Rescue Me

Alex sat on the wall outside the college, swinging his feet and staring down at the ground as he waited. He was no longer at college himself, but he still found himself waiting outside the building several times a week to give someone a free ride.

"Hey, Lex!"

Alex looked up at the sound of his name and smiled when he saw his someone running towards him. The brunette stood and held his arms out, lifting Jack into a bone-cracking hug when he reached his boyfriend.

"Hi," Jack breathed when he was released, grinning and taking Alex's hand in his.

"How was college?" Alex asked, starting the walk to his car.

"It was great! We were learning about camera angles today, I thought that might be a bit boring, but it was really interesting! I had no idea you could change the look of something so much just by the camera's positioning."

Alex smiled and kissed Jack's cheek softly. He couldn't be happier that his boyfriend was enjoying his new movie-making course at the college. He dropped out last year, after everything, and decided he wouldn't go back for a while, if ever. But now that his year-long community service and probation had come to end, he'd decided to re-enroll and do something new. The year out had given him a lot of time to think, and he had decided he wanted to be a director, maybe to make music videos and short films. And someday, maybe even feature-length movies. He told Alex it was the therapy that did it. It cleared his head and gave him a new direction. Right now, he was back to being a waiter, but the wages were good enough. He still lived with his parents so he didn't need to worry about rent just yet. He didn't need to worry about very much at all any more. His sentence had cleared his head of guilt, and despite thinking he got off rather lightly with just community service and a five-hundred dollar fine, it was still good enough. It had been determined that he didn't deserve a worse fate, due to the situation he'd been put in at the hands of other people.

Once in the car, driving with the radio playing, it was Jack's turn to ask.

"What about you? How was work today?"

Alex smiled. "Fun. The kids are so enthusiastic, it's adorable. And I have my first class of older students tomorrow! I'm a little nervous."

"You'll be just great, Alex. They're not that much older. You're gonna do good."

Alex, on the other hand, had always known what he wanted to do. He was currently in training to be a full-time music teacher. For now, he taught a class of younger kids twice a week, and he was about to start teaching a class of ten- to thirteen-year-olds four times a week. He'd gotten into it the second he graduated from college, managing to fit it in around his own therapy schedule.

He didn't have panic attacks any longer, or nightmares. In fact, those had pretty much disappeared the second that the police informed Jack and Alex that all the girls who had been kidnapped were doing well a year prior. Alex even saw a photo of Jess in the local newspaper just a few weeks ago -- she was running in a 5K for a women's charity, and she looked so happy. Jack didn't question Alex's want to cut out the photo and pin it on the notice board in his room along with the story. He just let him. She hung there proudly, smiling at Alex every morning, and he felt a little better every time he saw it.

Alex had to move out of his apartment. He didn't exactly have to, but he just hated it. The memories of he and Jack screaming at each other, and of the night Jeremy visited. He came back to live with his parents once he got out of hospital, which was okay. He and Jack had a plan; they would get another apartment, a better apartment, together. There was no rush though. They had plenty time.

Alex pulled up outside Jack's house, intending to just drop the younger boy off today. Jack got out of the car, but before he closed the door, he seemed to consider the house before leaning back in.

"Wanna come in for a little while?"

Alex did.

///

It took an hour of making out on the couch for them to realise they were actually kind of hungry for dinner.

"Maybe... we should get... some pizza? And soda?" Alex panted quietly between kisses, hands tightening on Jack's ass when the younger boy nibbled his collarbone.

"Sounds awesome," Jack agreed with a nod, ducking his head down and biting Alex's hard nipple though his shirt.

The older boy yelped and quickly clapped a hand over his mouth, wide-eyed.

Jack looked up, laughing. "You're damn lucky my parents aren't home."

Alex removed his hand. "Aren't I just?" he glared, before shoving Jack onto the floor with a chuckle.

///

"I almost have enough for a car," Jack spoke up over dinner, nibbling at a pizza crust. He'd been saving up again now that his money wasn't going towards... other resources, and he had his sights set on one car in particular. Almost enough. "Just another... two-hundred, I think? That's close."

"Really?" Alex looked up, grinning at his boyfriend. "That's awesome! I won't have to waste gas picking your sorry ass up at college any more."

"Hey!" Jack whined, flicking a crumb at a giggling Alex from across the table, but he soon started laughing himself.

They were still laughing when they paid, when they left, when they got into Alex's car. They laughed as they said hi to Jack's family who had returned home by the time they got back. They laughed all the way back to Jack's room, through their kisses and drifting hands. It was easy. They could just be. Chris and Taylor had been sentenced a minimum of thirty years, and Jeremy was sentenced to life. It came with a lovely little ninety-thousand dollar fine split between them, and both Jack and Alex were able to breathe easy knowing that they couldn't hurt anyone any more.

It was safe. They were able to lie together in bed, arms around each other, legs tangled, and feel safe. No sickening guilt chewing on their brains, no creeping panic about what could and would go wrong no matter how hard they tried to ignore it. Their lives were good again; exciting, even. Everything was going their way. They both knew life wouldn't always be like that, that they were sure to run into rough patches, whether it was in their personal affairs or within their own relationship, but as far as they were concerned, it had gotten as bad as it could get. And there was nothing they couldn't survive now.

They were strongest when they were together, and if it hadn't been for Alex sticking by his side, Jack knew he wouldn't have been able to rescue himself. He did, though. They both did. They rescued each other.

As Alex drifted to sleep, Jack turned his nose into his boyfriend's hair, giving him a small kiss, and he smiled.

Absolutely nothing they couldn't survive now.