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i
In hindsight, maybe breaking into your best friend's apartment is not the best, or safest, thing to do when it's two in the morning... but Jack hasn't slept in three days, and Will is the only one that can help him now. There is a reason hidden between their walls; tonight, Jack is going to break them, kick down the walls and feel them crumble beneath his feet.
He's going to confess, and he has to do it now. Before he changes his mind.
Besides, he's woken Will up in the middle of the night a million times. Will isn't going to care, it's not different now. It will be, soon, he knows, but right now things are calm, right now things are okay, right now he can breathe.
And - he breathes. Deep breath in, hold, exhale, repeat. Deep breath in, hold, exhale, repeat. He rests his hand on the door to Will's bedroom, and breathes. .
He can do this.
Jack can do this. He's brave, he is open, he can do this. He has suffered with this secret for decades - he is tired . The presence of Will is choking, slaughtering, and he is tired .
Jack opens the door, walks in. He studies the room; he's been here so many times, and he wonders if Will is going to let him come back at any point when the night is over. This is stupid, this is so stupid , he just needs to go, he needs to swallow his shredded emotions and--
and he climbs into Will's bed, his body moving uncontrollably, his body moving out of his mind. "Hey," Jack says, soft, and there's no going back now, there is no chance of recovery. He fully expects another heartbreak, but: the truth needs to be unveiled before it strangles him. He has carried this weight for too long, too long.
"Hey."
Jack slides underneath Will's blankets and reaches to coil himself around Will - it's not different, it's not, he's done this before - and oh , Will's chest is bare, Will's torso is bare. He's shirtless, and - he doesn't usually sleep like this. Jack can feel his entire being turn and hollow.
"I need to tell you something."
"Is it that you love me? 'Cause I like hearing that."
& Jack's heart skips. Single, horrifying, rapid beats. This is---he's dreaming. He is asleep, and dreaming. Or: he's hallucinating, from lack of sleep. This isn't real, Will does not love him.
So he entertains the fantasy. “Well, actually—”
“Sorry, did I wake you up?”
It feels like Jack has been filled with electricity; he jolts, shoots out of bed, and Will is standing in front of him. Meaning: he’s not in the bed. Meaning:
“Will, you’re—”
“Jack, what the hell—”
“—so that means—”
“Um, hi. Does he usually do this?”
Shit. It’s—it’s—it’s McCoy fucking Whitman. He was holding McCoy Whitman, and not Will. Imagine if he had said it, imagine if he had let himself be vulnerable, finally embracing vulnerability—
and it was all for nothing.
“No, he doesn’t, and he won’t do it again.” Will approaches him, grabs him by the arm and drags him out, through the door which Jack is so acquainted with. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I just wanted to… you know what, it doesn’t matter. I’ll just be going—”
“Jack, if you break into my apartment in the middle of the night and get in bed with my boyfriend, you better have a good reason.”
My boyfriend. The words make Jack’s inner body storm. He had encouraged McCoy, long ago, in a different life, to make things work with Will. To go slow. To make Will happy.
It’s his fault. He cannot ruin this.
“I have to go.”
“No, no, tell me what’s going on.”
Jack sighs. His eyes are watering. “Fine. Do you really want to know what’s going on?”
“Yes.”
“I’m in love with you.”
“Okay, fine. If you’re not going to tell me—”
“I’m in love with you.”
“Jack, be serious.”
“I’m in love with you.”
Will starts laughing, he’s laughing---
and then his face turns dark. “Oh,” he says. “You’re serious.”
“Yeah, Will. I am.”
He pauses.
“Well, bye,” Jack says, and he runs, runs, runs, doesn’t stop running.
ii
McCoy likes his coffee black with salted caramel syrup, and his hair is messy, and his pajama pants have hearts on them, and God, this would all be so endearing if he didn’t know his best friend was in love with him. This is where he has always wanted to be---half-asleep with a beautiful man who adores him---but Jack is in love with him, and it’s so typical of Jack to do this, to shatter everything in Will’s life, nonchalant, only motivated by his own desires.
He hands McCoy his cup of coffee. They sit together, in silence, at the table. Silence, silence, until McCoy says, so bravely, “So, what did Jack want last night?”
Will laughs nervously. “See. Well. He, uh. He—he—he just wanted….”
“Is everything okay, Will?”
His shoulders sink, his body sinks, and he rubs his forehead, and he turns to McCoy, and, and, and. And he says the words he should never say:
“Jack is in love with me.”
McCoy stares at him; it feels like McCoy is looking through his body and the meat of it, skin-bones-muscle, and gazing into his soul, his entirely damned soul. There are too many words hidden in this gaze, too many secrets.
“Oh, that’s all? Yeah, I knew that.”
“You—what— what? What—I mean, what? You knew?”
“It’s kind of obvious, don’t you think?”
“No, it’s not. I mean, I thought he encouraged you to take it slow with me? Why would he do that if he was in love with me?”
“Maybe he just wanted you to be happy.”
“Okay, well… if you knew, why didn’t you tell me?”
“I just assumed that you knew, too. I’m sorry, Will.”
Will sighs, again, takes a deep breath. “No, no, don’t be sorry. This is on me for not realizing.”
McCoy kisses him on the cheek, delicate and light & Will feels everything melt away, for a fraction of a second, feels calm—for a fraction of a second—in McCoy’s arms. “So what are you going to do about it?” McCoy asks, after, and it all floods back—
“I don’t know,” Will says. It’s the truth: how can he go on? “If I know Jack, he’ll be avoiding me.”
“He literally lives right next to you.”
“Trust me, he’ll figure out a way.”
& then McCoy coughs, and the conversation turns Will into a cold, shivering, cowardly thing; McCoy asks, without any hesitation, “Do you have feelings for him?”
“I have to go,” Will says suddenly, yearns for any freedom, any escape. “I’m meeting Grace, so—”
He opens the door. Runs, runs, doesn’t stop running.
iii
6:52 PM. McCoy Whitman is absent from the news. Jack has been watching for an hour, expecting to see the disastrously familiar face - nothing. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Most likely he is on a date with Will, or having sex with Will, or being with Will in a way that Jack can only crave to be.
He isn’t jealous, he isn’t. He is, truly and utterly, happy for Will and McCoy. Will deserves better than him, and McCoy is the epitome of perfect.
It still produces the feeling of dread, like the sting of a knife, when he sees them together, but Jack is good at ignoring. He has ignored Will and his string of boyfriends for decades.
What made him want to confess last night? Was it the lack of sleep? Was it the open gash situated permanently over Jack’s chest? Is it both? Is it the fact that sleep deprivation nowadays feels more like a gentle hug than exhaustion and fear?
Is it—
the knock at his door? The hurried, quadruple thud?
Is it McCoy Whitman, standing in his doorway?
Wait. McCoy Whitman is standing in his doorway.
“McCoy?” he asks. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be—”
“On the news? Yeah, I took the day off. I wanted to talk to you, since Will is convinced you’re never going to speak to him again.”
“That… was my plan.”
“Oh,” McCoy says. “He knows you pretty well, then.”
“Why are you here?”
He presses himself into the wall. “Will told me what you said. I just wanted to know if you’re okay.”
Jack takes a step back. “You want to know if I’m - what?”
“Didn’t you hear me? I said I just wanted to know if you’re okay.”
“Yeah, I got that part, but why? You’re his boyfriend. You’re the one who gets to be with him.”
“I care because I care about Will, and no matter what, you mean a lot to him. I don’t want things to get tense between you two.”
Jack motions for him to enter. He - he doesn’t know why, but McCoy’s presence, although strange, is comforting.
“Well, it’s too late for that. I should never have—”
“I think he might have feelings for you.”
Jack feels light-headed. His palms begin to sweat, his hands begin to shake, his heart begins to betray its rhythm. “What?”
“I just got this weird feeling that there’s something there.”
“Sorry, but are you on crack? Will doesn’t feel that way about me, ‘mkay? That’s our entire thing. I love him, he makes fun of me, he doesn’t love me back. It’s just how it goes.”
McCoy shrugs. “I asked him if he had feelings for you, and he didn’t answer. He just said he had to go and stormed out of the apartment.”
Jack feels this small, clawing sliver of hope. It is fleeting. Will loves him, Will makes fun of him, Will doesn’t love him back. That’s the way it is. That’s how it always has been, and that’s how it will always be.
“He was probably just freaked out,” Jack offers. “He’s kind of weird sometimes, if you haven’t noticed.”
“He’s perfect,” McCoy says, full of love, and Jack’s body gives in, relaxes itself, prepares for the downfall.
“Yeah,” Jack says. “He really is. Don’t tell him I said that or I’ll have to kill you.”
McCoy looks at him, a spark of fear.
“I was joking, McCoy.”
“Oh,”responds McCoy with a nervous laugh, and then: “Why don’t we just… ask Will what he wants?”
“We—you—we can’t just ask Will what he wants. That’s not—that’s not a thing that can happen.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” Jack says, “because, uh.” His voice is getting quieter with every word. “Because....”
“Admit it, you don’t have a good reason. Look, I just want this to be over. I adore Will, and I certainly don’t want him to leave me for you, but I also have to respect what he wants. And I can’t do that if I don’t know what he wants.”
Jack nods. He does, sadly, have a point. “Wow, look at you being so deep. Who would’ve thought.”
McCoy’s eyes drag to the floor, dejected. “Yes… who would’ve thought.” He crosses his arms, shuts himself off. “Anyway, let’s go.”
“Like, right now?”
“Why not?”
iv.
Their arms touch, when they file into Will’s space. Back to Will. Back to everything that Will is, and this is the worst day of Jack’s life; he is going to feel the scorch of rejection like an impossible fire, again. It is always prevalent, always there in his mind, that day.
McCoy’s skin is unbearably soft. Will’s fondness for him is shallow-founded, but: he makes Will happy. & Here Jack is, at the end of it all.
He slept, after he confessed to Will, the exhaustion of the secret releasing him—he’ll never find the way back to safety after this.
“Will?” McCoy calls.
“I think I forgot something, I need to, uh, go,” Jack says, heading back for the door, but McCoy grabs him by the wrist.
“You’re not going anywhere.” McCoy grabbing him like this is more than a little hot, but. “Will, are you here?”
Jack is about to give up, to truly leave, to ascend—
“Hold on, I just got out of the shower,” Will calls from the bathroom; oh, he is so close, Jack is about to give up, to ascend—
“I don’t know if I can do this, McCoy,” Jack whispers. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. If you really don’t want to confront him, I understand—”
Oh—
The door opens, interrupting them, and Will walks out; he is in his underwear, shirtless. Great. This is just— great. Wonderful.
Will jumps. “Why didn’t you tell me Jack is here?” It takes a moment for him to process it. “Wait, Jack is here.”
“Yeah.”
“How did you….?”
“I’m very good at persuasion,” McCoy says, accompanying the words with a wink; the direction of the gesture is left purposefully unclear. “I feel like you two need to talk.”
Will approaches Jack, keeping the distance between them close but safe. “Jack, I… I don’t know what to say. I should’ve known. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Jack says back, and Will’s legs are shaking, and water is dripping down his shoulders; he cannot stare, he can’t.
“Will,” McCoy says, taking his cue. “You never answered my question.”
“This isn’t—I mean, does it really matter?” Will’s voice is breaking. “I don’t—”
“If you have feelings for him, it’s okay.”
And - Will breathes, inhale, exhale, out, calm, remain calm. “I’m not… sure. Maybe.” His voice, still breaking. His body, and its signs of guilt. Will is not equipped for conflict like this, never prepared for such turmoil. “But… I like you, McCoy, and I don’t want things to end so roughly between us.”
There is silence mixed through all three of them, as they each contemplate their lives. It is a process; their past flashes before their eyes, forming the pathways to the future, the white light and the white flowers and the entirety of love. Will’s guilt is unbearable. Jack’s world is frail. McCoy feels himself yearn.
“I don’t mind sharing you,” says McCoy, eventually; several minutes have passed, it ends the quiet, creates a comfortable padding after the harsh throw. “I really don’t. Jack is a good man.”
“Sharing me? What?”
“You can date me and explore your feelings for Jack. A lot of people are into polyamory these days.” Upon seeing two confused faces, he adds, “If you two are okay with that.”
“I mean… Will?” Jack’s voice is slow, cautious.
“I wouldn’t be opposed to it,” Will says; his face displays the spark of relief. “If you guys are really okay with it.”
“I am,” Jack says, oh, he is.
“Me, too,” adds McCoy.
“Good—”
Will is cut off by two cheek-kisses—one from McCoy, one from Jack—
and finally, finally, Will feels: comfortable. Serene.