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Chris’ mother would not hesitate to murder him if she found out he was smoking again.
You’re a bad influence on your sister, Chris, she used to tell him, back when he was seventeen and she found his hidden pack of crushed Marlboros tucked away between his mattress and boxspring. Nevermind the fact Katie was actually older than he was.
To be fair, though, his mother had also found a few pictures of a shirtless Ryan Phillippe he’d printed off the internet using his father’s work printer, and to her credit she hadn’t said anything about those at all. Strangely enough that one moment would dictate the next ten years of their relationship; namely, his mother commenting anytime she saw him even begin to think about smoking, while steadfastly ignoring the indicators of a big gay son in the process.
Whatever, Chris thinks now, channelling his seventeen year old self a little bit. He loves smoking. He loved it the first time he’d ever seen it on screen (John Travolta in Grease, thank you very much), and he loves the thrill that still trickles down his spine every time he found his fingers creeping for the pack.
And, as he currently demonstrates to the audience, taking a nice deep drag of a fresh cigarette is also the perfect way to kill the remaining precious moments of time that come before spilling your guts to the one person who could take you right the fuck down.
Chris tips his head back, and lets the smoke drift out of his mouth languidly.
“Don’t fucking hurt yourself,” Zach grumbles, uncrossing both arms from over his chest as he moves to get back up from the table.
Someone, somewhere, begins to pipe The Greatest Hits of the Smiths over the poolside area they’re in. Chris would recognize this particular tracklist of Smiths songs anywhere. In fact, this had been his car CD for three months in his senior year.
“Sorry,” Chris lies - sorry, not sorry - as he shrugs and flicks a bit of ash off of the end of his smoke. “It’s my only remaining vice.”
Zach stares down at Chris openly, before narrowing his eyes and replying, “Alcohol, filmmaking, your garden, men…”
“You,” He supplies, interjecting rudely as he leans forward to drag the amber colored glass ashtray forward with the curl of his pointer finger. His reply visibly stalls Zach. “Honestly, Zach, do you even care what I think?”
Neither of them talk about the way that Zach currently looks like he’s seen a ghost. Instead, Chris busies himself with ashing his cigarette, and Zach steadies his jaw, clenching his teeth together at the back before he replies, “About what?”
“About anything,” Chris frowns. He still feels fucking shitty about deleting Miles’ text, but he can’t stop the guilt from bubbling to the surface in the form of acerbic commentary. His brain has been a slot machine of apologies the entire time they’ve been at this hotel, but so far he hasn’t been able to line up three matching windows long enough to form an appropriate apology. His current tirade will likely not help, and neither will adding, “But specifically, what I think about the current state of our relationship.”
Zach immediately narrows his eyes and corrects, “Friendship.”
“Zachary,” Chris announces, knotting his eyebrows as he waves one hand in Zach’s direction. Underneath the patio table he’s sitting at, he taps his foot against the chair opposite him, and then kicks it out with one foot. The metal scrapes against the concrete floor loudly, an obvious invitation for Zach to sit back down. Chris adds, “Sit with me.”
Eyeing him warily, Zach sits, though he does make a point of looking uncomfortable to be doing so.
Above them, the song changes to Chris’ personal favorite Smiths song as an emotional teenager, Stop Me If You Think That You’ve Heard This One Before. It’s embarrassingly appropriate for the current state of affairs between the two of them.
“I’ll sit with you,” Zach says unnecessarily, as he cautiously leans back in the metal chair. He narrows his eyes and watches as Chris takes a drag of his cigarette, and then asks, “Why did you used to care what I thought about you?”
Chris exhales loudly, almost choking on smoke as he laughs, “You scared the shit out of me, man! You were unreal.”
“I was unreal to you,” Zach repeats, tone flat. Chris nods and debates sneaking another cigarette, even as he’s stubbing this one out. Zach is not his mother, and as far as Chris knows, does not have her direct contact information. When he glances back over at Zach, Zach has one eyebrow arched and looks sour as he clarifies, “And now I am… what, exactly? A mere mortal?”
Frowning, Chris watches the butt of his cigarette smoulder in the ash tray.
“You’re one of the most important people in my life,” He admits, voice soft. He flickers his gaze over to Zach, who is looking back at him stoically. One time, about a million years ago now, Chris texted Zach the Statue of Liberty emoji with the word me. He then promptly followed that up with the Easter Island rock head emoji and the word you. Those two text messages have never been more descriptive of their relationship than this very moment. “You don’t scare me anymore. You’re an institution to my well-being.”
Well there’s a fucking bomb to drop, Chris thinks to himself. He hadn’t actually known he was going to say that until it was out there, floating around in the abyss.
Zach seems to feel the same way. He laughs a little, humorlessly, and then tilts his head to the side as he asks, “And what does that mean, exactly?”
“I’m sorry I fucked around with your relationship with Miles,” Chris says, cautiously. He eyes Zach’s reaction, or the lack of it, and reaches forward to push the plastic filter of his cigarette even further into the ashtray sand. His fingers are going to smell terrible by the time this conversation is over. “I feel sufficiently like shit.”
That’s only saying half of it, honestly, but at least it’s a good place to start.
“Fuck that,” Zach snaps, clearly disagreeing. He brushes off the front of his t-shirt with one hand, and adds, “And fuck you! You not only succeeded in making yourself look like an asshole, but I, I-”
Tomorrow, Chris will have no idea why he handled the conversation the way that he does. Something about the way Zach is looking at him, like Chris is simply an object to be moved, creates a crater in his heart so big, so fast, that Chris can no longer ignore it in the steadfast way that he has up until now.
Chris’ patience crumbles. In fact, he can practically feel it floating through the air like the dust in the desert they drove through yesterday.
He frowns at Zach’s stupid face and snaps back, “What, I made you look like a real human being who lives and breathes and isn’t perfect all the time? Fuck me, right?”
“Miles left me because of you,” Zach blurts. In one sentence he has given away every card he’s ever held.
Chris feels like he’s been punched in the gut. All of a sudden the slot machine lands on cherry, cherry, cherry, and alarm bells begin ricocheting through his head, banging on the insides of his skull.
He feels himself sway against the edge of the glass patio table despite the fact that he’s sitting down. He gulps before asking, “Excuse me?”
“Don’t make me repeat it,” Zach says miserably. Someone has blindfolded Chris and strapped him into the front seat of a rollercoaster. All of a sudden, down is up and up is down. Zach’s face is painted with anxiety and fear. Salt in the wound, he adds, “He told me to buy the plane ticket. I didn’t buy the plane ticket.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Chris says, evenly. His voice doesn’t even crack this time. He’s an adult. He can say things. “But you cannot just drop that on me, and then pretend that it’s unimportant. Did he think we were… we were?”
Zach doesn’t answer right away. He sets his mouth closed, a straight line, and stares down at his hands carefully. The overwhelming silence says more than his words ever could.
“He’s twenty five,” Zach finally says, like he’s rehearsed this particular string of information in the mirror to himself. “He was twenty three when we started dating. That’s young. I always told him that nothing happened between you and I, but he never believed me.”
Chris boggles at Zach, feeling a little dizzy. He hopes it’s just an overexposure of sun from the last few days and dehydration.
“He didn’t like the way I would look at you,” Zach finishes, setting his mouth back into that straight line. A poker face.
Eyebrows shooting up into his hairline, Chris blurts, “How do you look at me?”
Does Zach look at him weird?!
At Chris’ reaction Zach begins to laugh helplessly, humorlessly, as he finally breaks and shrugs, groaning as he rubs both hands over his face roughly and then drops his palms onto the center of the patio table.
“You would have to ask him that, I guess,” He finally answers. Rolling his tongue against the inside of his bottom lip, Zach nods back towards the hotel parking lot, presumably towards their car. “Though it doesn’t exactly seem like necessary information at this particular juncture in time.”
Well, fuck, Chris thinks. He has the distinct mental image of himself standing in the middle of a smoky casino, a too small plastic bucket braced in both hands as quarters pour out of the slot machine and onto the floor, bouncing in thousand different directions.
And just like that, Zach seems untouchable again.
~
They agree to stay at the same hotel for one more night, in separate rooms.
Which is horrifying, because this place is actually kind of Chris’ wet dream come to life.
Nobody knows this, and it’s practically the absolute last thing he should be thinking about under the current set of circumstances, but one of Chris’ biggest kinks of all time is having sex in a shitty motel, one just like this. It’s one of the only lingering fantasies that has followed him out of adolescence and straight into adulthood.
Even thinking about sharing a trashy hotel room with Zach makes his toes curl; the idea of Zach’s fancy toiletries all laid out on the same dresser that holds all of Chris’ shitty t-shirts and boat shorts. And, the ultimate fantasy, “I’m sorry, sir, but we only have rooms with one bed available. You’ll have to share.”
Something about being a kid raised moderately wealthy has always made him ache for the edge of the obscene.
~
That night Chris hangs out poolside, stretched out on a turquoise and white lounger with his feet crossed at the ankles.
This hotel is set up with a particularly Atomic Age Americana theme, one of Chris’ hottest decor buttons. The rooms are all individual bungalows, clustered around a neon lit pool. Additionally, Chris has seen no less than four neon signs so far, all in varying colors and styles. His favorite is the one at reception that advertises free cable television.
If he gets arrested for hotel theft tomorrow, hopefully Zach will help he and his new neon signs get across the border.
Tonight, however, he is still trying to read. It’s not a particularly easy task when he’s also got visions of Zach pinned to the front of his mind’s eye. In some cruel joke care of the universe, Chris’ motel kink is now twisted up in his newest road trip memories of Zach.
He’s flipping back a page in his book after realizing he didn’t absorb any of the words in it when he sees movement out of the corner of his eye. Before he can turn his head, he also hears the sound of springs stretching as Zach drops himself into the lounger to Chris’ immediate right.
Chris raises his eyes up from the pages of his book cautiously.
For a moment, they both stare out at the pool sitting in front of them, its water completely still and almost glowing in the moonlight. Bombay sapphire, cerulean, the deep end of the pool, Chris’ brain helpfully supplies.
“I want it to be you,” Zach says, voice low.
Chris licks his bottom lip, mouth suddenly dangerously dry, and tries to glance over at Zach from the corner of his eyes. He feels less than surreptitious at this current juncture in time.
“Is this about Miles?” Chris manages to ask, because tonight, he needs things written out for him. His voice sounds subsonic in the quiet of the night, and he clears his throat gently to compensate, desperately trying not to cave right there and beg Zach to spill all of his bodily secrets to Chris and the water in the pool.
Zach is staring straight ahead, face blank. The neon flamingo sign on the other side of the swimming area throws pink strips of light across the planes of Zach’s face, and catches in the gold metal button at the top of his shirt. Chris’ brain fills in all of the details he can’t see from here, like the chest hair peeking out from under Zach’s loose collar, and the way that Zach’s wrists are just perfectly knobby and tanned.
There’s a long, heavy pause, before Zach replies, “Miles is the first person I’ve been in a relationship with that wasn’t wildly unavailable to me. When he showed me genuine affection, I waited patiently for the other shoe to drop. I waited a year, thinking he would come to his senses and leave me.”
“Zach,” Chris blurts, face tightening in a grimace as he sits up in the lounger and swings one leg over the edge. His book drops to the still damp concrete floor, landing pages down. “Why would he?”
Looking amused, Zach crosses his arms over his chest, and finally looks over at Chris.
His voice is infuriatingly neutral, despite the cruelty he has shown himself, as he says, “I only recently realized he wouldn’t. Now tell me that isn’t crazy.”
Chris doesn’t know what to say. His personal outlook on relationships is not all that much healthier than Zach’s.
“Funnier still,” Zach intones, tipping his head back against the lounger. Chris’ heart beats wildly when he notices the way Zach’s adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. “I know why. I finally fucking understand why I do this to myself.”
Covering his face with both hands, Chris desperately massages the bridge of his nose and the sockets of his closed eyes, looking for release. He isn’t ready for this - he knows he isn’t, Zach is three seconds away from dropping something on him like an atomic bomb -
“I wanted every single one of those people to be you,” Zach admits. He’s still staring up at the open sky above them, like the moon isn’t shining back on them like a spotlight. Chris immediately feels seasick at Zach’s admission. His stomach swoops uncomfortably, and slams up against the inside of his torso. His heart is suddenly full of coins. “Including Miles.”
Chris frowns, and lets his hands move from his face, over his forehead, and to the top of his skull.
“Just when I thought you didn’t scare me anymore,” Chris manages to crack, aiming for a joke.
It doesn’t exactly go over well, which Chris should have anticipated knowing. Zach just shakes his head and swings both legs over the side of his lounger. Hysterically, Chris thinks about the way both of Zach’s feet are on the ground between Chris’ opened knees.
“So are you sure you don’t want me to get that flight back, after all?” Zach asks, voice rough, before he stands up and walks away.
Chris stays silent, watching as Zach steps on the spine of his book on his way back to his own bungalow door.
He waits until Zach is out of earshot before he frowns and sighs. And then he flops back down onto the lounger, and reaches for the pack of cigarettes in his shirt pocket one more time.