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insertsickusername13 · 1 year

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Promises Made on October 30th

title is the concept and summary bc i thought of the title before the concept of the fic. whoops.

warnings: implied abuse, alcohol is referenced and consumed but not in like a bad way (most of the time), no smut but there's one scene where they kiss and i describe it in a gross way for some reason and sex is talked about once or twice

word count: 3.6k

Jake spent most nights alone. He had friends, sure, and plans most evenings. Dates with girls, parties to attend, and though he’d like to spend the rest of his life swimming in a fuzzy unconsciousness where he was only just aware of his existence, half passed out on someone else’s couch, dawn always sunk her rosy fingers into the horizon and one hostess or another was forced to give Jake a pitying look as they showed him to the door.

My parents will be home soon, some would say, and Jake would leave with a bitter laugh. If he was lucky, he’d get to stay and help clean up. On the best days, he could sometimes sneak in a quick fuck with whatever girl was still around.

Most nights, though, he left before anyone had the chance to kick him out. He spent hours sitting on the floor of his living room, staring at the front door and waiting for them to come home. If he pretended hard enough, the pictures on the walls weren’t the most terrifying thing he had ever faced. Photographs from family weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, and award ceremonies all taunted him. His parents’ faces stared at him, scrutinizing every move as he trembled, cried, and broke down. Every sob echoed back like a bullet ricocheted off metal. He was sitting expressionless in the middle of a war zone watching soldiers (read: dreams) and civilians (read: his future) bleed out and die on the floor around him.

Despite holding onto the childish hope that things would get better, that the future held something more than loneliness for Jake Dillinger, there was still the undeniable truth that it wouldn’t. Jake was doomed. Life wasn’t going to be anything special for him—he was going to suffer and he was going to have to get used to it young. He hated his parents, himself, his girlfriend, his life, and his house. He wasn’t going to kill himself, he wasn’t a coward, but he wasn’t going to wake up every morning and fight to be okay. He was resigned to his sadness.

Until Rich Goranski knocked on his door at 10 pm on September 17th and showed Jake that silence wasn’t the only thing that could exist in his house.

He didn’t wait for an invitation inside. The second Jake had opened the door, Rich pushed past him and into the kitchen. He wasn’t quite fast enough for Jake to miss the bruises on his cheekbones or the way he favored his right leg over his left. Jake cataloged the injuries and promised himself he’d ask about them later.

“The hell are you doing here?” Jake called after him, his tone tipping over the border between annoyed and concerned.

Rich shrugged and settled on the kitchen counter. He seemed to only be slightly aware of Jake’s presence, more focused on the empty floor in front of him. His eyes were glassy in a way that suggested he’d already been crying and was done with it. Jake studied him, searching for his next move in Rich’s body language. If Rich looked like he was going to cry again, Jake could probably swoop in for a hug without being called gay. If he didn’t, Jake would probably offer a drink. Or a movie?

“Stop looking at me like that,” Rich snapped. He was looking up at Jake, his eyes narrowed and lips pressed together, almost like he was challenging him. Jake flinched back, unsure of what he’d done to deserve such treatment.

“Like what?”

“Like I’m a fucking math problem or some shit. I’m not. Just fucking talk to me.”

Jake considered him. Though it was invisible to Rich, Jake could still see bullets and spears flying through the air as people screamed out war cries and fought with everything in them for land or oil or their families. Metaphorical war didn’t end just because a friend had shown up. Jake was always surrounded by imagined violence; always on the verge of fleeing.

“I don’t know what you want from me,” Jake answered. His voice was barely loud enough to be heard over the sound of a bomb going off in the distance.

Rich forced out a bitter laugh and hid his face behind his hands.

“God, fuck, me either. I don’t know why I’m here. Just fucking distract me. Do whatever the hell you want.”

Jake found his parents’ record player in the living room and hit play. It was the only thing he could think to do—why, he wasn’t sure. But Rich had said anything, so Jake did anything. Some song by The Police (god, the irony) drifted through the room, a byproduct of his parents’ last anniversary together in the house. Jake had long since stopped caring—it didn’t even hurt to know they’d danced in this room, laughed in this room, raised him in this room.

He turned back to Rich and was met with a small, borderline amused, “What the hell, Jake?”

“You said I could do whatever I wanted.”

“This is what you want?”

“I dunno.”

Rich laughed as he hopped off the counter. The sound was so pure Jake watched the blood-soaked carpets go from crimson to pink as the rain washed away the worst of it. A white flag waved in the distance. Rich swayed to the music mindlessly, still favoring his right leg.

“Dancing?” Jake asked, the single word enough to get across his message. Rich nodded as he took Jake’s hand in his own and pulled him in close.

“Why not? We’ve got nothing better to do.”

So Jake learned about music and dancing and how small Rich could feel when Jake had his hands on his hips, fingers digging into his skin just to convince himself Rich was real instead of some fantasy made up as a coping mechanism for his parents’ leering memory. Silence wasn’t the worst thing to exist. Jake knew how to make it go away.

Still, that did nothing to dispel the obvious and ever-painful emptiness. Jake could play record after record as loud as he wanted until he had every song memorized and could sing it from any room in the house, but it was still empty.

He stumbled into the kitchen, drunk and disoriented, his feet dragging across the tile floor. Each step was like wading through the ocean, sea monsters grabbing at his ankles and trying to drag him under. He gripped counters and walls to keep himself afloat just long enough for Rich to knock on his door and saunter in, his presence a song in and of itself.

Jake followed his every movement with every sense: his ears, listening to the sound of Rich’s footsteps. Taste: kissing the corner of Rich’s mouth—never his lips, Jake wasn’t gay, but close enough that he could convince himself there was something like love brewing between them. Touch: holding onto Rich’s hand, his clothes, his hair, latching onto the warmth of him to convince himself the air conditioner wasn’t too cold or the empty spaces too vacant.

Sight: looking at Rich and only Rich. If he only looked at his hazel eyes and dyed-red hair and, on the days when Jake was weak and scared, his lips, then the shadows in the corners of the room lightened into something manageable and the photos on the walls that functioned as the closest thing Jake had to family faded into… well, photos. Just photos.

Rich helped, but he wasn’t enough to make the emptiness go away until October 15th.

He showed up in the same way he had before. Glassy-eyed, hurt, and willing to do whatever Jake wanted to make everything slightly okay for a little while.

Tonight, Jake chose balloons.

“You can’t be serious,” Rich groaned. He was on Jake’s couch, a glass of white wine in hand. Something imported from Italy, or maybe France? All Jake knew was that it cost four hundred dollars.

Jake shrugged. “Isn’t Brooke’s birthday coming up? It could be for her party.”

“This is literally just a fucked up coping mechanism, don’t pretend it’s anything else.”

Jake sighed disappointedly and leaned back against the couch. He was on the floor in front of it, a pack of two hundred balloons in his hand. They were all different colors—some neon, some pastel, some black, and others white. He’d bought them on a whim at a Walgreens for twenty bucks with no particular plan. Faced with his barren living room, the only signs of human existence the expensive vases on the end tables and the overstuffed throw pillows, he’d decided he’d blow them up and throw them around just to add a splash of color.

Jake looked up at Rich. He was half asleep but tense, his face scrunched up and hands clenched. It’d been bad this time around. It hadn’t just been Rich’s existence that pissed his dad off—he’d done something. Probably something minuscule, like broken a glass or clogged the toilet, but it was enough that what was usually a couple of light bruises and a limp had turned to black and blue blemishes over his right eye and up his chest. His lip was busted and every breath seemed labored and painful. Jake, unsure of what else to do, ran his thumb over Rich’s pulse and whispered, “Please?”

Rich opened one eye to look down at Jake. Amongst the annoyance and pain, Jake saw a flash of pity. Rich shifted uncomfortably.

“Fine, but I have at least two broken ribs so you’re going to have to accept the fact I’m only blowing up one or two of these.”

“Of course,” Jake rushed out, his hands already fumbling with the packaging of the balloons. “I wouldn’t—if it hurts, you don’t have to. Obviously. Just—”

Rich thoughtlessly threaded his fingers through Jake’s hair. Jake’s voice gave out.

“I don’t understand you,” Rich whispered, not even bothering to look at Jake. “You’re confident all day, and then the second it gets dark you freak out. I’m the same person I am all the time. I know you don’t want to hurt me. Calm down.”

It was, of course, a trend Jake had noticed as well. At school, he could control his tone and inflections to the point he sometimes wondered if he was accidentally manipulating the people around him into loving him. Then at night, when his defenses were already broken down by hours of facing the empty, stormy seas that were his house, he could barely find it in himself to get out a sentence without stuttering.

He blamed it on the one lie Rich had told in his claim: that he was the same person. He wasn’t. There was something different about nighttime Rich that had Jake’s face feeling too hot and the silence turning into the sound of his heart beating circles in his chest.

“Sorry,” Jake replied softly, “I dunno why it happens. You make me nervous.”

Rich raised an eyebrow. Jake shoved a purple balloon in his face and hoped that would be enough for the topic to be dropped. It was still too sensitive, still too in the early stages of development, for Jake to be prepared enough to vocalize the worst of it. Someday, maybe. Probably. Once he didn’t have Christine to distract him or Jeremy’s constant insults to scare him into suppressing every urge that didn’t perfectly line up with the picture everyone else had of him in their minds.

Rich took the balloon and started to blow it up. For Jake, the process was effortless. Rich struggled through it tediously, taking small breaths and wincing after almost every one. Jake hated to say that he’d originally interpreted Rich’s complaints as a joke, but his worry hadn’t really spiked until Rich choked out an awkward, muffled cough and pained groan.

“Do you need—”

“No,” Rich breathed, “No, I’m fine. Shut up, Jake.”

Jake turned back to his neon green balloon without a word. He’d blown up almost twenty by now, enough to coat half the living room in a thin layer of color. He thoughtlessly kicked one with his foot and smiled as he watched it hit a picture of his mother and uselessly bounce off. Smiling, he kicked another one. It hit a picture of himself as a child.

He turned to Rich to tell him—about what, he wasn’t sure. Kicking balloons? Hitting pictures of himself and his family? His coping mechanisms were getting more fucked up by the second—and was almost immediately paralyzed by… fuck, by Rich. Just Rich.

He was sitting crisscross on the couch, a balloon in his lap. He’d spent the last four and a half minutes blowing it up to just a little bigger than Jake’s head. It was still smaller than it was supposed to be but Jake wasn’t going to complain. It was physically impossible when he could barely get enough oxygen in his lungs to speak. It wasn’t that there was a crushing panic on his chest stopping him from breathing, it was something much brighter. There were so many butterflies in his stomach they were flying into his chest and choking off every inhale.

Rich’s lips were wet. That was really what doomed Jake. He’d previously been unaware that every time Rich removed the balloon from his mouth he felt the need to lick his lips, but now that Rich was focused purely on tying the balloon off and was giving Jake ample time to stare, Jake was forced to acknowledge the way his vision tunneled at the sight. The way his whole body seemed to go warm.

Jake turned fully to face Rich, the balloon in his hand completely abandoned in lieu of watching Rich stick his tongue out in frustration as he struggled to keep the balloon inflated while tying the knot. When he finally succeeded, he burst into a smile louder than any record Jake had played over the past month.

Rich looked up, eyes bright, and faltered when he found Jake already staring at him. He cleared his throat as his face flushed red.

“Uh, hi,” he squeaked out. Jake wanted to scream. This was one of the differences that left him speechless. Daytime Rich would smirk and call him gay. This Rich just looked flustered.

“Hi,” Jake whispered back.

“Whatcha doin’?”

Jake considered his response carefully. One song or another was playing softly in the background, the balloons were filling up the emptiness. Everything was kind of okay. Jake had nothing left to cope with. He just…

“I really want to kiss you right now,” he answered. Rich froze.

“What?”

Jake got up just enough so he was kneeling, purple and green and red balloons gathered around his knees and feet and the coffee table his back was pressed up against. He leaned up so he was close enough to run his pointer finger down Rich’s jawline and nudge his nose against Rich’s.

“You heard me. You can tell me to stop.”

Rich remained silent. Jake thought he felt ocean waters rising around his waist, drowning his balloons and pictures in stormy salt water. So he did the only thing he could think of.

He kissed Rich like his life depended on it, because it did, and felt his heart start beating again for the first time in months when Rich kissed him back just as desperate and soft and messily.

Hands tangled in Rich’s hair, mouth open and his tongue practically shoved in Rich’s mouth, licking at teeth like they were nectar or ambrosia, he scrambled onto the couch, limbs slow and unsteady as he climbed over Rich and forced him back against the couch. He tried to get himself closer to his paradise, his respite, his island in the middle of the ocean, but all he got was a wretched screeching sound and the feeling of air-filled plastic against his chest.

He pulled away just enough for Rich to let out a small whine as they lost contact with each other.

“Rich.”

“Yeah?” Rich asked breathlessly, already trying to lean up and kiss him again.

“Get rid of the fucking balloon.”

Rich’s eyes widened, almost comically so. Jake wanted to cry at the way that sent his heart into overdrive.

“Yeah, yeah, right, hold on—”

He threw it across the room. Jake found the balloons kind of useless now. He was so filled with giddiness and hope that he couldn’t even comprehend how anything could ever be empty.

Until October 30th.

Rich didn’t need to knock on Jake’s door or let himself in. Jake was at Rich’s house, banging on the door repeatedly, each knock echoing and panicked. He didn’t stop until Rich swung the door open, rumpled and half asleep.

“What the fuck?”

“I need to talk to you.”

Rich glanced back inside—presumably at his dad—before nodding.

“Yeah, okay, lemme get changed and put on my shoes, then we can go.”

Jake nodded rapidly. His mind was racing beyond what he could understand, landing on panicked responses before he even knew what had triggered his fight or flight. He didn’t stop moving even as Rich disappeared back into his house. His foot tapped against the concrete. His fingers picked at his nails and the fabric of his shirt and his hair. Curses ran through his mind like a broken record, repeated until the sound was imprinted on Jake’s brain.

Rich appeared and suddenly everything in Jake’s mind went silent.

“So… are we doing this here or…?”

“My house. Not uh—” Jake glanced back behind Rich. Not near your father was the implied statement. Rich sagged with relief.

“Okay, yeah. Let’s go.”

Jake could feel Rich’s concern in his gaze. He was watching Jake’s every move as if preparing for something, like Jake was going to swerve the car off the road and into a ditch or shoot himself. It made Jake want to laugh. Or scream. Or cry. He was going to die.

He didn’t even make it back to his own house. It was only a six-minute drive and he only made it four minutes in before he pulled over on the side of the road and stormed out of the car, his whole body trembling. He didn’t know where he was going, just that he needed an escape from the cramped driver’s seat of his car. He needed the autumn air to stop him from overheating and the wide expanse of stars to talk him down from an anxiety attack.

Rich fumbled after him, too confused to be panicked and too disoriented to be calm.

“What the hell?! Slow down—”

Jake halted and spun on his heel, eyes wide. They were by a pond with benches and a dock and a parking lot only twenty feet away. There were grills along the beach and a football in the grass. Jake almost screamed. Every sign of humanity felt like too much. If he was going to do this, he needed it to be in the middle of the desert or the empty expanse of space with no one but Rich around to hear his confession.

No. Fuck it. He needed to do this now.

“I’m gay.”

Rich seized up. He was only a foot away from Jake, close enough so when he finally regained control of his muscles, he was able to reach out and take Jake’s hands.

“Really?” he whispered, looking up at Jake with eyes that literally shone like gold or diamonds. Jake wanted to drown in it.

He swallowed his shame, not caring that it burned at his throat, and said, “Yeah. Yeah, fuck. Not all the way. I like girls. But I like kissing you and I like boys and I… I just like you. All of you. All the way. I like you. I’m really sorry.”

Rich broke out into a grin.

“Yeah?” he asked just for confirmation. Jake nodded again.

Rich jumped up into Jake’s arms, fully committed to getting as physically close as he could. He wrapped his legs around Jake’s waist and his arms around his neck and fingers in his hair and kissed him hard on the lips. Jake felt like he was at home for the first time in years.

“Me too,” Rich said between kisses, “Me too. So much. So fucking much.”

Jake smiled into every kiss, so ecstatic he could barely keep himself standing. He fell back into the grass whispering, “Run away with me. Forever. It’s terrible here. It’s so terrible.”

Rich nodded in agreement and pressed a gentle kiss on Jake’s neck.

“They hate us and we’re gonna find someplace better. I have enough money. Just run away with me, please. We can go anywhere you want.”

“Anywhere?” Rich asked. He sounded pained, like the word burned as it came out. Jake nodded and propped himself up on his elbows.

“Anywhere. Just promise me you won’t leave.”

Rich smiled and kissed him again.

“I promise,” he murmured, “I promise you’re beautiful, I promise I’ll run away with you, I promise I won’t leave, I—”

He paused. Dread burrowed itself like a bullet in Jake’s chest. He searched Rich’s expression for answers before Rich had the chance to start speaking again.

“Not… not tonight, though, okay? There’s something I gotta do first.”

“Is it—?”

“Don’t worry about it, Jake. It’s nothing. How about Sunday? Give me tomorrow to take care of things, then we’re gone.”

November first. The day after tomorrow.

Jake could handle it. He’d host his Halloween party, break up with Christine, and tie up any loose ends he had left. He’d be gone before he ever had to clean up the hell of a mess his friends were sure to leave behind in his parents' house.

“Promise?” he whispered.

Rich nodded.

“Promise. I just need tomorrow.”