Chapter Text
Jack slowly and shakily lowered the phone down from his ear, staring into space.
He despised just how much every detail and every fact fit into place so easily, so perfectly. Numbly, he tucked his phone into his pocket, screen still warm from the call that had ended just a few moments ago. He was having trouble sorting his thoughts into any coherent order.
The elevator suddenly rang out a ding, signalling his arrival at the lobby floor. Jack could only faintly remember what his original intention in coming here was.
It took him one, shaky step to face the wall of grimy elevator buttons. He hit his floor number again. And as soon as the doors shut again, Jack leaned against the wall, because he knew his legs would not be able to hold him much longer.
And then he just laughed— a small noise at first before it piled into full-on laughter, tears dropping as he gripped his stupid cellphone tighter.
It was the absurdity of it all. The fact that he could almost believe it, the fact that it made just enough sense for it to be plausible.
His laughter stopped but his tears did not. He felt sick to the very center of his heart.
Surely Dave never did any of that. Surely he never met his sister. And surely this William Afton did not exist.
But a very faint, very bitter part of himself asked himself if it was logical to deny when Dave had already tried hiding so much from him.
“God,” Jack mumbled to himself, too weak to even wipe at the corners of his eyes.
—-
Jack faced their hotel room door, hesitant to open it. He could hear the TV playing through the thin wood.
If he closed his eyes, he could imagine this exact scene so many times before, and how it played out back at home: Jack would be reclined into the cushions as Dave lay against him, fast asleep in the glow of the TV screen playing some tacky reality show.
Jack would have to lean over to see Dave’s eyes, and if he were brave enough, he’d wipe at whatever tears inevitably gathered there in his sleep.
But that was not reality. Here in the present, Jack’s heavy eyes fixed down to the ground, where a sliver of the hotel room’s lamplight was spilling out from under the door.
He had no idea how he would react when he opened that door. Not a single idea.
For a moment, he thought about knocking instead of fumbling with the lock himself. Dave—or whoever this man really was—would’ve answered. But he didn’t.
With a deep breath, Jack turned the doorknob and swung it open, taking those short few steps into the center of the room. The TV was on. The lamp lit.
And by the time Jack lagged his eyes over to Dave, he’d switched off the TV and was already on his feet, crossing over. Jack must’ve looked much less put-together than he thought, if the warm worry in Dave’s voice was any indicator.
“Woah, woah, Sportsy,” he greeted, hands settling on his shoulders. “Are you okay? What’s up? I know those bellhops can be cruel, but— But, did something happen?”
His hands on Jack suddenly felt very wrong. Too firm. Too stiff.
Dave leaned down to look him in the eyes, asking through a worried smile, “Everything okay?”
Jack stared, and he just stared, because that’s all he could do. He searched Dave over endlessly for some hint that this was coming. He did not find it.
“You’re crying,” Dave pointed out.
“I got a call,” Jack muttered out quickly and quietly, brushing off those words but not his own tears. “From Henry.”
The name shattered the moment. With that, Dave’s voice and face cracked into panic as he straightened— Jack hated that he was the cause of it. “That’s… not funny, Old Sport.”
Jack didn’t answer.
“He was saying all this stuff about you,” he said numbly. “About what you used to do, back with him. Years ago.”
“That… What? No, no, wait, what’d he say t’ ya?” Dave insisted, tightening his hold on him. Jack didn’t know why, exactly, that scared him. “What exactly?”
Jack kept staring.
“Who are you?” he then mumbled out, voice rough, eyes stuck on Dave’s.
Ignored. “Tell me what he said.”
Jack could not quite find the energy to step out of Dave’s grip, no matter how choking it felt. He still felt doom coiling tighter and tighter in his stomach as he slowly explained.
“He said… It was first the circus, then the diner…” His voice dropped into silence, more focused on Dave’s expression than anything. It was in his eyes– it was that total, petrified look that looked to be carved into every part of his face. “He told me about the things you used to do…”
“Jack,” Dave interjected, and at the sound of his name he snapped his eyes up to him. “No, Jack, Jack, listen. He’s tryin’ t’ get under your skin. Do you understand? He’s tryin’ to ruin things.”
The words hardly phased him. “Who are you?”
“Why— Why didn’t ya tell me he called?” Dave asked, sounding much more frantic now.
Jack stumbled backward one step and finally spit it out, the words scraping within him since he first heard them in that cold elevator:
“He said you killed her.”
Out loud, it sounded so absurd, so ridiculous. Jack’s laugh was hollow, splintering at the edges. “But that’s not true, right? Everything he said was all bullshit, right?”
Dave said nothing. He pulled his hands away from Jack’s shoulders, a numb look on his face.
“Right?” Jack asked again.
Dave still said nothing.
His silence was answer enough.
Jack's heart either stopped or dropped entirely.
“Oh, my god.”
Blindly, shakily, he reached behind him for the doorknob, but Dave— or whoever this was— blocked him, one hand slamming against the door.
“L— Let me explain,” Dave pleaded, his eyes wide, raw with exhaustion and panic. “Please, please, Jack. Look at me.”
He felt his chest tighten with grief and anger and a billion other things. “No!”
“It was a long time ago,” Dave insisted, voice cracking.
“I don’t care! Jesus— Kids, Dave!” His voice fell into a snarl. “Kids! My fucking sister!”
Dave flinched at the sharp words, rising in volume as every choking grain of reality set in on Jack. His hands were shaking.
All of Dave’s face softened, and the arm that was blocking the door lowered slightly. “You’re cryin’,” Dave pointed out.
Jack snapped his eyes down to avoid his face. He saw the maraschino cherry stain still on his shirt hem and was reminded of blood.
“No fucking shit,” Jack bit out, still not looking in his eyes. “You killed her.”
Fresh grief was ripping through him from head to toe, mixed with a whole other array of emotions he never thought possible.
“I was a kid,” Dave said. “I was stupid— stupid enough to follow along Henry in everything he did. I never wanted ya t’ find out this way— I swear to God, you have to believe me.”
“I don’t,” Jack affirmed flatly.
“I never meant for you t’ find out like this, not ever.”
“Then when were you going to tell me, huh? Before we got here? After? Or maybe never?” Jack stepped closer, close enough to kiss. “Do you realize how fucked up it is that I had to find out from him?”
“I was scared. I was terrified, Sports–”
“–Do not fucking call me that,” Jack snapped back darkly.
Dave snapped his mouth shut again, and then took in a ragged breath.
“You think I don’t know what I’ve done?” he asked dazedly. “Don’t forgive me, don’t you dare forgive me; but jus’ know I’m tryin’. I’m tryin’ every day. But Henry doesn’t let things go, okay? And you’ve seen what he’s done. To me. That day, I was young and stupid, and I regret it every fuckin’ day.”
Jack’s eyes narrowed. “My sister died because you were stupid?” he seethed, his voice soaked in dark sarcasm.
“Please, please, be logical and listen t’ me.”
The word shot through Jack like a knife. “Logical? Logical?! Look around!” he yelled. “Look where I am! Vegas! Oh, I am never logical when I’m around you!” His fists bunched at his sides, and it took all his strength to not undo it when he saw Dave stiffen at the motion. “You should’ve stayed far away from me.”
“Jack, I didn’t know— I didn’t know it was her! He jus’ told me to do it!”
“Like that makes it any better, William?”
Dave froze. “What?”
“That’s your name, isn’t it?” Jack demanded, his breathing shallow, wetting his lips. “Your real one? Couldn’t even be honest to me about that.”
The words lifelessly fell from Dave’s– William’s lips. “I… changed it.”
Christ. Jack shut his eyes tight, trying to understand what he was still doing in this room.
Maybe, just maybe, he was dragging out the silences because he was hoping to find something worth forgiving in between it all.
“God damn it all,” he spat eventually, every word tearing out of him like acid. “I’m such a fucking idiot. And I think this is the worst possible time to say this, Da– whoever the hell you are, but for a while there, I think that I really, really did…”
The words were there, but Jack did not say them. He did not finish that sentence. Not ever.
Because there it was— settling right between them as if it was the first time—that damned feeling, paired with that damned look in his eyes, in this damned hotel room, with this damned silence, standing across this damned–
–Monster was what he wanted to say. It would’ve been the most cathartic word to call him, but when Jack looked at him, really looked at him, he still only saw Dave.
Just Dave.
The same man who ate dinners with him in his own house, the same man who slept in the same bed as him, the same man who nursed his hangover and bled on his hands and the exact same Dave who Jack…
…needed to kiss.
Two angry steps closed the distance between them.
It was rushed, it was rough, and it was messy. Jack’s hand found itself behind Dave’s neck, yanked him down, and mashed their mouths together.
Dave— or whoever this was, but for this singular moment Jack could pretend that this was Dave— froze for a split second, startled, before he leaned into the kiss, his fingertips digging into Jack’s shirt fabric and clinging to him like a lifeline.
The worst part of it all was that kissing Dave was easy. After all this time and all those close calls, Jack was finally as close to his Dave as he’d always wanted to be. It was miserable and it was miraculous.
Hands brushed against necks, time slowed into an endless trickle, and suddenly Jack felt this overwhelming need to stay. To stay with Dave, to stay in this room, to stay here with this unplaceable warmth roaring through his veins.
But the moment passed as soon as it came. Reality crashed in on Jack, and he all but shoved Dave off of him before any kiss or thought could wander, stumbling backwards against the door.
Dave stood across from him— the same hands that held him now trembling, the same face that kissed him now completely unreadable.
Silence strung and tangled between them, total silence except for two pairs of heavy exhales through their stung lips.
Every thought and every emotion fought for space in Jack’s mind, tangling into a ridiculous knot of anger, betrayal, and something softer that just refused to die. He hated him. He hated Dave, or William, or whoever he just kissed. But he probably hated himself more.
“Don’t go,” Dave whispered, reading his mind.
Jack searched his face, and it was unbearable. “I need to think.”
Maybe Jack meant for it to sound mad. It sure didn’t come out that way, not with how fragile his voice sounded, or how shaky each word came out.
Jack had no idea how he willed himself to walk out of there, but he did.
Head bowed, he turned and rushed out the door, into the hallway, chest aching in ways he didn’t know were possible.
Dave didn’t stop him that time.