The Truth Is Hard To Swallow [Twenty-Four]
Title: The Truth Is Hard To Swallow [Twenty-Four]
Author: detourtoyou
Rating: NC-17 overall
Pairing: Jack/Alex
POV: 3rd
Summary: Of course the one time he decided to act his age, Alex would end up messing even that up. But in his defense, it was hard to act his age when he was faced with things so entirely beyond his age and maturity level, like a one-night decision that decided to follow him into the rest of his life.
Warning: Mpreg
Disclaimer: This is sadly false and a complete lie created by my mind. Title taken from Toxic Valentine by All Time Low.
Dedication: For an amazing person whom I love dearly with all my heart, Mike damnedifidoyah <3
A/N: Short, crappy chapter again. I'm sorry guys, ack. I feel like this is becoming too long...
Feel free to follow me on tumblr but as a heads up, it’ll be mostly used for updates and such. I’m not too good with keeping up at that kinda stuff lol
When Alex had imagined the confrontation between Zack and Jack - and he had imagined it, plenty of times - he hadn’t exactly been picturing a slew of curse words and a frenzy of punching and tackling. He had thought that Zack would be calmer and more collected than Jack. It was with this thought that he created the confrontation in his head. Maybe he had been more hopeful than he should have been, but Alex had envisioned a few curses, maybe one punch, and just a lot of yelling and screaming. He had only been right about one out of the three.
“Get off me, you fucker!” yelled Jack with a nasally voice twisting his vocal chords, arm jamming itself into Zack’s chest and his throat on occasion.
The minute Jack had opened the door, Zack had greeted the other boy with a punch and absolutely no words of explanation. Alex had nearly had a heart attack, the organ threatening to bust out of his chest and into full view of all three of them.
“Oh, I’m the fucker? At least I’m not avoiding the responsibility of my own child!” Zack retorted, knocking his fist into Jack’s cheek just before Jack managed to throw him off. He landed on his back, rolling up to his feet with sharp eyes.
So far, Alex had counted three punches by Zack.
“You’re going on about that? What the fuck does it matter to you?” Jack huffed out as he touched his cheek with careful fingers, wincing at the sting of nerves eating into his senses.
Zack threw his arms up in disbelief. “Alex is my best friend! Of course it matters to me!”
The frigid glare Jack sent Alex’s way only worsened the sick feeling in his stomach. Alex cast his eyes down to the floor, wiggling his toes in his shoes. He knew he should have stopped Zack after the very first punch, or perhaps not even have brought him here in the first place, but he was too timid and if brutally honest, Alex sort of maybe wanted to see Jack getting a piece of both his and Zack’s mind. He had just forgotten that Zack had a tendency to be overprotective.
“Zack, don’t,” he finally spoke, shaking his head.
“Don’t what? Not only did he take advantage of you, but he got you pregnant too! And now he doesn’t even want to take responsibility for it! Or even take care of the baby!” protested Zack with fervor, just pleading with Alex to let him knock some sense into Jack. Or at least beat him senseless until Jack finally understood that he had to take care of the baby in some way, even if it was only paying child support and buying a crib, diapers, and etcetera in the form of other baby necessities. “I’d be the worst uncle if I just let this douchebag get away with it.”
At this, Jack snorted, mouth curled into an acidic curl that was only rivaled by the spite in his tone, “Oh please. Spare us all the fucking show.”
“Show? What are you talking about? I’m not putting on a show for anyone. I’m being dead serious,” replied Zack, eyes narrowing piercingly at the other teen.
“Stop being such a drama queen, Zack,” Jack spat out. “And you can stop with the petty uncle act. You’re not fooling any of us here.”
“Just because you don’t care about the baby doesn’t mean that I don’t either. I’m not an asshole like you.”
Alex held his breath, eyes volleying from Zack to Jack and back to Zack before repeating itself all over again. He couldn’t find his voice long enough to make a sound past a weak whimper, and it mortified the pregnant boy. There was absolutely no way he could interject into the argument despite the fact that it was his baby’s life they were disputing. Each boy’s next insult or comment came too fast for Alex to even keep up much less get between.
“At least I’m not acting all high and mighty, like you even have a right to be its uncle!”
“I do! It’s my best friend’s baby which makes me the damn uncle! Stop assuming that just because you don’t want to have anything to do with him that everyone else doesn’t, including me! You’re the only asshole who doesn’t want to have anything to do with him,” stated Zack unabashedly, not even pausing for a breath.
Jack laughed, harsh and grating to Alex’s ears. “Yeah, you must care so much that you just need to keep acting like you’ll get to be the uncle. Once the baby’s adopted, you won’t get to be an uncle. Stop playing stupid and pretending like you’re any better than me, Zack. It’s getting on my damn nerves.”
Choking on the intake of oxygen traveling down his throat, Alex gaped with wide eyes at Jack, unable to believe that the other teen had really just announced the baby’s adoption to Zack when he had neither a right nor the actual knowledge of whether Alex was going to give him up or not.
“Ad-adopted?” Zack blinked, baffled. “What are you talking about? Alex’s not giving the baby up,” he declared without any hesitation or doubt to the statement.
“Maybe not right now,” the other teen commented, certainty crowding his voice. For a long minute, Alex loathed Jack for how sure he sounded when he had just been introduced to the little fact that he was, in actuality, the baby’s father. The feeling was quickly swept under the rug once he could hear Zack, however, and Alex forgot all about hating Jack.
Zack turned to Alex with questioning eyes. “Alex?”
On second thought, Alex preferred it when the two of them were too busy arguing and fighting to even take notice of him. He swallowed, eyes flitting from side to side and unable to meet Zack’s gaze. “It’s not official or anything. I’m just thinking about it,” he admitted softly.
Face falling, his best friend frowned, eyebrows knitting together with disappointment blended perplexity, “I thought you were going to keep the baby? Why are you suddenly thinking about adoption? How can you even think about adoption, Alex?”
“I haven’t decided anything, Zack. It’s just an option that I’m keeping open, y’know? Just in case.” The last words stung his tongue, scraping his throat on their way out. The excuse sounded pathetic even to his ears, and Alex visibly winced. A hand dropped to his stomach, resting just above the curve towards his bellybutton. He could feel a small kick and wondered if somehow the baby knew whenever he was talking about giving him up and felt the need to show his disapproval for the idea.
“Just in case what?” There was a brief pause as Zack stared long at Alex, making the other boy squirm in his spot as he tried to grope for an answer that didn’t exist. And suddenly, as if a light switch had suddenly clicked on, Zack exclaimed, understanding dawning on the lines of his face, “It’s Jack, isn’t it? Jack’s the one who told you to give it up for adoption, isn’t he?”
Alex did not even have time to answer; Zack was already pulling his attention back to the younger boy, anger saturating his vision. Even Jack took an uneasy step back on the chance that Zack would let his fists swing, nervously clearing his throat.
“So instead of celebrating that you’re going to have a son, the first thing you do when you find out that you’re going to have a baby is force Alex to give him up for adoption?” he asked, incredulity thick in his words and expression.
“I didn’t force him to do anything. If Alex gives it up for adoption, fine by me. If he decides to keep it, whatever. I just told him not to expect anything from me because I’ve already told him that I want nothing to do with it. If he does keep it, he can do whatever the fuck he wants and make whatever decisions he wants,” Jack said with relative ease, not even bothering to keep the annoyance out of his voice.
“And why wouldn’t you have anything to do with the baby? It’s your damn fault Alex is pregnant in the first place! You should have to take responsibility for it just as much as Alex. You don’t wanna be in the baby’s life? Fine, don’t be in it. But pay child support. Buy him a crib. Don’t think you’re going to just get out of this, free,” hissed Zack. “Are you really that fucking heartless, Jack?”
Taking a step forward to crowd into Zack’s space, Jack spoke with narrowed eyes and a scalding tongue, “Listen. Our fucking parents are getting married in a few months. We’re going to be brothers, okay? And my dad is not going to be okay with the two of us raising a baby together! He’s going to kick us flat out on our asses once he finds out. How do you propose we raise the baby then, Zack? Hm? What do you expect us to do? Take turns working all day for minimum wage? We’re not ready to be parents! Stop thinking about yourself and what you think is righteous. I’m probably the only person who actually cares about the damn thing while everyone else is just living in this stupid fantasy world where once the baby is born, money will rain from the fucking sky and me and Alex won’t have any trouble! That baby is going to miserable growing up with us. We can’t provide for it, and neither of us is equipped to actually raise a baby. So before you try to say that I’m heartless and go off on your self-righteous bullshit, why don’t you actually take the time to think about it from all sides.”
The tirade quieted Zack almost immediately, mouth snapping shut sullenly. Alex noticed that Jack was good at that; shutting up everyone who even tried to defend him keeping and raising the baby.
Truthfully, Alex had known that it wasn’t that Jack didn’t care about the baby like Zack seemed to think. It was because Jack cared that he was insisting on adoption as contradictory as it seemed at the moment. While Jack probably did not want to be bogged down by the responsibilities of a parent so young, he also knew and realized that neither of them could actually provide for the baby. To keep the baby and raise it would mean sacrificing their families, their livelihoods, their chances at a better life, just about everything. And even if they sacrificed all that, there was no guarantee that they could actually give the baby what it needed to grow up happy and healthy. At least, that was what Alex wanted to believe. Regardless of how callous Jack had been to him up until now, Alex still wanted to believe in something good, that Jack wasn’t a completely heartless monster despite his repeated attempts on making Alex’s life far more complicated than necessary and his repeated claims of not caring about the baby. There had to be something good; Alex had seen the way Jack had stared at his first sonogram, stuck in a moment of silent awe. He couldn’t bring himself to believe that Jack did not truly care despite all the evidence and word of mouth.
“So what? You’re just going to give up without even starting just because it seems too hard?”
It felt like a repeat of that night at IHOP, and Alex shut his eyes, biting his lip to keep the whimper from springing up his throat. “Zack, just stop,” he intervened, eyelids peeling back to reveal watering eyes. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but this is between me and Jack.”
Zack was quick to protest. “Alex.”
“No, Zack,” he spoke firmly, head shaking. “You’re my best friend, and you’re totally awesome for helping me out like this, but this really is just between me and Jack. It’s our baby-” Alex choked slightly on the words. “-and whatever decision I make, it’ll be what we think is best.”
“But Alex, adoption? Until you talked with Jack, you were absolutely dead set against giving it up for adoption.”
Alex shrugged, trying to remain nonchalant and reign in his emotions to keep from bursting. “It’s just something I’m thinking about for now.”
“Yeah, because the baby’s other daddy is a complete dick.” Zack snorted with scorn. He crossed his arms, challenging Jack to say otherwise. He didn’t.
“What’s going on here?”
All three boys started at the additional voice, heads whipping towards the front door where Jack’s father stood, face covered with bewilderment. It slowly peeled off in thin curls, cracking.
Jack muttered a curse underneath his exhale. “Dad.”
“What’s going on, Jack?” The older man set his eyes from his son to Alex, squinting just marginally with an unreadable emotion. It spiked panic in Alex, anxiety clenching his insides tight. “Are you telling me that you are the father of Alex’s baby?”
Author: detourtoyou
Rating: NC-17 overall
Pairing: Jack/Alex
POV: 3rd
Summary: Of course the one time he decided to act his age, Alex would end up messing even that up. But in his defense, it was hard to act his age when he was faced with things so entirely beyond his age and maturity level, like a one-night decision that decided to follow him into the rest of his life.
Warning: Mpreg
Disclaimer: This is sadly false and a complete lie created by my mind. Title taken from Toxic Valentine by All Time Low.
Dedication: For an amazing person whom I love dearly with all my heart, Mike damnedifidoyah <3
A/N: Short, crappy chapter again. I'm sorry guys, ack. I feel like this is becoming too long...
Feel free to follow me on tumblr but as a heads up, it’ll be mostly used for updates and such. I’m not too good with keeping up at that kinda stuff lol
When Alex had imagined the confrontation between Zack and Jack - and he had imagined it, plenty of times - he hadn’t exactly been picturing a slew of curse words and a frenzy of punching and tackling. He had thought that Zack would be calmer and more collected than Jack. It was with this thought that he created the confrontation in his head. Maybe he had been more hopeful than he should have been, but Alex had envisioned a few curses, maybe one punch, and just a lot of yelling and screaming. He had only been right about one out of the three.
“Get off me, you fucker!” yelled Jack with a nasally voice twisting his vocal chords, arm jamming itself into Zack’s chest and his throat on occasion.
The minute Jack had opened the door, Zack had greeted the other boy with a punch and absolutely no words of explanation. Alex had nearly had a heart attack, the organ threatening to bust out of his chest and into full view of all three of them.
“Oh, I’m the fucker? At least I’m not avoiding the responsibility of my own child!” Zack retorted, knocking his fist into Jack’s cheek just before Jack managed to throw him off. He landed on his back, rolling up to his feet with sharp eyes.
So far, Alex had counted three punches by Zack.
“You’re going on about that? What the fuck does it matter to you?” Jack huffed out as he touched his cheek with careful fingers, wincing at the sting of nerves eating into his senses.
Zack threw his arms up in disbelief. “Alex is my best friend! Of course it matters to me!”
The frigid glare Jack sent Alex’s way only worsened the sick feeling in his stomach. Alex cast his eyes down to the floor, wiggling his toes in his shoes. He knew he should have stopped Zack after the very first punch, or perhaps not even have brought him here in the first place, but he was too timid and if brutally honest, Alex sort of maybe wanted to see Jack getting a piece of both his and Zack’s mind. He had just forgotten that Zack had a tendency to be overprotective.
“Zack, don’t,” he finally spoke, shaking his head.
“Don’t what? Not only did he take advantage of you, but he got you pregnant too! And now he doesn’t even want to take responsibility for it! Or even take care of the baby!” protested Zack with fervor, just pleading with Alex to let him knock some sense into Jack. Or at least beat him senseless until Jack finally understood that he had to take care of the baby in some way, even if it was only paying child support and buying a crib, diapers, and etcetera in the form of other baby necessities. “I’d be the worst uncle if I just let this douchebag get away with it.”
At this, Jack snorted, mouth curled into an acidic curl that was only rivaled by the spite in his tone, “Oh please. Spare us all the fucking show.”
“Show? What are you talking about? I’m not putting on a show for anyone. I’m being dead serious,” replied Zack, eyes narrowing piercingly at the other teen.
“Stop being such a drama queen, Zack,” Jack spat out. “And you can stop with the petty uncle act. You’re not fooling any of us here.”
“Just because you don’t care about the baby doesn’t mean that I don’t either. I’m not an asshole like you.”
Alex held his breath, eyes volleying from Zack to Jack and back to Zack before repeating itself all over again. He couldn’t find his voice long enough to make a sound past a weak whimper, and it mortified the pregnant boy. There was absolutely no way he could interject into the argument despite the fact that it was his baby’s life they were disputing. Each boy’s next insult or comment came too fast for Alex to even keep up much less get between.
“At least I’m not acting all high and mighty, like you even have a right to be its uncle!”
“I do! It’s my best friend’s baby which makes me the damn uncle! Stop assuming that just because you don’t want to have anything to do with him that everyone else doesn’t, including me! You’re the only asshole who doesn’t want to have anything to do with him,” stated Zack unabashedly, not even pausing for a breath.
Jack laughed, harsh and grating to Alex’s ears. “Yeah, you must care so much that you just need to keep acting like you’ll get to be the uncle. Once the baby’s adopted, you won’t get to be an uncle. Stop playing stupid and pretending like you’re any better than me, Zack. It’s getting on my damn nerves.”
Choking on the intake of oxygen traveling down his throat, Alex gaped with wide eyes at Jack, unable to believe that the other teen had really just announced the baby’s adoption to Zack when he had neither a right nor the actual knowledge of whether Alex was going to give him up or not.
“Ad-adopted?” Zack blinked, baffled. “What are you talking about? Alex’s not giving the baby up,” he declared without any hesitation or doubt to the statement.
“Maybe not right now,” the other teen commented, certainty crowding his voice. For a long minute, Alex loathed Jack for how sure he sounded when he had just been introduced to the little fact that he was, in actuality, the baby’s father. The feeling was quickly swept under the rug once he could hear Zack, however, and Alex forgot all about hating Jack.
Zack turned to Alex with questioning eyes. “Alex?”
On second thought, Alex preferred it when the two of them were too busy arguing and fighting to even take notice of him. He swallowed, eyes flitting from side to side and unable to meet Zack’s gaze. “It’s not official or anything. I’m just thinking about it,” he admitted softly.
Face falling, his best friend frowned, eyebrows knitting together with disappointment blended perplexity, “I thought you were going to keep the baby? Why are you suddenly thinking about adoption? How can you even think about adoption, Alex?”
“I haven’t decided anything, Zack. It’s just an option that I’m keeping open, y’know? Just in case.” The last words stung his tongue, scraping his throat on their way out. The excuse sounded pathetic even to his ears, and Alex visibly winced. A hand dropped to his stomach, resting just above the curve towards his bellybutton. He could feel a small kick and wondered if somehow the baby knew whenever he was talking about giving him up and felt the need to show his disapproval for the idea.
“Just in case what?” There was a brief pause as Zack stared long at Alex, making the other boy squirm in his spot as he tried to grope for an answer that didn’t exist. And suddenly, as if a light switch had suddenly clicked on, Zack exclaimed, understanding dawning on the lines of his face, “It’s Jack, isn’t it? Jack’s the one who told you to give it up for adoption, isn’t he?”
Alex did not even have time to answer; Zack was already pulling his attention back to the younger boy, anger saturating his vision. Even Jack took an uneasy step back on the chance that Zack would let his fists swing, nervously clearing his throat.
“So instead of celebrating that you’re going to have a son, the first thing you do when you find out that you’re going to have a baby is force Alex to give him up for adoption?” he asked, incredulity thick in his words and expression.
“I didn’t force him to do anything. If Alex gives it up for adoption, fine by me. If he decides to keep it, whatever. I just told him not to expect anything from me because I’ve already told him that I want nothing to do with it. If he does keep it, he can do whatever the fuck he wants and make whatever decisions he wants,” Jack said with relative ease, not even bothering to keep the annoyance out of his voice.
“And why wouldn’t you have anything to do with the baby? It’s your damn fault Alex is pregnant in the first place! You should have to take responsibility for it just as much as Alex. You don’t wanna be in the baby’s life? Fine, don’t be in it. But pay child support. Buy him a crib. Don’t think you’re going to just get out of this, free,” hissed Zack. “Are you really that fucking heartless, Jack?”
Taking a step forward to crowd into Zack’s space, Jack spoke with narrowed eyes and a scalding tongue, “Listen. Our fucking parents are getting married in a few months. We’re going to be brothers, okay? And my dad is not going to be okay with the two of us raising a baby together! He’s going to kick us flat out on our asses once he finds out. How do you propose we raise the baby then, Zack? Hm? What do you expect us to do? Take turns working all day for minimum wage? We’re not ready to be parents! Stop thinking about yourself and what you think is righteous. I’m probably the only person who actually cares about the damn thing while everyone else is just living in this stupid fantasy world where once the baby is born, money will rain from the fucking sky and me and Alex won’t have any trouble! That baby is going to miserable growing up with us. We can’t provide for it, and neither of us is equipped to actually raise a baby. So before you try to say that I’m heartless and go off on your self-righteous bullshit, why don’t you actually take the time to think about it from all sides.”
The tirade quieted Zack almost immediately, mouth snapping shut sullenly. Alex noticed that Jack was good at that; shutting up everyone who even tried to defend him keeping and raising the baby.
Truthfully, Alex had known that it wasn’t that Jack didn’t care about the baby like Zack seemed to think. It was because Jack cared that he was insisting on adoption as contradictory as it seemed at the moment. While Jack probably did not want to be bogged down by the responsibilities of a parent so young, he also knew and realized that neither of them could actually provide for the baby. To keep the baby and raise it would mean sacrificing their families, their livelihoods, their chances at a better life, just about everything. And even if they sacrificed all that, there was no guarantee that they could actually give the baby what it needed to grow up happy and healthy. At least, that was what Alex wanted to believe. Regardless of how callous Jack had been to him up until now, Alex still wanted to believe in something good, that Jack wasn’t a completely heartless monster despite his repeated attempts on making Alex’s life far more complicated than necessary and his repeated claims of not caring about the baby. There had to be something good; Alex had seen the way Jack had stared at his first sonogram, stuck in a moment of silent awe. He couldn’t bring himself to believe that Jack did not truly care despite all the evidence and word of mouth.
“So what? You’re just going to give up without even starting just because it seems too hard?”
It felt like a repeat of that night at IHOP, and Alex shut his eyes, biting his lip to keep the whimper from springing up his throat. “Zack, just stop,” he intervened, eyelids peeling back to reveal watering eyes. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but this is between me and Jack.”
Zack was quick to protest. “Alex.”
“No, Zack,” he spoke firmly, head shaking. “You’re my best friend, and you’re totally awesome for helping me out like this, but this really is just between me and Jack. It’s our baby-” Alex choked slightly on the words. “-and whatever decision I make, it’ll be what we think is best.”
“But Alex, adoption? Until you talked with Jack, you were absolutely dead set against giving it up for adoption.”
Alex shrugged, trying to remain nonchalant and reign in his emotions to keep from bursting. “It’s just something I’m thinking about for now.”
“Yeah, because the baby’s other daddy is a complete dick.” Zack snorted with scorn. He crossed his arms, challenging Jack to say otherwise. He didn’t.
“What’s going on here?”
All three boys started at the additional voice, heads whipping towards the front door where Jack’s father stood, face covered with bewilderment. It slowly peeled off in thin curls, cracking.
Jack muttered a curse underneath his exhale. “Dad.”
“What’s going on, Jack?” The older man set his eyes from his son to Alex, squinting just marginally with an unreadable emotion. It spiked panic in Alex, anxiety clenching his insides tight. “Are you telling me that you are the father of Alex’s baby?”