Going Left Around the World: Chapter 58
Title: Going Left Around the World
Author: mrs-spamlad
Pairing: Jack/Ennis
Rating: R
Feedback: have at it!
Disclaimer: Brokeback Mountain and the original characters of Jack and Ennis were created by and belong to Annie Proulx. No money is being made from this- I’m just taking them out for a spin!
Summary: This is an au/au story told in the first person from Jack’s POV. Jack and Ennis both come from working-class families and bond as the outcast poor kids while attending an expensive private school. The story follows their friendship as they go off to college together and eventually become something more than friends. Love springs up, inconvenient but essential all the same, and they fight to find a way to make it work through their college years. After graduation, however, real life takes over and sends them down different paths, and the fight is on for real as they try to decide if their relationship can overcome their own insecurities and fears.
A/N: Here I am, long overdue as usual. The story continues, as it has for so long now!
Thank you to Judy for continuing to beta long-distance - her feedback makes it a better story.
I still have another chapter or two in the bank (not that it will stop there), so there’s more to come. Hopefully not so long next time!
Thanks to all who are still out there - happy reading!
jill
Chapter 58
It’s no big shock that we spent most -well, all afternoon and evening, with the exception of answering the door for the pizza guy - of my first day in New York City in bed. And it was good - really good - but by Saturday morning, I got a little worried that my visit might not extend past Ennis’s apartment. We woke up late - close to noon, I think - and of course went right back at each other. But after what had to be our fifth or sixth time since I got there, I watched him dozing off again and nudged his shoulder.
“So, what are we gonna do today?” I asked.
He wrinkled his forehead. “Do?” he repeated, giving his dick a quick glance.
I rolled my eyes. “Yes, do! Besides that,” I added, mimicking his glance. “Maybe I wasn’t clear, but this isn’t a three-hundred-mile booty call, you know.” He pressed his lips together and stared up at the ceiling, thinking. I wasn’t about to give him time to come up with a reason to keep me locked up in his apartment, so I kept talking. “Come on, man! It’s the Big Apple - you’ve been here for like a month and a half! Show me some shit! Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, Central Park, that giant toy store that’s been in like a hundred movies….”
He shifted in the bed. “Well, a lot of stuff is closed since 9/11 and everything. Can’t go up the Empire State building or Statue of Liberty or anything.”
“Okay, fine, then not that. Pick any of the other ten-thousand things you can probably do here,” I said, exasperated. “If you don’t want to play tour guide, then I’ll go myself.” I threw the covers off and sat up.
“No, no…,” he said, clasping a hand around my wrist, “just gimme a second! I’m not exactly a native - I’m just trying to think what would be best.” I eyed him suspiciously but flopped back down on the pillow. My stomach rumbled and he smiled an old-Ennis smile. “Guess feeding time should be first on the list.” His smile faded as his eyes traveled over my body. “Jesus, do you eat anything at all back home?” he asked. He reached over and bumped his thumb over the ridge of my ribcage. “You look….”
I grabbed his hand and yanked him close. “You got complaints about how I look? ‘Cause I sure haven’t heard any.”
He reached up and ran a hand through my hair. “No complaints,” he said softly. “Just worried. Jack, for real… are you okay?”
I bit my lip, totally not sure how to answer that. No, I wasn’t okay - I was probably the most not-okay I’d ever been. But how was I supposed to tell him that? And what the fuck was he going to do about it? Quit school and move back home so I’d have a sandwich every now and then? Not happening. So, I went for annoyed. “Jesus Christ! Yes, I’m fine. I swear to god, between you and Josh, if you had your way I’d be on a fucking feeding tube!”
His expression darkened and I immediately wanted to kick my own ass for bringing up Josh. “Josh thinks so too, huh?” he asked. I sighed and looked away. “That wouldn’t be because he sees you with your fucking clothes off now, would it?” he bit out through clenched teeth.
“No! Fuck you! No. My god - what the fuck is wrong with you? You think you go away to school and I just hop on the first available dick? No. He said something in passing, as a friend. With clothes on. Asshole.” I wasn’t even dealing with what had been going on with me and Josh in my own head, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to let Ennis in on any of it. I took it as kind of a good sign that he was still jealous of Josh, twisted as that may be. At least not everything had changed.
He still looked pissed but he didn’t say anything more about it, so we got over that little bump, made it into the shower where we came for like the hundredth time or whatever, a little rougher because of the almost-fight. We finally got out, got dressed, and Ennis led the way to the nearest subway entrance. I bought a pass and we hopped a train and rode a couple stops to a cool little diner place where we had a very late breakfast. Afterward, Ennis finally slipped into tour-guide mode and took me to FAO Schwarz (that’s the big-ass toy store), Central Park, Times Square and Rockefeller Center. We mostly just walked around and looked at stuff, but I bought a few things along the way. Ennis relaxed as the day went on, and by the time it was about six o’clock and getting dark, it felt like we were almost our old selves.
“Let’s drop that stuff back at the apartment and then we can figure out dinner,” Ennis said gesturing at my bags.
I nodded and we hopped a train in the direction of his place. Once we got back, I dropped my stuff on the floor by the door, made a pit stop in the bathroom then crashed next to him on the couch. He automatically stretched his arm out across the back of the couch and I leaned into him. I kissed his cheek and he looked sideways at me, a crooked smile on his face.
“What’s that for?” he asked
I shrugged. “’Cause I can.” That was probably the most honest thing I’d said since I got there.
He hiked a knee up on the couch and moved to face me. “I think we can do a little better than that,” he said as his mouth closed in on mine. Our tongues slid against each other and, just as we settled in for a good, old-fashioned make-out (that would no doubt lead back to bed), we jerked our heads apart as a shrill ring shrieked from the phone in his pocket.
“Fuck,” I gasped.
“Shit,” he mumbled as he squirmed around and tried to wrench the phone out of his pocket. He finally freed it and looked at the caller ID screen, then uncertainly at me, then back at the phone. “One of the guys from school,” he said.
“Well, fucking answer it!” I said.
He sighed and flipped the phone open. “Hello? Hey, Nathan, what’s up?”
A deep voice vibrated through the earpiece, but I couldn’t understand anything.
Ennis listened, glancing over at me a couple times and then said, “Nah, thanks but I’ll pass.” He cleared his throat. “Got a friend from home visiting this weekend.” His face flushed as he said the words, and my gut clenched. I don’t know what I expected him to say, but I’d be lying if I said that hearing that didn’t hurt worse than a right hook to the jaw.
Nathan said something else, and Ennis looked at me again. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t think he’d be up for that.”
I jerked my head to look at him, and in a second I knew exactly what was going on, or so I thought. And I decided that I was up for whatever ‘ol Nathan was offering.
I swatted Ennis’s leg and mouthed, “What the fuck?”
Ennis sighed and said, “Hang on a second,” to Nathan and then turned to face me. He held the phone away and whispered “What?! It’s just a bunch of people from school - they’re gonna meet up at a bar near campus. You don’t want to have to sit through that.”
“Yes, I do! They’re your friends, or classmates, anyway. I don’t want to stay holed up here all weekend! Let’s go out for a while.”
He looked really unsure and crazy uncomfortable, but I wasn’t going to budge. There was no way he could get out of it without looking like an asshole to me, so he brought the phone back to his ear and said, “All right, man. Be there in like an hour.” Nathan said something else and they hung up.
Ennis sighed and set his phone on the table at the end of the couch. He looked like he’d been given a death sentence and it pissed me off. “What the hell is your problem?” I asked, scooting forward on the couch so he had no choice but to look at me. “I mean, what the fuck? You think I’m gonna try and hold your hand and make out with you and shit in front of your fancy business school friends? Fuck you, dude - I’m not an idiot.”
He sighed again. “I know,” he said, then gave my knee a quick squeeze. “We better get changed. It’ll take a bit to get there.”
He got up and headed over to his tiny closet and started fishing around for something bar-appropriate to wear while I sat open-mouthed on the couch. His “I know” response followed by nothing nearly sent me off on a rampage, but I tried hard to chill out and not ruin the weekend with a huge, pointless fight. I got dressed and pretty soon we were headed out to meet the gang.
I should add that, at the time, I didn’t have clue what was going on or what the fuck his problem was, obviously. More recently, though, I found out that it wasn’t me he was so worried about - it was him. It was his crowd and he knew how they rolled, with the booze and pot and god knows what else, and he was fucking terrified that, in a drunken or drugged up haze, he was going to do something to give himself away. Would’ve been nice to know that way back then, to know that he didn’t think I was a giant fuck-up; but I also get that, where he was with us and the whole gay/not gay thing he had going on, he couldn’t have articulated it even if someone held a gun to his head. So, yeah, I was pissed and kind of hurt. But now, well… I guess not so much.
So, forty-five minutes later, we walked into the bar. Ennis glanced around and someone who turned out to be Nathan waved us over. It was a pretty cool place - truly a bar, not a club, no blaring music and neon lights or dance floor, but more like how I imagined a British pub to look. Solid wood bar, booths and tables; noisy, with people talking, drinks flowing, glasses clanging, and some kind of music overhead, but you could still talk to people if you upped your volume a little.
Ennis’s crowd had two tables pushed together -eight people all together, five guys and three girls. I don’t remember all their names, since I never saw them again after that one time. I know there was Nathan, and a guy named David I ended up talking with a bunch (and more if he would’ve had his way). The girls… well, the only one I remember is Ashley, partly because of the accidental call to my phone the night I was out with Josh, and partly because she clearly had her sights set on Ennis - I could recognize the goo-goo eyes a mile away by then. But we grabbed chairs and settled in with the group, drinking and talking, and a couple hours later, I had a serious buzz going.
They were a good group for the most part and it was fun, so when Nathan suggested moving the party to his place, I said yes before Ennis had a chance to get us out of it. He came along without a word, though I noticed he’d hardly had anything to drink - maybe two beers the whole time we were there - which seemed a little on the slow side for him. But whatever, a couple subway stops and we all got off the train and headed up to a building that looked a lot like Ennis’s, only Nathan’s apartment was way bigger. Everyone flopped into a space on the couch, a chair or the floor, like it was something they did a lot, and Nate hauled out more alcohol. Ennis stuck to beer, and I did too, for a while, until my bud David talked me into doing a couple shots with him.
They hit me hard since I didn’t have half the tolerance I used to, and I found myself laughing hard at nothing, my head rolling back on the couch, staring up at the smoky haze in the air, listening to the music play while David talked about… something and Ennis watched me from across the room. Ashley had positioned herself next to him and was trying like hell to get his attention, but she didn’t get very far. I didn’t get it - even back home he went through the motions of being nice and flirting and shit, but this time - no dice. I thought about trying to get over by where he was sitting to check if he was okay, but just as I made my first scoot forward on the couch, David’s hand appeared in front of my face, holding something skinnier than a cigarette and a lighter in the other hand.
“How ‘bout a hit?” he said, nudging my leg with his. I took the joint and studied it. Sure, I’d seen them before, even tried it once or twice when we first got to college, but I wasn’t a huge fan. Before I had a chance to say yes or no, Ennis appeared on the other side of me and snatched it out of my hands. “Whoa,” David said, laughing a goofy, stoned laugh, “wait your turn, dude!” He tried to take the joint back, but Ennis easily kept it out of his reach.
Ennis smiled at him, but I could tell it wasn’t for real. “I don’t want it,” he said, “and we gotta get going.”
“No, you don’t!” David exclaimed, slapping his hand down on my knee. “What the fuck, man? You’re usually here ‘til you’re passed out on the floor!” he slurred.
Well, that was news that made it through my brain-fog. Ennis shook his head and said, “Uh-uh - gotta go,” and set the joint on the coffee table in front of us.
David snapped it up and held it back in front of my face. He moved in closer, his hand inching up my leg. “Well, if you need to head out you can,” he said to Ennis. He was close enough now that I could feel his breath when he spoke. “I’ll make sure Jackie-boy gets home okay.”
Ennis leaned in close. “Fuck. Off,” he said, his voice carrying more than a minor threat. He slid a hand under my armpit and pulled me into a standing position. “Let’s go,” he said.
David laughed his ass off behind us, yelling, “Fuck, Ennis! I didn’t know you were batting for both teams!” but the rest of the crowd was either just as loud or too wasted to pay attention. The implication that he’d been batting for any team there sailed in one ear and out the other in my sloshed state, though it got stored away and rang a bell later on. The place was more crowded than when we had arrived, and we stepped over passed-out people and dodged a couple of stumbling drunks as we made for the door. I was still pretty much part of that second group, so I tripped over my own feet as Ennis led us outside and back out onto the sidewalk.
“Shit, slow down!” I yelled as he continued to propel us down the street at what felt like warp-speed to my bleary brain. He screeched to a halt and carefully leaned me against a lamppost. I scrunched my eyes shut for a few seconds and breathed deep so I didn’t puke.
When I looked up, Ennis scrubbed a hand over his face. “Fuck,” he muttered.
“Sorry,” I said quietly. “Shouldn’t’ve had so much.”
He shook his head. “Nah. It’s okay. Should’ve kept you away from him. David’s… well, and he just got dumped by some guy, so he’s been on everyone, just….”
Alarm bells went off in my head. “You’ve been with him?” I asked, on the verge of a drunken freak-out.
Ennis wrinkled his forehead. “What? No! Fuck, no! Jesus. I just mean I should’ve known better, that he’d try to get with you, and -”
“Why? ‘Cause I look like such a fucking faggot it’s too obvious to miss?” I asked, my voice rising as I shoved his shoulder.
“What?!” he asked again. He blew out a long breath. “No. He doesn’t care - he’ll go for anyone hot just to see how far he gets. And believe me, when people are fucked up… well, it works. Not with me,” he added pointedly. “He hasn’t tried shit with me.”
I studied him, looking for signs of bullshit or a cover-up, but I didn’t see any. I yawned, suddenly exhausted. “Okay,” I said. “Let’s go.”
“Okay,” he said. “Can you walk?”
I nodded. “Just go slow.”
We strolled back to the subway entrance, not talking, until something clicked in my brain and I rolled to an unsteady stop. Ennis spun around, arms outstretched to grab me in case I was about to fall over, and stopped short when he saw the silly smile on my face.
“What?” he asked warily.
I stared for a few more seconds, then said, “So… David only puts the moves on hot guys, huh?” I grinned as I watched the blush creep up his cheeks. I reached out and gave his fingers a quick squeeze. “So busted,” I said.
“Shut up,” he grumbled. We descended the stairs into the station and, after a couple train changes we were back at his place. I stripped down to my boxers as I headed for the bed, my head already pounding with the hangover-to-be. I started to doze almost immediately, but Ennis nudged me awake as he climbed into bed beside me.
“Here, take this,” he said, handing me some aspirin and a glass of water. I swallowed the pills and he set the glass on the table next to the bed. He got situated and then tugged me over into his arms, spooning himself around me. I felt warm and safe and content, and I’m so very glad for that. I was only destined to make one more trip to New York City, and at least one had a happy ending.
TBC
today
yesterday