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There’s blood on Jack’s face.
“Jesus Christ, what happened to you?” feels like the right first question.
Jack staggers into the open seat across from Alex. “Got slugged.”
“You sound proud.”
“I am.”
“But you’re bleeding,” Alex says, aghast. He’s out of his seat and sliding in beside Jack before he can even really think. “Why— why are you bleeding? From getting punched?”
Jack shrugs and winces. Alex looks closer, hesitant to touch him. “Dude had rings or something. Hurt like a bitch.”
“You got scratched,” Alex says. Even he can hear the concern seeping into his voice, but if Jack notices he doesn’t seem to care. “Jack, you should clean this. We— you should let me clean this.”
“No, it’s cool.”
“Uh, I actually wasn’t giving you the option,” Alex says. He wraps an arm around Jack’s forearm and pulls him out of the booth. The seating area is far enough from the bar that Alex can justify somehow missing whatever scuffle Jack got into when he was supposedly getting them both drinks, but he wishes he hadn’t. Trust Jack to get into a fight the moment he’s left to his own devices.
“This isn’t necessary,” Jack says once they’ve reached the bathroom, though he’s letting Alex manhandle him anyway, which Alex appreciates. On account of the fact that it feels extremely necessary.
“You’re fucking bleeding from your face, I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to do that,” says Alex, casting a glance around for anything to wash Jack’s face off with.
“And I’m supposed to bleed from other places?”
“No! No places.” Alex hits him on the arm. “No bleeding at all. Wanna tell me what happened? You were gone for like five minutes. I thought you were getting another round.”
“I was.”
Alex raises his eyebrows expectantly. “Well you obviously didn’t succeed, so what the fuck gives?”
“Got into a fight,” Jack says.
“That’s unlike you.”
“Do not use your fucking shirt to clean my bloody face,” Jack says, ignoring Alex, and Alex stalls in his motion lifting the hem of his shirt.
“Why not?”
“Oh my God, think rationally? You’ll ruin your shirt?”
“You got into a bar fight and you’re telling me to think rationally?”
“It hardly counts as a bar fight,” Jack says, and then sighs heavily. “Use mine. It’s black, it won’t show up, and I’m pretty sure there’s blood on it already anyway.”
Alex presses his lips together and frowns. The blood on Jack’s face isn’t really dripping. “How could there be blood on your shirt?”
Jack lifts his shoulders, shrugging off his leather jacket into Alex’s outstretched hand. “Dude pushed me.”
“...You said he punched you.”
“He did. And then pushed me, you know, with his fists, you know.”
“So he punched you again.”
“No, no, he—” Jack frowns. “I don’t know, who cares?”
“Me! I care! Who the fuck did you fight with? And why? And can I kill him?”
“No, it was stupid, and it doesn’t matter,” Jack says. “Answered your questions in reverse order.” He crosses his arms across his chest and tugs his shirt up over his head, offering it up to Alex inside-out.
“Well, at least you recognize that it was stupid,” Alex mutters. He steers Jack towards the sink counter. “Sit.”
“Come on,” Jack complains. “This is ridiculous. It’s just blood.”
“Everything you say makes me more worried about your well-being. Do you have no sense of self-preservation? Can I never actually leave you alone again?”
“It’s blood, I’ve bled a million times,” Jack says, exasperated. “And for the record, it was noble.”
“Really? Or was it stupid?”
“Can’t it have been both?” Jack sighs, and tilts his head back to look at the ceiling.
Alex grabs his chin and pulls his head back down. “Maybe. Can’t make a judgement until I know what you got into a fight about. And you have to look at me so I can clean your fucking face, which is bleeding, which is generally regarded as bad.”
“Sorry, mom.”
Alex runs Jack’s shirt under the faucet until it’s soaked through. He wrings out the excess water. “Sit still.”
“Okay, mom.”
Alex rolls his eyes. If it gets Jack to listen, Alex will accept being called mom. He’d like to think that cleaning a friend’s injuries is a thing that any decent human being would do, not just a mother. Not that it really matters. The point is it’s an Alex thing that he’s now doing for Jack.
It’s not something he’d ever anticipated doing. Jack’s not the type to get into fights. He’s a little bit of a thrill-seeker, sure, but he’s not an idiot. Which is why Alex really does kind of believe the fight may have been noble. Jack wouldn’t pick a fight for a stupid reason, but for a noble reason? Sure. Why not.
Jack hisses as Alex starts dabbing the wet t-shirt at his bloody face. His jaw tenses under Alex’s fingertips until finally he mutters, “Okay, ow, stop, stop it, that really hurts, can’t I do it myself?”
Alex’s hand drops from Jack’s face. “I’ll be more careful.”
“You’re not the problem. It’s— I got fucking decked. Everything hurts.” Jack casts a sidelong glance at Alex and exhales loudly. “Give me your hand, I’ll just do the squeeze-when-it-hurts thing.”
Alex offers up his left hand. “You sure?”
Their fingers interlace. Jack nods slowly. “Yeah. Go. I did this to myself.”
“Technically speaking, that dude you fought with did this to you,” Alex mumbles absently as he resumes his task. Jack groans and his grip on Alex’s hand becomes viselike. Alex does what he can, but it’s hard without another hand to keep Jack’s head stable. It’s also hard when his hand is being literally crushed.
“Ow,” Alex says, snatching his hand away. “Jesus, JB, you’ve got a fucking grip.”
“Sorry.”
“I need this hand,” Alex says, semi-apologetically. He’d be more apologetic if Jack hadn’t just been liquifying the bones in his hand. “You keep moving.”
“I’m not trying to.”
“No, I know that. I just—”
“Okay, it’s fine,” Jack mutters. “It’s fine.”
As delicately as he can manage it, Alex settles his fingers along Jack’s jaw, tilting his head in the most convenient direction. Jack continues bemoaning how painful this is, and Alex tunes it out. If it gets desperate, he’s sure Jack will hit him or something.
No assault occurs. Alex gets all of the blood off Jack’s face without further incident. “Okay,” he finally breathes. The sigh of relief that escapes Jack makes his posture fall. Slumped over with his elbows on his knees, he looks suddenly exhausted.
“I think that hurt more than being punched.”
“I doubt it,” Alex says. He rubs a sympathetic hand over Jack’s shoulders. They’re secluded, as much as they can be in the bathroom of a bar. Underwater by the way the walls muffle the music and chatter. Dim light washes over Jack. “Let’s go home.”
“No, we don’t have to.”
“I’m ready to leave and I think you are too.”
“Sorry,” Jack says quietly. “I wasn’t trying to ruin the night.”
“You didn’t.”
“We were just supposed to be getting a drink.”
“I have to say, I think I’m more impressed that you got into a fight while mostly sober.”
“I think I regret it.” Jack winces and curls further into himself. “And now I’m also cold.”
“Here,” Alex says, tugging his arms out of his flannel. “We can go back to my place. Watch a movie. Throw your bloody shirt into the laundry.”
“I’m sorry,” Jack says again.
Alex shakes his head. “I’m sure you had your reasons.”
“It was stupid.”
“You know, I want to believe that, but I just don’t,” Alex says, sighing deeply. “I actually believe it was infuriatingly noble, because you are just that kind of person.”
Jack glances at Alex as he begins buttoning up the flannel. Looks back at the floor. “I don’t know if it was noble. I could have left it alone. That would’ve been the smart thing to do.”
“Hey, I didn’t say it was smart. I’m sure it wasn’t.” Alex squeezes Jack’s knee and Jack looks up at him, surprised at the gesture. A small, almost indiscernible smile tugs at his lips.
“Some creep at the bar hitting on the bartender,” he admits. “Being really gross, really loud. Clearly making her uncomfortable. I said I was her boyfriend. Told him to back off. Guy didn’t like that.” He shrugs. “I pushed him, he punched me. Guess that was cause enough to get him kicked out. I mean, they should probably have kicked me out, too, but…the bartender seemed grateful.”
A soft smile crosses Alex’s face despite himself. “So I was right. It was noble.”
“Worth it,” Jack mumbles. “I hate creepy guys in bars. Ruining the experience for all of us. And look, I get hitting on a bartender, but don’t push it when she says no, you know? Anyway. I’d do it again.”
Alex reaches up and flips the collar of the flannel down, and his eyes meet Jack’s. “Did you get her number?”
Jack looks confused. “I didn’t want it. I was just being decent, you know.”
“Oh.” That’s new. Jack loves to collect phone numbers. Feeds his ego or something.
“‘Oh,’ what?”
“No, nothing, I’m just surprised,” Alex says, adjusting the collar. Jack shifts his shoulders. “You’re usually all over that shit.”
“Yeah, well. I’m…otherwise preoccupied. Not interested in a random hookup.”
“What?” Alex fakes a gasp, pretends to be positively scandalized. “What have you done with Jack Barakat?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Well? Preoccupied with who? I won’t tell.”
“That’s true, you won’t,” Jack says. “Because I’m not telling you.”
“What? Jack! I swear.”
“It’s not that I think you’re going to tell anyone,” Jack says, rolling his eyes and his sleeves. “What are we, eleven? I just don’t want to say. It’s complicated. I’m still thinking about it.”
Alex squints. “Someone I know?”
“Declining to answer any of your questions starting now.”
“Sure, sure. But is it someone I know?”
“Alex.”
“Okay, fine,” Alex says. “Don’t tell me.”
“Same page,” Jack says dryly, gesturing between them. Alex steps away and gives Jack a critical once-over.
“Let’s go home,” he says. “You should put ice on that.”
Jack slides off the sink counter. “Yeah. Okay. Let’s go.”
They’d anticipated being drunk on the way home, so they have to catch a cab. Jack winces when he thinks Alex isn’t looking, and Alex does him the courtesy of pretending not to see. It’s not until they’re back at Alex’s apartment, under the bright living room lights, that the bruise on Jack’s face becomes apparent.
Even Alex winces. “Oh, shit,” he says. He reaches for Jack without thinking and only stops himself just before his fingers graze Jack’s face. “That’s…damn. That’s a shiner.”
“Thank you,” Jack says. “People find this kind of thing hot, right?”
“Uh, damaged people, I guess,” Alex says. Like he’s not, at that exact moment, trying to suppress the thought that it is hot. So is Jack in his flannel. Alex already knows he’s damaged.
“Cool,” Jack says.
Alex wraps an ice pack from the freezer in a dish towel — not that anyone’s counting, but he’s fairly certain it belongs to Rian — and brings it back to the couch. The TV is on. Jack is flicking through titles on Netflix.
“Here,” says Alex. He sits next to Jack and Jack makes as if to take the ice pack, but Alex shakes his head. “I’ve got it.”
“You don’t have to. I’m a big boy. I can hold my own ice pack.”
“I know,” Alex says. He can’t quite figure out why he’s so dead set on doing it anyway, but Jack must read it in his tone, because he turns back to the TV without arguing.
“What are we watching?”
“Dunno, what’s on?”
“The entire Netflix library.”
“A constantly-changing selection,” says Alex, and braces the back of Jack’s head with his free hand. Jack leans into the touch. “Criminal Minds?”
“Great choice,” Jack says. He flinches when Alex holds the ice to his face, but only for a second. Alex is steady and then Jack is too. The Criminal Minds cover fills the TV screen. “Not a movie, but arguably better.”
“I don’t think that’s arguable,” Alex says quietly. Even with the dish towel, the ice is starting to make Alex’s hand cold. He doesn’t mention it.
Jack hits play on whatever episode of the show has come up. They’ve both watched this show all the way through, but it’s nice to have a show like that to share. On the one hand, neither of them ever tire of it. On the other, they’ve seen it all before, which means they don’t have to become invested or pay close attention.
Jack leans into Alex as the episode starts. Alex’s arm wraps around Jack’s shoulders. They stay that way until the episode ends, and Alex would call it convenient for holding the ice pack, but he sets the ice pack down about six minutes in, whispering that he can’t feel his fingers.
In response, Jack sandwiches Alex’s hand between his own without a word. Alex doesn’t say anything.
He sort of doesn’t think he needs to.