Date: Sat, 04 Aug 2007 04:57:15 +0000 From: Chris Salter Subject: How I Met Jake: Chapter 2 Disclaimer: I am by no means affialiated with Jake Gyllenhaal, nor do I wish to imply the sexual orientation or the private life of Jake. This work is fiction and is not to be taken seriously. This applies with perpetuity throughout the universe. If you are under the legal age, or it is illegal to view a text involving sexual attraction of two males, then please leave and do not read any further. Chapter Two: The trip from Rodeo Drive to the crime lab downtown usually takes about 45 minutes on a Saturday evening so the time was spent with Jake and Chris exchanging small talk. "I happened to notice your accent, are you from Australia?" Jake enquired. Chris smiled, "Yeah, born and bred in Western Australia. Been over here for about 3 years now." "Western Australia huh. Same place as Heath. That's pretty cool." "Heath?" Chris asked, having an idea of whom Jake was actually referring. Jake smirked, "Yeah, Heath Ledger, he's from Perth I think. We were in a movie together called Brokeback Mountain." Chris thought for a moment, remembering being dragged to see it with Danny some time ago, "Oh yeah, I remember now, my ex Danny made me watch it, I wasn't expecting it to be good, but I found it pretty sad." "Yeah it was a pretty sad storyline," Jake replied solemnly. He then took time to look around the SUV, taking note of the radio stacks and various other professional paraphernalia located within the cabin. Chris managed to merge his way successfully onto the freeway and accelerated up to cruising speed, "I bet this wasn't your idea of a good weekend," Chris commented whilst glancing over at the handsome man sitting in the passenger seat. For some reason the ill- fitting jacket made Jake look even better looking than usual. Jake glanced over and smiled, "Definitely not, I don't know how people like you can stay sane seeing stuff like that everyday." He then returned his attention to the road ahead, watching the white lines rapidly approach and then disappear from sight. "I suppose it was a bit of a shock at first, but to be honest, it's just a job. Some things still creep me out though, I cannot stomach the notion of tortured animals or children, but luckily I haven't dealt with many of those things. One thing that does bug me though is being constantly watched by onlookers and lookie-lous." Chris then indicated and steered the SUV towards the off ramp for the freeway. "I imagine most jobs have similar things, even yours, I'm sure you must get fed up with being under constant scrutiny of the media, but I guess landing all the beautiful women would make up for that." Chris joked. "Yeah, I suppose, it's all a bit tiresome sometimes." Jake replied softly. Once off the freeway Chris made his way down the street until they reached a large building with a guarded gate leading to a basement parking lot. Chris turned the car into the driveway and lowered the window to flash his identification card at the guard. Once clear he accelerated down the driveway and into the bowels of the large building, he pulled up at the closest parking spot to the door and jumped out. "If you want to follow me I will take you around to one of the interview rooms, they'll sort you out." Jake followed diligently behind Chris until he realized, it was getting later and later and he had no idea where he actually was, or how to get back to his car. "When it's over who do I see about getting a taxi back to my car?" Chris swiped his card and held the unlocked door open for Jake to pass through, he turned to Jake and replied, "well, your car was near Rodeo I imagine, so I can probably give you a lift there, I live on Hawthorne so it wouldn't be out of my way. Plus it would be cheaper and easier than calling a taxi from here." "Sounds good to me!" Jake replied, surprisingly enthusiastically. He continued to follow Chris into the depths of the large, cold, sterile building. Turning corner after corner in the labyrinth the duo finally came across a small waiting area which was surprisingly comfortable looking, compared to the rest of the building. "If you just want to take a seat here, I will find the person who will be conducting the interview." Chris said just before he disappeared back into the maze. Five minutes later he returned and informed Jake the lady would be a couple of minutes, and that the interview would take roughly around an hour or so, making it about 9:30 by the time they would be done. Chris then left Jake in the waiting room and headed back to the garage to retrieve the evidence bags to take to Trace Analysis. He reached the car, picked up the bags and then returned into the cold, white maze. Chris then turned another direction from the one he had taken previously with Jake. Once he reached the main evidence room he logged into the computer database, logged in the evidence bag barcode numbers and then placed them within the box. Out of politeness for Jake he decided to mark the bags to be processed urgently for immediate return to the owners. As Chris had already managed to collect hairs with follicles off with the tape, he thought it would be better to use that as evidence, with Jakes blue shirt and jeans being regarded as secondary evidence. Finished with this evidence, and his work for the week, Chris then decided to head up to his office to check his work email as well as filling out some paperwork required for taking some extended time off to finalize the Danny situation. As he opened the door to his office he noticed several messages on his voicemail service, as well as several Memos from his best friend Sarah, obviously concerned with the shooting which occurred near Chris' apartment, he then checked the messages and decided to give Sarah a call in the morning, as it was getting quite late. He also noticed that one of the messages was from Danny, informing Chris that he was back at their apartment, collecting the rest of his things before driving back to New York. He took notice that Danny's message informed that he would be leaving the apartment at 8:30pm. Obviously too late for Chris to get home and say goodbye as he promised to give Jake a ride home. Chris pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and decided to text Danny with a message that he will call him in the morning. Chris then logged out of the work computer and closed the door to his office so he could change back into his normal clothing. That was one more thing Chris didn't like about field work, the constant need to change clothing, coupled with the badly fitting jackets required to cover the body from foreign materials. He quickly changed back into his dark blue jeans, black shoes and black polo shirt before heading over to the mirror to rectify his 'hat hair' issues. Once completed he noticed that it was nearly 9:45 and Jake's interview should have been over 15 minutes prior. He then quickly picked up his car keys, along with the SUV's keys, and closed his office door. Chris then briskly made his way back down to the waiting area to the interview room to find Jake with his feet on the coffee table in a manner imitating an airline passenger stuck in on a 10 hour layover at an airport. "Sorry I took so long, I had to fill out some paperwork in my office." Chris apologized, "Have you been waiting long?" Jake looked up from staring at his ill-fitting shoes to see Chris now dressed in civilian clothes, he did look quite good, although Jake had no intention in letting this be known to anyone but himself at the time. "I've been out here for about fifteen minutes, the detective got straight to the point, so it didn't take as long as we thought." Jake replied as he begun to stand up. Chris smiled and motioned towards the connecting hallway, "Great, my car is down here, so if you wanna follow me." "Sure, just lead the way." The duo then briskly walked down a series of corridors leading to another area of the same parking lot they had entered a little over an hour previously. Chris then took charge by leading Jake further into the bowels of the parking lot until they finally arrived at a black Volkswagen SUV. After unlocking the doors Chris quickly rushed over to the passenger side and picked up a jacket and a file from the seat. "Sorry about that, I wasn't expecting passengers." Jake laughed as he watched Chris comically throw the file and jacket over the back seat and into the cargo area, "And here I was thinking you were opening the door for me like a gentleman...." "Oh, well, If you insist," Chris replied in a coy manner as he then proceeded to hold the door open for Jake. As Jake got into the seat Chris quickly closed the door and made his way around to the drivers side, opening the door and buckling his seatbelt. He then made a point to turn on the headlights, followed by pressing down on the brake pedal. He then pressed the start button and waited for the engine to start. Chris then put the SUV into reverse and pulled out into the parking lot. After switching back to drive he then accelerated gently to navigate back to street level. "Where did you say your car was?" Jake looked around Chris' Volkswagen while replying, "Oh it's on a street near Rodeo, I can probably direct you more when we get closer," He then looked down at the clothes he was still wearing, "any idea of when I get my clothing back? Oh and what do I do about the ones I'm wearing now?" As they were approaching a red light, Chris came to a gentle stop before leaning over and opening the centre console, from there he quickly picked up a small leather case holding a pile of contact cards. He quickly fished one out before handing it over to Jake, "It will probably take a week or two, but here is my work and cell phone number, if you give me a call we can probably organize to exchange clothing." "Oh, thanks!" Jake replied enthusiastically as he took the card and began fondling it and tapping it against his lower lip. He then began to tap it against his cheek in time to the beat of the music blaring from Chris' iPod. He found himself perplexed by the smooth beat and finally surrendered into enquiring what the music was. Chris took his eyes off the road for a second to glance over at the beaming blue eyes staring at him once again, "Oh, they're this Polish band, they're called Blue Caf‚. Been around for quite a while," he then indicated to overtake the slow moving truck occupying the right hand lane, "I only just found their album on iTunes though. I'm a real sucker for that stuff and Jazz.." "It's not too bad actually," Jake replied, he then continued to survey Chris' car, it was kept fairly neat and tidy, with the exception of the file and jacket which were fired into the cargo compartment earlier in Chris' comical cleaning spree. "So do you live alone? If you don't mind me asking?" Chris gave Jake a weak smile, "Yeah, I mean, Danny and I did live together, but I got a message from him just before I came down to get you, that he picked up some of the last things remaining in the apartment, so now it's just me and my cat, I've become the crazy old cat lady." The latter comment made Jake snort for a moment before taking note of what Chris said in entirety, "I'm so sorry," "You are?" Chris asked, perplexed. "Well yeah," Jake shrugged. "It's never good when a couple breaks up. You seem to be masking it pretty well. When Kirsten and I broke up I was a mess for a while." "It does suck, but I'm taking it one day at a time." Continuing to play with the business card on his, Jake continued, "Yeah, just one day at a time.....For me there really wasn't anyone after Kirsten, and that ended about a year ago. But my idea is to always be open to change." "Yeah I suppose...." Chris muttered in a barely audible tone. Being late at night there was little traffic on the freeway, so the journey back to Hollywood took significantly less time. Once off the freeway Chris directed the car towards Rodeo and prepared himself for directions to the location of his car, Jake on the other hand was more interested in making small talk, thus overshooting the street twice. "So what are you doing on the weekend?" Jake asked innocently. Chris, finally finding the correct street, then turned down and headed towards Jakes Lexus. "Well I actually have a week off, I got the week off to help Danny move, but he ended up having to go earlier. So now I have a week with absolutely nothing to do, and I'm really looking forward to it." At this point Jake finally pointed towards his car looking lonely on the side of the street. "I can see your point," Jake replied as he unbuckled his seatbelt and reached for the door handle. "I hope this doesn't come across as being too forward, but I was wondering if you'd want to hang out sometime." Jake asked shyly. "It would cool to get to know you, you know?" Chris smiled and thought to himself for a moment, this was Jake Gyllenhaal, an A-list celebrity who wants to get to know you, obviously in a plutonic manner. You could accept the offer and get to know this guy, you can never have enough good friends, but on the other hand, if you kept it purely professional you might come across as rude. "Oh yeah sure, why not." Chris again went to reach for his card holder to give Jake his number, until he saw Jake waving the card in his hand. "I usually go down to Santa Monica Beach on Sunday mornings, so if you maybe want to bump into me there around 10:30?" "Sounds good to me, How about I give you a call in the morning?" "Sure, just not too early, or you may find yourself lying in our lab..." Chris joked. Jake smirked and let out a coy laugh, "Okay, I promise. I'll speak to you later Chris, thankyou for your help and compassion." "It's really no trouble. Goodnight, drive safe!" Chris replied as Jake closed the passenger car door and waved. Chris remained parked behind Jake's car until he was sure Jake had unlocked the door and was about to get in. Once that was certain Chris then pulled out and headed back down the street and towards his apartment. 10 or so minutes later Chris finally arrived on his street. He pulled into the driveway of the building and fished around in the centre console for the garage door remote. After finding it he drove in, parked his car and made his way up to his apartment. Once inside he was greeted by darkness. Feeling about on the wall for a few seconds he eventually found the light switches, once the lights were on he ventured further into the apartment and looked at the clock, it was now close to 11:30pm. It would be too late and involve too much effort for him to try and cook something for dinner, however he was hungry. After working close to 10 hours without so much as a lunch break had taken its toll on his body. "Screw this and a bag of russet potatoes.." Chris muttered to his cat Fergus. He closed the door of the refrigerator and pulled the all night Chinese Restaurant menu off the door. As he or Danny would sometimes work late, the place was already on the speed dial of his phone. As much as he disliked it, he admired its speed and convenience. Finally settling on some strange meal involving Sweet and Sour Chicken, Steamed Rice and Various vegetables, he placed the order, picked up a can of Coca Cola and made his way over to the lounge area. He was followed closely by Fergus, who promptly jumped onto his lap after Chris had managed to grab the television remote. Chris then began channel surfing during the 15 minute wait for the food to arrive. He finally settled on a rerun of one of his favorite shows, Green Acres. When the doorbell run, Chris lifted Fergus off his lap and made his way to the door. After paying for the meal and dismissing the delivery boy he closed the door and made his way back into the lounge area. He placed the boxes on the glass coffee table and kicked off his shoes. It was then Chris began to realize how incredibly hot it was inside. After turning the air-conditioning on, he picked up the boxes and downed the meal swiftly. By the time Chris was able to get to the bedroom it was getting close to 1am. Wanting to get the smell of crime scenes and the lab off his body he quickly showered before heading back into bed. It was then he noticed the box sitting on the small chest at the end of the bed. On top of the box lay several photos of both him and Danny at different locations. Chris gently picked up the box and brought it up to the pillow end of the bed. He peeled the sheets back and slid beneath. As a means of reminiscing and torturing himself Chris spent some time going through the photos, gently stroking the printed images of Danny. One photo peaked Chris' interest. A photo of himself and Danny at his parents house back in Australia, sitting in the backyard amongst the green foliage. After a while of staring at the photo Chris began to drift off to sleep thinking about what could have gone so wrong. - Chapter Three will come around sometime...soon....I promise..- Well, there you go, the second installment of my little story. I hope you enjoyed it. I would like to thank the Academy, the homeless guy standing motionless in the street today as well as the people who sent me such wonderful comments! I really appreciate it! As with the previous installment, comments are welcome, abuse is not. I can be contacted on chezmoi_ou_cheztoi@msn.com, but please guys, put the title of the story in the subject line. I use this account for Uni, so it can get a little odd trying to work out who is a lecturer or a reader. Thanks! Chris.