The Sun vs The Moon

The homophobic slurs and derogatory remarks came sooner than expected.

Honestly, Jack wasn't surprised at how upset Alex looked when he came home. He knew the comments were coming, but he didn't expect so soon. And it was because Alex didn't understand that being gay (in his case, bisexual) was considered wrong and unnatural to the majority of the people at school.

"Jack?" Alex said, walking into the small apartment Jack lived in.

Jack was in the kitchen, fixing up some food for him and Alex to eat. He kept his head down, concentrated on whatever he was cooking. "I'm over here."

"So I was wondering..." Alex trailed off, hiding his face from Jack. "What's a 'bummer'?"

Jack closed his eyes and let out a sigh, stopping what he was cooking. "Who told you that?" Did someone call you that?"

Alex sat down on the couch, facing away from Jack, and watched the news on a silent volume. "Uh, kinda. Just, some guy said I was a bummer and some other stuff."

"Don't let someone call you that, okay? It's like,"Jack sighed. "It's like saying 'faggot.'"

Jack left the food on the counter and walked over to the couch where Alex was sitting. "People can horribly mean," Jack began, sitting next to Alex, who kept his head down and out of sight. "You're not used to it, so don't take the comments too hard."

Alex looked up at Jack, revealing his face. Jack gasped, immediately taking his face in his hands. "What happened? Did someone do this to you?!"

"Just some guys," Alex mumbled. "No big deal."

Jack shook his head, grabbing Alex's wrist. "We gotta clean this up, okay?"

Alex nodded and trudged upstairs behind Jack. Alex's face had a bruise forming on the side, his lip was busted and his eyebrow was bloody. And the thing was, it may not have looked too bad, but it hurt like hell.

They reached the bathroom by Jack's room. He made Alex sit on the counter so they were at eye level, because Alex was kinda short, and Jack was really tall.

"Wanna tell me who did this to you?" Jack asked, wiping away the blood.

"I already told you, just some guys. I don't remember their names." Alex mumbled, flinching at the coldness of the water.

"I think you do. I remembered all of my bullies names." Jack said. He dabbed the disinfectant onto Alex's eyebrow,

"Caleb Turman, Craig Owens and Josh Franceschi." Alex sighed, looking anywhere but Jack.

"How old are they?" Jack asked while finishing up cleaning Alex's wounds.

"Like, seventeen I think. Dunno." Alex mumbled again. He hated talking about this.

"They shouldn't be picking on someone so much younger than them."

"I guess." Mumbled Alex, ending the conversation.

-

Alex had spent yet another night at Jack's apartment because his parents were drunk as always.

Alex begged Jack for nearly half an hour to let Rian come over. Obviously, Jack caved in.

Rian and Alex were cuddled up on the couch, Rian kissing the younger cheeks every so often, or bumping their noses together.

Jack was quickly growing uncomfortable because fuck, he felt like he was chaperoning his little brothers first date (even though the real situation was nothing like that).

So Jack got up and excused himself, neither of the boys hearing him. He went up to his messy as fuck room and decided to just play guitar. It always soothed him.

For some reason, everything just seemed to be going wrong. Alex seemed good with Rian, yeah, but Jack felt as if Alex could do better.

Alex was still young and innocent, he didn't know anything about the real world. He wasn't like teenagers his age.

Jack remembers when Alex was twelve. Daniel, Alex's brother, died. After that, his parents drank themselves into oblivion and didn't care about their only son anymore. They didn't care abut Alex.

Jack was good friends with Daniel. He remembers going over to the Gaskarth's house on the weekends and listened to Daniel's snotty nosed, stuck-up little brother complain about every thing. Jack never would have guessed that the snotty nosed, stuck-up little kid would be his best friend.

When Daniel died, Jack felt bad for Alex because the two brothers had a close bond. He found out that Alex's parents were drinking more often to the point of completely ignoring Alex's existence, so Jack felt a need to take care of the little boy.

Jack was eighteen and taking care of a thirteen year old kid. By that time, Jack had already moved into his current apartment. Jack and Alex grew closer together as each day went by.

Alex would call Jack on their house phone, telling him that his parents were drunk and Jack would pick him up and take him to his apartment. Pretty soon, Alex just lived with Jack. He never bothered going back home, unless Jack really needed some peace and quiet and Alex's parents were sober.

Now that Alex is fifteen, -sixteen in two months- they've grown even closer together. Alex was right when he said he wasn't a little kid anymore. He was, in fact, independent and liked doing things on his own, yet he still relied on Jack when he needed to. Jack loved helping Alex, so it was perfect.

Everything was perfect until Rian asked Alex to be his boyfriend. Jack didn't know it, but that's when he stared questioning everything.