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rsadelleWhen I told you I had seven never-finished stories I would try to space out over this month, neither this nor the story in the next entry (to be posted in a few hours, I promise) were included in that. I wrote both of these in the last couple of days. They're oddly almost the same story. They're also things that could probably be actual stories instead of ficlets, but I think my standards have been warped by reading so much innovative, novel-length J2 fic.
Authorial Note the First: This is another story I'm going to blame on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
norwich36. She sent me a link to a severely problematic story, and I thought, "What this really needs is a fix-it story, where the same basic plot is done well." Except that when I started trying to think that out in my head, this is what came out instead.
Authorial Note the Second: Anyone you recognize is real. Sarah, the guy heading the meeting, the reporter and her magazine, and Mark are of my own invention. (Mostly. See the note at the end for more about Mark.) The situations of the story and comments on Leverage's ratings are similarly products of my feverish imagination. Everything I know about AA I learned from TV, so things here are likely to be wrong.
***
Chris in Recovery
Being picked up on a DUI in Hollywood sucked. If he'd been somewhere smaller, he might have been able to get out of it, but the cops in Hollywood weren't impressed.
So there he was at 2:30 in the morning staring at a phone in a fucking police station and trying to think of who the fuck would actually come and get him out of there.
"'Lo." Jensen's voice was rough with sleep, and it had taken him so long to pick up that Chris had started thinking it was going to roll over to voice mail.
"Hi, man, it's Chris."
"The fuck, man? It's the middle of the night." Chris could hear a sleepy voice that had to be Danneel in the background.
Chris scrubbed his hands through his hair. "I need someone to come get me."
"Call a cab."
"I'm in jail."
Jensen swore at him over the phone and Danneel's voice behind him got louder. "Okay," Jensen finally said, "tell me where you are, and I'll come get you."
Chris thanked whoever watched out for country singers-slash-actors that someone would come get him, but he took it back when Jensen refused to take him home and instead drove him up to Danneel's place in the Hills.
The lights in the kitchen were on, and Danneel was waiting for them dressed only in a too-big t-shirt and boxers. She kissed Jensen hello and then gave Chris a couple of aspirin and a bottle of water.
"The guest room's made up," she said. "There are towels and an extra toothbrush in the bathroom." She kissed Jensen again and patted his chest with a familiar hand. "I'm going back to bed."
Jensen leaned back against the counter with his arms crossed over his chest. "You better drink all of that."
It wasn't like there was anything else for him to do, so Chris finished off the bottle of water and let Jensen lead him to the guest room.
***
He woke up feeling like shit. A quick glance at his phone showed he'd slept past noon. A shower and use of the spare toothbrush made him feel slightly better.
Jensen and Danneel were sharing coffee and the Sunday paper at the table in the kitchen. They exchanged glances before Jensen got up to get him a cup of coffee and Danneel threw a piece of bread into the toaster.
They didn't say anything to him while he gulped down the coffee and nibbled at the toast. He really wanted a fucking beer, but he figured he'd pushed their hospitality as far as he could.
When he dropped the half of the piece of toast he hadn't eaten and got up to refill his coffee mug, Jensen and Danneel folded up their respective sections of the paper at so close to the same moment it might have been a well-rehearsed scene on a set.
Jensen spoke first. "You've been drinking a lot."
Chris laughed harshly. "What is this? A fucking intervention?"
"Yes," Danneel said, and Chris's attention snapped to her. "We're worried about you."
"I'm fine." The legs of Chris's chair scraped against the floor as he pushed it away from the table. He stood and paced around the kitchen. He would leave, but he didn't have his truck and he didn't really want to wait in the street until a cab could get there.
"You're not." Jensen's voice was firm and a little sad. "You could have killed yourself driving drunk. You could have killed someone else."
Fuck. He never wanted to be that guy. Badass, sure. He sure as hell wanted to be badass Christian Kane. But the guy who killed someone else because he was too drunk to drive? That wasn't the guy he wanted to be. He really wanted a beer. Or a shot. Something. He glanced around the kitchen and realized what was different from the previous times he'd been here. There used to be a few bottles of liquor on the counter, but they were gone.
There was a locked cabinet in the corner.
"You've been drunk every time I've seen you in the last year," Jensen said. "Maybe longer." He sure as fuck wasn't sugarcoating anything. "You're an alcoholic, and you need help or you'll self-destruct, and I don't want to watch you die."
Chris turned to look at them. Danneel was tucked up under Jensen's arm as if she were holding him up.
"We want to help you," Danneel said softly as if she were afraid he'd go ballistic if she talked any louder. "We made some calls this morning. There are a couple of rehab places that have space."
"I'm not going to a fucking rehab."
"Could be good for your career." Jensen never could resist taking the cynic's point of view.
"I am not going to a fucking rehab," Chris ground out, making each word precise and distinct.
Jensen bent his head into his hand. "Chris," he said, "you need help."
"I'm not going to a fucking rehab!" Chris's shout echoed off the walls and windows of Danneel's kitchen.
Danneel's hand moved on Jensen's back, but her voice came out calm. "There's a daily AA meeting at a church down the street. You can stay here while you detox."
AA. God, he wanted a fucking drink.
Maybe they had a point.
Chris walked away from them and stared out the windows at the hills. When was the last time he'd been sober? On set, sure, he never drank when they were filming. But he kept beer and Jack in his trailer so he didn't have to wait until he got home.
His hands were shaking.
"I don't know if I can do this," he admitted to the glass of the windows.
"We're here." Jensen's voice shook like Chris's hands. "We'll help however we can, but things are gonna suck for a while."
"I had to make him stop reading about withdrawal," Danneel said, and Chris could hear the affection and amusement in her voice. "But if things get really bad, we will take you to a doctor. I'm not going to let you kill yourself over your pride either." She didn't give him time to react to that, just kept going. "There's a meeting at one. I'll drive you. If you give Jensen your keys, he'll go get you some clothes and your guitar."
Chris nodded and pulled his keys out of his pocket. He held them out without turning to look at them. Jensen's fingers squeezed his for a moment before they were gone with his keys.
***
"Hi. My name is Chris," he said when the guy who seemed to be leading the meeting asked him if he'd like to talk. There were maybe fifteen, twenty people sitting in a circle. "I'm an alcoholic." He almost choked on the words. "Today's my first day of being sober." He didn't say anything else.
Eventually, the guy said, "Welcome, Chris. We're glad to have you here."
Afterwards, when everyone was milling about and getting more coffee, a woman came up to him. He knew her name was Sarah; she'd introduced herself to them all and talked about how proud she was to be getting her one-year chip.
"I hope you're here getting your one-year chip when I'm getting my two-year chip," she said.
Chris's hands shook on his coffee cup.
"There are a couple of other meetings around here." Sarah dug into her purse for a pen and a piece of paper. She wrote down two addresses and times before she gave the paper to Chris. "They're both daily meetings. If you need them." She patted his shoulder and didn't seem to mind that he hadn't said anything to her.
***
For three weeks, Jensen or Danneel was always home. Chris wasn't sure how they'd managed to work it with their schedules, but he supposed it was good practice for when they had kids.
Chris tinkered with Jensen's bike and started riding it to meetings. Jensen or Danneel would have driven him, or, after he stopped shaking, let him take one of their cars, but biking meant he had to leave earlier and pay attention to his surroundings. He liked not having to think too much about anything other than what he was doing just at the moment, and he couldn't drink for that anymore.
***
After a month, Chris was ready to go home.
"We're here," Danneel said, hugging him at the door. "If you want to come back, you can."
Chris hugged her back tight and said, "Thanks."
Jensen drove him home and repeated the offer at Chris's door.
"Thanks, man, but I gotta do this, you know?"
Jensen nodded and hugged him as tightly as Danneel had. "Call us if you need anything."
Chris did a sweep of his apartment. There wasn't any alcohol left, but Jensen hadn't found his pot stash. Chris flushed it before he could think too hard about it.
He kept going to three meetings a day. He probably could have done only two, but he didn't have much to occupy his time until filming started up again. He tried writing a song, but nothing was the same anymore, and he was off balance.
A week after he got home, Jensen called to invite him over for a party. "Nothing big," he promised, "and no musicians. Just a bunch of CW actors around the grill."
Chris had met Jared before, of course, but this time Jared greeted him with a friendly hug that made Chris think Jensen and Danneel had told him what was going on. He'd met Sophia, too, because she lived next door. Chad looked familiar, but Chris was pretty sure they'd never talked, and he knew he didn't know the tiny blonde girl tucked up against him. Jeff seemed like a nice guy, if too old for the rest of the crowd. There were a few other people there from Danneel's show, and it was just as relaxed as Jensen had promised.
"You want one?" Chad asked when he was pouring shots.
Jensen and Danneel tensed up, but no one else seemed to notice.
"No," Chris said.
***
Chris screwed up his courage and called his mom. He'd been ducking her calls for months, which maybe should have been a clue.
"Chris, honey! It's been so long." The love in her voice swept over him.
"Mama, I have to tell you something." Chris wished for an old-fashioned phone cord he could twist in his hands while he talked.
"What is it?"
"Mama, I'm an alcoholic." It was crazy, the way just telling his mama made him cry.
"Chris, baby. Oh, baby." Her voice was like a hug enveloping him in her warmth. "Baby, it's okay."
***
Chris had a meeting with the producers. The DUI had made the papers, but AA had lived up to its name and hadn't. He told the producers the truth, that he was going to meetings every day, that he wouldn't let it get in the way of filming.
***
Jensen went back to Vancouver for season five and Danneel stayed in LA. She invited Chris over for dinner sometimes. He got the sense that she was kind of lonely with Jensen in Vancouver and Sophia in Wilmington. He was kind of lonely, too. Most people still didn't know, and he didn't want to tell them.
Jensen called to check on him at least once a week. Chris teased him about not needing another mom. Jared called every once in a while, which surprised the hell out of Chris the first time, but Jensen said Jared was genuinely friendly and not doing it out of pity.
***
He thought it was a stupid idea, even as he drove up the 101 and turned onto the 33. He didn't even know if Steve would be there, although Jensen had mentioned something about Steve spending more time up in Ojai these days.
Steve just stared at him when he opened the door.
"Can I come in?" Chris asked. There was a time when he wouldn't have had to ask. Hell, there was a time when he would have used his own key to let himself in, gotten himself a beer, and plopped down on the couch, all without having to say anything to Steve.
Steve stepped back warily. "Yeah. Beer?"
"No." Chris took the armchair that used to be his and sat on the edge of it with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped. He half-laughed to himself and then said, "Hi, my name is Chris and I'm an alcoholic." He fished his newest chip out of his pocket and held it up. "I've been sober for three months today." Only then did he dare to look up at Steve. Steve was staring at him, more surprised than Chris had ever seen him.
"That doesn't make everything okay," Steve finally said.
"No," Chris agreed. "I've fucked up a lot."
"Yeah, you have."
Chris winced at that. Steve was usually an easygoing kind of guy. But then Steve put a guitar in his hands.
"Show me what you've been working on."
It wasn't the same. Nothing was the same, but it was getting to be okay.
***
It had been a fucking long time since he'd last seen Dave when Chris rang his doorbell on a Saturday. Dave answered with Jaden laughing and clinging to one leg.
Jaden found something to say before Dave did.
"Uncle Chris!"
Chris squatted down to Jaden's level. "Hey, buddy." He accepted Jaden's hug. "I brought you something." He handed over a plastic bag with a Lego set in it and Dave invited him in.
"Who is it?" Jaime came around the corner of the kitchen counter and stopped when she saw Chris. "Chris."
"Jaime." Chris bent down to Jaden. "Why don't you go see if you can put that together while I talk to your mom and dad?"
"Okay!" Jaden went off to the living room and Chris followed Dave and Jaime into the kitchen.
"Would you like some coffee?" Jaime offered. Chris could tell she was just being polite.
"No, thank you." Chris sat down across from them.
"Haven't seen you in a while." Dave's voice was even, but he wasn't so good an actor that Chris didn't know when he was hurt.
"Yeah," Chris said. He wiped his hands on his jeans. "I'm sober. I have been for five months, two weeks, and four days."
Jaime caught on quicker than Dave.
"I fucked up a lot," Chris told them as if they didn't already know. "I fucked up a hell of a lot. I'm sorry. I'm trying to do better."
Dave had really taken to the whole LA lifestyle. He came around the table and jerked Chris up for a hug. "Jesus, Chris, why didn't you tell me?"
Around Dave's shoulder, Chris could see Jaime's hostility softening. Tears pricked at the back of his eyes.
***
Christian Kane Talks Recovery
Judy Chase, special to Celebrity Magazine online
"I'm an alcoholic." Christian Kane says this as easily as he says, "I'm an actor," but it hasn't been an easy path.
"Things were rough," he tells me. "Some days things are still rough."
We're sitting in his trailer on the set of Leverage, which has just entered its second season as basic cable's highest rated original series.
When I ask how he gets through the rough days, he says, "I've been blessed to have some really supportive people around me. Two of my friends kicked my ass and got me to realize I had a problem. A lot of my other friends have been really great, my family's been great, AA helps a lot." Sounds like everything's been great.
"There are a few people who aren't my friends anymore," Kane admits. "Some of them don't want to hang out with me now that I don't drink, and some of them are people I hurt while I was drunk."
Kane was arrested on a DUI charge six months ago, but even the most intrusive media outlets hadn't heard about his alcoholism until rumors surfaced in response to a blind item on a prominent celebrity gossip blog just a few weeks ago. Why go public now?
"I wasn't ready to talk about it before. I don't know that I'm ready to talk about it now," Kane admits frankly. "I'm supposed to be the tough guy, and here I was powerless to control my drinking. But people are talking about it now, and I can either let people talk about me behind my back, or I can tell the truth. It's better to tell the truth."
So what do his fans think about this? A sampling of comments on his MySpace include, "We're behind you 100%!!!!" and "stay strong - one day at a time."
"I think I'm going to be a better person for this experience," Chris tells me. "I hope so, anyway."
***
Chris was chatting with Sarah and flipping his one-year chip over and over his fingers when his phone vibrated in his pocket.
"Where are you?" Jensen asked when he answered. "You were supposed to be here like fifteen minutes ago. Steve came over and kicked Danny out of the kitchen."
Chris chuckled. "Tell Danneel to chill. I'll be there soon."
"You'd better be." Jensen hung up.
Chris said goodbye to Sarah and headed over to Danneel's place. When he walked in the door, he knew it wasn't what he'd been expecting. Jensen and Danneel and Steve were there, but so were Dave and Jaime, Jason, Riley, a bunch of other friends.
Danneel hugged him and kissed his cheek. "I hope you don't mind. We're just all so proud of you."
"Oh, God, he's gonna cry. You big pussy." Jensen hugged him only after insulting him.
"Asshole." Chris shoved him off, but he thought his face might split from how hard he was grinning.
***
The baristas at the Starbucks around the corner from Chris's place were the only ones who knew that badass Christian Kane's caffeinated drink of choice was a venti vanilla latte. He only got them there or places he knew he wouldn't be recognized, and only when he was alone.
"Hey, Chris. Usual?" Mark was behind the counter on Thursday, and he'd been there long enough to know Chris's drink choice.
"Yeah." Chris smiled at him. "Thanks." He handed over cash and dropped the change in the tip jar.
"My band's playing a gig tomorrow." Mark pulled a quarter-sheet flyer out of a pocket. "If you wanna check it out."
Chris looked down at the flyer, plain black ink on fluorescent paper. They had a decent designer, and he even knew the bar they were playing at.
"Yeah," he said. "I'd like that. Thanks." He waved the flyer at Mark and got out of the way of the people who'd come in while they were talking.
Mark's band was pretty good. Good enough that they had a chance, even in LA's tough music scene. Chris made a mental note to make sure Jason or Steve heard about them and made it to a gig.
Chris stuck around after the gig to see if Mark would come out and talk to the audience.
"Hey, you came!" Mark was positively delighted to see Chris, and he caught Chris up in a half-handshake half-hug.
"Yeah, you were great." Chris grinned at him, glad he came. "Can I get you a drink?"
Mark held up his beer bottle. "Got it covered. How about you? Soda? I can probably get it comped since I'm with the band." He said this with a slyly playful tone.
Chris held up his soda water and lime in answer. "I'm good, thanks."
They chatted about music for a while, Chris complimenting Mark on some of his songs and Mark describing what he wanted to do with the new song he was working on, until Mark's friends called him away.
"Hey," Chris said, before Mark could leave, "you working tomorrow?"
Mark shook his head. "Nah. Becky's good about giving me the day off after gigs."
"You wanna grab lunch?"
Mark's face bloomed into a smile. "Yeah. I know this place with the best burritos in LA." He gave Chris directions, and then said, "Wait, let me give you my number, in case you get lost or something."
Chris handed over his phone and took Mark's in turn to give him his number.
He called Jensen on Sunday evening, when he was probably not on a plane if he'd come back for the weekend. "I went on a date yesterday."
Jensen yelled, "J, turn that down, I'm on the phone," and then said to Chris, "A date? How'd it go?"
"Good, I think." Mark was smart and he knew a lot about music, and he didn't have a beer with lunch without making a big deal about it.
"Yeah? You gonna see her again?"
Chris took a deep breath. "Him."
There was the barest of pauses before Jensen asked, "You gonna see him again?"
"Yeah," Chris said, "I think so."
***
Authorial Note the Third: I needed a character name for the barista by day, musician by night, and Mark just seemed perfect to me. Only later did I realize that he's probably completely sponged from some combination of Mark Rose, who I know nothing about but his name, and whichever one of the Empires boys it is who works at a coffee shop and who I similarly know nothing else about. This is even more clear if you realize that when I was originally writing this in my head, I was thinking Leverage was filmed in Chicago and so that's where Chris would be. Only later did I go looking and discover that while the pilot was filmed in Chicago, they seem to have shifted to LA for the rest of the series.
Authorial Note the Fourth: Interestingly, the hardest part of this story to write was the interview. Everything else just flowed, but that interview was a bit of a struggle. If you can say anything in a story you wrote over two days is a struggle.
Authorial Note the First: This is another story I'm going to blame on
norwich36. She sent me a link to a severely problematic story, and I thought, "What this really needs is a fix-it story, where the same basic plot is done well." Except that when I started trying to think that out in my head, this is what came out instead.Authorial Note the Second: Anyone you recognize is real. Sarah, the guy heading the meeting, the reporter and her magazine, and Mark are of my own invention. (Mostly. See the note at the end for more about Mark.) The situations of the story and comments on Leverage's ratings are similarly products of my feverish imagination. Everything I know about AA I learned from TV, so things here are likely to be wrong.
***
Chris in Recovery
Being picked up on a DUI in Hollywood sucked. If he'd been somewhere smaller, he might have been able to get out of it, but the cops in Hollywood weren't impressed.
So there he was at 2:30 in the morning staring at a phone in a fucking police station and trying to think of who the fuck would actually come and get him out of there.
"'Lo." Jensen's voice was rough with sleep, and it had taken him so long to pick up that Chris had started thinking it was going to roll over to voice mail.
"Hi, man, it's Chris."
"The fuck, man? It's the middle of the night." Chris could hear a sleepy voice that had to be Danneel in the background.
Chris scrubbed his hands through his hair. "I need someone to come get me."
"Call a cab."
"I'm in jail."
Jensen swore at him over the phone and Danneel's voice behind him got louder. "Okay," Jensen finally said, "tell me where you are, and I'll come get you."
Chris thanked whoever watched out for country singers-slash-actors that someone would come get him, but he took it back when Jensen refused to take him home and instead drove him up to Danneel's place in the Hills.
The lights in the kitchen were on, and Danneel was waiting for them dressed only in a too-big t-shirt and boxers. She kissed Jensen hello and then gave Chris a couple of aspirin and a bottle of water.
"The guest room's made up," she said. "There are towels and an extra toothbrush in the bathroom." She kissed Jensen again and patted his chest with a familiar hand. "I'm going back to bed."
Jensen leaned back against the counter with his arms crossed over his chest. "You better drink all of that."
It wasn't like there was anything else for him to do, so Chris finished off the bottle of water and let Jensen lead him to the guest room.
***
He woke up feeling like shit. A quick glance at his phone showed he'd slept past noon. A shower and use of the spare toothbrush made him feel slightly better.
Jensen and Danneel were sharing coffee and the Sunday paper at the table in the kitchen. They exchanged glances before Jensen got up to get him a cup of coffee and Danneel threw a piece of bread into the toaster.
They didn't say anything to him while he gulped down the coffee and nibbled at the toast. He really wanted a fucking beer, but he figured he'd pushed their hospitality as far as he could.
When he dropped the half of the piece of toast he hadn't eaten and got up to refill his coffee mug, Jensen and Danneel folded up their respective sections of the paper at so close to the same moment it might have been a well-rehearsed scene on a set.
Jensen spoke first. "You've been drinking a lot."
Chris laughed harshly. "What is this? A fucking intervention?"
"Yes," Danneel said, and Chris's attention snapped to her. "We're worried about you."
"I'm fine." The legs of Chris's chair scraped against the floor as he pushed it away from the table. He stood and paced around the kitchen. He would leave, but he didn't have his truck and he didn't really want to wait in the street until a cab could get there.
"You're not." Jensen's voice was firm and a little sad. "You could have killed yourself driving drunk. You could have killed someone else."
Fuck. He never wanted to be that guy. Badass, sure. He sure as hell wanted to be badass Christian Kane. But the guy who killed someone else because he was too drunk to drive? That wasn't the guy he wanted to be. He really wanted a beer. Or a shot. Something. He glanced around the kitchen and realized what was different from the previous times he'd been here. There used to be a few bottles of liquor on the counter, but they were gone.
There was a locked cabinet in the corner.
"You've been drunk every time I've seen you in the last year," Jensen said. "Maybe longer." He sure as fuck wasn't sugarcoating anything. "You're an alcoholic, and you need help or you'll self-destruct, and I don't want to watch you die."
Chris turned to look at them. Danneel was tucked up under Jensen's arm as if she were holding him up.
"We want to help you," Danneel said softly as if she were afraid he'd go ballistic if she talked any louder. "We made some calls this morning. There are a couple of rehab places that have space."
"I'm not going to a fucking rehab."
"Could be good for your career." Jensen never could resist taking the cynic's point of view.
"I am not going to a fucking rehab," Chris ground out, making each word precise and distinct.
Jensen bent his head into his hand. "Chris," he said, "you need help."
"I'm not going to a fucking rehab!" Chris's shout echoed off the walls and windows of Danneel's kitchen.
Danneel's hand moved on Jensen's back, but her voice came out calm. "There's a daily AA meeting at a church down the street. You can stay here while you detox."
AA. God, he wanted a fucking drink.
Maybe they had a point.
Chris walked away from them and stared out the windows at the hills. When was the last time he'd been sober? On set, sure, he never drank when they were filming. But he kept beer and Jack in his trailer so he didn't have to wait until he got home.
His hands were shaking.
"I don't know if I can do this," he admitted to the glass of the windows.
"We're here." Jensen's voice shook like Chris's hands. "We'll help however we can, but things are gonna suck for a while."
"I had to make him stop reading about withdrawal," Danneel said, and Chris could hear the affection and amusement in her voice. "But if things get really bad, we will take you to a doctor. I'm not going to let you kill yourself over your pride either." She didn't give him time to react to that, just kept going. "There's a meeting at one. I'll drive you. If you give Jensen your keys, he'll go get you some clothes and your guitar."
Chris nodded and pulled his keys out of his pocket. He held them out without turning to look at them. Jensen's fingers squeezed his for a moment before they were gone with his keys.
***
"Hi. My name is Chris," he said when the guy who seemed to be leading the meeting asked him if he'd like to talk. There were maybe fifteen, twenty people sitting in a circle. "I'm an alcoholic." He almost choked on the words. "Today's my first day of being sober." He didn't say anything else.
Eventually, the guy said, "Welcome, Chris. We're glad to have you here."
Afterwards, when everyone was milling about and getting more coffee, a woman came up to him. He knew her name was Sarah; she'd introduced herself to them all and talked about how proud she was to be getting her one-year chip.
"I hope you're here getting your one-year chip when I'm getting my two-year chip," she said.
Chris's hands shook on his coffee cup.
"There are a couple of other meetings around here." Sarah dug into her purse for a pen and a piece of paper. She wrote down two addresses and times before she gave the paper to Chris. "They're both daily meetings. If you need them." She patted his shoulder and didn't seem to mind that he hadn't said anything to her.
***
For three weeks, Jensen or Danneel was always home. Chris wasn't sure how they'd managed to work it with their schedules, but he supposed it was good practice for when they had kids.
Chris tinkered with Jensen's bike and started riding it to meetings. Jensen or Danneel would have driven him, or, after he stopped shaking, let him take one of their cars, but biking meant he had to leave earlier and pay attention to his surroundings. He liked not having to think too much about anything other than what he was doing just at the moment, and he couldn't drink for that anymore.
***
After a month, Chris was ready to go home.
"We're here," Danneel said, hugging him at the door. "If you want to come back, you can."
Chris hugged her back tight and said, "Thanks."
Jensen drove him home and repeated the offer at Chris's door.
"Thanks, man, but I gotta do this, you know?"
Jensen nodded and hugged him as tightly as Danneel had. "Call us if you need anything."
Chris did a sweep of his apartment. There wasn't any alcohol left, but Jensen hadn't found his pot stash. Chris flushed it before he could think too hard about it.
He kept going to three meetings a day. He probably could have done only two, but he didn't have much to occupy his time until filming started up again. He tried writing a song, but nothing was the same anymore, and he was off balance.
A week after he got home, Jensen called to invite him over for a party. "Nothing big," he promised, "and no musicians. Just a bunch of CW actors around the grill."
Chris had met Jared before, of course, but this time Jared greeted him with a friendly hug that made Chris think Jensen and Danneel had told him what was going on. He'd met Sophia, too, because she lived next door. Chad looked familiar, but Chris was pretty sure they'd never talked, and he knew he didn't know the tiny blonde girl tucked up against him. Jeff seemed like a nice guy, if too old for the rest of the crowd. There were a few other people there from Danneel's show, and it was just as relaxed as Jensen had promised.
"You want one?" Chad asked when he was pouring shots.
Jensen and Danneel tensed up, but no one else seemed to notice.
"No," Chris said.
***
Chris screwed up his courage and called his mom. He'd been ducking her calls for months, which maybe should have been a clue.
"Chris, honey! It's been so long." The love in her voice swept over him.
"Mama, I have to tell you something." Chris wished for an old-fashioned phone cord he could twist in his hands while he talked.
"What is it?"
"Mama, I'm an alcoholic." It was crazy, the way just telling his mama made him cry.
"Chris, baby. Oh, baby." Her voice was like a hug enveloping him in her warmth. "Baby, it's okay."
***
Chris had a meeting with the producers. The DUI had made the papers, but AA had lived up to its name and hadn't. He told the producers the truth, that he was going to meetings every day, that he wouldn't let it get in the way of filming.
***
Jensen went back to Vancouver for season five and Danneel stayed in LA. She invited Chris over for dinner sometimes. He got the sense that she was kind of lonely with Jensen in Vancouver and Sophia in Wilmington. He was kind of lonely, too. Most people still didn't know, and he didn't want to tell them.
Jensen called to check on him at least once a week. Chris teased him about not needing another mom. Jared called every once in a while, which surprised the hell out of Chris the first time, but Jensen said Jared was genuinely friendly and not doing it out of pity.
***
He thought it was a stupid idea, even as he drove up the 101 and turned onto the 33. He didn't even know if Steve would be there, although Jensen had mentioned something about Steve spending more time up in Ojai these days.
Steve just stared at him when he opened the door.
"Can I come in?" Chris asked. There was a time when he wouldn't have had to ask. Hell, there was a time when he would have used his own key to let himself in, gotten himself a beer, and plopped down on the couch, all without having to say anything to Steve.
Steve stepped back warily. "Yeah. Beer?"
"No." Chris took the armchair that used to be his and sat on the edge of it with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped. He half-laughed to himself and then said, "Hi, my name is Chris and I'm an alcoholic." He fished his newest chip out of his pocket and held it up. "I've been sober for three months today." Only then did he dare to look up at Steve. Steve was staring at him, more surprised than Chris had ever seen him.
"That doesn't make everything okay," Steve finally said.
"No," Chris agreed. "I've fucked up a lot."
"Yeah, you have."
Chris winced at that. Steve was usually an easygoing kind of guy. But then Steve put a guitar in his hands.
"Show me what you've been working on."
It wasn't the same. Nothing was the same, but it was getting to be okay.
***
It had been a fucking long time since he'd last seen Dave when Chris rang his doorbell on a Saturday. Dave answered with Jaden laughing and clinging to one leg.
Jaden found something to say before Dave did.
"Uncle Chris!"
Chris squatted down to Jaden's level. "Hey, buddy." He accepted Jaden's hug. "I brought you something." He handed over a plastic bag with a Lego set in it and Dave invited him in.
"Who is it?" Jaime came around the corner of the kitchen counter and stopped when she saw Chris. "Chris."
"Jaime." Chris bent down to Jaden. "Why don't you go see if you can put that together while I talk to your mom and dad?"
"Okay!" Jaden went off to the living room and Chris followed Dave and Jaime into the kitchen.
"Would you like some coffee?" Jaime offered. Chris could tell she was just being polite.
"No, thank you." Chris sat down across from them.
"Haven't seen you in a while." Dave's voice was even, but he wasn't so good an actor that Chris didn't know when he was hurt.
"Yeah," Chris said. He wiped his hands on his jeans. "I'm sober. I have been for five months, two weeks, and four days."
Jaime caught on quicker than Dave.
"I fucked up a lot," Chris told them as if they didn't already know. "I fucked up a hell of a lot. I'm sorry. I'm trying to do better."
Dave had really taken to the whole LA lifestyle. He came around the table and jerked Chris up for a hug. "Jesus, Chris, why didn't you tell me?"
Around Dave's shoulder, Chris could see Jaime's hostility softening. Tears pricked at the back of his eyes.
***
Christian Kane Talks Recovery
Judy Chase, special to Celebrity Magazine online
"I'm an alcoholic." Christian Kane says this as easily as he says, "I'm an actor," but it hasn't been an easy path.
"Things were rough," he tells me. "Some days things are still rough."
We're sitting in his trailer on the set of Leverage, which has just entered its second season as basic cable's highest rated original series.
When I ask how he gets through the rough days, he says, "I've been blessed to have some really supportive people around me. Two of my friends kicked my ass and got me to realize I had a problem. A lot of my other friends have been really great, my family's been great, AA helps a lot." Sounds like everything's been great.
"There are a few people who aren't my friends anymore," Kane admits. "Some of them don't want to hang out with me now that I don't drink, and some of them are people I hurt while I was drunk."
Kane was arrested on a DUI charge six months ago, but even the most intrusive media outlets hadn't heard about his alcoholism until rumors surfaced in response to a blind item on a prominent celebrity gossip blog just a few weeks ago. Why go public now?
"I wasn't ready to talk about it before. I don't know that I'm ready to talk about it now," Kane admits frankly. "I'm supposed to be the tough guy, and here I was powerless to control my drinking. But people are talking about it now, and I can either let people talk about me behind my back, or I can tell the truth. It's better to tell the truth."
So what do his fans think about this? A sampling of comments on his MySpace include, "We're behind you 100%!!!!" and "stay strong - one day at a time."
"I think I'm going to be a better person for this experience," Chris tells me. "I hope so, anyway."
***
Chris was chatting with Sarah and flipping his one-year chip over and over his fingers when his phone vibrated in his pocket.
"Where are you?" Jensen asked when he answered. "You were supposed to be here like fifteen minutes ago. Steve came over and kicked Danny out of the kitchen."
Chris chuckled. "Tell Danneel to chill. I'll be there soon."
"You'd better be." Jensen hung up.
Chris said goodbye to Sarah and headed over to Danneel's place. When he walked in the door, he knew it wasn't what he'd been expecting. Jensen and Danneel and Steve were there, but so were Dave and Jaime, Jason, Riley, a bunch of other friends.
Danneel hugged him and kissed his cheek. "I hope you don't mind. We're just all so proud of you."
"Oh, God, he's gonna cry. You big pussy." Jensen hugged him only after insulting him.
"Asshole." Chris shoved him off, but he thought his face might split from how hard he was grinning.
***
The baristas at the Starbucks around the corner from Chris's place were the only ones who knew that badass Christian Kane's caffeinated drink of choice was a venti vanilla latte. He only got them there or places he knew he wouldn't be recognized, and only when he was alone.
"Hey, Chris. Usual?" Mark was behind the counter on Thursday, and he'd been there long enough to know Chris's drink choice.
"Yeah." Chris smiled at him. "Thanks." He handed over cash and dropped the change in the tip jar.
"My band's playing a gig tomorrow." Mark pulled a quarter-sheet flyer out of a pocket. "If you wanna check it out."
Chris looked down at the flyer, plain black ink on fluorescent paper. They had a decent designer, and he even knew the bar they were playing at.
"Yeah," he said. "I'd like that. Thanks." He waved the flyer at Mark and got out of the way of the people who'd come in while they were talking.
Mark's band was pretty good. Good enough that they had a chance, even in LA's tough music scene. Chris made a mental note to make sure Jason or Steve heard about them and made it to a gig.
Chris stuck around after the gig to see if Mark would come out and talk to the audience.
"Hey, you came!" Mark was positively delighted to see Chris, and he caught Chris up in a half-handshake half-hug.
"Yeah, you were great." Chris grinned at him, glad he came. "Can I get you a drink?"
Mark held up his beer bottle. "Got it covered. How about you? Soda? I can probably get it comped since I'm with the band." He said this with a slyly playful tone.
Chris held up his soda water and lime in answer. "I'm good, thanks."
They chatted about music for a while, Chris complimenting Mark on some of his songs and Mark describing what he wanted to do with the new song he was working on, until Mark's friends called him away.
"Hey," Chris said, before Mark could leave, "you working tomorrow?"
Mark shook his head. "Nah. Becky's good about giving me the day off after gigs."
"You wanna grab lunch?"
Mark's face bloomed into a smile. "Yeah. I know this place with the best burritos in LA." He gave Chris directions, and then said, "Wait, let me give you my number, in case you get lost or something."
Chris handed over his phone and took Mark's in turn to give him his number.
He called Jensen on Sunday evening, when he was probably not on a plane if he'd come back for the weekend. "I went on a date yesterday."
Jensen yelled, "J, turn that down, I'm on the phone," and then said to Chris, "A date? How'd it go?"
"Good, I think." Mark was smart and he knew a lot about music, and he didn't have a beer with lunch without making a big deal about it.
"Yeah? You gonna see her again?"
Chris took a deep breath. "Him."
There was the barest of pauses before Jensen asked, "You gonna see him again?"
"Yeah," Chris said, "I think so."
***
Authorial Note the Third: I needed a character name for the barista by day, musician by night, and Mark just seemed perfect to me. Only later did I realize that he's probably completely sponged from some combination of Mark Rose, who I know nothing about but his name, and whichever one of the Empires boys it is who works at a coffee shop and who I similarly know nothing else about. This is even more clear if you realize that when I was originally writing this in my head, I was thinking Leverage was filmed in Chicago and so that's where Chris would be. Only later did I go looking and discover that while the pilot was filmed in Chicago, they seem to have shifted to LA for the rest of the series.
Authorial Note the Fourth: Interestingly, the hardest part of this story to write was the interview. Everything else just flowed, but that interview was a bit of a struggle. If you can say anything in a story you wrote over two days is a struggle.