Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2007 11:04:08 +0000 From: Chris Salter Subject: How I Met Jake: Chapter 45 If you're under the legal age, leave now. If it's illegal or homosexuality offends, definitely leave now. Disclaimer: I don't know Jake Gyllenhaal, nor do I claim to know his private life or sexuality. This work is entirely fictional. Chapter 45: It was his last day at the lab. Chris was sick of the place, but at the same time, he was going to miss his friends, especially Lana and the occasional visit from Michael. Filling in paperwork to sign his remaining cases over to other people, he smiled. Jake was getting home tomorrow, and he was excited by the fact he was moving into Jakes house until its sale was finalized. Hearing a knock on the door, he quickly finished swallowing his tea and called out, "Enter!" "Hey Chris." "Michael!" Chris exclaimed. "Come in." "How are you feeling?" Michael asked. There was obviously something troubling him. Chris looked at Michael with a puzzled expression, "I'm fine.... Kind of excited, it's my last day today." "Have you heard anything from Jake?" Michael enquired as he took a seat. Shaking his head, Chris admitted, "Not for a few days. He's in Rome doing press stuff at the film festival." "I know." Michael admitted. "He seems like he has a lot on his hands." "What?" Chris asked. "What are you talking about?" He watched as Michael began fishing something out of his bag. What had Michael seen that he didn't know about. He felt sick already. Pulling out a magazine, Michael held it close to his body, "I don't know whether to believe this or not." He sighed, "But the pictures look fairly convincing." "Will you just fucking spit it out?" Chris snapped. He wasn't in the mood to play games now. Looking up, he saw Michael frowning before sighing. "Sorry." Michael pouted, "I'm sorry too." Taking the magazine, he dropped it on the desk in front of Chris. Feeling his stomach completely turn over inside, Chris stared at the photograph of Jake kissing Reese and walking hand in hand down the street with her. "According to this," Michael muttered, "Jake and Reese are officially dating. But I don't know how to read that, knowing what I know." "I think I want to throw up." Chris groaned as he pushed his chair back and ducked his head under the desk. Starting to hyperventilate, he grabbed the attention of Michael. Jumping up Michael began stroking Chris' back and tried to get him to calm down. "I'm sure it's not what we think." Breathing heavily, Chris kept his head between his knees to try to hide his tears. "I think those pictures are fairly convincing. It's beginning to make sense now." "What do you mean?" Michael asked as he tried to coax Chris' head out. Finally lifting his head, Chris revealed his reddened eyes, "Over the last month or so, well, ever since he got back from his trip to London, he's been getting more and more distant." "Howso?" Michael enquired, trying to get more information out of Chris. He felt incredibly guilty, for being the bearer of heartbreaking news. "Every single time he has a press thing, or a party, or some kind of function, he manages to not invite me." He continued, "That party I can forgive, but when he purposely prevented me from going to the press conference, it's like he doesn't want to be associated with me, or is paranoid someone will put two and two together." Michael swallowed nervously and continued to stroke Chris' back in an attempt to comfort him. "But you're moving in together? You've got both of your names on the deed to that apartment." Chris shrugged, "I guess it's easy to pass that off as two friends living together, but having me show up somewhere, or having to introduce me to his friends." He sighed deeply, "I'm still the dirty secret." "I'm really sorry Chris." Michael commented mournfully. "I know you love him. And I'm pretty sure he loved you, he just seems confused about what he wants." "Doesn't look like it," Chris mumbled. "It looks like he still wants to treat it like a game." Sitting Chris up again, Michael continued, "I think you need to ask him outright. Confront him; I'm sure there's a logical explanation." Then, sitting on the desk, he placed his hand on Chris' shoulder, "Do you need someone to talk to tonight?" Sniffling the tears away, Chris nodded, "It could help, but first I need to get away from here." "Okay, if I promise to help you finish here, and get you out of this thing tonight, will you promise not to blow up until you actually speak to Jake?" Michael begged with his trademark puppy dog eyes. Chris smiled for the first time in a while, "Okay, I promise." "Great!" Michael exclaimed. "Let's get to it then." **** ****************************** **************************** **** "How the hell are you going to explain this to Chris?" Reese asked Jake as the plane prepared to land. "I don't think he's going to be able to cope, Jake." Jake nervously tapped his fingers on his lip and stared blankly out the window. "I don't know, I really don't know. We're just friends, that's all I can say to him but I don't know if he will want to hear the truth." "You can't use that as an excuse Jake." Reese demanded. "I think you need to just be honest with him. It's been blown out of proportion." Grasping the armrest of the seat as the plane performed one final maneuver; Jake was dreading the drama to come. He felt like he could never repay the debt he owed Reese for bailing him out of one extremely difficult and heartbreaking situation, but he didn't know if Chris could understand that they were nothing more than friends. "I'm not looking forward to this." **** ************************************* ***************** ********** Continuing his packing of his smaller possessions, Chris made his way out of the bedroom where he'd placed all his clothes into boxes, into the office in order to pack the rest of his books and smaller belongings before the Removalists came. Even if shit did hit the fan, there was no doubt about it; he was homeless after the weekend. Hearing the phone ringing, Chris quickly jumped up off the floor and ran into the living room. He knew who it was, but still, he ran nonetheless. Picking up the handset, he waited for a moment before answering. "Hello?" "Hey gorgeous, it's me. I'm on my way home; I'll be there in about half an hour." Chris allowed a tear to crawl its way down his cheek before realizing he hadn't replied. Wiping it away, he tried to pretend to be happy, "Great! I will see you then!" Abruptly ending the call, he placed the phone back on the docking station and unplugged the phone line. Wandering back into the office, Chris grabbed the box containing the photos from his photo wall and began flicking through the frames. Coming across the photograph of himself asleep on Jake, he pulled it out and dropped to his knees. Sitting frozen in the same position for what seemed like an eternity, Chris finally heard the sound of the front door unlocking. His heart began to skip beats as he waited for Jake. "Hellooooo?" Jake chirped as he began looking around the apartment. It didn't look like home anymore, Chris' belongings were slowly begin replaced with blank white walls and cardboard boxes. Dumping his bags next to the bedroom door, he smiled warmly as Boo Radley came trotting over towards him. Kneeling down for a moment, Jake grabbed his dog and kissed him warmly on the head before placing him on the ground, "Just think baby, soon my two boys will be living under the same roof as me, permanently!" Standing back up, Jake stuck his head around the corner of the door to the bedroom. He was surprised to not find Chris in the bedroom where he expected he would be. "Are you hiding from me?" Jake called out in a playful tone. His stomach felt horrible, he didn't like this one bit. Heading towards the office, Jake smiled as he finally found Chris sitting on the floor. "I thought you were hiding from me!" Jake exclaimed as he kneeled down to kiss Chris. Not surprisingly, he pulled away. "Stop it Jake." "What?" Jake asked. "What's wrong with you?" Standing up quickly, Chris let the framed photograph to slip out of his hand, causing it to drop onto the ground in an explosion of glass fragments. Uninterested, he headed silently out of the room; however, he was quickly followed by Jake. "Why are you treating me like this?" Jake begged. "Why do you think?" Chris asked. Grabbing the magazine, he slammed it down on the dining table in front of Jake. "I suppose you're going to tell me it's not what I think, and it was just a display of friendship?" "It wasn't..." Jake replied shyly. The response caught Chris by surprise; he was expecting Jake to spit out his usual spin of trying to protect him by hiding. "So you go around cheating on your boyfriend with...with....her?!" "It wasn't that either." Jake responded with a significant pout. It was absolutely crushing his heart seeing Chris so hurt from the incident. He wanted to tell him, but didn't expect Chris would believe him. "Night of drunken madness?" Chris yelled. "A stupid mistake, a media exercise? What? Just tell me Jake!" "I was.." Jake was suddenly cut off by Chris. "You went ape shit when I saw Danny back in New York the first time, how do you expect me to feel? You can get away with things like this and Toronto, and expect me to leap through your rings?" Chris' voice was starting to give out from crying. Collapsing on the dining chair, he burst out into tears. Jake wiped tears away from his own eyes, "Just shut the fuck up for a minute!" Looking up at Jake in shock, Chris decided to listen to what he had to say. "I was fucking trying to protect you, something was about to be leaked to the fucking press. Reese came to me, her agent fucking heard the rumor and she wanted to fucking help me and help you!" Chris laughed, "Convenient!" Standing up he walked away from the table. "This is my own fucking fault." "What are you talking about?!" Jake asked nervously. "I've been convincing myself that this would actually go somewhere." Chris admitted. "Never in a million years had I actually considered dating a celebrity because of the shit that came along with it. Then you came along and turned my life over. Stupid me for thinking this actually had a future!" Spinning around so he didn't have to look Jake in the eye, he continued, "I can't continue being a secret, I can't go on being left in the shadows of someone's life! I just can't fucking do this anymore." Jake froze in spot. He couldn't believe what Chris had just said to him. He knew Chris was hurting, but he had no idea how much pain Chris had been put through until now. Looking at him in the eye, he managed to squeak out, "I'm sorry Chris." "I think." Chris paused for a moment before letting his emotions dam up, "I think we need to part ways." Collapsing on the ground in a fit of tears he continued, "We need to break up before this gets any worse." Immediately feeling the need to protect Chris again, Jake swooped in to comfort him; however, he was immediately pushed out the way by a cardboard box. "I will be out of your life by tomorrow, I'm leaving town, and I doubt I will be back again." Chris muttered as he managed to pick himself up from the floor. Jake began following Chris towards the bedroom; however he was stopped by Chris. "Where are you going?" Jake begged as Chris began tossing some of Jakes belongings into the box. "New York." Chris muttered tearfully. "That's all that matters really. You can be here living your life without your little secret, and I can try and pick up the remains of my life." Sighing as he threw the box onto the ground, he lowered his head. "I trusted you Jake, I don't trust many people, and I trusted you. You've let me down too many times." "Chris!" Jake yelled as he watched Chris headed closer towards the bedroom. "Don't do this, I was just trying to protect you, you have no idea how vicious the media can be!" "That's right." Chris replied coldly. "And I hope I never have to find out." Opening the bedroom door, he headed inside and quickly picked up Boo Radley to kiss him before putting him back on the ground and closing the door before he could trot after him. Jake burst out into tears when he saw Boo Radley sitting at bedroom door, scratching to get inside. "I'm not leaving until we sort this out." Jake muttered into the door. "I suggest you do Jake." Chris replied in a muffled tone through the door. "I will call the police if I have to." "Don't do this Chris!" Jake yelled. "I love you too much to end it like this." Not surprisingly, there was no response to his pleas. Looking down to see Boo Radley still sitting in front of the door, Jake wiped the tears away from his eyes and grabbed the cardboard box. Looking through it he found several items that he'd bought for Chris when they first started dating, to his surprise, he found at the bottom of the box a small ring box. Feeling his stomach completely collapse, he nervously reached in and grabbed it. Slowly he lifted the lid and found what he'd been dreading. The ring was sitting back inside. "Fuck!" Jake screamed as he punched the couch, scaring Boo Radley in the process. He'd blown it. -46 soon- Mmm, there you go. An interesting little development. There's more to go with this so I hope you're in for the long haul. Thanks for the great comments I've been getting lately, I love you all! Love hearing from you guys. You all rock! Anyway, thanks for reading! Chris