In An Instant
Chapter 10: Two Weeks to Forever
GENRES: Drama, Romance, Humor, Tragedy, Angst, ...pretty much everything. So...gen?
MILD CHARACTERIZATION SPOILERS for Chris Colfer's Struck By Lightning!
WARNINGS: lots of mentions of Sex and a shit ton of snark. Also, sexual tension. As if that wasn't already obvious.
PAIRING: Jesse St. James and Carson Phillips AKA Jarson AKA St. Phillips AKA Jarson St. Phillips. There may be mentions of other pairings down the line, especially ones from GLEE.
WORD COUNT: 6,784
Two weeks, seven make-out sessions (really more like six-and-a-half, but Carson had told him something about being able to round up if a decimal was five or more right before makeout-session three, so he figured he could call it seven), ten study sessions, and thirteen impromptu performances that Carson mostly "ignored" later, Jesse St. James had a revelation.
An epiphany.
A… Was he out of synonyms already?
Whatever, those two were worthy of vocabulary bonuses from Carson probably anyway.
The point was, eying the Spring Awakening audition sheet now, Jesse was struck with the realization that he may have gotten himself into some trouble.
Apparently you needed to have at least a B-average in every course you were taking to even get an audition.
He always forgot that they seemed to expect him to actually do all of his work himself, and now that he was actually with the guy who was helping him with all of it, he was even more distracted than he'd been before when Carson was just a fun chase between getting essays written for him.
This sucked.
Maybe he could woo the dean into changing the rules… And Carson would definitely help him too, of course, so there was that. It wouldn't be a problem, just a hassle. But whatever- he was Jesse St. James and he'd get what he wanted someway somehow. He always did, didn't he?
He signed his name on the audition sign-up sheet with flourish, then scanned his work as well as the names above his (he'd made sure to be fashionably late, of course). None of them had a chance in hell against him. His eyes narrowed as they fell then on the name two above his.
Well look who it was.
The midget bitch of Broadway.
Jesse scowled at the list, then turned on his heel and headed back toward his dorm. He was meeting Carson for coffee before his boyfriend's shift started, and then it would be off to the park to rehearse and stage a few numbers.
He totally had this.
But it wouldn't hurt to get a little more help than he had been with his homework probably… Jesse stuck a few more of his assignments into his shoulder bag and headed out.
"So, that's your boyfriend, huh? You're gay now?"
Carson rolled his eyes away from Claire, mouth twisting.
"No I'm not, it's none of your business, and go away."
Silence answered him, and he drew a breath as he stocked another book onto the shelf, scanning the row again to be sure it was all organized.
"He doesn't strike me as your type, and I don't just mean because I have to use that specific pronoun."
Carson groaned, setting the book he was holding back and turning to look at her.
"I thought you'd actually decided to leave me alone for once. Clearly I was being too idealistic… And I wasn't aware I had a type."
Claire rolled her eyes at him.
"Everyone has a type."
"I'm not everyone, Claire. Now, will you screw off already?"
"You're such an asshole," Claire bit out, eyes narrowing at him. "I'm just being nice. No-one else here wants to talk to you anymore, since you're a magnet for complaints and all."
He glowered at her.
"Get out of my face, and go die in a hole or something, why don't you? I know it was you who helped out with wrecking this place on Halloween. I do not want to talk to you Claire. I don't want to look at you. I have to see you at school, as well as work with you, the least you can do is leave me alone whenever contact isn't absolutely necessary."
"Alone?" Claire's mouth was set in a sneer, her eyes bitter and dark. "You're already alone, Carson. All alone, boyfriend or not, and that's all you'll ever be, because you're just a stubborn jerk that no-one likes or ever will. I guess the boyfriend thing figures, since you've always had a stick up your ass anyway. But even then, you're always still going to be alone, because in your head you're just an island in the world, and you're better than everyone."
"And the beauty of it is that I don't give a shit at all, but you for whatever reason do. You care so much what people think, that you barely exist anymore, and it's really pathetic. So, for the last time Claire, fuck off."
"Carson Phillips. Can I speak to you?"
Fuck.
Ellen.
"Of course, Ellen." Carson stood and pushed past Claire, rolling his eyes at her expression.
Ellen led the way to her office, and Carson followed quietly, hands jammed deep in his pockets, lips twisted down hard.
The second the door was closed, his mouth was open.
"Ellen, look, I know Claire and I are arguing a lot lately, but-"
"Chill out, Carson."
Carson stopped short, brow coming together.
"I'm sorry?"
"You're not in trouble," her voice tried to be gentle despite being caught in a laugh.
"I'm not."
"No. Not at all. Well, not really, anyway," Ellen replied. "Carson, I had to review the security footage of Halloween night, and it struck me as interesting how late you stayed. Not to mention the smashed pumpkin you were cleaning up. Care to explain those things? I didn't happen to see an incident report, and all you told me was that there were some mild pranks, nothing you didn't expect and couldn't handle."
"And there wasn't," Carson replied firmly after a moment. "I knew going in that Halloween attracted pranks. As did you. And I've dealt with worse than anything that happened, and I took care of it. It wasn't worth mentioning."
"Yes, well, as your supervisor, I have to respectfully disagree. Look, Carson. I get it, okay? You're ambitious and a hard worker. You're going somewhere in life, but you're different, and that always sucks, no matter how driven you are. Bottom line is that, though you should have told me what happened, the work ethic, commitment, and initiative you showed in taking care of everything to the point where it took me watching the security footage to realize something was up… I'm impressed. And so were my bosses. And so your job is very safe, and I've been told to give you compensation for the time you spent working without pay. All of it."
Carson just stared at her.
"If you're waiting for the shoe to drop, I promise there's not one."
At that he raised an incredulous brow and she sighed, sitting back.
"Alright, well, I do need you and Claire to argue less. It's becoming a cause for concern, and I don't really want to fire either of you. But your compensation isn't contingent on that, so it's really not a shoe."
Carson smirked.
"I won't complain about being paid more, then. And I can't promise anything about Claire, but I will say that if we taped her mouth shut I think everyone would probably be a lot more comfortable."
Ellen sat back in her chair and gave him an unimpressed look.
"And I bet everyone would be even more comfortable if we could get the bickering to stop without doing anything that might result in an investigation by the police, or a certain manager who's been helping you out considerably getting fired."
Carson huffed something like a laugh.
"The police would never find out if it was me."
Ellen rolled her eyes.
"Yes, I'm aware that I have an evil genius employed. Which is why from now on I'll probably be hiding the tape from you. And the boxcutters now that I think about it. Get going, Phillips. There's books out there waiting to be stocked and you're the only man they want to do it."
Carson nodded, standing and extending a hand to her that she shook with a look of amusement.
"And Carson, maybe spend the money on getting your friend some lessons in grace. Fun as it was to see him fall on his ass, he almost managed to take down a bookshelf with him, and I always hate to see accident reports. And since he's been coming in to visit with you pretty regularly now I'm thinking it's something I need to worry about."
"I'll control my Jesse if you can control your Claire," Carson offered, a corner of a lip twitching.
Ellen just shook her head at him.
It was thirty minutes before Claire finally managed, as he'd anticipated, to find and isolate him as business tapered down into a lull once more and the group of customers she'd been helping traipsed out, and the one he'd been commandeered by waved him off. Perfect, awful timing.
"Did Ellen spank you?"
"Why? Jealous?"
Claire scoffed, rolling her eyes at him, and scuffed a foot backward against one of the shelves before crossing her ankles and arms.
"Were there more complaints?"
"I'm sure there were, probably thanks to you, but that wasn't the point of the meeting," Carson retorted noncommittally. "Are you done obsessing over things that are none of your goddamn business?"
"Look, I didn't come up with it, alright? The complaints I didn't know anything about until you told me, and Halloween wasn't my idea."
"I don't give a shit," Carson said flatly.
"Yes you do," Claire snapped back. "Of course you do."
"No Claire. You forget that I don't care about much of anything. At least nowhere near as much as you."
"You only care about yourself and your stupid newspaper and your education, right?" she asked rhetorically, voice bitter.
"Technically, your last two fit under the umbrella of your first," Carson replied. "And yes. It's better that way."
"What about your boyfriend?" She sneered. "Not him either, huh?"
"I believe I asked you to go away, Claire," Carson bit out. "And also said that wasn't your business. I know you say things you don't mean all the time, but some of us don't need to put on a chameleon act in order to accomplish anything."
Claire huffed out a breath.
"As if. I've done everything I wanted to do."
"On everyone else's terms."
"Compromise is necessary in the real world," she said snidely, and Carson snorted derisively at her, head shaking.
"There are different kinds of compromise. How many brain cells have you lost along with your personality, Claire?"
"I fucking hate you, Carson," Claire said abruptly after a moment, voice falling low.
"A sentiment I return," Carson told the books severely. "Which is why for the tenth time today I'm asking you to go the fuck away. We're at work. Do your job, Claire. Annoying me isn't actually in your job description, so how about finally fucking off and doing what you get paid for? And I don't mean go find someone to blow, since I know you can get your two jobs confused, but you know what? I wouldn't give a shit if you do anyway, just as long as you're away from me. Goodbye."
Claire stared at him a second longer, then just turned sharply on her heel and headed toward the ladies' room.
Carson behind her kept his gaze fixed to the books he'd just stocked for a long moment, eyes hard and not really seeing. Then he shook the feeling off and got back to work.
Jesse was picking him up tomorrow morning and he needed to be even more productive than usual to make up for the lack thereof he was predicting for tomorrow.
And he really wanted to put some effort into finding out what exactly it was that Jesse was planning, too. He hated surprises, but Jesse never seemed to let that stop him.
He frowned and refocused his thoughts again toward the books, analyzing titles and summaries and letting the purely academic push the rest into a frivolous white noise.
"Just wait, it's going to be amazing."
"Jesse," Carson sighed, buckling his seatbelt and casting a look toward the steering wheel his date was handling one-handedly. "One, it's really weird to have you driving. And nerve-wracking."
"You're driving on the way back," Jesse reminded him pleasantly. Suspiciously pleasantly.
Carson frowned at the tone, but pressed on.
"Yes, but you wouldn't even take my car, and I hate yours," he grumbled back, and Jesse shot him an aghast expression, free hand going up to pat at the car's dashboard.
"He doesn't mean that, Vivian. He's just pissed that I managed to hide his notebook and red pens before we left."
Carson scoffed beside him, rolling his eyes toward the window.
"It can't hear you, Jesse. It's an inanimate object. And, you know I hate surprises. You should really just tell me where the hell we're going."
Jesse's free hand fell to pat at his boyfriend's thigh.
"You'll survive, Casper. It's gonna be okay. Now, apologize to Vivian please."
Carson eyed Jesse's hand as his head shook.
"Again, Jess, it's just a car. A man-made machine."
Jesse sighed dramatically.
"Ignore him, Vivian. He's just jealous of how much I touch your gear shift."
Carson snorted, but otherwise made no reply for a moment, letting a comfortable silence fill the air.
Jesse's hand was just about to move to turn on the radio when Carson broke the quiet with: "How much longer until we get there exactly?"
"Well, it's at least a forty-five minute drive, and we've been in the car for about five of those now."
Carson huffed out a breath.
"This is a colossal waste of time."
Jesse's hand smoothed over his leg and Carson returned his gaze to it bemusedly.
"What are you doing?"
"Do I need to give you a handjob to make you stop complaining?"
"You're driving."
Jesse smirked at the road ahead, hand automatically moving up Carson's leg toward his crotch.
"I'm talented."
"Not that talented."
"Wanna bet?"
Carson watched lackadaisically as the hand crept higher, not bothering to move.
"You're a moron."
Jesse's hand met its desired territory for a moment and was preparing to squeeze to get a reaction when Carson finally rolled his eyes and took the hand in his and away from his crotch.
"No handjobs."
"Fine," Jesse grinned easily. "In that case, I think it's time for the Jarson road-trip mix I made!"
Carson's brow furrowed.
"Jarson? Do I want to know?"
"It's our couple name!"
"You could have just said I didn't and left it at that."
"You know you like it."
"Just hit play already. Anything would be better than listening to you for the next half-hour."
Jesse smirked, and hit play, while Carson turned back to looking out the window, hiding a hint of a smile against the glass.
"What the- did the music not transfer over?" Jesse asked after a beat, frowning at his car. "Vivian, why aren't you playing-"
"Call me Ishmael…"
"I hope you don't mind," Carson told the window nonchalantly. "I replaced your CDs with my audio books collection while you were fixing your hair. I figured you wouldn't have a problem with it, since, you know, you're such a fan of the classics. Especially Moby Dick."
Jesse shot Carson a look from the corner of his eye.
"You're so sexy when you're evil."
"…Shut up and drive, Jess."
Their second date-type-event had happened just a few days after the first, when an after-school-study-date became an "Alright, I'll endure a goddamn Disney movie if you just change this, this, and this, and then start researching for that other paper while I finish my math and science homework and edit a couple articles."
Jesse had conceded and had worked with surprising vigor, and Carson was stuck staring with no small degree of dread and disgust at the DVD cover for Cinderella, because according to Jesse they had to start with classics first.
He couldn't believe he was actually doing this.
But then Jesse flashed him a humungous grin and bounded back to the bed and hit play and rolled his eyes and said that he'd allow Carson to have his notebook and make an article or whatever out of it if he really had to, just as long as he paid attention.
And so maybe the whole boyfriend thing wasn't so bad.
And though his thought that Disney was pure, complete crap was only reinforced over the next seventy-six minutes of nauseating, clichéd, ridiculous animation, he found that it wasn't quite as horrific a way to pass just over an hour as he'd expected.
He had an idea for a new special he could run in the paper, too.
"A Cynic and a Disney Story", his mental working title, could be an interesting twist on a movie-reviewing series that he actually thought might register some interest. So, his time wasn't being wasted after all.
Or at least that was what he told himself when, head shaking, he agreed to watch other Disney "classics" with Jesse again when there was time after any given study session, as long as Jesse worked as hard beforehand as he had tonight.
It might also have kind of been fun to see Jesse get as ridiculously into something as he had been with the movie. Carson had only ever seen Jesse approach performing with that kind of rapture and serious appreciation, so while he might not feel anything near the same toward that or this newest thing, it was still kind of nice to see that same feeling again.
And besides, Jesse smiled a lot, but the expression was rarely as genuine and soft as it had been watching Cinderella try on a glass slipper that could only fit her.
Yeah, it had been stupid, beyond stupid in fact, but he found that the idea of watching another with Jesse didn't sound as bad as he'd expected.
Of course, that was mostly only because of the paper. Jesse was only a small part of it.
Carson crossed another word out in red and flexed his fingers against Jesse's absentmindedly as he contemplated the revision, not noticing at all as Jesse looked toward their hands and smiled just a bit, the expression both genuine and soft.
"So, let me get this straight- you're actually watching Disney movies with him?"
"Yes," Carson replied shortly, making his character on the screen throw another missile at Drew, who's own character managed to duck and roll away just in time to avoid the majority of the damage, but still lost about twenty life points.
Andrew frowned.
"You hate Disney."
"That's irrelevant, Drew," Carson scoffed him off, throwing another missile onscreen, then launching a quick sword attack, followed by an exploding arrow.
Andrew mock-glared at him.
"Since when?"
"Always," Carson retorted, eyes rolling. "It has always been irrelevant, Andrew. I'm using it for the paper, anyway, and it's getting Jesse to actually get work done. I've redirected an atrocity into something productive. So, therefore, my hatred is essentially irrelevant."
Andrew scowled (again) and hit the pause button on his controller (again), then turned fully toward Carson and stretched his legs out completely over the couch and, consequently, Carson's lap.
Carson eyed the legs with puzzled derision, then cast his cousin a dubious look, brow raised.
"Should I ask when I started to resemble a footstool, Drew?"
"To be honest, you kind of always have."
"Huh."
Andrew smirked at him and Carson snorted, shoving at the legs.
"Get off."
"Still, I'm just saying, I don't get it. Why are you putting yourself through that kind of pain?"
"It's really not as dramatic as you're trying to make it," Carson rolled his eyes. "And I'd pay attention to the screen if I were you. You'll want to be watching your spectacular defeat."
"You wish," Andrew shot back, fingers working quickly over the controller just moments too late.
On the screen his character exploded.
Carson smirked and threw the controller over to him.
"You were saying?"
Andrew rolled his eyes.
"It doesn't really count. I was distracted."
"Whatever helps you sleep at night. And you know you're just jealous I got out of watching them with Amy and Sarah and you didn't."
"You only got out of it because no-one wanted to hear all about how unrealistic the dialogue was or how it failed to properly reflect the actual culture of the time, or the usage of clichéd tropes and the negative stereotypes they perpetuate, blah blah blah, etc. etc. etc."
"Exactly," Carson shrugged. "And I say all of that with Jess, but he actually seems to like hearing it and getting to argue back."
Andrew sighed, hitting the power button to the tv and turning fully to face Carson.
"Jess?"
Carson scowled at him.
"What point are you trying to make, Andrew?"
Andrew drew a deep breath.
"Is this guy actually your boyfriend?"
Carson's face was blank.
"You know, that really is just a godawful word."
"Does dating work better?" Andrew asked plainly back.
Carson hesitated, then rolled his eyes.
"Not really, but I suppose it would technically be considered applicable. But it's not any of your business, is it?"
"Yes," Andrew said immediately back. "You're like my little brother. We're family. You know that."
Carson crossed his arms and slouched back.
"I do. But I also know that I can handle myself. I have for a long time now. There's plenty you don't know, Drew. And you don't need to."
"I don't need to, but I want to."
Carson made a sound in his throat, then dragged himself up.
"It's getting late and I have homework, so I should really be going."
Andrew's face twisted, but he nodded anyway.
"Yeah, okay. But I'm calling you in the next couple days, okay? And I want to get to see you again soon."
"Fine," Carson acquiesced shortly. "I'll talk to you soon then."
"Yeah. Please do actually answer your phone this time."
"I'll try."
There was an awkward moment, then Andrew pulled him in for a quick hug that Carson slowly and fleetingly returned, and Carson was gone.
Andrew sighed, closing the door behind his cousin, then made his way over to the computer and logged into facebook.
Jesse was on.
And had commented on that post again.
Great, perfect timing.
Teeth gritted, he instead went to his girlfriend's page and was in the midst of writing something sweet, cheesey, and romantic for her to wake up to when…
Ping!
Jesse St. James November 27th, 10:34 pm
Does the idea of a bromance scare you Andrew?
Does it...threaten you?
Andrew Phillips November 27th, 10:37 pm
The only thing that threatens me is your obvious lack of mental stability.
Also, I respect Carson being with you or whatever, but I don't like you. So don't push me asshole.
Jesse St. James November 27th, 10:39 pm
Why thank u. That would be my star power you,re recognizing.
Oh, hey, no pushing, not even sexual. I'm taken, as you know.
Very, Very taken... ;)
Andrew Phillips November 27th, 10: 40 pm
Seriously, stop.
Your'e really starting to piss me off St. James
And you do not want to see me pissed off
Jesse St. James November 27th, 10:40 pm
Why will it make you rip your shirt off like the hulk?
Cause you,re right, I don't want to see that
I do want to see Carson do that but
Oh wait I already have
;)
Andrew Phillips November 27th, 10: 42 pm
Fuck off and stop talking about my cousin like that
Jesse St. James November 27th, 10:46 pm
Oh, srry, does dirty talk make you uncomfterble? I'm sure you, re not used to stuff being sexy
Maybe you should take notes from Carson on it
He's so good at getting down nd dirty. Mm. It's like porn in my head thinking about it.
Andrew Phillips November 27th, 10: 51 pm
Just know that you really don't deserve my cousin got it? And the second he realizes that I will make sure you don't have the chance to come near him again
I'm done talking to you now
Jesse St. James November 27th, 10:52 pm
Cool. You can try but just know you'll fail
Though im sure you're used to that too
Andrew Phillips is offline, but will receive your messages when they return
Jesse St. James November 27th, 10:53 pm
I'm gonna go jerk off now anyway
Bet you can guess who ill be thinking about
;) ;) ;)
Kisses! Byeeeee
Jesse St. James is offline
"Do you know what today is?" Jesse asked as he finally parked the car, unfortunately in a nondescript parking lot off the frontage road.
He was annoyingly committed to the whole surprise thing.
"Saturday November 28th," Carson retorted, using his most insufferable voice. "So?"
Jesse looked sideways at him.
"Tomorrow we'll have been dating for a month."
"Okay?" Carson frowned. "So?"
Jesse rolled his eyes.
"You really don't understand romantic statements, do you?"
Carson snorted.
"Here we go."
"Anniversaries are important," Jesse informed him in a superior tone.
Carson raised an eyebrow.
"An anniversary, by definition, marks the passing of a year, Jesse. Not a month."
"Whatever," Jesse sniffed back. "I assumed you'd forget. But, being the amazing boyfriend that I am, I found the perfect locale for today's date."
"…Please don't tell me we're going to a musical or something. It's hard enough having just you randomly singing about your feelings."
Jesse tossed his head.
"Please. You adore me for it."
"No comment."
"Which means you do, in star language," Jesse grinned. Carson shook his head, suppressing a start to a smile of his own. "But no, this is something I thought we'd both enjoy."
"Jesse, it's a parking lot," Carson said pointedly. "The only thing you'd enjoy doing in a rundown parking lot would be sex. Which isn't going to happen for a while yet, at least not until I'm eighteen."
Jesse waggled his eyebrows in response, then smirked.
"Well, it's not car-sex, though I'm open to that too. Actually, from here, I'm driving us like half-a mile further. I just wanted to make sure you knew what the day was first, so that you'd understand why I'm blowing your mind even more than usual."
Carson groaned.
"You couldn't have said this while driving?"
"No."
Carson rolled his eyes again, then abruptly landed a kiss on Jesse's cheek before promptly turning away to look again out the window.
"Then get back to driving, asshole. I want to judge the greatness of this big surprise for myself."
Jesse smiled.
"Fine. Just get ready."
Carson frowned at the paper in front of him and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms.
He'd finally finished his own homework just over an hour ago and moved onto going over Jesse's assignments and doing as much as he could without actually doing the work itself. Unfortunately, the load was bigger than usual, which meant he was taking longer than he'd counted on. There was at least another hour of this to go, plus he wanted to do some last minute editing of his opening article for the Disney series he'd been working on since watching Cinderella with Jesse last…
When was it again?
He yawned and moved his cursor over the time on his computer so that the date popped up.
November 17th. Tuesday. Almost the 18th though. Just about thirty minutes away.
And their date/studying hybrid thing had been the past Saturday, he recalled abruptly, irritation flaring at himself. Who the hell had that much trouble remembering dates of things they'd done less than a week ago? That was fucking ridiculous. It was his grandma with the severe Alzheimer's disease, not him. Though if he kept this up he might as well just join her in the nursing home.
Carson shook off the thoughts and refocused himself on the theatre history essay in front of him.
He should probably go make some coffee…
His phone rang and he pulled it out, eyes narrowed with confusion.
Who was calling him at this hour?
If it was Jesse he'd- Amy? Amy was calling him.
Carson answered instantly.
"Amy? What's going on? What's wrong?"
"Nothing," Amy's voice was muffled and it sounded like she'd been crying.
Carson frowned.
"Yeah, right. What's going on? You're usually asleep hours ago."
"Ty and I are just going through a rough patch I guess," Amy said quietly. "And I've been trying to sleep, but I couldn't, and I knew you'd be up. Sorry if I'm interrupting your work and stuff."
"Amy, you know I don't mind when it's you. And, no offense, but when are you and Tyson not going through a rough patch?"
"I guess that's true, but it still sucks."
"What did the asshole do now anyway?"
"He forgot our date," she informed him, annoyance at the fringes of her voice. "And that it was our tenth-month mark since we first got seriously together."
"He stood you up? Andrew will kill him. And then I'll publish articles denouncing him posthumously as a monkey-fucking pervert or something."
"No, he rescheduled," she corrected him, ignoring the jabs at her boyfriend. "But I wanted to celebrate how much time has passed."
Carson was silent for a moment, then sighed.
"I thought that was only something that was really important in movies and awful romance novels unless it was a year mark or you're a superficial, sex-obsessed high-schooler.
"Carson, that's really not the nicest thing you could say."
"It's not the meanest," he reminded her, then groaned, rubbing a hand over his forehead, then cracking his knuckles. "It wasn't meant as an attack on you, Ames. I just really didn't think that meant anything to any one real and with any degree of a life. And you have both, in addition to being smart. So, I don't know what to say."
"You haven't missed one with Jesse, have you?" Amy asked, a frown in her voice. "Because I love you and I really don't want you to be one of those guys."
"No," Carson said immediately. "Jesse's too dramatic to keep silent about anything cheesy and romantic that I miss. Which I'm getting the impression this tradition is."
"Do you remember your anniversary date?"
"…No."
Amy laughed through the phone.
"Carson that's so bad. Here, let me check facebook and see."
"It was before Halloween," he offered.
"Yeah, the day before according to facebook," she said, moments later. "And you are not forgetting, got it?"
"November thirtieth is a Monday, though."
"So? You do something the weekend before or that night."
Carson rolled his eyes.
"Yeah, sure. …Are you feeling better now? You sound a little bit."
"You just gave me perspective," she replied after a beat. "Ty's only forgotten one, maybe two of our anniversaries. I've been working really hard lately, and it's got me all emotional about everything. People are being chosen for a recital based on their performances this past week through next, plus Ty's been distant. And it all just exploded together. But you make it sound so stupid, that even though I don't think it is, it also doesn't seem as important, if that makes sense. Plus, now I feel like I'm getting to play cupid with you and Jesse. I love playing cupid."
Carson nodded, eyebrows drawn together.
"I'd suggest sleep, because it sounds like you're becoming manic now. And I kind of need to finish a few assignments."
"Okay," Amy sighed. "Plan something good for you and Jesse, okay? And email me ideas if you have time! I want to see what you decide on, plus I have the feeling I'll be reminding you again about this."
She didn't sound completely better, mostly like she was just starting to be able to move her thoughts away from it and was now pushing anything negative down and overcompensating with bubble.
Still, he did have work, and he figured it would be best to talk to her again tomorrow, and involve Andrew if he really felt like he had to. Meanwhile, this was just another thing to do.
Yay.
They said their goodbyes, and he rubbed again at his throbbing temples, before deciding to just get himself that coffee while he did a few quick google searches on possible plans that Jesse would like.
If Amy was going to see whatever he came up with, he would actually have to come up with something good.
He felt ridiculous, but even so, he never gave less than one-hundred-percent to any given project, and this was just another.
First though- coffee.
"We're at a museum…"
"I told you." Jesse's voice was smug.
Carson swallowed.
Crap.
This was actually good. Really good.
Fucking great.
Hopefully the surprise he'd concocted himself would make the gap a little smaller. It wasn't exactly a museum trip, but for him it was a pretty big gesture and he'd put a good amount of thought into it
Carson climbed from the car, looking up at the building. He'd been to the J. Paul Getty museum once before on a field trip and loved it, but hadn't gone back since.
He was always so busy…
Still, he kept up with news enough to know some of the newest temporary exhibits and fuck but Jesse had great timing.
"We'll have to go to the Migrations of the Mind exhibit and the Medieval Scriptorium for sure. I read about them in the paper, and have them included in one of my columns of exhibits to examine. They're also impermanent, of course, which means they're top priority."
"We've got time," Jesse grinned at him.
"Not really," Carson said briskly, taking Jesse's hand as he walked. "Not if we're catching the movie."
"What movie?" Jesse was looking sideways at him again, disbelief in his eyes.
Carson smirked.
"Oh, by the way, we have tickets to a seven o'clock showing of Tangled, that new Disney piece of crap you've been going on about. I was planning on giving you the 'you owe me' speech, but this makes up for the sure agony at least a little bit."
"You," Jesse announced, "are totally going to regret saying that later, and I don't even care."
"Yeah, well. I'm just giving myself more material for the paper, really."
Jesse nodded, eyes gleaming.
"The paper. Yeah, of course. That reminds me…"
"Oh no."
"Literate and Stylish."
Carson groaned.
"I'm regretting it already."
"Kissable and quiet," Jesse sang back. "Carson! It's one of our songs!"
Carson shut him up with a hard kiss, then shook his head and rolled his eyes and lead the way to the museum, pretending to ignore Jesse's continuing singing of "their soundtrack" all the way there.
A/N-
Deepest apologies for the wait, darlings, but here's hoping the plethora of fluff helps to soothe the wound. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, right? Either way, just wanted to quickly answer a question from one of our amazing reviewers (WE LOVE YOU ALL) and say that Malerie's role gets bigger later, but a lot of stuff changes between Carson's junior year (which is this one) and his senior. But events are going to happen to make that friendship culminate and they are quite down the line.
Alright. I [Sage] want to get this up ASAP, so I'll quit going on now and just say a huge thank you to all of you fantastic, perfect reviewers. You make our world go round and our Jesse go up. Don't worry- you'll get that last part eventually. ;) In the meantime, we hope you enjoyed this installment of In An Instant and that we'll see you again soon! What did you think of this chapter? Who wins biggest jerk, Andrew or Jesse? Or maybe Carson or Tyson? What was salty? What was sweet? What had a lemony tang that reminded you of home?
All our love (and more),
Dapper and Sage.