Title: Perfectly or Not
Author: JMB
Spoilers: Pride
Summery: It's hard to love someone… perfectly or not.
Disclaimer: I don't own a single character in this story, some Canadian does so don't even think about suing me. Okay?
Jimmy Brooks likes taking care of people. You may not know that about him, but it's true. It's a story as old as time—well, maybe not that ancient, but it's a pretty old story.
Jimmy likes to be needed—wanted.
When he's thirty-something and neurotic, a therapist is gonna say Jimmy has serious abandonment issues with his parents and that's why he can't have a normal relationship. Jimmy's faced that about himself. He doesn't like it, because he knows it's why he'll lose future lovers.
It's why he lost Ashley.
He loved her by the way. In a way, he never really got over her. He understands why she left him. Oh, forget about Sean "the thug" Cameron, because Jimmy's figured out it wasn't about that idiot. It was about Ashley. It was about him. Jimmy knows now he came on too strong. Held on too tightly. God, if he'd been any other guy and Ashley had acted that clingy and over-bearing with him, he would've bailed real quick.
Of course realizing he was deranged when it came to romantic relationships didn't change Jimmy in the slightest. He accepted he was emotional, clingy, and all too willing to give his whole heart at the tiniest hint someone needed him—wanted him.
Maybe he'd grow out of it one day, but until then, Jimmy was going to stay the way he was until he worked out some other way to be.
It was all too on the nose, that was Jimmy's problem with the whole situation. If it were a movie the plot would be so glaringly obvious the audience would be sitting in their seats rolling their eyes and counting the minutes until the celluloid travesty's closing credits scrolled up the screen. Yeah, Jimmy's more upset about the predictable turn his love life has taken than by the fact he has more than friendly feelings for Marco Del Rossi.
What bothers Jimmy even more is that he should have seen it coming a kilometer away. His only excuse is that that night was fast, brutal, and confusing as hell. Marco, covered in blood and bruises, was trying not to cry while sirens from the police cars wailed and the female cop questioned them with rapid-fire speed and professionalism.
Jimmy couldn't take his eyes off Marco. Jimmy knows how people react to being beat up—hell, he'd been beat up—and he knows how they react afterwards. Looking at Marco, Jimmy knows something more happened to his friend beyond getting a beat down. Jimmy knew it the same way he knew there was trouble when Marco's cell cut out.
So Jimmy pushed and pushed, because he doesn't know how not to push, to get the truth out of Marco. He didn't quite get the answers he was looking for, but Jimmy definitely got a response. Marco practically leapt into him, sobbing and trembling violently in Jimmy's arms.
It shocked Jimmy at first, because guys don't bawl in front of other people no matter what. They didn't hug other guys either. Not unless they just won a game, or something.
But Jimmy wouldn't have thrown Marco off for anything at that moment. Every other instinct he had made him hold Marco closer. Every fiber of his being told him to take care of his friend.
Jimmy held on to Marco so long the other boy's tears, spit and blood soaked through his shirt. He didn't let him go until the police dropped them off in front of Marco's house and Jimmy eased him into his parents care.
Jimmy remained blissfully unaware for almost eight weeks. He got seven glorious weeks of not pining for someone utterly unaware and/or indifferent to his ineffectual crush. Until he managed to be in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
Jimmy never wondered or cared why he had no problem with Marco being gay—which he put together the day after the bashing—he just accepted. It never occurred to him he shouldn't, because that's what friends do. He paid closer attention to Marco, of course. Given the circumstances that wasn't strange, and he gave Spinner hell for being an ass about Marco's sexuality. Again, to Jimmy it was all part of being a friend.
Friendship's why he forgave Spin for stealing from him. Friends aren't something you throw away for anything, even when they make you mad. And Jimmy didn't think on his worst day he could shut Marco out, not after holding him while he cried his heart out from fear and hurt.
He remembers the exact second the epiphany clobbered him up side the head—the concussion from which he suffers even to this day.
He was shooting hoops alone after school on the courts behind the gymnasium. Spin was off sniffing after Paige somewhere, 'cause let's face it: the kid had it bad for Degrassi's reigning queen. When Jimmy finished they: Jimmy, Spin and Marco, were supposed to meet up at Craig's to practice a new routine for their band.
Jimmy loved basketball. He loved being good at basketball. It was the only thing he did well that he gave a damn about. He didn't get good to impress his parents either. He practiced and trained with dedication because both made his body perform at its peak when he played, which allowed him to be the best on every court he played on.
Jimmy liked being the best.
It was just incidental basketball allowed Jimmy to focus on it and not the persistent mess his life turned out to be.
A complete coincidence.
He'd been doing lay-ups for half an hour and was about to start refining his free throws when he saw them. Marco and Dylan. Marco's back was to Jimmy. Dylan faced Marco, towering over him.
They were talking, and Dylan was clearly flirting with Marco. No, Jimmy couldn't hear a word they said, but he recognized the warm smile and smoldering gleam in the older boy's eyes for what it was. Hell, even Spinner wouldn't miss what that look meant, that's how evident it was.
The fact Marco wasn't running for his life under that kind of attention made Jimmy smile. He was glad Marco was getting comfortable with the attraction Dylan had for him, and vice versa, because it sucked when two people care about each other but all one of them wanted to do was find reasons why they couldn't be together.
Jimmy believed if you're in love you should want to be with the person you love all the time no matter what. He lived and died by that belief. Ashley's image flashed through his mind, and he wondered if maybe aloofness on occasion wasn't the way to go? Considering how fast Ashley dumped his butt the first, second, and third chance she got.
Jimmy took his eyes off of the couple, or rather the pre-couple, still enjoying the benefits of ignorance being bliss, and started to practice his free throws. He went on practicing for ten minutes, making eighty shots out of a hundred before moving on to footwork. This is where he really shined, he thought. There was no one he couldn't make a clown out of with his footwork on a court.
He had a good rhythm going when he looked up and saw Dylan with his hand on Marco's face, both now in profile, as his thumb briefly stroked Marco's brown cheek before he stepped back and began backing away. When Jimmy looked at Marco, the basketball got away from him and bounced off into the chain link fence enclosing the court.
It wasn't like Marco showed a flirty smile, or smiled at all. That probably wouldn't have bothered Jimmy as much, he thought. The look on Marco's face is… Jimmy doesn't know how to describe the look on Marco's face. He's staring at Dylan with wide eyes, his cheeks flushed, and Jimmy can see from meters away he's breathing hard.
It wasn't any of that that made Jimmy drop the ball though, it was Marco lowering his head and raising his fingers to his lips.
Dylan had just kissed him.
At first, when denial was still a viable option in Jimmy's head, he tried to believe he was disgusted two guys just kissed. His stomach felt twisted up, and he was angry. So angry he wanted to put his fist through a wall! Of course he was disgusted! What else could the emotion boiling inside him be?
Marco's tongue slowly slid over his upper lip before he drew his bottom lip into his mouth to wholly taste Dylan's kiss. Jimmy watched it happen and instantly all his denials vanished. Because after seeing that, all he wanted was for Marco to relish his kisses. Not Dylan's—his.
Jimmy knew his expression at that moment looked a lot like the one Marco wore, except his wide eyes and rapid breath came from an entirely different place—a weird, crazy place. Dylan's expression, though, is the complete opposite of shock and bewilderment. He'd stopped walking away and stared at Marco like he wanted to snatch the boy up and help lick those lips… and kiss those lips… and do other things with those lips…
Jimmy turned his back on the scene, and walked over to his basketball. He didn't pick the ball up; he kicked it into the fence over and over. The links rattling somehow felt soothing. The same way that crazy guy from the Langoliers must have been soothe when he ripped up sheets of paper to calm his nerves.
He didn't just think that, did he? That he wanted to kiss Marco? No…no, that couldn't be right. Marco's a good friend. That's all. Not somebody Jimmy wanted to…
Who turns gay in one day?
I'm definitely not gay, never in my life have I wondered 'what would it be like to…' with a guy, not until two minutes ago, anyway, Jimmy thought to himself.
Jimmy stopped kicking the basketball and picked it up and turned back towards the court. He was through thinking about boys kissing, and kissing boys. There was in fact nothing—
"Gahahh!" Jimmy shouted.
Marco was standing in front of him.
Marco leaned back at Jimmy's outburst and said, "Hey, what's up?"
"Jesus, man! You scared the hell out of me!"
In more ways than one, Jimmy added in his head.
"I scare the jock? Little ol' me?" Marco asked with huge smile.
Jimmy saw there was more joy in Marco's smile than ridicule.
I guess getting your first kiss from the man you love would make anyone ecstatic, Jimmy thought bitterly.
Amazing, five minutes ago he was delighted Marco let Dylan make him happy, now all he wished was for Dylan to drop dead within the next five minutes, please.
"Yeah, you do. You scare me the way small woodland creatures scare me," Jimmy said crisply, like he would to some random Grade 7 who foolishly thought it was okay to talk to him in the halls. "Congratulations: you're a ferret."
The cold retort was lost on Marco, he went right on grinning and even laughed at Jimmy's insult.
"Good one!" he said, punching Jimmy in the shoulder.
Goddamn, he's practically jolly!
"Yeah… right," Jimmy said and started to bounce the basketball between them, looking off to the side at a fire hydrant across the street. "What do you what, anyway?"
"Craig wants to practice tonight because he has a new song he wants us to play," Marco answered.
Jimmy looked back at Marco. "Why the hell are you telling me something I already know?"
For the first time since the conversation started Marco's stupid grin disappeared and he looked embarrassed.
"I thought maybe—and I'll wait until you get done practicing—we can walk there… together…"
Jimmy caught the ball in his hands and watched Marco fidget as he waited for him to answer.
Why does he want me to walk him five blocks? Geeze, he really is a little sissy if he needs me… to…
Then it hit Jimmy why Marco wanted go together.
Man, am I an idiot! No, I am the biggest idiot to ever idiot idiot! And let's add a bit of 'I'm an ass' to the mix, too. Is assidiot a word? It should be, because it'd fit me to a 'T' if it were.
"No, I'm finished… let me get my gym bag together and we'll go," Jimmy said, feeling about as low as any upright creature on two legs could get.
He walked around Marco and went over to his gym bag sitting open on a bench.
"Great. That's great," Marco mumbled, the glee in his voice was gone, replaced by quiet misery.
Jimmy couldn't help but feel responsible for that. He was responsible. And it was never more obvious why the people he loved always left him.