Just This About You
By Kay
Disclaimer: Don't own, thankssomuch.
Author's Notes: Just some random, fluffy Christopher/Jalil friendship (perhaps more?) drabble, post!series. Thank you so much for reading. I know I haven't been about lately, but I've been trying to catch up posting all the stuff from my journal now. XD
Christopher eats failure for breakfast. He makes up for the bad taste in his mouth by gorging on a dinner made out of pretty faces, meaningless sitcoms, and jokes that either get a good laugh or a good punch in the nose. This is just the person he is, and it takes a smart person to recognize the kind of admirable perseverance involved in living like that, doggedly pushing forward on dregs of the insubstantial.
Jalil is a smart person. So he gets it, sort of. Doesn't exactly approve, but he kind of suspects he'll never like much of anything about Christopher Hitchcock. There's too much honesty there for someone who cuts corners and twists words to his own want. This is just the person he is, and it takes an idiot not to recognize the kind of affection in living like that, ignoring the irritating stuff and sticking around, anyway.
Christopher is a little bit of an idiot.
But that's what Jalil expects; if it ever changes, there might be something terribly wrong with the world. Both worlds. So he continues to ignore and Christopher continues to grope futilely for something worth anything. And if Jalil doesn't leave like David and April before long do, if Jalil would rather drag Christopher's sorry, drunken ass back to a bedroom instead of doing important stuff like (jeez, Christopher doesn't know) saving the world and doing the sly politician act with Baldwin… well, that's just fine. At least, so Christopher thinks. Rather, he doesn't think.
But it starts to dawn on him eventually. Because Christopher is only a little bit of an idiot. Because if Jalil is still around—if he's still snapping at Christopher to get his muddy feet off the desk or to stop drinking wine at breakfast or that yes, he is an utter redneck, and he says that as a friend, usually—then there has to be something more to Christopher.
Christopher, and it's no secret, doesn't always like himself.
But it comes to Christopher, that maybe someone else does.
Outwardly, nothing changes. Christopher bitches relentlessly. Jalil bitches back. Mud gets on the parchment. Beer glasses inevitably get drained. Scornful glances are exchanged. When Jalil isn't calling Christopher names, Christopher is calling Jalil names.
But sometimes, when it's quiet, it's quiet.
And sometimes when it's nice, it's really nice.
And sometimes Jalil isn't sure what to make of this person stepping out of Christopher's boots—a mix of bold gold and brash, toothy grins. Confident in a way he hadn't been before, content instead of bitter, the cruel edge to his humor wearing away like water against the sand. What it leaves behind is so smooth that Jalil actually enjoys the sensation; a companionship that's as natural as it is comfortable, an ease in which Christopher throws an arm around his shoulders just to annoy him, or speaks with weary sincerity because if Jalil hasn't shoved off by now, he's not going to.
Jalil figures Christopher's just really slow in figuring this stuff out.
Besides, if Christopher is a sight to see when he's got nothing, when he has something, he's a thousand times better.