Not my characters, and I make no money from them.
Unbeta'd.
Chapter 3
That Wednesday afternoon found Jack sitting on a little brick wall outside the basement door to his dorm. He went through three cigarettes, huddled inside his jacket, his steamy exhalations mingling with the smoke. Two pm came and went, and nothing, before he gave up and wandered inside. He got the message. Ennis wasn't never comin' back. Jack didn't even spare the time to worry for his grade. It wasn't his grade he cared about no more.
Friday at discussion section, Dr. Pitt showed up, complete with a scowl, and explained how their TA wouldn't be TAing any more this semester 'cause he felt he'd gotten too close to one of the students. Jack did the rudest thing he done in his life at that point, and got up and left class right in front of the professor. He felt Dr. Pitt's eyes staring holes in the back of his jacket. Pitt wasn't a stupid man, and he must know what this meant, but Jack didn't hardly care. He didn't understand how, but he already felt like everything that'd ever mattered to him was a fake, some ghost of real life. He felt like maybe he'd found the real thing at last, but fucked it up just like everything else. Just like his daddy had always said.
Jack dined at Taco Tower that night, half expecting to see Ennis, but no such luck. He managed to catch up late with some friends of his at a bar, drunk himself under the table with his fake ID, and stumbled back to his door room to pass out alone, where just one week ago...
Ennis had never done anything harder than what he had to do that week, telling Dr. Pitt that he'd gotten close to a student and had to give up his job as TA. He never felt smaller than when Dr. Pitt glared at him, disappointment seeping from his mentor like an odor. Still, the professor thanked him for his candor, and said he'd take care of it. Ennis was just glad that Dr. Pitt hadn't found out that the student was a boy. There bein' only five girls in the class of over thirty, though, Ennis hated the shadow he cast over all of them in his professor's mind.
Wednesday was a hard day, an' Ennis took all his books to the library and studied some of his hardest research subjects until his brain throbbed and his eyes blurred and frustrations were caused by physics and not nothin' else. He didn't hardly spare a thought for where he wasn't and who might be waitin' for him there.
Friday night, Ennis sat in his one-man apartment and ate ramen with such a small appetite he didn't finish it until the noodles were cold and oily. He wished he'd had a beer, but he followed the soup with a generic-brand pop and tried not to think of where he'd been and what he'd been doing exactly one week ago.
Monday morning Ennis had a research meetin' with Dr. Pitt. Ennis felt his shame was written all over his face through the meetin', and maybe it were, but that was ok since Dr. Pitt was still lookin' disappointed, an' he might be appeased by shame. The meeting went alright, though. Ennis was happy to leave there, but it weren't gonna happen too quickly. Even as he was turning to leave, Dr. Pitt stopped him.
"Ennis, one more thing."
"Uh." Ennis turned towards his advisor.
"I, uh, wanted ta talk to you about a student."
Ennis ground his teeth together with nerves and a little touch of angry, though he wasn't sure who at.
"Sure thing," he managed to mumble.
"Jack Twist, you were tutoring him, right."
Ennis felt the color leave his face, and he hid his eyes.
"He walked out of discussion on Friday."
"That right?"
"Has done that before?"
"No sir."
Ennis hazarded a glance up at Dr. Pitt now, saw something like compassion mixing with disgust, and knew just like that he was caught. Ennis flushed bright red and ducked his head again.
"Well, he failed his exam."
Ennis didn't say anything, didn't trust his voice, and didn't think he could make it work anyway.
"He's been doing pretty well on his homeworks since you started tutoring him."
Ennis just focused on the worn brown carpet of Dr. Pitt's small office. It had seen better days, and Ennis could tell where the swinging open and closed of the door had worn it nearly bare.
"Ennis, you haven't been doing his homework for him, have you?"
The injustice of that sentence stung Ennis hard enough that he forgot his embarrassment, his head swinging up, and his eyes locking on Dr. Pitt's. "No sir, never. Jack ain't so smart as some students, but he work his ass off for what he done."
Dr. Pitt held his gaze. "Then how do you explain that he failed the exam?"
Ennis dropped his head again, murmured something too low for even himself to hear it.
"How's that?"
"Nothin'"
"Well, I think I might have to look into this. I'm pretty sure he's cheating on the homeworks."
"He ain't cheating." Ennis was watching where the old metal desk had had paint scratched up by some less-than-careful former owner.
"Well, the exam was pretty much straight from the homeworks, so he should have been able to do it."
Ennis mumbled again.
"What was that?"
Ennis cleared his throat. He couldn't believe he was about to say this, but it was already plain to him that Dr. Pitt had figured out what was between him and Jack. "He, uh, thought you'd be proctoring. Think he was distracted."
Dr. Pitt blew out a tense puff of air. "Ennis..." his voice was the very definition of frustration, "well, you really screwed Jack over."
Ennis was sure Dr. Pitt meant Jack's grade, but Ennis was caught between realizing he'd abandoned Jack emotionally and academically, and knowing he'd had to because screwing Jack Twist was exactly what he'd had in mind for over seven solid days.
"Alright. Whatever. He's to blame, too, I guess, so let's hope he can muddle through."
Ennis just stood there for a second. Dr. Pitt looked up, surprised. "Did you have a question or something? You're clear on your research, right?"
Realizing he was being chased from the office, Ennis didn't hesitate to turn tale and run, right on back to the life he'd had just hours before. But something was different. Someone knew about him and Jack. But Dr. Pitt had been more frustrated about Jack's grades than anything else, and probably about having to teach the discussion himself. Ennis thought maybe it would be alright.
Or it would be alright if maybe he could just see Jack again. Just needed to see Jack. Needed him like a sleepy man craves a bed.
By Wednesday morning, Ennis was sick with it. He stood outside the student union wearing a ratty old T-shirt, a ratty old hoodie pulled loosely over that. Ennis craved the burning cold because it took his mind off another burning. He just watched students. Watched boyfriends and girlfriends holding hands and giggling. Watched solo students looking self-concerned and serious. Others were reading the school newspaper or magazine. A couple were in ROTC and in uniforms. Many were rushing. So much life and thoughts going on around him, it made him dizzy. But he didn't need them to be dizzy, being dizzy with his own thoughts.
By two pm, he didn't even know what he was doing, but he was in the basement of Jack's dorm, no Jack in sight. Ennis couldn't get upstairs on his own, the housing part of the building being separated from the two or three classrooms in the basement. Still, tailgating into dorms was nothing new, and Ennis didn't even have to wait three minutes. He remembered the floor, he remembered the room, and before he knew it he was standing right outside of it. He pulled off his hood and simply stood at the door for a solid ten minutes before he mustered the most feeble-sounding knock he'd ever heard.
But no one answered.
He tried again, a little firmer this time, and the door swung open.
Jack's eyebrows knit together. Ennis made a noise, meant to be something like a "hey there," but coming out barely above a mumble, and literally pushed his way into the room. He just stood there for a moment, hands hooked into his jean pockets. He wanted to say something, apologize maybe for abandoning Jack to the whim of physics without a tutor, apologize maybe for coming all over his bean bag chair, or maybe apologize for not... for not being here in Jack's room again before now. But he couldn't make any of those apologies come.
"Hey there." It was like Jack sensed them anyway. "Ennis." Jack's voice was thick with worry. "Ennis?" Jack's hand was warm on Ennis's shoulder, and suddenly, with that touch, something inside snapped again, and he turned, moaning out all his apologies in a sigh of regret.
"Ennis." Jack's firm grip grew tighter, kept adjusting itself, pulling, until Jack had pulled Ennis's unshaved chin down onto his shoulder. Jack wrapped both arms around him, rubbing his back a little bit. The rubbing seemed to coax the courage out of where it'd coiled in Ennis's stomach, and he murmured ever so lightly an "I'm sorry" into Jack's shoulder.
But Jack said magic words to make everything better. Squeezing a bit tighter, he shushed, "It's alright, Ennis. Everythin's alright. I'm fine."
Ennis's groan now was less with guilt and much, much more with desire. Jack must have felt it, too, because he pulled Ennis's head back up from his shoulder, Jack's thumbs finding purchase on Ennis's jaw, and like gravity that Ennis was supposed to know so much about but still, it seemed, couldn't predict, Ennis's lips found Jack's. He was scared at first, this person being a boy and not a girl like it should a been, and maybe kissing a boy would be gross, but his lips found otherwise, found warm, found strong, found beauty in a way his eyes hadn't seen, and suddenly Ennis couldn't throw himself hard enough into the kiss. Soon Jack was gasping for air, Ennis grasping for clothes, just needing someplace to put his hands, to put his hands against Jack, against Jack. He slipped his fingers under Jack's untucked white button-down shirt, but found it wasn't enough. Jack must have felt it too, because he helped Ennis with the buttons, and when Ennis was running his hands around the muscled chest of a boy, he thought his heart might as well just explode right there, because it was like coming home, Oh God, it was heaven. And he needed more.
Jack sensed that too, and lowered them onto the bean bag, pressing the weight of Ennis down on top of himself. Ennis could feel Jack was shaking, too, this also being his first time kissing a boy. It made Ennis feel better to know how unalone he was in this, in this torment, in this fear, and in this other emotion he didn't know that seemed to swallow all those other ones in meaninglessness. It swallowed all meaning whole and left him with only want-need-bliss-want-need-bliss in an endless cycle.
When Jack's hands flew to his own fly, Ennis started shaking a little more. When Jack's hands finished there and went to Ennis's fly, the shaking turned into freezing solid. He just froze there, propped over Jack, half on a bean bag. Ennis fixed on Jack's eyes, wanting and needing so badly to tell Jack how afraid he was of what he was sure was about to happen, what he was sure he needed to happen.
He saw the fear echoed in Jack's eyes, and it warmed him all the way through. Ennis couldn't help himself, and he dove in for another blistering kiss, violent and at the same time tender.
And suddenly things were happening faster. Jack pulled his pants down, flipped over, panted, "You can do me Ennis. I ain't afraid." Ennis knew it for a lie, but he also knew why Jack was saying it.
Ennis pumped his hard dick a couple times to get ready. Shaking, but not shaking as much as Jack, he snaked his cock up the crack of Jack's ass, looking for the entrance. Shit, he hadn't even done this with a girl, let alone this. They hadn't covered nothin' like this in sex ed.
He found it, Jack still panting, whispering sweet "come on, come on"s beneath his breath.
Still, finding and entering turned out to be two different things, and, weighty with need, he still couldn't quite get where ne needed to be, so he spit in his hand to help the journey.
That did seem to help, and as he entered Jack the feelings his got, this being his first time ever, and with a boy no less, a shaky panting boy who couldn't draw an accurate space-time diagram to save his life, Ennis thought he might just explode there. His Jack, who was always so happy, so cheerful, going with his friends to basketball games, never taking science as seriously as really he should, because he wanted to be doing other things, the boy who'd drug him to Taco Tower and listened to him about his childhood, about his parents, this boy who told him about his daddy and about the stars, told Ennis about the stars in a way no textbook could have ever done.
Ennis floated back to earth. He hadn't moved yet, just hovering inside Jack like one might stand at the gate of heaven and beg to be found worthy to proceed. Jack was swearing a little under his breath, breathing hard, muttering, "just give me a second, a second, alright, just, ok. Ok. Just let me."
And with those words, words Ennis would always, always treasure for a reason he couldn't understand-- just let me-- Jack slowly slipped back onto him, breathing hard, back rising and falling underneath Ennis's weight. Entrance. Not only was Jack letting Ennis into heaven, he was taking him there.
A shudder that no longer sounded like pain, but like pleasure, finally shushed past Jack's lips, and Ennis began to move, to rock and pull, anything that felt good. Jack had snaked a hand around to grasp one of Ennis's hips, holding them tight together, until they both finished the deed, Jack swearing a little. Ennis didn't even pull out, just collapsed somewhat off-center on top of Jack on top of that bean bag and fell asleep.
Jack was ushered back to life by a familiar sound, though it took a full second for him to place it. A second he soon realized he didn't have. The sound was a rattle-- the rattle of his roommate's keys in door. Jack didn't remember locking it, but he mostly did by instinct, some thefts having happened in the building this year, one even while someone was asleep in their unlocked room.
"Shit." He cursed and lept to his feet, seeing that the sky was the color of twilight, squirming out from under Ennis and trying to pull up his jeans simultaneously. Not quickly enough. The door swung open and Brett was talking almost before he'd opened the door. Stuff went fast from there.
"Jack! Did you---"
"Fuck, Ennis, get up."
"Hnh."
"Who the hell? Jack?"
"Uh."
Ennis was stumbling up, catching onto the situation, if the red colored patches on his cheeks were any indication, and fumbling with his fly. Jack was likewise fumbling with his fly. Seemed the whole conversation could wait three seconds for them to be decent.
Brett was staring at the bean bag like he was going to vomit, and looking a little pale to boot.
"Brett. This Ennis. My TA. In physics." Jack was still a little out of breath.
"Jack, you--- oh my God, I---" he spun on his heels then, and called as he was heading down the hallway, "fuck you!"
That was the the general idea, Jack thought, only it wasn't you, but Ennis here. My TA. Shit.
"Fuck," spat Ennis.
Jack could see Ennis was upset, but somehow he simply couldn't help but giggle.
"What's so funny, huh? We done that! And he caught us! And now he'll tell people for sure, an' we ain't... this ain't."
"Calm down, Ennis. Brett can be an ass sometimes, but he won't tell anyone nothin' like this. That he been roomin' with a fairy? Not likely." He laughed again.
But Jack immediately sobered when he caught Ennis's glance again. Ennis wasn't foolin' and he wasn't joking, he was threatening when he said it. "You a fairy, Jack?"
Jack's head spun. "Huh? I, uh."
"Cause I sure as hell ain't gay or none a that queer shit."
Huh? Alright. "Well... no. I mean, I'm not gay. Least I don't think so. I just..."
"Yeah."
"Yeah..." Jack said it with wonder, not understanding the magnitude of what had just happened, and knowing he and Ennis were both thinking about just that.
"Well, maybe that's the only time we do that. This is crazy."
Jack chuckled, knowing there simply had to be another, and another, and... whoa there cowboy.
"You sure he ain't gonna tell?"
"Well, I doubt he wants to room with me no more, but no, he'll make up some other excuse."
They stood in silence for a minute, the sheer magnitude of what they'd just done together, and not just the sex, but the kiss, oh God, the kiss, shimmering untenable on some foreign horizon. It would have to be dealt with some day, but Jack thought right now there were plenty of more urgent matters.
Giving Ennis a tentatively hopeful smile, Jack asked, "Say, you up for Taco Tower?"