by Sol Crafter, Diana Sheridan, Talya Andor, Lacie J. Archer, Angel Propps
"What are you grinning about?" Marty glanced up at him and Jim was frozen for a second by the sight of the black framed glasses he was wearing.
He blinked, feeling oddly as though someone had struck him hard in the stomach, but it didn't hurt. It just made everything draw tight in his gut and his mouth went dry.
Moving stiffly, he sat down in the chair across from Marty and tried not to stare, but it was hard.
When they'd first met, Marty had worn big clunky glasses, the black Buddy Holly frames had gone with the preppy attitude he had. At some point he'd switched over to contacts, but that was how Jim first remembered him: glasses, tousled hair, and a fitted blue tee. That shirt must have had some scratchy material inside because his nipples were always hard against the fabric.
Marty noticed his interest in his glasses and shrugged, looking embarrassed. "My eyes were so sore this morning I couldn't get my contacts in. I guess my eyes really needed a break."
"Yeah," Jim said. He grabbed the paper edge of his placemat and began folding it into little crinkles. He couldn't help the way his eyes kept darting up to Marty's face then away.
It was a relief when the waiter showed up and Jim ordered a hamburger while Marty got a chicken fried steak, then it was like all the tension had been released and Jim could pretend that everything was normal. He could hold up his end of the conversation and he didn't feel so much like he was going to fly to pieces.
And all he had to do was admit, just in his own head, that Marty looked good to him. Really good.
*~*~*
Marty had chosen the Green Cat Cafe because it was close to the movie theater, so it was nothing for them to walk down and see the movie he'd picked. By the time they'd left the theater they were laughing and whatever weirdness had struck Jim seemed to be gone. It made some invisible tension release inside Marty and he waved his hands as he babbled about everything and nothing all at once. He liked to see the indulgent smile Jim wore. He felt as though that smile belonged to him alone.
"Oh, let's go over there!" Marty pointed across the street at the big park. It looked like miles of green grass with some playground equipment in the distance.
"Okay," Jim said agreeably.
They jaywalked across the four lanes of traffic and Marty almost got creamed by a speeding bullet of a car. Jim caught him by the back of his hoodie and he found himself pressed against Jim's chest while the car didn't even slow down. "Careful," was all Jim said.
"Yeah, thanks." Marty followed after him. His heart was beating a little weird in his chest and he couldn't help sliding his glance down Jim's body, liking the fit of his jeans and the gray jacket he wore. Even with the baseball cap and the dark sunglasses, he was still unbelievably good looking. Marty thought he was probably supposed to be jealous, but he wasn't. Jim had always been that guy, the one who everyone wanted but couldn't have, and his appeal was more than just a thing of flesh and bone. It was like a light blazing out of him, something that no one could ignore.
They walked through the park until they found some outdoor workout equipment, which Marty felt the immediate urge to climb all over. "It's like a playground for adults!"
"I'm sure that's just what they were going for." Jim leaned against a standing set of pull up bars, showing no interest in any kind of exercise.
"Well, I think it's cool." Marty sat on the sit up bench and stuck his feet in the stirrups, doing some quick crunches. After a minute, he stopped and flopped back. "Whoo, head rush."
"I guess I'm getting you a gym membership for your birthday," Jim said, sounding amused.
Marty made a face, then released his feet and rolled off the bench, landing in a crouch. "You're just jealous of my awesome manly physique."
"Uh huh." Jim took off his jacket and tossed it onto the grass, then walked around the post. He reached up to grab the bar with both hands, pulling himself up and down smoothly, the well-defined muscles in his arms drawing Marty's gaze. His tattoos looked like they were pulsating as his biceps bulged. There was no way someone should look that good in a plain white tee shirt, but Jim was all lean muscle. When he lifted his arms his shirt pulled up a little, exposing a line of skin and a trail of dark hair that disappeared into the waistband of his jeans.
Marty was tempted to make a humorous comment about manscaping, but there was no way he was going to be able to get his voice to work. Not when he could see the way Jim's arm muscles moved beneath his skin and there were all kinds of interesting things going on under his shirt that made Marty's mouth go dry. He trailed his eyes up and down Jim's body, hoping he wasn't being too obvious about it.
"I guess this is pretty okay," Jim said, letting go of the bar and feeling his left bicep with a grin.
Marty huffed a laugh that was only slightly hysterical. "I don't know if I could do even one serious pull up and you just did like fifty. You're like a machine."
"There's not a whole lot to do on the road." Jim shrugged. "Brian got me one of those doorway pull-up bar things for my last birthday."
"Well that seems like a crappy gift," Marty said.
"Yeah," Jim made a face, "especially when the note with it mentioned the fact that I was getting love handles and that exercise wasn't just for losers, but for rock gods too."
Marty raised his eyebrows. "He called you a rock god in the offensive note? That doesn't seem so bad."
"I was thrilled to be told I'm getting fat," Jim said sarcastically. "I'm just waiting for the bottle of birthday Rogaine and the FYI that I'm going bald too."
Marty laughed. "That would be awesome."
He didn't have a chance to realize what was going to happen before Jim had him in a headlock and had knocked his hat off and was giving him a noogie. He tried to squirm away, but only half-heartedly. Being close to Jim wasn't something he minded. He could have curled into the warmth of Jim's side and basked all day.
"Ow, ow, ow," he cried dramatically, wriggling against Jim's arm.
"Stop being such a baby." Jim gave Marty's hair a last hard ruffle before letting him go with a slap on the back. "You're just like when we were kids. Are you going to start crying now?"
Marty shoved his shoulder and straightened his glasses so he could see clearly. "No. God, you're such a jerk." He was smiling though, unable to help himself. He bent down to grab his hat to give him a chance to tone down his grin so he didn't look like he was demented or something.
He smoothed down his hair and pulled his hat back on. "Come on, let's walk around," Marty said.
Jim nodded and they ambled along the narrow paved walkway that seemed to have been poured in some random pattern that covered the whole park. There were some people on the other side of the park, so they stayed away from them and just enjoyed the beautiful spring weather.
"Hey," Jim suddenly said, "remember that time you made me dress up like Starbuck and we went to that marathon showing of the original Battlestar Galactica series?"
"Oh yeah," Marty said, then laughed. "Man, and that chick dressed up like Cassiopeia tried to mouth-rape you in the lobby. That was hilarious!"
Jim grimaced. "I wasn't laughing then and it's still not funny now. She had like a kung-fu grip I couldn't break and she totally groped my ass."
Marty cackled. "That was awesome! We should go cosplay somewhere like right now."
"Yeah, that's not going to happen." Jim shook his head. "Never again."
"Never say never." Marty grinned at him. "Come on, you know you want to go cosplaying with me. We had so much fun doing so much stupid shit. What's not to love about it?"
Jim shook his head. "Not going to happen. Sorry, those days are done and all we have left are the memories."
Marty slapped him on the shoulder with a wicked grin. "And the photographic evidence!"
It seemed perfectly natural to start running and have Jim chase him. It was something they'd been doing their whole lives, and Marty couldn't help his delighted laughter. He felt happier than he'd been in a long time, and if he could will it, the day
would never end.
*~*~*
They were flopped down on the grass, both trying to catch their breath. Jim's legs ached a little, but it was a good ache. He felt like maybe he should start running every day because it had felt a lot like freedom. But maybe that was just because he was with Marty.
It always seemed as though everything was made better when Marty was there with him.
He turned his head and looked at Marty, who was lying on his back with his face turned up toward the sun, his eyes closed and a peaceful smile on his lips. His cheeks were flushed with color and he'd taken off his glasses at some point during the chase. Jim had to admit that Marty looked good. Maybe not handsome in the conventional sense, but definitely sexy.
There was a reason why Marty had a growing fanbase and that didn't bother Jim at all. Just because there were tons of people who thought Korlaax was the hottest alien of the last fifty years and wanted to have their way with him wasn't disturbing at all.
Jim bit his lip and turned his head away, not wanting to be caught staring. He lay on his back next to Marty and breathed. Jim was happy. It was a weird thing to realize, but it was true. He was happier than he'd been in a long time, due in large part to being able to hang out with Marty whenever he wanted, and he'd been taking full advantage of it.
There'd always been this itchy feeling under his skin, like he was an inch away from bursting apart. It had been one of the driving forces behind why he'd grabbed up a bag full of his stuff and run the day after Grandma Pam's funeral. She'd been the only thing holding him in place, and without her, he'd been set loose. Except that he'd always kind of regretted losing Marty in the process. He just couldn't stand another minute with his fucked up family constantly grinding away at him.
Now he was an adult and he could have Marty back in his life without having his family anywhere around—they were states away and he still refused to give them his phone number. It felt as though things were finally coming together and he could just breathe.
So he did. Deep breaths that brought him the faint scent of whatever deodorant or cologne Marty wore, something musky. It made a surge of warmth go through him.
It was in moments like these that he realized just how happy he was. He'd been floundering for so long it was a relief to have a solid base under him, and that base was Marty. Nothing could knock him down when Marty was there to drag him back up again.
He didn't feel like he needed anyone or anything else when Marty was there, and maybe that should have scared him. He'd never been in love with anyone before and scoffed at the idea of having a soul mate, but Marty was the nearest he'd ever come.
Lying under the sunlight with the scent of grass tickling his nose, he could admit that he'd been spending a lot of time with Marty, more time than he'd willingly spent with any other person. It felt natural and right to be close to him, to be able to turn his head and share a joke and a laugh and to know that there was at least one person who got him. He was lucky he'd found Marty, which was kind of a girly thing to think, but it was true.
"Oh wow, stay here!"
Jim opened his eyes in time to see Marty leap to his feet and jog off, appearing upside down from Jim's prone position. He sighed and sat up, wrapping his arms loosely around his knees as he watched Marty, wondering what he was doing.
There was a balloon artist wandering around the park with a small push cart. He looked rather dejected considering there didn't seem to be anyone around, but even at a distance Jim could see the man brighten up at Marty's approach.
Marty waved his hands and seemed to be talking quickly. The man nodded and began inflating long balloons with his gas tank. Though he couldn't hear the squeaks of rubber, he could imagine the sound and it made his teeth ache with phantom knowledge. He shivered and looked out over the peaceful park. It was such a beautiful day.
There was the thud of running footsteps and he turned to look just in time for Marty to shove a balloon monstrosity in his face. "For you!"
Jim slowly reached out to take the balloon animal, his fingers instinctively squeezing the rubber to see how full the balloons were. The horse body was all one color—white—but the horn was a bright golden-yellow.
"You got me a unicorn?" he asked.
Marty grinned and threw himself down on the ground next to him. "Don't ever say I'm not stubborn about maintaining a theme. It's for your collection. You like?"
Jim looked at the balloonicorn in his hands. "Yeah," he breathed. "Yeah, I like." He glanced at Marty and smiled.
He'd just discovered how easy it was to fall in love with his best friend.
Centrifical was filmed on Lot Nine in Studio 6, a building that looked like a refurbished warehouse on a set that looked like it was built out of stuff found in someone's garage. It was one of those campy sci-fi shows that should have been completely ridiculous, but the writers were actually pretty excellent at their jobs and the actors put their all into their roles. It was no wonder that it was a cult hit that had somehow worked its way into the mainstream.
It wasn't making big money yet, but there were talks of movies being made and spin-off shows with better budgets.
Jim didn't like to make a big deal out of it, but he was a definite fan of the show. And not just because Marty was one of the main characters, Commander Zargon Korlaax. It was as though Red Dwarf had met Firefly and they decided to spawn a three-way lovechild with Galaxy Quest. It was like every single one of Jim's teenaged fantasies had come true in one show and the fact that Marty was tied up with it just made it better.
He'd made it onto the lot with a minimum of effort, mostly because Marty had slipped his name onto the list, and also, at the end of the day, he was Jim Sheppard. From there it was a simple case of parking in the guest lot and hoofing it to Studio 6, ignoring the double-takes he got when someone he passed realized that "Oh shit, it really is Jim Sheppard!" As long as he kept moving briskly forward, no one had a chance to stop him and by the time they thought about it, he was already gone.
Jim felt pretty smooth, talking his way into Studio 6 and taking a spot at the edge of the set where he could watch everything happening.
The space station galley was one of the most oft used scenes on the show and was a large open-sided square with a bunch of metal tables and bench seating with a large grill off to one side and the tiny cramped kitchenette of some call center's break room. And sitting right next to the black fronted microwave was one of the more popular characters of the show, the Waffletron.
On the show it was a giant waffle making robot that occasionally went on murderous rampages with humorous results. There was one episode where "he" waffleated Captain Vang's fingers and the medic had to regrow them like little vat sausages, the horror of the situation wiped away by the constant wisecracking and the fact that none of the good guys ever permanently died on Centrifical. Even if their bodies were destroyed, they were brought back as holograms or cyborgs or in the case of Lieutenant Davies, a cross-sex clone.
In real life, the Waffletron was a large man with a deep voice that worked the boxy puppet with amazing dexterity as he crouched in his cabinet nook and tormented the Waffletron's favorite victim, Korlaax.
Jim stood with his hand over his mouth as he watched Marty in his Korlaax costume argue with the Waffletron about the nature of humanity, the relative merits of human/alien interactions, and the power of waffles. It was probably one of the funniest things Jim had ever seen and he didn't want to ruin it by laughing out loud.
"And your waffles are always burnt!" Marty finished triumphantly. To which Waffletron responded by opening his mouth-lid with an outraged roar and expelled a continuous stream of burnt-looking waffles like the discs of a Nerf shooter.
Marty ducked out of the way and reached behind himself to grab a tray off the counter to use as a shield, the whole time cursing in Vanosian, Korlaax' birth language.
The Waffletron kept shooting waffles at Marty until he ran out through the hatch, which slid shut behind him with a brea
thy "Whoosh!" Several waffles clanged against it loudly, visibly denting the cheap metal.
"Cut!" Jason Bower called loudly. He was in his mid-thirties with a ginger jewfro that stood out from his head in corkscrews and had a face hugging fuzzy beard. He was the creator and director of the show and was wildly acknowledged as a creative genius.
As the scattered waffles were being gathered up by a harried looking guy in a hideous green turtleneck, Marty popped up from behind the galley set. He was carrying his makeshift shield in one hand and an errant waffle in the other.
He seemed about ready to say something to Jason when he caught sight of Jim, who gave him a little wave. "Hey, you're here!" Marty grinned brightly and trotted toward him.
Jim grinned and gave him a shoulder slap when he got close, then winced as he realized that gray and blue sparkly one-piece uniform had all the give of steel wool. "Gah, that's awful," he laughed.
Marty smirked. "Yeah, it kind of is. It also chafes like you wouldn't believe. I have to wear a jock underneath or I'd be a lot less cool about it."
Jim looked at him, taking in the close-up view of Korlaax in the flesh: a rather shaggy blood-red wig that covered his real ears so the alien cat ears could be higher up his head, though they looked more like the Mogwai flaps from Gremlins with dark silvery gray hair on the outsides only. Bendable black whiskers had been glued to Marty's cheeks and the tip of his nose had been blackened.
"Those are some serious eyebrows." Jim couldn't resist reaching out to touch the big black caterpillars, then cringed away. "They don't look that bad on TV."
"Yeah, well, most things don't look that bad on TV and are horrifying in real life, so that's something." Marty shrugged and seemed to notice that they'd gathered a small crowd that was looking between the two of them in disbelief. "Oh, hey, I want to introduce my friend Jim."
Jim raised his hand in a general wave. "Hey."
Jason stepped forward, holding out his hand. "Jason Bower. Nice to meet you."
Jim smiled and shook it. "Nice to meet you. I hope you don't mind that I'm here. Marty said he was working today and I asked if I could watch."