Alex Anonymous

"Bro, you're gonna burn my house to the ground or what?" Jack raised a distinctly disapproving eyebrow as he wandered into the kitchen late the next morning. As usual he was the last one out of bed which meant Rian was already burning everything he put in a frying pan while Zack gently offered advice that Rian shot down with annoyed grumbles and waves of a greasy spatula, a corner of which was smoking from where he'd left the plastic on the sizzling skillet for too long. Without looking, Jack reached over the drummer's shoulder and turned off the stovetop while he scanned over the contents of his fridge.

"Dude," Rian groaned, turning the knob on the stove back to its highest setting and smiling at the renewed sizzling sound. A disgusted curl of his lips overtook his smirk when he turned to mock Jack and found the younger boy chugging orange juice from the jug. Jack's initial overestimate of how much juice he actually wanted was overwhelmed by the speed of the juice which left a few trickles of orange rolling down his chin and dripping onto his chest or the tile floor. He cleaned his face and chest with the back of his hand and pulled his foot further into the leg of his pajama pants to use the loose bottoms to wipe up the drips on the floor. "You disgust me, like, truly, truly disgust me."

"And I love you too," Jack smiled, grabbing Rian's face with his sticky hand and giving him a wet kiss on the lips.

Zack laughed quietly at the scene as he slid off his stool at the breakfast bar to take over at the stove. Despite Rian's protests of the food being just the way he liked it, he dumped the charred and shriveled remains of bacon into the trash before rinsing out the pan to start fresh.

Ten minutes later Zack had a full plate of bacon strips setting on a paper plate for Rian and Jack to fight over while he moved on to scrambling eggs.

"Make sure to put cheese on mine," Rian called over his shoulder as he walked to the living room with the mostly full plate of bacon that he'd stolen for himself after threatening to stab Jack with his fork. "Ooh, and maybe cut up some ham and throw that in there and maybe a couple of green onions wouldn't hurt either. See if you can wrestle away Jack's bacon and crumble it up and put it in too. And I need another cup of coffee when you come out; you know how I like it."

"You are the worst mom in the world," Jack informed, earning himself a silent middle finger from the older boy before he was too engrossed in SportsCenter to continue communicating with Jack.

When the kitchen was back to silence, Jack turned his attention to watching Zack diligently cut up the requested ingredients. His cheeks dusted with a thin layer of pink that let Jack know he knew he was being watched but neither of them bothered to say anything about it. Instead Jack silently set his plate of bacon beside the cutting board and watched Zack carefully stack the strips before skillfully cutting them into bite sized pieces. When everything was prepped, Zack dumped the contents of the cutting board into the fluffy blanket of eggs and folded them together. Over the top of that he delicately laid squares of American cheese before lifting the whole thing with his spatula and plating it to take out to Rian.

"Did you have a mug out already," he inquired as he set the plate on the coffee table in front of Rian who promptly pushed him out of the way so he could see tv better. Zack waited for an answer for a few more minutes before mumbling that he'd take that as a "no," and returning to the kitchen to make a fresh cup. After he'd added the right amount of vanilla creamer and half a spoonful of sugar, he carried the mug out and set it in front of Rian.

"Love you, bro," Rian called after he left again.

"Love you too," Zack mumbled to himself, with a fond smile as he turned from his post at the stove and finally addressed Jack's continued stare. His cheeks turned a darker shade of pink at Jack's amused expression, his gaze falling to the floor like it always did.

If Jack didn't say anything, he knew Zack would lose his confidence and make him a plate of eggs without another word so he spoke up for the sake of not letting the moment end prematurely.

"You're really good at this breakfast business," he commented, the same amused smile still on his face as he watched Zack brighten at the compliment.

"Do you really think so?"

"I do," Jack nodded, loving the way he could make Zack so insanely proud with just the smallest bit of encouragement. That wasn't something he'd done much of the day before, his conscious hadn't let him forget that. "You're pretty good at speeches too," he sighed. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you that yesterday, I know that took a lot of courage on your part."

"It did," Zack agreed, his tone cautious as he watched Jack for signs of anger that Jack struggled not to show. His act paid off in the form of winning himself a nervous laugh from the boy he'd grown to admire. "You gotta admit it is pretty weird that you didn't see him, he walked right behind us. You could hear his footsteps!"

"I'm not that observant," Jack replied, his smile widening to match Zack's.

"Not that observant, not that smart, not that talented," Rian agreed, draping himself over Jack and kissing the top of his head while he handed Zack his empty plate. "The list goes on and on."

"Isn't there something you should be burning to ashes," Jack countered, rolling his eyes as he shoved Rian off him.

"I like my food on the burned side," Rian shrugged on his way over to the fridge where he quickly scanned the overstocked shelves. His face morphed into a mix of disturbed and annoyed as he lifted various containers and cartons.

"What are you gonna complain about," Jack sighed, knowing there could never be another option when it came to Rian.

"There's literally nothing in here that isn't passed expiration by a month or half eaten and molding in a styrofoam container."

"Really?" Zack pulled a face as he leaned over to look into the crowded fridge. He gave Jack a nod to show his agreement with Rian before he happily went back to flipping eggs. "Just means we get to go grocery shopping, I like grocery shopping."

"You like everything," Rian scoffed, his disgruntled mood growing when he peeked over Zack's shoulder. "How come you and Jack get fried eggs and extra bacon? I want fried eggs and bacon too." He thought about his order for half a second before adding on. "It wouldn't hurt if you dropped me a few pieces of toast too, maybe see if you can find some strawberry jelly in Jack's hell hole of a kitchen. If possible get some peanut butter too and make a melty P.B. and J, those things are my fucking shit. I could eat, like, seven thousand."

"You are fat," Jack slowly spaced out his words between laughs as he watched Zack once again move to grab ingredients for Rian's second breakfast.

"I eat when I'm stressed," Rian waved off his comment and left for the couch again while Zack got to work on his breakfast. "Grab me an apple juice too, Zachary, I think I saw some in the back of the bottom shelf. Make sure it's not past expiration, though, I'm not drinking a bottle of mold."

Jack was set to make a sarcastic comment about Rian being so fat that he'd not only drink the juice but also eat the moldy container when their quiet morning together was broken up by a gasping sob. The sound caught all of them off guard; Zack frowned, Jack scrunched his eyebrows together in confusion, Rian choked on his coffee.

"What was that?" Zack asked, his face slightly paler than just a few seconds before. He looked to both guys for an answer but came up with nothing but a pair of guilty shrugs. His mood changed to a more disappointed state as the gasping sobs continued and they all heard the unmistakable sound of Alex's voice.

The fact that he cried out Zack's name didn't help the situation in the slightest.

****

"This will not happen again," Zack shook his head as he paced back and forth in front of Jack and Rian, his voice more serious than either of them had ever heard. The trio was currently waiting in Alex's hospital room while the singer was out getting x-rays of his wrist and ribs. "He will always be my best friend and you have to treat him with respect or I'll murder you in your sleep. Got it?"

"Yeah," Rian answered quickly. Jack nodded too, though his agreement was a little less enthusiastic.

"Good," Zack sighed, stopping his constant pacing and letting his shoulders droop as he sunk into the chair between his friends. He held his palms up on the arm rests between them for a few seconds before groaning and waving his hands in front of his friend's faces. "Hospitals make me scared, someone hold my hand."

His sudden change in mood brought a relieved exchange of glances between Rian and Jack before they complied and linked their fingers with the shy boy's.

"He didn't get married," Zack mumbled after a few minutes of comfortable silence. He fell quiet for a moment afterwards as he let go of Rian's hand and moved the drummer's arm to wrap around his shoulders. When he was comfortably slumped into Rian's side, he yawned and closed his eyes to rest a little before the doctor came back with anymore anxiety inducing information. "He called all upset and asked if I could let him stay at my apartment for the night while he thought of how he wanted to handle things. He kept saying he couldn't apologize to one of us, he had to apologize to all of us, he needed all of us."

"Are you telling me it wasn't your mom on the phone last night," Rian gasped. "I'm shocked and appalled that you'd lie to us, Zachary. This is not the sweet little boy I raised."

"Cuz I'm a rebellious teenager, jeez," Zack scoffed sarcastically. "I need freedom, you guys suffocate me."

"We smother you because we care," Rian said, his tone a little more serious than before. Jack on the other hand offered no comment, if anything he shook his head at the fact that Rian felt like they needed to explain themselves. "We love you, Zack. The last thing we wanna see is someone taking advantage of you and that's what we feel like Alex is trying to do right now. That doesn't mean it was okay for us to hurt Alex, but you have to know that we only did that to hopefully show him that we're not gonna tolerate him hurting you again."

"I don't need your protection," Zack whined, sounding every bit like the moody teenager he'd been playing a few seconds before. He gently shoved himself out of Rian's grip and turned to look into his tired eyes. "I can handle myself, I know it didn't seem like it this year, but that was just one side of me, I'm usually a lot stronger. You guys just don't know that because you never paid attention to me." Jack held his breath and rolled his eyes as he waited less than five seconds for Zack to finish that thought in an all too predictable way. "Alex paid attention to me."

"Did he? Because I seem to remember that it was us who sat on bathroom floors with you when he made you so nervous that you threw up," he bitterly reminded.

"Yeah, after Alex broke my heart, you guys were there," Zack huffed. "What about when I had that awful boyfriend in high school? What about when my grandpa passed? What about when Rian threw all his stuff at me and screamed that I might as well steal that too? Where were you guys for all that?"

"Hey," Rian gently jumped in to defend himself and diffuse the situation. "Don't be like that, Zack, you know we love you and you know I'm so incredibly sorry for all the shit I put you through."

"It's funny how you remember all that stuff perfectly but somehow you've managed to forget that just last year Alex made you help him and his fiancée move in right after he walked out on you," Jack ignored Rian's warning look and glared at his quiet friend. "Seems like maybe you have a memory problem, might wanna get that checked out while you’re waiting for Lisa's husband to come back."

"He didn't get married," Zack curtly reminded.

"Did he? Do you even know? Because Alex says a lot of things he doesn't mean. He told you he loved you, didn't he?"

"Jack, that's enough," Rian snapped.

"No, it's not enough," Zack argued as he shoved Jack's shoulder. "If you have something to say to me than stop being a passive-aggressive bitch and say it to my face."

"Fine.” Jack should have stopped there, he should have got up and walked off his frustration. Zack wasn't the person he wanted to yell at or hurt, that person wasn't in the room. Jack kept talking anyway. “I think your pathetic, I think you can barely talk with Alex's dick in your mouth, I think Alex used you and he never loved you but he stayed with you because he didn't have to have sex with you and that made it easy for him to pretend he wasn't gay, I think it's pathetic that you're so eager to crawl back to him, and I think he's gonna break your heart just like he did last time and you're not gonna do shit about it because you are your stereotype, you're shy and quiet and nobody cares about you."

Zack's face screwed up in a mix of pure hurt and disappointment as he stared at Jack. His breaths came out in noisy exhales through his nose as his jaw slid around and he fought not to cry. He fought to say something that would hurt Jack as bad, something that would render Rian just as speechless, but he couldn't find a word in his cluttered head.

Alex, however, could.

"Get out," he growled, his eyes burning with unfiltered rage as he stared at Jack from the doorway. His body was already full of pain medication, but even if it hadn't been, the adrenaline coursing through him would have been enough. With the hand that wasn't covered by a red cast he grabbed Jack's shirt collar as the guitarist tried to push past him and slammed into the thick plastic glass of the room's window. His hand fisted tight into his collar as he stared into Jack's angry eyes. "You're a fucking disgusting prick for what you said to someone who has never done anything but work his ass off for you and your band. Zack is the love of my life, and that has nothing to do with what we did and didn't do in bed and everything to do with the fact that he is the sweetest, most kindhearted, brilliant, talented, beautiful person I have ever met. If you ever even think about saying any of that shit to him again, I will put you in the fucking ground."

"If you think I ever want to speak to any of you again, you're stupider than you look." With that, Jack shoved Alex away and left without another word.

Alex's entire body twitched with unreleased anger that he pushed aside as he walked into his room and quickly closed the door and drew the curtains to get dressed in relative privacy. He quickly took off his hospital gown, swapping it out for yesterday's torn and battered clothes. When he was fully dressed he took a deep breath, calming himself before he turned around.

"Come on, darling, let's get you home," he said, offering his uninjured hand to Zack to help him to his feet. Before they left Alex narrowed his eyes at a still stunned Rian. "I know that you don't care about me but I expected more from you on this one."

Outside the hospital Jack slammed his fist into his steering wheel, his whole body thrashing in a loud temper tantrum. Rain pounded down around him as he screamed at himself for every word he hadn't meant but had let himself say anyways. For the millionth time he'd let his frustrations with Alex lead him to being a shit friend to the people that mattered most.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," he screamed at no one while he sobbed about everything.

By the time he was through Alex and Zack had already left but he could clearly see Rian standing alone under the hospital awning. He could make out the drummer's shaking shoulders as he cried into the phone pressed against his ear.

He drove home alone anyways.

From his front window he watched Zack and Rian pick up their cars later that night. They didn't come over together, Alex drove Zack over first, Rian came in a cab an hour or so later. Neither of them saw him; they didn't bother glancing in the direction of his house. Rian was still crying when he showed up, Zack walked with his shoulders slumped and stared at the wet pavement the whole time.

Alex saw him.

From the driver's seat of his car and through his two black eyes he stared at Jack, shaking his head in a white flag of sorts. His eyebrows furrowed, his shoulders raised, and then his chest collapsed in an inaudible sigh as he gave up on the first boy he'd ever loved.

Maybe later he'd find himself staring into a mirror in a tuxedo again but he couldn't bring himself to believe that he'd regret it if he did because if he did, Rian would be standing behind him talking shit about how the ceremony was already running five minutes late and Zack would be standing nervously at an altar with his shaky hands stuffed in his pockets. He wouldn't have all his boys but he'd have Rian and he'd have Zack and that would be more than enough to make him forget about being disappointed and instead have him pulling Rian in for a last minute kiss before they rushed out to meet his fiancé in front of their friends and family.

****

"I guess you never realize how much someone means to you until you don't get to see them anymore." Jack stared into his paper coffee cup to avoid the mix of sympathetic and lifeless faces of his fellow group mates. He ignored the small ripples that his trembling hands caused to span across the milky brown liquid in his paper cup. He ignored the way he didn't know a single one of his group mates, the way none of them were his Group mates.

None of them studied their shoes with such an amused smile that it had sometimes made Jack worry for their sanity. None of them rolled their eyes and recounted how annoying it was to have to go to Costco every month to buy boxes of candy because otherwise their boyfriend was sure he was being played by the system with every impulse buy of a seventy five cent bar of caramel and chocolate.

For the sake of not crying, he forced out a short chuckle and continued sharing before his allotted five minutes were up.

"Now I see what they meant, now I see that I loved them, all of them. I loved Rian, I loved listening to him groan, it was my favorite sound in the world. I'd constantly piss him off on purpose just to hear him make that noise just to watch the way he'd glare and huff and roll his eyes and jump up and down like he was five years old. He was so smart, so clever; he had a smart ass reply ready for anything I said. I miss that. I miss how he could run bits with me with no hesitation, he just instantly knew where I was going with something and he'd talk with me like we were comedians running lines. I miss that more than I can describe."

A pause was necessary when Jack thought about the person he wanted to address next. A long drink of his bitter coffee was necessary before he let out a deep breath.

"Zack was different, he rarely, if ever, had a smart ass reply for anything I said to him. If I insulted him he'd just blush and stare at his feet or pout at me until I caved and gave him a kiss and an apology. I know he's still waiting for that even now. Two years later, I know if I saw him at the movies or at the grocery store or most likely coming out of a gym, he wouldn't say anything to me. He'd just stare at me with his innocent eyes and wait for me to pull him into a hug and whisper I love him. I never officially told either of them that, but I know Zack knew. I didn't back then, but when I look back now I can see that Zack always knew we were meant to be more than brother wives. We were meant to be together and I guess if I hadn't been so adamant about "we," meaning only the three of us, I'd be with them now and I'd have all my boyfriends and I'd be happy."

Jack took a deep breath to speak again but before he could the group leader thanked him for sharing and moved on to the scraggly man sitting next to him.

There was so much more Jack wanted to say, two years worth of words were built up in his throat, but he never gave them an outlet. He left his letters to float around in ever changing drafts that filled his head at every quiet moment of his lonely life. His phone was sunk at the bottom of a harbor back in Baltimore and for the life of him he couldn't remember the numbers it had held. Sometimes late at night he'd light up his studio apartment with his cell phone screen and let his thumbs fumble with the numbers over and over until the battery died. He remembered that Rian's number rhymed, that it was something that flowed well. It was 31-21 or 84-94, he tried every combination he could think of, his tears falling faster with every automated message that told him he'd reached a number that was out of service or no longer in use.

In the end it was useless, he knew if he ever got through, he'd only hang up. He wouldn't have the guts to say sorry or ask to speak to Zack or admit that he was lying when he told Alex he never wanted to talk to any of them again. That wasn't even what he wanted when he really thought about it; he didn't want to talk to them or apologize to them or reunite with them. All he really wanted was to hear their voices and know that they were okay.

Even though he had nowhere to go, Jack found himself laughing as he pushed his chair back to leave group.

Maybe he'd go get a drink.