Home

A smile flits across Jack's face as the pen glides over the paper, words flowing out easily. He lifts his head for a moment, looking out of the train window at the green countryside flying past, and ducks his head down after a few minutes, the smile disappearing.

He's on his way to London, to his tiny, run-down flat, and he shouldn't be excited about that after spending three years in a huge mansion near New York, but he is because it's his flat, his home and, more importantly, the place where he'll find his Alex. He's been sending him text messages every day for the past two years, because he's been too busy with work to call. He's slightly worried about the fact that Alex hasn't been replying to his texts for the past few months, though.

Jack hasn't sent a single text in a week: he wants his return to be a surprise. He's sure Ale will understand; his boyfriend was never an overly paranoid person.

He smiles again, wider this time as he looks back at his paper: he's on his way home.

~~~

A sadistic grin appears on Alex's face as the blade slices across his wrists over and over again. Blood drips onto the floor and he begins to feel woozy, like he's about to faint, but he doesn't care, because he's got nothing, no one to stay alive for. No one who cares.

"Except Jack," a voice in the back of his mind whispers. Alex only shakes his head, because he knows Jack stopped caring a long time ago. Two years ago, in fact, the day he stopped calling daily and started sending text messages instead.

Text messages filled with empty promises about his return, when Alex knows he will never come back. For all Alex knows, Jack could have found someone new in America. He could be rich, happy, famous and in love. He could have completely forgotten about Alex. He probably has.

Alex hasn't forgotten about Jack, though. Alex is still madly in love with Jack, he's still poor, he's still depressed, he's still a nobody.

And all those things make it so that he doesn't care when the razor slices just a little too deep and he drops it, blood pouring out of his arm and staining the cream colored carpet. He doesn't care when he collapses, eyes closing as he blacks out. He doesn't care when his body hits the floor; he doesn't care at all. He even smiles a little. Because he's on his way home.

~~~

It's late at night when a key slides into the lock, slowly turning and opening the creaky door. Jack enters the flat quietly: all the lights are out, so he's assuming Alex is already asleep. He's blindly stumbling forwards, his arms stretched out in front of him in case he falls, so it's really no surprise to him when he trips over something - or someone. Hands fumbling for the light switch, he finally finds it and flips it. And his jaw drops at the sight that meets his still accustoming eyes.

It's Alex, lying on the floor, covered in blood, unconscious, or maybe even - no, Jack refuses to think that. Instead, he presses two fingers to his boyfriend's still relatively clean neck, because he can't bear to even look at his wrist. He doesn't feel a thing. No pulse. He listens. No breathing. He tries again. And again. And again. And then he gives up and subjects himself to the truth:

Alex is dead. He's gone. Jack is never going to see him smile, frown, pout, sleep, he's never going to hear him laugh, moan, scream, sigh, never going to be able to touch him, taste him, feel him, ever again. Ever. It's over, it's gone.

So Jack (who has always been a perfectly rational, intelligent person) just picks up where Alex left off. He picks up the razor-blade, picks up a bottle of pills from the bathroom, picks up a tissue to dry his last tears. In a sick, twisted way, he's still writing, he thinks. This story just hasn't ended the way he expected.

But he knows it's ending, he's on the final page already. It's cliché, really, not how Jack would have written it himself, but he hasn't got a choice, he's in the metaphorical hands of the great metaphorical author, up there in the sky. And the author wants him to go home, so he will.

Home with Alex.