It Was Always You

Zack calls the next morning at seven. It doesn’t surprise Jack at all, but it doesn’t mean he’s any more prepared for it. He rolls over so he’s on his back, staring up at the hotel ceiling and sighs deeply before answering and pressing the phone close to his ear.

“Hey baby,” he says softly, running a hand through his hair just so he’s doing something, “Sleep alright?”

Yeah. I guess. It’s weird without you there, though,” Zack responds just as softly. Jack can tell he’s biting his tongue, waiting to say what he really wants to. “How’s everything going with Joey?”

Leave it to Zack to put everyone else before himself.

“Well. He’s okay. I um. Spoke to his doctor and he filled me in on everything. Apparently, Joey’s only got about a month left-”

There’s a sharp intake of breath, a sure signal that Zack is horrified at this information and that makes Jack feel ten times worse. “Jack, I’m so sorry. I-”

“It’s…Yeah. It’s…It’s bad. But-”

“There’s nothing else they can do? They must be able to do something, I mean…”

“No. He said there isn’t. Not enough time,” Jack mumbles, rubbing at his wrist. He doesn’t want to talk about Joey and his illness. He still hasn’t’ even accepted it. Not completely, at least. “But listen…I um. Yesterday was your birthday and I didn’t call and-”

“Oh, yeah. Listen, Jack. Don’t even worry about it. I wasn’t upset or anything if-”

“Zack,” Jack interrupts, “I forgot your birthday. That’s…that’s not okay. I don’t-”

“Really, I’m not upset. I’m not, I swear. You’ve got so many things going on down there. I don’t blame you at all.”

Again, Jack is amazed by Zack’s selflessness. Although it really doesn’t make him feel all that better about his fuck-up, it allows him to relax slightly and smile. Suddenly he really, really missed his boyfriend. Not that he didn’t before. But now it’s just so much more obvious. “I’m going to make it up to you. I promise, okay?”

“Okay. Don’t worry about it for now though.”

“What’d you end up doing yesterday?”

Zack tells him about his cousin taking him out for lunch and one of his friends from school baking him cupcakes and bringing them to class. His parents had him over for dinner and he got to hang out with his younger brother for a bit. He assures Jack it was great and he had fun and everything was fine but Jack still feels badly about the fact that he wasn’t around at all.

“Well…I’m glad you at least had a good day. I really miss you. I wish you were here right now. “

Jack smiles more, wraps his arms around one of the hotel pillows, wishing it were Zack instead. He listens to Zack laugh, closes his eyes so he can pretend he’s not really in this hotel room; that he’s actually in his own room in Maryland, Zack curled up beside him, talking about something dumb like a movie marathon that neither of them are interested in. And for a second, he manages to believe it. He manages to forget all of the things that have gone wrong for him over the past few days and his life seems normal. Until he opens his eyes again.

-&-

“Hey, you know, I’ve still got those free tickets for Disney World. They’re going to expire in a few months. Why don’t we try and use them sometime this week?”

Jack looks up from the notebook he’s reading, glancing up at John. The other man is sitting across from him on the other couch, flipping through the TV channels to find something decent to watch. He’s still talking, going on about how he got the tickets through work (he works with a record label – he’s an assistant) and talking about how much fun it would be if they could go. Joey, who’s now looking up from his game boy in favor of agreeing with John about how much fun it would be, is wearing the biggest smile Jack has seen from him in the four days he’s been here.

“How many tickets do you have?”

The question comes from Rian, who’s sitting on the opposite end of the couch from Jack. He’s got his arms folded across his chest, has an unreadable expression on his face, and Jack rolls his eyes. Unpleasant, as usual.

“I’ve got five or six, I think. They’d only get us one day and I mean, we’d probably go for two days to make the trip worth it cause it’s four hours away but-”

“Sounds like a good idea to me,” Jack interrupts, closing the notebook. He’s gotten a headache from reading it – trying to decipher the doctor’s and Alex’s handwriting. It’s supposed to be a log of all the treatments Joey went through but Jack just thinks Alex wrote down random letters and numbers and didn’t put much effort into it at all. “We should plan to go this weekend.”

“I don’t know…” Rian trails off. His eyes go from Jack to Joey, and he shrugs his shoulders. “It might be a lot.”

Jack knows what he’s getting at, and it kind of pisses him off. Who is Rian to tell him what’s good or bad for his son? “I think it’ll be fine. It’ll be fun and give us something to do outside of the house.”

“That’s what I was thinking!” John exclaims, “Hey Alex! Can you come in here?”

There’s the sudden, unmistakable sound of Alex dropping metal pans onto the kitchen floor, followed closely by his input of irritation. His voice travels into the living room and Joey giggles, and then goes back to his game, seemingly used to Alex’s colorful vocabulary.

“What, John?” Alex grunts when he’s standing in the kitchen doorway. He’s frowning and obviously not happy about the way dinner is turning out for him. “You’re distracting me.”

“We were just talking. Jack and I think it would be a good idea to go to Disney this weekend. Something fun to do and something to get us out of the house?”

At first, Alex hesitates to answer. He bites his lip, looks from Rian (who’s frowning) to Jack (who’s smiling) and then to Joey (who’s bouncing on his knees and wearing a gleeful expression). Jack knows him well, still. He can see Alex’s protests dying in his throat just by observing Joey’s excitement. And he’s proved right not ten seconds later, when his shoulders slump and he leans against the door frame. “Okay. It’s probably a good idea. We haven’t really gone anywhere fun lately.”

“Awesome! It was Jack’s idea,” John says and he grins at Jack, “He came up with it.”

Jack wants to hug him. Because seriously, this guy is making it so much easier for him to get back onto Alex’s good side. Rian rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t squeal on Jack and tell Alex the truth. Jack wants to know why he dislikes Jack so much and why he’s always in such an awful mood. But he bites his tongue, watches John get up from the couch, talking about going to go find those free tickets. Rian ends up following him, claiming John will need more than a little help, leaving Jack with Alex.

“So…This weekend will be fun,” Alex says quietly, smiling just a little bit, “I haven’t been to Disney in a while. And I’m sure you haven’t either…”

“I haven’t been since we went when Joey was three.”

“Well. It’ll be good,” Alex says, as if to reassure himself. “I…I’m glad everything’s going so well with us, Jack. I mean, I was worried that you wouldn’t want to be around me too much after…after everything I did. But we’ve been getting along and…It kind of reminds me of when we were a family…you know?”

Jack wants to tell him that he knows – that he’s been feeling the same way. Because he honestly has. He’s noticed it too. It’s nice, feeling like a family after two years of being separated. But he doesn’t get the chance to agree, because his cell phone rings and when he checks the caller ID, he sees that it’s Zack.

“I’ll be right back,” he tells Alex, smiling widely to assure him that he agrees with his statement about feeling like a family, and locks himself in the bathroom to take the phone call.

“Hey! Guess what!”

Zack is excited, that much is obvious, and it sparks Jack’s curiosity. What could he possibly be so excited about? So he asks, not bothering to hide his interest and although he really should be excited about the answer Zack gives, he feels this sudden pain in his chest, as if his body is warning him about something.

“We did a lot of review in class today so I can afford a weekend off,” Zack continues, explaining to Jack about his free weekend and the opportunity to come visit Jack. “I mean, if you want me there. I just… I mean, you said you missed me and wanted me there this morning so I assumed…”

Noticing the path of guilt that Zack is suddenly walking down, jack interrupts, “No! No, don’t think I don’t want you here. I do! I definitely do,” he assures him, “That would be awesome if you could. I…It would be fun.”

He really should be telling Zack no – that him visiting would probably not be such a great idea. Especially since he’s just starting to get Alex out of his shell and getting back on his good side. But he doesn’t have the heart to do that. Zack is his boyfriend. His boyfriend who’s birthday he forgot. Saying no isn’t really an option. So, instead he agrees, tells Zack to get the first flight down here on Friday and he’ll be there to pick him up.

“Okay. I’m excited! I’ve never been to Florida. What’s the weather like right now? I don’t really know what to pack…”

After going through the necessary clothing items that Zack should bring and trying to give him fair warning about what to expect when he gets down here, Jack hangs up, leans his head against the bathroom mirror and sighs loudly. His breath fogs up the glass and he really just wants to punch something because he just signed up for a weekend from hell.

Alex reassures him of that assumption. When he walks into the kitchen to tell Alex about Zack’s visit, he finds the older boy cutting up vegetables, a huge smile on his face. Jack coughs loudly, getting his attention.

“Oh, hey! You know, I was just thinking about this weekend. I really think it’ll be good for us. You know? Cause it’s been a while since we did anything as a family and even with Rian and John there it’ll still be-”

“Alex, Zack’s coming to visit for the weekend.”

Alex stops, eyes widening at the new information he’s received. Jack watches his expression change from happy to livid and he glares at Jack before turning around and going back to cutting up vegetables. His back is tense and his shoulders are hunched, showing just how angry Jack has made him.