#suedescripture

Chris doesn't argue now, but Zach guesses there will be arguments later. And really, it's not like Zach blames him. He can imagine how frustrating it must be to have your mobility limited, to need someone else to take care of you. Chris has always been independent. He doesn't like relying on others--not for anything. Even as Zach leads him to the couch and helps him prop up his leg on a stack of pillows, he wonders how much Chris is bristling at him, how much he wishes Zach would just go away.

Still, Zach has to ask, "What can I get you?"

Chris sighs. "Water, I guess. And hand me the remotes? They're over there next to the TV."

Zach knows where the remotes are. He knows where everything in this house is, and he knew it long before he moved in two months ago. But Chris is still adjusting--they both are--and this whole mess with his leg has only thrown a wrench in things, so Zach lets this one slide and goes to retrieve the remotes.

On the way back from the kitchen with Chris's water, he digs two prescription bottles out of the duffel. Painkillers and antibiotics, both of which need to be taken on a regular schedule. One more thing for Zach to keep track of, and one more thing for Chris to potentially resent him for. Maybe it would be easier if he set alarms on Chris's phone, so he isn't bugging Chris himself, but even that feels like it might be too invasive.

"Here," he says as he sets the water down close enough for Chris to reach it. "And here are your meds. You're about due for more oxy now, if you want."

Chris waves him away absently, his eyes fixed on the TV screen as he flips through the channels. "That stuff makes me feel awful. The doctor said I could switch to ibuprofen whenever."

Zach sighs. Chris has three pins in his leg, but trust him to try to play the tough guy now. Who doesn't want to take the good shit when they have it? But he bites his tongue. "Do you want ibuprofen now then?"

"Nah, I'm good. I'll wait until dinner."

Nodding, Zach looks from Chris to the TV to Chris again. What is he supposed to do now? How is he supposed to help? "I guess I'll go start a load of laundry then. Mind if I get your clothes out of the bag?"

Chris looks at him then, eyebrows pinching together. "You don't have to do that. I can wash them later."

"Chris." Zach throws up his hands. "How are you going to do that, huh?"

"Right." The troughs in his forehead deepen. "Okay. Sorry."

Sorry? Zach frowns, but he finds he isn't in the mood to unpack all that baggage in that one word now, so he goes to unpack the physical baggage instead. It's a relief, in some ways, to go through the motions of sorting the clothes in the hamper and tossing them into the washer. He feels far more useful now than he did hovering over Chris in the living room, or back at the hospital, where friends and family came and went and all Zach could do was sit and watch Chris's pale face for signs of fatigue. He thought he was going to cry when Chris's dad offered to have him come stay with them while he was recovering, but luckily Chris shut that one down quickly. But was it because he trusted Zach to take care of him, or because he didn't want to put his family out? Is he only putting up with Zach now because he has to?

Zach realizes he's spiraling and takes a deep breath to rein himself in. This is all too new. He moved in with Chris just a couple weeks before filming on the new Star Trek started, and though it seemed like a good idea at the time, it's been a big adjustment. Going from a long-distance relationship to a live-in one--plus filming twelve-plus hours a day--hasn't been easy on either of them, and Chris's injury has made things that much more awkward. Now he knows Chris feels guilty for delaying production and guilty that Zach almost took the poor stunt coordinator's head off after the fact and guilty that he screwed up the stunt in the first place. And what's Zach supposed to do with all that? He can't fix Chris's leg and he can't fix all the emotional shit surrounding it either, so all he's good for now is fetching Chris water and making him feel uncomfortable in his own damn house.

Back in the living room, Chris is still scrolling through the channels, though his eyes look unfocused, like he might not really be paying attention to what he's seeing. Zach wishes they hadn't taken the dogs over to Mark's. Maybe if they were here, they would cheer Chris up better than Zach can. 

"Hey," Zach says, leaning against the door frame and offering a tentative smile. They used to be able to communicate so much to each other with just smiles, and Zach has no idea what he may be communicating now, but he hopes it's something. He hopes Chris can still read him like this.

Chris clicks the TV off again and tosses the remote on the coffee table, and only then does he look up at Zach's face. "Hey," he says wearily. Then, after a double-take, he stretches out his hand. "Hey," he says again, softer. "Come here."

Zach goes to him and slips his fingers into Chris's, a hopeful nervousness unfurling in his chest. Before he can protest, Chris tugs at him and sends him sprawling into his lap. He only barely manages to catch himself and avoid falling against Chris's injured leg.

"Careful!" Zach digs his fingers into Chris's shoulders. "They'll have us both killed if you reinjure that leg, you moron."

"Relax," Chris says, offering up the first real smile Zach has seen in days, then hiding it in Zach's neck. "I mean it. You need to relax. You're acting like I'm on my deathbed."

"I'm not--" Zach huffs and tries to rearrange himself, get some of his weight off Chris's stomach. "It's not that. I know you're going to be fine."

"Then what is it?" Chris reaches up and brushes a few strands of hair off Zach's forehead. And God, Zach loves it when he does that. He used to be so neurotic about his hair, would duck instinctively out of the way whenever anyone reached for it, but something about Chris doing it, the intimacy of it--it makes his stomach flip over every time.

"This isn't exactly how I thought living together would go," Zach says, and then it's his turn to hide his face, pressing his mouth against Chris's temple. He still smells like hospital, but he doubts either of them want to think about the work it'll take to get him in the shower right now. "Doesn't this feel like...I don't know, some kind of bad omen?"

"Bad omen? Jesus." Chris chuckles and snatches up one of Zach's hands, brings it up to his mouth and kisses the edge of his palm. "Look, I know I've been really fucking cranky. We were both sleep-deprived even before all of this, and now I feel like I've let everybody down, and I hate being..." He gestures down the length of his body. "Helpless."

"Yeah, I know," Zach says, because he does. Of course he does.

"But none of that has anything to do with you and me," Chris says. "There are no bad omens, Zach. Only bad luck."

He turns his head to the side and captures Zach's mouth--a quick peck first, then a harder one, the kind that has them both drawing an anticipatory breath. Not that they have anything to anticipate at the moment. Chris is out of commission in every possible way.

"I just don't want you to regret this," Zach says when they break apart. He is painfully aware of how it sounds--almost childishly needy, not at all like a man who's spent most of his adult life in therapy for his abandonment issues.

Luckily for him, Chris only grin at him and shakes his head. "The only thing I regret right now is not asking you to move in with me sooner." He rubs his thumb across Zach's bottom lip. "We shouldn't have had to spend the first months of our relationship to tired or too--injured to fuck."

Zach barks out a laugh at that and swats Chris on the stomach. "One-track mind," he admonishes. 

Chris's eyes sparkle, even as the smile fades from his lips. "But seriously, do you think I don't worry about the same thing? Don't you know all I can think about is how unfair it is that you'll have to wait on me hand and foot for the next few weeks?"

"But I'm happy to do it, Chris," Zach says, brushing his fingers across Chris's cheekbone. "I'd do it even if you weren't bedridden, if you wanted me to."

Chris crinkles his nose. "Yeah, no. That sounds like a nightmare."

"Why's that?" Zach tries not to sound too hurt.

"Because I want a partner, Zach." Before Zach can argue, Chris puts a finger to his lips. "And yes, I'm aware that partners sometimes have to take care of each other, which is why I'm going to try to get over myself and let you take care of me and not be grumpy about it." He presses a loud, smacking kiss to Zach's cheek. "But in return you have to stop acting like you have to earn your right to be here, okay?"

That sentence has another ten years of therapy packed into it, but Zach pushes it away for now and focuses on the important part: that Chris wants him here, and not just for what Zach can do for him. 

"Deal," Zach says, and presses his mouth Chris's temple again. He'll do his best, anyway--which is all either of them can do. It helps, at least, that their issues are complementary. 

"Good." Chris kisses him on the mouth. "Now get me my phone, so I can order us burritos, because you are not cooking. And then you are going to sit here with me and watch a dumb action movie. And then--and then we can figure out how I'm going to shower with this thing on."

His mouth twists on that last part, and Zach can't help but smile. He scratches his fingers along Chris's scalp and then gives the back of his neck a gentle squeeze. "Maybe I can make the shower part worth your while," he says, brushing his mouth against Chris's jaw. "Provided it's safe enough, that is."

This was bound to happen. He and Chris talked about it, when they finally sorted their shit out and decided to take a chance on each other a month ago. Chris has lived a happily mysterious life up until now, but Zach wasn’t going back in the closet, not even for Chris. If we’re going to be together, we have to be together, Zach told him. No sneaking around, no secrets. And to Chris’s credit, he agreed at once, without even stopping to think about it. But maybe he should have thought about it more.

“It’s not too late to…to decide this is too much for you,” Zach says, though he hates himself for giving Chris this out. The past few weeks have been some of the best of his life–lazy afternoons in Chris’s sun-drenched bedroom, long talks about the past and the future and everything in between–but no matter how much he wants this, he can’t enjoy it if he knows Chris is miserable.

Lucky for him, Chris rolls his eyes. “Come on, Zach. Give me a little more credit than that.” He reaches for Zach’s hand, twines their fingers together. “This bullshit drives me up a wall, but it’ll take a lot more than this to scare me away.”

He is scared though, that much is obvious. His palm is sweaty against Zach’s, and now he has the thumb of the opposite hand in his mouth, chewing at the cuticle this time like he has some kind of bloodletting quota to meet. 

“The car service can come up to the house,” Zach says. 

“No,” Chris says. “No, you’re right. If they get their pictures, they’ll leave me alone. We just need to walk out there, and. And. Let them do their thing.”

Zach nods and gives Chris’s hand a squeeze. "No middle finger, right?“

"No middle finger,” he agrees, looking contrite.

Zach takes the initiative to take a last walk through the house, turning off lights, making sure the dogs have water in their bowls, sliding the keys into his pocket. The car has been idling out there at the curb for ten minutes now, but the driver is paid to wait. They can take a little more time for talk therapy if need be. But when Zach returns to the foyer, Chris is rocking back up on the balls of his feet, one hand on the doorknob, ready to rip off the bandaid.

“Ready?” Zach asks.

“Ready,” Chris confirms.

Chris takes off like a bat out of hell as soon as the door opens, and after Zach locks up, he has to jog after him and grab his hand to slow him down. They are doing this together or not at all. He almost says that out loud, but when his eyes meet Chris’s, he knows Chris already understands. 

“Come here,” Zach says, and lets go of Chris’s hand to wind an arm around his waist, pulling him so close they almost trip over each other’s feet. 

Zach taps the clicker in his pocket, and the gate starts to roll back, and almost at once, they hear the chatter of the cameras. Just as quickly, Chris tenses at Zach’s side, falters like he’s going to stop and turn back, but Zach won’t let him. His arm is a steel bar at Chris’s back, and he turns his body inward, putting his much of his back to the cameras as he can. These assholes can get pictures, but they don’t have to be good pictures. If he could, he would wrap Chris up in his arms and hide him from the cameras altogether, but he knows that would only complicate the story. They have to act normal–as normal as possible–so this all blows over. Boring doesn’t sell.

They paps are yelling questions now, most of them designed to get a rise out of them. Lewd questions, offensive questions. As they walk into the thick of it, Zach leans close to Chris’s ear and starts up a steady stream of chatter, anything to distract him from the cacophony around them. We’re almost there, you’re doing great, ignore them, they fucking suck. Then, a few steps from the car, You look hot in that suit, already can’t wait for this night to be over, want to get you back home in bed.

And then they’re sliding into the back seat of the town car, and it’s all over. They can’t even hear the click of the cameras anymore, though they can see their flashes. Chris’s cheeks are flushed, and he’s breathing hard, but when he looks at Zach, he manages a small smile. 

“You probably looked like my bodyguard just now,” he says. “Not sure how that’s gonna play.”

“Who cares?” Zach gives Chris another squeeze and plants a quick peck on his lips. Outside, the flashes burst all at once. Who cares? Who the fuck cares? “We did it.”

Chris nods, his eyes sliding shut, then opening again as he smiles. “Yeah,” he says, sounding breathless and happy all at once. He looks out the window, and his hand twitches against Zach’s thigh. Probably fantasizing about throwing up the bird after all, but he doesn’t. The car pulls away from the curb, and they leave the cameras in the dust.