Left Turn

((Oh bother.. I certainly hope the confusion that these mute characters are causing can be easily figured out during the course of the story. I'm working hard at making them explain themselves. They're just being stubborn.

For one, the majority rules and therefore, for those Chance fans, this chapter is from Jack's pov. Sorrreeee!
Secondly, I have intentions of them seeing one another again, but a good portion of the middle of this fic is their time apart. They aren't likely to come in contact with one another for a goodly while yet. They WILL! I hope. *L* I suspect this story to have a happy ending, just like all of my fics tend to. It's too fluff to not have a happy ending, y'nno?

::Tyranimo: I'm glad you like Chance.. I happen to like him a lot too. Jack is a close second but he's too lost to have a set personality just yet.
::Laid-Back: What a cool name! *s* My apologies for confusing you. I had thought that Chance would explain himself. However he left it up to his sister this chapter. His sister still lives in Haveston though.. so there's a chance yet! *w*
::Kikvws: You know.. I'm certain that I don't deserve readers like you. I simply don't write well enough on this site to have someone this dedicated to the tripe I throw out. That said.. I APPRECIATE you so, so, so very much. I'm so glad someone is enjoying the stories enough to want to come back and to make themselves known. :) Thank you! I worship the ground you walk on!
::some chick: Ooo! A Jack fan! ;) This is his turn now, so we can all clap and do a cute dance and hope he'll look at us. :( Sorry about Sean's friend. I had originally thought it was just that his friend was gay. But Neil wanted something more serious (silly boy). So he's taken it considerably further.
::anon: How cool! Kaiserslautern! Yay! It's so purty there. I've only been once and it was many years ago. My uncle was stationed there for a while and I went to spend a few weeks with him and to wander the countryside. I really would love to go back to Germany. And yes. I've got BOTTLES of Nutella in my cupboards. I admit, I'm a Nutella freak. *L*
::Haywire: I've reviewed! I've reviewed! *L* Ooo.. half and half.. I love pizza. Hee hee. Sounds so good, might have to do that t'night... And THANK YOU! :) I'm glad you like them both.. I love the idea of two stories simultaneously or a story within a story. Dunno why. It's just so fun to do! (And here's an update! I'm sorry, hon! I was working on that other humong-eous fic! Eek!)
Kt: Oh wow.. I'm so glad you liked it! I am glad, as well, that the difference between being just a roll in the hay, and something far deeper showed up. Because otherwise, I wouldn't have a story! ;)
Enigmatic: I like Sean! ^^ I think he's cute and awesome and I can't see any good reason why he and Chance can't be best of friends!

That's enough. Now we're on to fulfilling the ...))

Left Turn

Jack let his head fall back, water beating hot against his shoulders and into his hair, massaging his scalp. The morning haze hadn't yet lifted and he was half asleep, swaying slightly in the shower.

Charles... Chance.... He had old pictures to go by now. He had spent days staring at the photographs for the Debate Club and for the junior class. It was Chance. He knew that now. He hated how he had distant memories of Chance walking through the halls, but he wasn't sure if he truly remembered or if he was making it up for his own pleasure. Chance with a bit sweatshirt over his small frame, his auburn hair cut short against his skull, his beautiful eyes lost behind thick glasses. He was one of the Invisible Ones. And Jack was not so egotistical as to refuse to recognize that he'd been a self interested, selfish kid then.

Shit, seemed that eighteen was childhood. He laughed, leaning back farther so that the water spilled over his face, forcing him to close his eyes and open his mouth into a fish like bubble so that he could breathe.

He was figuring it out in his head. Mickey knew nothing except for the fact that Chance's sister worked at the local laundromat three days out of the week. That didn't seem like enough. But it was a beginning. Or so it had seemed at first. Barbara proved more difficult to get ahold of when he wasn't sure that it was a good idea.

Jack had spent the last two months contemplating how best to go about finding out about Chance without finding out about Chance. He wasn't sure, but if things continued the way they were, he might be relegated to stalker status. He was seriously thinking about bumping into Barbara on purpose.

Of course, this brought up the problem of how to address the issue. What could he say, really? "Hello, I'm Jack from a couple of years ago. I didn't talk to your brother while we were in school but I met him in France this last summer and I fucked him. It was supposed to be a one night stand, only I wank off in the shower every day to my memories of him and I can't get him out of my head. Do you think you could ask him to call me?"

Jack wasn't a sneaky person really. He liked the cards on the table and somehow, no matter the arrangements he put the cards in, he still kept coming out as an ass.

All of this explained why he was standing in the shower, water beating on his face, and why as his hand slid down his stomach and wrapped around his half erect member, that he was imagining Chance's mouth and Chance's skin and Chance's tight ass and Chance's eyes and Chance's....

"Ah fuck," Jack hissed as his hips bucked. It almost didn't take any extra time any more. His body was so well conditioned to the stimulus, that the simple image of Chance was almost all it took.

Jack leaned his head on the shower stall tile and breathed in deeply, his body feeling no more relaxed than it had before his empty orgasm. He used up every morning, trying to reach for something he couldn't find alone.

Later that morning, Jack stood outside of the Laundromat and did nothing when he saw a slender woman enter it, her dishwater blonde hair pulled back and her hazel eyes older twins to the ones he'd gotten off to that morning.

Mickey rubbed his hands together after he shut the car door and leaned on the side of the truck. "So?" he asked expectantly and watched Jack stalk back and get in. With a roll of his eyes, the other boy climbed in after and drove them back down the road.

"You know, it's just a one night stand. I mean, from what you told me. I can't figure what you think he'd want from you, Jack. He got all he wanted in the end. Right? I mean, he lost his virginity to the coolest guy in his junior year."

Jack didn't answer and apparently this was cause for continuing because Mickey added, "Dude, they had fuckin' fan clubs for you. Everyone was still talking about you after you were already left. Now he can say he fucked you. Well, was fucked by you, but it's all the same thing, right?"

"Mick?"

"Yeah?"

"Shut up."

Mick gave him a blow job that night. Jack wasn't sure how it happened. They had sat down and pulled out some beers from the fridge downstairs. Then they'd drank and Jack had maybe drank too much. He wasn't drunk, really. Three beer couldn't do that. But he felt a tad tipsy and when he was sitting back on his bed and hands went to his jeans, he wasn't very fast in stopping them.

The feel of a wet mouth covering his dick surprised him. He sat up and looked down at the dark head in his lap. Sucking in breath, he grabbed for the hair and Mickey lifted his face, letting Jack's now impossible to ignore half flagged erection hit his chin as he let it go. "Don't even try'n stop me, Jack," he grunted. "I could use this just as bad as you could, fuckin' jerk."

Shocked, Jack dropped his hand to the side and gripped the pillow. Then he closed his eyes and when he came, feeling tongue and cheeks move as Mickey tried hard to swallow everything, he was mentally screaming out a name. Only it wasn't Mickey's.

Laying down later and watching Mickey jack off, Jack felt guilty. Knowing Chance was out there, that he was within reach and probably didn't give a shit either way didn't keep him from feeling like he'd just cheated on something special. He stood up before Mickey's breathing hitched. Jack was rearranging the things on his dresser when Mickey orgasmed.

"So.." Mickey panted a moment after, "You really like this guy, huh?"

It was a weird thing to say after having just swallowed someone's cum, to want to talk about their love life. But that was Mickey, in a way. Jack shrugged.

Mickey sighed. "Well, we'll just have to work something out then. I mean, the guy seemed nice, even if he stunk."

Chance didn't stink. Chance smelled like... Chance. He was alive, real, and beautiful and so... so innocent.

"Don't suppose you're hard again and wanna fuck?" was the next question.

Jack shook his head, looking at a Euro on his dresser. "Nah, don't think I wanna do any of that again."

"Not til you know about Solomon, eh?"

Jack grunted and left it up to Mickey to decipher just what the sound meant.

The next three weeks were eventful enough. Christmas was close, only another week. He and Mickey had talked about the chances of Chance being with his sister right now. And it made the holidays a tense issue for Jack. Chance, so close, and not one phone call, no one coming to the door, no drop ins. Chance, in Haveston, and no one caring if Jack was there too.

In amongst putting up with Leessszzaa and his father's antics (many of which included wine parties and strange, foreign language films), Jack busied himself with presents, bumping into old friends, doing a guitar gig down at the local coffee bar with a pal from band, and stalking Barbara Solomon.

Oh, he wasn't stalking. He just liked to camp out in front of the laundromat and wish she would come over and make it easier on him. Maybe she'd come on over and say hello. She'd even tell him that she knew about him. Chance had said what a fabulous lover he was and how Chance just wanted more than anything to get to know him better. Chance hadn't met anyone nicer or more fun to be around in his great big campus and in the great big world. Because no one else recognized what a beautiful heart and soul Chance had. No one else was smart like Jack and could notice that.

Bull shit. Jack rubbed his hands on his jeans and stared at the laundromat while Mickey went around the side of the car. Mickey had parked, not at the Squeezey Cheese Juice Bar across the road, but right at the front door of the laundromat. At Jack's look, he'd merely grinned and gotten out. "C'mon," he'd said. "I got a Christmas present for ya."

Jack could feel his heart racing. He stood frozen and stared at the laundromat. He searched through the wide open windows all along the main wall. Was Barbara Solomon in there? If she wasn't in there...

Mickey grinned as he emerged from the car with a large basket of laundry in his arms. Then, with a bump against Jack's hip, he nodded to the door. "Open that, will you?"

Jack stared at the door, opening it and trying not to recognize the feeling of sick building up in his stomach. "Um, what are we..?"

Something hit him in the stomach, big and cumbersome. He automatically wrapped his arms around it and stared down at the large basket of dirty clothing placed before him, then looked up, shocked, at the grinning face of Mickey just beyond it.

"Mick?"

"Thank you for this. You are a darling!" Mickey cooed, kissing him.

Jack licked his lips, confusion and then horror arriving in pieces. "Oh no. Oh no. Mick. No." He watched in horror as Mickey danced backwards and the door closed behind him.

He was still saying no as the car pulled away then he sighed heavily and turned with his arms full of... Mick's laundry. "Better not be any sticky underwear in here," he growled, glaring down at the load in his arms.

"He can be such a bitch sometimes," an amused voice interrupted his mutterings. Jack was not overly surprised to see the grinning face of Chance's older sister looking at him from across the dry cleaning counter.

"You can say that again," Jack grumbled.

"Did he leave you soap?" she was starting to look like she might laugh. But there was no trace of meanness in her voice. "I mean, a boyfriend dropping you off with laundry like that and no soap?"

Jack shoved the basket onto a table and began to search down inside of it, looking worried at what he might find. Soap was the least of his worries.

She laughed. It was clear and calm, soothing in a way. Jack couldn't help but like her.

"Here," she held out a cup. "Go to the side wall, there's a bucket of soap. We keep it there for emergencies. Weird, I know, but not everyone remembers their change." She grinned.

Jack stared at the cup, then did as he was told, heading around the washers until he was near the bathrooms at the back where a bucket stood. Returning, he stared at a washing machine opened and already holding a load of clothing. A young woman sat on a machine next to it with a pair of red boxers hovering over it and a decidedly evil grin. "It's a thought, isn't it?" she asked with a nasty smile.

Jack laughed, taking the red boxers from her and dropping them in. "If we're lucky, they're brand new and will turn every fucking thing he has a bright pink." He smiled at her and dumped the cup full of detergent in after, digging out his wallet and pulling out some change.

"And we know Mickey hates the color pink," she snickered.

Jack looked up at her in surprise.

"I used to go to school with him," she gave an explanation. "And no, I didn't date him. I just actively hated his guts for about two years."

He lifted a brow. "Oh? How come?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. I was a snotty kid. I wanted to be popular and he was annoying and obviously flaming gay." She rolled her eyes. "Not that I've got a problem with it. My brother is gay. It's just at the time, I could use the poor guy as a jumping stone. Big lot of good it did, though," she waves her hand around, indicating the laundromat.

He pushed the money into the collection slot and watched as the water began to fill the basin before he closed the top. "I don't know. Queen of Laundromat? Sounds like a step up from Bitch from High School."

She laughed. "This is true." Then she stuck her hand out and grinned. "Babs."

"Jack," he took her hand and shook it briefly. "And Mick's not my boyfriend. He's just a really annoying friend."

"Soon to be ex-friend?" Babs smiled.

Jack smiled back, feeling as if something good had finally just shown up in his life. It wasn't Chance, of course. But it was, without overthinking it, a step closer.

"Oh, I don't know about that."