couch potatoes 6: chris & joey JC is no help, because he left at midnight, like he's fucking Cinderella and will turn into a pumpkin at the twelfth strike. Joey cannot believe he keeps hanging around JC, who just does not know how to party.
He knows why he hangs around, though. JC - who won't answer to Josh anymore, on general principles
"I'm trying to screw my head on tight enough," he said, "I have to be, like, me. And now me is JC."
"What about your parents?" Joey said and watched JC's forehead scrunch up in thought.
"Ah, you know I can't do anything about them. I guess I'm, like, trying to...detach, or something like that. Or, like, find my own, um. I don't know. My own path." That was typical JC; making sense to no one but himself. - has sweetness and anger in equal doses; he's driven and dorky and strangely sensitive.
Joey loves him. So he hangs around, even though a groovy party in JC's world consists of a movie and a beer afterwards, and then he stays up all night writing songs with his roommates and complains about being tired in the morning.
There's no one in the street, no one at all. Joey looks around, just to make sure. It's three am, pouring down. All the houses are dark around him. He can smell the fresh tang of wet grass, a sweet flower scent coming from someone's garden.
He clears his throat, spreads his arms and sings, quietly at first, "I'm singing in the rain, just singin' in the rain, what a gloooorious feeling, I'm haaaaappy again!" He jumps in a pool and swings around a lamppost, and stops feeling stupid by the time he hits the chorus at full pitch.
Someone claps.
"That was uplifting."
Joey peers through the sheets of rain, and sees a short, skinny guy with floppy black hair hanging lank and dripping in his face. He's standing right in the middle of the street with his legs spread a little and his arms akimbo. He looks like he just materialised there. Beam me up, beam me down, Joey thinks.
He takes a step closer and realises he knows this guy. Works at Universal, hangs out in the same clubs as Joey does. During his song and dance number, the alcohol fumes have dissipated somewhat, and his brain even comes up with a name: Chris.
"Hey, Chris," he says.
"You heard of me?" Chris says in a very bad Brooklyn accent.
"Who hasn't heard of Chris? Chris the magnificent? Chris the--"
"Have you noticed that it's a little wet here?" Chris interrupts him.
"Um, I was just singing about that."
"I could kill for an iced triple grande hazelnut extra whip latte," Chris says, "but in the absence of any handy Starbucks, I'll settle for a beer. I live just around the corner. Wanna join me?"
Joey opens his mouth to say he's going home, thank you, and he probably should get there before, like, sunrise, and he's always been told he should avoid getting picked up by random dark-eyed strangers in the street. "Yeah, sure. Why not?" he says, instead.
Chris' apartment is tiny and dark. "Sorry about the mess," Chris says. Joey thinks there might be more of a mess if the place wasn't so bare. The furniture seems to consist entirely of a bookshelf full of vinyl records in neatly labelled rows, a rickety chair, a TV and a large, very ugly couch.
"Hmm, maybe you'd prefer coffee?" Chris says when Joey's got his sopping wet shoes off.
"Yes, please," Joey says. He's starting to wonder what the hell he's doing here. This is definitely the first time he's been picked up right off the street.
Chris puts on coffee and paces around the apartment. Joey sits down, perches a little gingerly at the edge of the couch. He looks around. There doesn't seem to be a bed here.
"So, I guess I've seen you around," Chris says. "How's it going?"
"Fine," Joey says. "You were doing that do-wop stuff, right?"
"So I was. Still am."
Five seconds of silence, and then Chris says, "Okay, well, I'm really fucking wet, so I'm just gonna skip the preliminaries," and pulls his shirt over his head.
"Uh, okay," Joey says. Chris has slightly olive-tinted skin, rather like his own, and he's neither flabby, skinny nor buff. "Well." He takes off his own shirt, and it feels good to get the clingy-wet fabric away from his skin.
Chris smirks at him and says, "Right on, kid. Stand by for mood music. I think, I think...Frank. Oh! Coffee!"
He sings along to Strangers In The Night an octave above Sinatra and potters around in the kitchen. Joey sits dumbly at the couch and fights the urge to cross his arms in front of him.
Chris drinks coffee the same way JC does, like it's the only thing between him and some horrible, unspeakable fate. Deep gulps, blissful face, while Joey's sipping his and trying not to wince because it's hellishly hot and toe-curlingly strong.
Frank has gone on to Summer Wind and Chris sits down next to Joey. "You want more of that?" he asks and Joey makes his face carefully neutral and says,
"No, thank you."
"Okay," Chris says, and then, "hey," and leans in and kisses him.
Joey wasn't entirely sure why he was here, but this works, works just fine. He spares JC a quick thought - he always does when he's about to get some action; it's kind of like a ritual by now - and opens his mouth. Chris tastes like the coffee, a little bitter, a little sharp, and he smells like wet wool and Ivory soap.
Joey touches his shoulder and Chris wraps his arms around Joey's neck and pulls him closer. He's small but stronger than he looks; nothing fragile about him. The times Joey's hugged JC, he always felt like he might squeeze too hard and break JC somehow, but Chris is sturdy and self-assured and gives only where he wants to give. Joey welcomes it and pushes back, pushes Chris back into the couch and slides down to kneel on the uneven linoleum floor.
"Hey, good idea," Chris mumbles vaguely.
Joey hasn't sucked quite as much cock as he could have - he's ambitious, and sometimes that includes pretending to be a raging heterosexual - but he's no stranger to this. Sinatra croons softly in the background and he takes his time, does the teasing, tip-of-tongue thing, does the almost-but-not-quite deepthroat thing, does all sorts of things and gets Chris to groan out loud.
"Yeah, oh, you're good," Chris says, "show-off," and comes.
Joey wipes his mouth and climbs back and sits on the couch, less awkward now. His wet jeans are very uncomfortable, clinging unpleasantly to his ass and smothering his cock in a clammy embrace. He takes them off.
"Oh, nice," Chris says and pushes him down to lie on the couch, clambers over him and lies on top of him and kisses him again, runs his hands over his chest.
Frank tells them someone is driving him crazy, and Chris grins and hums along. Joey closes his eyes and watches pretty colours swirl on the inside of his eyelids.
Chris gives head with enthusiasm. Joey's not surprised.
Afterwards, Chris kisses him for a good long while and then says, "get up for a while," and pulls out the couch and finds pillows and sheets, and they huddle together, still a little clammy from the rain.
"So," Joey says.
"You wanna make this totally un-awkward and decide to be buddies now?" Chris says. "I mean, I don't know how you usually deal with the morning after, but I am in favour of a pre-emptive strike. Kill the awkwardness now, I say."
Joey can't help smiling. He's tired and it seems like his body is only now realising it's not cold anymore. "Sure," he says.
In the morning, Chris makes more of the horrible coffee, and Joey sips it slowly from an ugly mug with a cross-eyed rooster on it, and there is no awkwardness. Chris plays the Beastie Boys and doesn't kiss him goodbye when he leaves, just says, "I'll see you around."
Joey thinks he will.
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