Chapter Text
Walking was always faster. Walking was cheaper, too. The traffic in LA was ridiculous, the small convenience store was a few blocks away, and walking made more sense than ordering a lift. It took less time to walk, it was pretty out.
He should have called for a car.
While walking back to his small apartment from the convenience store, having bought whatever microwavable meals he found in the small freezer section full of foods that were either already expired, or about to be due to the freezers being very old and in need of maintenance, he saw a group of people.
This wasn't uncommon, people exist in the city, but this specific group was different. They were younger, leaned up against some building he didn't care to know the name of, and they kept glancing up from their phones, whispering to each other as he was about to pass them by.
Again, not uncommon. People exist and they have conversations with each other. This group though, was different.
There were more whispers as he walked by, and finally one of them spoke up a bit louder just as he passed.
"Excuse me?"
Don't stop. Look at the ground. Keep walking.
"Excuse me?" They said it louder that time. He hesitated. "Are you Zach Stone?"
He looked up at the empty sidewalk in front of him, tilted his head, then shook it lightly, never turning back to look at the group of kids behind him.
"No."
Without another word, he continued down the sidewalk towards his apartment.
It was a strange feeling, being recognized. It was something he would have killed to have happen to him 10 years ago. Well, maybe not kill , but close enough to it. He got his wish. He got recognized. Great.
He walked up the steps to a cheap apartment building that felt nothing like home. The stairwell made a horrible noise at all hours, collecting sound from the vents and the outdoors and combining them together to create a melody from hell. The AC worked about 65% of the time, the mailbox was small (not that he was receiving much mail these days anyway), and the neighbors were all either in their 60s or in their 20s and on drugs. A fitting place for him, though. He stood right on the line separating both.
There were no elevators, not that you'd trust them if there were. His apartment was on the 7th floor.
He found himself at the beginning of the endless staircase, his eyes following it up and up until he was risking a neck cramp. He sighed and then began his journey. He'd move one day.
When he finally made it to his apartment, exhausted from the weighted climb, he opened up the door with just enough room to get inside and closed it back, leaving only a few seconds between room transitions. He paused when he got inside, looked around for a second as he struggled to catch his breath, then walked over to the kitchen.
The kitchen and living room were connected, the fridge, the stove, the sink and the cabinets up against the side wall by the door. The couch that seated two, the tv stand that was closed in with a shelf above the actual tv, and the microwave were closer towards the other wall. The stove was small and barely worked, it was more of a fire hazard than an appliance. This was part of the reason why the microwave meals became his best dishes. That and he wasn’t the best chef.
He dropped the two grocery bags on the counter, paused again, then unpacked everything. The first bag had 5 freezer meals, all different in some way, all including a brownie. The second was a bag of dry dog food, and a few cans of wet dog food. Only when the bag of dog food was dropped onto the counter did the clicking paws come running out from the bedroom.
“Alright, alright Doug, calm down, don’t choke on it,” he said, the dog food barely having a chance to hit the bowl before the over-excited German Shepherd was scarfing it down. He put away the remaining groceries while snacking on one of the brownies, then slugged his way over to his bedroom, not bothering to turn on any of the lights as he let himself fall onto his bed.
He hadn’t turned off the ceiling fan before he left, and he stared as his eyes followed the hypnotic rhythm of the blades in the darkness. It was only 7pm and he was already feeling dead tired.
He dragged himself over to his nightstand and got out the small plastic bag. Being careful not to spill any more than needed, he poured a small pile of the white powder onto the table. He took an old credit card from its usual place beside the bag and corralled the powder into a neat, thin line. He pressed a finger against one nostril and inhaled with the other. It wasn’t a necessity, he certainly didn’t need it like he used to anymore, but it kept him awake long enough to live his life normally.
He knew he was depressed, he’d known that for nearly a decade now. He also knew without this remedy he would be asleep all day, every day, for the rest of his life. Medication hadn’t helped, he tried that for a couple years to find it only made him numb, not happy. This didn’t make him happy either, but it pushed away the numbness enough to function, for a while anyway. But he didn’t need it, he was waning himself off of it, actually. There was a time when his body didn’t go a day without the cocaine running through it, for years. Now it was only a couple of times a week, and only when he really needed to function.
He closed the bag and returned it to the nightstand’s drawer, then ran his hands roughly over his face, feeling his nerves start to finally wake up. He walked over to the bathroom and splashed some water on his face, then saw himself in the mirror.
“Jesus,” he sighed.
Dark crescents hung below his bloodshot eyes. His hair and beard were longer than they’d ever been, and he ran his hands through the light brown tendrils falling over his shoulders. He hadn’t cared enough to keep up with any kind of self-maintenance, but it helped keep away anyone who might potentially recognize him. Most of the time, anyway.
*****
The lights of the club were dizzying in their intensity, his already blown out pupils contracting as they flashed their colors over him and the rest of the dance floor. He could feel the bass of the music vibrating in his bones, and if it weren’t for the woman grinding against him, he might not have had the presence of mind to keep himself upright. He had one hand gripped onto her waist while the other held aloft a shot of vodka. She had told him her name, or rather, attempted to shout it over the music, but he hadn’t heard her and he didn’t ask again. He could hardly make out any details of her face, but the way her strapless dress barely contained anything was enough to keep his attention. Her hands moved up his t-shirt to wrap her arms around his neck, pressing herself up against him as she moved her hips to the beat.
“What’s your name?” she shouted up at him. His hand on her waist traveled lower to grip her ass, and he bent down to speak into her ear.
“Is that really what you wanna know, or do you want to get out of here?” he said, and downed his shot.
She looked up at him and he could see the gleam of her smile under the lights. She took his hand from her ass and led him to the restroom.
The stall door was barely closed before their lips crashed together in desperation. He held her close as he opened her up with his tongue, and she eagerly reciprocated. His nervous system
was firing on every level, and he thought he might catch fire soon and enjoy it. Her hands quickly threw off his shirt to the floor, a thin trail of spit connecting them as they briefly separated to get it over his head. He returned this time to her neck, noticing now that she had long black hair as he moved it out of the way to taste the sweat on her skin. Her hands gripped his hair and she let out small whimpers as he lapped her up. He moved down her neck to her chest, now on his knees so he wasn’t craning down so severely. His tongue flicked back and forth over her tight dress where her nipple was, one arm wrapped around her waist and the other hand slid up her thigh to tug at the seam. She swiftly pushed the dress down to her high, high heels, and stepped out of it.
He sucked as much of her breast that could fit in his mouth, and his fingers moved from her thigh to work deftly on her clit. Her nails dug into his scalp as his fingers alternated between circular movements and long strokes up and down her folds. She was making no attempts to hold in her pleasure now as her moans echoed around the tile walls of the restroom. She moved her hands down to his neck and led him to stand up again. She rushed to undo his belt and his breathing shallowed as she took out his already hard member, growing at her touch. His hands flew to her waist and he spun her around in one movement. She obliged as she raised herself up to him, steadying herself with her hands flat against the stall door. He easily slid himself inside her, a guttural moan escaping from the back of his throat in relief.
He wasted no time as he moved in quick thrusts, his hands clutching her hips so tightly he wouldn’t be surprised if he left bruises.
“Fuck, yes, yes, ” he gasped out, sweat collecting at his furrowed brow. She clenched around him tighter and tighter as her moans raised higher in pitch with each aggressive thrust. His head rolled back on his neck as he struggled for breath. The bright fluorescent light and the sound of skin hitting skin added to the fever pitch he was reaching.
“Oh fuck, yes Amy,” he panted, and she froze. He had hoped she hadn’t heard him, but she clearly had. He didn’t know her name, but he was 99% sure it wasn’t Amy, and as she moved off of him and turned to face him, he realized he guessed correctly.
“ Amy?” she said indignantly, eyebrows raised.
“Oh, come on,” he said, still panting. “You thought I could hear you over all that?”
“Right,” she scoffed at him. “Well, you have fun finishing yourself off, because it’s Candace, asshole.”
With that, she stepped back into her dress and tugged it on, walking out of the stall and out of the restroom.
He rolled his eyes and locked the stall again, his forehead on his arm that rested against the door, pants still around his ankles and still fully erect.
“Fuck,” he said dejectedly.
It had been ten years, ten incredibly long years since he’d last seen her, but in all that time he could never manage to get her out of his mind. He didn’t even know what she looked like now, he had purposely kept himself away from anywhere he might find photos of her in an attempt to let himself forget over time. But by the fifth year he had realized that she wasn’t going to leave his thoughts any time soon.
Zach Stone slapped the wall beside him in frustration, then took the advice he was given and turned to finish himself off over the stall toilet.
****
Zach took the stairs two at a time, nearly tripping over himself as he ran through the building. He weaved his way through students wandering through the halls, apologizing as he lost control of his gangly limbs and caused a girl to drop her textbooks to the floor.
He glanced over the numbers on each door in his desperate search until he finally found the door with the number 23 on it. He knocked about seven times in quick succession before it opened to reveal a grinning Amy Page behind it.
In one movement, Zach cupped her face in his hands and kissed her, her hands coming to rest on his chest as her lips were still stuck in a smile. He suddenly pulled back and threw his fists high in the air.
“I’ve got a TV show! I’m gonna be famous! WOO!” he screamed, not caring who heard him. He bent down to kiss Amy again, and she held in her laughter as she pulled him by his shirt into her dorm room. Once inside, she closed the door, thankful that her roommates were absent.
“Ok, calm down,” she said through laughter. “Tell me again, what did they say?”
Zach had his hands on his hips, clearly trying to contain his excitement and failing.
“I don’t know, they said they got the tapes, and they watched them, and now they want to put them on MTV! Amy, I’m getting a show!” he squealed, open palms out in front of him. She thought that she had never seen him so happy.
“Zach, that’s so amazing, I’m so happy for you!” she said. She wrapped her arms around him and he gripped her tight as he picked her up off the floor for a moment. She looked up at him and felt her cheeks stiffen from smiling so hard.
“I’m so proud of you,” she said softly, and brought him back down to kiss him again, this time slow, deliberate, and full of love. She took her time on him, running her thumb along his cheek
as she felt him start to relax. She pulled away enough to see his face had turned completely pink.
“Wow, um, thanks,” said Zach, shy and giggling like a kid.
“So, when does it come out?” she asked, sitting down on her bed.
His hands returned to his hips as he looked like he didn’t know where else to put them, and he shook his head, still reeling.
“They said in like a month they’ll air the pilot, whatever that means,” he said.
Amy couldn’t help letting out a chuckle.
“It means that’s when they put out the first episode,” she explained with a grin.
Zach beamed back at her as he realized, his hands flying to his hair in disbelief.
“I can’t believe this,” he said. “I’m gonna be famous, I’m gonna be actually famous!”
The wonder in his eyes halted in its tracks when his eyes met hers again, and she watched his train of thought switch across his face.
It had been a month since she started school, a month since his interview that got him his first taste of public attention on the local news. He had indeed run out of money to fund the camera crew any more, so he was still working at the grocery store to try to get some of it back, but after that interview, every person in Boston knew who he was, and they had loved him for it. For two weeks.
After two weeks, the attention had died down, which Amy had quietly been thankful for. Of course she was happy to see Zach happy, he had finally gotten what he always wanted, and what she had always wanted for him. But when everyone knew and loved her boyfriend, asking for pictures and autographs (and not all of them in appropriate places), she had begun to feel like she was already losing him. He would visit once a week and hardly ever picked up the phone during that time. Most of what she knew about how he was doing was what she saw on the TV at that point, and she had started to become resentful of the small amount of fame he caught.
Then, when everyone around him knew who he was, the novelty wore off, fast. It had startled Zach how quickly no one cared about him anymore, to the point where he was going up to people and reminding them about his segment on the news. Sometimes, people would film these outbursts of his, which would then put him back on the news, but in a less favorable, less likable light.
This had caused Zach to retreat back into himself, back into Amy, and back to his family and friends, who were all secretly grateful for the turn of fate. Everyone was relieved except Zach,
who was absolutely crushed. He wouldn’t get out of his bed for days, and was even in danger of losing his job. Heartbroken to see him like that, Amy had called Greg and suggested they gather what footage Zach had collected over the summer and send it around a few networks. She didn’t actually think it would get picked up, she just wanted to do something nice for him to get him back to his old self again.
Zach looked at her now and remembered what he had promised her when she had shown up to him after that first news story.
“Amy,” he started, sitting down next to her on her bed.
“I don’t need this, really. I know I was awful to you, and I won’t ever let that happen again, but if you don’t want me to do this, I promise I won’t. I don’t need to be famous, I just need to be Amy’s,” he said, taking her hand in his.
Her lips tilted up in a half smile and she looked into his pleading eyes.
“Zach, you know I’m never gonna ask you to not do something you really wanna do. You really want this, right?” she asked.
He took a deep breath, then nodded.
“Yeah, I do,” he admitted.
“Then I want you to do this,” she said, squeezing his hand. “I just want you to be happy.”
He smiled at her, the blush returning.
“Thanks Amy.” He was suddenly shy again.
“Can I, uh… can I tell you something?” he asked.
“Yeah, of course,” she said, mildly confused as to why he was asking. He bit his lip, clearly nervous.
“I… I can’t thank you enough for doing this for me. And I know I haven’t been the best boyfriend to you, but I promise this is gonna be different. I’m gonna call you every day, I’m gonna come here four times a week and you’re gonna be so annoyed that you can’t study as much as you should because I’m here all the time.”
Amy giggled at that, hoping it was true.
“And I’m gonna do it because… I love you. I love you, Amy Page.”
She didn’t need hope to know that was true. He looked at her the same way he had looked at her since they were children, like she had put the sun in the sky.
“I love you too, Zach Stone,” she said.
Zach let out a big breath and pumped his fist.
“ Yes,” he whispered. “Can I, can I just-”
Amy held his face as she kissed him, perfectly content to be finally in sync with him once again.