Under my skin

[Jack Ripley]

"You're not."

Why did Brayden sound so skeptical?

"What? You don't believe me?"

And why the obsession with his button? Brayden seemed fixated on it, even to a drunk man. Oh he thought he sobered up a bit on the ride back but his head still swam comfortably in alcohol. He knew he shouldn't love it so much. Alcohol. What it could do. How it could suppress and compress and depress. Just press everything. Down. Down. Down. Somewhere deep. Somewhere nobody could reach. Somewhere even Jack couldn't touch. If he just kept pushing it down. Maybe. It would never come back up.

"B. BB. Baby." He fondled Brayden's cheek lovingly. "You're not alone. You still see her in your dreams. And probably your dad, too.... amirite? They're inside forever. And they love you." His eyes, without his permission, went misty for some reason. Motherly love. Fatherly love. Always carried inside of him. "Their voices are nice ones. Good ones. They love you, B. Little B."

He traced a line down Brayden's nose. Down to his lips. To his mouth. Like he was hushing him. Shhhhh. Their voices were good ones. Kind ones. Loving ones. Whatever wisdom they imparted was beautiful. It had to be. Because Brayden was beautiful. One of a kind. Maybe not to some. But Jack never met a soul like his. Abruptly he dropped his hand.

"I lied, Brayden." But instead of saying what he wanted to say instead of continuing to open up, his cursed and terrible mouth said, "My ass hurts. And my back." He hugged Brayden again and rested his chin against his shoulder. "My heart hurts." And in the smallest and nearly inaudible of voices he said, "I just want to die."

[Brayden Smith]

"I..." He didn't want to lie even to a drunk man who couldn't remember so he didn't finish his lie. He didn't believe Jack. Not right now. Not fully. It was no good to only be... a small part of someone. That meant they could still move on—that meant Jack could move on—and he would be alone again. No guarantees for the future, but that also meant he couldn't sincerely believe that he wasn't and would never be alone again.

But for a drunk man, Jack was quite perceptive. Bray nodded. "Yes. I hear him too." His father, mild-mannered and soft-hearted, just like Bray. Most fathers taught their sons not to cry, not to show that they were hurt, to bottle it all up and shove it away. Bray's father encouraged him to do just the opposite. There was no shame in shedding tears, his father said. That meant they were human. That meant they were capable of empathy, sympathy, that they had a heart which cared for other hearts, and that was a good thing.

Seeing the way Jack teared up, Bray reached out to brush the area under his eyes again. He felt like this whole evening was a repeat of the previous, only they were out in the courtyard instead of in Jack's apartment. Oh, well. No one was looking anyway—most people were inside with the blinds drawn, living out their own lives.

"Jack..." He was shushed so he shushed but his hand lingered at Jack's cheekbone, near his temple, the fingertips dipping into his wavy hair. That Jack who didn't have parents that loved him could speak so eloquently to Bray's was heartbreaking. And he was right—he was right about all of it. Bray's parents loved him. They taught him to be kind, to be loving, to care about others. What did Jack's parents teach him? How to be hurt? How to close off his heart to other people? How to pretend he was okay and put up that front to keep everyone out, isolating himself?

How to be okay with being alone?

Bray was silent as Jack confessed to lying. He hurt? His—his ass and his back. His heart. He gathered Jack close as his own eyes stung and he didn't even bother brushing away his own tears as he held Jack tighter and tighter and tighter, hurting for him, aching for him. "You can't..." die. No. Jack couldn't die, Bray wouldn't let him. He turned to kiss Jack's temple, the side of his head. "You have to live. You-you haven't even read my book. The book, remember? For the soul? And-and I have to eat this chocolate you brought me, so we... we can't... give up, Jack. We can't give up. I'm not giving up on you."

[Jack Ripley]

There were a lot of ways to die that could be fun. Interesting. The idea of death was never a specter for Jack but a welcoming home. Relief from being so goddamn sick inside. Even when he wanted to recover, he fucked it up. Even when times were good, there was that knowledge that he didn't deserve it. And he always always let that fuck it up. The good things. The happiness. It was as if he had some broken parts inside that were there so long that he sometimes hardly even noticed them.

Evenings out with people he could pretend were friends. Karaoke. Drinking and fucking. It was a glorious night. A beautiful night. And he was so so so happy. So happy. He thought. He thought he was happy.

But the thing was... those jagged broken parts? They liked to cut him at the worst times. Had to spring out when things were going just fine. Everything was fine. And then. He thought about mothers and fathers. He thought about what it was to be alone. Some part of him was even a little jealous. The voices in Brayden's head. They had to be loving. Encouraging. But the voices Jack heard were vile. And everything he touched. They became vile too.

"If I died now, my voice in your head would still be a good one, B..."

[Brayden Smith]

"No... no... I don't want your voice. I want you. I want the real thing." A disembodied voice or a visitor in dream land was never going to be the same. They were all in his head, sure, but fat lot of good that did for Bray who needed them in his waking moments more than he did in his sleeping ones. Sleep was a reprieve from unhappiness; he was unconscious for that and didn't need the help.

Being awake was hard. Harder some days than most others. The constant struggle to keep his head above water left even loving, self-sacrificing Bray a little exhausted. But when he reached for them—the pills, the knife, the gun, whatever—he thought of the people who would be left behind. The people who would be left alone if he killed himself. How could he visit that kind of horror upon another person? How could he subject them to the same level of loneliness and despair that he, himself, felt?

That theory only worked if there was someone out there to grieve for him, though. If there was one person who cared. It didn't have to be a whole village. Just one. Just one person whose life would be left much worse off if he died. If Jack died.

And Bray, he could be that person for Jack.

He probably already was.

Bray turned away, wiping a hand across his eyes. "I want you," he whispered softly. "I want the real thing." Not a voice. Not a memory. Not a dream. Jack was so close... The star he had been trying to catch all his life was achingly, maddeningly close and if he just... reached out his arm another mere millimetre... "You said I wasn't alone. If you were gone... I would be."

[Jack Ripley]

Jack half laughed and he half cried. It was an ugly and ungainly sound and he would have been properly embarrassed if he was entirely sober. Of course, being drunk as he was—and maybe possibly drugged—he didn't have the wherewithal to be. He didn't even have the ability to control his wild mood swing. From happy and over the moon to confessing into the void that he would rather be dead. Again it would have mortified him if he was less inebriated.

"Because I make you feel less alone?"

The question was almost childlike. Why... did he even ask? Brayden already told him. He. Felt less lonely. Less alone. But he could never be alone with the memories of his parents. Were they not enough? Would a... could a memory of somebody ever be enough?

Another little hiccup.

"I'm not—" he laughed but there was a tinge of wildness in it. "I'm not holding a gun to my head, B." There was no imminent danger of Jack killing himself. Just because he wanted to die didn't mean...  well. Maybe it did. He had been determined at one point not to die. When he checked himself into that rehab program. When he came out clean. Or cleaner.

He tried to look Brayden in the eyes again. Why was it so hard sometimes? He squinted at him. The cool air of the night stung at his face now. Heh. Well he asked for that didn't he. But the more he looked at Brayden, the more he realized that all this time he thought nothing and nothing wasn't the solution. Brayden was something. And the only way he could make Jack something too was if he shared his something. And Brayden was already so self sacrificing that it might. Just. Kill him.

"Brayden," he said in all seriousness. "Being alone isn't the worst thing that could happen to you."  He reached up and held Brayden's face. "Believe me."

[Brayden Smith]

"Yes. Because you make me feel less alone. Because... you don't make me feel like I'm nothing. And when you look at me, I feel like I could be somebody." Jack wasn't going to remember any of this and it was okay. Bray just had to get it off his chest, he supposed. He wanted to be patient, like his mother told him to be. He was going to be here for Jack no matter what, even if he couldn't be with Jack in the capacity that he wanted to be.

But he had to admit it to himself. He had to say it, as much for himself as for wild-eyed Jack who laughed like his heart was breaking. Broken. A lifetime of pain led him here to sleepy Hazleton and maybe... just maybe... he fell here so that Bray could open his arms and catch him. Maybe Bray's purpose was finally made clear in that heart-wrenching sob.

Bray who had been holding out his hands to catch a star and Jack who had been falling, falling, falling, falling... Didn't it just make sense, in some strange abstract cosmic way?

He cradled Jack against him, letting him stare, letting him look and search for whatever it was that he thought he needed in someone. Didn't have to be Bray. He knew that he was far from perfect, and that whatever he had might not be nearly enough to make up for what Jack needed. But Bray was willing to try; he didn't shrink from duty, as much as he shrank from everything else.

"You don't have to be holding a gun to your head to..." Bray trailed off. His fingers touched one of Jack's temples, where a gun would have been. Cold metal pressed to the side of his head. It was a horrific mental image and inwardly he shuddered. He pulled Jack closer, gazed into his unfocused eyes. They were hazel; they seemed to change colors under the light of the stars. And here Bray thought he was magical...

"It's the worst... for me." He smiled wistfully as he reached up and let his fingertips ghost over the back of Jack's hand. "But I know it's not the worst for you. I know, Jack. I know. But just know that you're not alone either. Okay? And you don't have to hurt alone."

[Jack Ripley]

"I don't... even own a gun."

That wasn't the point. And he knew it. And Brayden knew it. Guns didn't have exclusive rights to killing people. Drinking away his liver was killing him. He thought putting down the drugs might help, as if it were some kind of signal to both himself and the world that he was done pretending that his entire life was just one long ride to suicide. A gun didn't have to be pointed to his head for its symbol to be there, forever tantalizing and flirting with death.

He knew somebody with a gun, though. Alejo. Alllllllie, he thought the name with some affection. Poor, empty, soulless Alejo, a brother of his heart and a little speck of nothing just like him. He owned a gun and he could have used it on Jack. And Jack could have tightened his hands around his delicate throat. And they both could have died.

Fuck. He hated the darkness. When did it get so dark? Tonight was supposed to be a good one. A good one. He closed his eyes. Tight. Like he could go back, back to the laughter and dancing and singing. It was all a blur, quickly losing all its details and edges. Did he kiss his co-worker? A soft laugh escaped. He opened his eyes. Brayden was still there, for some reason. He kissed two co-workers. Maybe more. He was kinda handsy when he wasn't drunk. His lips were wanderers when he was.

His hands slowly slid over the sides of Brayden's head, resting somewhere vaguely chesty. His alcohol drenched mind tried to process what it was that Brayden was saying. Being alone was the worst for anybody. Jack wasn't even sure how he misconveyed that information. Was that even...? There were worse things. Did he say that, with his own mouth?

"Yeah... no... right... You're right." His gaze slid away, to a tree that arched up to the night sky. A shooting star that wasn't a star. He lifted his hand to trace its course, the way he would have done as a child. "...you're right."

[Brayden Smith]

The barriers came up and down, fluctuating, letting Bray in and then pushing him out. He was confused and he could just bet that Jack was too. He wouldn't be here if he wasn't, if he knew the answers and where to find them. Bray wasn't pushing, though. He didn't need to know everything tonight. A lot had already been revealed; another piece of the puzzle had been unearthed, adding to the bits and pieces he gleaned from before.

"You're drunk," he murmured again, without knowing why he felt the need to tell them both what they already knew. Jack was drunk. Everything was off-the-record. Bray pulled him closer and let him rest, let him turn his eyes to the heavens and trace a vague streak across the night sky. Bray closed his own eyes to let the darkness behind his eyelids sink in. His hands were restless, though, stroking through Jack's hair and over his temples, his cheeks, his jaw and lips and throat.

"Do you want to go inside, Jack?" They couldn't really... sit out here all night. Bray could have if Jack wanted to but he didn't think it was a good idea. Jack was already emotional and he wasn't in a fit state to discuss his innermost feelings. Bray didn't want him to keep sinking down into his own darker emotions, either. This was enough for one night, wasn't it?

Rome wasn't built in a day, after all.

[Jack Ripley]

"I am," he agreed. A laugh. And his hand that traced the shooting star (that could have been there and maybe wasn't) came down to rest against Brayden. "I'm so drunk."

It was a miracle that Brayden hadn't met Drunk Jack before this point. But Drunk Jack had been quietly nursing his own wounds in his new luxury apartment in Oregon. The first time he'd even gone to a bar, he'd found Allie Allie Allie... Oxen Free. And he didn't know what to do with that information. Didn't really know how to approach anything anymore, when he wasn't the same Jack as before, now that he'd gone through (drug) rehab and told himself not to let it get dark again.

Drinking too much, it was hard to control whether it went one way or the other. Sometimes it swung wildly from one to the other. And he really, really wasn't supposed to be drinking. His last doctor told him he had to stop self medicating. But the problem with all these doctors, head doctors especially, was that they didn't actually know the full story. And if Jack had a say--and he did--they never would.

Funny, really, how he thought philosophizing might clean his soul, how psychology my clean his mind, that throwing away his vices in a fit of horror would clean his body. But this vessel would always be the same vessel that had never been wanted, with all its imperfections and its scars. His soul would always be pockmarked with regrets. And his mind... Well, it was still sharp but for how long?

And he really didn't want to get into his heart. His heart wanted to love. It wanted to open up. But historically, that was never a good idea. Honestly, he couldn't even be sure what love actually was. If it was something needy like that moment in time with Allie or if it was just some word for something that never existed except in fairy tales. Something to help people sleep at night, like god. Something that made people feel like a bigger part of something important, a part of a whole. Because who was really whole all by themselves? Nobody, that's who.

"Ugh... do I have to?" He slunk even further down, as if he could just slink down and melt into the bench. Or maybe into Brayden. But he was sore and achy and sitting out in the cold was making him all stiff. Not the good kind. Like the kind where you didn't move for a long time and then when you did, you realized what a mistake it was. Then again, going inside meant bed and he had a love affair with his bed, the whirlwind kind, the kind where he loved it and hated it at the same time.

"Yeah, yeah, let's go."

Jack tried to pull himself up but he succeeded only in slinking further down, until he could feel his asscheeks touching the pavement. Cold soaked in, even through his pants. His work pants. His fancy work pants that... oh. A book slid down his chest and he caught it, between said chest and his hand. It was the book Brayden gave him. Gave him? Yes, yes. They exchanged gifts. He held the book so that it rested on his forearm, the bottom against his chest. Chicken Soup for the Soul, it said.

"I. Love it," he declared, a little laugh rumbling up inside him. Because it was funny. It was. The soup that could save a man's soul. It could happen. Stranger things happened.

[Brayden Smith]

"No, but you'll regret it in the morning." Sleeping out here was a horrible idea. Bray had done it a few times in the past, when he came out to catch stars and only caught a few Zs. Waking up curling on a hard bench, drenched in dew and shivering it out? Not an experience he thought Jack wanted to have.

Bray sank a little into the bench too as Jack did, not being tall enough or prepared enough to catch the brunt of his full weight. He sighed and grappled with Jack, who decided that he did want to go in. Well, that was a step in the right direction. And then a step in the wrong direction as he fell, even with Bray struggling mightily to keep him on his feet. Down he went in a heap, laughing about the book. Chicken soup for the soul.

"Up. Up you get, fella," Bray grunted softly as he tried to get Jack off the ground and back onto his feet. "Think... how nice it'll be to sleep in that big bed of yours." it was very luxurious, Bray could attest. Big enough to fit three, maybe four people... but not big enough to contain all the nightmares of one man. Bray sighed as he hooked his arms under Jack's armpits and somehow hauled him up.

The little chocolate sat heavy in his pocket as he half-dragged, half-staggered with Jack to his door. Bray fumbled through Jack's pockets for keys, recalling how furious he had been that morning to find that Jack knew how to pick locks. For a man so supposedly open, he sure had a lot of secrets stored away inside. Bray glanced at him and sighed, "Good thing it's the weekend. You're going to have a hell of a hangover tomorrow morning."

[Jack Ripley]

Oh, throw it in the pile with all the other regrets. Jack even made a psh sort of sound as he waved his hand at the air. There were so many regrets inside of him that he didn't even know how he managed to live like a normal human being at this point. Could be from living with them for most of his life. Some 30-odd years of hell. It was his normal.

"I am, I am," he said as he stumbled up to his feet. And he did so want to fall asleep in his big, wonderful bed. He could already practically feel its warmth around him and his face smashed into the mattress. Not unlike the night before. What was wrong with him lately? Just when things were getting good and he was settling in nicely in Hazelton, he went and screwed it up by getting shit-faced two nights in a row.

"I promise," he said to Brayden as he felt himself being patted down, "that I'm not always like this."

For some reason, it was concerning him that Brayden only knew him as a drunkard. But he did have a laugh at Brayden's last comment.

"I--I was thinking that exact same thing when I went to the bar!" He said it as if he was simply amazed that Brayden thought the same thing when it was a common enough thought to have. He leaned up against the wall by his door, still letting Brayden find his keys on his own. They were on his person... somewhere.

"You should have come," he said as he made himself comfortable, propped up there against the wall with a dazed smile and far away eyes. "We sang Rihanna and Taylor Swift and I think Sia... Baby, I don't need to have dollar bills to have fun tonight~"

[Brayden Smith]

"Were you?" And it didn't stop him from drinking too much anyway? Another little piece for the mosaic that Bray was building of Jack. He smiled fondly up at Jack as he frisked him (essentially), finally finding his keys in the back pocket. Bray who was too polite to cop a feel dis his best not to grope around too much back there. Ahem.

A part of him wanted to go when he heard Jack was going but ultimately he didn't. Maybe he ought to have. Would the night end differently if he had gone? If he was the one sitting at the bar watching Jack singing and dancing and getting blitzed out of his mind? Maybe... but probably not. Bray didn't think his presence had any real sway over the outcome of anyone's evening, either way.

Tonight was just. Luck. He happened to be out here and Jack happened to come back at that time. Luck.

"Come on, let's get you inside." Bray knew the names of those artists but he hadn't heard their songs. He didn't... really listen to music, oddly. He liked background chatter from the radio. Maybe a bit of news. Tedious and boring, wasn't it? His life was like that, though--depressingly bland. Easing Jack off the wall, he helped him inside and turned on the lights. The trip into the bedroom was a laugh and a half, stumbling into and bouncing off of furniture, tracking a crazy trail through the living area and in through the door. Bray tried to prop Jack up against the closet door as he helped Jack undress.

This time he didn't have trouble with the buttons on Jack's shirt. He glanced up, half-smiled; he was returning the favor, he supposed. "Do you want anything before bed? Water?"

[Jack Ripley]

Weekends were meant to have fun and forget the rest of the world for a while, weren't they? Brayden probably spent his weekends with paperwork. What a sad thought. Even when he wasn't drinking, Jack didn't use weekends for work related things. When he first moved to Hazleton, he used his weekends to wander the town's streets, trying to get a feel for his new environment, for the locals, trying to immerse himself in a place he could call home.

Getting inside was a joke, but together they somehow managed it. (No thanks to Jack, who kept tipping over and laughing about it.) They were in familiar territory now. His apartment was warmer than the cold air outside and there, there was his bed. But they didn't go straight to bed. No, they were at the closet for some reason. His closet, which was filled to the brim with his every indulgence. Gorgeous colors, patterns, varied fabrics. He could be vain that way, in how he presented himself, in the clothing he chose.

"Mm." He was aware that his clothes were coming off and that was usually a prelude to something sensual. He shrugged out of his shirt once it was unbuttoned, carelessly letting it slip to the floor. Water would have been a good idea but the question was forgotten almost as quickly as Brayden asked it.

"Nope," he said decisively, but then just as decisively, he reached out to delicately (somehow) slide Brayden's top button right out of its buttonhole. "Just you."

[Brayden Smith]

Sigh... An internal sigh, full of weariness. Bray's head was full of thoughts--not that it usually wasn't, but tonight he felt particularly full up on heavy musings and internal monologues. He wished that he could somehow siphon some of those thoughts away, to be examined and reexamined at his own leisure, but that was impossible. For him. It was possible for others--witches, for example--but he didn't have access to any of that magical technology.

Busying himself with Jack gave him slight reprieve, though, until Jack's shirt fell away. Bray couldn't help staring for a moment; there was just a lot of chest in front of him and a lot of bare skin. His fingers twitched longingly but he kept them from doing anything untoward. Pants next. Haah. Pants next. Right. He--look, despite years of inaction (to put it kindly) Bray wasn't made of stone. Physical attraction was very much still a thing and... yes, physically he was attracted to Jack.

He blinked at Jack's nimble fingers as they came up to his own collar and popped a button out of its slot. Bray didn't understand at first, and then it dawned on him. "Ah." His fingers closed around Jack's to stop them from going further. "Jack. I... think you need to go to sleep." He was trying to be gentle about it, of course, but he couldn't dance around the fact that it wasn't a good idea.

He wanted to badly, with every fiber of his being, but it was a Bad Idea. And had Jack been sober, Bray thought that he would have known it too.

[Jack Ripley]

Sleep? But why sleep when they could still have fun? Was that not what they were doing right now? Brayden was unclothing him. It only seemed fair to his sloshed brain that he should be undressing Brayden, too. He was intensely curious now, what was underneath all the boring administrator clothes. But Brayden was stopping him. Jack tried to move his hand out from under Brayden's.

"I think so, too," he said. "Together. We need to go to sleep together."

Never mind that they did that before. Last night, in fact. Only they just slept. Or Jack did. Hard to tell how much sleep Brayden got, since he seemed to be pretty haggard the next morning.

"Don't you feel it?" he asked, his hands slipping around Brayden's waist to pull him closer. There was something between them. A spark. Something more than a spark. Jack couldn't be the only one who felt it. Could he? It felt so different than anything he ever experienced... and so strong that he couldn't believe that Brayden didn't feel it, too.

"Do you know... how long I've been looking? ...searching? It can't just be me..." He eagerly took Brayden's hand to bring it to his chest, where he could have sworn that his heart beat in time to a song only their two hearts could possibly know. (What the hell did they put in his drink?) "...stay. Don't make me beg, B."