Lost fic: Fortunate Son (4/4) (Jack/James; AU)
Please let me know if I slip into present tense anywhere. I've been writing in present pretty exclusively lately, so it's entirely possible I edited some in here without thinking about it.
Title: Fortunate Son (4/4)
Pairing: Jack/James
Rating: NC-17 (woohoo!)
Summary: AU. It's the early spring of 1968. At a university in the deep south, the president of a liberal student group comes to give a speech about the problems in this country, and he meets a clever but bitter janitor who thinks he's the damndest sort of hippie. And, yeah, he'd tell him just how much they resent his kind down here…if he didn't want so badly himself to escape the south. This part: 11,600 words. Overall: 34,000(!) words.
Notes: See part one
Also note: The epigraph is from "All Along the Watchtower," written by Bob Dylan.
Fortunate Son
IV.
"No reason to get excited," the thief, he kindly spoke,
"There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke.
But you and I, we've been through that, and this is not our fate,
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late."
As Jack Shephard spread out an old newspaper on the wet stone picnic table and perched himself upon it, he was tempted to start babbling about the irony of the situation. He'd almost run out of cigarettes (which was just as well; too many made him jittery), but he still had that bottle of whiskey in his hands. Every step down those stairs had swayed him, but he was still walking and talking as though he wasn't at least two sheets to the wind. If he was, his voice seemed to say, it was accidental. Never mind that James knew exactly why he was drinking; still, he held his head up and set the bottle down gingerly, the clink and scrape of it reminding his ears too much of evenings on the terrace with his father.
He hated to admit that he'd actually had several illuminating conversations with the man while he drank away some sorrow in his life, some inadequacy, some way he was living that wasn't what he'd wanted it to be. Not that he ever said such things. Mostly, when they spoke at length, his father had couched all his frustrations with himself as accusations about Jack's life. But Jack could understand those tangled, pitying feelings-even the need to talk without really speaking-intimately now. For him the wasn't what he wanted it to be was becoming a functional alcoholic. Yet here he was.
He had the fleeting thought that perhaps his father had been just like this once. Or maybe not just like this. He never needed rebellion; he was simply his own man, for all the good or ill it brought. If he ever spent long nights wrestling with ideas about himself and the world, Jack it sure he never would've done it under the gaze of a stranger whose voice and body could make his mouth go dry. James was standing under the tree a few feet from the table, nudging his feet against its roots, not even looking at him, but he was still too damn close.
Jack had been quiet too long, he knew. He'd passed the initial burst of obstinate energy that led to the need to justify himself, and now he found that he wasn't all that anxious to break back into that silence. He had no idea what he'd say, only that it would be too much. The air was so damp it should have chilled him, but he felt warm and fuzzy for the second time that night. Things would have been easier if they were walking, he decided. This staying still made him nervous. The fluorescents on the outside of the building were a diffuse glow down under the trees, but they still caught the amber liquid in the bottle. It was oddly comforting, and that made Jack almost irrationally angry. Still, he didn't look up until James said:
"So. Marc?"
"You really want to know?"
"Give me a break. You can't lay something out there like that and expect I won't be curious. And you obviously want to talk about it."
"Obviously?"
"Isn't that what you do-talk about it? Everywhere you go?"
Jack smiled bitterly. "That's the hell of it. I forget all the time now. I don't know why I think I'm doing this-sometimes I don't think at all, really-but I certainly don't let myself think about…him."
James nodded. "Probably saner, y'think?"
"I know," he said, taking the bottle in his hands and just cradling it there. He'd wanted a drink, and that's precisely why he didn't take one.
James stepped forward and held out his hand for the bottle. It startled Jack, his body so close again, but he pressed the bottle into his hands and watched him take a quick drink. He stepped back into place without handing him the bottle back, and Jack was absurdly grateful.
James said, "How long have you known Marc?"
"Years. He's the kind of friend you call to come get you when your car breaks down, and you don't even think to feel guilty. You don't even really thank him, because you'd do the same for him. It's just sort of a given."
James was looking not at him but over his shoulder. He said, "I got a couple friends like that. Tell 'em anything, do anything for them. Ain't none of them over there, though."
Over there.
Being around James and talking to him about it-really talking, not just watching people nod, hearing them vaguely and unthinkingly cheer on his anti-war ideas, or worse, write them off just as unthinkingly-had awakened a lot of things in him. He hadn't been forced to really think about what he was doing or why in a long time. He realized that for all his talk of war and peace, he was rarely talking about why it mattered to him, and at this point he could come no nearer to actually being able to articulate it than he could that day Marc's unit had shipped out.
Jack said, "I didn't try hard enough. To make him stay. I thought… I don't know. I guess I thought I didn't want him to leave mad."
Jack felt a little like he wasn't really talking to James anymore, just thinking out loud. He floated there alone, feeling nothing but the intermittent gust of the wind ruffling his hair and the cold stone under his ass.
He continued, "We had these talks all the time, and he knew how I felt, but I always stopped short of telling him he was crazy. You don't want your best friend in the world to be the blindest idiot, but, yet, there it is. I didn't do what I could've done."
"You really think people who believe in protecting our country from communism are idiots?"
Jack shook his head, and he couldn't keep a bitter smile from squinting up his face. "No. Not at all. It wasn't him. I was the one always preaching the greatest country in the world bullshit. It stops being bullshit about the time somebody enlists because they think being in Vietnam is the logical extension of every liberal scheme they ever had. Right on par with civil rights and women's lib. He thinks he can fix everything." He took a deep breath. "I think he got that attitude from me."
"So you were a…?"
"Were? No. I still am, I think. Deep down in here"-he pointed to his chest-"I know what has to be done. All the things you said to me, I know it. Worse, I feel it. When you open your eyes and see the big picture, you know people have to die. The world's so screwed up, and we need to do our best to patch it back it together. But when you start looking at who's dying, you change your mind. It's too great a sacrifice, especially for something that just doesn't fucking work anymore."
"Why do you say Marc was crazy, then?"
"I'm not sure he's over there because he wants to wipe out the communist government. I think he's just trying to make things better for the people."
"Isn't that what we're doing?"
"War is never a humanitarian effort. But in the end, it doesn't matter why we say we're doing it. It's a mess. It's unfixable."
"Would you say that if Marc wasn't over there?"
"No. And that's what makes me sick."
"Guilt?"
Jack opened his mouth to speak, but then he closed it again. Surely there was some way he could stop spilling his guts like this, but it seemed like some part of him wanted the words to keep flowing. "You know, we used to have these long talks. We'd have the world all worked out, in theory. We're both pretty optimistic people. We disagreed about causes, methods, but we generally thought we could change things."
"That doesn't seem so bad."
James was placating him. If he was in the same position as the man, he'd probably be doing the same thing, but it wasn't actually helping. If anything, it made him feel worse.
Jack continued, "You sit around on your fucking patio, your very safe little patio, and you think you understand everything. Then he comes to my house one day and stands on that same patio we've talked on hundreds of times and tells me he thinks he's supposed to be over there, that he can see better and do more there. And I didn't tell him sit down, stay. I didn't say, it's real and it's messy and getting gunned down in a rice field isn't going to change anything. No amount of any of it means anything other than people dead and other people still sitting on their patios-or on their fucking picnic tables-talking."
"But you don't believe that shit."
"Don't I?"
Jack watched his face shift from cautious pacification to the same sort of honesty he'd given him all night. It was a relief.
James said, "If you really thought things were hopeless, you wouldn't keep talking about your friend in the present tense. And you wouldn't march your crazy California ass into a lecture hall in Alabama where I know good and well half the people weren't paying you any mind and most of the other half thought you were crazy."
"You included."
"Yeah. Well," he said with a wave of his hand, as if still caught up in the argument and anxious to get back to it. But Jack felt an absurd smile ghost over his face, and when he looked up at James, he found a smile curling his lips, too. "Ain't made up my mind yet."
But that moment of camaraderie, as nice as it felt, was quickly gone. Jack said wearily, "It's almost like I don't care if they agree with me."
"Who the fuck are you kidding? Why'd you invite me into the alley with you? You wanted to change my mind. You wanted to talk."
"It's all I'm good for. But you can't have forgotten that I was talking about ending the war."
He snorted. "What I heard outside those big wooden doors was somebody being about fifty kinds of vague about any kind of question of how. That, by the way, was why I called you a fucking moron. Yeah, end it. Get them home. Do something. But do what? And where does it end? You don't want them to pull out. Do you really wanna look me in the face right now and tell me you'd be perfectly fine with our soldiers just magically disappearing tomorrow, and just leave things the way they are, fuck the Vietnamese if they got a problem with it?"
"Why not?" Jack snapped.
"You don't believe that! You're still hoping enough good intentions here, enough people giving a shit and paying attention, will somehow bring people around to some idea they never had before, find a way to fix things."
James was looking expectantly at him. Jack realized, then, that they might've stood there until the sun came up talking in circles around the war, and they wouldn't get anywhere he himself hadn't already been a hundred times before. He often wondered why he was still out on the lecture circuit, talking to students about thinking for themselves and joining the protest. What in the hell could all the thinking and talk in the world accomplish? For all the rare times he swept onto a campus and lit a fire under an apathetic student body, there were trips that put out any fire he had in him, and there were nights like this the made him wonder if he wasn't just setting up more and more people for frustration and disappointment.
If nothing else, he thought cynically, maybe I'm keeping them out of the fucking army.
James added, a moment later, "I think it's good, what you're doing. Crazy, but worth respecting."
"What is this?" Jack said, suddenly lurching off the table and snatching the bottle from James's hand. "If I wanted a psychiatrist, I'd be talking about my rotten childhood on somebody's couch for fifty dollars an hour. Yeah, so I want a way to end it without things collapsing into world war three. But we're not even trying to do that. That's ostensibly why I'm here. Wake up. The war is a failure. We can't do what we set out to do. In the mean time, we're still selling it to people like there's the possibility of progress. And more Marcs out there believe it every day."
"Now, that I don't believe. I think it's just the opposite, actually. But, anyway, don't you think… Well, isn't it maybe possible that your friend isn't as dumb as you think he is? You think he was a blind optimist? Maybe that's the face he wore-for you-but if he's half as smart as you act like he is, he didn't go over there thinking everything would be easy. I'd guess he just felt like he had to do it, even if it didn't work."
"It doesn't matter."
"Why?"
"It only matters that he's there and he's probably dead and all the things I thought I understood about patriotism were complete bullshit."
James didn't reply to that. He didn't even gravely nod the way his parents did when he expressed his confusion and sadness. Of course, they'd also been spewing so much of his own garbage at him-duty, honor, country-that he had long ago learned to shut them out. They'd come to know that any conversation about politics with Jack would devolve into shouting, and since they weren't keen on such loud, emotional displays, they no longer bothered to start any. Sometimes Jack was glad for that. Sometimes, though, he practically ached to have a verbal battle with his father, to vent his spleen a little and do something other than smile at student government presidents and firmly shake their hands. He felt firm, yes, but only in ignoring the things that might make him unstable. He felt so firm he'd come to Alabama without a notion in his head that anything could shake him up.
Of course, he was mostly sure it wasn't Alabama at all but James Ford.
James was looking at him without an ounce of pity but not unkindly. Actually, he seemed to be a little lost in his own head. Jack took a slug of whiskey and let the bottle scrape-clink against the stone again.
Then James said, quietly, "They're not bullshit. It's just harder than you ever thought it was."
Jack felt a squeezing in his chest. There had been too many words, and his head was swimming. Five minutes with this man was enough, now, to make him half-panicky. He couldn't imagine how they'd sat together, played pool, walked and talked so contentedly all evening. Just having his eyes on him now was too much.
Jack said, "It's not all about politics. It's about my friend being gone."
"You miss him."
"Yeah," Jack sighed. He stood up, his voice louder now. "Okay, so now you have your answer. Will you leave me in peace?"
It was pointedly rude, he knew, but he picked up the bottle and began to meander back up the incline, toward the lobby doors, without so much as shaking the man's hand and saying goodbye. It didn't seem like a conversation to close, just one to suspend, even if Jack knew he would never see him again. The things he'd stirred up would be with him anyway.
He was halfway to the building, just crossing over into the full lamp-light, when James said, "Does he know you're in love with him?"
Jack froze, and he very nearly dropped the bottle. Only a lifetime of standing with his back to his father, enduring criticism and biting his tongue, kept him still and held together. Or maybe it was the alcohol. Through the fuzziness and warmth in his limbs, a shakiness began to spread that eventually found its source in the frantic beating of his heart. Adrenaline, waiting for footsteps. But James didn't move, and Jack turned around, unable to help himself.
James looked nervous. That helped tremendously. Curious and nervous. Not disgusted. But there was some sympathy there, rounding off the features of his face and making him look almost like someone Jack could confide in, should he want to. He didn't, surely.
Jack turned back and continued his ascent up the hill, his heartbeat still thudding dully in his ears. After a moment, he heard footsteps following him. As much as he wanted to break into a run, another instinct was telling him to stop being foolish, just be an adult and keep walking. So he crossed through the lobby silently, finding the clerk sound asleep, and when he began to pull himself up the stairs, one shaking hand clinging to the hand rail, he heard a heavier footfall come behind him.
When he got back to his room, he didn't bother to pull the door entirely shut. It didn't seem to matter anymore. Whatever James wanted to do, he would do it. Apparently, Jack would let him.
James knocked on the door even as he pushed it open. He shut it firmly but quietly behind him.
"What?" Jack said.
"You are queer?"
Jack took a deep breath and held it.
James added, "I ain't gonna hit you again if you say you are."
Jack huffed out the breath, unable to stop himself from laughing disdainfully. "Oh, so that's what that was about."
"No," James replied, and he looked a little flustered, but only for a moment before he clamped down on it again. "I'm just saying, you're looking at me like I'm liable to take a swing at you if you admit you're a faggot. I'm just telling you, I won't."
"Why not?"
"Well, are you?"
Jack shook his head. "I don't know."
"How do you not know?"
Jack smirked to himself and lay back against the bed. "How does anybody? How do you?"
The rush of adrenaline was still there, and it ramped up again as he thought about how dangerous this was. Despite James's most recent displays of restraint, Jack had no faith that the man could keep control of his emotions. Maybe Jack simply didn't care if he did. But as he lay there, reconsidering being an absolute smart-ass, cursing the way alcohol sometimes made him tactless and talky and stupid, he minded very much if James decided he wasn't in the mood to be poked and prodded about something as complicated as his masculinity. Because that's surely the way he'd see it. After all, didn't Jack?
He didn't look at James, but he heard him sit down on the chair that Jack had earlier pulled out into the hallway, which was now beside the door.
James said, "That's what this is, right? You're…in love with him, and you're worried about him."
"No."
"Okay, whatever," he said sarcastically. "My mistake. You're straight as a fucking arrow."
"I mean, no I'm not in love with him."
"But you are…?"
"Like I said, I don't know. Probably. But I don't think about Marc that way. I never have."
"No?"
"What possible reason would I have to lie to you about it? I've already admitted this much, haven't I? You'll just have to believe me when I say Marc is my best friend in the world and I trust him with my life, but I don't want to…sleep with him. In fact, I'd say that's half of why it took me so long to sort out my head-if it is, in fact, sorted."
"You ever slept with a man?"
He murmured, "Jesus Christ…"
"Have you?"
"What the fuck do you care?"
James exhaled loudly. "I don't. I don't, okay. I'm just trying to make sense of you, is all. Does Marc know about you?"
Jack wasn't sure why he kept answering these questions. He didn't owe this man anything, and this wasn't anything he really wanted to talk about, was it? But he continued: "Have I told him? No. But I think he knows. That's what kind of friend he is. He doesn't make me feel weird about it or ask me twenty questions or-"
"Hey, I'm not trying to make you feel weird, Jack, I-"
"No," Jack said. For a moment, he didn't know what to say, only that he needed James to stop. "I just meant that's why I miss him. I think he must've known, but he didn't freak out about it. He just…accepted it. And not just because his ideals or whatever tell him to. He's a good friend."
Jack risked a peek at James's face, but he was shut up inside his head again. So Jack closed his eyes and listened to the sound of rain starting up again, just a shower from the sound of the drops tapping against that window that wouldn't open. He kind of wished it did so he could get some air. But if he lay very still, it wasn't at all like this thing could suffocate him. He would lay still and breathe evenly and wait to see what James would say.
Jack was still lying there with his eyes closed when James began speaking again.
"I have this friend," he said. "I haven't ever been sure if he is or not. Didn't used to bother me, but now it makes me kinda nervous to be around him. I think that's why I mostly avoid him now."
"Then why are you here?"
"Didn't say why it made me nervous, now, did I?"
Jack's eyes snapped open and he had to resist the urge to roll over and unabashedly stare at the man.
He thought James was going to play it cool, maybe ask him another question about Marc to deflect things.
Instead, James said, "Just so I know, I'm not crazy, am I? You wanted to…kiss me, or something. Before."
"I wouldn't."
"Why not?"
Jack sat up. "Do I look stupid to you? I'm perfectly well aware of where I am. And who says I go around kissing people I don't know."
"Especially men."
"Yeah, especially. It's stupid."
"You're scared."
"Oh, for God's sake! Don’t sit over there and make…vague comments about yourself and then give me shit about my life like you understand what I'm talking about."
"You ever kissed a man?"
"Yeah," he spat out.
"Well, I haven't." He had the temerity to look wistful-almost as much as he looked nervous.
"Good for you!" he replied a little too vehemently. He forced his voice down to something calmer but more bitter. "You just stay there in your unconfused world. It's better that way."
James seemed to ignore his ire and his sarcasm. He kept talking, as though Jack hadn't been punctuating the discussion with snappish comments. "It's just that all I got is vagueness. I don't even know if I want you to kiss me."
Jack let his head fall back against the wall, and he screwed his eyes shut. "Fuck," he muttered. He didn't understand why this should piss him off so badly, but it did. "Fuck you. I didn't ask you to come up here. I sure as hell didn't say or do anything to try to-"
"Oh. No," James said, his voice suddenly rising. "'Course not. You tucked your tail between your legs and ran away."
"Would you have preferred me punching you in the face?"
James shifted in his chair. "You just tell me-do you wanna kiss me or not?"
"Why are you here?"
James rolled his eyes and shook his head. "You can't possibly be this difficult all the goddamn time. Either you left your fucking door open because you wanted me in here or…"
"Or what?"
"Hell, I don't know. Doesn't matter, I don't guess. I don't know what's going on in your head, but I came up here because I wanna keep talking to you, even if you make me nervous as all holy hell, for reasons I don't even fucking understand. I haven't had anybody to talk to like this in a long time."
"Yeah," Jack said, feeling something inside him settle down, like feathers smoothed over and lying soft and flat again. Even his voice. "Yeah."
The rain was still tapping at the window, and Jack suddenly needed to smoke that last cigarette. He got up and began to shake it out of the pack on the nightstand so he could go back out into the hallway and open the window. James got up, too. Jack really didn't want to be followed outside, but, thankfully, James didn't move toward the door.
James said, "Did you invite me into the alley because you wanted to argue with a redneck?"
"I thought so. Probably mostly."
"Well, I really thought I punched you in the face because you pissed me off."
Jack turned back around and waited for James to clear out of his way so he could throw open the door, break up the suffocating tension of the room with a little air. But James still didn't move.
He added, "Now, I'm not sure. That not sure is probably half of why I'm about to kiss you."
Jack froze, that cigarette still clutched in his hands.
"The other half?" Jack said quietly.
James's eyes slid shut, and he gave him this warm, intoxicating smile. He sighed, and Jack saw how much effort he was putting into looking unruffled. Jack wanted to put his hand over his heart and feel if it was racing, maybe even wanted to take his head in his hands and calm him down, but he was still so unsteady with the alcohol, so he didn't move.
Then James opened his eyes again and said, "Heard a speech today. Something about people not letting themselves be so fucking stupid and blind anymore."
Jack wanted to call him on his bullshit, but he had a sinking feeling that it wasn't entirely bullshit, even if there was a tone of self-deprecation and mocking to it, then James was stepping forward and putting his hands on Jack's shoulders and leaning into him and kissing him firmly on the lips.
He could remember giving that kind of kiss: proof of something. He might've let him get away with it, too, if he wasn't so warm and if his body wasn't giving off these waves of tension. Jack had had the impulse to grab him and hold him tight since he'd come up the stairs earlier, so as soon as James planted that kiss and started to draw back, Jack threw an arm around his neck and pulled him back into it, this time letting his lips slide soft against James's. At that second kiss, James opened up a little and their heads tilted just a bit and, suddenly, for the first time, Jack was kissing somebody and really, really feeling it, all the way down to his fucking toes.
He couldn't stop himself from slipping his tongue into James's mouth, and to his shock, it was met quickly but carefully, and unbearably sensually. James's hands hadn't moved an inch, but his lips worked against Jack's like he knew exactly what he was doing. Jack almost swore he'd just been very cleverly seduced, except for those nervous hands clamping down harder and harder on his shoulders. Jack forced the kiss deeper and deeper until James was taking over, pulling back to suck on his lower lip and then sweeping his tongue back inside. His breath was coming fast and warm against Jack's face, but James was keeping himself firmly in control.
At least he had been; when Jack carded his hands up into his hair, rubbing his fingers into his scalp, within seconds James shivered and pulled out of the kiss with a sort of gasp of surprise.
Jack let him go almost instantly, and though James stepped away from him again, he didn't go far. He didn't look at him, either, but Jack could see he was neither angry nor particularly ashamed. He wore an expression that he had several times that night, but only now could Jack really interpret it: the struggle to wrap conscious thinking around a gut reaction. Jack was fighting the same impulse.
"Huh," James finally said.
"Yeah."
James gave him a worried smile. "Yeah, what?"
"Never mind," Jack replied.
He still held that cigarette in his hand, so he nodded toward the door and went to open it and step out, but James grabbed him by the wrist. His eyes met a green-blue pair that looked confused. Hurt, maybe.
Shit, Jack thought. Shit shit shit. That face made something heavy settle in the pit of his stomach.
James said, "That's it?"
"What's it? What are we doing here?"
"I don't know. But…you felt it, didn't you?"
Jack wanted like hell to lie. It would be the easiest thing; admit that it was a good experiment, wish James luck on sorting himself out even if he secretly hoped he'd left him as discombobulated as James's mere presence had him all night. But he couldn't.
He just nodded. So James let him go, and when he went out into the hallway, James didn't follow.
His hands shook on the window latch as he opened it again and they still shook each time he brought the cigarette to his lips. There was a flare of heat and longing inside him, spreading now through his gut. Just before the kiss had broken off, he'd felt his dick start to stir, just from having James that close and his mouth on his. That in and of itself didn't make him too nervous. He'd gotten hard kissing those other guys, but it had been because they were good kissers and they'd leaned into him, pressing their own erections against him, or they'd let their hands wander too close. But this-this was impossibly fast and good and scarier than he had believed possible. Just thinking about it was threatening to make him hard again, so he forced himself to calm down. The rain spattered in through the window, drops of it occasionally hitting his face, and he breathed in the night air as steadily and slowly as he could.
When he worked up the courage to go back inside, James was sitting in that chair by the door again, the whiskey bottle in his hand.
"You come close to polishing this off," James said.
"Yeah." Jack held out his hand for the bottle, but James just shook his head and Jack didn't argue.
Not knowing what else to do, Jack sat down on the bed again, propping himself up against the headboard, his legs pulled up so he could hug them to his chest. James watched him the whole time, apparently waiting for him to get settled before they launched into another conversation. Of course there would be a conversation.
James said, "How far you ever been with a guy?"
"A little farther than that. Not very."
James got quiet again, and the only sound in the room was the swish of the liquid in the bottle.
After a couple of very long minutes, James said: "I had this friend. Not the one I was talking about before. A girl. She was real pretty. Colored."
"Oh."
He nodded. "I could look at her and see that she was about as beautiful as you'd want a girl to be. But I never wanted nothing from her. I… Fuck, I guess I really thought I had some kind of hang up about her being a negro. But I s'pose it could've been something else."
"So you've never been with a woman?"
He shot him a look that clearly said, What do you think, idiot? But he said, "You can't get by without touching and being touched, you know. But that, just now…"
"You didn't know."
"Not really. I know it doesn't seem possible, old as I am."
Jack snorted softly. "I know exactly how possible it is. I knew from the time I was maybe 13, but I'm still coming to terms with it. Obviously. I was in college before I ever did anything about it." Jack sighed, and he felt a jangling along his nerves again. He was sure his voice shook when he said, "But it never felt like that."
He started to exhale a long breath, knowing they were both saying too much but feeling powerless to stop it, when James abruptly stood up and crossed over to him. Jack's breath caught in his throat as James sat down on the bed beside him and took his jaw in his hands and kissed him again, this time deeply from the start.
But this time, James was also a hell of a lot more nervous. Jack wrapped his arms around him again, desperate to quiet him, but all that seemed to do was make James kiss him more fiercely, almost like he was trying to pull something up out of him. Jack let his legs fall, and he was shocked a moment later when James stood, not breaking the kiss in the slightest, and climbed up onto the bed to straddle him.
It was awkward for a moment, both of them trying to decide what was happening and what was going to happen. James's back arched into the air and Jack found his hands scrabbling at James's waist. Having made the move, James seemed hesitant, but his mouth was far from it, and when he thrust his tongue back inside Jack's mouth, Jack slipped his hands up around to his back and pulled him down on top of him.
James landed a little off-center, and a bit clumsily, too, but it didn't fucking matter, not since Jack could feel how heavy he was, and how solid, that long, lean body melting down into his own. James let out this quiet grunt and set about kissing him even harder than he had before as Jack's hands tugged at his hips, not even thinking, really, just pulling their groins into line together. He was already half hard just from the kissing, but as he felt the James's dick bumping against his, he was suddenly rock hard, and he groaned into James's mouth.
A moment later, James tore out of the kiss and panted against Jack's neck. "God."
Jack shivered at James's breath in his ear, and he nudged his hips up until James was grinding down against him, such perfect pressure it made his eyes snap shut; and even if he was drunk he began to experience everything so distinctly, the smell of his skin and the sound of his breathing and especially the shift and roll of his body above his, all that strength concentrated on the push of holding their hips together.
"Jesus," Jack said against his neck, baring teeth, as his hands clung to him. For a time, they squeezed their bodies together as tightly as they could, but it was almost too much; so Jack thrust up, just for some relief. The sudden friction was like a fucking spark going off inside him, and he couldn't stop himself from rutting against James, and James seemed eager to reciprocate.
It felt good but it was too much, so they quickly settled down and just rocked together slowly. James blindly sought out his mouth again, and Jack just gave himself over to it. He couldn't have tensed up and freaked out if he wanted it. It felt so fucking good, and he didn't have to wonder whether James felt it too. James just kept claiming him with his mouth and his hips, and Jack felt it wash over and over him.
Then all of a sudden, James pulled back, still crouched over him but his body not really making contact anymore. James's eyes were almost shocking, now a dark green, with his pupils blown, not to mention how his lips were wet, kissed a deep pink.
James was panting, "Hold on. Wait."
"Okay."
"We can't keep…"
Jack wondered why he hadn't shifted off of him if he was starting to panic, why he was still on the bed at all. But a moment later, he rolled off him, rolling Jack, too, so that they were lying on their sides face to face. James's hands were up on his neck now, his thumb rubbing over the stubble on his chin and his throat, and though Jack started to squirm closer to him again, James just laughed to himself and held Jack at arms length.
"Let me…calm down a second," he mumbled.
"Oh," Jack said, finally understanding. "Sorry."
"It's okay. Good problem to have."
James finally looked at him, then, with this gaze that shot down into his core. Want. Such want he hadn't thought it possible. He'd imagined James's anger in response to knowing how he felt. He hadn't at all thought about what it might be like if that passion was channeled into touching him and fucking looking at him like that.
So Jack looked back, and it made him feel brave and sort of powerful. He reached out and lay his hand on James's belt buckle. "We could…"
James closed his eyes.
Jack took his hand back. "Unless that's too-"
"No," James said softly. "I want to."
This time, there was no quick, bold move from either of them. Still, it took a lot of nerve for Jack to move his hand again and struggle with James's belt and then with the button on his fly, finally with his zipper. James's hand came down, then, and stopped him before he turned his attention to Jack's fly. He popped the button and pulled down the zipper, then he waited for Jack to shuck his pants as he pushed his own down over his hips. They kept their boxers on, and they chuckled to themselves as they saw that they were wearing almost identical worn, faded, light blue cotton undershorts.
James's stomach was mesmerizing-taut and a golden brown. A light down of hair ran down into his shorts.
"Did you know," Jack said, "that you're so good looking it's distracting?"
"Jack…"
He was nervous again, but he'd come too far to stop. He smiled and said, "Earlier, at the bar… I hate to tell you, but I learned absolutely nothing about pool."
Before James could say anything, Jack reached out and grasped his dick through his shorts, just as an experiment. James bucked a little into his hand, so Jack hurriedly worked his hand into the slit in front and wrapped his hand around him, feeling a surge of arousal at how hard and hot and heavy he was in his hand, all because of him.
"Uh," James grunted. "Yeah."
Jack let his thumb slip down to the head, where he found that James was already dripping. He'd already known-he'd seen the wet spot on his shorts-but it was different feeling it. As he moved his thumb over James's slit, James clamped his hand down on Jack's arm.
Jack scooted closer to him and said into his ear, "Let me do this."
Instantly, James relaxed a little, but he said, "All right, but it's gonna be…"
Jack looked down between them at his own crotch and said, "I think I know exactly how it's gonna be."
At that, James's hand came off his arm and cupped him through his shorts, the heel of his hand pressing into his dick and his fingers curving down to massage at his balls. But he couldn't seem to concentrate on anything more than that once Jack pulled his dick out through of the slit in his boxers and started stroking him. Every time Jack's hand came down over his head, he groaned, and Jack could feel his own dick getting even more impossibly hard. So he concentrated on watching James's face, what kind of grip and rhythm made his eyelids flutter and his lips part to let out a moan or a gasp of air. He was struck by how, on the one hand, James seemed beautiful to him, no less than any woman he'd ever seen, but yet he was so masculine, strong and hard despite his softness, physically and otherwise.
James was already so close it didn't take very long. James's hand didn't do much there pressed against his dick, but it was all so much that he was just on the verge of coming, too. One of his hands was trapped half under his own body, and he hated that, because he wanted to be able to touch James all over, thrust a hand up his shirt, hold him by the hip, roll his palm over his balls, but he contented himself with sliding that hand under James's neck as the other hand set a fast rhythm, one that grew sloppier and sloppier the more James moved with him, until James was in danger of slipping right out of his grasp. Jack gripped him tighter, and when he did, James groaned.
"Oh. Shit," he gasped. "Oh fuck, I'm gonna-- Oh God."
Jack felt himself start to thrust against James's hand as he jerked him hard, listening to the wet slick sound of it, feeling him get even wetter suddenly as he grunted and came in Jack's hand.
It didn't take much time before James was dragging at the waistband of his shorts and pulling his cock out over them. James's mouth closed over his again, and Jack was still stroking James's cock as James began to jerk him, just as hard and fast as Jack's own hand had been moving. Jack groaned into his mouth and felt his whole body bow into that touch, the elastic snug against his balls and James's palm sliding over his skin. When he finally came, he thought for a moment that he forgot where he was. But he knew exactly who he was with. He thought he'd never forget how that man kissed him, now so open and insistent and sure.
The kiss didn't last for long, though. James seemed to sense that this was somehow all too much, so he let him go and rolled over onto his back so that their bodies weren't touching anymore. In some ways, Jack would've preferred he get up, but it gave him not a small sense of power to know that James must've been three times as afraid but also three times as unable to make that move away from him. So he lay there listening to him breathe, smelling his own familiar musk mixed with all the new smells of James's body and trying not to think too much or too hard. That was easy enough. He suddenly felt rather exhausted, the sated feeling subsiding into a general weariness. But he also thought he was maybe too keyed up to sleep. With all the alcohol he'd had, it would be at least a couple of hours before he could come down from it, or from this, either; his brain was spinning.
The rain had almost stopped again, subsiding to an occasional misting spray against the window, when James finally moved. He got up, gathering his pants and shoes as he did, and slipped into the bathroom and Jack listened to the sound of the water running. His own stomach was sticky, his boxers pulled up just far enough to cover what they needed to cover, and he had the sudden urge to get clean himself. Clean would mean they didn't have to look at each other like they'd just done what they did. Not that he wanted to forget, but he certainly wasn't ready to deal with it. That creeping feeling of fear came up into his chest again, and while it seemed like it was about James and what James might do-even now, after all of that; especially now-he knew it was just guilt twisted into something so overwhelming he wouldn't have to think about how nice guys don't put their hands on other guys' dicks, and if they do, they certainly don't like it.
After a minute or two, James swept out of the bathroom with a lurching couple of steps, despite how carefully he seemed to be trying to carry himself, and stared down at him.
"I gotta get out of here," James said.
"Okay," Jack replied. "Yeah."
"I mean, I can't breathe in here."
Jack wanted to nod, to say he understood, but something about James coming out of the bathroom and looking at him like that cleared out his head. James couldn't breathe, but he could. Maybe it was temporary, but, really, he thought he was just about done freaking out over wanting what he wanted. The other times he'd been drunk or stoned and out to prove something, but he wouldn't have done what they just did, here and now, unless he couldn't help it. James was looking at him like it was inevitable for him, too. That he was far less certain about it made Jack nod his head. Let him slip out into the night. Maybe it was for the best.
"No," James said, his head ducking and shaking loosely as a bemused smile came into his expression. "I mean, it's hot as hell in here. We been cooped up too long, I think."
We?, Jack's face must've said.
"What?" James replied. "You gonna act like we just had some anonymous encounter like I imagine people write about in dirty magazines? Not that I've read any that would… Shit. What I mean-you gonna be all weird, now?"
Jack let a smile ghost over his face. "Uh… No?"
"I don't know what you think about me, but I'm not stupid, I don't do anything I don't wanna do, and I'm not gonna freak out on you."
Jack frowned. "Why do you keep saying that?"
James waved his hand at him.
"Seriously?" Jack said.
"'Cause I ought to," he said emphatically. "I keep thinking I ought to. If my momma knew I was halfway across town screwing around with some…guy I don't know, she'd be…"
"It's more than that."
"Yeah, it's more than that. But the bottom line is, I don't care if it's more than that. I won't let myself…" He sighed, rubbing his hand over his face. "Yeah, no. Anyway, if you wanna sleep, I'll leave you alone. But I feel like going for a walk. I ain't sleeping anytime soon. I doubt you are either. You can come, if you want."
"Do you want me to?"
"Didn't I ask you, you stupid fuck?"
Jack found a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Okay."
"You get cleaned up, and I'll wait for you outside."
"Okay."
Jack waited for him to close the door before he got up off the bed and padded into the bathroom. He was perhaps even stickier with come than James had been, up over his stomach and chest, and though he contemplated a shower, there was no time for it. Never mind that maybe he simply didn't want to wash the evidence away, replace the scent of James's body with motel soap. He cleaned himself up as best he could with a washcloth and a towel and ran his hands over his hair, pausing to look at himself in the mirror, closely. He still looked the same. A little haggard, maybe, but still flushed. Oddly calm.
continue part four...
Title: Fortunate Son (4/4)
Pairing: Jack/James
Rating: NC-17 (woohoo!)
Summary: AU. It's the early spring of 1968. At a university in the deep south, the president of a liberal student group comes to give a speech about the problems in this country, and he meets a clever but bitter janitor who thinks he's the damndest sort of hippie. And, yeah, he'd tell him just how much they resent his kind down here…if he didn't want so badly himself to escape the south. This part: 11,600 words. Overall: 34,000(!) words.
Notes: See part one
Also note: The epigraph is from "All Along the Watchtower," written by Bob Dylan.
Fortunate Son
IV.
"No reason to get excited," the thief, he kindly spoke,
"There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke.
But you and I, we've been through that, and this is not our fate,
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late."
As Jack Shephard spread out an old newspaper on the wet stone picnic table and perched himself upon it, he was tempted to start babbling about the irony of the situation. He'd almost run out of cigarettes (which was just as well; too many made him jittery), but he still had that bottle of whiskey in his hands. Every step down those stairs had swayed him, but he was still walking and talking as though he wasn't at least two sheets to the wind. If he was, his voice seemed to say, it was accidental. Never mind that James knew exactly why he was drinking; still, he held his head up and set the bottle down gingerly, the clink and scrape of it reminding his ears too much of evenings on the terrace with his father.
He hated to admit that he'd actually had several illuminating conversations with the man while he drank away some sorrow in his life, some inadequacy, some way he was living that wasn't what he'd wanted it to be. Not that he ever said such things. Mostly, when they spoke at length, his father had couched all his frustrations with himself as accusations about Jack's life. But Jack could understand those tangled, pitying feelings-even the need to talk without really speaking-intimately now. For him the wasn't what he wanted it to be was becoming a functional alcoholic. Yet here he was.
He had the fleeting thought that perhaps his father had been just like this once. Or maybe not just like this. He never needed rebellion; he was simply his own man, for all the good or ill it brought. If he ever spent long nights wrestling with ideas about himself and the world, Jack it sure he never would've done it under the gaze of a stranger whose voice and body could make his mouth go dry. James was standing under the tree a few feet from the table, nudging his feet against its roots, not even looking at him, but he was still too damn close.
Jack had been quiet too long, he knew. He'd passed the initial burst of obstinate energy that led to the need to justify himself, and now he found that he wasn't all that anxious to break back into that silence. He had no idea what he'd say, only that it would be too much. The air was so damp it should have chilled him, but he felt warm and fuzzy for the second time that night. Things would have been easier if they were walking, he decided. This staying still made him nervous. The fluorescents on the outside of the building were a diffuse glow down under the trees, but they still caught the amber liquid in the bottle. It was oddly comforting, and that made Jack almost irrationally angry. Still, he didn't look up until James said:
"So. Marc?"
"You really want to know?"
"Give me a break. You can't lay something out there like that and expect I won't be curious. And you obviously want to talk about it."
"Obviously?"
"Isn't that what you do-talk about it? Everywhere you go?"
Jack smiled bitterly. "That's the hell of it. I forget all the time now. I don't know why I think I'm doing this-sometimes I don't think at all, really-but I certainly don't let myself think about…him."
James nodded. "Probably saner, y'think?"
"I know," he said, taking the bottle in his hands and just cradling it there. He'd wanted a drink, and that's precisely why he didn't take one.
James stepped forward and held out his hand for the bottle. It startled Jack, his body so close again, but he pressed the bottle into his hands and watched him take a quick drink. He stepped back into place without handing him the bottle back, and Jack was absurdly grateful.
James said, "How long have you known Marc?"
"Years. He's the kind of friend you call to come get you when your car breaks down, and you don't even think to feel guilty. You don't even really thank him, because you'd do the same for him. It's just sort of a given."
James was looking not at him but over his shoulder. He said, "I got a couple friends like that. Tell 'em anything, do anything for them. Ain't none of them over there, though."
Over there.
Being around James and talking to him about it-really talking, not just watching people nod, hearing them vaguely and unthinkingly cheer on his anti-war ideas, or worse, write them off just as unthinkingly-had awakened a lot of things in him. He hadn't been forced to really think about what he was doing or why in a long time. He realized that for all his talk of war and peace, he was rarely talking about why it mattered to him, and at this point he could come no nearer to actually being able to articulate it than he could that day Marc's unit had shipped out.
Jack said, "I didn't try hard enough. To make him stay. I thought… I don't know. I guess I thought I didn't want him to leave mad."
Jack felt a little like he wasn't really talking to James anymore, just thinking out loud. He floated there alone, feeling nothing but the intermittent gust of the wind ruffling his hair and the cold stone under his ass.
He continued, "We had these talks all the time, and he knew how I felt, but I always stopped short of telling him he was crazy. You don't want your best friend in the world to be the blindest idiot, but, yet, there it is. I didn't do what I could've done."
"You really think people who believe in protecting our country from communism are idiots?"
Jack shook his head, and he couldn't keep a bitter smile from squinting up his face. "No. Not at all. It wasn't him. I was the one always preaching the greatest country in the world bullshit. It stops being bullshit about the time somebody enlists because they think being in Vietnam is the logical extension of every liberal scheme they ever had. Right on par with civil rights and women's lib. He thinks he can fix everything." He took a deep breath. "I think he got that attitude from me."
"So you were a…?"
"Were? No. I still am, I think. Deep down in here"-he pointed to his chest-"I know what has to be done. All the things you said to me, I know it. Worse, I feel it. When you open your eyes and see the big picture, you know people have to die. The world's so screwed up, and we need to do our best to patch it back it together. But when you start looking at who's dying, you change your mind. It's too great a sacrifice, especially for something that just doesn't fucking work anymore."
"Why do you say Marc was crazy, then?"
"I'm not sure he's over there because he wants to wipe out the communist government. I think he's just trying to make things better for the people."
"Isn't that what we're doing?"
"War is never a humanitarian effort. But in the end, it doesn't matter why we say we're doing it. It's a mess. It's unfixable."
"Would you say that if Marc wasn't over there?"
"No. And that's what makes me sick."
"Guilt?"
Jack opened his mouth to speak, but then he closed it again. Surely there was some way he could stop spilling his guts like this, but it seemed like some part of him wanted the words to keep flowing. "You know, we used to have these long talks. We'd have the world all worked out, in theory. We're both pretty optimistic people. We disagreed about causes, methods, but we generally thought we could change things."
"That doesn't seem so bad."
James was placating him. If he was in the same position as the man, he'd probably be doing the same thing, but it wasn't actually helping. If anything, it made him feel worse.
Jack continued, "You sit around on your fucking patio, your very safe little patio, and you think you understand everything. Then he comes to my house one day and stands on that same patio we've talked on hundreds of times and tells me he thinks he's supposed to be over there, that he can see better and do more there. And I didn't tell him sit down, stay. I didn't say, it's real and it's messy and getting gunned down in a rice field isn't going to change anything. No amount of any of it means anything other than people dead and other people still sitting on their patios-or on their fucking picnic tables-talking."
"But you don't believe that shit."
"Don't I?"
Jack watched his face shift from cautious pacification to the same sort of honesty he'd given him all night. It was a relief.
James said, "If you really thought things were hopeless, you wouldn't keep talking about your friend in the present tense. And you wouldn't march your crazy California ass into a lecture hall in Alabama where I know good and well half the people weren't paying you any mind and most of the other half thought you were crazy."
"You included."
"Yeah. Well," he said with a wave of his hand, as if still caught up in the argument and anxious to get back to it. But Jack felt an absurd smile ghost over his face, and when he looked up at James, he found a smile curling his lips, too. "Ain't made up my mind yet."
But that moment of camaraderie, as nice as it felt, was quickly gone. Jack said wearily, "It's almost like I don't care if they agree with me."
"Who the fuck are you kidding? Why'd you invite me into the alley with you? You wanted to change my mind. You wanted to talk."
"It's all I'm good for. But you can't have forgotten that I was talking about ending the war."
He snorted. "What I heard outside those big wooden doors was somebody being about fifty kinds of vague about any kind of question of how. That, by the way, was why I called you a fucking moron. Yeah, end it. Get them home. Do something. But do what? And where does it end? You don't want them to pull out. Do you really wanna look me in the face right now and tell me you'd be perfectly fine with our soldiers just magically disappearing tomorrow, and just leave things the way they are, fuck the Vietnamese if they got a problem with it?"
"Why not?" Jack snapped.
"You don't believe that! You're still hoping enough good intentions here, enough people giving a shit and paying attention, will somehow bring people around to some idea they never had before, find a way to fix things."
James was looking expectantly at him. Jack realized, then, that they might've stood there until the sun came up talking in circles around the war, and they wouldn't get anywhere he himself hadn't already been a hundred times before. He often wondered why he was still out on the lecture circuit, talking to students about thinking for themselves and joining the protest. What in the hell could all the thinking and talk in the world accomplish? For all the rare times he swept onto a campus and lit a fire under an apathetic student body, there were trips that put out any fire he had in him, and there were nights like this the made him wonder if he wasn't just setting up more and more people for frustration and disappointment.
If nothing else, he thought cynically, maybe I'm keeping them out of the fucking army.
James added, a moment later, "I think it's good, what you're doing. Crazy, but worth respecting."
"What is this?" Jack said, suddenly lurching off the table and snatching the bottle from James's hand. "If I wanted a psychiatrist, I'd be talking about my rotten childhood on somebody's couch for fifty dollars an hour. Yeah, so I want a way to end it without things collapsing into world war three. But we're not even trying to do that. That's ostensibly why I'm here. Wake up. The war is a failure. We can't do what we set out to do. In the mean time, we're still selling it to people like there's the possibility of progress. And more Marcs out there believe it every day."
"Now, that I don't believe. I think it's just the opposite, actually. But, anyway, don't you think… Well, isn't it maybe possible that your friend isn't as dumb as you think he is? You think he was a blind optimist? Maybe that's the face he wore-for you-but if he's half as smart as you act like he is, he didn't go over there thinking everything would be easy. I'd guess he just felt like he had to do it, even if it didn't work."
"It doesn't matter."
"Why?"
"It only matters that he's there and he's probably dead and all the things I thought I understood about patriotism were complete bullshit."
James didn't reply to that. He didn't even gravely nod the way his parents did when he expressed his confusion and sadness. Of course, they'd also been spewing so much of his own garbage at him-duty, honor, country-that he had long ago learned to shut them out. They'd come to know that any conversation about politics with Jack would devolve into shouting, and since they weren't keen on such loud, emotional displays, they no longer bothered to start any. Sometimes Jack was glad for that. Sometimes, though, he practically ached to have a verbal battle with his father, to vent his spleen a little and do something other than smile at student government presidents and firmly shake their hands. He felt firm, yes, but only in ignoring the things that might make him unstable. He felt so firm he'd come to Alabama without a notion in his head that anything could shake him up.
Of course, he was mostly sure it wasn't Alabama at all but James Ford.
James was looking at him without an ounce of pity but not unkindly. Actually, he seemed to be a little lost in his own head. Jack took a slug of whiskey and let the bottle scrape-clink against the stone again.
Then James said, quietly, "They're not bullshit. It's just harder than you ever thought it was."
Jack felt a squeezing in his chest. There had been too many words, and his head was swimming. Five minutes with this man was enough, now, to make him half-panicky. He couldn't imagine how they'd sat together, played pool, walked and talked so contentedly all evening. Just having his eyes on him now was too much.
Jack said, "It's not all about politics. It's about my friend being gone."
"You miss him."
"Yeah," Jack sighed. He stood up, his voice louder now. "Okay, so now you have your answer. Will you leave me in peace?"
It was pointedly rude, he knew, but he picked up the bottle and began to meander back up the incline, toward the lobby doors, without so much as shaking the man's hand and saying goodbye. It didn't seem like a conversation to close, just one to suspend, even if Jack knew he would never see him again. The things he'd stirred up would be with him anyway.
He was halfway to the building, just crossing over into the full lamp-light, when James said, "Does he know you're in love with him?"
Jack froze, and he very nearly dropped the bottle. Only a lifetime of standing with his back to his father, enduring criticism and biting his tongue, kept him still and held together. Or maybe it was the alcohol. Through the fuzziness and warmth in his limbs, a shakiness began to spread that eventually found its source in the frantic beating of his heart. Adrenaline, waiting for footsteps. But James didn't move, and Jack turned around, unable to help himself.
James looked nervous. That helped tremendously. Curious and nervous. Not disgusted. But there was some sympathy there, rounding off the features of his face and making him look almost like someone Jack could confide in, should he want to. He didn't, surely.
Jack turned back and continued his ascent up the hill, his heartbeat still thudding dully in his ears. After a moment, he heard footsteps following him. As much as he wanted to break into a run, another instinct was telling him to stop being foolish, just be an adult and keep walking. So he crossed through the lobby silently, finding the clerk sound asleep, and when he began to pull himself up the stairs, one shaking hand clinging to the hand rail, he heard a heavier footfall come behind him.
When he got back to his room, he didn't bother to pull the door entirely shut. It didn't seem to matter anymore. Whatever James wanted to do, he would do it. Apparently, Jack would let him.
James knocked on the door even as he pushed it open. He shut it firmly but quietly behind him.
"What?" Jack said.
"You are queer?"
Jack took a deep breath and held it.
James added, "I ain't gonna hit you again if you say you are."
Jack huffed out the breath, unable to stop himself from laughing disdainfully. "Oh, so that's what that was about."
"No," James replied, and he looked a little flustered, but only for a moment before he clamped down on it again. "I'm just saying, you're looking at me like I'm liable to take a swing at you if you admit you're a faggot. I'm just telling you, I won't."
"Why not?"
"Well, are you?"
Jack shook his head. "I don't know."
"How do you not know?"
Jack smirked to himself and lay back against the bed. "How does anybody? How do you?"
The rush of adrenaline was still there, and it ramped up again as he thought about how dangerous this was. Despite James's most recent displays of restraint, Jack had no faith that the man could keep control of his emotions. Maybe Jack simply didn't care if he did. But as he lay there, reconsidering being an absolute smart-ass, cursing the way alcohol sometimes made him tactless and talky and stupid, he minded very much if James decided he wasn't in the mood to be poked and prodded about something as complicated as his masculinity. Because that's surely the way he'd see it. After all, didn't Jack?
He didn't look at James, but he heard him sit down on the chair that Jack had earlier pulled out into the hallway, which was now beside the door.
James said, "That's what this is, right? You're…in love with him, and you're worried about him."
"No."
"Okay, whatever," he said sarcastically. "My mistake. You're straight as a fucking arrow."
"I mean, no I'm not in love with him."
"But you are…?"
"Like I said, I don't know. Probably. But I don't think about Marc that way. I never have."
"No?"
"What possible reason would I have to lie to you about it? I've already admitted this much, haven't I? You'll just have to believe me when I say Marc is my best friend in the world and I trust him with my life, but I don't want to…sleep with him. In fact, I'd say that's half of why it took me so long to sort out my head-if it is, in fact, sorted."
"You ever slept with a man?"
He murmured, "Jesus Christ…"
"Have you?"
"What the fuck do you care?"
James exhaled loudly. "I don't. I don't, okay. I'm just trying to make sense of you, is all. Does Marc know about you?"
Jack wasn't sure why he kept answering these questions. He didn't owe this man anything, and this wasn't anything he really wanted to talk about, was it? But he continued: "Have I told him? No. But I think he knows. That's what kind of friend he is. He doesn't make me feel weird about it or ask me twenty questions or-"
"Hey, I'm not trying to make you feel weird, Jack, I-"
"No," Jack said. For a moment, he didn't know what to say, only that he needed James to stop. "I just meant that's why I miss him. I think he must've known, but he didn't freak out about it. He just…accepted it. And not just because his ideals or whatever tell him to. He's a good friend."
Jack risked a peek at James's face, but he was shut up inside his head again. So Jack closed his eyes and listened to the sound of rain starting up again, just a shower from the sound of the drops tapping against that window that wouldn't open. He kind of wished it did so he could get some air. But if he lay very still, it wasn't at all like this thing could suffocate him. He would lay still and breathe evenly and wait to see what James would say.
Jack was still lying there with his eyes closed when James began speaking again.
"I have this friend," he said. "I haven't ever been sure if he is or not. Didn't used to bother me, but now it makes me kinda nervous to be around him. I think that's why I mostly avoid him now."
"Then why are you here?"
"Didn't say why it made me nervous, now, did I?"
Jack's eyes snapped open and he had to resist the urge to roll over and unabashedly stare at the man.
He thought James was going to play it cool, maybe ask him another question about Marc to deflect things.
Instead, James said, "Just so I know, I'm not crazy, am I? You wanted to…kiss me, or something. Before."
"I wouldn't."
"Why not?"
Jack sat up. "Do I look stupid to you? I'm perfectly well aware of where I am. And who says I go around kissing people I don't know."
"Especially men."
"Yeah, especially. It's stupid."
"You're scared."
"Oh, for God's sake! Don’t sit over there and make…vague comments about yourself and then give me shit about my life like you understand what I'm talking about."
"You ever kissed a man?"
"Yeah," he spat out.
"Well, I haven't." He had the temerity to look wistful-almost as much as he looked nervous.
"Good for you!" he replied a little too vehemently. He forced his voice down to something calmer but more bitter. "You just stay there in your unconfused world. It's better that way."
James seemed to ignore his ire and his sarcasm. He kept talking, as though Jack hadn't been punctuating the discussion with snappish comments. "It's just that all I got is vagueness. I don't even know if I want you to kiss me."
Jack let his head fall back against the wall, and he screwed his eyes shut. "Fuck," he muttered. He didn't understand why this should piss him off so badly, but it did. "Fuck you. I didn't ask you to come up here. I sure as hell didn't say or do anything to try to-"
"Oh. No," James said, his voice suddenly rising. "'Course not. You tucked your tail between your legs and ran away."
"Would you have preferred me punching you in the face?"
James shifted in his chair. "You just tell me-do you wanna kiss me or not?"
"Why are you here?"
James rolled his eyes and shook his head. "You can't possibly be this difficult all the goddamn time. Either you left your fucking door open because you wanted me in here or…"
"Or what?"
"Hell, I don't know. Doesn't matter, I don't guess. I don't know what's going on in your head, but I came up here because I wanna keep talking to you, even if you make me nervous as all holy hell, for reasons I don't even fucking understand. I haven't had anybody to talk to like this in a long time."
"Yeah," Jack said, feeling something inside him settle down, like feathers smoothed over and lying soft and flat again. Even his voice. "Yeah."
The rain was still tapping at the window, and Jack suddenly needed to smoke that last cigarette. He got up and began to shake it out of the pack on the nightstand so he could go back out into the hallway and open the window. James got up, too. Jack really didn't want to be followed outside, but, thankfully, James didn't move toward the door.
James said, "Did you invite me into the alley because you wanted to argue with a redneck?"
"I thought so. Probably mostly."
"Well, I really thought I punched you in the face because you pissed me off."
Jack turned back around and waited for James to clear out of his way so he could throw open the door, break up the suffocating tension of the room with a little air. But James still didn't move.
He added, "Now, I'm not sure. That not sure is probably half of why I'm about to kiss you."
Jack froze, that cigarette still clutched in his hands.
"The other half?" Jack said quietly.
James's eyes slid shut, and he gave him this warm, intoxicating smile. He sighed, and Jack saw how much effort he was putting into looking unruffled. Jack wanted to put his hand over his heart and feel if it was racing, maybe even wanted to take his head in his hands and calm him down, but he was still so unsteady with the alcohol, so he didn't move.
Then James opened his eyes again and said, "Heard a speech today. Something about people not letting themselves be so fucking stupid and blind anymore."
Jack wanted to call him on his bullshit, but he had a sinking feeling that it wasn't entirely bullshit, even if there was a tone of self-deprecation and mocking to it, then James was stepping forward and putting his hands on Jack's shoulders and leaning into him and kissing him firmly on the lips.
He could remember giving that kind of kiss: proof of something. He might've let him get away with it, too, if he wasn't so warm and if his body wasn't giving off these waves of tension. Jack had had the impulse to grab him and hold him tight since he'd come up the stairs earlier, so as soon as James planted that kiss and started to draw back, Jack threw an arm around his neck and pulled him back into it, this time letting his lips slide soft against James's. At that second kiss, James opened up a little and their heads tilted just a bit and, suddenly, for the first time, Jack was kissing somebody and really, really feeling it, all the way down to his fucking toes.
He couldn't stop himself from slipping his tongue into James's mouth, and to his shock, it was met quickly but carefully, and unbearably sensually. James's hands hadn't moved an inch, but his lips worked against Jack's like he knew exactly what he was doing. Jack almost swore he'd just been very cleverly seduced, except for those nervous hands clamping down harder and harder on his shoulders. Jack forced the kiss deeper and deeper until James was taking over, pulling back to suck on his lower lip and then sweeping his tongue back inside. His breath was coming fast and warm against Jack's face, but James was keeping himself firmly in control.
At least he had been; when Jack carded his hands up into his hair, rubbing his fingers into his scalp, within seconds James shivered and pulled out of the kiss with a sort of gasp of surprise.
Jack let him go almost instantly, and though James stepped away from him again, he didn't go far. He didn't look at him, either, but Jack could see he was neither angry nor particularly ashamed. He wore an expression that he had several times that night, but only now could Jack really interpret it: the struggle to wrap conscious thinking around a gut reaction. Jack was fighting the same impulse.
"Huh," James finally said.
"Yeah."
James gave him a worried smile. "Yeah, what?"
"Never mind," Jack replied.
He still held that cigarette in his hand, so he nodded toward the door and went to open it and step out, but James grabbed him by the wrist. His eyes met a green-blue pair that looked confused. Hurt, maybe.
Shit, Jack thought. Shit shit shit. That face made something heavy settle in the pit of his stomach.
James said, "That's it?"
"What's it? What are we doing here?"
"I don't know. But…you felt it, didn't you?"
Jack wanted like hell to lie. It would be the easiest thing; admit that it was a good experiment, wish James luck on sorting himself out even if he secretly hoped he'd left him as discombobulated as James's mere presence had him all night. But he couldn't.
He just nodded. So James let him go, and when he went out into the hallway, James didn't follow.
His hands shook on the window latch as he opened it again and they still shook each time he brought the cigarette to his lips. There was a flare of heat and longing inside him, spreading now through his gut. Just before the kiss had broken off, he'd felt his dick start to stir, just from having James that close and his mouth on his. That in and of itself didn't make him too nervous. He'd gotten hard kissing those other guys, but it had been because they were good kissers and they'd leaned into him, pressing their own erections against him, or they'd let their hands wander too close. But this-this was impossibly fast and good and scarier than he had believed possible. Just thinking about it was threatening to make him hard again, so he forced himself to calm down. The rain spattered in through the window, drops of it occasionally hitting his face, and he breathed in the night air as steadily and slowly as he could.
When he worked up the courage to go back inside, James was sitting in that chair by the door again, the whiskey bottle in his hand.
"You come close to polishing this off," James said.
"Yeah." Jack held out his hand for the bottle, but James just shook his head and Jack didn't argue.
Not knowing what else to do, Jack sat down on the bed again, propping himself up against the headboard, his legs pulled up so he could hug them to his chest. James watched him the whole time, apparently waiting for him to get settled before they launched into another conversation. Of course there would be a conversation.
James said, "How far you ever been with a guy?"
"A little farther than that. Not very."
James got quiet again, and the only sound in the room was the swish of the liquid in the bottle.
After a couple of very long minutes, James said: "I had this friend. Not the one I was talking about before. A girl. She was real pretty. Colored."
"Oh."
He nodded. "I could look at her and see that she was about as beautiful as you'd want a girl to be. But I never wanted nothing from her. I… Fuck, I guess I really thought I had some kind of hang up about her being a negro. But I s'pose it could've been something else."
"So you've never been with a woman?"
He shot him a look that clearly said, What do you think, idiot? But he said, "You can't get by without touching and being touched, you know. But that, just now…"
"You didn't know."
"Not really. I know it doesn't seem possible, old as I am."
Jack snorted softly. "I know exactly how possible it is. I knew from the time I was maybe 13, but I'm still coming to terms with it. Obviously. I was in college before I ever did anything about it." Jack sighed, and he felt a jangling along his nerves again. He was sure his voice shook when he said, "But it never felt like that."
He started to exhale a long breath, knowing they were both saying too much but feeling powerless to stop it, when James abruptly stood up and crossed over to him. Jack's breath caught in his throat as James sat down on the bed beside him and took his jaw in his hands and kissed him again, this time deeply from the start.
But this time, James was also a hell of a lot more nervous. Jack wrapped his arms around him again, desperate to quiet him, but all that seemed to do was make James kiss him more fiercely, almost like he was trying to pull something up out of him. Jack let his legs fall, and he was shocked a moment later when James stood, not breaking the kiss in the slightest, and climbed up onto the bed to straddle him.
It was awkward for a moment, both of them trying to decide what was happening and what was going to happen. James's back arched into the air and Jack found his hands scrabbling at James's waist. Having made the move, James seemed hesitant, but his mouth was far from it, and when he thrust his tongue back inside Jack's mouth, Jack slipped his hands up around to his back and pulled him down on top of him.
James landed a little off-center, and a bit clumsily, too, but it didn't fucking matter, not since Jack could feel how heavy he was, and how solid, that long, lean body melting down into his own. James let out this quiet grunt and set about kissing him even harder than he had before as Jack's hands tugged at his hips, not even thinking, really, just pulling their groins into line together. He was already half hard just from the kissing, but as he felt the James's dick bumping against his, he was suddenly rock hard, and he groaned into James's mouth.
A moment later, James tore out of the kiss and panted against Jack's neck. "God."
Jack shivered at James's breath in his ear, and he nudged his hips up until James was grinding down against him, such perfect pressure it made his eyes snap shut; and even if he was drunk he began to experience everything so distinctly, the smell of his skin and the sound of his breathing and especially the shift and roll of his body above his, all that strength concentrated on the push of holding their hips together.
"Jesus," Jack said against his neck, baring teeth, as his hands clung to him. For a time, they squeezed their bodies together as tightly as they could, but it was almost too much; so Jack thrust up, just for some relief. The sudden friction was like a fucking spark going off inside him, and he couldn't stop himself from rutting against James, and James seemed eager to reciprocate.
It felt good but it was too much, so they quickly settled down and just rocked together slowly. James blindly sought out his mouth again, and Jack just gave himself over to it. He couldn't have tensed up and freaked out if he wanted it. It felt so fucking good, and he didn't have to wonder whether James felt it too. James just kept claiming him with his mouth and his hips, and Jack felt it wash over and over him.
Then all of a sudden, James pulled back, still crouched over him but his body not really making contact anymore. James's eyes were almost shocking, now a dark green, with his pupils blown, not to mention how his lips were wet, kissed a deep pink.
James was panting, "Hold on. Wait."
"Okay."
"We can't keep…"
Jack wondered why he hadn't shifted off of him if he was starting to panic, why he was still on the bed at all. But a moment later, he rolled off him, rolling Jack, too, so that they were lying on their sides face to face. James's hands were up on his neck now, his thumb rubbing over the stubble on his chin and his throat, and though Jack started to squirm closer to him again, James just laughed to himself and held Jack at arms length.
"Let me…calm down a second," he mumbled.
"Oh," Jack said, finally understanding. "Sorry."
"It's okay. Good problem to have."
James finally looked at him, then, with this gaze that shot down into his core. Want. Such want he hadn't thought it possible. He'd imagined James's anger in response to knowing how he felt. He hadn't at all thought about what it might be like if that passion was channeled into touching him and fucking looking at him like that.
So Jack looked back, and it made him feel brave and sort of powerful. He reached out and lay his hand on James's belt buckle. "We could…"
James closed his eyes.
Jack took his hand back. "Unless that's too-"
"No," James said softly. "I want to."
This time, there was no quick, bold move from either of them. Still, it took a lot of nerve for Jack to move his hand again and struggle with James's belt and then with the button on his fly, finally with his zipper. James's hand came down, then, and stopped him before he turned his attention to Jack's fly. He popped the button and pulled down the zipper, then he waited for Jack to shuck his pants as he pushed his own down over his hips. They kept their boxers on, and they chuckled to themselves as they saw that they were wearing almost identical worn, faded, light blue cotton undershorts.
James's stomach was mesmerizing-taut and a golden brown. A light down of hair ran down into his shorts.
"Did you know," Jack said, "that you're so good looking it's distracting?"
"Jack…"
He was nervous again, but he'd come too far to stop. He smiled and said, "Earlier, at the bar… I hate to tell you, but I learned absolutely nothing about pool."
Before James could say anything, Jack reached out and grasped his dick through his shorts, just as an experiment. James bucked a little into his hand, so Jack hurriedly worked his hand into the slit in front and wrapped his hand around him, feeling a surge of arousal at how hard and hot and heavy he was in his hand, all because of him.
"Uh," James grunted. "Yeah."
Jack let his thumb slip down to the head, where he found that James was already dripping. He'd already known-he'd seen the wet spot on his shorts-but it was different feeling it. As he moved his thumb over James's slit, James clamped his hand down on Jack's arm.
Jack scooted closer to him and said into his ear, "Let me do this."
Instantly, James relaxed a little, but he said, "All right, but it's gonna be…"
Jack looked down between them at his own crotch and said, "I think I know exactly how it's gonna be."
At that, James's hand came off his arm and cupped him through his shorts, the heel of his hand pressing into his dick and his fingers curving down to massage at his balls. But he couldn't seem to concentrate on anything more than that once Jack pulled his dick out through of the slit in his boxers and started stroking him. Every time Jack's hand came down over his head, he groaned, and Jack could feel his own dick getting even more impossibly hard. So he concentrated on watching James's face, what kind of grip and rhythm made his eyelids flutter and his lips part to let out a moan or a gasp of air. He was struck by how, on the one hand, James seemed beautiful to him, no less than any woman he'd ever seen, but yet he was so masculine, strong and hard despite his softness, physically and otherwise.
James was already so close it didn't take very long. James's hand didn't do much there pressed against his dick, but it was all so much that he was just on the verge of coming, too. One of his hands was trapped half under his own body, and he hated that, because he wanted to be able to touch James all over, thrust a hand up his shirt, hold him by the hip, roll his palm over his balls, but he contented himself with sliding that hand under James's neck as the other hand set a fast rhythm, one that grew sloppier and sloppier the more James moved with him, until James was in danger of slipping right out of his grasp. Jack gripped him tighter, and when he did, James groaned.
"Oh. Shit," he gasped. "Oh fuck, I'm gonna-- Oh God."
Jack felt himself start to thrust against James's hand as he jerked him hard, listening to the wet slick sound of it, feeling him get even wetter suddenly as he grunted and came in Jack's hand.
It didn't take much time before James was dragging at the waistband of his shorts and pulling his cock out over them. James's mouth closed over his again, and Jack was still stroking James's cock as James began to jerk him, just as hard and fast as Jack's own hand had been moving. Jack groaned into his mouth and felt his whole body bow into that touch, the elastic snug against his balls and James's palm sliding over his skin. When he finally came, he thought for a moment that he forgot where he was. But he knew exactly who he was with. He thought he'd never forget how that man kissed him, now so open and insistent and sure.
The kiss didn't last for long, though. James seemed to sense that this was somehow all too much, so he let him go and rolled over onto his back so that their bodies weren't touching anymore. In some ways, Jack would've preferred he get up, but it gave him not a small sense of power to know that James must've been three times as afraid but also three times as unable to make that move away from him. So he lay there listening to him breathe, smelling his own familiar musk mixed with all the new smells of James's body and trying not to think too much or too hard. That was easy enough. He suddenly felt rather exhausted, the sated feeling subsiding into a general weariness. But he also thought he was maybe too keyed up to sleep. With all the alcohol he'd had, it would be at least a couple of hours before he could come down from it, or from this, either; his brain was spinning.
The rain had almost stopped again, subsiding to an occasional misting spray against the window, when James finally moved. He got up, gathering his pants and shoes as he did, and slipped into the bathroom and Jack listened to the sound of the water running. His own stomach was sticky, his boxers pulled up just far enough to cover what they needed to cover, and he had the sudden urge to get clean himself. Clean would mean they didn't have to look at each other like they'd just done what they did. Not that he wanted to forget, but he certainly wasn't ready to deal with it. That creeping feeling of fear came up into his chest again, and while it seemed like it was about James and what James might do-even now, after all of that; especially now-he knew it was just guilt twisted into something so overwhelming he wouldn't have to think about how nice guys don't put their hands on other guys' dicks, and if they do, they certainly don't like it.
After a minute or two, James swept out of the bathroom with a lurching couple of steps, despite how carefully he seemed to be trying to carry himself, and stared down at him.
"I gotta get out of here," James said.
"Okay," Jack replied. "Yeah."
"I mean, I can't breathe in here."
Jack wanted to nod, to say he understood, but something about James coming out of the bathroom and looking at him like that cleared out his head. James couldn't breathe, but he could. Maybe it was temporary, but, really, he thought he was just about done freaking out over wanting what he wanted. The other times he'd been drunk or stoned and out to prove something, but he wouldn't have done what they just did, here and now, unless he couldn't help it. James was looking at him like it was inevitable for him, too. That he was far less certain about it made Jack nod his head. Let him slip out into the night. Maybe it was for the best.
"No," James said, his head ducking and shaking loosely as a bemused smile came into his expression. "I mean, it's hot as hell in here. We been cooped up too long, I think."
We?, Jack's face must've said.
"What?" James replied. "You gonna act like we just had some anonymous encounter like I imagine people write about in dirty magazines? Not that I've read any that would… Shit. What I mean-you gonna be all weird, now?"
Jack let a smile ghost over his face. "Uh… No?"
"I don't know what you think about me, but I'm not stupid, I don't do anything I don't wanna do, and I'm not gonna freak out on you."
Jack frowned. "Why do you keep saying that?"
James waved his hand at him.
"Seriously?" Jack said.
"'Cause I ought to," he said emphatically. "I keep thinking I ought to. If my momma knew I was halfway across town screwing around with some…guy I don't know, she'd be…"
"It's more than that."
"Yeah, it's more than that. But the bottom line is, I don't care if it's more than that. I won't let myself…" He sighed, rubbing his hand over his face. "Yeah, no. Anyway, if you wanna sleep, I'll leave you alone. But I feel like going for a walk. I ain't sleeping anytime soon. I doubt you are either. You can come, if you want."
"Do you want me to?"
"Didn't I ask you, you stupid fuck?"
Jack found a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Okay."
"You get cleaned up, and I'll wait for you outside."
"Okay."
Jack waited for him to close the door before he got up off the bed and padded into the bathroom. He was perhaps even stickier with come than James had been, up over his stomach and chest, and though he contemplated a shower, there was no time for it. Never mind that maybe he simply didn't want to wash the evidence away, replace the scent of James's body with motel soap. He cleaned himself up as best he could with a washcloth and a towel and ran his hands over his hair, pausing to look at himself in the mirror, closely. He still looked the same. A little haggard, maybe, but still flushed. Oddly calm.
continue part four...