Run Baby Run

Two hours. Two hours it took them to pack up and leave. Jack was less than enthusiastic about going. Really, two eighteen year old, skinny ass boys out on their own in the world. Where they ready? Jack sure as hell wasn’t. They couldn’t stay though, that much was clear. Alex's parents hated Jack, and vice versa.

What happened was just unlucky, a silly accident that really wasn’t Alex's fault. At eighteen, they were the typical guys; hearts set on being in a band. It was a cliché, sure, but they didn’t care. So along with their other two friends Rian and Zack, their band formed and played around various small, shabby venues in Baltimore. It was hardly Hollywood, but to them they were living the dream.

Anyway, one night during said dream, the four young boys had been playing a small set for an even smaller group of people. Things were going well; Alex was a great front man, managing to get some interplay between the crowd, and Zack and Rian were great with their instruments as always. Jack never really payed much attention to his guitar though. He mostly liked to steal Alex's mic to tell stupid jokes or make innuendoes to his best friend. That was how it had always been, and it seemed to work for them.

On this night though, things didn’t go as smoothly as planned. There was one reason for this, and that was that Jack's parents weren’t what you would say aware of the fact that Jack played music in smoky clubs most nights. No, Alex always helped him to form some cover story; either saying that they were having a sleepover, or going to the library or something. Jack's parents were never any the wiser, they didn’t have any reason to be suspicious. Alex was Jack's best friend; a good, respectable boy. Or that was what they thought. Sadly, when Alex's girlfriend had accidentally let slip where their son was on that evening, they had flipped, racing down to the club in record time.

That spelled the end of Jack's other life, and also of Alex's relationship with said girlfriend.

Jack's face when he had seen them was one of terror. If there were two people he feared in life, it was his parents. The Barakats were great people, but if you lied to them the way Jack had, you may as well have been dead.

And for the three months that followed that, Jack really wished he was. His parents had deemed three months of solitary confinement to his bedroom as a necessary punishment. They’d taken away his car, his music, his computer, and his phone. Jack wasn’t one to live without technology, and it was killing him to have to do things like..reading. That wasn’t the worse part though.

The worst part was not being able to see Alex. The Barakat's hadn’t taken too kindly to the fact that Alex had been lying to them as well as Jack, and he was banned from communication with him for, well, ever. Jack felt as if he were walking around with one side of himself missing. He couldn’t even talk to him on the phone.

That didn’t mean the lead singer didn’t sneak into Jack's bedroom every night though. Really, the Barakats were foolish to think the two boys could be separated. Alex would wait 'till around midnight, just to make sure the family was definitely asleep, before quietly tapping on his best friend’s window. Jack's happy face would always appear behind the glass, and he would pull Alex in for the night.

He would usually stay all night, and they would cuddle and talk in whispers about nothing in particular. Jack didn’t like having to say goodbye in the early morning, but Alex always promised to be back the next night, and true to his word he was.

Their relationship developed, over those nights, and barriers were broken that perhaps shouldn’t have been between two best friends. But Jack and Alex were never the people to be afraid of crossing lines, and so when their lips met innocently one night, it wasn’t too much of a big deal. They liked it actually, and they didn’t consider something that they liked to be a bad thing.

Mr. and Mrs. Barakat did though, and so when they entered their sons room one night, investigating the moans they could hear through the walls, they were shocked and enraged to see Alex's hand down their sons boxers, both of them lost in a heated kiss.

All Jack remembered after that was the warm, familiar body he craved being ripped off of him and thrown out of his house. And then for two weeks after that, more confinement to his bedroom. It was unbearable this time though, because he didn’t have the warmth of knowing that come nightfall, Alex would be there. Jack grew lonely, desperately wanting those soft, warm kisses, and the equally amazing hot, needy ones. Those two weeks were probably the worst of his life, and the ones that drove him to sneak out in the darkness, with nothing but a small rucksack of band shirts and boxers, and his beloved guitar.

It was a fairly foggy night, but Jacks feet knew his direction without any hesitation. When he stopped in front of the oak door he hadn’t seen in about four months, he grew a little bit nervous. It had been two weeks since he’d seen Alex. Would Alex want to see him? Jack wasn’t sure, and he almost turned and went back to where he’d come from. He didn’t though, something told him he couldn’t go back. He certainly didn’t want to.

And so with a cold hand he knocked on the door, waiting and shifting uncomfortably. It was about five minutes before a sleepy, distressed Alex opened the door, and a further two minutes before Jack was tackled onto the grass and attacked with kisses. Jack had giggled and smiled a lot, feeling silly for ever doubting whether Alex welcome him with open arms.

Not much talk had gone on that night, just needy touches and friction in the confines of Alex's room, silencing each other’s moans with their lips. And afterwards, as cliché as it was, Jack had fallen asleep safe within Alex's arms, happier than he’d been in the last five months. His mood hadn’t been dampened the next morning either.

After washing the smell of sex from themselves, they had ventured downstairs, greeting a rather startled Mr. and Mrs. Gaskarth. Alex's parents had always been amazing, in Jacks opinion, and he wasn’t surprised when ,after Alex spun them a lie about Jack having had an argument with his parents and needing to stay with them for a while, Alex's mum pulled up a chair for him and set about making him some breakfast.

Jack had always felt more at home with the Gaskarth’s.

For about a week, Alex and Jack lived fairly blissfully. Jack's parents had been less than impressed with his disappearing act, but as Alex had pointed out, he was eighteen, and could make his own decisions. The Barakat’s had been even more angered that he was staying with Alex, and quite the row had gone down between Jack's mum and Alex's.

Regardless though, Jack stayed where he was, and things started to go back to the way they had been all those months ago. Feeling free now, and with the support of the Gaskarth’s, Alex, Jack, Rian and Zack continued on in their band, and played their first show in months. It was at a place they’d performed in a couple of times before, and it was a real treat when a few familiar faces said how much they’d missed watching the band perform.

After that they started to play a lot more shows, and over time the crowds they pulled in got larger and larger. They hadn’t made it, by any stretch of the imagination, but for now, it was enough for them. It wasn’t always bliss though.

One night, after a particularly great show, one where Alex was feeling buzzed and on top of the world, he had Jack pinned against the wall, kissing him deeply. Kissing Jack was Alex's favorite hobby, and one that always made him slightly light-headed. At that point his hands were threaded in his boy’s dark hair, and he was completely oblivious to anything around him. At least, until he felt someone dragging him off. It all happened quickly, but Alex heard the word ‘faggot’ echoing around his head, and he saw the fist that connected with Jack's jaw.

From then Alex went on instinct. The random guy that was pummeling his Jack was fucking huge, and really Alex knew he didn’t have a chance, but he wasn’t going to let Jack take any more punches. With that Alex threw himself between them, attempting to push the tank of a person away from him and Jack. Obviously it didn’t work, Alex was a twig, but Zack and Rian weren’t. Both Alex and Jack escaped the fight as quickly as they were allowed, and they headed out of the back door of the venue, leaving Zack and Rian still fully involved in the brawl.

It was under the street lights outside that Alex could see the full damage Jack had incurred. His nose was trickling with a small stream of blood, and his eye was swelling already. If Alex wasn’t battered and bruised himself, and if he was about 20 pounds heavier, he would have gone back inside and kicked the shit out of the guy that had done that to Jack. He wasn’t 20 pounds heavier though, and he really couldn’t take another punch, and so all he could do was support Jack in the walk back to Alex's parent’s house, feeling utterly victimized that the fight had happened purely because they were two guys together.

The next day and after Mrs. Gaskarth had cleaned Jack up, it didn’t seem like such a big deal. Both Alex and Jack agreed that it was just one of those things. Of course, they’d had to spin a lie to the Gaskarth’s about how the fight came to happen. Alex really wasn’t into the idea of telling them that actually the fight happened because their son was gay and had been practically fucking his boyfriend against a wall in a club. No, as cool as the Gaskarth’s were, even they wouldn’t have taken to that too kindly.

It became apparent though, over the months that followed, that the fight hadn’t just been ‘one of those things.’ No. It became more common for one of the boys to come home with blood somewhere or other. Soon the excuse of just guys being guys began to wear thin, and the Gaskarth’s began to get suspicious. Now, maybe the solution would have been to stop making out at clubs, but then, Alex wasn’t like that, and nor was Jack. They weren’t doing anything wrong, as far as they were concerned, and they weren’t about to let themselves be kept apart by a few homophobic punches.

The act became too hard to keep up though. One night, when Alex and Jack had been kissing, a huge guy that really wasn’t playing around, had told them to get out of the venue. Any guys with brains, or a little less pride would have done as the guy said. But these weren’t any other guys, and Alex had made the mistake of giving a guy a whole lot of attitude. He didn’t remember much after that. Only waking up in the hospital, sore and confused. A talk with the doctors told him that he had some bad bruising, and a broken nose.

A tearful Jack had poured out his apologies when they were alone, saying how sorry he was for Alex getting the beating. Alex wasn’t concerned with apologies though. Jack didn’t have a mark on him, and that was a huge success in Alex's mind, because the goal all along had been to keep Jack protected. His parents weren’t so happy though. Understandably, they were horrified that their only son had ended up in such a bad state, and it was then that they demanded the truth; the real reasons behind all the fighting that had been going on lately.

Alex contemplated lying, but really he’d lied so much already it was beginning to get hard to keep track of them all, and it was lying that had got Jack separated from him in the first place. And so once out of the hospital, Alex suggested Jack go to Zack's house for a little while, that he would tell his parents the truth and then come to get Jack later. Jack went unhappily, and it turned out he had good reason to be reluctant.

Alex never came for him. Not for the first day, the second or the third. He didn’t answer Jacks calls, nothing. Zack had suggested going over to the house, but Jack really did not feel as though he was welcome. It was something in the pit of his stomach that said it would be a bad idea. It was on the fourth day that Alex came for him, and when he first showed up on Zack's doorstep Jack didn’t know whether to kiss him or hit him. He settled for a punishing glare, because he thought Alex deserved that much.

After all, for the three days in which he didn’t have contact with Alex, Jack had felt miserable and utterly deserted. He wasn’t about to give Alex a warm welcome. What he did do though, was let Alex explain, and he instantly felt bad afterwards. Bad, and hurt. The Gaskarth’s hadn’t taken to the news of Alex's relationship with Jack half as well as Jack would have betted they would, and they had pretty much kept him housebound whilst they figured out what to do.

Alex had figured his punishment would perhaps be grounding, or the law being laid down that he couldn’t see Jack anymore. Alex wouldn’t have payed the slightest bit of attention to either option, but sadly those choices weren’t presented to him. He didn’t get a choice. They were moving back to England. Away from the band, away from Jack- ‘ a bad influence’, as Alex’s mum had dared to call him.

He was ashamed to admit it, but Alex had almost given in to them. The thought of leaving Jack made him feel sick, but the thought of losing his parents wasn’t that much better. They were being unreasonable now, but in the past they had been the best parents, more like friends to Alex than anything else. He wasn’t sure he could run away from that.

But then, he was absolutely certain he couldn’t run away from Jack. And so that’s what had bought him to Zack's house, and the reason he’d tackled Jack into a hug and barely let go of him for the two days it took them to pack up and leave.

The original plan had been for Rian and Zack to go with them; for the four dreamers to escape to anywhere and pursue what had bought them together in the first place-music. They had been naïve to think it might go that way though. Really, Rian and Zack didn’t have a reason to leave. They had great family, and rightly so didn’t want to leave them. They’d tried to convince Alex and Jack to say, even claiming that if they worked hard enough the four of them could afford their own place here in Baltimore.

Alex and Jack hadn’t gone along with it though. It seemed like being there posed too many threats to them, what with their parents at war against them now. Both of them wanted to get out, and so Alex set about getting together some money for them, sneaking back to his house at night to grab some clothes to last him. He packed up the few belongings him and Jack had between them, and Jack watched him with anxious eyes, scared out his wits that they were about to do this; pack up and go out on their own in the big wide world.

But despite Jack's worries, Alex's confidence and determination started to rub off on him. The promise that they’d made before all of this, to never be kept apart rang in Jack's ears and so when both of them piled into Alex's beat up car, saying somewhat tearful goodbyes to Rian and Zack, Jack was much more okay with everything. Despite what he was losing, he still had the brown haired angel that he’d come to love so much, and that was more than enough for Jack.

They were driving on the road to nowhere in particular, and when they settled in for sleep at a shabby hotel for the night, Jack was well aware that this wasn’t the fairytale ending he’d always envisioned for Alex and himself. The money they had wasn’t going to last forever, and they didn’t really know what they were going to do to change that. Jack couldn’t bring himself to fully care though, as Alex climbed in beside him under the hotel sheets, and when Alex pressed his lips to Jack's gently in the darkness of the room, Jack knew they would get by.

After all, no-one had ever been able to keep them apart.