#jk ive started it but i was sosososos keen to write this after seeing 35mm

[letsprayitwritesitself]

cut you a piece

(warning for fic and song: mention of character death and car accident)

Davey never beat him home. And they never forgot to switch the light off. So when Jack got home from the studio to see a thin sliver of light escaping under their door, his stomach sank and he had to take a minute or so to prepare himself before going back into the apartment he shared with the love of his life.

He held his keys in his pocket, rested his forehead on the door, and let out a long, quiet, sigh.

Rewind to that morning. 8am. It was Monday, and both of their first days back after the accident. Any day would have felt too soon, they knew that, but that morning, trying to return to the actions they'd been able to do so unconsciously just a couple of weeks before - Davey's alarm waking them both up, Jack hitting the shower while Davey made them both coffee, then Jack making breakfast while Davey showered and the coffee cooled - seemed impossible. Today Davey had almost managed the coffee, dedicating himself as much as he could to at least the motions of normalcy, albeit adapting them a little to include standing at the sink staring out the window for five minutes while the water ran over his coffee cup until Jack, warm and damp and solid, usually Davey's favourite vision in a white fluffy towel, came up behind him, kissed him lightly on the back of his neck, turned off the tap and whispered to Davey not to worry about it.

Out of the shower Davey returned to the kitchen where one plate of toast sat on the table between two cups of coffee.

'I really can't eat anything,' Jack confessed as Davey sat down, gripping the still too hot coffee cup tight. Davey nodded, knowing that if he tried to force any food down past the lump in his throat into his constantly twisted stomach, he'd probably throw up.

They ran through their days - Jack out at a couple of shoots that morning before an afternoon spent developing prints, and then maybe picking up some food for the two of them that evening. Davey the usual, work at the paper from eight thirty til six, home by six thirty, hopefully. Almost back to normal.

Because they had even managed to laugh that weekend, something that had once been unthinkable. It was at a dumb inside joke that had surprised them both. That had happened a couple of times since Spot's funeral, only a couple, and each time they were struck silently horrified and ripped apart by guilt at the idea that they could fathom lightheartedness in such a time.

'He would be glad that we're able to laugh,' Jack had murmured into the darkness where they lay next to each other, chasing sleep the night before.

'He would say that he'd be angry. If he knew what was going to happen he'd say... y'know. If you guys don't cry for weeks or whatever I'll haunt the fuck out of you.'

'I know he would. But you know that he wouldn't mean a word of it. And if it had happened to - to anyone else, he'd... not make 'em laugh, let's not go crazy, but... he'd tell them that however they felt, however long it had or hadn't been after the thing - the way they felt was exactly okay. Including finding laughter in the weeks afterwards. Can't predict this, can we? Any of it.' And Davey had nodded then let out a huge deep shuddering sob, staying quiet and shaking against where Jack now held him to his chest. 

Clearly things weren't quite back to how they were before, and obviously could never be. It might get easier, but it may not ever go away. The air was still full of enough grief to make them choke if they thought about the wrong thing, but it was a pollution they were finding incrementally easier to navigate each day.

So back to work, because compassionate leave only stretched so far. Jack, a photographer, had cancelled a couple of weeks of shoots, but the paid gigs wouldn't always wait for him, and at least through his camera lens he had control of what happened. Davey, a section editor at a local magazine, at least had paid leave, but also a team of people to instruct, and about eighteen separate deadlines looming. He had fired off the odd work email but he could tell that his colleagues initially impassioned "Don't worry about us until you feel better" replies were getting sparser and less emotive, and after too long a boss who was going through a terrible time just became something of a nuisance, and he didn't need that guilt on top of everything else.

Still, he did not want to go in.

They sat silent, opposite one another, and Davey felt conflicted in needing to reach out and hold Jack, but knowing that if Jack so much as glanced at him kindly, he'd implode.

'Right.' He pushed the cup away. 'I guess I need to - go.' He stood up, heading over to the front door in a trance, and Jack followed, handing Davey his bag and pulling him in by the lapels of his coat.

'I'll see you tonight.'

'See you tonight.'

'I love you.'

'I love you too -' He punctuated his reply by grabbing Jack in a hug, hiding his face in his neck. Jack brought a hand up to the back of Davey's head, holding him there, stroking his hair, waiting.

The night before, Davey had continued their conversation with 'The thing is... I'm - I'm almost reluctant to let go of the pain. Do you know what I mean? It hurts, and I feel it every second, and I can't focus on anything else, but when it starts to go... am I losing him all over again?'

'He's not there in that pain, babe, you know that. He's in your head, your memories. Your inside jokes.' Jack had stammered out the words into the top of Davey's head, almost inclined as per usual to agree with his boyfriend's infallible if depressing logic.

'How do you always know what to say?' Davey rolled to the side so he could look at Jack, and as Jack answered he wiped the tears from under Davey's eyes with a fingertip.

'Learned it from you, didn't I?' He rested his hand on Davey's cheek. 'Dave. Please, if you want to laugh, don't push it down cuz you think that's what you need to do. Spot won't mind! You... You light up the whole room when you laugh. And we could use that.'

Back in the hall the next morning Davey stepped out of the hug, shaking his head, clearing his throat. 'Jeez. Not even out the door yet! Swear to god, if anyone at work is any nicer than normal I'll have a fucking... emotional breakdown or something.'

'If what you've told me about them is right then I'm sure you got nothing to worry about.' Jack wrapped a scarf round Davey's neck and pulled him in for a kiss. 'See you tonight.'

'Bye.'

So it wasn't that he didn't want to see Davey. Coming home to their place, their tiny one-bed with its beautiful ugly wallpaper and constant familiar smell of paint and laundry detergent - the tiny hallway and its side table where they kept keys, mail, all the little bits of shit that Davey wrote and Jack drew throughout the day, a safe place for the little things that meant everything - coming home to this apartment was a daily reminder of how lucky they both were, and how much they had going for them. If Jack had had a bad day, heck, even if they were fighting, this sanctuary had always been an instant comfort.

And then Spot died.

And all the good leaked out of the world.

Because up until that point... Everything had been going great. And not even the uncomfortable kind of great where they were sort of waiting for something to go wrong. Just. Good. When they got the call on a crisp Saturday afternoon in January, Jack and Davey had been at the movies doing all the awful couple stuff, holding hands, whispering in each other's ears, making out in the back row. They emerged squinting into the daylight to dozens of missed calls between them. Unease settling over him, Davey had called Skittery back, unconsciously reaching out for Jack's hand as he was delivered the news of Spot in a cab plus a drunk driver and really not much time at all before complete unresponsiveness. 

The question of how Race was doing was too huge to contemplate.  

His suffuse underlying happiness was always clear in the months leading up to the accident, because even though he and Spot barely called each other anything - boyfriends, partners, whatever - they were inextricably bound, no question. In the bar not too long after it happened Race had muttered to Jack that 'I didn't know if we were ever gonna... You know. Marriage, whatever. He's probably watching me say this now and cringing at me for acting so gay. But like. It was never any question whether or not we were in it for life. He was my person. Still is.'

The hardest part, then, was figuring out how they were supposed to keep going, how the world was just going to keep spinning despite the fact that something like this had happened. It wasn't ideal, hanging out in their apartment the whole time, letting themselves do nothing but think about Spot and how god damn unfair it was, but any time they attempted something else it would without fail end up in them reverting to that. Davey sitting in front of the washing machine, three folded t-shirts in his lap, one half done in his hands, himself totally lost in staring into the void of the drum trying to remember the last words he and Spot said to each other. Jack standing at the counter, one hand on the vegetable peeler and the other on a carrot, his attention utterly stolen by the contemplation of who was going to use Spot's Rangers tickets and why couldn't Spot have just fucking stayed alive. Time had helped, as it does, and let them relearn slowly how to keep living, but neither of them had lost a friend before. Grandparents, pets, sure. But wasn't a twenty three year old meant to be indestructible? How were they meant to go on?

The resistance Jack was feeling as he stood outside their door, both of them had felt when it came to Race. They knew as they visited him that they were walking in on someone whose very existence was in turmoil, and whose devastation underlay even his most innocuous chat, but they also knew that Race and Spot were a pair, so why the fuck was Race on his own. But they had to, so they did, and it had allowed them to start to shakily discover this new normal together - not being scared to smile for fear they weren't mourning enough, because they all knew too god damn well that they were all carrying black holes inside. 

Yet, two weeks against the life of Spot Conlon was nothing

Jack opened the door slowly and entered the apartment. Davey's bag sat abandoned by the couch, his coat slung over the back. The lamp in the hall was the only light on, and through its hushed glow Jack could see that their bedroom door was ajar. He walked through.

The dim glow of the moon outside their window let him see that Davey lay face down on the bed, head resting on folded arms. His shoes were still on.

'Dave.' He had no idea how long he'd been there so muted his voice, not keen on scaring him. He took a couple of steps towards the bed, trying to figure out if his love was asleep, or didn't hear, or was ignoring him. When he reached the foot of the bed he pulled Davey's shoes off for him, dropping them on the floor and climbing on the bed, steadying himself with a gentle hand on Davey's thigh. 

'Davey.'

He lay down on his side, head propped up on one hand, the other reaching out to rub Davey's back. Finally, finally Davey moved, shifting slowly back into Jack's embrace so Jack's chest was flush and warm against his back, Jack's arm effortlessly circling round to find his hand and clasp it against his heart.

'I'm. I'm broken.'

Jack squeezed him close, nuzzling his nose into the mess of hair at the back of Davey's head.

'You're not.'

'I can't do anything.'

'You can, Dave. You did.'

'I didn't. I left.'

'When?'

'Four.'

'That doesn't count! That's not leaving, Dave, that's...'

'Leaving?'

'What happened?'

'I was... fine. Kind of. If I focused really hard. I thought... If I acted normally, they'd treat me normally.'

'Did they?'

'Yeah. And no. Some of them seemed to think... that I'd been on vacation.' He cleared his throat, voice trembling a little. 'That I'd used the Spot thing to - you know? But I thought - like, it's fine. I don't care, let them think whatever. But then Oscar, that guy - seemed to have saved up all his energy from the last two weeks, and at about three forty five just lay it all on me. Really kind of - stuff he didn't need to say. About how he stepped up while I was gone. What needed to be done today. How at first I'd let them down by disappearing but um... How they'd ultimately been fine. Started listing all this stuff that he would have taken care of, he said, but wasn't senior enough, talking and talking, slamming pieces of paper on my desk, and I - left. While he was talking.'

'You left?'

'Yeah.' 

‘While he was talking?’

‘Yeah...’

'Babe, I'm so proud of you!'

'It was - fuck, so cowardly.'

'No, shut up. Tell me more.'

'I just. I couldn't physically face another second of his shit. Jack, I think I need help. Professional help.'

'We can find some.'

'I can't find meaning in anything outside of this apartment. I can't, and I don't think that's how I'm supposed to be.'

'Look, the Spot thing - it really puts everything in perspective, right? I am so so proud of you for being a big shot editor, but all that shit. It's not important if you don't want it to be.'

'That's it. I just looked at him and I kind of - like... he has no idea. And I didn't feel like explaining.'

'You don't have to.'

'I know.' Davey sniffed and kissed the back of Jack's hand before shifting round to face him. 'Shit. How was your day?'

'It was a day. It was fine. I got a little wavy when - I was doing this headshot session uptown and we passed a building that almost kinda looked like where Spot used to live which, it turns out, is enough to get me going. But it was... Fine.' He ran a fingertip down Davey's cheek, over his lips, off his chin, surveying the sullen, pale skin of his face. 'It's gonna get a little easier every day. But we need to get through the shit ones first.'

'I love you, Jack.'

'Love you too, kid.' He kissed Davey on the forehead, then the tip of his nose, then his lips, slow and quiet and long. 'What do you wanna do now?'

'I wanna... Say one more thing. If that's okay. Then we can stop lying here in the dark.'

'Of course it's okay.'

'It sounds so, so selfish, when I try and say it out loud. But I've been thinking that however I feel now, and in the near future, and fuck it, even the distant future - it's never ever going to feel right. I'm always going to find something wrong with how I react. So then if everything is wrong anyway, can I just do what feels right at the time?'

'Yeah. Yes, of course, Dave.'

'Because - this isn't about us, this whole sorry situation, it's not ours - but it is. Because I love you. Because I realised since Spot went, that you... are... a part of me. Whenever you leave the house, or you're at work late, or even in the bathroom when we're at a restaurant - I feel you gone. Inside. I cut you a piece of me. And when I'm with you, even lying here, touching you, I'm terrified that I could lose you, in a year, or in ten years, or in sixty. I never thought that you could be half a person until I found you, and found the rest of me. And it would be easier not to think that, but here we are.' 

He cupped Jack's cheek with a shaky hand, wiping away the tears that had started rolling down Jack's face with the pad of his thumb, before continuing:

'When I was at work today, and all that meaningless shit was happening right in front of me - all I could think about was how I hoped you knew. I know tomorrow or the next half hour or whatever isn't guaranteed. And I feel like I'm never going to find the right time to do this, not so soon after Spot dying, but then - it's how I feel, so I just need to say it, because its what's important right now - fuck. Jack, will you marry me?' 

Jack's eyes widened momentarily, then scrunched shut as he bit his lip and fought back moretears. He nodded frantically, covering Davey's hand with his and leaning in so their foreheads rested against each other.

'We don't have to tell anyone just yet - and maybe we shouldn't - but I just think - I need you to know, that - you're everything. Jack, you're everything -' His words were muffled as Jack pulled him in for a searing kiss, and he laughed into Jack's mouth, surprisingly, horribly giddy, but riding it this time rather than trying to send it away. 

'Of course I'll marry you, Dave, god - I'll marry you tomorrow, or yesterday, fuckin - get our marriage back dated to the day we met. God damn it. I love you.' 

'I don't have a ring.' He was crying too now, of course, but full of a soaring joy, and overwhelming sorrow, and sheer love and affection and god, he was so glad he could lay all his broken parts out for Jack to see. 'Or champagne. Or anything, I just thought - words. As long as you know. And we can do the rest later.'

'Later.' Jack nodded, stroking a fingertip over the last joint of Davey's ring finger. 'I'll give you the whole rest of my life, Dave. We've got forever.'