climbing the ladder
James has a nice house. Not as nice as Gareth would have thought—he’d imagined that all the houses in Los Angeles had 20 bedrooms and a view of the ocean; servants running the halls and staircases like Buckingham Palace. But James’ place is up on the hills, and there’s a pool out back, and the guest bedroom is clean and comfortable, if not as spacious as he’s imagined.
The sunshine alone is enough to put it leaps and bounds ahead of his flat back home. Gareth could get used to this.
“So. Any advice?”
They’re sitting out back, on the shaded side of the deck, and there’s a decent-sized rock fall trickling water into the pool. Lots of green and natural stone, more like a pond than a concrete construct. James must have hired a good landscape architect.
“About what?” James pops another beer open with a cold crack, and it sounds like summer. Gareth watches him drink it down. He likes the way James’ throat works as he swallows.
“Auditions, you berk.”
James grins at him. “You’ve come to the right guy. Don’t do anything but auditions these days.”
Translation: Maybe you’d want to take your career advice from someone who’s steadily working.
Gareth wonders if James’ house is paid for.
“Any shows you’re interested in?” James asks.
“I hear a Mr. Joss Whedon has something new.” Gareth gives him his best flirt and a wink.
James is unmoved. “Sorry, gorgeous. I’m saving that card for when I need a favor. Next?”
“Dexter?”
James considers this. “Could give Julie a call. Don’t know how much pull she has with the show runner, but it couldn’t hurt. Any others?”
“Mad Men.”
James does that thing with his tongue, the one that makes Gareth’s stomach feel as if he’s just plunged off a cliff. James sets the beer down and levers himself up out of the chair. Prowls into the house like a secret agent on a mission.
Gareth hears him talking in low murmurs. It makes him sweat, even in the shade.
Five minutes later James comes back with a stash of pot and a fistful of papers. He sits down and starts rolling. His hands are small but his fingers are nimble. His guitar playing has improved even in the short time since Gareth’s known him.
“When’s your girlfriend coming back, again?” James asks.
“She’s in Las Vegas with a friend ’til Friday.” Half of her things are still piled up in the guest room, the one she and Gareth were sharing until yesterday. She’d been over the moon about staying at James’ place. “I think she was disappointed we didn’t have a threesome the first night we were here.”
James smirks. “Saving the party for the weekend,” he says, and takes a deep drag.
Gareth wonders where James’ children are, whether if he sent them off to stay with relatives while he’s in town. Wonders where James stashes the dope when the kids are home.
James passes the joint over, and Gareth closes his eyes as the smoke hits the back of his throat. After the fourth puff he starts to feel that familiar slow-motion-crawl, and by the time they’ve finished the joint he doesn’t know whether 10 minutes or two hours have gone by.
So when he sees Vincent Kartheiser walk out onto the deck, Gareth’s first thought is that he’s likely hallucinating.
“You started without me. Shit-head.” Kartheiser is looking down at James, who’s looking back up at him with a smile like sin.
“I’m old,” James says. “Takes longer to get my motor running.”
Kartheiser huffs. “You’re telling me.” He looks like he’s waiting for James to make introductions, but James is toasted and not paying attention. “Hey. I’m Vinnie.” He nods in Gareth’s direction.
“Gareth.” The name squeezes itself out like molasses. Gareth squints at the Vinnie apparition. He looks different from the bloke he’s seen on the telly.
“You have a beard,” he slowly realizes out loud.
James barks out a laugh.
“Only in the off-season.” Vinnie’s smile is too bright, even for California. He has the reddest lips Gareth’s ever seen.
Vinnie sits on the edge of Marsters’ lounge chair, one butt-cheek pressed up against the outside of James’ thigh. He reaches over to the table, grabs the supplies and rolls himself a joint.
“I’ve seen your show.” He’s talking to Gareth while he rolls. “You’re good. James says you’re auditioning around town?”
Gareth nods. He knows he should be chatting up a storm, asking Vinnie about his show—the cast, the crew, upcoming guest spots—but the dope has put him through the looking glass, everything backwards and too bright.
“He wants to be on your show,” James supplies helpfully.
“Get in line,” Vinnie says. “We’re this year’s darlings.” There’s obvious pride in his voice. James makes a snort that sounds vaguely like contempt. Or jealousy. Probably both.
“The writing’s brilliant,” Gareth says.
“That’s why they love us.” Vinnie lights the joint and takes a puff. Gareth can’t stop looking at his lips.
“Still,” Vinnie continues, eying Gareth up and down. “You’re young and pretty. And you look great in a suit. Matt might give you a part if you offer to blow him.”
James snorts. “That’s how Vinnie got his job.”
“Fuck off,” Vinnie says, and takes another puff. Gareth notices that James’ hand is resting on Vinnie’s thigh. If he were sober he might be jealous. As it is, he can’t tear his eyes away.
“James, why haven’t you gone out for Mad Men?” Gareth asks.
“Matt Weiner’s too old for me to blow.”
Vinnie rolls his eyes. “Jimmy’s a dirty old man. He won’t fuck anyone over thirty.”
“Which you’re gonna be this year, little boy.” James’ hand is moving in a slow circle on Vinnie’s leg.
The point of Vinnie’s tongue comes out to touch his top lip, the exact same gesture that Gareth has seen James make at a dozen fan conventions. “I’ll just have to start fucking your friends, then,” Vinnie murmurs.
James’ hand slides up Vinnie’s arm to wrap around the back of his neck. “Do me first,” he says, and pulls Vinnie down for a kiss.
Gareth’s mouth is dry, and he has to take another shaking swig of beer as he watches the floor show. Vinnie is climbing up into James’ lap, hands wrapped around James’ face, squirming and wriggling as they kiss. And Gareth has watched James kiss Barrowman, but that was acting. Well, mostly. This is needy and breathy and open mouths and bloody nuzzling, and James’ hands are sliding up under Vinnie’s shirt and peeling it off, acres of soft, pink-white skin undulating beneath James’ fingers.
Vinnie stops and breathes against James’ cheek, eyes closed, then turns to look at Gareth. It’s a slow-motion turn, a movie playing inside Gareth’s brain, special effects courtesy of beer and dope and California sunshine. Vinnie smiles that Colgate smile again, gets up and stalks towards him. Wraps his hands around Gareth’s arms and pulls him out of the chair, and time crawls to a halt while Vinnie undresses him, shirt and jeans and shoes, running his hands over every inch of skin while James sits there watching.
His eyes are pinned on Gareth’s, and they’re bluer than Gareth’s ever seen them, the color so vivid it’s nearly dancing off his face. Gareth sucks in a breath and his skin feels hot and tight and tingling everywhere Vinnie touches.
Then he feels a shove and he topples over sideways, and the next thing he knows Vinnie’s tossed him into the pool.
His head goes underwater and he comes up sputtering, and James is laughing like a fucking lunatic.
Vinnie has a concerned look on his face. “You okay, man?”
Gareth nods in between coughs.
“He’ll be okay in a minute.” James is peeling out of his clothes as he lifts himself up out of the chair. “Just smoked too much of the good shit. The water’ll clear his head.”
James is doing that panther thing he does, the one he perfected on Buffy that makes every move look like sex. Then he’s lowering himself into the pool and grabbing Gareth by one shoulder and dragging him into the shallow end. When they’ve found their footing, James turns him around and kisses him. And sparks explode behind Gareth’s eyelids.
He’s been wanting to kiss James since he walked through the front door of his house, since the last time they were on stage at a con together, since they first met on set more than a year ago. Since he first saw James bloody throw himself into that scene, kissing Barrowman with hard, groping hands. James is kissing him like that now, breathing hard, one fist in Gareth’s hair, one arm wrapped around Gareth’s waist, pulling their hips together till their cocks are lined up and sliding tight together. James is shorter than Gareth and his lips are soft, but his mouth is greedy and his hands are strong and callused, the fingers working their way down to wrap around Gareth’s dick, and they pull a noise from him that he doesn’t even recognize.
He can feel Vinnie sliding up behind him now, hands on his arse, and another sound escapes his lips, high-pitched and needy, and he blames the booze and the dope for turning him into a fucking girl.
James is moaning into Gareth’s mouth, a sub-sonic growl that goes straight to his dick. He pulls away long enough to gruff at Vinnie, “You put a condom on before you got in?”
Gareth can hear the eyeroll in Vinnie’s answer. “Course I did, I’m not a moron.” Gareth has half a second to wonder about the mechanics of keeping a condom in place when one's dick is submerged in water. Then Vinnie is stretching him open and all thought rushes out of his brain.
The water is warm and slick and Vinnie’s fingers slide into him smooth and easy. Slim fingers, not huge like John’s, which felt like they were splitting him in half the first time they fucked. But Gareth isn’t the blushing virgin anymore, wasn’t blushing even back then; and when Vinnie thrusts his dick inside him, Gareth puts his hands on James’ shoulders and pushes back as much as he can.
It’s awkward; the buoyancy of the water is making them bob up and down, but it’s also making Gareth’s cock slide against James’ with every thrust, so he doesn’t mind. “Fuck,” James murmurs against his mouth, his voice dropping to that low register that makes Gareth’s belly burn, and he wonders how James can manage to make everything sound like sex.
James’ fingers wrap tight around Gareth’s dick, and Vinnie is thrusting into him hard now, and James pulls back and says to Gareth, “Look at me. Wanna see your face.”
He looks, and James’ eyes are burning bright and blue, and Gareth comes with an open-mouthed yell, vaguely aware of Vinnie’s shout behind him.
Gareth lets his forehead drop onto James’ shoulder. Feels Vinnie pull out, then put his hands on Gareth’s arm. He turns him around and steers him out of the pool. Gareth's limbs feel like a wet rag.
James follows them out, settles himself back in the lounge chair, wet and glistening in the sun, the king of his castle. His cock is still hard.
“You’re not finished yet,” he tells Gareth.
Gareth raises an eyebrow at him. “Thought I was supposed to blow Weiner for the part.”
James bats his eyelashes obscenely. “It’s like being a groupie. You have to sleep with all the roadies first, before you get to the rock star.”
“You’d know, being such a rock star yourself.”
“Shut up and suck me off,” James growls.
Gareth laughs. “And such a romantic.” But he settles himself in the chair and bends to take James’ dick in his mouth. His skin tastes like chlorine and his fingers are twisting too tight in Gareth’s hair. Gareth curls his fingers around James’ wrists and pins them down against the chair cushion, not letting him move. James seems to like that, because he curses and bucks, and within minutes he’s coming loud and long, and Gareth finds himself getting hard again.
There are some advantages to being under thirty.
Gareth pulls off, and James lets his head drop against the back of the chair. Vinnie is lounging in the chair next to them, smoking and grinning.
“Time for the next rung,” he says. “Gotta blow me before you get to my boss.”
Gareth moves over to Vinnie and straddles his lap. “Only if you do me after,” he says. He runs his thumb across Vinnie’s bottom lip, so lucious he wants to bite it. “I always wondered what it’d be like to get a blow from a fellow with a beard.”
“It’s fuckin’ boss,” James says, eyes still closed.
Gareth shoots a questioning look at Vinnie, who shrugs. “Deal.”
Gareth wraps his hand around Vinnie’s dick and smiles. He fucking loves California.