fic: a sorta fairytale
a sorta fairy tale
Jeph/Quinn, Jeph/Bob, Bert/Quinn, R-ish, 6500 words.
For turnyourankle in the usedfic Multimedia Exchange, who requested unrequited angsting or angsting in general; Jepha/Quinn, Jepha/Bob, or Bert/Quinn. I kind of managed all of that? I dunno. Apologies for being a day late - I wanted to make sure that this hit the beta shop right. Thanks for your patience!
This is set in an AU based on the “All That I Got” ‘verse. You probably don’t need to watch the video to have this make sense, but it wouldn’t hurt. Many many thanks to 7iris, secrethappiness and chiromancy for the speedy betas. All remaining mistakes are my own.
*******
At one point, they all started off in the bookstore, at least Jeph’s pretty sure that they did. He did, he definitely knows that, even now that he’s forgotten most everything else.
Every day is the same now, waiting for someone to come, someone new, someone who does something different than the same concentric circles that the rest of them seem to be stuck in. There’s some part of Jeph that thinks that the one who is coming might be able to get them out, but the rest of Jeph has another glass of wine, another bunch of grapes, takes another nap.
In fairy tales, they always tell you not to eat or drink once you’ve crossed the border to other lands. What they forget to mention is that it doesn’t matter whether you eat or drink or sleep or fuck. Once you’re in a fairy tale, you’re in until they want to let you go or you can trick them.
They’re not fools, though. And they never want to let you go.
Sometimes, Jeph just wants to know who “they” are. But maybe finding that out is the escape route or at least the end.
Maybe not.
*
Jeph has never really been much of a reader. He’s always been an escapist, though his usual routes were video games, comic books, and sex.
Even at the time, Jeph wasn’t sure what drew him into The Used Bookstore. He’s never found a reason to lose himself in words when he could do it in flashes and quests, in the oblivion of video games and computers. That was more Sarah’s thing - she was the one who would bury herself in a stack of cheap paperbacks from used bookstores every weekend, eating Saltines and drinking iced tea while going through book after book.
But Sarah had been gone for a year then. There was no reason for Jeph to be there, no explanation that would draw him in. But there was something about the store, or there must have been, because he was there.
He does remember going into the store, the walls crowded with books, their spines mostly old and cracked, many of then turned sideways and crossways, as if someone had shoved as many as they could into the store.
At one end of the room, in a shadowed alcove, was a pile of books. And, at the top, was a large book, really no different than the rest. It didn’t smell different, it didn’t feel different.
It was just a book. Just a book with an illustration of a dripping heart on the cover.
Jeph has spent a lot of time wondering why he picked up that book in that store, what it was that got him where he is. But it came down to chance or fate or some kind of fucked up God because, really, there is no reason.
Hell, maybe he was just killing time when he went into the store, picked up the book, which is kind of funny in retrospect.
He had no way of knowing how much time he would kill.
*
Jeph may not remember much about the bookstore, but he remembers everything about his first days in the house.
After opening the book, things were a bit of a blur. The next thing he is aware of is standing in the middle of a vast room. The room is muted rose and ivory with walls of what look like marble. It’s not the sharp, cold color that he would expect from a marble room, but more kind of muted, like the colors have bled out in an old photograph.
Everything is just a little sepia.
Jeph stares around him, wondering how in the fuck he could be having an acid flashback when he’d never flashed here on acid. Maybe he got shot in the head and he’s in a coma?
Maybe he’s crazy.
The edges of the ceilings and doors are all gilded, the gold gleaming in contrast to the muted tones of the rest of the room.
Jeph blinks and sits down, waiting for it all to just disappear.
*
It doesn’t disappear.
He spends the next few days, weeks, and then probably months (he loses track faster than he’d like to admit) just prowling the house. He tests everything. The doors that should open outside never open at all, the windows open into nothing, the doors inside open into each other. Room after room, all beautiful and lined with gilt and endless.
It’s like a maze that never ends. One of those labyrinths and Jeph is trapped in the fucking oubliette.
It’s frustrating and it’s annoying and it’s fucking endless. A few times, he has felt something like someone watching, but he’s never seen anyone else. He figures that maybe going crazy means he’s allowed to feel people watching who aren’t there.
It’s during these wandering days that Jeph first sees The Man. He is trailing his hands along the spines of books in the library, thinking about magic spells and evil witches kind of half-assedly, when a movement out of the corner of his eye makes him turn his head.
And there is this … man standing calmly near the door, his head tilted to the side. And he’s just … watching Jeph.
“What the hell?” Jeph shouts, moving quickly toward the man until his chest is almost touching his. “Who are you? Where the hell am I?”
The man blinks slowly as he rights his head. He’s not really reacting to Jeph’s shouting and proximity. He lifts his hand slowly, carefully, like he’s moving through thicker air than Jeph. His finger reaches out and taps, gently, at Jeph’s chest.
Jeph has no idea what is going on, why he is just standing there, but he holds his breath, waiting for the man to say something.
He doesn’t say anything but his eyes crinkle around the edges a little. He closes his eyes briefly, steps back, and walks out of the room.
It’s only after he leaves that Jeph exhales, putting a hand up to his chest.
“What the fuck?”
*
Branden is the next one to arrive. Jeph is sleeping in one of the bedrooms in the upper floor of the house when he hears a crash and a loud shout.
“Motherfucker!”
Jepha shoots out of bed, not bothering to put anything over himself, running downstairs so fast that he trips over the third stair from the top and almost topples down the stairs.
He hasn’t seen another person (except The Man) in six months.
He stumbles into the ballroom, almost thinking that he must have imagined it, that this world that only he can see has started to integrate people that only he can see. He’s not sure why that would make such a difference, but part of him knows that he would.
He tries not to think about The Man. He hasn’t seen him in months anyway.
But now there is a new man. One standing in the middle of the ballroom and, as much as Jeph might think that he is imagining him, he is relatively certain that his imagination wouldn’t conjure up someone who looked this pissed.
The guy spins around as Jeph skids to a halt in the doorway, his thin and lanky body bending to the left as if he was going to grab a weapon of some kind from his pocket.
“What the fuck did you do to me?” the man hisses, his eyes narrowing and his face looking dangerous.
Jeph holds his hands out in an unconscious calming gesture, leaning his body back and turning his hips sideways. “Nothing, man. I swear.”
The man stares at him a bit longer, his eyes slipping down Jeph’s body and snagging on Jeph’s naked hips and ass.
“Yeah.” The guy’s body relaxes a little, though he’s still stiff and pissed. “You probably couldn’t do much.”
Jeph nods quickly. He pretty much can’t.
*
Jeph thought he was pissed off when he showed up, but that was nothing in comparison to the cold, constant rage that Branden seems to feel.
They don’t exactly spend time together. Jeph shows Branden the important shit, the dining room where there is always food, the cleanest bedrooms with the best beds (Jeph has had the opportunity to test many of them), the music room and the library.
Through all of it, Branden is distant and cold, more angry than Jeph can even imagine. His face softens a little when he sees the music room, his hands tracing gently over the edges of the drum kit, but he’s still not exactly soft.
Branden’s not the best company, but he’s better than nothing.
*
The insane thing is that, apparently, Quinn’s been in the house all along. Jeph’s not sure how they’ve managed to be living in the same house without running into each other, but one day he finds a man with dirty blond hair sitting at the piano in the music room, smudging his hand down the line of the keys.
“Who the hell are you?” Jeph asks, trying not to feel hope rising in this throat. Irrational as it may seem, this guy feels different than Branden did, like maybe he knows something. Maybe he’s Jeph’s ticket out.
The guy looks up, a small, sad smile spreading across his face. “Hey, Jeph. I’m Quinn.”
*
Jeph can never get Quinn to admit how long he was there before Jeph arrived, but Jeph thinks it was probably a long, long time. Quinn also never explains how or why he never showed himself before or why he came out of hiding when he did. Frankly, Quinn can’t explain very much at all, though a lot of that is because he just doesn’t know.
“You’ve met The Man?” Jeph asks one night, stretching across the couch to grab his glass of whiskey.
Quinn nods, drinking his own down fast. “Yeah.”
“He ever say anything to you?” Jeph asks, more out of habit than any real thought that The Man might have said anything.
Still, the pain in Quinn’s eyes takes Jeph by surprise when he responds. “No. He’s never said a word.”
*
Bert comes last.
Jeph’s never gotten used to people showing up, some part of him still thinking that this is his weight to carry. Still, he’s not buck naked when Bert shows up in the ballroom, and he didn’t manage to miss his presence for months, so he supposes that Bert is his favorite appearance so far.
The new guy is small - and Jeph isn’t a big guy, so that’s saying something. He is short and thin and has the air of a cornered alleycat about him. He is looking around him wildly, so he’s not another person in hiding, like Quinn, but he also doesn’t look nearly as pissed as Branden had.
He almost looks … curious.
“Hi,” Jeph says carefully, having learned his lesson with Branden.
The guy snaps his head around quickly and takes a step back. “Okay. So. Wow. This isn’t a bad trip, huh?”
Jeph shrugs. “Might be. But I think we’re all here so … that’s a lot of bad trips leading to the same place.”
The guy giggles then, his laugh inexplicable and shrill. “Fuck, I guess so.”
“I’m Jeph,” he introduces himself, figuring that it’s only polite when someone is losing their shit to at least let them know who they’re losing it in front of.
The guy puts his hands over his mouth, giggles still escaping. “Bert.”
*
Bert fits in more smoothly than Jeph would have imagined, following Quinn around like he invented air, and teasing and fucking with Branden until even he has to laugh. It’s weird, but the crazy dude is the one who seems to be dealing with this the best.
Bert is the only one of them who is never searching for an exit. He is curious about the house, about the constraints and limitations and characteristics of what Branden keeps calling their “gilded prison,” but he never tries the doors that look like they should go out, never tries to open a window and climb out.
Jeph doesn’t get it. Bert’s just as trapped as the rest of them, just as displaced and limited.
One day, Jeph asks him. There’s nothing different about it, it’s just a day just like every other day except it’s the day that Jeph asks.
They’re playing around with the instruments in the music room. Jeph is plucking out a counter to a rhythm that only exists in his head so far, his head bent over the extended neck of the bass. Bert’s hands are wandering across the ivory and ebony of the piano, his face soft with concentration and something that could be wonder.
“Why don’t you try to leave?” Jeph asks before he can stop himself. His hands keep up the beat on the strings of the bass, moving against his thoughts.
Bert’s hands still. “I don’t know.” He shrugs, shaking the strands of hair out of his face.
Jeph waits, hoping that more may be coming.
When Bert speaks, his voice is raspy and quiet, barely audible.
“I’ve never had much that belonged to me,” he says. “There’s nothing to take away from me now that I’m here, nothing for me to fuck up. It’s like a fresh start that I can’t fuck up.”
Jepha stares at him, not able to understand a life that would make being trapped in this fucked-up fairy tale an attractive option.
Bert smiles, quickbright and a little brittle at the edges. “Plus, you guys are pretty hot,” he leers. “That helps.”
*
Sex is one of the things that Jeph thought he had to avoid once he got here. At first, it was because he thought he was alone (fucking Quinn) and after that, it was just habit, something ingrained in him from reading too many fairy tales.
Quinn has no similar compunctions, apparently.
Bert is exploring the house again, trying to make reason out of a fucking magic house, for fuck’s sake. Jeph has tried to tell him that it doesn’t work like that, that he knows from experience that damn near drove him mad (More mad? Who knows?), but Bert won’t be dissuaded - he’s climbing around the house, rifling through things until his hands are peppered with papercuts and his hair is covered in a fine film of dust.
Branden’s sleeping, which is what he seems to do most of the time that he’s not drumming. It's like he’s been built only for two things.
Jeph is reading, slumped in a chair in the library. For a while, when he first arrived, he spent all of his time reading fairy tales, as if figuring out the rules of this place would help it make any sense.
That stopped around the same time that he stopped circling around the house looking for exits. Lately, he’s been reading Dickens.
A hand curls over the top of his book, the fingers curling over the top of the words at the top of the page, and Jeph presses back against the back of the chair unconsciously.
Quinn tilts his head at Jeph, closing his hand fully around the book and drawing it out of his hand. His eyes are squinted and Jeph can’t help but notice that the wrinkles at the corners are getting deeper.
They don’t get older, but they do change here.
“What are you …” Jeph’s question is cut off by Quinn’s hand wrapping quickly around his jaw, cupping Jepha’s face and tugging it roughly upward.
Quinn looks different, the vagueness and sadness usually found in his face replaced by something.
“I’m tired of this shit,” Quinn says, his voice low and deep.
“Okay,” Jeph waits. He’s good at waiting.
Whatever he was thinking Quinn would do - hit him, shove him, scream at him - he knows that kissing him was not on the list of possibilities.
Quinn’s lips are chapped, the edges of them catching on Jeph’s lip piercing. He kisses desperately, like he’s searching for something to hang onto.
It’s not bad, fuck no. Just unexpected.
The sex is less unexpected, if only because Jeph has never had anyone kiss him like that and not have it lead somewhere good. Still, he wouldn’t have predicted a lot of the specifics if he’d ever thought about it (which, okay, maybe he has). He is surprised that Quinn is so gentle at first, shocked by how much he likes it when Quinn shoves Jeph up against a wall and tugs just this side of too hard on his hair.
He’s not surprised that the sex is fucking good, though.
Really fucking good.
They are lying on the floor afterward, the scratch of the carpet almost too much on Jeph’s oversensitive skin.
“Do you think, is it this simple?” Quinn says into the air while Jeph breathes quietly and steadily, his head resting just on top of Quinn’s shoulder.
It’s not like they’re actually cuddling or anything. Just, like. Resting.
Jeph’s mouth quirks up into a smirk without his permission while he smoothes a hand over Quinn’s bare chest. “Fucking to end a magic spell?” He isn’t laughing at Quinn, he wouldn’t dare, but a giggle creeps up his throat anyway and his head shakes with the effort of holding it in.
Quinn’s face, open for the first time since Jeph met him, closes down on itself, his features going smooth and tight. “That would be stupid.”
Jeph feels like a fucking asshole. He strokes a hand up Quinn’s throat, tapping gently on his Adam’s apple before tilting Quinn’s head down toward his.
“Not stupid,” he says in the closest thing he can manage to an apology. “Just not very likely.”
Quinn’s face relaxes a little and he nods, staring off into space again.
*
When the shaggy-haired blond boy shows up, he looks more scared than any of the rest of them ever did. Even Bert.
The first time Jeph sees him, he’s just another child searching for The End. They’ve had a few drop in throughout the years. For some reason, they don’t stay, not the way Bert and Jeph and Quinn and Branden have. He’s not sure why - maybe children can get out through a way adults can’t? Maybe they die.
Jeph can’t fix it, so he doesn’t think about it.
There’s really only so much pain that one person can hold, even in a fairy tale.
Jeph knows that he can’t really help the children, but he’s not unfriendly to them or anything. He’s not Branden, who actively tries to scare them.
He says that he’s not trying to scare the kids, even claims that he’s warning them, but Jeph doesn’t know what kind of warning “be careful what you look for, you just might find it” is supposed to be.
So when the boy walks into the dining room, Jeph figures he’s just another child. He’s polite, points the way he last saw The Man walking, but he doesn’t lose a lot of sleep over the boy, either.
But then the boy comes back. They’ve never done that before.
Jeph, after a little too much wine and far too much food, has fallen into a comforting nap. He wakes to a small, serious face staring at him. The boy is seated on the ground of the dining room, the same boy from before, but somehow … different.
It takes Jeph a few moments to figure it out. The boy looks … not scared, not curious.
He’s resigned.
“Did you find The End?” Jeph asks, finally, his voice croaking a little with the aftereffects of sleep imbued with too much wine.
The boy nods wordlessly.
“Could you … tell me?” Jeph is trying to control the hope seeping out of the corners of his question, but he knows that this could be his End, this could be the thing that lets him go home or at least go somewhere else. Nobody has ever come back after finding The End.
This could be it.
“Can’t tell,” the boy says in a thin, reedy voice. He shakes his head slightly, barely a movement on his neck while the rest of his body stays completely still. “I’m sorry.”
Jeph closes his eyes against the wave of disappointment. He takes a deep breath, then another, then another.
When he opens his eyes, the boy hasn’t moved. He’s no longer looking at Jeph - his eyes are darting back and forth across the banquet table.
“Are you hungry?” Jeph asks before he can stop himself. He can’t manage being pissed at this boy - he’s a child, for Christ’s sake.
The boy pauses a little and then rolls his shoulders, as if he’s shaking off a thought or an impulse. “Yes.”
“Help yourself,” Jeph says, waving his hand to encompass the table.
The boy sits down at one of the chairs along the side and hesitates again before taking a plate.
“It doesn’t matter if you eat here, you know,” Jeph says. “It doesn’t make a difference.”
The boy looks up at Jeph and, for the first time, Jeph thinks that he looks sad. “Yeah. I know it won’t.”
*
The boy’s name, it turns out, is Bob.
“Wow, that’s … a refreshingly normal name,” Quinn says while the boy runs his hands across the guitars and drums in the ballroom, his eyes fascinated.
“I know,” Jeph says. “He’s been following me around. I guess … maybe I’m less scary?”
Quinn raises his eyebrows and looks down at Jeph’s arms where the pushed-up shirtsleeves expose the tattoos he got in the real world, back before he could imagine any of this. “Less scary?”
“Hey, at least I didn’t creep him out and try to scare the shit out of him like some people,” Jeph responds, cutting his eyes over to Branden.
Branden shrugs, unrepentant. “I didn’t know he was going to stay.”
Bert has been watching Bob, his face unreadable. “None of us did.”
*
Bob doesn’t leave. Jeph isn’t sure what he was expecting, but it wasn’t that there would suddenly be this gangly, odd kid orbiting quietly around nothing with the rest of them. He’s not unwelcome, but it’s more than a little strange.
Equally as strange is watching Bob age. Jeph hadn’t really noticed it until he had someone aging in front of him, but none of the rest of them have aged at all. He looks exactly the same as he did when he arrived in the house however many years ago. Quinn, Branden, Bert - they all have changes, but none of them are with time.
Jeph wonders why time doesn’t touch them, but Bob is changed. What it is about Bob that makes him so different?
Bob’s aging makes it easier to tell the passage of time, too. They’ve all given up tracking days, weeks, months, years; the days have fallen into a kind of endless rhythm of eating, sleeping, music, reading, wandering, exploring. But with Bob visibly aging, time starts to have meaning again, though it’s marked less by numbers and more by “Bob’s voice is changing” or “Bob can grow a beard.”
Even when he is younger, Bob is the calmest of all of them. He doesn’t have Bert’s manic energy or Quinn’s restlessness or Branden’s anger. It’s like he’s the only one who knows his place in the house.
Jeph has always thought that maybe it’s because he knows The End - he doesn’t have the search that the rest of them live with.
Jeph imagines that it’s a burden of its own, knowing how everything ends, but that doesn’t stop him, sometimes, from wishing it was his burden. Jeph was always the kid that snuck open all of his Christmas presents a month before he’d actually get them, then carefully re-wrapped them and waited until Christmas Day to actually have them.
It’s not that he’s all that impatient. He just doesn’t like surprises.
*
Quinn and Jeph have sex after that first time, but it only occurs to Jeph that they’ve stopped completely when they hit the “Bob can grow facial hair” time. He doesn’t miss Quinn, not really - they still play music together sometimes, they still find each other reading in the library more nights than not.
The sex was good, but it’s not anything that Jeph can’t do without.
And, really, when he sees the way that Bert lights up every time Quinn’s distracted attention passes to him, he thinks that doing without might be worth it.
*
Bob’s always spent more time with Jeph than the others. Jeph figured that it probably has more to do with first impressions - nominal as his greeting may have been when Bob arrived, it was still more than the rest of them did.
It has never occurred to him, not ever, that the time and attention might be something else.
But even Jeph, who maybe misses some unspoken cues sometimes, can read it when Bob’s finger is running down his arm, the nail scratching at his wrist.
He looks up from the bass that he has claimed as his own, his eyes wide and staring at Bob.
“What?” Jeph’s voice is more than a little scratchy and shrill. Because seriously … What?
Bob shrugs, his face relaxed like this is not a big fucking deal. “Do I need to make this clearer?” He moves in closer to Jeph until their chests are almost touching, his hand wrapped around Jeph’s wrist. Jeph has never gotten used to Bob being taller than him.
Taller and broader and with more facial hair. Fuck.
“Um. I just. I’ve known you since you were a kid,” Jeph protests, his head spinning as he realizes that the time of “Bob can grow facial hair” probably also correlates with the time that Bob started wanting sexual stuff.
From Jeph, apparently.
“That was a long time ago,” Bob shrugs, clearly completely okay with all of this. “You guys don’t age, but I sure as fuck do.”
Jeph nods mutely.
“Think about it,” Bob says, letting Jeph’s wrist go as he taps softly on Jeph’s chest, just over his heart.
*
Jeph thinks about it. He thinks about it more than he is totally comfortable with and then just says “fuck it” and goes to talk to Bert.
He’s still not sure why he’s picked Bert even while he’s explaining the whole fucked up thing to him, but he guesses it might be that even his subconscious knows that he needs a little bit of fucking levity.
Bert laughs so hard that he’s doubled over, his goofy fucking giggles echoing around them.
“Oh shit, you just noticed?” Bert starts giggling again. “Fuck, I can’t wait to tell Quinn.”
“I noticed that he’s, like, an adult,” Jeph protests. “I just didn’t know … don’t you think it’s weird? I could be, like, a father figure to him and shit. How the hell is this okay? I can’t take advantage of some spur-of-the-moment crush or something.”
Bert calms down a little, but a smile is still spread wide across his face. “God, you haven’t seen the way he’s been looking at you for years, have you?”
Jeph blinks.
“This isn’t spur-of-the-anything.” Bert smiles and squeezes Jeph’s shoulder a little. “You’re just clued in now.”
Jeph blinks again.
Bert snickers. “Come have your crisis of faith or whatever in the dining room with me. I’m hungry.”
*
Jeph isn’t going to do anything. It’s not that he’s not interested in doing something - once he stopped feeling like a total creeper for even looking at Bob like that, he’s been pretty willing to keep looking.
Because, really, Bob’s ridiculously hot. With those hands. Long fingers. Long fingers can be damn nice.
Still, he can’t make the first move and he wonders if, maybe, Bob doesn’t want to make the first move. Again. So they’re just dancing around each other and everything.
It’s not completely unpleasant, actually.
They’re reading together one night, something they’ve done for years, switching off reading every other chapter out loud. Bob is sprawled out across more than half of the couch, his head propped up near Jeph’s as Jeph reads his chapter.
At the end of the chapter, he goes to hand the book over to Bob.
“Is Jeph short for anything?” Bob mumbles, his head leaning precariously close to Jeph’s shoulder. It’s a little out of the blue, but not totally odd. Bob gets a little random when he’s tired.
“Jepharee,” Jeph says, taking care not to pronounce it so that it sounds any different from ‘Jeffrey.’
Bob looks up, squinting toward Jeph’s face.
“Spell it?”
Jeph sketches his name out in the dust on the arm of the chair, his finger catching on rough spots of the finish as he finishes the “p.”
“Jepha,” Bob says, smiling as he smudges out the last three letters of Jepharee.
*
And so they keep dancing, but maybe Jepha gets closer than he’d thought he would. He tugs Bob closer on the couch when they read, he remembers that Bob loves red wine and hates white wine and pours him the right glass when they eat dinner.
And, really, none of that is different from before, now that Jepha thinks about it, but now he’s aware of it.
He is leaning over Bob at the drumkit while Bob taps out a new rhythm, writing a bassline to play behind it in his head.
“Are you ever going to do anything?” Bob snaps a little, the edges of his temper showing beneath … something else.
Jepha stares at Bob. He knows what Bob's talking about, but he kind of thought they were on the same page here.
Plus. No. Probably not.
Jepha shrugs.
Bob shakes his head and places his drumsticks down on the ground carefully. “For fuck’s sake, Jepha.”
Bob stands up slowly, carefully, giving Jepha the chance to move back if he wants to.
Jepha doesn’t move back.
Bob grabs Jepha’s shoulders and shakes him a little as he pulls Jepha closer. “Seriously. What’s wrong with you?” The words are harsh, but the tone is fond, like Bob wouldn’t have expected Jepha to be anything but stupid about this.
Which, Jeph thinks as Bob bites at his lips and licks his way into Jeph’s mouth, is pretty fair.
He was stupid enough to not be doing this all the time. That’s pretty stupid.
*
And it goes like that for a few days, Bob cornering Jepha periodically and pushing and pushing at him. Jepha kind of loves it. They don’t fuck at first, just revel in the exciting newness of rubbing up against each other and biting and licking and pushing.
Eventually, though, Bob realizes that Jepha is being careful with him again.
“I won’t break,” Bob hisses as he pulls Jepha’s hair back and bares his throat. He bites gently at Jepha’s Adam’s apple, sinking his teeth in a little harder at Jepha’s groan.
Jepha imagines what he must look like, his legs spread against a wall, Bob crowded up against him, tugging his head back. He groans again.
“Yeah,” Jeph breathes out. “Yeah, we should do that.”
Bob is fucking him on the floor of the library when Jepha realizes that he never really said what “that” was. But that’s okay. Bob seems to know what he’s saying, even when he’s not actually saying it.
*
As much as it would be kind of romantic (and sad) to say that his life becomes all Bob, all the time, it doesn’t. Really, almost nothing changes. They spend more time together than they spend with the others, but Jeph still wanders the house by himself every once in a while, trying to find something new to explain all of this.
Despite his words to Bert, he’s never totally given up.
It’s during one of these periodic explorations that Jepha comes across a room marked “Do not enter.” He’s never seen it before, which is notable in itself at this point. Even the rooms that Jepha doesn’t come across very often are still rooms that he’s at least seen - he’s stopped trying to understand how the house works. But new rooms … there aren’t new rooms, not at this point.
Curious and with tendrils of hope and dread climbing up his throat, Jepha heads toward the room. Fuck the sign.
“Hey,” Bob says, his voice low and sudden behind him. Jepha turns, grinning quick and fast at Bob.
“Where did you come from?” Jepha asks. “I thought you were going to practice.”
“Yeah,” Bob says, his eyes flickering quickly behind Jepha, so fast that he’s not sure it actually happened. “I came up with this new line … come on, come help me with it.”
Jepha loves writing with Bob, he loves it. But … this room.
“Can you get Branden to help you?” Jepha tries.
Bob shrugs, his shoulders slumping. “Yeah, but I need a bass.”
Jepha struggles against it for a minute, wanting to find out what’s in the new room, wanting to see what it is that is being denied them. But … Bob.
He can find the room again. It’s not like he doesn’t have time.
He lets Bob lead him away from the room, noting in his head the passages and hallways they walk down to get back to the music room.
But no matter how many times he retraces those steps, when Jepha looks for the room later, he never manages to find it. It’s as if it never existed. Or, maybe, it only existed occasionally and second chances weren’t an option.
*
Jepha catches The Man staring at him a few days after he sees the strange room. It occurs to him that he hasn’t seen much of The Man in the last few years when he looks up from a book to see The Man in the corner of the library. The Man always just randomly shows up. This time, he’s sitting carefully on Bob’s favorite couch.
“Hello,” Jepha says carefully. He stopped trying to get The Man to answer questions years ago, but even knowing the futility of the gesture can’t stop him from being polite like his mom always taught him to be.
The Man surprises Jepha by nodding slightly, his blue eyes trained on Jepha’s hands. Jepha turns over the book that he’s been reading to show The Man the cover.
The Man smiles a little, a soft smile that is weirdly familiar, even though Jepha knows that he’s never seen The Man smile.
“Don’t you get lonely?” Jepha blurts out. The hand not holding the book actually flies up to his mouth. Fuck. You don’t ask The Man questions about his personal life. If he even has a personal life.
The Man looks surprised for a minute, too. Then he shrugs and holds his hands out, his long fingers splayed out. Jepha can’t be sure, but he seems to be saying “What can you do?”
Jepha thinks of his life in the house before Branden and Bert and Quinn. Before Bob.
He nods.
*
Bob really is better in bed than anyone Jepha has ever been with.
“That’s because you know that I’ve only been with you,” Bob always responds, shaking his head a little and letting his hair fall over his eyes, now surrounded with small wrinkles at the edges. Someday, Jepha thinks, Bob will be an old man here and Jepha will look exactly the same. “You’re more territorial than you admit.”
That could be a little true.
“Do you ever think that we could just … get out of here?” Jepha asks one night, his head a little hazy. That has to be why he says it out loud, the thought he doesn’t even let himself think.
Not anymore. He doesn’t think about it much at all anymore.
Bob stills under Jepha’s hand.
“No, I don’t,” he says quietly, almost so softly that Jepha doesn’t hear him at all.
“Is it because you’ve seen The End?” Jepha asks, not able to stop himself even though he knows that Bob fucking hates it when he brings it up.
Bob closes his eyes against the question, just like Jepha knew he would. Sometimes Jepha has absolutely no sense of self-preservation.
Bob doesn’t shove Jepha off of his chest. He doesn’t even yell. He just gets more and more still, almost like he’s trying to turn himself into something inanimate, like a tree. Solid and unmoving.
“Bob,” Jepha says. “Bob. You’ve seen The End. Do we ever get out?”
It takes so long for Bob to answer that Jepha has given up on the answer and is almost asleep. He might be asleep, really, since he’ll never get Bob to admit that he answered at all.
“Yeah,” Bob whispers just before Jepha falls asleep. “You get out.”
Jepha remembers it, but they never talk about any of this, not ever. Jepha wants to, always wants to know what the hell Bob had meant by all of it, but he knows that Bob would evade the whole thing.
But if Bob would have ever admitted to saying it, then Jepha could have asked why he said “you” and not “we.”
Jeph/Quinn, Jeph/Bob, Bert/Quinn, R-ish, 6500 words.
For turnyourankle in the usedfic Multimedia Exchange, who requested unrequited angsting or angsting in general; Jepha/Quinn, Jepha/Bob, or Bert/Quinn. I kind of managed all of that? I dunno. Apologies for being a day late - I wanted to make sure that this hit the beta shop right. Thanks for your patience!
This is set in an AU based on the “All That I Got” ‘verse. You probably don’t need to watch the video to have this make sense, but it wouldn’t hurt. Many many thanks to 7iris, secrethappiness and chiromancy for the speedy betas. All remaining mistakes are my own.
*******
At one point, they all started off in the bookstore, at least Jeph’s pretty sure that they did. He did, he definitely knows that, even now that he’s forgotten most everything else.
Every day is the same now, waiting for someone to come, someone new, someone who does something different than the same concentric circles that the rest of them seem to be stuck in. There’s some part of Jeph that thinks that the one who is coming might be able to get them out, but the rest of Jeph has another glass of wine, another bunch of grapes, takes another nap.
In fairy tales, they always tell you not to eat or drink once you’ve crossed the border to other lands. What they forget to mention is that it doesn’t matter whether you eat or drink or sleep or fuck. Once you’re in a fairy tale, you’re in until they want to let you go or you can trick them.
They’re not fools, though. And they never want to let you go.
Sometimes, Jeph just wants to know who “they” are. But maybe finding that out is the escape route or at least the end.
Maybe not.
*
Jeph has never really been much of a reader. He’s always been an escapist, though his usual routes were video games, comic books, and sex.
Even at the time, Jeph wasn’t sure what drew him into The Used Bookstore. He’s never found a reason to lose himself in words when he could do it in flashes and quests, in the oblivion of video games and computers. That was more Sarah’s thing - she was the one who would bury herself in a stack of cheap paperbacks from used bookstores every weekend, eating Saltines and drinking iced tea while going through book after book.
But Sarah had been gone for a year then. There was no reason for Jeph to be there, no explanation that would draw him in. But there was something about the store, or there must have been, because he was there.
He does remember going into the store, the walls crowded with books, their spines mostly old and cracked, many of then turned sideways and crossways, as if someone had shoved as many as they could into the store.
At one end of the room, in a shadowed alcove, was a pile of books. And, at the top, was a large book, really no different than the rest. It didn’t smell different, it didn’t feel different.
It was just a book. Just a book with an illustration of a dripping heart on the cover.
Jeph has spent a lot of time wondering why he picked up that book in that store, what it was that got him where he is. But it came down to chance or fate or some kind of fucked up God because, really, there is no reason.
Hell, maybe he was just killing time when he went into the store, picked up the book, which is kind of funny in retrospect.
He had no way of knowing how much time he would kill.
*
Jeph may not remember much about the bookstore, but he remembers everything about his first days in the house.
After opening the book, things were a bit of a blur. The next thing he is aware of is standing in the middle of a vast room. The room is muted rose and ivory with walls of what look like marble. It’s not the sharp, cold color that he would expect from a marble room, but more kind of muted, like the colors have bled out in an old photograph.
Everything is just a little sepia.
Jeph stares around him, wondering how in the fuck he could be having an acid flashback when he’d never flashed here on acid. Maybe he got shot in the head and he’s in a coma?
Maybe he’s crazy.
The edges of the ceilings and doors are all gilded, the gold gleaming in contrast to the muted tones of the rest of the room.
Jeph blinks and sits down, waiting for it all to just disappear.
*
It doesn’t disappear.
He spends the next few days, weeks, and then probably months (he loses track faster than he’d like to admit) just prowling the house. He tests everything. The doors that should open outside never open at all, the windows open into nothing, the doors inside open into each other. Room after room, all beautiful and lined with gilt and endless.
It’s like a maze that never ends. One of those labyrinths and Jeph is trapped in the fucking oubliette.
It’s frustrating and it’s annoying and it’s fucking endless. A few times, he has felt something like someone watching, but he’s never seen anyone else. He figures that maybe going crazy means he’s allowed to feel people watching who aren’t there.
It’s during these wandering days that Jeph first sees The Man. He is trailing his hands along the spines of books in the library, thinking about magic spells and evil witches kind of half-assedly, when a movement out of the corner of his eye makes him turn his head.
And there is this … man standing calmly near the door, his head tilted to the side. And he’s just … watching Jeph.
“What the hell?” Jeph shouts, moving quickly toward the man until his chest is almost touching his. “Who are you? Where the hell am I?”
The man blinks slowly as he rights his head. He’s not really reacting to Jeph’s shouting and proximity. He lifts his hand slowly, carefully, like he’s moving through thicker air than Jeph. His finger reaches out and taps, gently, at Jeph’s chest.
Jeph has no idea what is going on, why he is just standing there, but he holds his breath, waiting for the man to say something.
He doesn’t say anything but his eyes crinkle around the edges a little. He closes his eyes briefly, steps back, and walks out of the room.
It’s only after he leaves that Jeph exhales, putting a hand up to his chest.
“What the fuck?”
*
Branden is the next one to arrive. Jeph is sleeping in one of the bedrooms in the upper floor of the house when he hears a crash and a loud shout.
“Motherfucker!”
Jepha shoots out of bed, not bothering to put anything over himself, running downstairs so fast that he trips over the third stair from the top and almost topples down the stairs.
He hasn’t seen another person (except The Man) in six months.
He stumbles into the ballroom, almost thinking that he must have imagined it, that this world that only he can see has started to integrate people that only he can see. He’s not sure why that would make such a difference, but part of him knows that he would.
He tries not to think about The Man. He hasn’t seen him in months anyway.
But now there is a new man. One standing in the middle of the ballroom and, as much as Jeph might think that he is imagining him, he is relatively certain that his imagination wouldn’t conjure up someone who looked this pissed.
The guy spins around as Jeph skids to a halt in the doorway, his thin and lanky body bending to the left as if he was going to grab a weapon of some kind from his pocket.
“What the fuck did you do to me?” the man hisses, his eyes narrowing and his face looking dangerous.
Jeph holds his hands out in an unconscious calming gesture, leaning his body back and turning his hips sideways. “Nothing, man. I swear.”
The man stares at him a bit longer, his eyes slipping down Jeph’s body and snagging on Jeph’s naked hips and ass.
“Yeah.” The guy’s body relaxes a little, though he’s still stiff and pissed. “You probably couldn’t do much.”
Jeph nods quickly. He pretty much can’t.
*
Jeph thought he was pissed off when he showed up, but that was nothing in comparison to the cold, constant rage that Branden seems to feel.
They don’t exactly spend time together. Jeph shows Branden the important shit, the dining room where there is always food, the cleanest bedrooms with the best beds (Jeph has had the opportunity to test many of them), the music room and the library.
Through all of it, Branden is distant and cold, more angry than Jeph can even imagine. His face softens a little when he sees the music room, his hands tracing gently over the edges of the drum kit, but he’s still not exactly soft.
Branden’s not the best company, but he’s better than nothing.
*
The insane thing is that, apparently, Quinn’s been in the house all along. Jeph’s not sure how they’ve managed to be living in the same house without running into each other, but one day he finds a man with dirty blond hair sitting at the piano in the music room, smudging his hand down the line of the keys.
“Who the hell are you?” Jeph asks, trying not to feel hope rising in this throat. Irrational as it may seem, this guy feels different than Branden did, like maybe he knows something. Maybe he’s Jeph’s ticket out.
The guy looks up, a small, sad smile spreading across his face. “Hey, Jeph. I’m Quinn.”
*
Jeph can never get Quinn to admit how long he was there before Jeph arrived, but Jeph thinks it was probably a long, long time. Quinn also never explains how or why he never showed himself before or why he came out of hiding when he did. Frankly, Quinn can’t explain very much at all, though a lot of that is because he just doesn’t know.
“You’ve met The Man?” Jeph asks one night, stretching across the couch to grab his glass of whiskey.
Quinn nods, drinking his own down fast. “Yeah.”
“He ever say anything to you?” Jeph asks, more out of habit than any real thought that The Man might have said anything.
Still, the pain in Quinn’s eyes takes Jeph by surprise when he responds. “No. He’s never said a word.”
*
Bert comes last.
Jeph’s never gotten used to people showing up, some part of him still thinking that this is his weight to carry. Still, he’s not buck naked when Bert shows up in the ballroom, and he didn’t manage to miss his presence for months, so he supposes that Bert is his favorite appearance so far.
The new guy is small - and Jeph isn’t a big guy, so that’s saying something. He is short and thin and has the air of a cornered alleycat about him. He is looking around him wildly, so he’s not another person in hiding, like Quinn, but he also doesn’t look nearly as pissed as Branden had.
He almost looks … curious.
“Hi,” Jeph says carefully, having learned his lesson with Branden.
The guy snaps his head around quickly and takes a step back. “Okay. So. Wow. This isn’t a bad trip, huh?”
Jeph shrugs. “Might be. But I think we’re all here so … that’s a lot of bad trips leading to the same place.”
The guy giggles then, his laugh inexplicable and shrill. “Fuck, I guess so.”
“I’m Jeph,” he introduces himself, figuring that it’s only polite when someone is losing their shit to at least let them know who they’re losing it in front of.
The guy puts his hands over his mouth, giggles still escaping. “Bert.”
*
Bert fits in more smoothly than Jeph would have imagined, following Quinn around like he invented air, and teasing and fucking with Branden until even he has to laugh. It’s weird, but the crazy dude is the one who seems to be dealing with this the best.
Bert is the only one of them who is never searching for an exit. He is curious about the house, about the constraints and limitations and characteristics of what Branden keeps calling their “gilded prison,” but he never tries the doors that look like they should go out, never tries to open a window and climb out.
Jeph doesn’t get it. Bert’s just as trapped as the rest of them, just as displaced and limited.
One day, Jeph asks him. There’s nothing different about it, it’s just a day just like every other day except it’s the day that Jeph asks.
They’re playing around with the instruments in the music room. Jeph is plucking out a counter to a rhythm that only exists in his head so far, his head bent over the extended neck of the bass. Bert’s hands are wandering across the ivory and ebony of the piano, his face soft with concentration and something that could be wonder.
“Why don’t you try to leave?” Jeph asks before he can stop himself. His hands keep up the beat on the strings of the bass, moving against his thoughts.
Bert’s hands still. “I don’t know.” He shrugs, shaking the strands of hair out of his face.
Jeph waits, hoping that more may be coming.
When Bert speaks, his voice is raspy and quiet, barely audible.
“I’ve never had much that belonged to me,” he says. “There’s nothing to take away from me now that I’m here, nothing for me to fuck up. It’s like a fresh start that I can’t fuck up.”
Jepha stares at him, not able to understand a life that would make being trapped in this fucked-up fairy tale an attractive option.
Bert smiles, quickbright and a little brittle at the edges. “Plus, you guys are pretty hot,” he leers. “That helps.”
*
Sex is one of the things that Jeph thought he had to avoid once he got here. At first, it was because he thought he was alone (fucking Quinn) and after that, it was just habit, something ingrained in him from reading too many fairy tales.
Quinn has no similar compunctions, apparently.
Bert is exploring the house again, trying to make reason out of a fucking magic house, for fuck’s sake. Jeph has tried to tell him that it doesn’t work like that, that he knows from experience that damn near drove him mad (More mad? Who knows?), but Bert won’t be dissuaded - he’s climbing around the house, rifling through things until his hands are peppered with papercuts and his hair is covered in a fine film of dust.
Branden’s sleeping, which is what he seems to do most of the time that he’s not drumming. It's like he’s been built only for two things.
Jeph is reading, slumped in a chair in the library. For a while, when he first arrived, he spent all of his time reading fairy tales, as if figuring out the rules of this place would help it make any sense.
That stopped around the same time that he stopped circling around the house looking for exits. Lately, he’s been reading Dickens.
A hand curls over the top of his book, the fingers curling over the top of the words at the top of the page, and Jeph presses back against the back of the chair unconsciously.
Quinn tilts his head at Jeph, closing his hand fully around the book and drawing it out of his hand. His eyes are squinted and Jeph can’t help but notice that the wrinkles at the corners are getting deeper.
They don’t get older, but they do change here.
“What are you …” Jeph’s question is cut off by Quinn’s hand wrapping quickly around his jaw, cupping Jepha’s face and tugging it roughly upward.
Quinn looks different, the vagueness and sadness usually found in his face replaced by something.
“I’m tired of this shit,” Quinn says, his voice low and deep.
“Okay,” Jeph waits. He’s good at waiting.
Whatever he was thinking Quinn would do - hit him, shove him, scream at him - he knows that kissing him was not on the list of possibilities.
Quinn’s lips are chapped, the edges of them catching on Jeph’s lip piercing. He kisses desperately, like he’s searching for something to hang onto.
It’s not bad, fuck no. Just unexpected.
The sex is less unexpected, if only because Jeph has never had anyone kiss him like that and not have it lead somewhere good. Still, he wouldn’t have predicted a lot of the specifics if he’d ever thought about it (which, okay, maybe he has). He is surprised that Quinn is so gentle at first, shocked by how much he likes it when Quinn shoves Jeph up against a wall and tugs just this side of too hard on his hair.
He’s not surprised that the sex is fucking good, though.
Really fucking good.
They are lying on the floor afterward, the scratch of the carpet almost too much on Jeph’s oversensitive skin.
“Do you think, is it this simple?” Quinn says into the air while Jeph breathes quietly and steadily, his head resting just on top of Quinn’s shoulder.
It’s not like they’re actually cuddling or anything. Just, like. Resting.
Jeph’s mouth quirks up into a smirk without his permission while he smoothes a hand over Quinn’s bare chest. “Fucking to end a magic spell?” He isn’t laughing at Quinn, he wouldn’t dare, but a giggle creeps up his throat anyway and his head shakes with the effort of holding it in.
Quinn’s face, open for the first time since Jeph met him, closes down on itself, his features going smooth and tight. “That would be stupid.”
Jeph feels like a fucking asshole. He strokes a hand up Quinn’s throat, tapping gently on his Adam’s apple before tilting Quinn’s head down toward his.
“Not stupid,” he says in the closest thing he can manage to an apology. “Just not very likely.”
Quinn’s face relaxes a little and he nods, staring off into space again.
*
When the shaggy-haired blond boy shows up, he looks more scared than any of the rest of them ever did. Even Bert.
The first time Jeph sees him, he’s just another child searching for The End. They’ve had a few drop in throughout the years. For some reason, they don’t stay, not the way Bert and Jeph and Quinn and Branden have. He’s not sure why - maybe children can get out through a way adults can’t? Maybe they die.
Jeph can’t fix it, so he doesn’t think about it.
There’s really only so much pain that one person can hold, even in a fairy tale.
Jeph knows that he can’t really help the children, but he’s not unfriendly to them or anything. He’s not Branden, who actively tries to scare them.
He says that he’s not trying to scare the kids, even claims that he’s warning them, but Jeph doesn’t know what kind of warning “be careful what you look for, you just might find it” is supposed to be.
So when the boy walks into the dining room, Jeph figures he’s just another child. He’s polite, points the way he last saw The Man walking, but he doesn’t lose a lot of sleep over the boy, either.
But then the boy comes back. They’ve never done that before.
Jeph, after a little too much wine and far too much food, has fallen into a comforting nap. He wakes to a small, serious face staring at him. The boy is seated on the ground of the dining room, the same boy from before, but somehow … different.
It takes Jeph a few moments to figure it out. The boy looks … not scared, not curious.
He’s resigned.
“Did you find The End?” Jeph asks, finally, his voice croaking a little with the aftereffects of sleep imbued with too much wine.
The boy nods wordlessly.
“Could you … tell me?” Jeph is trying to control the hope seeping out of the corners of his question, but he knows that this could be his End, this could be the thing that lets him go home or at least go somewhere else. Nobody has ever come back after finding The End.
This could be it.
“Can’t tell,” the boy says in a thin, reedy voice. He shakes his head slightly, barely a movement on his neck while the rest of his body stays completely still. “I’m sorry.”
Jeph closes his eyes against the wave of disappointment. He takes a deep breath, then another, then another.
When he opens his eyes, the boy hasn’t moved. He’s no longer looking at Jeph - his eyes are darting back and forth across the banquet table.
“Are you hungry?” Jeph asks before he can stop himself. He can’t manage being pissed at this boy - he’s a child, for Christ’s sake.
The boy pauses a little and then rolls his shoulders, as if he’s shaking off a thought or an impulse. “Yes.”
“Help yourself,” Jeph says, waving his hand to encompass the table.
The boy sits down at one of the chairs along the side and hesitates again before taking a plate.
“It doesn’t matter if you eat here, you know,” Jeph says. “It doesn’t make a difference.”
The boy looks up at Jeph and, for the first time, Jeph thinks that he looks sad. “Yeah. I know it won’t.”
*
The boy’s name, it turns out, is Bob.
“Wow, that’s … a refreshingly normal name,” Quinn says while the boy runs his hands across the guitars and drums in the ballroom, his eyes fascinated.
“I know,” Jeph says. “He’s been following me around. I guess … maybe I’m less scary?”
Quinn raises his eyebrows and looks down at Jeph’s arms where the pushed-up shirtsleeves expose the tattoos he got in the real world, back before he could imagine any of this. “Less scary?”
“Hey, at least I didn’t creep him out and try to scare the shit out of him like some people,” Jeph responds, cutting his eyes over to Branden.
Branden shrugs, unrepentant. “I didn’t know he was going to stay.”
Bert has been watching Bob, his face unreadable. “None of us did.”
*
Bob doesn’t leave. Jeph isn’t sure what he was expecting, but it wasn’t that there would suddenly be this gangly, odd kid orbiting quietly around nothing with the rest of them. He’s not unwelcome, but it’s more than a little strange.
Equally as strange is watching Bob age. Jeph hadn’t really noticed it until he had someone aging in front of him, but none of the rest of them have aged at all. He looks exactly the same as he did when he arrived in the house however many years ago. Quinn, Branden, Bert - they all have changes, but none of them are with time.
Jeph wonders why time doesn’t touch them, but Bob is changed. What it is about Bob that makes him so different?
Bob’s aging makes it easier to tell the passage of time, too. They’ve all given up tracking days, weeks, months, years; the days have fallen into a kind of endless rhythm of eating, sleeping, music, reading, wandering, exploring. But with Bob visibly aging, time starts to have meaning again, though it’s marked less by numbers and more by “Bob’s voice is changing” or “Bob can grow a beard.”
Even when he is younger, Bob is the calmest of all of them. He doesn’t have Bert’s manic energy or Quinn’s restlessness or Branden’s anger. It’s like he’s the only one who knows his place in the house.
Jeph has always thought that maybe it’s because he knows The End - he doesn’t have the search that the rest of them live with.
Jeph imagines that it’s a burden of its own, knowing how everything ends, but that doesn’t stop him, sometimes, from wishing it was his burden. Jeph was always the kid that snuck open all of his Christmas presents a month before he’d actually get them, then carefully re-wrapped them and waited until Christmas Day to actually have them.
It’s not that he’s all that impatient. He just doesn’t like surprises.
*
Quinn and Jeph have sex after that first time, but it only occurs to Jeph that they’ve stopped completely when they hit the “Bob can grow facial hair” time. He doesn’t miss Quinn, not really - they still play music together sometimes, they still find each other reading in the library more nights than not.
The sex was good, but it’s not anything that Jeph can’t do without.
And, really, when he sees the way that Bert lights up every time Quinn’s distracted attention passes to him, he thinks that doing without might be worth it.
*
Bob’s always spent more time with Jeph than the others. Jeph figured that it probably has more to do with first impressions - nominal as his greeting may have been when Bob arrived, it was still more than the rest of them did.
It has never occurred to him, not ever, that the time and attention might be something else.
But even Jeph, who maybe misses some unspoken cues sometimes, can read it when Bob’s finger is running down his arm, the nail scratching at his wrist.
He looks up from the bass that he has claimed as his own, his eyes wide and staring at Bob.
“What?” Jeph’s voice is more than a little scratchy and shrill. Because seriously … What?
Bob shrugs, his face relaxed like this is not a big fucking deal. “Do I need to make this clearer?” He moves in closer to Jeph until their chests are almost touching, his hand wrapped around Jeph’s wrist. Jeph has never gotten used to Bob being taller than him.
Taller and broader and with more facial hair. Fuck.
“Um. I just. I’ve known you since you were a kid,” Jeph protests, his head spinning as he realizes that the time of “Bob can grow facial hair” probably also correlates with the time that Bob started wanting sexual stuff.
From Jeph, apparently.
“That was a long time ago,” Bob shrugs, clearly completely okay with all of this. “You guys don’t age, but I sure as fuck do.”
Jeph nods mutely.
“Think about it,” Bob says, letting Jeph’s wrist go as he taps softly on Jeph’s chest, just over his heart.
*
Jeph thinks about it. He thinks about it more than he is totally comfortable with and then just says “fuck it” and goes to talk to Bert.
He’s still not sure why he’s picked Bert even while he’s explaining the whole fucked up thing to him, but he guesses it might be that even his subconscious knows that he needs a little bit of fucking levity.
Bert laughs so hard that he’s doubled over, his goofy fucking giggles echoing around them.
“Oh shit, you just noticed?” Bert starts giggling again. “Fuck, I can’t wait to tell Quinn.”
“I noticed that he’s, like, an adult,” Jeph protests. “I just didn’t know … don’t you think it’s weird? I could be, like, a father figure to him and shit. How the hell is this okay? I can’t take advantage of some spur-of-the-moment crush or something.”
Bert calms down a little, but a smile is still spread wide across his face. “God, you haven’t seen the way he’s been looking at you for years, have you?”
Jeph blinks.
“This isn’t spur-of-the-anything.” Bert smiles and squeezes Jeph’s shoulder a little. “You’re just clued in now.”
Jeph blinks again.
Bert snickers. “Come have your crisis of faith or whatever in the dining room with me. I’m hungry.”
*
Jeph isn’t going to do anything. It’s not that he’s not interested in doing something - once he stopped feeling like a total creeper for even looking at Bob like that, he’s been pretty willing to keep looking.
Because, really, Bob’s ridiculously hot. With those hands. Long fingers. Long fingers can be damn nice.
Still, he can’t make the first move and he wonders if, maybe, Bob doesn’t want to make the first move. Again. So they’re just dancing around each other and everything.
It’s not completely unpleasant, actually.
They’re reading together one night, something they’ve done for years, switching off reading every other chapter out loud. Bob is sprawled out across more than half of the couch, his head propped up near Jeph’s as Jeph reads his chapter.
At the end of the chapter, he goes to hand the book over to Bob.
“Is Jeph short for anything?” Bob mumbles, his head leaning precariously close to Jeph’s shoulder. It’s a little out of the blue, but not totally odd. Bob gets a little random when he’s tired.
“Jepharee,” Jeph says, taking care not to pronounce it so that it sounds any different from ‘Jeffrey.’
Bob looks up, squinting toward Jeph’s face.
“Spell it?”
Jeph sketches his name out in the dust on the arm of the chair, his finger catching on rough spots of the finish as he finishes the “p.”
“Jepha,” Bob says, smiling as he smudges out the last three letters of Jepharee.
*
And so they keep dancing, but maybe Jepha gets closer than he’d thought he would. He tugs Bob closer on the couch when they read, he remembers that Bob loves red wine and hates white wine and pours him the right glass when they eat dinner.
And, really, none of that is different from before, now that Jepha thinks about it, but now he’s aware of it.
He is leaning over Bob at the drumkit while Bob taps out a new rhythm, writing a bassline to play behind it in his head.
“Are you ever going to do anything?” Bob snaps a little, the edges of his temper showing beneath … something else.
Jepha stares at Bob. He knows what Bob's talking about, but he kind of thought they were on the same page here.
Plus. No. Probably not.
Jepha shrugs.
Bob shakes his head and places his drumsticks down on the ground carefully. “For fuck’s sake, Jepha.”
Bob stands up slowly, carefully, giving Jepha the chance to move back if he wants to.
Jepha doesn’t move back.
Bob grabs Jepha’s shoulders and shakes him a little as he pulls Jepha closer. “Seriously. What’s wrong with you?” The words are harsh, but the tone is fond, like Bob wouldn’t have expected Jepha to be anything but stupid about this.
Which, Jeph thinks as Bob bites at his lips and licks his way into Jeph’s mouth, is pretty fair.
He was stupid enough to not be doing this all the time. That’s pretty stupid.
*
And it goes like that for a few days, Bob cornering Jepha periodically and pushing and pushing at him. Jepha kind of loves it. They don’t fuck at first, just revel in the exciting newness of rubbing up against each other and biting and licking and pushing.
Eventually, though, Bob realizes that Jepha is being careful with him again.
“I won’t break,” Bob hisses as he pulls Jepha’s hair back and bares his throat. He bites gently at Jepha’s Adam’s apple, sinking his teeth in a little harder at Jepha’s groan.
Jepha imagines what he must look like, his legs spread against a wall, Bob crowded up against him, tugging his head back. He groans again.
“Yeah,” Jeph breathes out. “Yeah, we should do that.”
Bob is fucking him on the floor of the library when Jepha realizes that he never really said what “that” was. But that’s okay. Bob seems to know what he’s saying, even when he’s not actually saying it.
*
As much as it would be kind of romantic (and sad) to say that his life becomes all Bob, all the time, it doesn’t. Really, almost nothing changes. They spend more time together than they spend with the others, but Jeph still wanders the house by himself every once in a while, trying to find something new to explain all of this.
Despite his words to Bert, he’s never totally given up.
It’s during one of these periodic explorations that Jepha comes across a room marked “Do not enter.” He’s never seen it before, which is notable in itself at this point. Even the rooms that Jepha doesn’t come across very often are still rooms that he’s at least seen - he’s stopped trying to understand how the house works. But new rooms … there aren’t new rooms, not at this point.
Curious and with tendrils of hope and dread climbing up his throat, Jepha heads toward the room. Fuck the sign.
“Hey,” Bob says, his voice low and sudden behind him. Jepha turns, grinning quick and fast at Bob.
“Where did you come from?” Jepha asks. “I thought you were going to practice.”
“Yeah,” Bob says, his eyes flickering quickly behind Jepha, so fast that he’s not sure it actually happened. “I came up with this new line … come on, come help me with it.”
Jepha loves writing with Bob, he loves it. But … this room.
“Can you get Branden to help you?” Jepha tries.
Bob shrugs, his shoulders slumping. “Yeah, but I need a bass.”
Jepha struggles against it for a minute, wanting to find out what’s in the new room, wanting to see what it is that is being denied them. But … Bob.
He can find the room again. It’s not like he doesn’t have time.
He lets Bob lead him away from the room, noting in his head the passages and hallways they walk down to get back to the music room.
But no matter how many times he retraces those steps, when Jepha looks for the room later, he never manages to find it. It’s as if it never existed. Or, maybe, it only existed occasionally and second chances weren’t an option.
*
Jepha catches The Man staring at him a few days after he sees the strange room. It occurs to him that he hasn’t seen much of The Man in the last few years when he looks up from a book to see The Man in the corner of the library. The Man always just randomly shows up. This time, he’s sitting carefully on Bob’s favorite couch.
“Hello,” Jepha says carefully. He stopped trying to get The Man to answer questions years ago, but even knowing the futility of the gesture can’t stop him from being polite like his mom always taught him to be.
The Man surprises Jepha by nodding slightly, his blue eyes trained on Jepha’s hands. Jepha turns over the book that he’s been reading to show The Man the cover.
The Man smiles a little, a soft smile that is weirdly familiar, even though Jepha knows that he’s never seen The Man smile.
“Don’t you get lonely?” Jepha blurts out. The hand not holding the book actually flies up to his mouth. Fuck. You don’t ask The Man questions about his personal life. If he even has a personal life.
The Man looks surprised for a minute, too. Then he shrugs and holds his hands out, his long fingers splayed out. Jepha can’t be sure, but he seems to be saying “What can you do?”
Jepha thinks of his life in the house before Branden and Bert and Quinn. Before Bob.
He nods.
*
Bob really is better in bed than anyone Jepha has ever been with.
“That’s because you know that I’ve only been with you,” Bob always responds, shaking his head a little and letting his hair fall over his eyes, now surrounded with small wrinkles at the edges. Someday, Jepha thinks, Bob will be an old man here and Jepha will look exactly the same. “You’re more territorial than you admit.”
That could be a little true.
“Do you ever think that we could just … get out of here?” Jepha asks one night, his head a little hazy. That has to be why he says it out loud, the thought he doesn’t even let himself think.
Not anymore. He doesn’t think about it much at all anymore.
Bob stills under Jepha’s hand.
“No, I don’t,” he says quietly, almost so softly that Jepha doesn’t hear him at all.
“Is it because you’ve seen The End?” Jepha asks, not able to stop himself even though he knows that Bob fucking hates it when he brings it up.
Bob closes his eyes against the question, just like Jepha knew he would. Sometimes Jepha has absolutely no sense of self-preservation.
Bob doesn’t shove Jepha off of his chest. He doesn’t even yell. He just gets more and more still, almost like he’s trying to turn himself into something inanimate, like a tree. Solid and unmoving.
“Bob,” Jepha says. “Bob. You’ve seen The End. Do we ever get out?”
It takes so long for Bob to answer that Jepha has given up on the answer and is almost asleep. He might be asleep, really, since he’ll never get Bob to admit that he answered at all.
“Yeah,” Bob whispers just before Jepha falls asleep. “You get out.”
Jepha remembers it, but they never talk about any of this, not ever. Jepha wants to, always wants to know what the hell Bob had meant by all of it, but he knows that Bob would evade the whole thing.
But if Bob would have ever admitted to saying it, then Jepha could have asked why he said “you” and not “we.”