Yaaaay, New Week!
Mar. 2nd, 2004 11:39 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
ninjetti75.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
popslash_lollipopsOooooh, lessee, what will stir up responses?
How 'bout:
Needlephobic!JC.
TrickC, hurt/comfort, involving a serious panic attack ny JC in regards to a syringe.
Now, the mandatory doctor's visit is just *blah*, too easy, too already done, unless your muse really wants it... ..I obviously won't complain about extra fic... *wink*. But I'm thinking something more. I hesitate to suggest a needle encounter on the street, 'cuz GOD it could have anything in it, AIDS... ..that'd scare anyone, and I don't want that much angst, feels almost like rapefic to me *shudder* Maybe... ..I dunno, dentist's office? Accidental exposure to a diabetic emergency? I dunno, surprise me. :)
How 'bout:
Needlephobic!JC.
TrickC, hurt/comfort, involving a serious panic attack ny JC in regards to a syringe.
Now, the mandatory doctor's visit is just *blah*, too easy, too already done, unless your muse really wants it... ..I obviously won't complain about extra fic... *wink*. But I'm thinking something more. I hesitate to suggest a needle encounter on the street, 'cuz GOD it could have anything in it, AIDS... ..that'd scare anyone, and I don't want that much angst, feels almost like rapefic to me *shudder* Maybe... ..I dunno, dentist's office? Accidental exposure to a diabetic emergency? I dunno, surprise me. :)
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Work Of Art
Date: 2004-03-02 10:55 pm (UTC)He could not only hear music coming from one of the lower flats, he could feel it thumping through his ceiling. First he smiled. Music was his other love. Art and music. If he wasn’t doing one, he was doing the other. On nice days, he often took a few of his paintings, his sketchbook, his notebook and his guitar to a nearby corner close to the coffee shop or to a local park on the weekends. There he would set up his artwork, play his music and write songs. If someone made him a decent offer for a painting, he took it. Other than that, he kept the money people tossed into his guitar case as he played.
Tonight he was working, because he hadn’t been able to sleep and his fingers were itching to bring a new idea to life on the canvas. But now the thumping of the music seeping through his floor was calling him. At two o’clock, he set down his paintbrushes and palette and decided to go introduce himself to his neighbors.
He didn’t bother changing. His jeans were old and worn, with a hole in one knee. His t-shirt was so old and faded that most of the color on it was from him wiping his paintbrushes onto it. The faded gray shirt was too short and often rode up to reveal his skin. JC slipped on his sandals before leaving his apartment.
It was obvious where the party was. It had overflowed into the stairwell and JC had to pick his way around several couples making out on the steps. The door was open, so he meandered in.
Halfway down the hallway, he bumped into someone. Once again he was paying attention to something other than where he was going. Before he could apologize, the man shoved him up against the wall and pressed his tongue into JC’s mouth.
When they parted he asked, “Who are you here with?”
“I live upstairs. I just came down to meet my neighbors.”
The man ran his hands through JC’s hair. “Hi neighbor. I’m Chris.”
Another man walked up behind Chris, smacking him. “You macking on the cute guy from upstairs?”
“Absolutely.”
“I’m JC.”
“Yeah? I’m Joey. The other neighbor. What do you do JC?”
“Artist. I paint. And write songs. Play guitar.”
Joey and Chris both raised their eyebrows and locked eyes. “An artist? Too cool! Come on!”
Chris grabbed JC’s hand and dragged him into the bedroom. JC almost fainted. He couldn’t decipher the odor, but when a couple other people vacated the room, Chris shoved him close enough to the bed to see what was going on. One blond guy was laying across the bed on his stomach, while another blond was busy drawing on his back. Nearby were some small containers of what appeared to be ink and an odd machine and several needles. Sharp, pointy needles.
JC staggered and backed up right into Chris’ arms.
Chris touched JC's waist as he spoke. “Can you finish that drawing? Lance wants a bull tattoo, but Justin keeps fucking it up. I know how to work the machine, but no one around here can draw worth shit and Lance is picky about his tattoos.”
“I can’t stand needles,” he mumbled, still trying to reach the door.
“Aren’t you inked man?”
“No. No, I. Needles. Afraid of needles. I need some air.”
Joey laughed as he held onto JC’s arm. Chris rolled his eyes and tossed a towel over the needles. “Are you okay now? Can you do the drawing?”
After taking a deep, cleansing breath, JC walked over to the bed and sat down beside the man they called Lance. He had never drawn on human skin before, but figured if it got screwed up, it would be Chris’ fault for making it permanent. His hands trembled as he began, but he soon relaxed into his work. He decided he liked the smooth feel of Lance’s back.
The last thing he remembered, before waking up, was Chris starting to work on the tattoo. When he opened his eyes, he found that he had passed out on the bed beside Lance, who was still asleep on his stomach. JC gingerly pulled back the bandage to admire the work of art before him. When he looked up, he noticed Chris sitting across the room, smiling back at him.
“You do nice work. One day you'll have to do me” Chris noted with a wink.
Re: Work Of Art
Date: 2004-03-03 07:21 am (UTC)Re: Work Of Art
Date: 2004-03-03 02:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-02 11:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-02 11:17 pm (UTC)My recent tattoo kick can be blamed on
Never done this before, please be gentle...
Date: 2004-03-02 11:32 pm (UTC)The party was a bit different than Chris and JC were used to. Theater parties seemed to be a bit less sleazy than the music-industry parties they’d been to way too many of, and a bit less openly mercenary than the Hollywood parties Lance always seemed to be heading off to. But here at some random castmember’s apartment in Hell’s Kitchen after catching Joey in Rent—again—it was kind of like the grown-up version of a high school drama club party. It was very touchy-feely, but not necessarily in a sexual way. There was just a comfortable vibe, along with a healthy “serious artist” snootiness that floated over the room. The best thing about it was that they were being ignored. And not in the studious “I’m ignoring you—until I pounce on you to see what you can do for me” kind of way. This was genuine, I-don’t-know-who-you-are ignoring. It was kinda refreshing.
Chris sat on the ratty, old sofa next to JC, close enough in the crowded room to feel JC’s thigh shake with laughter as he talked with some guy on the other side of him. Miraculously, in the midst of all the theater folk, JC had found someone as loopy over music as he was, and they were speaking in strange half-sentences about the interconnectedness of Thelonius Monk and quantum physics. Chris was a musician, too, but he wasn’t that kind of musician. Turned out the guy, Jason, was a composer whose wife was a theater director. The wife, Rose, was cute, funny and bubbly and expressive as she related a story to a woman next to her on the sofa perpendicular to where Chris sat.
Chris soon grew bored with JC and Jason’s two-part riffing on string theory and J.S. Bach, and let his attention wander around the room. Theater types didn’t dress as provocatively as your standard music-party hangers-on, but they seemed to use their arms a lot more when they spoke. It was pretty entertaining to watch, even if one had no idea what the thread of the conversation was. He caught Joey’s eye across the room, as exuberant and delighted as possible, fitting in perfectly with the crowd. They smiled at each other and Joey went back to relating some story to the woman he was chatting with, barely interrupting the massive sweeping of his arms and loopy facial expressions.
Something closer faintly tugged at Chris’s attention. Rose was clearly in the depths of a good story she’d practiced telling many times. As Chris tuned in, he could understand why she was a fast-rising star on the Broadway scene (or so he’d overheard someone say). The woman had a way with a story. He tuned in more attentively to catch up.
“But, see, the thing is, it was a really good opera! And I hate opera! So I couldn’t just leave in the second intermission. What’s a little throat swelling shut when there’s great art to be appreciated? Finally, the opera ends, and I decide to stop by the nurse’s office at Julliard, having no idea what’s wrong. Basically, I walked in and they started yelling at me for not going to the emergency room right away. I tried to explain--you’d think the health services at Julliard would understand about not missing out on great opera, but nooooo. They were all, ‘la, la, anaphylactic shock, la, la, potentially fatal allergic reaction, la, la, ambulance, etcetera.’”
Still never done this before...Part Two
Date: 2004-03-02 11:33 pm (UTC)Looking back, Chris should have known what was coming. He’d had a cousin who was allergic to peanuts, and he knew what she carried around in case a hidden nut found its way into something she ate. But he was enjoying the story too much, and by the time he felt JC’s full body tension and saw his mouth go slack, it was too late.
Rose was obliviously describing that everyone who saw her epinephrine dose commented on the scene in Pulp Fiction where Uma Thurman ODs and John Travolta has to slam that big old adrenaline needle into her heart. “I have this fear that I’ll be in the midst of shock by legume, and some overzealous friend will grab this and plunge it into my chest!” Rose pulled from her tiny vintage evening bag a relatively large sealed syringe. “So I have to tell everyone I meet at parties to stick me here--” she mimed stabbing her thigh with the needle, “not here!” She finished with the dramatic flourish of stabbing the needle into her breastbone.
Chris quickly looked over at JC. JC was pale and a thin sheen of sweat had broken out on his brow and his upper lip. His eyes were locked on Rose’s hand. He began to shake and his lips moved wordlessly. Chris put his hand on JC’s knee and JC grasped it like a lifeline. Rose began to apologize profusely, and Jonathan asked if there was anything he could do. Chris thanked them and moved to get JC away from the offending item. He hustled JC to the fire escape to get him some air.
“C? Hey, are you gonna be okay?”
JC gulped huge lungfuls of chilly night air, keeping his hands locked on Chris’s forearms. They were only on the fourth floor, but as JC bent over to let the blood rush back into his head, the height sent his head whirling with vertigo. As he started to go over, Chris caught him against the wall.
“Okay, man, we gotta get you out of here.”
“I’ll—I’ll...be okay...” JC gasped, then reconsidered. “But, yeah, let’s get out of here. Don’t feel so good.”
“I’m so sorry, C. I should have realized where that story was going, I didn’t think.”
“S’okay. Not your fault.”
“Who woulda guessed we’d have to keep an eye out for the evil pointy things here?”
Part 3
Date: 2004-03-02 11:34 pm (UTC)“C, I’m gonna tell Joey we’re leaving, why don’t you go wait for the elevator?” Chris said, as he retrieved their jackets from one of the rooms.
JC nodded weakly and headed for the hall. Chris spied Joey, who had seen them come back in from the fire escape. He made his way to Joey’s side. “We’re taking off, Joe. C had an unfortunate needle sighting. We’re gonna head back to the hotel.”
“Is he gonna be okay?” Joey asked, concern knitting his brow. “You want me to go with you?”
“Nah, it’s cool. Stay and enjoy your night. He’ll be fine. He didn’t even lose consciousness this time. Maybe he’s getting better? At this rate, we’ll be able to get him a celebratory tattoo for his 80th birthday.”
Joey and Chris laughed at the joke’s untruth, but passed a question of concern and a nod of reassurance as they hugged. “Thanks for coming, man, it means a lot. Tell C I’ll call him in the morning.” Joey gave Chris a squeeze and a back pat and returned to his castmates.
Chris found JC in the hallway, leaning his head on the cool metal of the elevator door. He reached for his sleeve. “C? You ready?”
“Yeah.”
They rode the elevator in silence and walked the few blocks to the hotel, basking in the ironic security of New York’s vastness and anonymity. Chris was on a different floor, but he escorted JC to his room, following him inside.
“You gonna tuck me in?” JC asked, but his smiling eyes said he didn’t mind at all.
“Hell no! You made me leave a party with free booze early. I’m raiding your minibar.”
JC laughed and gestured to the cabinet in the corner with a key resting on top of it. “Help yourself.” Then he grew quiet. “I’m really sorry. I don’t know why such a little thing, that wasn’t even anywhere near me, freaks me out so much. I didn’t mean to make you leave the party.”
Chris grabbed a beer from the small fridge and popped the top, “Eh, don’t sweat it. It wasn’t the kinda party a rock ‘n’ roll guy like me shoulda been hanging at anyway. Not my scene.” He plopped onto the couch where JC had sat staring at his knees. “Hey,” Chris said, pulling JC’s head onto his shoulder. “Seriously, it’s okay. I just feel bad I didn’t see it coming.”
“It’s not your job to, like, defend me from the possible presence of evil pointy things.”
“Sure it is! Says so on my job description. Right after ‘Change Justin’s Diapers’ and right before ‘Lighten Lance the fuck up!’”
JC’s laughed softly relaxed under Chris’s arm, burrowing deeper into Chris’s chest. “Okay, so then it is your job. But, still, thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Chris whispered into JC’s curls, dropping a light kiss on the top of his head. “Any time.”
Re: Part 3
Date: 2004-03-03 12:12 am (UTC)That was AWESOME!!
Fabulous needle threat that wasn't medical visit related and was only threatening to JC's phobia, not anyone's health (unless someone watched too much Pulp Fiction, lol)
Fantastic job, Thank You so much!!!
Re: Part 3
Date: 2004-03-03 12:45 am (UTC)Your request seemed to perfectly suit an actual story I know. It didn't seem to hard to work it all in. This is the first real fic-type thing I've ever written, so I'm delighted it was good for you. :)
Re: Part 3
Date: 2004-03-03 07:21 am (UTC)Well done!
Re: Part 3
Date: 2004-03-03 05:02 pm (UTC)And sorry to hear that you have to carry the needle with you. Frankly, I hope someone else is around should my friend ever need to use her epinephrine, because I really can't see me sticking her. I'm not needle-phobic, but I'd be no damn good giving someone else a shot.
Re: Part 3
Date: 2004-03-03 07:58 pm (UTC)You would be surprised what you are capable of doing in an emergency situation, I had my sister do just fine, afterwards she got the shakes and vomitocious and freaked. We laugh about it now.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-03 05:47 am (UTC)Needless to say, this hasn't even been read through twice. I'm late to work, man. ;)
JC could handle blood. Blood was okay, which was a fact that routinely amazed the others. Not even Joey would watch shows like Maternity Ward, but if JC was in charge of the remote backstage he would pause there and grin, watching as the slimy, purple, blood-slickened babies that looked like creatures out of a horror movie were lifted up in the air, usually to an underscore of delighted exclamations from the nurses and a few curdling screams from the mom, and proclaimed to be boys or girls. If Justin were in the room, he would make gagging sounds that were not quite sarcastic, because to Justin babies came out as pre-wrapped little bundles of talcum powder in white bassinettes, and Chris would snatch the remote away and mutter something about JC being disgusting and put the TV on an infomercial or a Scooby Doo rerun on the Comedy Channel. Chris didn't mind blood if he knew it was fake, like in a horror movie or one of Joey's practical jokes involving razor blades and extra packets of ketchup. Real blood, though, was too much, and though JC would admit he didn't care much for the wet, coppery smell of it, blood was okay.
So when Lance cut his hand during soundcheck in Denver, JC was okay. He didn't ask why Lance had been off to the side fiddling with the floor light in the first place, only reacted when he heard the yelp, and all thoughts of spicing up the bridge of This I Promise You went out the window when he saw Lance standing up, pressing his left hand into his ribs with his right, trying his damndest to look cool despite the damp, dark stain spreading on his shirt. Chris and Justin had gone white over at the edge of the stage, and as Joey's warm hands came down on Lance's shoulders and forced him to sit, JC had reached out and wrapped the fabric of Lance's own shirt around his hand, speaking to him softly and coaxing out a smile with his light tease, ignoring the smell of blood and keeping Lance's gaze safe within his own until the EMTs had scurried out to tend to him. The tour doctor had decided to take him to the hospital for stitches, and by the time JC had washed the blood from his own hands and changed his shirt, sound check was over and Joey had his hands full keeping Justin from puking in the quiet room. Chris was muttering nonsense about canceling the show, but that was ridiculous and Lance said as much when he showed back up an hour later, grinning quite naturally in the doorway despite the bandage wrapped around his hand. "Fine," he said, and leaned his head back against Joey, who had drifted up behind him to engulf him in the softest of hugs. "It doesn't even hurt. Really."
(go to next post)
no subject
Date: 2004-03-03 05:47 am (UTC)"You sure?" Chris asked warily, as Joey gently propelled Lance inside and directed him towards the couch.
"Yep," Lance said.
"Because it looked like it fucking hurt."
"I'm fine."
"Don't play with it," Justin said, leaning over the back of the couch and slapping lightly at Lance's arm when he picked at the edge of the bandage. "You're going to get infected or something."
"I have to change it anyway," Lance said, and peeled back a corner of the bandage from his palm. "The doc has to wrap it. But it's not bad. See?"
JC, who had come up to stand beside Justin, looked down over Lance's shoulder, at the two inches of tight, nasty-looking black stitches, and felt the world slowly roll and lurch sideways under his feet.
"This *is* pretty gross," Chris muttered.
JC closed his eyes. He could feel his own skin beginning to prickle, teeth biting into him from the inside out, and he could see the needle now, wicked and sharp and curved, digging over and over into the tender flesh of Lance's palm. A shiver zipped up his spine, and he fisted the couch cushions in his hands, swallowing hard against the bile puddling in the back of his throat.
"I hope they gave you a shot so it won't get infected," Joey said. His voice echoed, as though he was a thousand miles gone on a shaky telephone connection, and not three feet away on the couch, cuddling Lance against his side. Lance, with a row of black stitches in his hand. Lance, with needles in his hand.
"Yeah," Lance replied absently. "Right in the cut. That's what hurt." He lifted his hand up into the air a little, peering at it critically.
And with a dip and loop that was almost graceful as his knees turned to water, JC crumpled to the ground, his vision fading to a blissful white before he ever felt himself connect with the concrete floor.
More to come...
no subject
Date: 2004-03-03 07:24 am (UTC)And it had protective!JC, which I love.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-09 08:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-03 10:08 am (UTC)Eeee, Jen, LOVING this one!
Very funny that it was someone ELSE'S med-emergency, that's perfect, & 'C didn't even SEE a needle, lol...
More!
More,more,more!! Finish soon, Pleaseplease??
*clutches your ankles*
no subject
Date: 2004-03-04 06:00 am (UTC)*waiting patiently for more*
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Date: 2004-03-05 05:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-04 04:33 pm (UTC)The ceiling was a white blur high above him when JC opened his eyes again, and he blearily wondered where he'd managed to fall asleep this time. Usually if he slumped against a convenient shoulder in the elevator or nodded off in the makeup chair, they would slap his cheeks to get him rolling again, or Chris would direct his deposit onto the nearest couch. They didn't usually leave him where he fell, though it wouldn't be the first time; he'd fallen asleep in the bathtub once and awoke to freezing water, shriveled fingers and Chris laughing at him from the doorway as he choked on the lungful of water he had just snored in.
This, though, didn't feel like sleep. He felt achy, which was weird, and there was a lingering sickness in the pit of his stomach, as though his body remembered all too well what was going on. Someone was pressing a warm hand against his forehead, too, so maybe he was sick?
"Fucker!" a voice snapped above him.
JC blinked.
"I said I was sorry, Chris. I thought he was faking."
"Why the hell would he fake something like this?" Chris' voice was tight, sketched in with anger. "He passes out cold and you sit there and laugh at him, and he could've busted his head open, for God's sake."
"I didn't know!"
"Do you want me to get the doctor?" That was Justin, and he sounded far away, as though he were halfway out the door already.
"What I want is for you to shut up, Justin."
"I'm just trying to--"
"He's awake."
"What?"
"He's awake," the new voice said again, patiently, and JC turned his head towards the sound, fighting against the stagnant waters that seemed to have pooled in the back of his skull, blurring his vision. Lance was peering down at him, twisted around on the couch and smiling with his arms folded neatly along the edge. "Jace, you okay?"
"JC?" Chris' face suddenly appeared above him, and JC realized suddenly that he was in Chris' lap; in his arms, even, right there on the floor. "Jace, are you okay? You scared the shit out of me."
"I'm fine," he confirmed, moving to sit up but stopping when he felt Chris' arms tighten around his shoulders. "Chris, I'm fine."
"I don't think you're so fine," Chris countered, shifting JC a bit closer, and JC slumped willingly into the embrace, resting his cheek against the warm, solid body that cradled him.
"JC, I'm sorry," Lance said from somewhere above. "I didn't realize. I'm sorry."
"Sorry for what?" JC murmured back. He was already half asleep.
"My hand. I'm really fine; it doesn't even hurt, but I'm sorry. I didn't know just talking about the needles would freak you out."
JC's stomach lurched, and Chris must have felt him tense because he bent forward quickly, as though his body would shield JC from the words. "Lance, for God's sake," Chris snapped, but JC breathed deeply; breathed deeply of Chris, now, so close against him, and he felt the tension beginning to drain away. "Jace?"
"I'm okay," JC said, keeping his eyes closed. "Sorry. It's just... y'know, with the thing, and..."
"Yeah," Joey said, and chuckled a little.
"You sure you don't want me to get the doctor?"
"Justin, get the hell over here and look for yourself. He's fine."
JC heard the rustle of material close by, and cracked open one eye to see Justin crouching down at his shoulder, gaze sharp with worry. "C."
"Hmm?"
"You okay?"
"I'm fine," he purred back, as Chris shifted his fingers through JC's curls.
"You're still on the floor, though."
"I want to be on the floor," JC murmured back, and let his eyes drift closed again. The fingertips had begun to massage his scalp lightly, and he could feel Chris' breath stirring against his skin.
Justin's eyes narrowed. "This is some sort of weird sex thing, isn't it?"
"Get the hell out of here," Chris snapped, but there was laughter in his voice now, and JC wrapped himself in the sound of it, settling back contentedly against Chris' warmth.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-04 07:58 pm (UTC)L luuuuuuurve Schmoopy!TrickC, Thanks Bunches!!!
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Date: 2004-03-05 05:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-05 07:11 pm (UTC)This is just what I needed right now, Jen, schmoopiness. Thank you. :)
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Date: 2004-03-10 06:14 pm (UTC)