All He Said

[hennessys]

Title: All He Said
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Jack and Felix eat pizza, play board games, get drunk, and ignore the obvious.
Warnings: Internalized ableism. Also a drunk guy kisses another drunk guy but it proceeds no further.
Notes: This was supposed to be cute and happy. Jack had other plans. Though I think Nile Green is a very appropriate color considering both Jack and Felix have wet feet and are staring at the pyramids.


Felix didn't miss a step when he came home, though he did look up from his papers and blink. "Jack?"

"Hi," Jack said, and grinned his best blinding grin at Felix. He plucked a few discordant strings on the guitar in his lap, the one he'd been screwing around with while he waited for Felix to come home. "If you don't want me in your apartment you should lock your door better."

Felix shook his head. "No, I... what are you even doing here? Besides quoting Texts from Last Night."

"I came to keep you company." He set the guitar down and put on his best pout. "You don't want me here?"

"Don't be stupid," Felix retorted waspishly, loosening his tie. "I always want you here. And you'll note I didn't ask why you're sitting shirtless in my window, because I just assume you'll do that. I asked what are you doing in Chicago."

Jack waved away the vile insinuations with an airy flip of his hand. "Tch, Felix, such a suspicious mind. Let's not bother ourselves with long and irrelevant stories."

"Oh, God," Felix said, and dropped his briefcase. "Did you piss off Miranda again? Are you hiding?"

"Slander and calumny." He had pissed off Miranda, as a matter of fact, but he was not hiding. Miranda knew perfectly well where he was if she wanted to come take revenge.

"Pirates of the Caribbean," Felix identified wearily. "At World's End. So you did piss off your sister."

Jack stuck his tongue out. "I am not hiding."

Felix ignored him, picked up his briefcase, and went into the kitchen. "You want something to eat?" he called.

"I brought scotch," Jack called back, "and I ordered pizza."

Something crashed in the kitchen and Felix reappeared looking disgruntled. "Did you order anchovies?" he demanded. "You know I hate anchovies. And also, I hate scotch, why did you bring scotch?"

"I did order anchovies," Jack said, "but only on one half. And I brought you a bottle of rum. The good stuff, not the cheapass shit you served me last time I came here."

"Must be nice to be part-heir to a fortune," Felix said, with Saharan dryness. "All that money."

Just then the doorbell rang, and Jack hopped down from the windowsill. "Pizza's here, gonna go pay," he said in a rush, and ran down the stairs, barefoot, bare-chested. The air felt nice on his skin.


--


They wound up playing a bastardized version of Taboo, taking shots whenever someone said a forbidden word. By the sixteenth round they were both reasonably drunk.

"It's not fair," Jack said, slurring only a little, after he'd taken a shot for like the third time in a row. "Scotch's alcoholicer than rum, that's why you're winning."

"I'm winning because I'm better at this than you," Felix pointed out. Which he was. And in fairness, Jack was a lot better at holding his liquor, so even though he'd drunk more they were probably both about the same level of sober. Which was to say, not at all.

"You suck," he complained anyway, on the principle of the thing. "This game sucks. I'm gonna eat more pizza."

Felix fumbled at the boxes and announced, "We're all out," but Jack picked at the cheese on the inside and began to eat that. Felix looked at him, expression worried and confused.

"You can't recycle it 'less there's no cheese," Jack explained, through a mouthful. "'S a fact. I'm helping."

"You're drunk," Felix said, and Jack laughed and let himself slump over onto Felix's knee.

"I'm drunk," he agreed, happily. "It's fun. You should get drunk."

"I am drunk," Felix said, and Jack said, "Good," and reached up and grabbed his shirt and pulled Felix down on him and kissed him, warm and open. His mouth tasted like rum and cheese, which was a terrible combination in theory but in practice was amazing, and for a half-second—and he was drunk, maybe he imagined it—Felix kissed back.

Then he set both hands on Jack's shoulders and pushed him gently back. "Bedtime," he said, firmly, and Jack didn't have the heart to refuse.


--


He knew enough tricks by now to avoid hangovers, so when he opened his eyes to sunlight streaming in he didn't so much as flinch. He did, however, yawn, and stretch, and rub his eyes, and freeze in the middle of a motion when he remembered what he'd done.

Shit.

Jack knew who he was. He knew what he was, too. Messed up in the head, and Felix knew all about it; about the depression and the mania, the dark voices and the demons of instigation, the girls, the drinks, the drugs, all of it. Felix knew, and Felix did not judge, because Felix was the closest thing there was to a saint on earth; above Sebastian, above even Charlotte sometimes. Felix knew him inside and out. Felix loved him anyway.

But not like that.

Felix didn't want him like that. Jack knew that. And yet he'd... he'd gone and...

Felix shuffled in just then, in the pair of worn-out sweatpants he'd slept in since college, and squinted at Jack. "Oh, you're awake," he said. "And not hungover?"

"No," Jack said, wondering when the shit would hit the fan.

"Fuck you," Felix said amiably, and shuffled into the kitchen. "You want some coffee?"

"Uh," Jack said, and then, "Yeah, black please."

Felix laughed. "As Miranda's cold and withered heart."

That made him grin, that small piece of normality. "You know I only let you insult her because you're practically family."

"Yup," Felix said. "And I know you'd never let me insult Charlotte. Not that it's easy to insult her, I'd really have to think."

"Do it," Jack said to the ceiling, "and I'll break your nose."

"Okay," Felix said, and then there was no more conversation until he came back into the living room, looking considerably more alert, with two cups of coffee.

Jack had sat up by then, the blanket slipping off his shoulders to pool in his lap; when Felix came in he had the sudden, inexplicable urge to pull it up, cover his bare chest.

He didn't; instead he accepted the coffee, and breathed out softly when Felix sat down next to him without a sign of reluctance. Still... "Felix," he said, quietly. "I'm sorry. About last night."

Felix waved a hand. "Don't even worry about it. You were drunk, you'll kiss anyone when you're drunk. You kissed your sister that one time."

Yeah, Jack wanted to say, but I kissed my sister because it was a dare and I kissed you because I wanted to more than anything. But he didn't say it, because he knew what was good for him, and he knew what he wasn't good for.

"Cool," he said instead, and draped an arm over Felix's shoulders, and tried not to think about what couldn't be.