(no subject)
[London/Los Angeles, late August 1997. Two months or so after this. Written on AIM, pardon the all-at-once format.]
Johnny's got the closet in the master bedroom neatly divided in half, two-thirds, actually, because Jack owns more things that need to hang or lay flat, and Johnny's own stuff is mostly crammed into the armoire. A lot of it was too heavy for summer in Los Angeles, is packed away for the trip back to London. There is one sweater, though, that he keeps out, keeps it bunched between the pillows on the bed, to bury his nose in when he can't sleep.
He doesn't remember the last night he got his preferred nine hours. Probably some time in June, some time right after he got here, thinking it was going to be easy, thinking that all he had to do was point and shout and give stage directions, like the business of making movies was going to be like, well, making a movie.
Fucking joke that was.
He keeps delaying his flight back to London, there's always just one more thing, just one more thing, requiring his attention, his presence, his signature. The whole summer has flickered by like frames on too fast a reel, and Jack's voice over crackling international wires isn't enough, Jack's fading scent on dark blue cashmere is not fucking enough.
Johnny smokes a joint and watches the moon rise through the big bedroom window, watches the play of the light on the pool bounce back and make silver-white shimmers on the ceiling. The pillows on the left side of the bed have never been slept on. When he lets his hand rest there, just for a moment, the cotton is cold. He yanks his fingers back, shivering, and reaches for the telephone.
Jack raises his head from the dent in the pillow just enough to squint blearily at the display on the cordless. The square digits are fading in and out of focus when Jack scrunches his face at them and holds the phone as far away from his face as possibly in this position. The number is blurry, but not enough to be unrecognisable, and Jack immediately dislikes them all over again, this too-long jumble of numbers that ring at the oddest times, never when he wants them to.
Jack drops his face back into the pillow, effectively blocking out the morning sun, and thumbs the cordless on, bringing it to his ear. "Hi," he mumbles from the depths of sleep-warm linen; and it was almost good morning, but it’s too bright and cold for it.
"Hey," Johnny says, and he knows it's just about nine thirty there, knows that he's woken Jack just from the sound of that one syllable. He swallows, rolls over and brings the duvet with him. "Hey, big man. Good morning."
His voice is raspy from too many cigarettes and not enough sleep; he twists himself into a compact little bundle of cotton and down, smushes the phone between his pillow and his ear. Jack breathes deeply, heavily, on the other side of the Atlantic.
"I miss you," Johnny adds, and he means it, but it also helps to break the silence.
Jack shoulders the duvet closer, taking it with him when he rolls onto his back so he can face away from the window. He switches ears and blinks at the dimmer but still blurry side of the bedroom.
"Good morning, love." And it’s the smile he can’t keep out of it that hurts the most, even when the rest of his senses haven’t yet sharpen. He closes his eyes again and listens to Johnny breathe for a moment, replaying Johnny’s voice in his head, crackling a little. He doesn’t ask Are you coming back yet? because he doesn’t want to hear the question anymore than Johnny’s answer. "Can’t sleep?"
"Not really, no," Johnny admits, and he laughs shortly. "'M’too tired to sleep. I can't unwind, you know how it is, how I get. "
"Yeah," Jack agrees after a second, and then falls silent again; Johnny flails for something to say, something to fill this big yawning chasm between them.
"This house is really quiet," he says lamely. "It's not like the city, it's up in the hills. Freaks me out sometimes, it's so quiet, like, remember those neighbors we had that used to play, uh, what was it, Manilow? Barry Manilow when they were fucking? Not like that, I'm not even sure there are neighbors, you know, it's just so... quiet."
Stupid. Stupid. He rubs hard at his eyes with the knuckles of one hand. Shit, man, you used to know how to talk to him.
Jack’s chuckle is a little dry and lifeless in his throat. He opens his eyes again to stare at the uneven plaster of the ceiling and the immobile almost-shadows the curtains are throwing against it.
"Pat Boone. Not Manilow. They had it on again last night, it’d been a while. Almost comforting to listen to them go," he adds, but the humour just tightens the knot in his chest. "I do miss you, Johnny; I’m tired of saying it. I just want you here. I... fuck, I just miss you, okay? I’m miserable."
Well, shit. Hadn’t planned on letting that out just now, but the idea of another night spent listening to the neighbours instead of Johnny’s breath in his ear is enough to make him feel ill. There’s nothing comforting about it, just like there’s absolutely nothing bloody comforting about Johnny’s voice, tinny and hollowed by distance.
Pat Boone, fine, okay. Even his memories are wrong, and London feels so fucking far away right now that he wonders what's real, if any of it was real, or is, or just -
"Fuck, Jack," he sighs, and presses two fingers hard between his eyes. "You have to believe me, I'd be there tomorrow, if I could, you know that, don't you?" There's no answer, and so he plows on, he sits up in his tangled nest of covers, wraps his arms around his knees.
"Listen, get on a plane, baby, please, just for a couple of weeks, okay, it's only a couple weeks more. You pack a bag and come see the house, you'll like it, I promise. And then I'll tie up my loose ends, and then we'll go... home, Jack, we'll go home." His voice cracks, and he bites the inside of his cheek. Tries one more time.
"I can't leave yet, things aren't quite settled, but why can't you come here?"
Outside the open window the wind rustles the trees, the loudest loneliest sound he's ever heard.
"School starts in four days," he says into the silence, and his tone is harder than he intended it to be, but it’s not like Johnny doesn’t know this, it’s not like Jack hasn’t told him, and maybe it angers him a little that Johnny doesn’t remember, or doesn’t care, or doesn’t think Jack does. "I can’t just--" He bites his tongue, literally, to keep his voice from getting louder. "Because it’s your fucking dream over there, not mine. Mine is here, preferably with you. I kept my end of the bargain, Johnny."
And what end is that? To call every day, then every other day, or be here when Johnny calls, and be supportive and understanding and just lay down and take it? Wait while yet another end comes loose in America? Forget what his boyfriend smells like? Two months. All summer, when Jack is finally free. A whole summer of going to sleep and, worst, waking up alone.
Johnny wants to roll over and expose his belly to Jack's sharp words, just wants to give in, give up and just take it while his guts are shredded. There's nothing he can do about it, there's nothing he can fucking do, and he hates this, hates hurting and being hurt, hates that they're fighting about this, of all fucking things.
"What am I supposed to do, man?" he asks, and hears Jack's sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line. He hugs his knees tighter, fingertips digging painfully into the soft flesh of his calf. "What the fuck...?" He trails off, swallows hard. "Listen, just tell me what I'm supposed to do. Tell me what you want me to say and I'll say it, tell me what you want me to do and I'll do it, okay? Yeah, you waited, and I'm fucking sorry, Jack, okay, if that's what you want me to say, I'll say it all goddamn day long, Jack, I. Am. Sorry."
"Sorry doesn't put us back together, Johnny. Sorry isn't quite enough. Sorry doesn’t cut it."
Because Jack could've taught more than one summer course, give one more weekly seminar on the stuff he loved to talk about, the things he’s good at, but he only took the one because Johnny was supposed to be back after six weeks. He’s put things on hold for him; could’ve done things, could’ve spent the time he’d put aside from Johnny doing something else than sit in his flat and read book after book, or go down to the pub on his own at night, because there’s nothing better to do, and no one better to do it with. He could have furthered his career the way he’d like to, the way Johnny’s furthering his, but it's never been about that for him, it's never been about success.
"The problem with you, Johnny, is that you're so busy dreaming up things that you forget about the things right in front of you. You have this big picture in your head, but what about the fucking small picture? What about the one with me in it? Or am I just an inconvenient detail? A nagging voice on the phone?"
Johnny starts to answer, gets out "Of course n--" before the anger bubbles up in Jack again, bright and hot and sickening in the pit of his stomach. "It's always been about your dream, Johnny. And I loved it, I loved how it moved you and how you would get when you’d see a way to get to it. But what about me? What about what I wanted? All I asked for was you to come home every night, or every other night, that's all I ever bloody fucking wanted, Johnny. Just you. So if you can make that happen, Johnny, please, do."
This is not happening.
This is not happening, this is not Jack turning on him, this is not him shaking, nearly crying, nauseous with anger and hurt and fear. This is not right, this isn't the way he planned it, this isn't the way it's supposed to happen, "God damn it, Jack," he snaps, and he shakes his head. "What am I supposed to do? Do you know, do you have any idea, how much time and money it's taken for me to get here, to get to this point? I can't give up now, I can't just walk away from the commitments I've made..."
Even as he's saying the words he knows they're the wrong ones, and it's confirmed by Jack's bitter snort of laughter. "Commitment?" Jack repeats incredulously. "What the hell do you know about real commitment?"
Johnny's stomach rolls again, something hot and metallic like blood sits sour on the back of his tongue. "Probably as much as you know about real work, Jack, so don't even... Don't even, Jack, Jesus Christ, I fucking haven't slept in days, okay, days, and I call you to tell you I love you, I call you to tell you I miss you and I love you and you fucking pick a fight with me? How much of this is your fault, huh? How come that never comes up? How come you can't just... fucking do what I ask you, get on the plane, okay, just two goddamned weeks was all I asked you for, okay, not a fucking lifetime."
The problem, the problem this is not happening is that it might as well be a lifetime. Johnny covers his face with his hand; the tears come hot and burning, stinging in the corners of his eyes. "Jack, please. Just... two goddamned weeks."
Jack doesn’t know what hurts more: Johnny’s words, the truth behind them, or the sound of angry defeat in Johnny’s plea, the thickness of his breath. Shit.
Anger still sharpens everything, though, and Johnny’s tears are just too far for Jack to touch and taste and appease. The rage has unspooled, out of control, in his chest, so he forces his voice to be calm or he just doesn’t know what he’ll say to what Johnny’s accused him of.
"I can’t, Johnny. I’ll be here when you get back." There’s the sibilant wet smack of Johnny's lips into the receiver, but nothing else. Jack pushes the anger further down, lies back down and thinks of... something else. "Get some sleep."
Jack doesn't hang up, not yet, and Johnny has a moment to inhale, to scrub his sleeve across his face and try to remember what it felt like to be an adult, to be that guy who could talk to Jack about anything, everything, any hour of the day or night. He tries, and very nearly succeeds.
"Sleep," he says huskily, "yeah, um. Yeah. Jack. I will be there. I promise."
Just like the last time he promised. Jack doesn't need to say it for Johnny to know it.
"I love you," he concludes in a shredded whisper. "I love you."
Jack makes himself smile at that, because he knows Johnny can hear it, and as much as he'd like to hurt him right now, he also desperately wants to be the one to piece him back together. And once he does smile, the barely-there quirk of it doesn't require so much effort to sustain.
It takes him a moment so he can say it and mean it, but in the end, he does. "I love you too." But the smile weighs, and there's no real hope in it, nothing that makes anything better, nothing that makes Jack believe what's to come will be any better than what is now. But it's a smile, and it's for Johnny, and Jack's just absurdly glad he can muster as much, if only for Johnny's sake. "Goodnight."
He waits a full five seconds before pressing the off button. His last words ring terribly off, and not only because he's still squinting at the morning glare.
Johnny's got the closet in the master bedroom neatly divided in half, two-thirds, actually, because Jack owns more things that need to hang or lay flat, and Johnny's own stuff is mostly crammed into the armoire. A lot of it was too heavy for summer in Los Angeles, is packed away for the trip back to London. There is one sweater, though, that he keeps out, keeps it bunched between the pillows on the bed, to bury his nose in when he can't sleep.
He doesn't remember the last night he got his preferred nine hours. Probably some time in June, some time right after he got here, thinking it was going to be easy, thinking that all he had to do was point and shout and give stage directions, like the business of making movies was going to be like, well, making a movie.
Fucking joke that was.
He keeps delaying his flight back to London, there's always just one more thing, just one more thing, requiring his attention, his presence, his signature. The whole summer has flickered by like frames on too fast a reel, and Jack's voice over crackling international wires isn't enough, Jack's fading scent on dark blue cashmere is not fucking enough.
Johnny smokes a joint and watches the moon rise through the big bedroom window, watches the play of the light on the pool bounce back and make silver-white shimmers on the ceiling. The pillows on the left side of the bed have never been slept on. When he lets his hand rest there, just for a moment, the cotton is cold. He yanks his fingers back, shivering, and reaches for the telephone.
Jack raises his head from the dent in the pillow just enough to squint blearily at the display on the cordless. The square digits are fading in and out of focus when Jack scrunches his face at them and holds the phone as far away from his face as possibly in this position. The number is blurry, but not enough to be unrecognisable, and Jack immediately dislikes them all over again, this too-long jumble of numbers that ring at the oddest times, never when he wants them to.
Jack drops his face back into the pillow, effectively blocking out the morning sun, and thumbs the cordless on, bringing it to his ear. "Hi," he mumbles from the depths of sleep-warm linen; and it was almost good morning, but it’s too bright and cold for it.
"Hey," Johnny says, and he knows it's just about nine thirty there, knows that he's woken Jack just from the sound of that one syllable. He swallows, rolls over and brings the duvet with him. "Hey, big man. Good morning."
His voice is raspy from too many cigarettes and not enough sleep; he twists himself into a compact little bundle of cotton and down, smushes the phone between his pillow and his ear. Jack breathes deeply, heavily, on the other side of the Atlantic.
"I miss you," Johnny adds, and he means it, but it also helps to break the silence.
Jack shoulders the duvet closer, taking it with him when he rolls onto his back so he can face away from the window. He switches ears and blinks at the dimmer but still blurry side of the bedroom.
"Good morning, love." And it’s the smile he can’t keep out of it that hurts the most, even when the rest of his senses haven’t yet sharpen. He closes his eyes again and listens to Johnny breathe for a moment, replaying Johnny’s voice in his head, crackling a little. He doesn’t ask Are you coming back yet? because he doesn’t want to hear the question anymore than Johnny’s answer. "Can’t sleep?"
"Not really, no," Johnny admits, and he laughs shortly. "'M’too tired to sleep. I can't unwind, you know how it is, how I get. "
"Yeah," Jack agrees after a second, and then falls silent again; Johnny flails for something to say, something to fill this big yawning chasm between them.
"This house is really quiet," he says lamely. "It's not like the city, it's up in the hills. Freaks me out sometimes, it's so quiet, like, remember those neighbors we had that used to play, uh, what was it, Manilow? Barry Manilow when they were fucking? Not like that, I'm not even sure there are neighbors, you know, it's just so... quiet."
Stupid. Stupid. He rubs hard at his eyes with the knuckles of one hand. Shit, man, you used to know how to talk to him.
Jack’s chuckle is a little dry and lifeless in his throat. He opens his eyes again to stare at the uneven plaster of the ceiling and the immobile almost-shadows the curtains are throwing against it.
"Pat Boone. Not Manilow. They had it on again last night, it’d been a while. Almost comforting to listen to them go," he adds, but the humour just tightens the knot in his chest. "I do miss you, Johnny; I’m tired of saying it. I just want you here. I... fuck, I just miss you, okay? I’m miserable."
Well, shit. Hadn’t planned on letting that out just now, but the idea of another night spent listening to the neighbours instead of Johnny’s breath in his ear is enough to make him feel ill. There’s nothing comforting about it, just like there’s absolutely nothing bloody comforting about Johnny’s voice, tinny and hollowed by distance.
Pat Boone, fine, okay. Even his memories are wrong, and London feels so fucking far away right now that he wonders what's real, if any of it was real, or is, or just -
"Fuck, Jack," he sighs, and presses two fingers hard between his eyes. "You have to believe me, I'd be there tomorrow, if I could, you know that, don't you?" There's no answer, and so he plows on, he sits up in his tangled nest of covers, wraps his arms around his knees.
"Listen, get on a plane, baby, please, just for a couple of weeks, okay, it's only a couple weeks more. You pack a bag and come see the house, you'll like it, I promise. And then I'll tie up my loose ends, and then we'll go... home, Jack, we'll go home." His voice cracks, and he bites the inside of his cheek. Tries one more time.
"I can't leave yet, things aren't quite settled, but why can't you come here?"
Outside the open window the wind rustles the trees, the loudest loneliest sound he's ever heard.
"School starts in four days," he says into the silence, and his tone is harder than he intended it to be, but it’s not like Johnny doesn’t know this, it’s not like Jack hasn’t told him, and maybe it angers him a little that Johnny doesn’t remember, or doesn’t care, or doesn’t think Jack does. "I can’t just--" He bites his tongue, literally, to keep his voice from getting louder. "Because it’s your fucking dream over there, not mine. Mine is here, preferably with you. I kept my end of the bargain, Johnny."
And what end is that? To call every day, then every other day, or be here when Johnny calls, and be supportive and understanding and just lay down and take it? Wait while yet another end comes loose in America? Forget what his boyfriend smells like? Two months. All summer, when Jack is finally free. A whole summer of going to sleep and, worst, waking up alone.
Johnny wants to roll over and expose his belly to Jack's sharp words, just wants to give in, give up and just take it while his guts are shredded. There's nothing he can do about it, there's nothing he can fucking do, and he hates this, hates hurting and being hurt, hates that they're fighting about this, of all fucking things.
"What am I supposed to do, man?" he asks, and hears Jack's sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line. He hugs his knees tighter, fingertips digging painfully into the soft flesh of his calf. "What the fuck...?" He trails off, swallows hard. "Listen, just tell me what I'm supposed to do. Tell me what you want me to say and I'll say it, tell me what you want me to do and I'll do it, okay? Yeah, you waited, and I'm fucking sorry, Jack, okay, if that's what you want me to say, I'll say it all goddamn day long, Jack, I. Am. Sorry."
"Sorry doesn't put us back together, Johnny. Sorry isn't quite enough. Sorry doesn’t cut it."
Because Jack could've taught more than one summer course, give one more weekly seminar on the stuff he loved to talk about, the things he’s good at, but he only took the one because Johnny was supposed to be back after six weeks. He’s put things on hold for him; could’ve done things, could’ve spent the time he’d put aside from Johnny doing something else than sit in his flat and read book after book, or go down to the pub on his own at night, because there’s nothing better to do, and no one better to do it with. He could have furthered his career the way he’d like to, the way Johnny’s furthering his, but it's never been about that for him, it's never been about success.
"The problem with you, Johnny, is that you're so busy dreaming up things that you forget about the things right in front of you. You have this big picture in your head, but what about the fucking small picture? What about the one with me in it? Or am I just an inconvenient detail? A nagging voice on the phone?"
Johnny starts to answer, gets out "Of course n--" before the anger bubbles up in Jack again, bright and hot and sickening in the pit of his stomach. "It's always been about your dream, Johnny. And I loved it, I loved how it moved you and how you would get when you’d see a way to get to it. But what about me? What about what I wanted? All I asked for was you to come home every night, or every other night, that's all I ever bloody fucking wanted, Johnny. Just you. So if you can make that happen, Johnny, please, do."
This is not happening.
This is not happening, this is not Jack turning on him, this is not him shaking, nearly crying, nauseous with anger and hurt and fear. This is not right, this isn't the way he planned it, this isn't the way it's supposed to happen, "God damn it, Jack," he snaps, and he shakes his head. "What am I supposed to do? Do you know, do you have any idea, how much time and money it's taken for me to get here, to get to this point? I can't give up now, I can't just walk away from the commitments I've made..."
Even as he's saying the words he knows they're the wrong ones, and it's confirmed by Jack's bitter snort of laughter. "Commitment?" Jack repeats incredulously. "What the hell do you know about real commitment?"
Johnny's stomach rolls again, something hot and metallic like blood sits sour on the back of his tongue. "Probably as much as you know about real work, Jack, so don't even... Don't even, Jack, Jesus Christ, I fucking haven't slept in days, okay, days, and I call you to tell you I love you, I call you to tell you I miss you and I love you and you fucking pick a fight with me? How much of this is your fault, huh? How come that never comes up? How come you can't just... fucking do what I ask you, get on the plane, okay, just two goddamned weeks was all I asked you for, okay, not a fucking lifetime."
The problem, the problem this is not happening is that it might as well be a lifetime. Johnny covers his face with his hand; the tears come hot and burning, stinging in the corners of his eyes. "Jack, please. Just... two goddamned weeks."
Jack doesn’t know what hurts more: Johnny’s words, the truth behind them, or the sound of angry defeat in Johnny’s plea, the thickness of his breath. Shit.
Anger still sharpens everything, though, and Johnny’s tears are just too far for Jack to touch and taste and appease. The rage has unspooled, out of control, in his chest, so he forces his voice to be calm or he just doesn’t know what he’ll say to what Johnny’s accused him of.
"I can’t, Johnny. I’ll be here when you get back." There’s the sibilant wet smack of Johnny's lips into the receiver, but nothing else. Jack pushes the anger further down, lies back down and thinks of... something else. "Get some sleep."
Jack doesn't hang up, not yet, and Johnny has a moment to inhale, to scrub his sleeve across his face and try to remember what it felt like to be an adult, to be that guy who could talk to Jack about anything, everything, any hour of the day or night. He tries, and very nearly succeeds.
"Sleep," he says huskily, "yeah, um. Yeah. Jack. I will be there. I promise."
Just like the last time he promised. Jack doesn't need to say it for Johnny to know it.
"I love you," he concludes in a shredded whisper. "I love you."
Jack makes himself smile at that, because he knows Johnny can hear it, and as much as he'd like to hurt him right now, he also desperately wants to be the one to piece him back together. And once he does smile, the barely-there quirk of it doesn't require so much effort to sustain.
It takes him a moment so he can say it and mean it, but in the end, he does. "I love you too." But the smile weighs, and there's no real hope in it, nothing that makes anything better, nothing that makes Jack believe what's to come will be any better than what is now. But it's a smile, and it's for Johnny, and Jack's just absurdly glad he can muster as much, if only for Johnny's sake. "Goodnight."
He waits a full five seconds before pressing the off button. His last words ring terribly off, and not only because he's still squinting at the morning glare.