Restless Hearts (Closed to Melia)

[neptune]

The smile on Zach's oddly handsome face was something that Chris could have gotten used to in no time. After months of secret wishing and hoping that Zach would acknowledge him that way, it was finally happening and Chris couldn't have been more pleased. There was a part of him that was inclined to let the sheets sit in the dryer, to cool and wrinkle so that he could spend the rest of the afternoon on the couch, looking into Zach's gorgeous brown eyes and smiling like an idiot. However, the other man's offer to get up and get the sheets had Chris shaking his head and unfortunately reminding him of his adult responsibilities. "I've got it," he promised and sat up further to swing his legs over the couch and down onto the floor. "You've done enough for me today, and I'm not going to let you fold more of my stuff."

Although he didn't want to, Chris got up and walked around the couch and partially down the hallway to once again the fill laundry basket. The the fabric was still warm, making his hands feel slightly uncomfortable as he retrieved. The white sheets were warm on his hands, smelling like the perfect amount of fabric softener that had managed to waft through the rest of the apartment by the time he was done unloading the dryer.

"What did I miss?" Chris asked, gesturing to the TV as he brought the laundry basket back into the living room to do some folding. Pillowcases were always the easiest to handle, with the loose sheet being the second but fitted sheets usually ended up in a jumbled mess and shoved into the linen closet without a second thought. Chris smiled when he came to it, remembering Zach's words about his secret skill and how useful it could be.

In a dramatically playful flourish, Chris shook out the sheet and allowed the end to fall onto Zach. He acted like he didn't notice as he went about his own way of messy folding, corners tucked into corners and no straight lines in sight.

 

[Melia]

As Chris got up to leave, Zach took the opportunity to readjust himself on the couch and relieve the spots where Chris' dead weight had brought on a tingling numbness. Not that he was complaining in the slightest. He stretched and straightened his wrinkling shirt and then went to the kitchen to get a glass of water before resettling on the couch. He waved his hand vaguely while staring at the paused screen. Dexter was at the moment just in the middle of slaughtering a good for nothing rapist. A gory place to pause, with blood spattering the neatly plastic covered surrounding room.

"The usual. Some criminals got away with murder and Dexter went all vigilante axe murderer on them except someone found his burial grounds so now it's under investigation. Another lady found him irresistible and he's seeking revenge for his mom's death. Blood, death, sex, knives. You didn't miss much."

It wasn't entirely the truth. Only if Chris was genuinely interested in the TV series did it really matter the gritty details of the show. Zach knew Chris wouldn't be terribly upset that he missed parts, evident in his lack of effort to stay awake through a show. Other than the fact that Zach couldn't have a real discussion or real time reactions to the show with someone, it didn't bother him too much.

What did bother him was the way that Chris was folding his fitted sheet. He couldn't tell if he was deliberately folding it that way to annoy him or if he was truly so ignorant on how to fold a fitted sheet. Zach cleared his throat and plucked up the corner that had fallen on his lap, then reached for the sister corner and fit them together.

"Please just... stop. It hurts me." Zach took the rest of the sheet away from Chris, neatly tucking the corners together and folding the awkward edges into the center, where the sheet then folded neatly and squarely. "Look see, now you can tuck the pillow cases and the top sheet all in the middle and it's a nice bundle that fits in your closet." Zach handed the now department store quality compact sheet set to Chris, with a slightly smug grin.

"You need someone like me in your life. Otherwise you could perish because your closet door won't shut properly, which could result in a badly stubbed toe which could result in a deadly fall. Also your sheets won't be wrinkled, which is advantageous when trying to woo a lover."

 

[neptune]

That explanation sounded incredibly typical of a Dexter episode, and suddenly, Chris didn't feel so bad about falling asleep. He wasn't much of a TV person, not only because he tended not to have the time, but also because it was hard for him to sit still for very long. He always had to be doing something, moving around and any show that was long than a half hour usually took him ages to watch. It was often the subject of frustration among his friends, their loud complaints of wondering how or why he hadn't watched whatever yet, and how did he function without seeing what they'd already saw. Inwardly, Chris suspected that Zach was one of those people—needing to talk about his favorite TV shows the minute they ended.

As Dexter continued to go on in the background, Chris was happy to see that he had managed to goad Zach into splitting his attention. Normally, he wasn't that sloppy of a folder, but the fitted sheet had been a menace for him since his early days of high school. Until that moment, Chris thought that it was impossible to get right and that it was always doomed to look like a train wreck, but Zach folded with such ease that Chris was beginning to think he was some kind of domestic witch. "Are you going to try and organize my closets too?" he asked with a soft laugh, taking the sheet bundle with a quick thank you.

About to move the laundry basket out of the way and finally deem his apartment clean, presentable and adult-like, Chris stopped to listen to Zach's escalation. He laughed yet again, never failing to be amused by how something so inane could turn deadly so quickly. "Are you trying to tell me you want to break in my new-old, not-wrinkled sheets?" he asked, a half-smile on his lips as he began to head for the closet, toeing the laundry basket along in front of him.

It was a bold question, but flirting came so easy between.

 

[Melia]

As Chris slowly made his way down the short hallway, Zach leaned back on the arm of the couch in order to keep visual contact with the blond. His voice dipped to a more sultry level, unable to help himself, his own lips curling into a half grin.

"Christopher, everyone knows there's only one acceptable way to wrinkle the sheets." Had he dared go there? He had. But this was the kind of banter they'd thrown around even on set. The sexual tension now though was much heavier, the jokes less lighthearted and holding more truth.

It still felt strange to think of Chris that way, but he couldn't stop flirting. It was too easy, too comfortable, too dangerous, maybe. But there was something incredibly arousing about a little bit of danger.

Chris disappeared behind the door of the hall closet as he put his sheets away. When he closed the door and reappeared in Zach's line of sight, Zach pressed on. "In my house it's the only way sheets get wrinkled." Could he possibly have sounded more cocky? He usually wasn't. But there was something so vanilla about Chris that made him go there. Zach was hardly a sex crazed maniac. Was it possible that he was trying to impress Chris?

"Lord help me I've gone all lighting tech guy on you, please forgive me."

 

[neptune]

This was the kind of thing that got him into all kinds of trouble. Chris had lost count of the lectures and angry phone calls he'd received over his relationship with Zach, the closeness between them that he should have done a better job at managing but always managed to fail at. The other man was magnetic in that respect, always pulling him in with something witty and Chris never put up much of a fight against it. The people in charge of his career thought it was a purposeful defiance, something done out of spite for the many times that the f-word had been hurled around in casual conversation but that couldn't have been further from the truth. Chris liked Zach, in every sense of the word, and staying away was one lie he couldn't keep up with.

"The only way?" Chris asked with a laugh as he reached the closet and began to put the cleans sheets away. "Not by just sleeping on them or anything? I didn't know you were so busy."

Cheesy pick up lines were just fine when they came from the right person. When the lighting guy tried to flirt with Zach, it was gross and uncomfortable, but when Chris did it, everything was good. The hypocrisy of his own thoughts was hardly lost on the blond but he did manage to politely hold his tongue as a comment about the lighting tech's lack of sexual prowess threatened to come spilling out—it was all speculation of course—also easily forgotten when Chris noticed that Zach was actually flirting with him. He didn't have to wonder anymore, or agonize over signs that might not be there, and that alone was an amazing feeling.

After putting the sheets back where they belonged and getting the now empty laundry basket out of the middle of the hallway, Chris returned to the living room. "I think I need to move," he said, sitting back down and suddenly switching gears. While the idea of wrinkling sheets was incredibly entertaining, and something that should happen one day down the line, it was hard for Chris to ignore how claustrophobic his apartment sometimes felt. Just with one other person in the room, the space toed the line between cozy and cramped.