an: ahoy! I've started a ropey sequel to that even ropier Cal/Jack fic, totally against my better judgement, obviously. It's gonna be all drama and romance and fluff and not much else. Consider this the most self-indulgent fic I've ever attempted. I regret nothing! Okay. I regret many things. But all totally unrelated to this fic.
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Unannounced
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Cal answered the door half-asleep and more than half-drunk.
It was 12.43am, and the early May air was inconsiderately chillier than he would have liked. Jack's face was bright and warm, though.
Cal decided he must be having a vivid dream. That, or he'd finally cracked. About time, it'd took long enough.
"Hello?" he said, very tentatively.
Jack grinned, full of relief.
"I got the right house, at least."
He laughed, and Cal blinked, attempting to make sense of the laugh. And then the way Jack Dawson stood there, like he was supposed to exist like that, and everything was just fine and normal and...no, that couldn't be right.
Cal blinked again, like Jack might disappear.
He didn't though, and Cal thought he might have to accept that he'd truly lost it.
"You're here," he said, and smiled, deciding not to accept it at all.
"Sorry it's so late. But I couldn't get an earlier train."
Cal rubbed his eyes.
"...train?"
"Yeah. I was sitting next to this elderly man. He slept most of the journey, though. Then a couple came in with their daughter. Nice kid," Jack's grin became softer.
Cal nodded, because he didn't know what else to do.
Perhaps he would wake up soon, and then he'd think about it all, rather morosely, for a little while. And then he'd think about Jack and imagine him, much more that he was supposed to (which was not at all, ideally).
He'd think about him and imagine him, and Cal wouldn't want to get out of bed, as usual.
"Well. Come in," Cal said. "If you want."
He might be losing his mind, but he may as well be hospitable about it.
Jack did come in, but lingered in the hallway, like an apprehensive creature.
"Er. Shall I take my boots off?"
Cal looked him blankly up and down.
"Do whatever you like."
Cal sat on the edge of the couch, and watched as Jack opted to take his boots off, and then he looked about the room with an awe-ridden face.
"I just don't want to get anything dirty," he explained.
"I'm sure it doesn't matter."
It didn't, and Cal was only happy to watch Jack for a little while. He could have watched him for the rest of the dream, and that would have been enough. He sunk back a bit in the couch, massaging his alcohol fuelled head.
Jack sat down next to him. "Sorry. Did I wake you?"
"You didn't. I'm still asleep," Cal informed him.
"What?" Jack laughed, and Cal had missed that sound too much. Jack's eyes were bright, and watching him intently. He'd missed those too.
Oh, but actually he'd missed everything.
"You've been drinking," Jack observed. "You really should cut down on that."
Cal scowled. Typical of his own imagination, or lack thereof.
"I'm a little disappointed, Dawson. You've invaded my dreams, and we could be doing literally anything at all right now. But you have chosen to lecture me about my drinking habits."
Jack smirked at him. "Anything at all?"
"...yes."
Cal shouldn't have felt coy about it, but he was, for whatever reason. Dreams were too vivid sometimes, he supposed.
"What would you like to do, then?" Jack asked, and his breath was warm.
Cal realised he'd just gotten much closer.
"Kiss me," he demanded. "And make me wake up wanting more."
In waking, it would have been a much scarier proposition. But right now Cal's head was swimming, and Jack was too irresistible.
"Hah," Jack did not look surprise. Cocky bastard. "Happy to."
He leaned in, and Cal returned to a bliss he'd long since thought had died with the Titanic. He wondered how he would ever do without it, as he sunk further into the couch and moaned and hoped he'd never wake up again.
It didn't last as long as he would have liked. Jack broke the kiss, and his face was that annoyingly heartfelt frown of concern he'd become too familiar with. Like everything else.
"You look tired. Have you been okay?"
Cal shook his head.
"Not particularly. It's all your fault."
Jack's smile was soft.
"I missed you."
"I miss you all the time," Cal said, not thinking about it. "It's damn inconvenient, actually."
He took a quick breath, very aware that Jack's hands were there, tracing his jaw, and his skin felt like it might be aflame. He didn't want to move though, just in case Jack stopped existing.
"Well, I'm here now," Jack said, and kissed his jawline.
Cal closed his eyes, through a brittle sigh.
"Why are you here? To torture me with a memory?"
"No," Jack said, and kissed him again, more urgently on the mouth. "...I told you. I missed you."
Cal tilted his head away.
The glare of moonlight shone on an empty whiskey glass that sat on the nearby table. Near to it was an untouched letter that had the unmistakeable cursive of the Bukater's. Cal had drank that whiskey and contemplated that letter all night.
Just before Jack had decided to exist again.
Cal stared at the table, violently sobered by such simple realisations.
"What's wrong?" Jack murmured. His mouth was still so close.
Cal shook his head.
"Nothing," and felt himself smile.
So he was awake, then.
He gripped Jack's shirt, pulling him back down.
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The trouble with Jack's actual existence was that Cal had to deal with the morning after. And Cal didn't deal with the morning after very well on a usual basis, as it was.
The taste of Jack was still in his mouth, and shards of sunlight were catching at Jack's sleeping face and hair, making him look more angelic than usual. As if that was even possible.
Cal immediately untangled himself from tightly wrapped limbs, but still couldn't move fast enough.
"Good morning," Jack said, voice crackling with sleep. His fingertips brushed Cal's back.
Cal looked at him, reluctantly.
"Morning."
He got up and wrapped a gown around himself to save some pointless modesty. If fragmented memories of last night were anything to go by, Jack had seen more than enough, and then some.
It was terrifying, if Cal thought about it so much.
Jack smiled and stretched lazily, like he'd read Cal's mortified mind.
"Don't I get a good morning kiss?"
Cal glared at him, smoothed out his gown in an effort of indignation.
"You do not."
Jack's face fell, in a mock sort of upset. "Not a morning person, are you?"
"I'm perfectly wonderful in the morning," Cal assured him. "After a coffee or two...but that is beside the point," he glanced at the clock. 7.30am. "You can have breakfast, and then I'll see you out. Preferably before the housekeeper arrives and becomes incredibly suspicious."
Jack's mock upset slipped into something genuine then. Cal didn't like it, so he turned away, and pretended it hadn't happened.
"Cal, I thought we might-"
"Whatever you thought, you thought wrong, Dawson."
He could pretend he'd not said that too, for a little while.
There was too lengthy a pause though, and Cal could imagine Jack's face within it.
"It's 'Jack'," Jack said. "I wish you'd remember."
"What?"
"I told you to call me Jack. That's my name, you know."
The creak of the mattress suggested he was getting up, and the fading pad of footsteps made Cal swallow his nerves, temporarily. Like he could imagine Jack wasn't even there, for a few minutes.
He kept his glare on the window, watching a bird flit through the yellowish morning sky.
"It's not so easy as you think, Jack."
The padding sounds stopped, and there was a sigh, closer than Cal had expected.
Cal turned around, and Jack was standing in the door frame, clothed except for a few undone buttons on his creased shirt. The sunlight made his skin translucent, and Cal's heart could have stopped with the sight of it.
Jack's smile was faint.
"I don't expect it'd be easy, Cal. Not at all. But wouldn't it be worth it?"
Cal turned his glare to the floor, noticing neglected ties and shirts; the remnants of desperate desire, from mere hours earlier. When everything really had seemed easier, because tomorrow didn't matter at all in the heat of the moment.
Cal returned Jack's faint smile.
"...I thought you were dead," the words could have broken in his mouth. "...it's...it's a lot to take in, that's all."
Jack's frame straightened, as if realising a terrible mistake. He looked suddenly as distraught as Cal felt.
"Cal...I shouldn't have turned up like this. I shouldn't have expected you'd even let me in like this," he shook his head. "Jesus...I'm sorry."
Cal stared at him. "No. You don't understand."
He didn't know if he could stand it much longer; his chest ached, his entire body ached, whenever he looked at Jack for too long.
"You coming back is the best and most wretched thing I could have hoped for," he clenched his hands. "You see...I can't stand wanting something so much, and not being able to have it."
Jack looked surprised, or something like that, though Cal hardly registered it.
He was too enveloped in his own shame to concentrate on much of anything. He knew that if he waited even a moment longer, Jack would have his way, and that just couldn't be.
Jack was already approaching him, though.
"Why can't you? You can have whatever you want, Cal."
Cal sneered.
"This isn't another dream, Jack."
"Cal-"
"I'm going to be late for work," Cal turned away. "Help yourself to a suitable breakfast. You can see yourself out."
It was all very well, wishing and wanting for something, so very intensely. But then, in those rare instances when such desires actually came true, the aftermath could rock and shake an entire world.
Cal thought, as Jack's hand caught his own, and their eyes locked, that his own world might have been rocked completely into the ground.
"Have breakfast with me," Jack said.
And Cal couldn't say no.
Rocked into something unrecognisable, but entirely new, perhaps
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an: do review...if you like! Tell me what you'd like, too. I'm an open-minded-mind-of-openness :)