Come Alive

Alex had been sitting on the opposite side of Jack’s couch for nearly two hours now. Thankfully, Marc kept an extra set of Jack’s keys in his apartment, which meant Alex and Jack could be alone in Jack’s home without the ever-so-loving eavesdropping best friend. The two were talking, as usual, about nothing in particular yet everything all at once. A few times now, Alex had begun a sentence but changed the topic almost immediately, which made Jack feel like he was avoiding talking about something.

‘Something’ Jack joked to himself, Jack knew exactly what Alex was avoiding.

But that wasn’t the kind of person Jack was. As much as he loved just sitting there talking to Alex about parallel universes, Jack’s mind had been set on talking to the other man about that kiss all morning. Jack wasn’t very good at avoiding things he needed to clear up (although he was spectacular at keeping certain memories buried).

“So, yeah, like if you think about it, we only know about the existence of our universe. And even that, we only think we know about the existence of our universe. There’s gotta be another one. Maybe even a few other ones. There’s so much we don’t know and we sit--“

“Alex.” Jack held his hand up to cut him off. Alex shut his mouth almost immediately, staring at Jack with anxious eyes. “Uh, yeah. Can I ask you why you kissed me last night?”

Alex sighed and looked down to his hands, “Shit, you remember that?”

“Yeah my head’s not as fucked up as you think it is.” Jack laughed, trying to get it through to Alex that he wasn’t... upset or anything about what happened last night. Well, Jack was upset about being ditched and almost freezing to death, but he definitely wasn’t upset about what happened at midnight.

Alex smiled and looked back up at Jack, “Well, I mean, I guess it’s just that I kiss people I like...”

Jack stretched his legs out to touch Alex on the opposite end of the couch, they were facing each other, just separated by the span of Jack’s secondhand couch. “You like a lot of people though. And you don’t kiss a lot of people.” Jack couldn’t remember when he and Alex had talked about this kind of stuff, he just knew that he knew Alex wasn’t that kind of a guy. Though with Alex’s fame came a lot of, for lack of a better word, oppurtunity--according to Alex he didn’t really mess around too much.

“Yeah, that’s true,” Alex kicked his feet agains Jack’s. “I guess not everyone is you, Jack...”

Jack had to force his smile back, “Oh yeah? What’s that supposed to mean?”

Alex pulled his legs up under him so he was kneeling on the couch and he motioned for Jack to do the same. Jack, who was comfortable and lazy, shook his head. Alex sighed and moved so he was closer to Jack anyway.

Jack hoped Alex couldn’t notice the sudden irregularity in his breathing.

“Well,” Alex leaned in even closer, “I guess that means I like you more than everyone else.”

Jack pressed his lips together and nodded slowly, fighting back yet another huge smile, “Oh yeah, I mean, I guess that’d make sense.”

Alex broke the tension by laughing. At this point, Alex had managed to get past Jack’s tangle of lanky legs and his chest was pressed against the other’s. Jack swallowed. Alex had to move, it was getting kind of hard for Jack to breathe at this point.

But Alex wasn’t going to make things easy for him, that’s for sure. The older of the two pressed his forehead against Jack’s, “What am I gonna do with you, Jacky?”

Silence followed for a few heartbeats. Jack knew how he wanted to respond, but he wasn’t sure how or where Alex would take it.

As the silence edged on, Jack mentally shrugged, ‘fuck it, what’s the worst that can happen?’

“Kiss me?” That was one way for Jack to test the waters, right?

Alex was almost too quick to respond.