Centrifical, by Sol Crafter – Chapter One

Rereading some old stuff. I really do have a fondness for this story. There may be some Marty/Jim shorts in the future.

* * *

Title: Centrifical
Author: Sol Crafter
Pairing: Marty Sheer/Jim Sheppard
Genre: mm, contemporary, rockstar, movie star
Rating: mature

Summary: Marty is one of the stars of a cheesy sci-fi show. Jim is a rock superstar. They’ve been friends forever, though now it’s turned to something more.

CHAPTER ONE

He was sitting on a bench with a paperback spread open on his lap, the spine strained to breaking. He’d come to the park with the idea that he was finally going to finish reading his mystery novel. Except the sun was warm on his skin and he was distracted by the sounds of distant laughter and the elusive scent of barbecue.

Finally he gave up even the pretense and folded the book closed, shoving it into the pocket of his navy blue hoodie. He just sat with his head tipped back and enjoyed the light on his closed eyelids and the way fingers of breeze stroked through his hair.

It wasn’t very often that he was allowed to simply enjoy the day. Either work or his friends were constantly pulling him in opposite directions. There were days when he didn’t feel as if his life was his own. He belonged to too many other people.

The sound of the Twilight Zone theme music started up and he sighed and pulled his phone out of his jeans pocket. He glanced down at the screen, but it was just a phone number with no name. It had to be someone he knew though, since he didn’t give his cell number out to just anyone. He answered with a shrug.

“Hello?” he said, staring down at his green and gray sneakers sticking out in front of him. He’d just bought them and they still gave him that new-sneaker thrill that had led to him having a closet overflowing with shoes.

There was a long moment of silence and he thought about hanging up, then, “Marty?”

“Yes,” he said. “Who’s this?”

There was a warm laugh from the other end of the phone and Marty couldn’t help a jolt of familiarity even though he still couldn’t name his caller. “It’s me. Jim.”

“Oh, hey man. I didn’t recognize the number. What’s up?” Marty asked. They hadn’t talked in several months, mostly due to conflicting schedules, though maybe helped along a bit by a lack of anything to say.

“I got a new phone, so this is gonna be my number from now on,” Jim said. “So you might want to save it.”

“Okay. Cool.” No matter what he did, Marty figured he sounded like some kind of clingy loser. Never mind that he’d known Jim forever and been friends with him for most of that time.

“So, hey, I know I haven’t said anything, but I kind of bought a place near where you are,” Jim said.

“What?” Marty sat up, his heels coming together. “Really? I mean, I never thought you’d leave the road. I thought the road was your life.”

“Yeah, well maybe my life is tired of being lived on a bus with four other dudes,” Jim said. “I just had the sudden need to settle down, and I’m sorry, but you’re the most settled dude I know.”

“Naw, naw, it’s cool. I’m just surprised.” Marty raked a hand through his dark brown hair. “So you, like, totally bought a house or something?”

“Yeah. It’s not like I don’t have the money for one. So even if I don’t want to live there in the future… well, I can rent it out or something. Hey, maybe you’ll want to get out of your awful condo or something. Then, if I’m not in the house, you’ll have a place to live.”

“Thanks,” Marty drolled, earning himself a laugh.

“I really have missed you, man. It will be great for us to hang out.” There were faint rattling sounds in the background. “Well, I wanted to let you know I’ll be in town some time tomorrow.”

Marty watched a woman in a light pink workout suit jog by. She had short black hair and a rather Mediterranean look to her great bone structure. She could have been a model or an actress. Though, considering this neighborhood, she probably was.

Even after seven years, he still felt like he didn’t belong.

“Hey, are you still there?”

Marty hurriedly looked away from the woman and back down at his shoes. “Yeah, sorry. Do you need me to pick you up from the airport?”

“Nah, we’re driving,” Jim said.

“Wait, so you have your band with you?” Marty asked, trying to muffle the sound of disappointment. Like Jim would be showing up just to hang out with him.

“Yeah, I had to bring them. I’ve got some work arranged, but I’ll be on a regular schedule.” Jim huffed a laugh. “It’s like I’ll be one of the Joneses. Plus we can hang out all the time and that’ll be good. I’ve missed you, buddy.”

“I’ve missed you too,” Marty said, blinking his dry eyes. He’d cried every tear years ago and forced himself to accept that they were just friends and nothing more.

“Well,” Jim said, “I’ve kinda gotta go. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Call me when you get in,” Marty ordered.

“Will do,” Jim said. “See you. Bye.”

“Bye,” Marty said, and listened until Jim hung up. Then he lowered his phone and held it between his hands.

He stared straight ahead, seeing everything as just a blur. He really wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do now. His mind was pulling a complete blank, yet his heart insisted on being uplifted.

* * *

“So, what was that?” Brian asked when Jim uncurled from his corner hideaway and moved forward to join the rest of the band.

They were sitting around the small table, the remains of a bowl of popcorn between them, mostly consisting of un-popped kernels and a couple of burnt pieces. They were also drinking bottled beers with the label of some obscure microbrew on the sides.

Jim shrugged. “I was just talking to a friend of mine. We’re going to meet up tomorrow and catch up on things.”

“Who’s this friend?” Dan asked. He was lying on one heavily tattooed arm across the table, his other hand cupped around his beer. His eyes looked swollen and exhausted, but completely awake. “Is she pretty?”

“I don’t really think of him as pretty, more as being kind of funny looking with big ears and eyebrows.”

“‘And eyebrows?’ What, so he’s just a pair of ears and a set of eyebrows?” Leonard laughed. He was tapping a rhythm on his practice drum pads with his favorite, duct tape wrapped sticks. He never used them on stage, but he’d held onto them for years.

“God, you’re a real asshole,” Jim said. He reached down to get a beer out of the cooler and grabbed a lighter off the table to pop the cap off.

Leonard flashed him a grin. “I know. So who’s this guy?” There was genuine interest since they’d been friends for close to thirteen years, having met in their first high school band.

Jim rolled his eyes. “It’s just Marty.”

“What?” Leonard raised his brows, “Marty Sheer? I didn’t know you were still friends with him.”

“We’ve never not been friends,” Jim said. “I can’t even remember the last time we fought.”

Brian leaned forward. “Who are we talking about?”

“Oh, just Jim’s BFF.” Leonard ducked away from Jim’s swiping hand. “They were the odd couple during high school.”

Dan perked up. “Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau ‘Odd Couple,’ or Tony Randall and Jack Klugman?”

“How do you even know that? And no,” Leonard said. “It’s just that Marty was a total nerd.”

“No he wasn’t,” Jim objected. Leonard just looked at him for a long moment, one eyebrow waggling suggestively. Finally Jim had to sigh and admit the truth, “Fine, fine, he was kind of a nerd.”

Leonard raised his arms in triumph. “There you go. He’s also still a nerd.” He looked around at their band mates, ignoring Jim’s glare. “He’s an actor on some sci-fi show, Centrifical. Which is a ridiculous name because I looked it up and it’s not a word. It should be ‘centripetal’ but …”

“Whoa, wait, really?” Brian held up his hand to stop Leonard and looked at Jim with glowing eyes, his lips curving excitedly. “I love that show. What was that guy’s name again?”

Jim sighed. “Martin Sheer.”

“Holy shit, you know Korlaax?” Brian demanded.

Jim shrugged with mock-cool. “Know him? Dude owes me money!”

Leonard groaned loudly. “Ugh, that’s terrible. And you constantly wonder why we don’t let you do interviews without one of us there. You’d make a total ass of yourself.”

“Like I don’t do that already.” Jim flopped into his usual seat at the table, sliding so far down with his knees propped on the table edge that he could feel the hard press of his thighs all along his chest. The little decorative metal bits on his pants felt cold through the thin material of his tee. “Do you guys really mind that I’ve been pushing for this whole settling down thing?”

“What do you mean?” Brian asked. He was lead guitar and took his role very seriously, always being the cool and interested guy. It might have come across as a kind of asshole trait if he wasn’t so genuine. He really did care.

Jim shrugged. “I’m the one that wants to get off the road.”

“It’s about time that we do,” Brian said. “We can’t live out of our tour bus forever. Besides, it’ll be good to take a break. My mom wants me to come visit her for longer than a day.”

“Yeah, and these guys want me to do a commercial for them,” Dan said.

“Commercial for what?” Leonard asked. “Ass cream?”

Dan threw a bottle cap at him. “Fuck you, man. Nah, they want to use my pretty face in like a shirt ad or something.”

Jim looked at him and raised an eyebrow, though he wisely didn’t say anything.

If there was one word to describe Dan Parsons’ face, it wasn’t “pretty.” More like interesting and angular and vaguely obscene. He was all weird lines and shadows. He’d been trying to grow a Fu Manchu forever but he had a severe shortage of facial hair. He wasn’t ugly, but he wasn’t known as the least attractive member of Blue-Eyed Suns for nothing. Still, he was a good guy, even with him being sarcastic and vaguely horrifying with the things he let come out of his mouth.

“So look, it’s no big deal,” Leonard said, grinning at Jim. “You get to spend some time with your biff, the rest of us get to finish some little projects, and Ned’s already booked us studio time. It’ll be nice to be semi-normal for a change.”

“You make it sound like we’re having a BM or something.” Dan began slapping a beat on the table with his left hand and the bottom of the beer bottle held in his right. “We can do a commercial jingle. What rhymes with ‘bowel movement’?”

Brian made a face. “I don’t know, and I don’t want to know.” He turned to Leonard. “We really need to stop letting him have anything with sugar or calories or flavor. Whatever the fuck switches his ADHD on just needs to stop.”

Jim covered his mouth with his beer, taking a deep drink. “Thanks for being cool,” he finally said, lowering his beer and cradling it between his palms, the glass sweating gently.

“Dude, we’ve been on the road for forever; we all need a time out,” Brian said. “And it’s not like you’re breaking up the band or anything.”

“We’re probably the only band that has been on the road nearly 365 days out of the year,” Leonard said. “We’ve been doing this trip a long time. Maybe too long.”

Jim looked down at the tabletop guiltily. That had kind of been him too. He’d been running away from his old life so hard that he hadn’t taken the time to make a new one, and he’d dragged the rest of the band along with him.

He was surprised they didn’t resent him, but they always just seemed to go along with whatever he wanted. Which meant they’d traveled the world with him and put up with all his neurosis with little-to-no complaining.

They’d all bought property and built houses and did all the things rock stars were supposed to do with their riches, all except for him. There was nowhere that he wanted to settle down and some part of him had expected to travel around for the rest of his days. Except he’d had a weird dream seven months ago and it had kind of eaten away at him until he’d called some people. Now he had a house, which was foreign and weird.

He’d never really had anything before. All the years he’d spent amassing a fortune, and he’d never done anything with the money. It had just piled up in his bank accounts and he’d lived his day-to-day life as a nomad, his one desire to never have to see his family ever again.

He wanted to see Marty though. It had been a building desire, swelling up out of the depths of him until he couldn’t stand it any longer and he’d given in to the impulse. He’d cut himself off from the rest of his past, but Marty was the one thing he’d always held onto.

“Are you sure you guys don’t mind?” Jim asked, then had to duck a bottle cap of his own, not seeing which of the guys had thrown it.

“Shut up,” Brian commanded. “Stuff’s already been done, so stop being such an asshole.”

Jim met his grin and smiled. “Okay,” he said. It was nice to have such good friends.

/CHAPTER