SotD: Fun Friday
[let it be known that tumblr would not let me upload the song like our SotD posts normally have, thus the text post instead. Bah Humbug]
Fun Friday
Song:
Santa Baby, as covered by either The Pussycat Dolls or Ariana Grande. you pick ;)
Unwrapping the Christmas Spirit (with a side of sex)
Part One
āJesse, is this really necessary?ā Carson asked mildly, one eyebrow crooked along with the corner of a lip, a present wrapped in bright red duct tape and an oversized bow made of ribbon with Jesseās face on it perched on one knee and a textbook on the other.
Jesse grinned in response, holding a mug tauntingly just beyond his reach.
āOf course it is. Whereās your Christmas spirit?ā
Carson sighed.
āMaybe I could find it in that mug.ā
Jesse smirked.
āIāll give you the coffee if you give me the textbook.ā
Carsonās eyes narrowed.
āBut I need to study.ā
āNot on Christmas morning you donāt.ā
Carson looked unimpressed.
āJesse, I canāt take you seriously when youāre wearing flashing antlers.ā
Jesse took a sip of the coffee and licked his lips slowly, looking especially more smug when a moan escaped from between his boyfriendās pursed lips.
āTextbook,ā he repeated, and Carson rolled his eyes, but marked his page and held the book out in one swift, rolling motion.
Jesse took the book with a grin and held the mug out. Carson seized it and promptly took a long swig, then another, and sighed long and satisfied.
āAnd his heart grew three sizes that day,ā Jesse snarked with a smile. āAre you ready for the spirit now, Carson?ā
Carson looked up over the rim of his mug, fingers curled with possessive tightness around the handle.
āI donāt think Iāll ever be as ready for the Christmas spirit like you are, but I guess I can cope if you keep the caffeine coming,ā he allowed. āYouāre like one of fake-Santaās fake-elves on Christmas crack, though. Even the jolly, fat, peeping-tom himself wouldnāt be able to get to your level of insanity...Jesse. Are you even listening to me anymore? What are you doing?ā
āIām listening. You think Iām like an elf, but sexy, and obsessed with Christmas, and I am totally okay with that. Iām basically the lovechild of Buddy and Legolas.ā
Carson lowered his mug, brow furrowing.
āYou know Lord of the Rings?ā
āDuh. Orlando Bloom.ā
āWho?ā
āYou wound me sometimes, Casper, you know that?ā
āItās how I make it through each day,ā Carson shrugged, going back to his coffee, then raising his eyes once more suspiciously.
āYou didnāt answer my question.ā
āRelax, Cas. Iām just setting the scene.ā
āThe what? ...Jesse, why is there a fireplace on our television screen?ā
āItās Christmas,ā Jesse retorted breezily.
āI donāt- Oh no. What are you doing? Jesse. Jess. This better not be what I think it is. I thought we talked about the playlists.ā
āWe did,ā Jesse acknowledged, coming over with a stocking in each hand and plopping down next to Carson. āBut that was about the small stuff. This is our first Christmas in our first place. Itās like sex. You canāt do it without a playlist.ā
Carson grimaced, but shook his head in surrender.
āI know nothing I say will matter, so fine. But you are refilling my coffee and turning down the volume.ā
āDeal. Kiss on it?ā
Carson snorted but pressed his lips to Jesseās nonetheless. The kiss quickly lost innocence, and their tongues touched and skated along the otherās, exploring lazily the territory long since memorized, intimacy mingling their breath, warmth enveloping them briefly as their muscles strained against one another and their stubble chafed and their teeth touched and dug into the flesh of lip. And then it was over in a blink and a breath, Carson pulling back to nose once against him and then whisper into the hollow beneath Jesseās ear.
āI think thereās some coffee in there I was promised?ā
āI think thereās some sugar right here Iād rather give you.ā
āAh, but I take my coffee black.ā
āOh yeah? Because I happen to know that you enjoy a good dose of cream from time to time.ā
āVery true, but now is not one of those times. Besides, didnāt you say something about one of my presents being almost as much of an aphrodisiac as you are?ā
Jesse drew back, looking thrilled.
āYou listened to me and you want to open presents?ā
āCoffee,ā Carson reminded him sternly, holding out his apparently empty mug. āAnd volume.ā
āFine,ā Jesse retorted, eyes gleaming.
āAnd remember, we only have three hours before Andrew, Amy, and Seth get in, so we need to plow through this if we want to get anything done after,ā Carson spoke to his lap, fingers drumming on the duct-taped first gift of the morning while Jesse bustled with the keurig in their little kitchen, the near pornographic sounds of a āSanta Babyā cover now thankfully an undercurrent to the those of their apartment complex.
āOh, something will be plowed, thatās for sure. Drew and Amy and Elphie can drive around the block a few times if they have to. Things will be done, sweetheart. That, I can promise you.ā
Jesse returned with a wink and a cup of coffee, and Carson overlooked the innuendo for the sake of the caffeine.
Besides, it was Christmas, and apparently that meant something.
Not to mention, he was kind of intrigued to see just how far Jesse had gone when it came to his gifts, and also had to admit he wanted to see how Jesse reacted to his own offerings.
He had a feeling the reaction would be a good one. He just hoped theyĀ didn'tĀ lose control too close to the duct tape, because even though he tried toĀ keep a pretty open mind, that was not a pain of the sexy variety.
Jesse raked a hand through his curls and tossed Carson a wide smile, not a show-smile, but a really genuine one, and a corner of Carsonās lips twitched up automatically in response, eyes wrinkling with a fond happiness briefly and without design.
Maybe, just maybe, he might have to start liking Christmas from now on. If Jesse kept this level of enthusiasm up, it was beginning to seem inevitable.
At least the sex was inevitable too, so there was that.
Jesse nudged him and gestured pointedly to Carsonās stocking, and now that he was really looking at the thing, he could see what looked like flavored lube peeking out at the top, as well as what looked an awful lot like a set of sexual position dice.
Sex was absolutely happening then.
Jesse smirked and licked his lips in a way that was very obviously lascivious and Carson wondered if this was what it meant to get into the Christmas spirit, really.
Because this?
Well, he could get used to this.
Ā to be continued shortly...
also my apologies for no real smut in this part, because I apparently can't do porn without set up, but hopefully the fluff gave you the good kind of toothache?
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Morose Monday
Sympathy by Goo Goo Dolls (covered by Rasmus Bak)
Struck
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā (the original intended ending of In AnĀ Instant... tissues may be good to have handy)
Ā āYou get visited a lotā¦ Itās weird. I told you once-ā¦ I was really mad,ā Claire admits to the headstone, shifting her weight between toes.
āI went on your formspring and sent an anonymous message that said whenever you died it would probably be alone, and your grave would never be visited. It would be overrun with weeds and uncleaned and forgotten because no one would careā¦and Iām so sorry, Carson.ā
Choking on the words, hands twisting in her dress.
Itās a wedding dress, the hem desecrated by mud, and the embroidery already tarnishing from its ill treatment of the past hour or so.
Claire hasnāt noticed. Her eyes canāt seem to see the spots.
In fact, all they see is the grave in front of her, surrounded by flowers still, despite it being nearly three years later, and the name embedded in the gray, storm cloud marble, a measure of irony sheās still waiting to find funny.
āI still think sometimes that weāre all the ones who did it to you,ā she mumbles, sinking slowly into the crumbling, wet dirt at his stone feet, because thereās nowhere to go but down, never has been when youāre at the top. Heād warned her of that.
āBecause you did die alone. You were happy and with someone and going somewhere, but we kept saying it anyway. And then there you were. Like a self-fulfilling prophecy.ā
There are tears marring her perfect, wedding day faƧade.
āCarsonā¦ā
A sob escapes her throat before she can stop it, and Claire clenches her eyes tightly shut as the words wave out after it before she can choke them down, either.
āHeās a journalist, you know? An editor.ā
The gravestone is stoic, unmoving, and she cries a little more.
āI loved you, and I hated you. And Iā¦ā
Claire leans her head against the rock marking of where her once upon a time best friend and biggest rival is buried, her perfectly arrayed hair falling in pieces.
Itās frizzy and clogged down with the spray of rain thatās only coming harder.
āIām just glad I was only right on the one count. You havenāt been left alone, have you? Are you snarking me somewhere, Carson? You would be, if you could hear me,ā she lifted her shoulders in a half-shrug, āsee me. I havenāt been here since the funeral. I ran as fast as I could. I didnāt want to care. Iām sorry. I should have let myself give you that much.ā
Claireās nails want to scrabble in the dirt suddenly, and she fights the irrational urge to unearth, to dig and dig and dig until she can see him again, and his lips can form insults, and his hands can make words that simmer caustically in their high school cesspool of a student body.
But she also sees, in her mindās eye, the blue tint to lips, and the abnormal pallor. It had been closed casket, and heād been so badly burned, anyway, the image was almost no doubt false. But Claire still sees him, a corpse, and feels him, an animation, or sometimes the other way around, but theyāre always both there, and the hurt of that is swallowing her whole.
She restrains her fingers, and tries to force herself back a little, because sheās probably kneeling on top of him.
āIāve never been happier to be wrong,ā she tells him gently, though, her tears calming with the biting wind, fingers tracking the stem of a ridiculously large red rose, and then sliding to a scattering of forget-me-nots.
There is a drawing of a blue cat and a red one within a frame, locked down at its corners by rocks on the jutting foot of his grave, and she stares at this, a sad smile curling her face.
āWe all cared. Some more than others. You did leave your mark.ā
There is a throat cleared behind her and Claire shuffles to her feet, tripping a little over the bottom of her gown.
A man with curly hair is looking at her, behind him a large cluster of people.
āClaire Matthews.ā An Asian woman says, and her voice sounds thick, her expression strange.
It takes Claire a moment, but recognition of the woman, and the man with glasses and a resentful look at her side, comes fast as the rain theyāre all standing in like itās nothing, and it takes only that moment for everything to flood away because sheās a fool, and because thereās no forgiveness to be found here. She is not one of the regular crowd. Sheās not even semi-regular.
Sheās just the self-indulgent girl who told a boy sheād once been friends with that no-one would care if he died, and only came crawling back when she could no longer run away. When he was already gone.
And sheās absolutely a fool for thinking sheās ever been more.
That time when she was had been wiped from existence by the bitter four years that followed.
But then lightning flashes overhead, and as one the group flinches forward, the Asian woman, Amy, gripping hands with a gangly, curly-haired man at her side, and the man at the front, Jesse she remembers, like a lock in a key, lurches forward protectively, and tells the stone sternly that even heās not special enough to break the ālightning doesnāt strike twice in one placeā rule, and that if he does, Jesse will sing at the top of his lungs.
Lightning flashes again in the sky and the rain falls harder, but the light is more distant, and it feels like a snarky response.
She only knows sheās crying when the saline of her tears burns the tip of her tongue.
Jesseās taken off his leather jacket, and draped it over the framed drawing, and no-one behind him protests, though shivers rip through him and heās almost immediately soaked to the bone in a thin sweater that doesnāt even look like his. Looks more like it belongs toā¦
Andrew has dropped to his knees as well at Jesseās side, and Claireās head bows at his intake of breath.
This feels so private, but sheās run too damn much.
And, to be honest, Claire needs this proof of just how wrong she was, and just how much Carson Phillips had meant to everyone. She needs the evidence that he had still completed some of his goals; that lightning sometimes did strike twice, but didnāt always kill to do it.
She needs it like she needs this stinging gust of air and the torrent of her past coming down.
And she knows, deep in her bones and in their marrow and in all the cells that comprise the lot, that she doesnāt just need it, either. She owes it. She owes Carson, and the memory of him.
She deserves the experience of rain like nails and wind like sheets of ice, and his death flashing neon yellow above her bowed, ruined head.
Sheās getting married today, but she canāt shake the feeling that she deserves to die alone, that she owes Carson bearing the fate that had been wrought upon him.
She wouldnāt be surprised if this gathering of friends and family, and maybe even one or two other rivals, all feel the same.
(Iām so sorry; Iām so sorry; Iām so sorry; Iām so sorry; Carsonā¦Iām so sorry; C-man, Iām so sorry; Carson, babe, Iām so fucking sorryā¦)
Lightning cracks like a whip, thunder chasing it, and Claire stares at the sky, shivering in her wedding dress, almost black with mud, nearly appropriate for mourning garb, which feels much more fitting now, crouched low with her regretsā¦ Sheās tired, and the feeling of his motionless corpse beneath her too-sore knees, and the throb of how wrong she was to say what she had is erupting in her chest.
But while the sky still looks heavy, the lightning does too, and its loss of illumination has her sure of her way.
Sheād come here to not run away, but that act itself was her running, and this scene playing out was just too filled with love forsaken.
Sheād left someone once more, and sheād need to return to them before they, too, were lost. Claire was done letting people go just to win bits of too-fleeting comfort.
The dark light in the sky followed her a wink as she stood, touching Jesse, then Andrew, then Amy lightly on their shoulders as she left.
Only Amy looked, but her gaze wasnāt puzzled anymore, or irate.
The woman took her place at the grave, and Claire left to take her own, because she knew and so did the sky yelling down that running away and being anonymous to the consequences and forgetting others for the purity of her gown or her reputationā¦ these werenāt options. Not anymore. And she had another editor waiting for her now that she refused to let down the way she had the original.
And if lightning struck down either of them, Carson Phillips had gotten there first.
She was pretty sure heād have been proud, and his smug smile felt as real as the dusky storm sky.Ā
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