original fic/ Between the lines
Jack stares at the ceiling as he lazily runs his fingers over the cover of a book. He has always liked reading, even though he has never looked like a book geek. Indeed, back in high school or at University, many thought that he was just some stupid random guy, maybe good looking or good at singing, but nothing more. Tom had thought the same too at the beginning, Jack is sure of that, even though Tom has never admitted it openly.
Once his mother told him that when he was little and had just learnt how to read he used to read whatever he found, even the instructions written on the meds’ boxes. But Jack knows that the reason why he loves so much reading is another one. He started to love it because of his grandmother, because of all the time that she spent reading stories to him. He wouldn’t eat nor go to bed unless she was there with him, telling him about princes and dragons. His favourite story, though, was the one about Aladdin and his adventures. He used to daydream about having a magic carpet, about flying around the world.
Then his grandmother had died, she did it gently and peacefully as she used to do everything in her life, but it left a hole in Jack’s small heart. He continued to read and read, but he pushed the memory of that story away, in a far corner of his mind. Till Tom came, that is.
Sometimes Jack is taken aback by how much of his life has revolved around Tom, by how Tom seems able to hold and pull all the strings of his life.
It had been on one of their first dates. It was winter and they were drinking a beer in a pub not far from campus when it suddenly popped in Jack’s mind. He simply thought that Tom could be the right person to fly around the world with him on a magic carpet if such a thing could exist. He stared at the bottom of his glass not believing to what he had just thought. It had just come to his mind, with out effort. Then he lifted his gaze till it met Tom’s and in an instant he knew, he knew that he had fallen for him harder than he had thought, harder than he could have ever imagined.