Do you love me?”
Chris looked up from his plate, stared at the girl sitting across the table from him like he’d never seen her before.
And maybe he had seen her before, maybe he’d been seeing her for a while, but suddenly it was all a blur, useless hours of his life spent sitting across tables like this one, saying words he didn’t remember seconds later. He furrowed his brow, and before he could stop himself he felt the words leaving his lips. “Why would I love you?”
Then she was yelling something, her face twisted and ugly, and all Chris could think was that he wanted to go, to get as far away as possible from the dull fog that his life had become. A loud crash echoed in his ears, and he was halfway to the door before he realized that he’d knocked his chair to the ground in his haste to leave. He didn’t stop, didn’t even slow down as he pushed his way out the door. Then a sea of blinding lights froze him in his tracks, and he threw an arm up to shield his eyes as laughter surrounded him. Laughing at him, he realized, laughing because he was still clutching his knife and fork in his hands, still had his napkin tucked into his collar, and he wished he could shrink down to nothing as the photographers called out his name. “Look, it’s Chris Pine!” “Hey, Chris!” someone yelled. “What are you going to do? Eat us up?!” Another wave of laughter and the lights flashed in his eyes as he fought his way through the mob and onto the dark street behind them. His silverware clattered to the ground and he ran, as fast as his feet could carry him away.
He wasn’t sure how long he’d been running - minutes, hours, days - when he stumbled, slipped, and slid down a short grassy slope. He landed hard, and it took him a few minutes to catch his breath as he tried to find his bearings in the darkness. A vast lake stretched out in front of him, moonlight glinting off the lightly rippled surface, and he squinted in confusion before he realized where he was - on the shore of the Silverlake Reservoir.
A rowboat bumped softly against the bank, and Chris frowned. He stood, approached it slowly, putting a hand out in front of him as though it might bite. It didn’t. Chris gave the bow a shove and climbed in. The oars were warm under his palms, and they sliced cleanly through the water as he rowed out into the reservoir. He pulled hard, relishing the ache in his muscles as he watched the shore recede, fading into the darkness until the last lights of LA had blinked out and he was alone. A light breeze blew and he let go of the oars, stretched his arms out above his head. He heard a rustling sound and glanced back to see that a small sail had unfurled behind him. He smiled and lay back to watch the stars.
*
The moon hung higher in the night sky when Chris opened his eyes with a start. He wondered briefly what had woken him, then the boat hit something with a gentle clunk and he sat up quickly. For a moment he worried that he’d drifted back to shore, but no - this was different. A sandy beach, spotted with boulders, and behind it a forest, tall trunks of stately trees reaching up into the star-dusted sky. Chris climbed out of the rowboat and dragged it up onto the beach, heedless of the warm water soaking his shoes and the cuffs of his pants. The forest floor was open and unthreatening, and he approached it without fear, leaves crunching softly beneath his feet. The moonlight seemed to travel with him, illuminating a path, and Chris was more than content to follow it into the darkness.
He smelled the bonfire before he saw it - a whiff of smoke on the wind, then a glimpse of flame through the forest. As he approached, he heard voices, laughter and whooping, and his legs moved faster through no conscious decision of his own.
Chris paused on the edge of the clearing and rested his hand on the firm trunk of an ancient tree. His eyes sparkled in the light of the flame as he watched, captivated. They were gathered in a semi-circle around the fire, people, like him, but different - smiling, all of them, laughing without malice. Dirt streaked their clothes and faces and some of them had leaves strewn in their hair, but they didn’t seem to mind. He looked at them all, but his eyes came to rest on the one closest to him, the tall one with dark hair and graceful limbs leaning down to fuss with a paper birthday hat adorning the shaggy gray dog beside him. He spoke earnestly with the dog for a moment as he adjusted the chin strap, and Chris wished he could hear what he was saying. Without intending to, he took a step forward, and a branch cracked loudly under his foot. The group around the fire stopped talking, and Chris felt a heat in his cheeks that wasn't from the fire as a pair of deep brown eyes met his own. He swallowed dryly as he watched the dark-haired man stand to peer curiously into the darkness. Suddenly, the worst thing that Chris could imagine was a frown to mar that face, with Chris as its cause. But instead of frowning, he broke into a smile and reached out his hand.
“Hi!” He gestured him closer. “Come on! How can you join the party if you’re over there?”
Chris stepped closer. He wanted to apologize, to explain his presence, to say something, but his mouth worked silently and no words would come.
“I’m Zach!”
Chris managed a weak whisper. “Chris.”
“Welcome, Chris! This is Noah,” he said, pointing to the dog. “This is his birthday party.”
Chris felt a crooked smile cross his face. “Happy birthday, Noah,” he said respectfully, looking at the dog.
Zach’s smile widened and he nodded his approval. “Come on,” he said again, tugging Chris by the sleeve, pulling him until he was part of the circle. Zach pointed around the fire as he introduced everyone else.
“That’s Karl, and that’s Zoe.” Karl gave a small wave and Zoe smiled at him, and he felt happier than he had in months. “And that’s John - don’t listen to anything he says - and Simon - you can’t understand anything he says anyway, so just smile and nod.” Chris smiled and nodded in Simon’s direction. “This is Anton,” Zach said, reaching out to grab the skinny boy, pulling him in close to ruffle his hair. Anton gave a squeak and squirmed from Zach’s grasp, flushed and smiling. “And there’s Eric, too, but he’s not here,” Zach said, and his smile faltered. “He went away.”
Chris nodded, and let his eyes travel around the circle again. Everyone was still watching him. He gave a little wave. “I’m Chris.”
“Hi Chris!” they said in unison. Simon said something incomprehensible and everybody laughed, Noah barked, and the party was back in full swing.
Chris felt the tension drain from his shoulders as he followed everyone’s lead. They danced around the fire to imaginary music and whooped and cheered when John did a handstand. Simon tackled him and Anton jumped into the fray, and Chris watched and laughed. And he was still laughing when Zach came up behind him and tickled his sides, then he shrieked and jumped and ran around the fire, never letting Zach fall too far behind.
When they were tired, they sat in a circle, their legs sprawled out in front of them, eating huge slices of Noah’s birthday cake with their hands. Zach leaned close to Chris and gestured across the fire to where Zoe was curled comfortably against Karl’s chest.
“They’re in love,” he whispered conspiratorially. “Everybody knows it.”
Chris felt an unpleasant memory crawl up his spine, and he curled his lip. “I don’t like it,” he declared.
“What?”
“Love.”
Zach shrugged and looked away. “It’s not for everyone,” he said quietly. Noah shuffled over, yawned, and flopped down beside them. Zach yawned then, and he laughed as Chris did too, and soon everyone around the dying fire was yawning and stretching and blinking sleepily.
“Bedtime?” Karl asked across the circle, and there were nods all around.
Chris looked nervously at Zach. “Where…um, where should I sleep?” he asked.
Zach cocked his head, confused. “With us,” he said, matter of factly.
“Oh.” He still wasn’t quite sure what Zach meant. “Okay.”
Zach looked at him intently. “Hey, Chris.”
“Yeah?”
“You have birthday cake on your face,” he said, and he reached out to smear a handful of icing and cake across Chris’s cheek. Chris yelped and fell backwards, too surprised to be angry, and before he could recover, Noah was there, licking his birthday dinner off of Chris’s face. Chris laughed, squirming on the ground amongst the crunching leaves, and then Zach leaned down to drag his tongue across Chris’s other cheek and smile at him with a mouthful of icing. Chris’s eyes widened as he felt a rush of warmth flood his chest, but he chalked it up to the fact that everyone was there now, close to him, lying around him on the ground as they settled in for the night. He heard soft footsteps approach and watched as Anton dropped to his knees at Chris’s side. But Zach pushed him away, hissing “No, I want to sleep next to the new one!” and Anton gave a grunt of disappointment as he wiggled over next to John instead. Zach smiled at Chris again and tucked himself comfortably along his side, his head resting on Chris’s chest. Chris let the heat of Zach’s body warm him, and he wrapped an arm around Zach’s back so that he would be warm, too. Something damp snuffled his ear and Noah flopped down on his other side, nudging his head into Chris’s armpit. The rustling of the leaves quieted around him as everyone got comfortable, and darkness fell as the last of the flames flickered out.
An owl hooted quietly in the trees and Chris smiled. This place - he hadn’t put much thought into it, and he didn’t plan to. He knew that it was peaceful, and that he was warm and full and surrounded by people who didn’t want anything from him. Friends, he thought - the word felt foreign to him, but he knew that it applied. The ground beneath his back was softer than any bed he could remember, and he could feel himself drifting off to sleep. Then Zach snored loudly in his ear and Noah sneezed and the owl swooped low overhead, startling him, and he wondered if maybe he wouldn’t sleep so well tonight after all.
But he did fall asleep, and the shapes of monsters haunted his dreams, vague and fuzzy and not unkind. And he woke up expecting to find them there in the woods with him, but instead he blinked his eyes open to the sight of Zach’s face, clear and sharp and smiling upside-down above him, the sun throwing a halo behind his head.
“Hey, sleepyhead! Get up! We have bacon!”
Chris sniffed the air, stretched, and sat up to accept the plate of pancakes and bacon that Zach thrust into his hand.
“Eat!” Zach told him. Then, “Wait.” He picked up a bottle of maple syrup and drizzled it generously over Chris’s plate. “There. Now eat.”
Chris didn’t like being told what to do, but he did love pancakes and bacon, and he was becoming rather fond of Zach, so he ate heartily as Zach looked on, pleased. He was still chewing the last bite when Zach yanked him up by the arm and dragged him away from the clearing. “Where’re we goin’?” Chris mumbled through his food.
“Everyone’s gone already. We have to catch up. But first, here -“ Zach gestured toward the mouth of a small cave. A pile of clothes lay neatly folded in the sandy entrance. “Wear those.”
“Why?”
“Because. You don’t look comfortable.”
It was true, now that Chris thought about it. He was still wearing his dress clothes from the night before, and he suddenly felt itchy and constrained. He quickly changed into the t-shirt and flannel pajama pants - which, now that he thought about it, was what everyone was wearing, and it didn’t seem strange at all. Zach looked him up and down when he stepped out. “Much better. Now come on,” he said, and took off running. Chris raised an eyebrow as he watched Zach disappearing through the trees before he realized that he should follow. He wasn’t sure he had it in him, to be honest, but there must have been something in the forest air, because before he knew it he’d almost caught up to Zach, and he was running and whooping and leaping over logs like he did it every day. He felt a wild exhilaration surging through him, like he could keep running forever, and he kind of wanted to try. But instead he stopped when Zach did, at the top of a long, gently-sloping hill. He could just make out the figures of the others below them, but Zach didn’t seem like he was in any hurry to follow.
Zach looked at him. “So we were talking, this morning. About you.”
Chris wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad one. “Okay.”
“We were wondering-“ He took a breath, thought about what he wanted to say. “We were wondering if you would like to be our king.”
Chris furrowed his brow. "Your king? What does the king do?"
"Well,” Zach said, tilting his head as he considered. “The king decides what we should do. And…and everyone looks up to the king and wants to be like him."
Chris thought about it for a moment. "No, I don't think I'd like to be the king,” he said, deciding. “I just want to be one of you."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
Zach broke into a wicked grin and tackled him, the momentum carrying them both to the ground, and they tumbled down the hill together, head over feet.
When they came to a stop at the bottom, Chris sat up and sucked in a deep breath. That had hurt. He looked over at Zach, who was watching him, cautious. Chris felt something bubbling up inside him and he tipped his head back and laughed. He laughed until his stomach hurt, rolling around on the ground beside Zach, and when he sat up he had leaves in his hair and a smear of dirt across his cheek, and all he wanted was to take the hand that Zach offered to pull him up and never let it go.
But Zach did let go, and he took off running to catch up with the others, and Chris shook his head and followed. When they slid to a stop in the loose leaves, Karl raised an eyebrow at Zach.
“Well?” Karl asked. “Is he going to be our king?”
“No, he’s not.”
“Well…what’s he going to be then?” asked Anton.
Zach took Chris’s hand again and smiled proudly. “He’s going to be my friend.”
*
Chris frowned in concentration. He was, after all, doing something very serious. Determining the correct width of the moat was crucial if they wanted the water to funnel in from the sea without destroying the carefully constructed walls of the sandcastle.
Simon was hard at work on the tunnel (or so he said - to Chris it looked more like he was digging a hole), when he looked up and babbled something important-sounding at Chris.
“What did he say?” Chris asked, squinting in confusion.
“He was telling you that last time, we got an entire school of fish to take up residence in the moat,” John supplied.
Chris raised an eyebrow and looked at Anton. “Is he telling the truth?”
Anton shrugged, disinterested, all of his energy focused on the intricate pattern of sticks and leaves he was creating along the castle walls.
Chris rolled his eyes, then grinned as he saw Zach approaching them from down the beach.
“Zach!” he called. “Come check out our sandcastle!”
Zach glanced at it and nodded. “It looks nice. Last time we got a school of fish to live in the moat though.”
Chris shook his head in disbelief and let Zach tug him up by the arm.
“Come on,” he said, pulling Chris away from the group.
“Where are we going?” Chris asked, letting Zach lead him by the hand, ducking under branches as they headed into a part of the forest that was tangled with undergrowth.
“To make a secret fort,” Zach said.
“A secret fort? Why?”
“Because,” Zach said, as though it were obvious. “That’s what friends do.”
*
It took them three days to make the fort. First they had to find the perfect place. By the end of the day, Chris’s arms and cheeks were covered in scratches and the knees of his pajama pants were caked in dirt from kneeling down to look under every bush and in every hollow log. But they found it, just as the sun was setting, the perfect spot for their fort. A cave, or more accurately, a pile of boulders, but with a space inside big enough for them both to fit quite comfortably on the dry, sandy ground. The next day, they made a door out of grasses and sticks, and they wrote their names on the walls with charcoal and made it their own. On the third day, they gathered the necessary supplies - wood for a fire, and a chew toy in case Noah wanted to visit, and a bottle of maple syrup in case they got hungry. When they were done, Chris collapsed on his back inside the fort and smiled. “It’s the best fort ever, Zach,” he said happily. “I can’t wait to show everyone.”
“No!” Zach said loudly, concern in his eyes. “You can’t tell anyone!”
“Why not?” Chris asked, propping himself up on his elbows.
“Because. Then it wouldn’t be a secret fort. It’s for us, only for us, Chris.”
“No one can even visit?”
“No. Except Noah,” Zach conceded.
Chris licked his lips thoughtfully and looked at their names scrawled on the wall. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to have a secret fort, he decided. “Okay. It’s ours only. I won’t tell.”
“Good,” Zach said, flopping onto his stomach, relieved.
*
When they weren’t at the fort, they spent time with everyone else, running through the forest during the day, climbing trees and putting on plays, laughing and singing by the fire at night, and making any excuse they could to eat cake.
“Is it your birthday?” John asked Chris one day.
“No.”
“Is it your mom’s birthday?”
“No,” Chris said, and he squinted a little. He knew he had a mom, but she seemed so far away, and thinking about her made his stomach feel funny. He decided not to think.
“Your dad’s?”
“Nope.”
“Your dog’s?”
“No. I don’t even have a dog!”
“You don’t?!”
“Nope. Once I had a stuffed dog. His name was Buster.”
“When was his birthday?”
“Um.” Chris thought about it. “I’m not sure.”
“Maybe it was today?”
“Maybe.”
John threw his hands in the air and whooped. “Karl,” he cried. “You can make a cake! It’s Buster’s birthday!”
*
“How long have I been here?” Chris asked as they sat around the fire one night.
Karl looked at him in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, when did I get here? How long ago?”
“I think it was a week,” John said. “Yeah. Definitely you’ve been here for, like, one week.”
Zoe shook her head. “No. No, it’s been much longer than that. A year, I think. Maybe two.”
“What do you think, Zach?” Chris asked.
Zach was hugging his knees to his chest, staring into the fire. “Who cares?”
Chris shrugged. “I was just wondering.”
Because he didn’t care. He liked it here. He liked smiling and laughing and running and playing games. He liked the leaves in his hair and the dirt under his nails, he liked pancakes and bacon every morning and a bonfire every night. He liked Noah, and Karl and Zoe, and the others, too. He liked Zach so much that he thought there should be another word for it. Superlike! He superliked Zach, and he turned to tell him so, only to find Noah sitting beside him, quietly licking the rest of Zach’s dinner from his plate.
He looked around the fire, but Zach was nowhere to be found. The others were laughing amongst themselves, so Chris stood slowly and turned to make his way into the woods. He had a feeling he knew where Zach might be.
A few minutes later, he ducked into their secret fort to find Zach waiting for him, sitting against the wall of their cave, a yellow crown tilted jauntily over one eye. Chris smiled and crawled over to him.
“Are you the king, Zach?” he asked.
“No,” Zach said, sighing wistfully and pulling the crown from his head. “It’s only paper,” he said sadly, bending one of the points down to prove it. “I’m only pretending.”
He turned to Chris and set the crown carefully on his head, giving him an appraising look.
“How do I look?” Chris asked.
Zach shook his head and reached out to lift it gently from his head. “You don’t need it,” he said, setting it down.
“Zach,” Chris said, swallowing. “Did I make you sad before?”
Zach bit his lip and didn’t say anything for a long moment. “A little.”
“Why?”
“You made me think of a time before…before you were here.” He looked at Chris. “I didn’t like it as much then.”
“Me neither,” Chris said seriously. Zach looked at him out of the corner of his eye and he cracked a smile as he thought about what he’d said, and then they were both laughing, clutching their sides as their laughter filled the air of the small cave.
Chris wiped his eyes and shook his head. He hiccupped once and laughed again and looked up to find Zach staring intently at him.
“Do you want to kiss?” Zach asked.
He hiccupped again and swallowed and held Zach’s gaze. “What?”
“Do you want to kiss? You know…like Karl and Zoe do?”
The corner of Chris’s mouth quirked up in a half-smile. “I know what kissing is. I just didn’t think-“
His words were cut off by the soft press of Zach’s lips against his, lingering there for a long moment. The cave was silent except for the sound of Zach’s breathing, and Chris could feel the warm puffs of breath across his skin. Zach didn’t seem to be going anywhere, so Chris opened his mouth a little, just enough to slide his tongue out and run it against Zach’s lips. Zach gasped and pulled back, surprise written across his face as he looked at Chris, at the tongue still peeking out from between his lips. He took a deep breath, and then lunged toward Chris again, this time pressing his open mouth to Chris’s, wiggling his tongue in between lips and teeth to find its way inside. And when their tongues met, it was like a lightning bolt had hit them, sucking the oxygen from their lungs, fusing them together. Chris’s arms wrapped tight around Zach’s waist, trying to pull him closer though they were already chest-to-chest, and Zach was straddling Chris’s lap and wrapping his hands in his hair, licking deeper into his mouth. And if that was lightning, then this must be thunder, Chris thought, this feeling rumbling up in his belly, echoing in the sounds that Zach made as he rolled their hips together, until the ground seemed to shake beneath them. Chris tore his mouth away from Zach’s to suck in lungfuls of humid air, his ears filled with the sounds of their ragged panting. Zach felt heavy on his lap, but Chris couldn’t seem to move his arms to let him go.
“Zach,” Chris gasped, his eyes wide. “What…” He didn’t even know how to end the sentence, but Zach was smiling against his cheek.
“Kissing is awesome.”
*
They kissed a lot, after that. Sand castles and climbing trees were forgotten in favor of hot, sweet kisses in the darkness of their fort, and Simon once spent an hour looking for them during a game of hide-and-seek before he found them on the path, rumpled and grinning with their shirts on inside-out.
“It’s a secret, right?” Chris had asked Zach breathlessly, one day soon after. “Like the fort?”
Zach nodded and licked a salty trail up Chris’s neck, nipping at his earlobe. “It’s only for us,” he whispered.
Chris turned his head to catch Zach’s lips in his, sliding their tongues together. He didn’t want to tell a soul.
He almost forgot one day, when rain poured down and slid over Zach’s skin like rivers. They were all together, dancing in the rain, and Zach spread his arms and whooped and shook his head like Noah, great droplets of water flying around him, and Chris thought it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. And he grabbed Zach by the hand and pulled him away, pulled him behind a tree, pulled him close, but Zach put a hand on his chest and said, “Not here.” Then he broke into a smile and grabbed Chris by the hand, dragging him at a run toward their fort, and they fell inside, and steam rose from their wet clothes as they rolled together in the sand, gritty on their cheeks and lips, but it didn’t matter. Chris kissed Zach harder than ever, and Zach moved across Chris’s body with his tongue and put his mouth on him, and the raindrops were hot on Chris’s cheeks and the thunder above them drowned out his howl of ecstasy.
*
One chilly, crisp afternoon, Zach had the idea to toast marshmallows over the small fire in their fort. Chris volunteered to go collect some wood, and he tromped off into the forest. He had gathered quite an armful by the time he turned back, but he dropped it in fright as Anton stepped into his path.
“Hi, Anton,” he said cautiously, as he stooped to pick up the logs that he’d dropped.
“I know what you and Zach are doing,” Anton said without preamble, his voice low and serious.
Chris’s heart skipped a beat. How could he know? “What?”
“You have a secret fort.”
Oh. Chris swallowed back a sigh of relief. Their real secret was still safe, then.
“How do you know we do?” he asked.
“Because.” Anton looked at the ground and shuffled his feet. “Zach and I used to have one.”
Chris’s jaw dropped a little. “You did?”
“Yeah,” Anton said, his chin jutting out. “It was the best fort ever. And we went to it every day and it was ours. And then you came,” he said, and his face fell.
“I’m sorry,” Chris said, but he was already running, his blood boiling with anger as he left Anton and the wood behind and threw himself into the door of the fort in a rage. Zach stared at him with wide, frightened eyes as he yelled, as he threw their things across the space in a fury. He picked up a piece of charcoal and drew a line through his name, scratched at the wall until it was nothing but a black smear. Then he turned on Zach and tackled him to the ground, pinning him by the shoulders.
“How could you?” he shouted. He hadn’t realized he was crying until he saw his tears dropping onto Zach’s t-shirt, leaving damp circles in the dirty cotton. Zach was holding his arms and shaking his head, frightened. “You didn’t tell me, you…you had a fort with Anton, and you…” he took a deep, heaving breath, “You didn’t tell me and I thought…I thought I was the only one!” He collapsed on Zach’s chest, sobbing.
He felt Zach’s hands in his hair, heard his voice, urgent, “No, Chris, no.” Chris looked up to find him shaking his head, his eyes wide and scared and sad. “Chris, I swear, I …I had a fort with Anton, okay-“ Chris pulled himself off of Zach and away, curling against the wall of the cave, and Zach followed, on his knees beside Chris as he pleaded. “But it wasn’t like this.” He pulled at Chris’s shoulders, trying to get him to look. “Please, Chris, listen to me, look at me.”
Chris glared at him through slitted eyes.
“This-“ Zach said, his voice breaking as he leaned forward to press a whisper of a kiss against the corner of Chris’s lips, “and this-“ again as he tugged Chris’s head back gently to place a trail of damp kisses along the line of his neck, “and this,” and Chris gasped as Zach pressed a palm against the front of his pajamas, gentle at first but then hard, hot friction and Chris squeezed his eyes shut, his body going weak despite himself. “That was only for you, Chris. It’s only ever been for you. I promise.”
Tears slid from behind Chris’s closed eyes and he shook his head even as he fumbled for Zach, slipping his fingers into his waistband and mumbling Zach’s name, “Zach, Zach…please, I want-“ he pushed clumsily into his pajama pants as Zach’s hands ran across his shoulders and chest and up through his hair, and he felt the small press of lips against his scalp. Then he opened his eyes and looked up, and Zach was looking down at him, wary still, and Chris said, “Tell me again.”
Zach kissed him on the mouth and reached down to touch them both, taking them in hand with loose strokes of his sweat-damp palm. “Only you, Chris, you’re the only one, I swear, I never kissed anyone else, I never even wanted to, I…oh Chris, I don’t know , I don’t know why-“ his breath hitched as Chris bucked his hips and they were sliding slickly together, Zach’s fist pumping faster as Chris clutched at his sides, “I don’t know why kissing you feels so good, oh Chris, Chris-“ breathless, they both were, and hot liquid was pouring over Zach’s hand and Chris was shaking beneath him and he buried his face in Chris’s neck and whispered his name.
And Chris held him tight and whispered with a smile, “I don’t think we’re just kissing anymore.”
They didn’t go back to the fire that night. They stayed in their fort, wrapped in each other’s arms, and Zach let Chris stroke his hair and say that he was sorry, and Zach felt something looming in his mind and he pushed it back and back and looked at Chris and smiled. “I superlike you,” he told him.
Chris laughed and nodded and said, “I superlike you, too.”
*
In the morning they awoke to a sound outside their fort, someone calling out their names.
“Zach! Chris! I know you’re in there.”
“Karl?”
“And Zoe. It’s just us. Please let us in, Zach. We want to talk to you.”
Zach bit his lip, but he nodded in response to Chris’s questioning look.
“Come in,” Chris called, and he folded himself in between Zach’s legs, curled up against Zach’s chest where he was leaning on the wall. Zach wrapped his arms loosely around Chris’s chest.
Karl pulled back the door and crawled inside, and Zoe followed. It was a tight fit, but they managed.
“Hi,” Karl said. His hair flopped into his eyes, but he looked serious. “We came as intermediaries. Anton would like to tell you that he is sorry. He wanted to tell you that - oh.” Zach had leaned down to press a kiss to Chris’s cheek, and Chris saw understanding dawn on Karl’s face.
“You have another secret, then,” said Karl.
Zach shook his head. “It’s not a secret anymore,” he declared. “I don’t care who knows.”
“We’re in love,” Chris said, and he wasn’t quite sure where it came from. He certainly had never thought that word before, and now he wondered if he shouldn’t have said it. He turned his head to glance nervously at Zach, but Zach just nodded.
“Yeah,” he agreed, and squeezed Chris a little tighter.
Zoe was smiling, but Karl’s expression was even more serious now. “There’s one other thing, Zach,” he said, looking like he didn’t want to say it. “Eric came back.”
*
Zach held Chris’s hand as they followed Karl and Zoe through the forest, back to their clearing. Zach stopped at the edge of it, squeezing Chris’s fingers, and Chris noticed Eric right away, broad-shouldered and tan, a sad expression on the unfamiliar face.
“Hello, Zach.”
“Hi,” Zach said, looking down as he kicked at the leaves beneath them. “You, uh…you missed Noah’s birthday party,” he said, when he finally got the courage to look Eric in the eye.
“I missed a lot of things,” Eric said.
“Where…where were you?” Zach asked timidly, as though he were afraid to hear the answer.
“I went on an adventure,” Eric said. “By myself.”
“Was it fun?” Zach said, his voice almost a whisper now.
Eric nodded slowly. “Yes. But I got stung by a bee.”
Zach blinked hard and swallowed. “I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t hurt anymore.”
“I’m not sorry about the bee,” Zach clarified, and the others looked at him in surprise. “I mean, I am, I am sorry about the bee, but…I meant, I’m sorry. For before.”
Chris turned to look at him, his eyebrows scrunched in confusion.
“I was going to tell you,” Zach said, dropping Chris’s hand and taking a step forward. “I was, but…you were gone.”
Eric crossed his arms and looked away. “I waited for three days, Zach. I waited in our fort, like you said. Why didn’t you come?”
Chris’s jaw dropped a little, and he felt himself go hot again, and he had to remind himself what Zach had said. Only him, the kisses were only ever for him. Oh, how he hoped that it was true.
“I…” Zach trailed off and looked over, and Chris could see that he was looking at Anton, who was looking at the ground and jabbing at it intently with a sharp stick. “I wanted to be Anton’s friend,” he finished weakly.
“Why?” Eric said, loudly this time, his voice booming across the clearing. “Why couldn’t we all be friends, Zach?”
Zach shifted uneasily on his feet, refusing to meet anyone’s eye. “That’s not how it works!” he cried. “Everyone is regular friends, but you need a special friend, too, a best friend, and I thought it was you,” he said, looking up at Eric. “But then, I thought it was Anton instead, and then-“ he brought his arms up, covering his face like he was trying to hide from then. “…and then I thought it was Chris.”
Chris scowled. “You thought it was me?!”
“I don’t know!” Zach said, shaking his head, “I don’t know, why can’t you all just leave me alone?!” He turned and ran from them, his long legs carrying him out of the clearing and into the woods and he was out of their sight in seconds.
The clearing was silent as they looked around at each other in shock. Chris stared at them all in turn, at Karl and Zoe (still beautiful with her wide, sad eyes and her hands over her mouth), and Simon and John, and he made himself look at Anton and Eric and they looked back at him defiantly.
Chris turned and followed Zach’s footprints through the crackling leaves.
*
He found Zach on a rocky beach, seated on a low gray boulder, tossing pebbles into the sea. The rowboat was there, and it made a dull, repetitive thud against the rocks in the shallow water.
“Hi,” Chris said, climbing up to sit cross-legged beside Zach.
“Hi.”
“Why did you run away?”
Zach shrugged. He glanced at Chris out of the corner of his eye. “I’m a bad person.”
“No,” Chris said, shaking his head. “You’re not.”
“Yes, I am,” Zach said, his voice a little louder. “I hurt Eric and I hurt Anton. I made them sad, and I…I was just doing what I wanted. And I don’t think that’s what you’re supposed to do all the time.”
“Well, I don’t care,” Chris said, leaning back on his arms. “I think you can do whatever you want,” he said. “As long as you want to do it with me.”
“But what if it happens again?” Zach whispered. “What if someone else comes, and I hurt you?”
“That won’t happen, Zach. We’re in love.”
Zach looked at him sadly. “I don’t even know what love is.”
Chris swallowed. “I think I know, now.” He could feel Zach watching him as he tried to describe it, what it felt like, here, with Zach, or when they were in their fort. “It’s like, you want to be with someone, so much, you want to…it’s like you want to eat them up, you know? So they’re a part of you. Yeah,” Chris said, nodding to himself. “Yeah, I think that’s what it is.”
Zach frowned at him. “I don’t want to eat you,” he said, horrified.
Chris laughed. “Not like that, I just mean-“
Zach interrupted him, shaking his head. “I think…I think you should go.” He hopped down from the boulder and waded into the shallows to the rowboat.
Chris blinked in surprise, but he was even more surprised to find that he was standing to follow, that his feet were carrying him toward the boat, that he was gripping the sides and climbing in. Then he was sitting in the boat and looking up at Zach, reaching for him and pulling him into a kiss, and falling forward as Zach gave the rowboat a shove and he floated out onto the water, alone. He watched as the others appeared at the edge of the forest, their eyes going wide with shock, then sadness, before they raised their hands to wave a silent goodbye.
He’d found his way here because his life in LA had stopped making sense. This place…well, this place had never made much sense at all. But now it made even less sense, and somehow he understood that it was time to go home. He knew all this, but it didn’t stop him from huddling in the bottom of the boat, crying into his arms until the gentle swaying of the waves rocked him to sleep.
*
He wasn’t sure why he did it. Why when he got home to his apartment and let himself in, he opened all of the cabinets in his kitchen and frowned and left for the grocery store. Why he bought cake mix and icing and sprinkles and came home and made a cake, slathered it with buttercream, and painstakingly spelled out “Welcome Home” in chocolate syrup. He wasn’t sure why he did it, but somehow it felt right, and he climbed into bed with something that wasn’t sadness in his heart.
*
tap-tap-tap
Chris was in his bed with the covers pulled up over his head when he heard a tapping sound outside. He burrowed deeper, stuffed his head under a pillow and squeezed his eyes shut.
tap-tap-tap
He made a frustrated sound and sat up in bed. A shadow loomed on the balcony, and he got up, forgetting to be afraid. He unlocked the door and slid it open, and he gasped as the moonlight illuminated Zach’s tall figure.
“Zach! What are you doing here?!” Chris reached for him, and he was cold and - “You’re soaking wet!”
Zach nodded. “I followed you,” he said, looking down bashfully, his hands in his pockets. “I hope it’s okay.”
“You…swam here?” Chris said in disbelief.
“Well…yeah. I didn’t have a boat.”
“Zach, god, come in, come inside. Come here,” he said, pulling Zach toward the bathroom. Zach had started to shiver, and Chris helped him out of his wet clothes, wrapped him in the biggest, fluffiest towel that he owned, and held him close. “Zach,” he whispered. “Why did you come?”
“I missed you,” Zach said, and Chris realized that he was crying, tears leaking out of his eyes. “I was wrong, I didn’t want you to go.”
“I never thought you did,” Chris whispered. “But Zach. I can’t go back. You know I can’t.”
“I know,” Zach said defiantly. His eyes blazed. “That’s why I came.”
“It’s not the same here, Zach, you know? I have to work, and you’ll have to find something to do.”
“But could I stay with you? Can we be together sometimes?”
“Yes,” Chris said, laughing, a lightness filling his chest. He felt like he could run for miles, but for once he didn’t want to try. “How did you find where I lived?”
Zach shrugged. “How did you find where I lived?”
“The boat took me there.”
Zach nodded solemnly. “My feet took me here.”
Something clicked in Chris’s mind and he took Zach’s face in his hands and kissed him on the lips and pressed their foreheads together. “Are you hungry?” he asked. “Because I made you a cake.”
*
Later, they climbed onto the bed, and Chris pulled the blanket up over their heads. He turned on his flashlight and the light bounced off the comforter and lit them up, and they tangled their fingers together and smiled at each other.
“Like our fort,” Chris said.
“Just for us.”
“Just for us,” Chris confirmed.
Zach bit his lip. “I’m sorry I told you to leave.”
“Shhh. You’re here now.”
“And you won’t send me away?”
“Never.”
*
Chris hugged him close and promised Zach, “I swear I’ll never let you go.”
Zach held him tight and whispered back - “I’ll eat you up, I love you so.”