A/N: The motel sections of this chapter are set in 1991 and do catch up in the next chapter, I promise not to get too Cloud Atlas-y on you. Honestly.
They're in a motel just outside of Salt Lake City when he tells him. Car engines burning, and a lump in his throat. Cheap cable television flickers in and out of Technicolor; some jerk ass reporter running his mouth off about some rockstar checking out, with about as much flair as his haircut. Joey is stood in the doorway. Jesse, sat on one of the twin beds, tells him.
He stops, fades. It is, probably what the doctors would call, a catatonic state. Breaths in and Joey's footsteps are white noise against eyelashes beating on his cheek, far too loud. His insides have shrivelled up and curled like a witch's fingernail (yes, dying men do tend to be more poetic). Stone cold on the hard wood floor, he comes round, and looking a Joey Gladstone makes him wonder if he's gone already; no goodbyes, no heartbreak Becky, just slipping away at three-thirty in the afternoon. But the phone clicking, and Joey is mumbling something into the receiver that Jesse can't understand, glass of water in hand.
"What was that?" he asks when he's been propped up against the wall and given sips of water like a suckling puppy.
Their meeting for the next day with the head of a bacon bubble gum has been cancelled; Joey thinks they better go home. Seeing as Jesse's already spent the promised paycheck on wedding – oh, the wedding – he would have slapped his business partner all the way back to San Francisco if he'd had the energy.
"Joey, I need that money. The wedding-"
"You can't seriously be considering going through with that."
Power cut. TV off. The fan's groan then splutter tries to shatter the atmosphere but now the standing heat drips down on sweaty shoulders. Jesse scrambles to the lemon-lime kitchenette, left feet and clinging hands. They can all go to hell. He'll go to Mexico, living out the rest of his days singing Spanish versions of Elvis songs.
"Jess, you're sick," Joey's voice is soft and low, and so unlike Joey that Jesse shudders. He doesn't want to hear it, any of it - talk about the incurable and inevitable, how careful he must be and how important it is that he looks after himself; pathetic. Feels incredibly old for twenty-seven, "you carry on, you'll get sicker, Becky - what if you had kids-"
And he crumbles, shouts, running-a-hand-through-hair kind of mess, hot puddle of hair wax and shaving cream on the garish 1960's tiles. Joey catches him. There is a beat, "I love her."
"I know."
When he's holding him like that, just like this, Joey can take in the younger man's smell of hard work, some artificial exotic fruit and desperation. He lets him shiver into waves of calm, slowly breathing in and out. Of course he wants to say it, of course it would somehow make everything bearable, but it's not (and never will be) the time so he stays quiet.
"I love you," it's there; it hangs in the air like the first few notes of a favourite song, the familiar giving a rush of excitement. Jesse takes him by the shoulders, blue against blue for a moment, scared and the other steady, touches his cheek like it's red hot, "God, Joey, you… you-"
"It's okay," and that's it, "I'm okay."
He says little and smokes much –
Pre-rolled little packages which fit perfectly between fingers and lips, mass manufactured to make you feel good – you, the all American guy, slicked back hair and quivering lip – or at least trick you into thinking you feel good, reel you in.
– He is the youngest at the party and undoubtedly the thinnest. He is as thin as the blade the condemned man on the car radio used to slaughter his victims. Jesse feels envious of him, monster, this supposedly sub-human; not having to live with his sins, not having to carry them around with him every goddamn day of his goddamn life. That bastard got it easy, that's for sure. The electric chair burning up mistakes in every vein. They've been reading Ginsberg in Lit; is it him or Whitman making him so wet? Probably spending too much time with Danny, Jesse laughs at that. Makes his way into the kitchen, might as well fix himself a drink, this is a college party after all, and if Pam isn't going to dance and just cuddle the baby it is his duty as the younger brother.
"You don't need that, buddy."
Busted. That goof friend of Danny's, Joey or something else that makes him sound like he's still in the second grade. The college must have taken him on some kind of government scheme, doesn't look like the kind of chimp whose folks can give out wads of cash. He's smiling, juniors don't smile; they lounge around making out to some kind of electro crap they call music in England.
Kanga blonde dipshit is holding his drink, "thought milkshakes were more your thing, Jess?"
Jesse glares at him, jumps up onto the breakfast bar to feel more powerful. The guy's a complete mess; some lessons c/o family Katsopolis could certainly in order. Instead he says something about the wreck being as arse, incidentally an arse that isn't old enough to drink either
"My best friend's married with a kid, what've you got?"
Twenty minutes later, black coffee black sky, the two J's are sat on the roof – more distant from the party than apart. Joey got the recorder player resting on the windowsill from inside his room, he's got to stay sharp for his first gig of '78, underground club at 3am. Jesse sniggers and Joey sniggers back the best he can with a grin, found an Elvis record to cheer Jesse up; poor kid's not the brightest spark in the high school bulb and having that European tyrant for a dad (absent fathers are always more supportive from bar). For someone of fifteen, Jesse does seem to spend an awful lot of time in his own head – heartbreak hotel and guitar. They find, as the songs click into sultry slurs, that Jesse and Joey actually have quite a lot in common; namely Tanner trails named Danny and a dream. Joey aspires to have a weekly Saturday night slot on the comedy circuit all the way over in NYC. Jesse and his band can be the opening act; depress the punters just enough with some hard rock to make them grateful for any relief. Perfect plan. They laugh, the two of them. Shoulders, scratched leather and plaid, touching.
There's a scream somewhere, a raucous screech of student hysteria, feet and hands in time to what can only be the Beegees. Jesse is chaining his lucky stripes because he was hoping to get lucky with at least a sophomore tonight. Ash skitters in the air and pools on the skin of his coffee cold. Joey doesn't say anything simply because he's a struggling comic and he needs all the anecdotes he can get. Tells Jesse he should be careful, to which is replied so delicately shut up, huh? Slurp of smoke seasoned beverage:
Joey gulps in laughing delight; white tee splattered brown, Jesse pounding on him (not with the anger he would have anticipated an hour ago, practically playful), there's a hint of a smile in the Greek's face, he should let himself smile more. The perpetrator gets up to fetch the kid a shirt to button over the top because it's grown quite cold for a Californian evening and wet clothes cause colds, Joey Gladstone is prone to the overly guilty conscience of an only child.
"Hideous or Hawaiian?" he shouts, strangely daunted by the challenge of picking out something for the more stylish.
Jesse turns, body half in the warmth and half lingering back, wrinkles up his nose, "you ask that like there's a difference." He's caught suddenly, looking back at Joey looking at something in his closet. Wonders if blue eyes like Joey's are the kind songs are written about; a deep, rich blue that makes gazing into them a self-indulgence. It doesn't occur to Jesse (and probably won't until many years later) that he's never thought such a thing of anyone before, in such lyrical terms, not even Miss Drive-In Fourteen. Her hair was written the same on passport paper, sure, but it didn't shine in late light like spun gold. Hell, even Pam's is straw by comparison.
He slips, dread of slipping into the girls' shower room after gym, he slips into Joey's room after dark. And his mind is wandering because anything is easier than this, here now presently. Cartoon posters and other oddities Jesse would have thought to poke fun at are edged with softness.
"Shirt's on the bed, Jess."
Get the thing on, get outside, have a smoke, simple. Simple. Still he finds himself taking tainted t-shirt off with a yawn, hoping somehow that Big Blues would wander slightly over to him; the faint tan of Athenian summers gone – maybe he does have it in him to write songs after all.
The trap does work, flesh begets flesh after all, and Joey blushes. A beach boy in December sends a shiver down his spine. It's not as if the sight is unusual, it's just – it's just illicit because bedroom and best friend's brother-in-law. But body, body and bones Jesse is the kind of boy Joey can spend warm evenings wondering about. Wondering, wanting, w –
He scrambles to sit on his desk, knocking a book on early-tsarist Russia off in the process. A bang loud enough for Joey to pray that someone will come and investigate. But only Jesse jumps and nothing stirs above slow dancing next door. The mini-fridge is perhaps a godsend.
"Do you want a drink?"
"Got any diet soda?"
He chucks the can, safety of carbonated caffeine between then. Jesse looks hollowed out and comfortable in the purple shirt; he's run his hand through his hair, tired and matted. Joey smiles. Jesse smiles and for a moment they both think perhaps there's something. He flicks through a magazine lying on the nightstand and a story about Danny is being recounted in dramatic detail, whatever it was is gone.
After a while, of course, of course Jesse finds himself asking the inevitable (not that the reply will make much or any difference): "girlfriend, Joseph?"
He looks away because he was never one for lying. Patty's nice, wouldn't be a lie, they do like each other a lot. She laughs at his jokes; they can sit down and watch old cartoons on a Saturday night instead of dancing disco. She doesn't make his skin crawl with excitement when she sits on his bed; they kiss and he doesn't crave more. He doesn't sit on his desk and imagine what it would be like kiss her motorcycle-flavoured neck, down the hollow of her throat. Joey wants to snap back, retort with a joke or similar question, and then he looks at him, Michelangelo holy boy, realises he couldn't dream up a girlfriend if he tried, "no," Joey says.
Jesse considers, closing his eyes at cool relief crashing in his stomach. Joey's biting his lip, there is something untapped at the corner of it. The tension between them is uncoiling like a spring; hot metal, explosions. He goes to say – he doesn't know. A new song blares, thin walls a megaphone. They groan. How they groan. He pipes up with a spit into his empty can how he actually likes the song [the name is not important here] and Joey mumbles how it's actually amazing that Jesse likes something that isn't viva las fifties. In this time, the gap between them has been bridged and pepsi cola bleeds in the stain of its own aspartame at the bottom of the bin.
"Ever done it with a girl?"
A snort: Cut. It. Out.
"Ever done it with a guy?"
"Your sister isn't this crude, you know."
One J perches on a desk chair, spins, and the other J raises an eyebrow at him. Stars outside seem to pallor suddenly to sheer Jesse joy. He really should have closed the window though; the cold is creeping in the New Year. Goosebumps distract him, at least, from the dark-haired butterflies in his chest and a name on the tip of his tongue. Got to talk to Danny, see if anyone's been spiking drinks.
Jesse leans forward – in? no – to pick up the history book which still lies long forgotten, spine bent on the floor. Blistered fingers rest on faded jeans, "man, your cheeks are bright red, you know that, right," the sentence comes away with a note of tenderness; he traces the colour away underneath stubble with his finger, but it's his lips, his lips… "kiss me."
It sounds like a joke, but there Jesse remains, looking up at him, jaw set. His mop of ebony has fallen over his face, obscuring his eyes. Joey smirks, he's as much an actor as he is a liar, tries to make light of it, "what?"
"C'mon, Joe, always cheers the girls up."
And then, boy best friend's brother-in-law is sweeping hair back with one hand and keeping Joey's thigh secure with the other. Bubble burst. He tastes like fire, burnt marshmallows, s'mores. Jesse melts into him with a second's kiss, ever so gently asking for more.
There's a shout far off and Joey pulls away. Countdown. Jesse's eyes watery blue, he steps back. It takes a beat for Joey's white-socked feet to hit the floor. Two for either of them to do anything. Three is crushed against the wall; for god's sake they can't start the new year like this. Joey Gladstone kisses Jesse Katsopolis under the dim glow of a flickering light bulb. So soft it's painful, that the younger man moans and sinks his teeth into his lip. Joey smiles against the metallic taste. They don't laugh when their teeth clash and tongues meet. Jesse's fingers find blonde hair to cling to and Joey's hand a black snug waistband. Waltz, the waltz backwards, towards no-man's land. This is what they write about in novels. This. This wholeness, all that 1978 has ever known.
Cough.
They tear, peel away before jumping. Golden and grinning: Pam, in pink pyjamas and an overcoat, the baby curled up by her shoulder in a matching outfit, luckily asleep, "DJ just wanted to say happy new year to her Uncle Joey."
Before they stubble back an inch or two into reality, the men wonder if they should come up with some excuse as to why they were discovered in such a compromising position, but the January moon hits them both square between the eyes; Pam's a smart girl, she's only done one stupid thing in her life and that was becoming a Tanner. Joey kisses the sleeping pup dutifully on the cheek. Mother whispers into her hair kisses all round, huh, Deej? and Jesse, still shuffling with hands in pockets, is told to grab his jacket because the engine of Danny's beloved Bullet is already running to give them a lift home. He wants to inform his sister very calmly that this would never have happened in any of the dumbass films he's had to sit through with her. He glances back for Joey, but Joey has already grabbed the last of his cigarettes and gone outside. Pam presses her lips to his temple, doesn't make him feel better.
Her dad doesn't believes she's a natural entrepreneur, but Pamela Tanner can balance a baby on her hip, check the oven temperature and close an order over the phone at the same time. Baking is a lucrative business; the average cake takes two hours and three dollars to make, and then it's labelled at just that price per slice in the store. Her parents really don't give her enough credit and whenever she looks at little DJ she promises that she'll never do the same, that she'll always be there whether they stay a family of three or have four other children like her and Danny have dared to dream late at night; two girls and twin boys.
She's just blended bright blue additives in butter and sugar, when the back gate slams and Pam watches her little brother through the kitchen window kick garden ornaments with a filthy look on his face. His wife always glided through a storm, as her husband would say nine years later, nothing ever phased her – so she slides the bowl onto the breakfast table and bundles her daughter into her highchair, I think we'll have to make some more frosting, Deej. All sunshine even though she's only smiling to keep her heart inside her mouth.
"You got your stuff back from Danny?" she asks when Jesse dumps a backpack on the floor too heavy to just have unfinished homework weighing it down; the Elvis wig and glittered suit that were used for last week's edition of Campus Rap.
"Yeah, Mom and Dad home?"
"No, they're…" – Jesse runs a hand through his hand, jittering (maybe she shouldn't have persuaded their mother so fervently not to let the doctors put him on those pills) – "okay, good – why the hell didn't you tell me Joey's doing some bimbo?"
His sister grits her teeth, glances between DJ and her uncle, "Jesse, the baby, huh?"
They sit down with sundae spoons and dip them into the sapphire saccharine until Jesse's biggest concern is his prize molars rotting to black and not his broken heart. He asks questions about Patty and Pam answers them until he's feeling bright enough to sneak his niece licks of icing when her mother's back is turned, "they're very happy if that makes it any easier."
But it's only he comes down from the sugar rush and Pam comes back from putting DJ in her crib, that Jesse starts to cry, hot shuddering tears of a girl losing her first love and not being able to remember how she felt before, "I really like him, sis."
"I know, tough guy," Pam says into his hair, into a hug, "but you're just a kid-"
"And he's a college guy, yeah I know."
She sighs at his tone and pulls him back, "I didn't mean that, I meant you're young, don't let him ruin your life."
He looks up at her, his sister, his saint questioning, "you met Sir Disco when you were my age."
"And I love Danny and DJ very much but I never imagined myself baking cakes until my husband's out of college so we could start our lives together," she's got tears in her eyes now too but Jesse bites back a remark, "you're smart, what were you thinking of doing, marrying him?" (there's a joke in there deep down somewhere).
"You could do so much, Jess, some guy isn't the be all and end all."
His chair topples and crashes on the titled floor as he gets up, incensed suddenly, "what would you know?"
Two hours later when Jesse's missed dinner and played Can't Help Falling in Love at full volume for the millionth time, his sister goes up to see him. He's curled up on his bed, wrapped up in the purple shirt he's slept in every night since New Year's. She looks at him with the eyes of an old lady, tender and epiphanic; he's not the James Dean he wants to be, he's just a little boy with a crushed soul.
"Jess, Mom's worried about you – you didn't come down for fried chicken."
"Come in and slam the door," he says from his cocoon, "I'm sorry for saying what I said."
Pam props him up against her shoulder, holding him like a child, "no, I'm sorry; you're right, I don't know anything about it," she turns off the jukebox, turns to her brother, "but I do know how to make the best banana shakes in the Bay Area, come on."
When Jesse thinks back, he always thinks about how their parents never gave Pam enough credit; how she managed to hold him together as a teenager and even after her death.
Yaya Gina is always saying bad things come in threes and Jesse has brushed it off with youthful optimism that – now, sat outside a gas station in the cold – he can't believe he ever had. In fact it's now that he realises that she's right about lots of things: wear a warm coat, eat regularly and drink more orange juice. Poor Yaya would twist his ear, he's sure, if she knew that he felt like death and hadn't carried enough change to catch a taxi home. But it had really only been when he slumped onto the concrete steps that Jesse had felt the weight of a headache fall around his ears. Up until, then he'd been able to juggle the bad luck as simple misfortunes.
Walking his bike to the garage wasn't too bad because the owner – luckily, an old school friend of his dad's – was nice enough to let him have the repair on tab and pick it up in the morning, use the pay phone. And when Jesse had tried all the contacts in his black book for a ride north and finally plucked up the courage to tap in the last number he wanted call, Joey said I'm there for you, babe and all of Jesse's dimes came spurting back with a hit-the-jackpot clatter.
It's only when he's bought Pam a present, Elvis nursing cloths, with the winnings and is just waiting, that he wants to lie down, preferably in the middle of the road so some big truck can hit him. It's his own fault; he hasn't been paying his beloved Harley half as much attention as he should since Dad pulled him – kicking and swearing – into the business. Music is a pipe dream; being eighteen in the Katsopolis family is old enough to make you an animal killer. Jesse used to smell of lemongrass masculinity, but now no amount of soap can get the stench of rat poison and death out of his pores.
Cars rush past, lights flashing but still no Gladstone glitter – it's been half an hour, for Pete's sake, by the time he gets to the hospital Pam will already be back home with the new baby and he'll have missed it again. Again. He's no exterminator and no brother either; Danny's always going on about how DJ misses her favourite uncle and how he should come over for dinner sometime, but Jesse really doesn't want to add bad uncle to the list as well. He misses her too, it broke his heart when the tiny Tanner trio finally got their own place and things weren't like they used to be. He doesn't weather change well, Jesse Katsopolis.
What's your price, Joey smirks when he pulls up, too wide of the curb, and leans across to unlock the passenger door. A coat's draped over the seat when Jesse goes to sit down, Joey tells him to put it on and look in the glove compartment. A Hershey's bar and a flask, "how did you know?" Jesse asks in amusement.
"Jess," Driver Joe yawns as they lurch forward, "I could hear your teeth chattering through the phone."
There's a pause. Jesse clears a circle in the condensation on the matchbox window and looks out at the incoming city, butter coloured in the failing light. His hands are affixed to his mouth in frequent fits of coughing by the third mile; retching and spluttering violently until his palms have little red droplets in their creases. But in between Jesse waves Joey onwards.
Eventually, on a wide stretch of road, the car swerves into a layby and Joey sighs; Jesse's fingers are like ice even though his forehead is almost too hot to touch, "you're sick, let me take you home."
"I'm fine," he swallows, "look, I have to be there."
"Jesse, I really don't think-"
Uncle Jesse looks at him for a long moment and Joey finds himself unable to say no when he says please.
"Okay, but don't be expecting me to carry you to the ER – now, drink your coffee."
Jesse keeps his eyes on him; the wick of his mouth, strong hands on the steering wheel, and wonders what kind of father, what kind of husband Joey would make.
"It's a girl. It, Stephanie, she's okay," Jesse says when Joey comes back from getting a third round of coffees – he was ages again, must have got lost in the bleached and bright corridors, "she was having trouble keeping warm at first."
"Does it matter," Joey sits down, closer to him than before, "if she's okay now?"
Jesse shifts towards the light so he's a faceless ghost, shadow thin and his voice raw, so small, "suppose it doesn't."
Joey stays still for a moment – a nurse passes them in a flurry of pink and lilacs, looks at them funny because they're both still wearing their coats with the radiators on – "couldn't you go in and see her?"
"I could," he tugs at his hair awkwardly, Uncle Jesse does, indeed he could but he doesn't want to admit he does actually feel excruciatingly unwell and run the risk of crushing egg shells around the baby and making her sick. But he doesn't say it, for some reason he turns in the plastic chair to stare at the spot where Joey's jaw meets his ear under sandy curls, "I wouldn't be here without you, Joe."
It should be a throw away thank-you but it's not; it comes off softer than even Jesse meant it, as if he's saying a prayer. He folds his arm around the small of the other man's back but they're bulkier than they should be, it makes leaning in difficult and Joey laughs, "Jess, seriously, that flu's making you delirious."
The lights go off and their mutual shadow is pooled with the lights from the unmanned nurses' station. In the darkness, the smell of disinfectant gets stronger and Jesse can feel Joey's bitter breath on his nose, their lips brushing and blending. It's so fragile, so unsure as if they don't know how to be together but then Major Tom memories cause a rocket to explode in Joey's heart and the debris sets fire to his mouth – stops the words tumbling out by pulling away and placing a kiss on the spot Jesse had been looking at on him just moments ago.
Jesse whispers, "you're shaking," and covers his own hands with the ones that still gripping his lapels. Joey thinks in the second before they're interrupted about saying three words he used to say to Patty but never really meant.
"I'm sorry, sir," the nurse returns, looking bruised, looking at Joey, "but if you're not a relative – I'm going to have to ask to you to leave."
He goes to get up, utter an apology but Jesse's got his hand on his knee briefly because he's the one who can charm a situation - hi, hello, I'm sorry, I don't think we've met - "I'm Jesse Katsopolis, Mrs Tanner's brother," he gestures towards Joey (damn, the nurse is all but floating, he's still got it), "and this fine gentleman here is the closest thing Mr Tanner has to a brother."
"Yes, sir, of course, sir, but-"
"Jesse, please," he squints at the young woman's name badge, "Valerie, it's extremely late and I'm sure you understand it's been a very emotional day. Please?" his hand running up her arm accents the word, she flutters and hurries away.
When he turns back to Joey, he's got his arms folded over his knees, shoulders shaking with laughter, "only you could flirt with that massive lump of snot hanging out your nose."
Baby Tanner, Stephanie Judith lies in her hospital icebox; so many lights already on her that Joey jokes that she's doomed to be a performer like her Uncle Jesse. Danny laughs, it is just the three of them, and they all laugh. He heads back to check on his wife and Jesse and Joey are left with the rows of future citizens who just look like chicks, some don't even have names. Barcodes. Bred to stand up straight, bite their tongue until it bleeds – bleed dry, if that's what it takes to make a good impression. For the first time in his life, Jesse can sense God in him; maybe Joey was right, he's delirious. He's not sure if it's for himself, when he kneels down and the other man watches on bewildered, or for his perfect niece, so she doesn't have to suffer like he has done.
She opens her eyes and Jesse threads a finger through one of the slots, and Stephanie wraps her whole fist around it.
It would have been easier to make a compilation tape, Jesse says for the tenth time in two hours amongst the on-going Pam and Dan squabble over who can man the decks. It's all the same; billboards hits of '82 that everyone knows the words to, only his sister wants – no, Jess, you can't do it – a more up beat pop playlist because this is a party and not a place for guests to get depressed and think of all three-hundred and sixty-four mistakes they've made in the year. People want to dance with their red paper cups under the fairy lights.
Jesse looks around at the soulless servants of generic beats, moving their feet in time with the pseudo-polite conversation they're making, and he knows he could never live like this; in a tiny house in a good neighbourhood so it's good enough, and friends who only schmooze. Maybe for Pam and Danny it's different; they bicker like best pals and worst enemies, but always end up giggling at their own expense. His sister never hugged half as much in her whole life as she's done in six years of being a Tanner – Jesse prays that little Stephanie was born with antibodies to fight the compulsive cuddling condition, three of them is all he can stomach.
Watching him with his wife, Jesse almost feels remorseful that he cracked three of his ribs, but they did run off to Reno. He's not a bad man, Daniel Tanner isn't – him and Pam love each other very much, just not the type Jesse would hang out with; the dude whose anecdotes come from books and broadcasts, not real life.
They don't need friends like Jesse does because they've got each other. Of course they've got each other. Jesse Katsopolis has cocks hard for him down Castro, but nothing can even touch the sides. He tries to count on both hands how many guys he's been with in the last two months and he can't, even utilising his toes. He is notorious in the clubs (has been for years, for his good looks and youth), but it's just lately he's been promoted to this god-like platter because he resembles some character on some soap, and that stuff makes moustaches wiggle. Being needed, wanted, moaned for is the most powerful pill to pop. He's addicted; going out every night, blowing all his money on tight jeans and aftershave. The more he does it, however, the less he sees his sister because she knows. Pam pulls him over for one of their very special talks every chance she gets, to show him newspaper articles about some disease that's going around. Makes him promise to be careful, and he is mean and laughs at her because he never gets sick, doesn't she know that?
If he's been particularly busy, slopes home at six in the morning, runs a bath, her words seem to hiss in the taps, and then he'll stay in for one or two nights until he gets calls from long-time lovers promising to lavish him with drinks and a good time, and then it starts again. Sometimes it's longer, when he just likes to date and delight his girlfriends, in different ways, for different reasons. Dinner and a movie, ice cream and ice-skating; soft lipstick kisses and caresses that leave him smiling.
He could have prink crescents covering his collar and juice of an adoring stranger inside him, and Jesse still would never be happy because there's something that always brings him back. Why else would he be here, brings him back to –
"Uncle Jesse, is it time yet?"
DJ is gazing up at him with her butcher boy pyjamas and silver curls – scrunchie, ditzy floral print – and Jesse picks her up, "Uncle Jesse thinks you should be in bed, young lady."
She rolls her eyes right into the back of her head, like her mother, "Daddy said I could stay up."
Another reason he tends to avoid Tanner family jamborees is because they let their eldest daughter run rampant (the kid is well behaved and all), and it's not that they don't care; Pam just seems have gone to the polar opposite of their own upbringing, that had the remnants of Grecian occupation and the order of an army general. He just ends up having to stop her falling down the stairs or bringing a horse into the living room.
He says, placating patience of a parent, "why don't you go have a nap and I'll wake you before the ball drops, okay?"
His niece is an obedient child and grateful she didn't have to go to Granny Tanny's with Stephanie, so she weaves through the party with an inherent grace to her bedroom, teddy bear in hand.
Jesse sets two glasses down on the counter, opens the freezer to retrieve the ice tray; cubes hissing and buzzing like his mind when the warm whiskey hits them, a dab of soda because he's putting off the inevitable. He pops a chicken nugget into his mouth – they should really take their Christmas decorations down – there's tinsel all the down the hallway – their electric bill must be massive – he sits down at the bottom of the stairs finally, gives the other drink to the man next to him.
"Haven't crushed a Viagra into it, have you, Jess?" Joey says without humour, without lifting his head from the hangdog position. He gulps his drink.
Jesse watches him try to find the bottom of the glass, he puts his hand on his shoulder and it takes them both by surprise, "I'm sorry about SNL, man."
It wasn't fair, it really wasn't, what those big boss bastards did to him; call him three hours before he was due on a flight to New York to tell him they'd found someone more suited to the line-up. Jesse wants to promise there'll be other chances but it would sound just as hollow as the dozen people who have said it before, so he offers to take him to a bar instead. This makes the cowering comic laugh at least; they tend to go to the same sort of clubs, only Joey (not nearly as often) prefers dancing over dick, and if they ever catch a glimpse of each other through the strobe lights, their eyes are blank like strangers because they both know what they're escaping. Perhaps it's not like that, perhaps Joey just doesn't want to be associated with him; Jesse does have an artist's tendency to over-romanticise things. Something European in him probably, repressed and dark enough to send him insane.
"Why do we always seem to end up like this," Joey murmurs, thinking aloud rather than a question, "you and me, on New Year's Eve."
Jesse pours the last inch or two of his whiskey into Joey's empty glass with a comrade clatter, "don't know – fate."
He laughs again and this time it fills the corners of his mouth, "you don't believe in that bullshit."
"There's a lot you don't know about me, Joseph."
"I must be the one of the only guys this side of San Francisco who doesn't know much about you."
They are both laughing now to dilute the acid quality of the statement, head thrown back hearty hysterics. Tears run down their alcohol-absorbed cheeks, until their stomachs hurt and Jesse's arm gets caught in the banister. They slump, each holding the other up, still smiling and Jesse can't think of a time with Joey when he didn't end up smiling. NBC really did miss a trick. And suddenly they're talking about everything; the time Jesse was obsessed with Saturday Night Fever and made Pam practise the steps with him all weekend, Joey shows him the gnarly scar at the base of his neck from when he was nine years old and Danny pushed him out the tree house. About the first grade class he taught last semester and this sends Jesse over the edge.
"Do you ever get lonely, Jess?"
"I guess," he replies, his lips so close to Joey's shoulder, each inhalation tasting like vanilla, "seeing what Pam and Danny have –" he pulls back (but not away, never away) to look at his face in the cotton candy light, "you ever had any thing like that?"
A blush reaches Joey's eyes but they still glisten with sadness, don't move from Jesse's, "there was one time when I thought something could be –"
"With Patty?"
"No, no," the words trip off his tongue in long drawn out deliberation but in no uncertain rhyme, "not Patty."
Joey slips (spirits go straight to his head) – carpet burns on denim – bumps knees, noses, lips and he grins. Jesse grips his arms to steady him but his hands slide past shoulders up until they're tangled in downy hair. Joey's got his teeth against the inside of Jesse's lip and each breath is filtered into different lungs with an unforgiving intimacy. All peanut shells and saliva; real stuff you don't find in restrooms and dark alleyways, Jesse is smiling, Joey's gaze moon-lidded on him: "Fate, huh?"
Jesse dips his head to kiss him in agreement but something catches his eye, at the top of the stairs and he hopes to God isn't there. But it feels like Fate is embodied in his five-year-old niece, staring at them with a gleeful glow on her face, interrupting, "hi, Deej."
"Were you two kissing?"
"I thought we had a deal," Uncle Jesse says, singsong as she reaches them and he lifts her onto his lap, "it isn't time yet."
DJ rolls her eyes at him again, "the music is too loud, I couldn't sleep," before wiggling away and running to find her parents –
– shit, Danny. They pound away the magic spells, following her, forty-two inches of truth. And just over the threshold, father and daughter in the living room, Danny is glaring at them: the two men with kiss-bitten lips and hands in their pockets. Pam comes into focus, doe-eyed; she sails over to her husband and plies DJ with candy over to the couch.
It is explained with a comical ease until the vein in Danny's head stops jutting out the side of his head, that Joey was simply getting something out of Jesse's eye and – come on, man, you know what kids are like. Kissing, seriously? – the three of them dissolve into laughter, unnerving raucous sniggering that leaves none of them convinced even though it seems to assure Danny enough for him to joke about it.
"Good because my best friend and brother-in-law being fags together," as he catches his breath and starts to walk back towards the party, "would just be so fucking wrong."
It takes a long moment when they're left alone for either of the men to look up from where Danny had been standing. And when they do, they look through and around each other because now the bloody light is tainted; the sudden mixed miasma of male leaving them nauseous.
"Would it," Jesse says quietly before Joey has a chance to move past him, "be so wrong?"
Joey considers, studying him hard for even two seconds hurts, increases his heart-rate to rocket speed, "no, but –"
Jesse feels his own heart fall and crack, crystallised, on the cream floor, he meets Joey's gaze half way, "but it doesn't mean anything, right?"
Disappeared behind the bathroom door, washing his feelings away with rose-scented soap, Joey mutters right, before he goes.
"You can't, Jesse," Pam sighs, elbow deep in washing-up and passing a plate to her little brother who is suddenly having very big ideas, "you've had too much to drink, I swear to God."
The party has mellowed by quarter to twelve, guests filing out to go onto someone else's place or back home to welcome '83 in with their families; the remainder smoking and socialising out on the patio or sleepily watching TV on the coach. Quiet enough to talk in almost audible tones, "I can'twait another year, sis," Jesse says between drying plates and putting them away, "I have to tell him – fuck Danny."
His sister drowns DJ's smiley face cup in thought and lets it bob to the surface, "I don't know if Joey will share that sentiment," she hands him the artificially asphyxiated and Jesse rubs suds out of its eyes, "they've been friends, best friends forever."
When they've finished, Pam pulls her gloves off with a snap, and changes tactics with a smile, "I'm not saying Joey doesn't feel the same about you, I'm just saying–" she points to DJ curled up peacefully on the rug like a Golden Retriever, "go put DJ into bed for me and think it over, okay?"
And so – five minutes before the ball drops, Jesse comes back from wishing his niece sweet dreams – he has a well-rehearsed speech in his head: I love you, I want to be with you and everyone else will be preoccupied with midnight and other lovers that they won't notice him kissing Joey. More than that doesn't matter, they can talk about it over eggs in the morning, he just wants to go home with him tonight. Where is he? – Jesse had thought he'd still be sulking somewhere over that stupid show but he's not in the den or the living room with his head in his hands.
Pam shouts something as Jesse ventures into the garden, again but he is so stunned by the cold air and cigarette smoke that he doesn't hear her. Until he sees it and it rings in his ears: Wait, Jess, come back!
He sees it. The image penetrates his skin, bones and soul and he can't look away. Paralysed, he sees him. Joey is there amongst the crowd, Danny nearby him in conversation, with some board Jesse's never seen before, kissing away the taste of him. He doesn't even look up in the midnight minute when everyone is migrating inside, doesn't see Jesse leave the house and not look back.
It only gets later and colder. Jesse stands on the balcony with a six pack of beer at his feet, untouched for the last bundle of half an hours where he's been positioned comfortably between sky and holy ground, there must have been plenty of suicides in this motel before. Coxing traffic would mask the bang, hard concrete underneath, and trees out back like health spa to add some purity. What is he thinking? Since his diagnosis – maybe even before because, deep down denial he did know – it's as if he has this other thing living inside of him; cluster of depressed cells doing the talking for him, making his irises swim in their desperation. None of this is really him, he repeats into the mirror until he's starting to believe it, Jesse Katsopolis does not want to die. Does he? Wants to grab a beer can and smash it empty against his head instead.
Weeks, and he's talked to Pam about it: snuck out before the milkman and the paperboy's alarm clock going off, stopped at a drive-thru (no flower shops, dahlias die) to get a diet coke and two quarter pounders with cheese; her favourite order she'd shoved down his throat ever since Stephanie was born because I'm on a diet. He's talked to her gravestone with grease gathered at the corners of his mouth; hushed ketchup tones in case he woke any angry souls sleeping underneath. Of course, you can't see a dead person's eyes sink into the back of their skull when their face is crushed against the words, Jesse never expected Joey's touch to make glass rise to the top layer of his skin, all over again. Suddenly it's real and not just something that Jesse can pretend isn't happening, it can't only wake him in the middle of the night and punch him in the gut whenever he's playing with Michelle, he's put the burden on Joey's shoulders too. He feels guilty.
Could have left it one more week at least. One hundred and eight hours of sleep and family time: the room just off the hall, being woken at the crack of dawn to watch cartoons with multi-coloured cereal and wooden spoons. He should start calling up his black book really and see where he can sleep. Jesse turns to Joey watching him.
"Thinking of jumping?"
God, Joey, you… ringing in his ears again. Thirteen years ago, 1977 - really? - he looks the same in the partial sunlight, only he's not searching for a shirt, answers instead. His fingers are flicking from the tip of his nose to his ear lobes; he looks goddamn exhausted. Whilst Jesse is tired, there's something absolving in his own tiredness that has become a comfort, the bags that have suddenly ruptured black under Joey's eyes only make his heart ache. Fifteen year old Jesse was staring at him like this considering falling in love, not falling over the balustrade. Everything was so simple. What he said before wasn't a mistake or outburst of emotion – however uncharacteristic of Jesse it was – he does love him. Is worried about him, wishes things were different because it's quietly obvious to both of them that this would never have happened if they'd just been honest with each other, and that does make it worse.
"Just tired of life."
Before Jesse does anything he'd come to regret, whether that'd be impaling himself on the pine trees or a pair of lips that aren't rightly his, Joey asks him to come and help him pack the bags. After enough sorrys and mime replies for the weeks he didn't tell him, they're folding freshly hung clothes with a Danny level of neatness. Jesse makes a half-hearted joke, it makes sense he became even more anal after Pam died but Joey doesn't laugh (he cannot bear, cannot bear this silent treatment).
He says, "after Pam died you were amazing, bringing everyone together like that."
"I left the state pretty quick."
There's a knock at the door and Jesse goes to answer it; some woman asking something in some drunken way, Joey takes the moment in deep breaths to pair off his socks, "before," he continues, "you know, when Danny couldn't get out of bed, let alone look at the baby - you got yourself and your parents round there as soon as DJ called."
The other man is glaring at him now, unsure if his abrupt remark is spiteful or not - even contemplating suicide is disgusting, putting your family through that again - he slams the case shut, nails digging into the leather facing, "what's that supposed to mean, Joe?"
And Joey looks at him confused before realising what a complete dickhead he was even mentioning that, not thinking, instead of his zip, he closes the gap between them so he can touch the hands Jesse pulls away, "what I mean was, people - I, Becky, Danny, whoever - will help you like that too."
"Not the same."
He finally manages to catch the fingers that tremble between his, "it is the same, I promise."
Jesse tells him to go shower with the sternness of a mother and Joey doesn't argue. He runs the water until it's loud enough to drown out every noise and hot enough to leave blisters. He slides his back down the flimsy curtain, sitting against the drain with his knees tucked under his chin. Hasn't cried like this since his hamster in fourth grade died, and Danny called him a baby but still bought him a red slushy.
When he remerges, his bones hollow and body hungry, their bags are ready by the door and Jesse's laid the smart clothes they'd chosen for the meeting tomorrow out on their bed respectively because, he explains to Joey's shocked expression, that he's taking him out for the fancy lobster meal he's making him miss.
They both end up smiling.
Every shrink he's ever seen has said the same: he should talk about it, but he never does. Rarely thinks about it because HighSchool Jesse read once that a memory changes every time you remember it. So sometimes, he'll imagine around it; black spots for background, smiling faces blurred but never concentrating on yellow golden happiness. Blue dungarees and pink paint on her hands. He doesn't want to change it, let those precious moments by the atrocity that succeeded them only forty minutes later. Killed upon impact, open head wound. Crashing against the cries of three children losing their mother.
Between the years 1991 and 1997, Jesse actually goes to forty different shrinks. Some under pseudonyms (Jesse Cochran, Adam Katsopolis), some out of state because travelling was preferable to bumping into at the market and seeing as he only saw each one of them once, booking into a bed and breakfast every week wasn't going to be an issue. When asked about them – post-session, pre-takeout cup of hot black sanity in the car's cup compartment – Becky and/or Joey sitting down to have a talk with him, Jesse would simply say that they weren't right – every time. Their couch was too hard/too soft, their diploma didn't look real/they were quacks/just too ugly to look at for a course of six hours, two hundred dollars each. Joey would get mad and walk out whereas Becky would shake her head and spend the next half an hour on the phone trying to find someone else.
In truth he didn't see the point, although he never told his lovers why. There was no point because none of these doctors, psychotherapists could bring his sister back, replace this disease with her or do anything remotely helpful – he could use the money to buy one of Elvis' sofas for his and Joey's apartment instead. Something tangible at least, feelable, breathable like her laughter when she walked into his living room, drinking orange juice from the carton because she was a slob at heart.
"Quit beating off and come give me a hand."
Jeans unbuttoned around his hips, sour cream potato chips, Jesse is enjoying his day off: kicking back and not having to think about death. He's not going to have it ruined by wall primer getting in his hair and having to play ballerina with Stephanie as soon as she gets home. His sister makes faces his plans of fried chicken and going down to the clubs on his new Harley, even though he says he's studying.
"You're watching Oprah," Pam switches it off because apparently she doesn't believe it counts as a social science, and scoots down next to him to bring him out of the couch coma. She smiles on his shoulder – all his cards on the table and she's got the ace; Danny's in LA for an interview for a morning news show that will give the ever expanding family enough money per year to get DJ a horse of her own, Stephanie into the independent kindergarten all her friends are going to and little Michelle can grow up with Mommy at home instead of waist deep in flour twelve hours a day. Her little brother is a soft touch really, "don't make me do it all by myself," – she just out her bottom lip just like her daughters when they want Uncle Jesse to do something he doesn't – "please?"
"As long as I don't have to paint the bunnies."
She gives him a hand up and dust salty coruscations off of his shirt in true Tanner spirit. Jesse realises with 20/20 hindsight that even if the tragedy hadn't have happened, he would've remembered this day anyway; one of those clear May days where winter is a distant memory and there's summer energy buzzing in the air. Him and Pam are getting along like when they were young enough to hang out in their adjoining bedrooms but old enough to not hate each other, she's happier than she's ever been and he's looking well enough that for once she doesn't bug him about getting tested (it all seems to have petered and died off to nothing now anyway).
Even goes so far as to punch him playfully in the arm. "Would it make you feel better," she mocks him and they're giggling like two schoolgirls who haven't got death dates tattooed on the back of their necks, "if I went and got us some beers and a Playboy?"
He tries to convince her to hitch a ride on his bike and pick the car up later, after their family dinner which always was a custom whenever Danny was away and Jesse usually skipped, but she's still hung up on the time they went through a neighbour's manicured hedge and she broke her arm.
Pam says, "see you in five, dude," and the next time he sees his big sister, she's lying on a slab with the same light still in her face. So Jesse sobs into his father's chest, an only child, that she can't be dead.
He always thought that Pam would be there to hold his hand at his first funeral, not on the other side of the altar.
He'd avoided funerals until now, band practice instead of saying goodbye to the junior high janitor, out of town for family friends' but now Jesse's twenty-four and watching a grieving man make a speech about his absent wife, and there's no escaping this one. The baby smiles up at him from his lap in her princess peach dress and grasps at his nose. His tears fall into her hair whilst he watches his mother usher Stephanie up the aisle to go outside. The poor kid never cries. Pews that seat twelve hundred and only have two makes Jesse angry that such a holy place could make it look like his sister didn't matter. Around, the people who fill them look empty-eyed, unblinking as Danny walks back down the steps and sits back beside his eldest. Some of them aren't even wearing suits; neighbours and old friends, none of them knew his sister like he did, he knew she wouldn't have wanted this.
No, the wake is worse. He cannot bear it, this neatly parted hair, slime he cannot bear it. In the house, the one she and Danny bought for family and happy times; she still had pink paint on her hands when she'd come to see him. And now everyone is here, free-loaders looking for booze and everyone else wanting not to talk about Pam but doing nothing but. It's infuriating, just dancing to her favourite songs and telling the kids funny stories, now that's what she would have had in mind, but DJ and Stephanie are in the corner with that girl from next door and Michelle is happy in her crib. This forced sorrow feel disrespectful; his sister wasn't just some old lady, she was young, she would have wanted a party. A celebration! Not this maudlin mingling to the sappiest records in Danny's collection.
It's ten, he could easily slip away now, sheepish little brother smile. He is going to be sick.
Behind the bushes, away from the bright lights and hushed conversation. A teenager again – King Katsopolis, bad boy, he laughs before he starts to cry. The air is icy out, alcoholic as he gulps it in, in until his lungs are full and it hurts. Until he feels pain, pain like she felt. Damn it, sis.
The front door creaks, "I thought you could do with some water."
It is like seeing his own ghost dressed in black and wearing grown-up shoes. He's lost the freshman fifteen that had clung to him even after graduation, but his hairstyle is still questionable. So long ago and still Jesse doesn't try to hide his tears. They sit huddled together on the mosaic steps, praying for the clouds to pass so they can see the stars. No one's thought to ask Jesse how he feels but of course Joey does.
"Pam always talked for both of us at these kind of things, she was good like that."
They stay like that for a while, until the tapping of shoes starts to switch frequency towards the back door checkpoint into an orchestra of condolences. Jesse notices Joey has his jacket on, which is odd just popping out on a spring evening, "you were going?"
Joey has never stayed long at funerals because he's never needed, standing around and getting glared at for making jokes when they were only to mask his own emotion. He's always the guy at the back of the church or funeral parade that no one really knows or can put their finger on why he's there, so slipping out in a rush of smiles and sorrys has never really mattered to anyone. But this is different, "no, I can stay."
Jesse gets out cigarettes and rolls them back and forth in his hands like he's seen in movies but never thought you actually did in real life. He fumbles around in his pocket, finds a bunch of receipts and chucks them all together in next-door's trash – Joey is impressed. He looks at Jesse, a pink scrunchie crushed in his palm, holds it up to throw, Joey grabs his wrist – don't, Jess – slowly replacing sister scented cotton with his fingers, brother letting his head fall onto his shoulder, "my parents are staying here tonight – I don't want to go back to that house on my own."
"Don't, crash at mine."
Jesse looks at him for a split second like he's mad, completely, deliriously insane, but then he says, "thanks, man," and runs inside to grab his things whilst Joey gets the engine running.
Jesse, bitterly, had also always thought that Joey would live in some dingy pervert's basement downtown, but instead of half-cut junkies littering the sidewalk; there are neatly trimmed hedges and picket fences. The various neighbours are pointed out as they cruise nouveau suburbia: the woman three doors down has a drinking problem, Ms Opposite binges and purges on family bags of Cheetos all day whilst her husband's at work because he's sleeping with – no, not his secretary – her best friend, and the gentleman next door to her jacks off every night in his attic room with the lights on and blinds open.
Joey explains, when they pull up at the biggest, most run-down mansionette on the street that he lodges with an old lady at half the rent its worth because she wants a companion rather than a pay check, "but her kids put her in some home down in Palo Alto," he says as he jumps out of the yellow tin can he calls a car, "so I'm staying here just until this last three months rent is up."
Inside, he has made the place his own; Neptune and paper-plate Pluto DJ made him for a birthday one year hang between expensive 1930s siblings, that creepy mannequin Danny pretended to have sex with at his belated bachelor party in the corner – perhaps pervert was the right word after all. Joey isn't like that though; he's going through cupboards for something to go with the tall glasses of milk he's already put on the coffee table. All Jesse actually wants is cigarettes and alcohol, strong enough to cover the sick film on the back of his tonsils, but Joey is trying and he's sweet that makes Jesse feel better than he has in a long time.
Jam saturates in brown bread under lamplight, over stories they share on the betasseled couch, moving closer to each other with each bout of tears. The two Js have changed into matching sweatshirts; Jesse's hair has fought back against beeswax battle and rebels in late night laziness. Joey chatters on because the silence is unbearable and the other listens until the next wave comes. Crumpled and torn together.
"You can sleep in my bed," Joey tries to prop Jesse up in parental tones – they are both sleepy enough to be a little smiley.
"Did Patty accept that invitation?" Jesse asks.
"Didn't offer one."
"Not that time," Jesse grins in the darkening face of grief, sees Joey return it. It's flirtatious, only better because of its ease, not that time. Sees that Joey doesn't have someone's soul sewn to the backs of his heels and their irises glowing up at him in the candid eyes of a child every time he hugs his nieces. He seems to float sometimes, Joey does, between life and Looney Tunes; maybe it's the different type of void. Of never having a sidekick, having to talk twice as much and two times as loud. Make jokes or have them made about you, Jesse gets it now.
He loves him – how can you lance a wound when the salt is already seeping within, he loves him. His sister carried the grace of god with her, she was right, "Pam was the only one I could talk to about…about-"
Joey watches Jesse's face freeze as his throat collapses around the sentence, lips finding a smile that's far too wide, "do you remember that New Year's party… '77, wasn't it? You were staying up for that gig and I-"
Joey puts his hand on his knee, it should be uncomfortable but it's not, "you were far too young to be there."
"You put on Elvis records," Jesse sets down his empty glass, the movement dislodging Joey's hand but Jesse retrieves it with his own and they're holding hands, "you gave me your shirt and I left."
Joey starts to smirk, remembering, and bites his tongue to stay in line because they're moving closer to the dangerous territory that's lain overgrown and gathering dust for four years, "I'll go put the hot water on so you can have a shower," he goes to get up but Jesse is only inches away and gripping him.
"Don't leave me."
"I'm not leaving you, Jess, I'm just-"
"Don't leave me," they melt into the kiss like a warm bath, a deep sleep, a coma but Jesse understands, somehow, that Joey is leaving a small pocket of air in it, so Jesse can pull back and laugh at his own sadness, for the sake of his own ego but he doesn't, won't, he fills the gap with a painful kind of urgency. No words can offer this comfort, this strawberry-sweet tenderness. Falling onto the coach, toppling, Joey gasping.
He draws back, aware of his racing pulse, Jesse's legs either side of him, "are you sure?"
Jesse still has his hands in his hair, "I want this," he mumbles between kisses, "I want you."
Joey does not know, until their lips stick for an extra fraction of a second, until it falls away, the weight of his anxiety. He squirms to stand, Jesse's hand in his, breath on his neck (hot shivering poison), with unshakable confidence that only lust and long days can behold he leads him into his bedroom. Same posters, same bed sheets that have been burned into Jesse's memory for so long. Joey licks away his laughter.
They fumble around in the dark, for buttons and belt buckles, because neither of them wants to take their hands off each other. Their senses are heightened; vibrations are running against the walls, through touch they can see their eyes smouldering into raging seas, body brail. Joey pushes Jesse onto the single bed, rips his zip on the way down.
"Have mercy," Jesse says.
At four Joey is woken by Jesse's gaze boring into his back. He's sitting up against the headboard, wearing a Donald Duck robe and Joey would laugh in his rolled-over sleep haze if Jesse didn't have the red eyes of a fallen Botticelli woman.
"Couldn't sleep, kept thinking."
Joey reaches up and catches Jesse's jaw with his thumb, imploring for him to lie back down: hey, I know.
He switches on his lamp and Jesse falls into the hollow of his chest, doesn't even paw away when Joey starts running the knots out of his hair carefully with his fingers, actually pulls his free arm around him so he's locked at Joey junction. It's a strange kind of a feeling Jesse's never had before, not in his heart but in the pit of his stomach; warmth contained in a world within another's body, anything said here would not go any further than its echo, "it's like now she's actually gone, she's not part of anything else, I didn't think."
Jesse looks up at him and Joey pushes his black hair away from his eyes as he does; they've got a rough cut-diamond look and Joey thinks just for a moment that he's beautiful, "kiss me," Greek god-boy smiles and Joey complies, dutifully on the mouth, "no, for real," this time it's harder because apparently crushed teeth mean something.
The thought knocks the air out of him with closed lips when Jesse wonders whether Joey feels the same, doesn't love him. It sends metallic repercussions down his spine, he doesn't move – three weeks ago he would have got up in a instant and called a cab with his jeans hanging on his hips and shirt balled up in a fist, now he stays, hoping for something.
"What's the point of me staying here," he says deliberately, "mom and dad are going over to my grandparents', and Danny and the kids have got Claire," Jesse looks at Joey and holds it like a challenge, waiting, but Joey doesn't say it.
"Try getting some sleep, buddy."
His eyelids droop and flutter back into sleep. When Jesse whispers I love you, he nods into his pillow and is asleep before realising that the other J never closed his eyes.
When Joey wakes again it's a car horn and an engine running. The cold space beside him is a jolt; suddenly he's running out onto the porch in his robe. A neighbour on the other side of the road is walking her show pooch; this will burn up the inter-suburban phone lines for sure but Joey doesn't care, if he were any more immature he would have poked his tongue out at her. Jesse's there, there up against the taxi, talking to the driver in yesterday's suit and boots, Joey shouts his name before skipping a few too many flagstones in his step.
"Where are you going?"
Jesse can barely turn his head; much less look him in the eye, "don't know."
"Jess, look – please-"
He tears his gaze up and away, watches Joey swallow his feelings back with a look of contempt, "yeah, what are you going to say?"
Joey splutters and flatters until Jesse swings himself into the back of the cab like a rockstar, "Jesse – I was scared, come on – I love you."
"Too late, Joe," one tap and he is gone.
Jess
I'm probably the last person you want to hear from, I get it. I only got your address from DJ because I really had to write you.
3am on the dot – Joey's eyelashes are tiny vibrations of sleep and Jesse is wide awake, second cup of coffee, pacing up and down their room as if to leave marks in the carpet. Ropes, hard liquor, sleeping pills all seem like a good idea. He could go to the convenience store on the corner but Joey might wake and worry, and in truth Jesse doesn't want to be alone, an unconscious presence seems to be keeping him safe.
He rummages through his bag; noisy because Joey is a lighter sleeper than Jesse thinks, for his glasses and notebook, already got the emergency flashlight from the kitchenette. Sits on the chair next to the balcony doors, slightly ajar so at least he has some natural light. He's loved Joey for as many years as this journal is old; Pam, the accomplished diarist in their family, had bought it for him after that fated New Year's to help her little brother with his feelings for her conscience more than his pain, it's a girly thing to do anyway. Instead of essays to empty pages, Jesse's always written lyrics but those pages had been filled long ago and now just crumpled bits of paper are squeezed between the covers. There's a pocket at the back that has lint lining its edges because it hasn't been touched for so long, an envelope enveloped inside it. The letter Jesse was going to write to Becky is forgotten and he reads this until his shoulders start to heave.
Jess? The voice comes from his business partner's bed and the sheets are pulled back, not in Jesse's imagination. He climbs in, Joey's warmth and smell a comfort but not the same, turns his head into his chest and Joey rambles on about stuff that doesn't matter until he stops crying, is asleep.
Jess
I'm probably the last person you want to hear from, I get it. I only got your address from DJ because I really had to write you.
My friend, Tom – owner of your favourite bar, remember? He died a couple days ago. It was really sudden like they're saying. And you know what he was like; he was a tough guy, Jesse. Please look after yourself; you're not as indestructible as you think, okay? It would mean so much to Jeff if you could make it on Thursday. Call your mom if you can't come home, everyone misses you. I miss you.
Hope you got to Graceland.
Your pal, Joey
Rain turns a narrow path into streams of mud and dead birds. Fall has condensed, because it's the kind of rain that sizzles on your shoulders and clings to your bones even in warmth; Joey has his hands around a coffee cup. The number twenty-seven bus is swelling like a cow, on the other side of the window, ready for the slaughter with damp commuters tugging on its udders, the sign should read: next stop, Burger King. Close enough to San Francisco that Joey didn't have to fly but a good few hundred miles of neutral ground between them so Jesse didn't feel like he was being cagouled into anything. A diner; roller-skates, and spiders trapped under glass prisms of sugar shakers. Crooks and cops sit side by side at the bar, sharing a bottle of mustard and the smell of each other's bacon.
Jesse is three refills and a jam doughnut late, ordering even before he looks at Joey and still presumes he's paying; pancakes, sausages, toast, two chocolate muffins, and it does look like he hasn't eaten in the three months he's been away. Joey watches him with a grateful ease, pleased to see him but somehow not able to stop himself retracing the golden spots his lips had been that are now tinged with sadness. He pours their coffee just as a trucker drops his plate and it shatters against the patchwork tiles, Joey jumps and Jesse scoffs into a mouthful of saturated fat.
"No way," he says in a breath before ordering an ice cream sundae – not a chance – when the waitress has gone away.
Joey waits until he's got to the sauce surprise at the bottom of the glass to speak again. It is a tall order to ask any twenty-four year old to move in with his brother-in-law and help raise his three daughters, especially if they've only just started along the promising career path of chief dish washer in a Tennessee tavern.
But Jesse only has a caramel heart that has been candied by grief and starts to melt as soon as he sips his coffee; stupid Joey, blonde kanga dipshit can barely write his own name and yet he remembers an exact Katsopolis ratio of caffeine to creamer, "I need terms and conditions," he stirs in the beating Sweet'N Low, "no diapers, no dinner duties – I'm just the cool uncle."
"Right."
The next two hours pass in a flurry of twenty dollar bills added to their tab, and negotiations that make anything between Russia and Reagan seem like a game of Go Fish; Jesse has Stephanie's room and Joey has the alcove, unless it's to do with the kids or absolutely imperative, they do not make conversation, and bathroom rotas are to be strictly adhered to as to avoid any awkward mishaps. They don't talk about why all these rules are necessary, they dodge the truth like true politicians, frown into crumbled napkins while wiping their mouths instead.
Sparks fizz, pop and smoulder between their fingertips like the static on the end of the telephone when Joey had called Jesse long-distance and toyed with the cord in his hands. Face-to-face disturbance is a fly landing on the jukebox and changing the song, or the rowdy couple in the booth behind them. And then the two of them look at each other, smiling in spite of themselves, wondering if they would have ever been like that until Jesse slopes off to the restroom like a condemned man making his final walk. Joey knows Jesse hasn't forgiven him, probably never will, and anything he says now will seem hollow in hindsight – I love you never sounds the same when it's been mulled over.
"One week," Jesse repeats once they're in the car lot, astride his motorbike and Joey with the gas pump in his hand, ready to wave the dust the away, "I'm only staying one week and then you and Danny will have to learn to look after yourselves.
Of course it isn't one; weeks are like drinks and it's never just one drink. It's two, three, four until they're passing the bottle to and fro, buzzing with rebellion and excitement. A month into their co-habitation, one night when his sister's ghost can be seen in every mirror, Jesse finds himself wandering around the kitchen in search of milk and solace. He pours two glasses because he knows his cartoon comfort is sat on the couch, TV barely buzzing in the silence. It's four O'clock in the morning and he doesn't want to play his guitar up in the attic until the milkman comes again.
The living room is dark, with Joey's face glistening in the multi-coloured glare; he moves his legs so Jesse can sit down beside him and hands him a blanket, not uttering a word until Yogi has got his picnic basket –
There's always an until with you, Pam used to say, you put something off until something else happens; there won't always be time for that, Jesse, sometimes now is good. Maybe that's why he's here when the sun isn't even up, between Joey and a hard place because she won't let her brother live comfortably in her house until he makes peace with him.
– The insomnia wasn't bad at first because Jesse still had plenty of songs to write about fast cars and funerals, now he's just left with feelings he can't hide in verse, practising popular songs that don't really mean anything but will go down well at the Smash Club, the kind of crowds that don't know what its like to have a dead person following you around. He's thinking about getting close to Jesus but he turns to Joey on nights like this. The rules they made have ended up being like every other code of conduct that has been presented to Jesse Katsopolis, he broke them. Treads the line as if there's a principle to catch him out when really the only thing he's letting down is his own. It snowballed in the September heat, it wasn't intentional (he tries to bargain with himself), a quick jab in the ribs to going to the grocery store together, they never intended to fall back into old habits.
I don't love him. I don't love him. I don't love him is what echoes most nights into unfamiliar pillows that smell of lemon fabric softener and baby oil; times when he feels fifteen again but doesn't have Pam to soothe him. Maybe he parted his hair a certain way, Joey has that day, or read a particular story to Stephanie that made Jesse want to be the one he was putting to bed. Perhaps it's not as innocent as that, and he has to roll onto his side and focus on the pink bunnies instead of forbidden fruit overflowing. Paper cuts on magazines. Daisy chains DJ makes in the wind. They mean nothing, his feelings, but then he'll see Joey chatting up the cashier at the gas station to check his watch and know that they meansomething.
"Jess," Joey whispers, their eyes locking hand on thigh as he leaned over the other man to get the remote, hovering now plastic, flesh and pyjama cotton.
"We can't."
They both know it's true; it's been true ever since they moved in, but hearing it aloud makes it shatteringly loud. The milkman clatters up the front steps bearing three pints and a moment of consideration. Even if – there is an if there for possibility – they loved each other, they can't go fucking under Danny's roof, break his trust; he wouldn't see it as it really is, it'd be hell, unbearable, a second nightmare coming true, his wife just died. They can't. Joey has tears welting in his pores and Jesse bites his lip. Michelle starts to cry too as though on cue and he gets up, shaking off the dust. He presses a hand into Joey's shoulder and Joey touches his fingers before he starts to climb the stairs.
"I love you, Jesse."
"I love you too, Joseph."
A/N: Title comes from Round Here and chapter titles from August and Everything After both by Counting Crows. This was so emotional to write, if you could favourite/comment that would really mean a lot to me. Thank you.