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Title: Deluge in a Paper Cup
Pairing: Clay Aiken/Ryan Seacrest, Clay Aiken/Simon Cowell suggested
Rating: R
Disclaimer: This is the greatest bullshit that ever bullshitted. But it's also a present. That has to count for something.


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(I)

Simon hated losing to Ryan. The verb-adjective-English construction of "losing" in general irked him, but it all seemed to come to an irritating crescendo when the aforementioned defeat was in any way related to its complementary nouns of "poker" and "money". One would assume that between cucumber masks and unusual hair tweezings that Ryan wouldn't have the time to learn the ins and outs of the man's man game; that between the hearts and spades and little shifty slights of the hand he would grow crossed eyed and flustered. Instead, he sits empty eyed on the opposite side of the mountain of red and blue chips and complains about the cigarette smoke. Smiles a thick, tooth pasty smile as he places his cards down --"Straight flush, boys"-- and beats them all into a bloody, chipless pulp of once manhood.

Those nights, in and about themselves, would not bother him as much as instill a dark sense of revenge that had regressed his mental age a handful of decades until he would find himself hiding in a pile of sound wires with no little satisfaction as he listens to Ryan's curses echoing across the set after finding himself super-glued to his door knob. Not exactly original, but it would make wanking near impossible and Simon could delude himself into believing that was his plan all along.

Among the eclectic number of press junctions, Ryan constantly takes the time to talk about "Simon only being in it for the money/he doesn't care about the contestants", which is in part very true because he most-definitely-thank-you was in it for the money and he didn't care about the contestants, at least not all of the contestants, which was to say he didn't care about any of them except Clay and that was less of a 'care' and more of 'indescrible lust which may or may not involve licking'. This, as one could probably guess, was the point where Simon's self-respect took a fairly impressive header which ended in him dragging Ryan to airports to stare obsessively at white, white, silky female thighs in order to properly ascertain the level of his insanity. The Thing (as it had been haphazardly labeled after "A Crush On Clay Aiken" sent him reeling for hours) had started during one of those terribly cliched moments in time where if he listens hard enough he's sure he'll hear Celine Dion humming at him in the background, a sure sign that he's being too damn dramatic and over-romanticizing it. There should have been flowers there somewhere, he decided rather deliriously later, and violins. Or maybe harps. Fucking twinkly harps.

Rehearsal had been coming to an end with Clay stretching his long limbs, cat-like with tiny mewling yawns and Simon found himself staring blankly at the white expanse of skin that was peeking out from under a rumpled t-shirt and wondering offhandedly if the south was something you could taste. Clay's voice still strikes him as too Broadway, too sweeping and loud to mesh mainstream, but he found himself enjoying the facial expressions --round, wet 'ohs' of near orgasm-- just as much as the clamouring high Cs. What, wait, no, what?

It's the smile in the end. Whether by some greater design or by his unintentional half-homosexual need to debauch, Clay Aiken's sugary smile make him feel things, good things, usually ending with explicit images of sweat and limbs and Clay leaving his religion at the bedroom door until Simon had purged the saintlihood right out of his veins and left him screaming his saviour's name into the satin sheets.

Ryan, sitting three seats to the right, stares too comprehendingly between Clay and himself and Simon feels the terribly territorial need to stare right back as Ryan tap, tap, taps the end of his pen off the table and conjures up a mocking dreamy eyed look which tells him a) the little bastard somehow knows and b) he is in deep shit. Fuck it all. Fingernails biting skin at stress points, Simon sighs and shifts uncomfortably in his seat, trying remarkably hard not to think about the nights when Maxim didn't relieve the stress quite as well as select copies of Teen People.

(ii)

Ryan loves fucking with Simon. Or more technically fucking over Simon, which Ryan had decided long ago was probably a lot more fun than any other connotation. Simon fucks back with insane tenacity, but despite his ability to castrate anything that comes within verbal distance of him, his attempts fall greatly short of the mark. Ryan chocks it up to not caring enough to know what exactly the mark was, choosing instead to just shoot wildly hoping he would hit something, anything, be it Ryan, or in the case of the taped up doorway, Ron the stage manager.

Which brought him, of course, to his current situation.

Clay is sitting beside him nursing a beverage of the non-alcoholic persuasion and watching his fellow contestants make idiots of themselves at this random bar in Randomsville, Hollywood that Ryan had all but insisted was The Place To Be (he left out that there were quite a few of those around but this one was the only place where had an In with the bouncer) and had dragged them in, miniskirts and all, earlier that night. "Rite of passage!" He had exclaimed grandly. It was a blatant excuse to get drunk and they all knew that, but after a vodka or three the strobe lights became much more interesting than the reasons why.

"Ruben is wasted," Clay acknowledges around the straw in his iced tea and despite his inclusion in generation x, the word "wasted" is as awkward on his lips as his grandmother trying to talk hip hop.

"How can you tell?"

"The dancing. Or maybe it's the fact he's trying to teach Kimberly the robot. It's a toss up."

Ryan knows what Simon sees in Clay. He's not sexy, not in any sort of conventional California poster boy way, but you still find yourself drawn to him and when you step back, blink, try to figure out what exactly it is you finally decide he's a tiny bit like a forest fire, heat and misunderstood beauty that surrounds you and stings your eyes with smoke and you don't realize the danger until the flames are everywhere you look. Clay's gaze doesn't leave the swaying, sweating bits of exposed skin on the dance floor, cheeks pink with something akin to embarrassment that got confused along the way and shaking fingers that give glimpses of normally hidden frustration that was leaking out among the surrealism of colour/light/lust that surrounded him. Ryan buries his head in his arms to hide the smile that knows, knows, knows without the bourbon telling him that he's got this round in the bag.

"Simon." He mutters, uses it as an excuse to shift over, shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee. Hm. Fuzzy and electric.

"What?" Clay liquid-blinks, leaning in slightly to hear him over the thick thud of rock and roll on the speakers, distinctly not moving away. Ryan wonders what would happen if he was to lick him. Right along the neck. Would that be too forward? Wasn't that what he was going for anyway?

"Simon likes you..." He pulls on the "you", making him sound like a gossiping teenaged girl. Or at least a very drunk, very unsubtle, very gay Ryan Seacrest. "Like that."

Lifted eyebrows and a bump of noses not-so-accidentally caused when Ryan pitches drunkenly forward, "Does he?"

"Yes," Ryan replies seriously, dropping a hand to Clay's knee, fingers sliding up and over denim and smoothly between thighs.

Clay gives a startled gasp that filters through his straw and little bubbles spurt and pop at the bottom of his drink. Green eyes dart sideways to gaze at him questioningly and for a moment Ryan rethinks his strategy because near-molestation or not, those eyes are still warm and what had started out as a mission for simple, meaningless sex was tumbling rather profoundly into wax-poetic.

His fingers tighten, nails digging into the hem, frozen in his indecision and he wonders how long they sit there, beats and wide eyes. Slowly, then, as if everything is still moving in trudging slow mo, he feels a long, cool hand wrap around his own, guiding and pushing up, up, up and there's wet breath on his ear whispering slopingly about "books" and "covers" which is inevitably lost to the thumping of the bass that shake the walls and vibrates the floor beneath their feet.

Ryan hopes his smile doesn't look too triumphant, "You wanna?"

His fingertips brush their destination and he doesn't even wait for the answer.

(iii)

Ryan gets a hotel room. Clay isn't particularly sure about the cut and paste Hollywood etiquette that came hand in dick with sleeping with someone, especially a professionally involved someone, but Clay had the problem of being a sickeningly harlequin romance type of guy and felt maybe there were a few cut corners around here somewhere.

Ryan also left the lights off. That didn't matter as much, however, with the moon (or was it the lights from Sunset Boulevard?) pouring in from the overly large windows and bathing everything in a faint glow, pools of shadow and light off glass. Clay twiddles his thumbs so his hands don't shake and says "So..." because that's how that porn he accidentally caught while channel surfing had began.

"So..." Ryan replies, or at least that's what Clay thinks he replies, it's hard to tell over the wet smack of lips and tumble-rush-fall onto the hotel carpeting as they roll with knees and elbows and was that just his shirt? A warm, slick tongue tracing its way up his neck. Yes. Oh god. The phone flies off the coffee table and clatters to the floor, where the ringer stumbles away and meep, meep, meeps ignored off the walls.

Ryan leans over him, face half -shadowed in the darkness and eyes frantic with something unexplainable, and Clay smiles up at him, slipping his hands behind Ryan's neck and pulling him down against him. Ryan stiffens, hard and twitchy in his arms, bracing himself as if to push up, away, but Clay continues to smile, puts his heart into it because that's what his mama always said and tightens his arms, pushing a hand up to smooth at Ryan's hair until the other man gives in, gives up, lets go. There's a slow, lazy blink as Ryan's face changes, becomes less firm and sure, "Only if you want this?"

Clay lifts his hips into Ryan's hands, tries to keep the tremble of desperation out of his voice, "Finish it."

When Clay wakes up later in the night at godonlyknowswhen he pushes his face further into the protective warmth of the pillow as he hears Ryan's shaky whisper bouncing off the balcony window, "I win."

He doesn't sound as satisfied as he should.

(iv)

Clay's shoulders synch in the centre, knowing without even looking that Simon is behind him, plodding along methodically to the echoing beats of No One's There. Simon watches the tips of Clay's finger twitch up, head turning slightly to either side inconspicuously searching for an escape that had probably abandoned him hours ago.

"Mr. Aiken."

The duffle bag Clay is holding unceremoniously thumps to the ground, half a profile visible as his head turns incrementally, "Yes, Simon?" A purr through clenched teeth.

Simon doesn't want to talk pleasantries. If it was in his power he would avoid the talking bit completely but it had taken a great deal of testicular fortitude to get to this point and maybe it's just a little anti-climatic to fuck it up now. He grabs Clay by the tie, the silk sliding across his fingers as he shoves the other man against the wall with a thud and a wince at the corner of his eyes. Clay moves lightning fast to shift, escape, but Simon seizes his wrists tightly, pins them--white, white skin, white, white wall-- settling his hips and weight into it until they are eye to eye. There. Right. Good. Clay struggles for a moment, attempting rather vainly to kick Simon in the shins, before leaning his forehead against Simon's shoulder with a defeated sigh and falling into a look of petulance. "What is it?"

Simon's heart is beating so fast he almost doesn't remember what he stalked here to say, "He's playing you." He's not playing fair.

Clay twists his wrist in the loop of Simon's hand, managing to pull Simon's fingers slowly to his lips and the surround of his curling, warm breath. The mouth presses wetly around his pinky finger, drawing it down with the slick encouragement of his tongue and scrape of teeth, "I know." Clay whispers as he lets go, thumping back against the wall with eyes that reflect the starchiness of the paint.

"Straight flush, boys."

It takes a few rebellious swaggers of Clay's hips to make Simon realize that Ryan was not who he was losing to at all.

Fin.



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