Midas Touch

Home : Stories by Catw00man : The Chase 2006 : Midas Touch

Summary: Everything he touches does not turn to gold.

AUTHOR: Catw00man
EMAIL: catw00man@cryptoffic.com
RATING: R
CHARACTER: Dale Earnhardt Jr, Dale Jr POV
SERIES: The Chase 2006
CATEGORY: General/Romance/Angst
PROMPT: Taming the Muse #110 (#65 for me) - Necrotizing Fasciitis
COMPLETED: September 25, 2008
WORD COUNT: 2,592
DISCLAIMER: I own NOTHING and am affiliated with NO ONE mentioned here. Not the drivers, not the teams, no one. This is all fiction and fun. In other words...NOT REAL, NOT REAL, NOT REAL. ;-)
AUTHOR'S NOTE: C’mon...you didn’t think I’d just leave Junior like that did you?
AUTHOR'S NOTE2: This series takes place one year after the events of The Chase. Kevin is leading the points in the Busch series en route to his second title and in this fic as just won the last race before the Chase begins.
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Chevy Rock & Roll 400 - Richmond International Speedway: September 9th, 2006

How is it the best night of my life is now my worst nightmare?

I knew from the beginning we were on borrowed time.  I mean, it ain’t like he was going to leave his wife for me.  I may be special, but I ain’t that special.  No, I knew what I was getting into.  The whole thing was inevitable, though.  There was always that spark between us that wouldn’t go away, and when we both lost out on The Chase it was so easy to let that spark run free and turn into a smoldering bonfire.  I always knew I’d end up getting burned in the end.  I just had no idea how deep those burns would go.  Infineon was nothing compared to this.

I should’ve known something was wrong.  He was so fucking intense, so fucking everything I’d ever fantasized about and more.  He wanted me, I knew it in every touch, every kiss, every pounding thrust.  All of that I expected.  All of that I understood and knew I’d have to live without.  But when he told me he loved me….

I stopped thinking for a while.

It was all there in the salt of his kiss if I’d been paying attention.  He did love me, but at the same time he was trying to tell me goodbye.  I just didn’t see it at the time.  I look at it now and I know every touch, every loving caress was a farewell to what we had and everything we could be.  It was the first time anyone had ever made love to me and it should’ve been the last.  I look back on it now and I swear that’s what that night after Atlanta was about.  It was supposed to be goodbye…and somehow it turned into more.  It was never something we talked about but I should’ve seen it then.  I should’ve known it was the calm before the storm.  But I didn’t.  I was too much in love.

In the beginning I was ready for it every weekend, every night he lay in my bed.  I’d see him get up and go to the window, I’d see him stare off at something only he could see and I knew he was going back to her…at least in his mind.  I was ready for it.  I was ready for it all to be a Chase fling or something.  And then he had to tell me he loved me.

Fucking bastard.

He had to show me everything, fuckin’ everything I could have only to snatch it all away.  He let me taste heaven and then turned me away.  Everything I have, everything I’ve done doesn’t mean a damn thing to me anymore.  I even made the fucking Chase, but I’d throw it all away just to feel his arms around me again.  In the end he wound around me like I was the only thing in his world, not letting me go even when he was dead asleep.  I wanted that to mean something.  I wanted it to be more than just an end of the season fling and for awhile it was…and then the phone rang and everything changed.

I don’t blame him for the decision he made.  We all have those obligations we can’t break.  I know all about loss and pain and the way one death can put your world on a whole new axis.  I’ve been through it all.  He had no choice but to do what he did and at first I figured I’d read more into everything than was there to begin with.  He loved what we had.  He loved what we did.  But he didn’t love me.  I couldn’t be losing the one thing I’ve searched my whole life for.  He didn’t love me. 

Then with one kiss he shattered my world.

When the phone rang I tried to prepare myself.  Something told me it wasn’t good even before he told me the news.  I knew he had to go and hell, I even helped him pack the few things he had at my place.  I knew it was probably over and as much as it twisted up my gut I told myself it was inevitable.  It always was.  All I could hope for was that maybe we could still be friends, still be part of each other’s lives.  I could live with that.  I didn’t have to like it, but I could live with it.  I could put the night after Atlanta behind me, call it all a fucking dream and move on because it was all too perfect to be real anyway.  I could handle it.  Until he kissed me.

I didn’t even see it coming.  He turned when he reached the door, dropped everything in his hands and gave me the most amazing kiss of my life.  It was even more than the tear-filled kiss the night he made love to me like I was the only thing in the world.  Hands cradling my face and for once it wasn’t about sex or desire at all.  It was nothing but love.  Pure, perfect love and I’d never known anything like it.  And I never will.  To this day I can still feel his kiss burning my lips and I won’t let anything take that away.  For an instant I had the love I’ve always dreamed of.  Nothing can ever touch that again.

Suck in a sharp breath when I feel the familiar tightening in my groin, muscles growing taut and I know the edge is near.  Grip the arm of the couch tighter as my legs tense and I spread them wider as I tremble.  Hiss soft and then, fuck, there.  Shudder as I feel the mouth around me sucking me dry and close my eyes as the closest thing I can find to peace rolls over me.  Moments like this I can try and touch the perfection that’s so far out of my grasp.  For an instant I can almost see the light again….

But then reality always has to come creeping back in.

“Knew you’d make it, June.  Knew you were worried for nothing.”  Feel my pants tugged up before he slides up my body and I make no move to touch him…until he pushes things too far.  Feel his breath on my face and I react before I think, pushing him hard and turning my head away from the kiss I won’t allow.  No one’s kissed me since that night and if someone were it sure as hell ain’t gonna be him.  Hear his grunt of protest as he loses his balance and hits the floor of my coach but I don’t care.  He knows better.  He knows what this is even if he doesn’t want to admit it.  “Dammit, Junior, what the hell was that for?”

My eyes snap open and narrow at him as I lift my hips to get my jeans pulled all the way up and fastened.  “You know damn well what, Martin.”  He rolls his eyes and pushes himself up off the floor and as far as I’m concerned he can get the hell out.  It’s not the first time he’s tried to take advantage of me when I’m like that and I’m sick of it.

“C’mon, Junior.  It doesn’t have to be like this.  Don’t you get it?  I lo--”

I’m off the couch in an instant and reach for his throat without thinking, anything to stop those words he has no right to say.  Squeeze hard enough to cut off the offensive stream then hurl him towards the door, sending him staggering.  “Don’t you say that.  Don’t you ever say that.  You don’t even know what it means.”

I have no delusions about what’s going on here.  His reputation of sleeping his way to the top more than precedes him.  Hell, he probably had to get out of Jersey because he’d already fucked everyone who could do something for him.  You wouldn’t think it to look at him with that cold, indifferent exterior, but the guy’s a complete whore.  Maybe that’s the reason he doesn’t seem to be capable of forming anything resembling a real friendship.  He’s too fucking detached to feel anything which is probably why he hooked up with that gold digging bitch of his, just another leech tagging along for the ride.  No, he knows how I am and he knows me well enough to know what I want to hear.  I just don’t want to hear it from him.

“Oh, c’mon, Junior.  Don’t over react.  You made The Chase.  We can fly back together--”

“Take the DEI plane.”  Reach for his cell phone on the middle of the couch and throw it at him.  “Better hurry.  Don’t want to miss your flight.”  His eyes go wide when he realizes I’m actually kicking him out and I don’t care.  I’m beyond caring.  In all honesty I’m getting sick of him.  The sad part?  I bet he doesn’t even know I’m probably the first person in a long time that actually gave him a break based on his talent alone.  I didn’t give a shit about his reputation.  I thought he could drive so I gave him a ride.  It wasn’t until this year that I finally gave in to his advances….

He wants to protest.  I can read it on his face as he clenches his hand around his phone, but he knows better.  He knows as well as anyone that once my mind’s made up there’s no changing it.  He may not like it but I have no doubt before the week is out he’ll be calling me again to “hang out.”  Maybe this time I won’t answer the phone.

“Fine.  Have it your way.”  He heads for the door but stops before pulling it open.  His head turns to look at me over his shoulder and I almost flinch at the cold look in his eyes.  “You know, there really is something seriously wrong with you.  You’re messed up on the inside, Junior.   One of these days you’re gonna realize you’re lucky to have someone like me around.”  And with that he opens the door and heads out of my coach, the sound of the door closing and his ominous words the only evidence he was even here.

Turn away from the door and drop back down on the couch, throwing my arm over my eyes as I slouch down.  He’s right.  He’s right on more than he knows but he doesn’t understand a damn thing.  He doesn’t understand how I couldn’t leave it alone, how I couldn’t stay away.  I still fucking can’t, not even tonight.  He doesn’t understand how there’s something deep inside me that’s so damaged it’s eating away at me every time those green eyes look my way.  But at the same time I think I’d die if they stopped looking.  I can’t leave it alone.  I can’t let it go even though I know it’s not gonna be anything more than those looks that rip me up inside.

So many wins this year, so many celebrations and I’ve been there for as many as I could.  I know I shouldn’t have, but how could I sit in my coach and watch on TV when he was right outside taking another win.  I needed to see him.  I had to see that smile, and those eyes sparkling with happiness.  Each time I think he won’t notice me, that when he does he’ll just look away…but he doesn’t.  And each time I die a little more.

It’s never long, each stolen moment I find myself living for, but every time it’s there.  He looks for me.  He was looking for me tonight.  I know he was and when he saw me he held my gaze and everything was right in my world again.  It was last year again and he was mine…but it didn’t last.  It never does.   Just like he has every time he turned away but I swear every time it takes longer.  Or maybe I’m deluding myself.  Either way I can’t stop…not when he still looks for me.  Not when there could still be a chance….

God I’m such a fucking idiot.  Rub my hands over my face and I know I’m lying in a bed of my own fucking making.  I went after a married man.  Fuck, I went after a happily married man.  Yeah, sure, I got him for awhile but anyone can fucking see he loves her.  That’s why he always turns back to her each and every fucking time.  Hell, it’s probably why he’s having the best season of his career.  He made up with her and they’re having a second honeymoon of a season.  So why do I swear he still loves me?

Sometimes I really fucking hate him.

Slouch down a little more on the couch and think about getting a beer but I don’t want to get up.  Hell, I don’t even wanna go get on the damn plane. I don’t wanna do anything but sit here and run away from everything but my own fucking misery.  I was fooling myself when I thought we could still be friends.  I don’t know what I was thinking.  Of course DeLana wouldn’t want Kev running around with his old “fuck buddy.”  Bet she hates we’re even at the same track.  But I still get to see him, even if it is only across the garage and at drivers’ meetings.  Anywhere to just be near him.  Tonight I got to be closer to him than I have in months with all the posing for pictures for making the Chase.  At least now we’ll have all the Chase media together….

God I’m messed up.

Push off the couch and move around the coach, numbly picking up the things I need to take back with me and wonder what I did to get so cursed.  First, I basically grow up without a father until I get into racing and then, holy shit, I get everything I always wanted.  I get to be close to the man who was nothing but an icon to me for what?  A year?  Sure he was there in Busch but it was Cup when we really connected and then *bam* it’s all taken away.

Stop by the door and look back over my coach where Kev and I spent all those stolen moments.  Before him, I’d given up ever finding someone I could really love.  That kind of thing was just for fairytales, not me.  I wasn’t the relationship type.  I was fine with that because no one could ever live up to what I needed, what I wanted.  But then he had to walk in and be absolutely everything I’d dreamed in my wildest fantasy.  Suddenly I could love, I could be with someone who understood me.  And he loved me too…until it was all taken away.

Pull the door open and head outside, leaving shattered memories in my wake as I head for the plane.  I must be diseased inside, have some kind of anti-Midas touch that turns everything perfect to shit.  I should stay away from everyone before I destroy everything that’s ever meant anything to me.   Hell, Kelley better watch out…or have I already destroyed her happiness with all the time she spends on me over her own husband? 

No, not going there.  I can’t.  I just can’t.

Fuck…why did he have to fucking love me?

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Catw00man - catw00man@cryptoffic.com