Six Steps To Being A Better Stand-Up 1/6
Jan. 15th, 2008 03:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
randomlingOkay, so at long last I'm reposting my SeSa here. This is mostly to have it here, as at some point I am planning to write sequels - I imagine that most of you have read (or at least seen) this story already!
So first of all: thank yous and props go both to the lovely people that ran Make the Yuletide Gay and made the challenge a reality, and to the people who helped on ideas, beta reading, Brit-picking and title help:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ephemera_pop, pensnest, joshyleo, solariana, phaballa and etsu_88.
Summary: It's pretty hard to date a guy who thinks you're straight. Part 1 of 6.
Warnings: Boybands, RPF. There is sex in later installments.
Fordizmo.
Six Steps To Being A Better Stand-Up
Step One: I Never
November 23rd
It was bizarre, Justin thought, tipping his head back against Chris's couch. He'd been in Florida three weeks – three weeks tomorrow – and he already had friends. Friends from work, even. When he'd had the interview at Travelstar, late the week before last, he hadn't imagined the guys would be quite so great. They'd taken care of him right from the first day: Joey with his random Tupperwares full of lasagne or stew, Lance making sure he could find the grocery store and laundry place, Chris leaning over the back of his chair at the end of a shift and insisting he come out for a beer. And then there was JC, of course, who'd gotten talking to Justin in the parking lot at Disney World, the day they didn't hire him, and told him about the Travelstar vacancy in the first place. Without him, Justin would probably be back in Tennessee right now, working in the hardware store and getting drunk with Trace on weekends.
Lance and JC weren't there that night, but Alecia from work was, and Joey's girlfriend, Kelly. Justin was sitting on the floor of Chris's basement apartment, taking a drag off one of Chris's very strong joints, feeling warm and fuzzy and really stoned. He blew a lungful of smoke at the ceiling before passing the joint back to Chris. Maybe the smoke would float up through the cracks in the ceiling and get the people in the first-floor apartment stoned. That would be pretty funny.
“Hey! Move your head, you pervert!” He sat up and guiltily looked around to see Alecia, stretched out on the couch above him, making a move to push his head away from where it had been resting against her thigh. “You need privileges for that, boy,” she said, laughing.
He grinned. “Sorry.” He shifted a little so that he could put his elbows on the coffee table and rest his head on his forearms. That was a great position from which to watch Chris, who was framed against the window, leaning back in his battered easy chair and sucking hard on the joint. He looked just as relaxed as Justin felt. Also, really, really good. “Hey,” he said, in roughly Chris’s direction - about all he could manage in his current state. “You were great tonight. Really great.”
That earned him a scowl from Chris and a playful kick in the back from Alecia. “Kiss-ass freak,” she said. “He sucks and you know it!”
Chris waved the joint in Joey’s direction. “S’true.” He gestured with the joint a little more forcibly. “Hey! Joe! You awake?”
“Uhh?” Joey turned away from Kelly’s shoulder, eyes half-closed. “Oh. Yeah, man.” He made a couple of swipes in the air around the joint before finally making contact with it.
Chris laughed. “Dude. Don’t set the building on fire, all right?”
“You don’t suck,” said Justin, forcing himself to sit up straight. “He doesn’t suck. Right, Joey?”
“Totally sucks,” said Joey around the joint.
“Sorry, Justin,” said Kelly. “It’s a sad fact of life. Chris’s comedy sucks ass.”
“I’ll drink to that.” And, grabbing his half-empty beer from the coffee, table, Chris did so.
Justin sunk back down onto his folded arms. “Well, I had a good time.”
“We all had a good time,” Alecia said. “Nobody said it wasn’t fun seeing Chris die on stage.” Justin glanced up; Chris was making a face at her.
Chris leaned forward and knocked Justin gently on the head with the bottom of his beer bottle. Justin made an attempt to stir himself, fighting against his body's desire to stay right where it was. “Let’s change the subject,” he said. When Justin finally managed to sit up, Chris shoved the beer bottle into his hand. Justin took the hint and finished it off, tipping his head back to get at the last drops, watching Chris's eyes. They were dark, but they were really intense somehow, could cut through you like a laser, make you feel like he could see what you were thinking.
Or maybe he was just really drunk. Justin put down the bottle.
“To what?” Alecia asked.
“What, I’m supposed to think of everything?” Chris rolled his eyes.
“Fine,” said Kelly. “Kids’ TV.”
“They,” said Chris, gesturing at Justin and Alecia, “still watch kids’ TV when they get home from school. I’m not putting up with Pokemon nostalgia in my own damn apartment at two in the morning.”
“Hey!” said Justin, laughing. From behind Justin, Alecia snarled.
“Hot movie stars,” Joey suggested.
Alecia waved a hand. “Angelina Jolie. There, end of conversation. Weirdest place you’ve had sex.”
“Sordid!” Chris shouted. Justin collapsed forward onto the coffee table, giggling and flushed.
“Well, I’m out,” said Joey.
“We could play a game,” said Justin. He looked back up at Chris, and Chris turned his head to look at Justin; Justin looked away. He really didn't need Chris to see what he was thinking right now. “We used to play it in school, but it’s not too lame. Everybody’s gonna need a fresh drink, though.”
***
Joey stirred himself to pass everyone a beer. When they’d gotten through all the possible distractions - opening the beers; finding more chips; Chris rolling another joint - Justin made Alecia shift enough of herself that he could fit on the couch. She just curled up a little, poking her toes against Justin’s thigh and looking like she was about to go to sleep. When everyone was ready, Justin took a breath and started to explain the rules.
“It’s called I Never,” he began. Alecia immediately started to laugh; he could feel her shaking against him and turned to look at her. “What?”
“Nothing. Man, I love that game.” She had the joint now, and waved it at him. Justin leaned over and grabbed for it. She caught him by the wrist, then gave him the joint and let go. “I can explain!”
“Nah,” he said. “I can do it better.” He pulled on the joint, handed it on to Chris, and leaned forward a bit. “It goes like this: somebody says, I never… I don’t know, wore red socks… and if you have, you take a drink. All right?” He got nods from Joey and Kelly, as if they were paying attention, and Chris made an encouraging mm noise. “And it goes round the table like that.”
“Okay,” said Chris. “We could give it a try.” He paused. “So it’s gotta be something you’ve never done? Like, I never kissed Hulk Hogan?”
Justin laughed. “Ew. No. It can be something you’ve done, just, if you’ve done it, you gotta drink, just like everyone.”
“I never kissed Lance Bass,” said Joey. He, Chris and Alecia all drank, then dissolved into laughter.
“Seriously?” said Justin. “You’ve all kissed Lance? He’s, like, the manager, yo.”
“He’s a man-ho, is what he is,” said Chris.
“I prefer to think he just has great taste,” said Alecia in as haughty a voice as she could manage.
“Okay,” said Justin. “Chris next.”
Chris was quiet for a minute. “Wow. Thinking of stuff is the hard part, apparently.”
“Anything you want,” said Justin.
“Okay, uh… I never had sex in a car. I know, that’s lame.” Chris drank almost before he’d finished talking; Justin was the only one to leave his beer untouched on the table. “Seriously, J? Okay, man, your turn.” He took a drag on the joint and handed it over to Joey.
Justin crossed his legs and thought, determined to think of something grown-up and not lame. “Okay. I never had sex with anybody at work.”
“Somebody define sex?” said Chris.
Justin glanced at Alecia, who had her bottle at her lips. “At least one orgasm,” she said. Justin nodded.
“Okay, fine,” said Chris, and drank.
“Who?” said Justin.
Joey grinned. “Wouldn’t it be quicker to ask who he hasn’t done?”
“Fuck you,” said Chris amicably, and didn't go on. Justin didn't press him.
“Justin?” Kelly said. “At Travelstar, or at my work?”
“Travelstar,” said Justin.
Kelly said, “Duh,” shoved Joey with her shoulder, and drank.
Joey picked up his beer and hesitated. “Does it count if it was at a Christmas party?”
“Yeah,” said Justin.
“Fine. Does it count if I don’t remember?”
“Uh… yeah.”
“Fine,” Joey said again, and drank.
Justin laughed; so did everybody else. Even Kelly joined in, shaking her head and snatching the joint from Joey. “You remember fine.”
She was still taking her drag as Alecia asked her question. “Um… I never jacked off thinking about somebody at work.”
It took such an effort of will for Justin not to look at Chris while he took his swig that he didn’t even notice who else was drinking.
***
Chris lowered the beer bottle and raised his eyebrows at Justin. “Oh, now we’re getting to the dirty secrets. Okay, man. Spill it.”
“Spill what?” said Justin. He was taking another sip of beer, trying to look all nonchalant, but he looked as guilty as if he’d been caught having sex by his mom. Chris grinned enormously.
“Who? Seriously.” Chris looked Justin up and down, considering. “Christina?”
Justin spluttered and almost spat out his mouthful of beer. “No!”
“Then who?” Justin eyed him thoughtfully, and got that look on his face. There was no other way to describe it: it was just “that look”, the one he sometimes got when he was trying to work out how best to deal with a difficult customer. “C’mon.”
Justin looked away, then back at Chris. “Okay, fine. Janet.”
Chris spluttered. “Jackson?! Dude!” He collapsed into laughter for a good minute or so; when he recovered, all he could say was, “Dude. Dude. Way to go for the older woman!”
Justin blushed bright red and looked into his beer as the rest of them laughed, and totally didn’t ask Chris who he’d been jacking off over. Chris was glad; after a sound reminder that Justin was straight, not to mention eighteen years old, he wasn’t sure that the best answer to give him would be, You.
***
The party broke up a little after three. Chris was just about awake enough to call a taxi for Joey and Kelly, and check and double-check that Alecia was okay to walk the twelve blocks back to her place. “In a straight line,” he reminded her, and she called him “Dad” and scowled at him so he figured she would get home fine.
Justin, all of eighteen, could apparently hold his liquor better than any of them - either that or he’d been filling up empty beer bottles with water. Either way, he was the most lucid of all of them by the end of the night. He was still hovering at Chris’s door long after Joey and Kelly had collapsed into their cab and Alecia had staggered up the stairs to street level. “Can’t I stay over?”
“You’ll be fine,” said Chris, rubbing his face; what he meant to say was he wasn’t quite drunk enough to think that sharing his apartment with a drunk Justin was a good idea. Bad things would happen. “Seriously, J. Go home to your momma.”
“My momma lives in Tennessee,” Justin pointed out.
“Right. Better get walkin', then.”
Justin laughed. “Yeah.” Then, without any kind of warning, he grabbed Chris by the shoulders and pulled him against his chest and, incidentally, totally off-balance. Chris had to grab onto Justin to keep from hitting the ground; Justin hugged him hard. “You were awesome tonight, man. I mean it.” Then he pulled away, and with a quiet, “G‘night,” headed up the stairs and outside, shutting the outer door behind him.
Chris closed his apartment door. “Okay,” he said to himself, “that was weird.”
Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6
So first of all: thank yous and props go both to the lovely people that ran Make the Yuletide Gay and made the challenge a reality, and to the people who helped on ideas, beta reading, Brit-picking and title help:
ephemera_pop, pensnest, joshyleo, solariana, phaballa and etsu_88.Summary: It's pretty hard to date a guy who thinks you're straight. Part 1 of 6.
Warnings: Boybands, RPF. There is sex in later installments.
For
dizmo.Six Steps To Being A Better Stand-Up
Step One: I Never
November 23rd
It was bizarre, Justin thought, tipping his head back against Chris's couch. He'd been in Florida three weeks – three weeks tomorrow – and he already had friends. Friends from work, even. When he'd had the interview at Travelstar, late the week before last, he hadn't imagined the guys would be quite so great. They'd taken care of him right from the first day: Joey with his random Tupperwares full of lasagne or stew, Lance making sure he could find the grocery store and laundry place, Chris leaning over the back of his chair at the end of a shift and insisting he come out for a beer. And then there was JC, of course, who'd gotten talking to Justin in the parking lot at Disney World, the day they didn't hire him, and told him about the Travelstar vacancy in the first place. Without him, Justin would probably be back in Tennessee right now, working in the hardware store and getting drunk with Trace on weekends.
Lance and JC weren't there that night, but Alecia from work was, and Joey's girlfriend, Kelly. Justin was sitting on the floor of Chris's basement apartment, taking a drag off one of Chris's very strong joints, feeling warm and fuzzy and really stoned. He blew a lungful of smoke at the ceiling before passing the joint back to Chris. Maybe the smoke would float up through the cracks in the ceiling and get the people in the first-floor apartment stoned. That would be pretty funny.
“Hey! Move your head, you pervert!” He sat up and guiltily looked around to see Alecia, stretched out on the couch above him, making a move to push his head away from where it had been resting against her thigh. “You need privileges for that, boy,” she said, laughing.
He grinned. “Sorry.” He shifted a little so that he could put his elbows on the coffee table and rest his head on his forearms. That was a great position from which to watch Chris, who was framed against the window, leaning back in his battered easy chair and sucking hard on the joint. He looked just as relaxed as Justin felt. Also, really, really good. “Hey,” he said, in roughly Chris’s direction - about all he could manage in his current state. “You were great tonight. Really great.”
That earned him a scowl from Chris and a playful kick in the back from Alecia. “Kiss-ass freak,” she said. “He sucks and you know it!”
Chris waved the joint in Joey’s direction. “S’true.” He gestured with the joint a little more forcibly. “Hey! Joe! You awake?”
“Uhh?” Joey turned away from Kelly’s shoulder, eyes half-closed. “Oh. Yeah, man.” He made a couple of swipes in the air around the joint before finally making contact with it.
Chris laughed. “Dude. Don’t set the building on fire, all right?”
“You don’t suck,” said Justin, forcing himself to sit up straight. “He doesn’t suck. Right, Joey?”
“Totally sucks,” said Joey around the joint.
“Sorry, Justin,” said Kelly. “It’s a sad fact of life. Chris’s comedy sucks ass.”
“I’ll drink to that.” And, grabbing his half-empty beer from the coffee, table, Chris did so.
Justin sunk back down onto his folded arms. “Well, I had a good time.”
“We all had a good time,” Alecia said. “Nobody said it wasn’t fun seeing Chris die on stage.” Justin glanced up; Chris was making a face at her.
Chris leaned forward and knocked Justin gently on the head with the bottom of his beer bottle. Justin made an attempt to stir himself, fighting against his body's desire to stay right where it was. “Let’s change the subject,” he said. When Justin finally managed to sit up, Chris shoved the beer bottle into his hand. Justin took the hint and finished it off, tipping his head back to get at the last drops, watching Chris's eyes. They were dark, but they were really intense somehow, could cut through you like a laser, make you feel like he could see what you were thinking.
Or maybe he was just really drunk. Justin put down the bottle.
“To what?” Alecia asked.
“What, I’m supposed to think of everything?” Chris rolled his eyes.
“Fine,” said Kelly. “Kids’ TV.”
“They,” said Chris, gesturing at Justin and Alecia, “still watch kids’ TV when they get home from school. I’m not putting up with Pokemon nostalgia in my own damn apartment at two in the morning.”
“Hey!” said Justin, laughing. From behind Justin, Alecia snarled.
“Hot movie stars,” Joey suggested.
Alecia waved a hand. “Angelina Jolie. There, end of conversation. Weirdest place you’ve had sex.”
“Sordid!” Chris shouted. Justin collapsed forward onto the coffee table, giggling and flushed.
“Well, I’m out,” said Joey.
“We could play a game,” said Justin. He looked back up at Chris, and Chris turned his head to look at Justin; Justin looked away. He really didn't need Chris to see what he was thinking right now. “We used to play it in school, but it’s not too lame. Everybody’s gonna need a fresh drink, though.”
***
Joey stirred himself to pass everyone a beer. When they’d gotten through all the possible distractions - opening the beers; finding more chips; Chris rolling another joint - Justin made Alecia shift enough of herself that he could fit on the couch. She just curled up a little, poking her toes against Justin’s thigh and looking like she was about to go to sleep. When everyone was ready, Justin took a breath and started to explain the rules.
“It’s called I Never,” he began. Alecia immediately started to laugh; he could feel her shaking against him and turned to look at her. “What?”
“Nothing. Man, I love that game.” She had the joint now, and waved it at him. Justin leaned over and grabbed for it. She caught him by the wrist, then gave him the joint and let go. “I can explain!”
“Nah,” he said. “I can do it better.” He pulled on the joint, handed it on to Chris, and leaned forward a bit. “It goes like this: somebody says, I never… I don’t know, wore red socks… and if you have, you take a drink. All right?” He got nods from Joey and Kelly, as if they were paying attention, and Chris made an encouraging mm noise. “And it goes round the table like that.”
“Okay,” said Chris. “We could give it a try.” He paused. “So it’s gotta be something you’ve never done? Like, I never kissed Hulk Hogan?”
Justin laughed. “Ew. No. It can be something you’ve done, just, if you’ve done it, you gotta drink, just like everyone.”
“I never kissed Lance Bass,” said Joey. He, Chris and Alecia all drank, then dissolved into laughter.
“Seriously?” said Justin. “You’ve all kissed Lance? He’s, like, the manager, yo.”
“He’s a man-ho, is what he is,” said Chris.
“I prefer to think he just has great taste,” said Alecia in as haughty a voice as she could manage.
“Okay,” said Justin. “Chris next.”
Chris was quiet for a minute. “Wow. Thinking of stuff is the hard part, apparently.”
“Anything you want,” said Justin.
“Okay, uh… I never had sex in a car. I know, that’s lame.” Chris drank almost before he’d finished talking; Justin was the only one to leave his beer untouched on the table. “Seriously, J? Okay, man, your turn.” He took a drag on the joint and handed it over to Joey.
Justin crossed his legs and thought, determined to think of something grown-up and not lame. “Okay. I never had sex with anybody at work.”
“Somebody define sex?” said Chris.
Justin glanced at Alecia, who had her bottle at her lips. “At least one orgasm,” she said. Justin nodded.
“Okay, fine,” said Chris, and drank.
“Who?” said Justin.
Joey grinned. “Wouldn’t it be quicker to ask who he hasn’t done?”
“Fuck you,” said Chris amicably, and didn't go on. Justin didn't press him.
“Justin?” Kelly said. “At Travelstar, or at my work?”
“Travelstar,” said Justin.
Kelly said, “Duh,” shoved Joey with her shoulder, and drank.
Joey picked up his beer and hesitated. “Does it count if it was at a Christmas party?”
“Yeah,” said Justin.
“Fine. Does it count if I don’t remember?”
“Uh… yeah.”
“Fine,” Joey said again, and drank.
Justin laughed; so did everybody else. Even Kelly joined in, shaking her head and snatching the joint from Joey. “You remember fine.”
She was still taking her drag as Alecia asked her question. “Um… I never jacked off thinking about somebody at work.”
It took such an effort of will for Justin not to look at Chris while he took his swig that he didn’t even notice who else was drinking.
***
Chris lowered the beer bottle and raised his eyebrows at Justin. “Oh, now we’re getting to the dirty secrets. Okay, man. Spill it.”
“Spill what?” said Justin. He was taking another sip of beer, trying to look all nonchalant, but he looked as guilty as if he’d been caught having sex by his mom. Chris grinned enormously.
“Who? Seriously.” Chris looked Justin up and down, considering. “Christina?”
Justin spluttered and almost spat out his mouthful of beer. “No!”
“Then who?” Justin eyed him thoughtfully, and got that look on his face. There was no other way to describe it: it was just “that look”, the one he sometimes got when he was trying to work out how best to deal with a difficult customer. “C’mon.”
Justin looked away, then back at Chris. “Okay, fine. Janet.”
Chris spluttered. “Jackson?! Dude!” He collapsed into laughter for a good minute or so; when he recovered, all he could say was, “Dude. Dude. Way to go for the older woman!”
Justin blushed bright red and looked into his beer as the rest of them laughed, and totally didn’t ask Chris who he’d been jacking off over. Chris was glad; after a sound reminder that Justin was straight, not to mention eighteen years old, he wasn’t sure that the best answer to give him would be, You.
***
The party broke up a little after three. Chris was just about awake enough to call a taxi for Joey and Kelly, and check and double-check that Alecia was okay to walk the twelve blocks back to her place. “In a straight line,” he reminded her, and she called him “Dad” and scowled at him so he figured she would get home fine.
Justin, all of eighteen, could apparently hold his liquor better than any of them - either that or he’d been filling up empty beer bottles with water. Either way, he was the most lucid of all of them by the end of the night. He was still hovering at Chris’s door long after Joey and Kelly had collapsed into their cab and Alecia had staggered up the stairs to street level. “Can’t I stay over?”
“You’ll be fine,” said Chris, rubbing his face; what he meant to say was he wasn’t quite drunk enough to think that sharing his apartment with a drunk Justin was a good idea. Bad things would happen. “Seriously, J. Go home to your momma.”
“My momma lives in Tennessee,” Justin pointed out.
“Right. Better get walkin', then.”
Justin laughed. “Yeah.” Then, without any kind of warning, he grabbed Chris by the shoulders and pulled him against his chest and, incidentally, totally off-balance. Chris had to grab onto Justin to keep from hitting the ground; Justin hugged him hard. “You were awesome tonight, man. I mean it.” Then he pulled away, and with a quiet, “G‘night,” headed up the stairs and outside, shutting the outer door behind him.
Chris closed his apartment door. “Okay,” he said to himself, “that was weird.”
Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6
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Date: 2008-01-16 03:27 pm (UTC)