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snowdarkred
Lost Boy (the stars breathe in the empty spaces)
Part Three of Three
He goes to Zach's house because he feels the need to explain. Not all of it, but some of it. He's not sure that he'll ever be able to tell someone all of it. He knocks on the door, and when it swings open, he's face to face with Zach. He has to look up, just a little, to met his eyes, and he finds comfort in that. It's familiar. Almost as familiar as lazy days spent in bed pretending to nap just so that he could be closer to Zach, his friend, his love, his other.
Zach lets him in immediately, without hesitation. He smiles, and then they're both smiling; it's inexplicable, this effect they have on each other. The are always pulled together, two planetary bodies tugged by each other's gravity until they collide and become one, their atoms tangling together so close that they fuse into one mass.
“Are you okay?” Zach asks, and he reminds him of JJ for a moment, back when they first started filming Star Trek and he had broken the poor stunt guy's nose during the bar scene. He still feels the slight burn of embarrassment when he thinks about it, because who the hell freaks out over a choreographed fight sequence?
“Yes. No. Sorta.” His answer makes Zach frown, and he wants to reach up and smooth the wrinkles away. He put those there, just because he didn't want to tell Zach about one of the least fucked up moments of his past. Zach is a part of him now, and it's not right to keep this from him. Any of it, but one step at a time. Just one step at a time. “My agent called.”
“I heard,” Zach murmurs, herding him towards the living room. Noah edges around them, eager to be greeted but too well trained to jump for it. Harold is curled up on couch, and he sits next to the cat while Zach takes a seat in the armchair. They face each other over the coffee table, and the moment stretches.
“My agent called,” he repeats, “because someone is trying to blackmail me.”
Zach blinks, and he can tell that the other actor is genuinely surprised. He blinks again before a deeper frown adorns his face. He's completely serious, and for a moment, he doesn't look like Zach. He looks like Sylar. It's kind of scary but also cool. “Blackmail?”
“Yeah,” he says, because yeah. What else do you say? “I've...done some stuff.”
“Stuff.” Zach's voice is flat and weirdly emotional at the same time. It's amazing how much he can put into just one word responses.
“Yeah. Stuff.” He takes a deep breath. “Illegal stuff.”
“Drugs?” Zach asks, and he's blatantly disbelieving. It's nice to see, even though it might be better for their...relationship if it was drugs. Drugs are understandable; they live in Hollywood after all. They're stars, and people are always offering them something or another. Drugs would be understandable. Prostitution, not so much, especially since there wasn't really a reason for it. Not really, not one that will make it better or right.
“No,” he replies after a long moment. He takes his own deep breath. “Not drugs. Never that, thank God.”
“Than what?” Zach is determined to drag it out of him.
“I've done some stupid shit, and I can't really.... There's no good explanation for what I did. I used to have sex for money.”
Zach blinks, shocked into complete silence. He's mouth opens and closes, and there are a thousand questions swimming in his eyes. What? they seem to ask. What are you talking about? Is this a joke? A really, really bad joke? Will Ashton Kutcher jump out at any moment? Zach glances around as if he is actually expecting just that.
“It was a while ago,” he continues. He's twenty-nine years old, so no, it wasn't that long ago. But then, everything is relative. It's been a long few years, measured in emotion and success rather than pain and gritty streets. “It was—stupid. I didn't even need the money.”
Zach's eyes tell him that he knows that there's a bigger story. Well, that's true, so he can't really argue with Zach's accusing stare. He's in dangerous territory, spinning a half-truth as if it was whole. He thinks back to that day when he drove out to the hills and looked out over LA. He remembers the dirt beneath his feet and the words he wrote there.
I am alone, with no one but myself and my own emptiness.
He's not so alone now, nor nearly so empty. He was sixteen then, and now he's not. He's gotten older, obviously, because that's what people do isn't it? They get older and wiser, and they learn to fix things.
He's been broken for a long time, it feels. He remembers even farther back, when he was fourteen and angry at his parents for smothering him. He remembers himself later at fourteen years old, locking himself away, suppressing the hell out of his emotions because he just couldn't deal with what was welling up inside of him. He had felt like he was going to split open with the force of it, that it was going to weigh him down, drown him. The sky had been so blank, the stars muted by the glow of LA.
He closes his eyes and breathes again, letting everything drop until it was just him. Just him and Zach, with Harold's warmth pressing against his thigh and Noah at his feet.
I am alone, with no one but myself and my own emptiness.
He gets the urge to go outside, to stand just off of the walkway to Zach's door. He wants to crouch down until the knees on his Diesel Jeans are dirty with pale dust. He imagines himself doing it, crouching and writing with his finger, forming letters and words with a crushing slowness.
I am not alone, and I am not empty. Written and true in God's own flesh.
---
He's only a few days past graduation (he's now a college graduate, how weird is that?) when his parents call—again. He sort of wants to jump on a plane and return to the University of Leeds, and he thinks that they suspect this. He could return there, maybe get his Masters or something. Take some more theater classes. It was easier to let everything go there, to forget about the tricks that the city will pull on the unsuspecting. He's parents have been calling every day, as if his reawakening and return were a sign to them that he had needed help before.
They invite him over for dinner. It's been ages since he was home with them, and even longer since he felt comfortable calling it home. He accepts the invitation.
There's an extra place-mat set at the table, and he didn't know that there would be anyone else here but him and his parents. He wouldn't have come, otherwise, and his parents no doubt knew that. It's why they didn't tell him, after all.
“Have you ever considered going into acting?” his parents' friend asks. It's his dad's agent, which he should have been expecting. After all, what the hell does one do with a degree in English in LA? He'd been thinking about teaching, but his heart isn't in it.
He doesn't have any plans for the future. He almost physically hears that girl—woman, whatever—and what she said just year ago: It's not like you're doing anything else, right?
True.
He looks at the agent, who is looking straight back at him. No doubt seeing a pretty kid with bright blue eyes and handsome features, someone who already knows how much of a shit town Hollywood is. Someone who won't break when casting directors leave him overly polite rejection messages, or when a movie crashes in the box office and burns to ashes. The agent sees someone who was raised for this, who knows that it's just a job. Someone who won't get entitled when someone snaps his picture in the street.
The agent sees someone stable, with a head on his shoulders, and he wants it to be true so bad that he agrees to call another agent, a friend of a friend of a business associate. Dinner isn't comfortable, but it's not too bad either.
---
He's sixteen when his parents catch him getting drunk for the first time. It isn't the first time he's gotten drunk, of course, but it's the first time that they've noticed that there's something really wrong with their little boy. They take his fake license away, but he gets another one within a week, and they catch him again when they come home early one night. They left for a charity dinner, and his mother got a headache and decided to call it a night after a bare hour at the snazzy beach house.
He hears the key in the front door, but he's too drunk to care. He don't care about much at this point. He feels small, surrounded by the furniture his parents bought in the house they pay for. He's drunk their liquor and smoking the cigarettes that he stole from his sister, right there on the balcony.
His mother swears, violently, and his father shakes his head in a way that makes his insides twist. They take the booze gently out of his hands, and his mother crushes the cigarette beneath her heel, like it isn't even worth looking at. He feels even tinier when his father takes him upstairs and puts him to bed, like he's a small child again. They don't speak about it until the second time they catch him. They don't do anything about it until the third.
At first, they murmur about teen issues, about growing up and out, about facing the world in today's society. Then they sent him to yet another hoity-toity therapist. After three sessions, the man is annoyed at the lack of progress—well, the lack of everything, including any response—but not annoyed enough to decide that he's useless. Dr. Asshole wants to drain his parents bank account, and they want this therapist to work so bad that they almost let him. But he can't let that happen to his parents, no matter how not-there he is these days. He pitches a fit one day, whining that he doesn't want to go, and his parents let the sessions stop, because he asked.
---
He does a few bit parts, moves closer to the city, and does a few more. It's slow going, but he thinks that it might be worth it someday. And anyway, it pays the bills better than selling himself ever did. Now there's red tape and labor laws and contracts. Now there's casting calls and Disney movies and silly romantic comedies that he has to grit his teeth through.
He finds that story he wrote, a long, long time ago (months, a year at most, but then he measures in emotion rather than time) jammed in the back of his suitcase. He takes it out and reads it, his hands obsessively smoothing the edges. He tucks it away afterward, puts it back where he found it.
He can feel it though, like a mournful spirit haunting the back of his closet—and that's an irony that he could have done without. It doesn't go away, so the next day he leaves his new, box-filled apartment and goes in search of a gym. He needs to burn off some energy.
---
The first time he gets paid for sex—the first time someone shoves bills with a zeros at the end of them into his jeans after a bout of meaningless fucking—he almost gives the money back. But in the end, he keeps it, shoving it deeper into his pocket and walking away. He's seventeen. He's seventeen, and he's got a hundred dollars in twenties burning a hole through his mind.
When the guy had asked, right in the middle of the action, how much, he had replied with the first number that came to mind, which was two hundred. The guy had laughed straight in his face and jipped him later, blatantly slipping him a hundred less. He couldn't really complain, though, since he usually did this sort of thing for free.
Now he's a hundred dollars richer. He doesn't know what he's going to do with the money, or if he should even do anything with it at all. Maybe he should save it, pay for college with his own cash.... But then his parents will wonder where he's getting his funds from, and that'll mean another round with the therapist ring, with plenty of distraught tears to go around.
When he gets back home (to his parent's house) he takes the money and puts it in a shoe box. He shoves the box to the back of his closet, smothered by jeans and sweaters. He tells himself not to think about it, and for the most part he doesn't, except for when he has more money to add to it.
Within two months, he has to get another shoe box because the first is full.
---
“Sex,” Zach repeats slowly. “For money.” He sounds like he still can't quite believe it, like this must be a dream, a nightmare, and he's going to wake up eventually and tell him about the weird dream he had while they were napping.
He doesn't look at Zach when he answers, but what he says doesn't have much to do with what Zach keeps repeating under his breath. “Don't worry, I've been tested, and the closest I've come to that since is a make out scene with Lindsay Lohan. You're safe.”
“Chris,” Zach says. He's suddenly in front of him, and he must have zoned because he didn't even see Zach move; he was just there. “Chris,” he says again. “Stop, don't. I'm not—I'm not worried about that, I know that you wouldn't, you wouldn't put someone in that kind of danger. But. But, Chris, talk to me.”
“I...” he starts. Stops. Starts again. “I can't.” He sounds broken, so broken, and he wants to yank the words back. He's not broken, he's not a mess. He survived, and he's alive, and he has friends and a career that doesn't involve getting on his knees for anyone with a few hundred bucks, and he has a, a boyfriend, someone special to spend his days with.
Zach lays his hands on his checks, and he feels Zach's palms, smooth and comforting against his stumble. It's nice. It's matches the emotion in Zach's eyes, shining out clear and bright. He cares, and it's so obvious, he thinks that Zach should take out a billboard and just get it over with. Someone cares.
I am not alone, and I am not empty.
---
Bit parts suck, but they pay the bills. He's been on hospital shows, crime shows, and a few small movies. He plays a part or two in some low budget movies. He gets his face and name out there and hopes that one day he'll been recognized as something other than the son of that guy from CHIPS. It's a slow, slow process, but one that he knows is necessary. He would know it even if his agent didn't keep reminding him of that ever time she pushes him to take another small part in another art film.
Building a career is exhausting, and he's grateful for the excuse sometimes. Whenever he doesn't feel like going out with friends, or seeing his parents, he can just say, Sorry, I don't have time; I'm so tired.
It's not even a lie.
---
“So,” Zach asks later. He wants to ask something else, but he's pointedly not thinking in that direction. The direction of why. “This blackmail thing. What is your agent planning on doing?”
“Paying up,” he answers. “There's nothing else we can do.” He doesn't add that he doesn't want the blackmailer to dig deeper; he doesn't want to think about what they could find if they did.
Zach takes a deep, fortifying breath. He's about to stray into why territory. “So....”
“I don't know,” he says. “Well, yes, I do, but....”
Zach leans forward and rests one hand on his. It's supposed to be reassuring, but all he wants to do is jerk his hand away from Zach's. It's irrational, and silly, and he thought he'd moved past this sort of thing a while ago.
He looks at Zach. He wants—but he doesn't know what. He wants to talk.
---
After Star Trek comes out, he doesn't have any privacy. There are paparazzi everywhere. They're too close, too there. He doesn't like how they stare; it takes him back to his days in smoke filled bars. People who look and judge, who only want a leg up. It's the business, but that doesn't mean that he has to accept it. That doesn't make it okay.
He gets fed up with it one night, tired of the whole thing. He hops in his car and blows right past the assholes with cameras. He drives out of the city and away from people, until he's in the middle of no where, surrounded by empty desert, and he can see the stars. They look close enough to touch. He pulls over at random. The air is brisk; goose bumps raise on his arms from the chill.
The sky is beautiful. There are no streetlights and bustle to drown out its richness.
He feels the quiet against his skin; he lets it wash over him while he watches the consolations dance and change. He takes a deep breath and lets the tension run out of his body, out of his mind.
He closes his eyes and feels at peace.
---
He closes his eyes. He takes a deep breath. He opens his eyes and speaks.
“I was fourteen.”
---
When he told Zach what he wanted to do, he was supportive. Whatever you need had been his response, and his response to everything after. Whatever you need. I'm here; I'm not going anywhere.
And he believes him. His life isn't suddenly perfect, but it's better. But, sometimes, he still feels like something is missing. There is a part of him that he knows is gone, absent, a phantom limb of something he never had. It weighs on him, more than it should, and one day it will get to be too much.
So he does it. He pops open his laptop and begins to type, hardly paying attention as his thoughts arrange themselves on the blank page.
Three months later, he finishes. He doesn't know what to do with it, so he gives it to his agent, who looks at him with unreadable eyes for a few long moments after. She says, I'll look at it, and watches him leave. He can feel her eyes on his back.
He paces around the house for days before he starts to feel claustrophobic. He leaves a note for Zach, in case he comes over, and heads out in his car. It's nighttime, and he wants to see the stars. He wants to think.
He doesn't know that he did the right thing, but it had felt like the only thing to do, and that had to mean something. Maybe. Probably. Hopefully. The phone rings when he reaches his favorite stargazing spot, and he picks it up without bothering to look at the caller ID.
“Chris,” he agent says. “Chris, this is.... This is amazing. I—I don't know what to say.”
“Um,” he says, because he's not sure what to say either. “So, what now?”
“It's entirely up to you,” she says.
Chris looks up at the stars.
END
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Master Post | Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Author's Note
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no subject
Date: 2010-06-16 07:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-18 04:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-16 11:19 pm (UTC)"Maybe he'll be able to see the stars with his own eyes and trace the shapes they make make with his own fingers. Maybe he can lose himself on stage under the lights. Maybe he'll find himself." Was one of my favorite lines. I can see how this could've really drained you, thanks for writing this and sharing.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-18 04:48 pm (UTC)I was almost worried that the star motif was too heavy, but it just felt right, so I went with it. I'm glad you enjoyed it! (That line is one of my favorites too.)
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Date: 2010-06-16 11:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-18 04:48 pm (UTC)Thank you
Date: 2010-06-17 12:59 am (UTC)Re: Thank you
Date: 2010-06-18 04:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-17 02:21 am (UTC)This is brilliant and painful and powerful and beautiful. I second the idea that it feels like poetry.
Really stunning. Thank you for being willing to share it with the world.
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Date: 2010-06-18 04:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-21 02:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-22 05:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-22 06:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-22 10:11 pm (UTC)<3
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Date: 2011-06-17 03:21 am (UTC)thank you so much for sharing it!
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Date: 2011-06-17 04:51 am (UTC)