fic: talking shit again

[urbancate]

Title: talking shit again
Pairing: Chris/Zach
Length: ~400
Summary this is how the break-up goes
Notes: Written as comment!fic for 1297 ages ago, but her journal seems to have been deleted *sad sad face* so I am reposting here. Original prompt: red wine and ambien, you're talking shit again. Here, have the only Chris/Zach I've written ever!




It's the same old song.

But with a different meaning since you've been gone, his brain on iTunes finishes the lyric as his thumb finishes the single digit speed dial on his cell phone. #2 because #1 is voicemail and he's left it there at #2 because what would he replace it with.

Zach answers. He always does. "You're drinking again."

"Not even a 'hello'?"

He hears the sigh and he can picture Zach pinching the bridge of his nose - the patiently-exasperated gesture he only gets over the phone anymore.

"What do you want, Chris?"

"Why didn't it work, Z," he states, doesn't ask. This is always the purpose, this is always what he wants. To pull apart the fall-apart and piece it back together, reverse engineer the mutual self-destruction. Okay, maybe less mutual and more just self. But he needs to know. He never can figure it out.

"You know the answer to that."

That might be true. In the middle of the day, sunny and clean and bright, that just might be true. But the sun is down and the stars are muted by the city and there's a mostly-empty bottle of The Prisoner on the table to attest to his current lack of clarity.

"No, I really don't." He traces the faint lines of a man in shackles on the label of a bottle of wine. It's a good blended red - smoky and complex and kind of sad ("A wine cannot be sad, Pine." "Can, too. Sadness is a flavor.") - but that's not why he bought it.

Zach sighs again. Thirty seconds are filled only by breathing. A small click and a zip and he knows Zach has lit up a cigarette, is now sitting out on his balcony in the dark.

"I loved you."

"That was never the problem."

"I know."

"So fuck me anyway," Zach finishes the thought and it's as bitter to Chris' ear as it ever was across his tongue.

"That was never the problem."

"What do you want, Chris. You know I can't stand this protracted post-mortem limbo shit."

"Yeah, and I'm handling it so very well myself."

"Point granted."

"You're right though, about the shit part. It's shit. This is shit."

"It is what it is."

"That's shit, too. Pure zen taoist bullshit."

"I'm hanging up now."

"Fine, fine."

"Goodnight, Chris."

"Goodnight, Zach," he says to emptiness.

Comments

[hiddencait.livejournal.com]

Oh wow, this is surprising to see from you lol. Love how it's all in dialouge - very hard to pull off!

[urbancate.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Will write slash when prompted? or something like that, LOL. As for all dialogue - oh, god, sometimes I just hate modifiers and writing all the other STUFF. Basically, I am lazy.

[hiddencait.livejournal.com]

LOL! Right there with ya!

[thatreevesgirl.livejournal.com]

To pull apart the fall-apart and piece it back together, reverse engineer the mutual self-destruction.

This line is amazing. A-fucking-mazing. I want to save it in my brain for forever and always.

And as a side note: I almost cried when I saw that you posted that 1297 deleted her journal. at least I obsessively saved her fic into a word document because I loved it so much I was hoping she would come back to it when the second Star Trek movie came out.

[urbancate.livejournal.com]

You saved it? I LOVED her stories! It's just to heartbreaking to see a mean corner of fandom push someone so lovely away. Her writing was great, and she was like the best cheerleader for other writers. I don't know if her journal is deleted because she deleted it or from being inactive, but it's a loss - a real one. She was one of the reasons I felt like I could participate and write in the Trek fandom. It makes me sad.

[thatreevesgirl.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I loved her writing, but it was definitely her attitude and enthusiasm that made her one of my top favorite fanfic writers ever. I'm hoping that perhaps we'll meet a reincarnation of her during the next movie with a different journal. People do that sometimes, switch journals and whatnot.

My theory is that she is probably a published author and her publishing company made her take down her fanworks. I have had several writing friends in other fandoms and it happened just like her journal (no posting for a long time and then deletion). Fanfiction apparently has to be silenced when you become published and big. I'm waiting to read a book one day and think, "I recognize this style...I bet it is so-and-so."