Daylight chases away the worst of it. He manages to work. He smiles when he's supposed to. He chuckles. Full out laughs are out of his reach, but he's getting there. He can feel it. Then he wonders if Nick is laughing yet and his gut clenches. The first few times he thought of how Nick might be feeling, he had to duck into a bathroom and puke. So he wills himself to forget the way Nick's voice rings out when he laughs and wheezes into silence when he laughs hard. The crinkle in the corners of his eyes when he smiles, and how his dark hair falls across his forehead, not quite in his eyes. The breathless noise he makes during a climax. Chris categorizes the bigger things as self-preservation forgetting, and it feels like a betrayal to the best thing that ever happened to him. Though it pains him, he lets them go, like lit Chinese lanterns floating out to sea, prayers that maybe in some dimension, what he's letting go will be found and cherished by another-Chris of another-Nick, saved somewhere since this-Chris can no longer keep them.
What Was
“Could you be more of an asshole?” Chris storms into the house, tossing his keys in the general direction of the key peg, not caring when they hit the floor. Just another thing for Nick to roll his eyes at, the nick on the hardwood. It's my goddamned house! Why do you care if I scuff my floors? Followed by, when did I stop thinking of it as 'our' house?
“I'm sorry, but you cannot tell me that question about that famous photographer, Joe McWhatever, wasn't ignorant bullshit specifically pointed at Randy. Yes, he's full of himself, but who isn't when they're proud of their talent? I seem to recall a certain swaggering Marine Corps captain role you landed that made you insufferable for weeks, barking orders at me and demanding push-ups. You don't have to be an ass to my friends.” Nick kicks his shoes off and picks them up, padding in stocking feet to the bedroom to put them away in the closet.
I wanted to watch your arm muscles, because you're so beautiful. Chris glares and toes off his own shoes, leaving them in the living room right where he knows Nick walks to sit on the couch.
Nick comes back to find him snapping the cap off another beer and drinking in the open door of the fridge. “You're wasting energy.”
“So? I pay the power bill.”
“Just because you can pay for it means you should waste it?” Nick shakes his head and walks out of the room.
“Can I do anything right?” Chris yells at his back.
“You can start by closing the fridge and keeping your mouth shut about Randy if you don't have anything nice to say.” Nick's voice is faint, and Chris hears the click of the bathroom door when Nick disappears for his nightly face ritual. The man is obsessed with his skin, convinced it will keep him aging well and landing movie roles well into middle age. His name is big enough that it's not arrogance to hope.
Chris talks to the closed door, head bowed, trying to keep his voice from rising. “The photographer question was a legitimate effort to understand where Randy was coming from. I can't help it if his theory on off-camera lighting placement differs from something I read about another photographer doing. I was trying to understand the difference between the two methods, not make it look like Randy was blowing shit out his ass. Which he clearly was. I didn't make him look like an idiot. He did that all by himself.”
Nick flings the door open, his hair held back by a stretchy hair band, face shiny from the soap he'd just used. Chris steps back. He hates the way that shit smells. “So he was trying something new and hadn't figured out how to make it work yet. Doesn't mean it won't, and you didn't have to laugh in his face.” Nick's eyes are brooding, the hooded look of a jack-o-lantern daring people to approach the door and see if there's truth in the rumors of haunting over the threshold. “Are you suddenly an expert in photography now? It's bad enough if someone brings up 19th century literature in front of you. Face it, Chris. Unless it's a book or handed to you in a script, you don't know everything there is to know, and trying to say otherwise is just arrogant and makes you look like a jerk.”
Chris whirls on his heel and walks away, willing his fists to loosen. His chest burns, his heart beating hard like the wings of an angry raven tapping ever so insistently at his chamber door.
“What about all the dickhead things Randy's said to me about that Out photo shoot?” Chris mutters, getting a blanket from the closet and spreading it out on the couch. He knows he was a jerk. He just wants some acknowledgment that he wasn't the only jerk.
* * *
Their gasps fill the room. Nick arches into Chris's chest on top of his own, a moan escaping his lips. He wants to slow them down, take the time they used to take exploring each other. But Chris is falling into the usual routine. Stroking through boxers, shedding the boxers, a little frotting, and then Chris either presses Nick to his stomach and grabs the lube or hands it to Nick and rolls over himself. It's become familiar, a little boring, over too fast, like Chris is going through the motions so he can go to sleep. Why bother then? Nick thinks, as Chris presses the lube into his hand.