Disclaimer: Not my characters, and I make no money from them.
AN: Unbeta'd.

Chapter 11

"Ennis,

Please don't feel so bad. I think Germany's doing you some good. You talked to some people. That's good. Real good. i'm real proud. I know you don't need me saying it, but i am. I'm doing alright. Dont feel so bad on my account. I will always still be here when you are done. I know it's not the best way to say it, but i love you and you are doing just fine. Gonna kick my ass in school when you get back, huh? As usual. But i'll take you out for tacos maybe. Bet there aren't any good Mexican food in Germany. Just sausage crap? Good beer though. Can't blame you for getting drunk.

Jack."

Ennis stared at the words for an eternity. The room was dark. Ryan was tucked into his bed and making silly little sounds through his nose, the soft snores indicating that he was fast asleep. Apparently the eerie blue cast the monitor gave to everything in the room didn't even phase Ryan in his quest for slumber. Ennis had sat up later than usual awaiting just this-- an e-mail from Jack.

But when it came it overwhelmed him with its words. The e-mail itself seemed to rise up and take on a life of its own, as if the e-mail was Ennis's lover and not Jack Twist, and Ennis wished he could grab the e-mail and have his way with it. The need rose up strong, but it wouldn't be decent with Ryan in the room, and the bathroom was down the hall.

...Though it was likely to be deserted this late. Some of the guys might still be up doing homework, but what were the odds of running in to someone...?

Ennis didn't think about it twice. He paused long enough to memorize the one sentence he needed more than any other, "i'm real proud." It would be able to get him through whatever he needed help gettin' through, he just knew it. Ennis didn't have a clue why he cared so much that Jack was proud, but as an orphan, and maybe even before, an' with a hard ass professor like Pitt, he didn't remember the last time anyone'd taken a minute to let him know they were proud.

Not until know, when his boyfriend had e-mailed Ennis to tell him how proud Jack Twist was of his man. Ennis found it was a strange thing that now that he and Jack were apart, Ennis wanted to use the word boyfriend, wanted to scratch it into his skin to remind him of the other sentences in the e-mail, the "I will always still be here" and the "i love you", even though he was pretty sure that back home he would have punched someone for usin' such a word. Seemed Jack was right about Germany doin' somethin', anyway, though Ennis wasn't as convinced as Jack was that it was a good thing.

Ennis was moving out of the dorm room and down the hallway, feeling strange in such bright light in the middle of the night. Before he could ask his feet what the hell they really thought they were doing, he busted into the awkwardly small bathroom. Two shower stalls and two toilet stalls faced a wall of urinals and sinks. He chose a toilet stall. If he'd been thinking, maybe he could have come for a shower, but he hadn't been thinking, and he still wasn't thinking by his own estimation.

Jack, Jack, Jack... his mind hissed as if it were some sort of incantation that could shuttle Jack across the Atlantic and land him right here in this bathroom, but instead it simply accompanied the shaking of Ennis's fingers like music as he bolted the stall with on hand, the other already fumbling for his pants zipper.

He was hard already. He had been at least a little bit excited since he'd seen that name in his inbox, but reading it had raised the flag to full staff. Now, he simply couldn't wait a moment. As he laid hands on himself, trying to heal some aching need, it wasn't the way Jack's butt muscles curved into the darkening target of Ennis's desires, or the way Jack's balls felt faintly like velvet against his lips, or the red-hot curve of Jack's dick that he thought of. He thought on the weight of his boyfriend in his arms, of being able to hold him and never ever let him go. Or even if he could not have never ever, Ennis would have traded any amount of treasure just for just one minute of Jack for real, right there. With that thought, Ennis shot hard into the toilet.

Jack Twist who was real proud of his man would be waiting for him always and loved him.

"Sorry!" Jack was thoroughly embarrassing himself with the Frisbee.

But Randy didn't seem to mind. He waved a friendly wave and loped off to get it. The days had gotten a lot cooler, and Jack was wearing heavier clothes with a sweatshirt, but sports were still possible. Randy turned out to be a Frisbee guy. Jack had never played, but that had only been to Randy like blood to a mountain lion, and Randy was on the scent. Finally, after weeks of friendship, the weather'd gotten nice enough to make a little toss-and-fetch possible.

And no doubt about it, the Randy looked like he ought to be fetching something. His strawberry-blond hair jutted in all directions. His face was ruddy with exertion, and Jack couldn't help but wonder what other kinds of exertion might redden his face, but he pushed that thought away quickly.

It was five weeks since Ennis and Jack had discovered e-mail, and phone calls had become a little less regular since then. Randy and Spectrum were his dirty little secret from Ennis, though Jack didn't know if that counted as one secret or two. But either way the secret was holding strong. Jack didn't want to fight over all that distance. Ennis had taken the "I love you" e-mail like a romantic pro, and Jack didn't even pretend that Ennis would have reacted the same way in person. Some things were just easier over the ocean.

But some things weren't, and Jack's body and mind were waging a war as to who missed Ennis more.

Jack caught and threw the Frisbee back to Randy with mechanical ease. Maybe he could learn to be a natural at this if he gave it enough time. About time he discovered he was a natural at something.

"Ennis? Are you free? Can I see you in my office for a minute?"

Ennis looked up from his computer, mouth open in surprise. Greg almost never wanted to talk to Ennis. "Uh, sure." What else could he say?

Ennis followed Greg down the hallway to Greg's office and sat in a chair across from Greg's desk.

"We have a little travel money," Greg started. "Liz and Yusef are going to be giving talks at the AAS, and I was wondering if you wanted to go as well? For experience."

"The what?"

"Double-A-S. The American Astronomical Society Meeting. It's in Washington, D.C. in January."

"Oh, I..."

"I think you should. We'd pay all expenses from the grant. You would room with Yusef."

"Oh, uh... alright." Ennis didn't even see that he was being asked. It sounded much more like he was being told, so certainly he didn't see how he could say anything else.

"Good. I think it's a great opportunity to see what fields of astronomy exist, and to see how real astronomers conduct business."

Ennis felt his chest fall just a little bit. He was being given all these opportunities in astronomy, but physics was really his thing, and astronomy was Jack's thing. It should be Jack going to that meeting and not him, but Jack hadn't never been proactive enough about his grades and his research.

"Are you going home for Christmas?" Greg asked.

"Huh? Oh, no, I don't got the money."

"No?" Greg raised an eyebrow. "Family flying out here, maybe?"

"Don't got much in the way of family," Ennis answered, hesitant to say he had none, but not at all about to admit who he thought of as family back home.

"Well, since you're going to be in the U.S. in January anyway, it's pretty common for people to take some time on one side of the conference or another for a little side trip. Feel free if you can wrangle it."

Ennis gaped at Greg.

"You think?" Greg asked.

"Uh, sure." Ennis didn't know how this would work, Wyoming being an awful fucking long way from Washington, D.C., but airfare from Wyoming to D.C. was a damn sight cheaper than to Germany, too, so he was determined to work something out. Until another idea struck him. "Uh, can I ask a question?"

"Yup?" Ennis liked the way Greg always gave him his full attention, something Dr. Pitt never did.

"Can other people come to the conference? Like, other undergrads?"

"You mean someone you go to school with?" Greg stitched his eyebrows together.

"Yeah. My friend Jack, roommate from home. He's an astronomy major He's about... he's about the only person I know in the states."

Greg frowned at him, watching for a moment. Ennis wondered if he'd said too much, but he almost didn't care. His hopes of pulling this things off were too high, dangerously high, if he was to tell the truth, and it was makin' him though caution to the wind.

"What about your parents?" Damn professors were always too damned nosy.

"Uh, no, sir. I'm a orphan. I got a brother and a sister, but they got their own lives ta be livin', don't bother about me much."

Greg watched him with a mix of sympathy and curiosity that made Ennis stir uncomfortably. Finally, Greg answered, raking a hand through his close-cropped dark hair. "Sure. There's a guest rate he'll have to pay."

"Oh, alright."

"He could room with you and Yusef if he's willing to split the price." Greg began tapping a pen on a pad of paper.

Ennis nodded.

"Alright," Greg nodded. "Make sure it's ok with Yusef. Ask your friend. Register. The deadline's creeping up."

Ennis nodded solemnly, but his leg was bouncing a mile a minute, and he knew Greg saw it. When Greg said nothing else, though, they made some parting comments and Ennis left the room. He didn't even wait until he was out of Greg's line of sight before he sped his pace, running towards his computer to deliver the news.

Jack laughed and raised the beer-- his third-- to his lips. "You think that would really work, man?"

Randy was sprawled on the couch, "Breathing water? Hell no!"

"It ain't really water. It's like... pink gooey water." Jack chuckled and kicked Randy with a sock-covered foot.

"Hey, don't kick." Randy shoved his leg. "And I don't give uh..." a burp, "crap what kind of water it is, can't breath it."

"Yeah, probably right." Jack gazed at the the TV as the glowing, underwater alien city of The Abyss rose into view, but he wasn't really paying attention. It'd been a long day. They'd played Frisbee for hours before opting for dinner. Taco Tower and three beers later, and only a miracle was keeping Jack awake.

Jack had felt a little nervous bringing Randy to Taco Tower. They'd met for food a couple times at a sandwich shop or McDonald's, but there weren't that many places to eat. Laramie wasn't that huge of a college town, after all. Taco Tower was a place for him and Ennis, but it was just a place, when Jack thought about it. Still, Jack got three bean tacos instead of his usual favorite. It felt like having a little Ennis inside of him.

They'd come back here and decided to watch a movie. Teng hadn't showed all evening. Maybe he was stayin' with his girlfriend. He did that on occasion, more and more frequently, and Jack guessed the two of them were getting more serious. he entertained the notion for a microsecond that Teng was avoiding him for some reason, but Teng was a straight-forward guy. When something bothered him he said so, and Jack appreciated it. It made being roommates pretty simple, at the end of the day. Nope, Jack hoped that Teng had found that kind of insatiable hunger for another person that makes leaving them at the end of the day harder than skinning yourself with a pocket knife. Love was hell in a lot of ways, and Jack should know with this long-distance crap, but life wasn't worth a whole lot without it, neither. There wasn't anything like holding the person you loved. Jack tried to remember what it even felt like to hold Ennis.

Finding that that particular memory didn't come too clearly to him after three beers, Jack considered a fourth, but if he went that route he'd be passed out for sure. Though he wasn't sure why that was a problem.

Or, he wasn't sure until Randy's sprawl on the couch turned less into a sprawl and more into a lean against his side. Some warning system deep in Jack's brain was sounding, telling him to move away, do something, anything, but under a heavy wet blanket of beer, movement seemed like a Herculean feat. And damn did the warmth feel good.

It felt good to his body too, as was evident buy a tingling burn in his sweatpants lettin' the whole world, and most especially Randy, know that it wasn't just Ennis that turned him on, but also just the weight of a male body and the warmth of it against him. By the time Randy's hand found a resting spot between Jack's legs, he was steel-hard, not having felt the touch of another person in months. Shit. Randy's touch drew a moan from Jack before his brain woke up.

But it did. Just as Randy was rolling towards him, Jack felt like a bucket of cold water hit him. Something in him wanted to keep moving under Randy's hand, but a moan turned to a strangled cry as he felt his chest constrict, and he pushed Randy off.

"Randy, Randy, stop it."

"What? What?" Randy's large gray eyes were filled with loneliness and need and confusion. Randy thought he'd been reading readiness into Jack's actions, and the truth was he had been. Jack felt like he was going to throw up all three beers plus the bean tacos.

"Please leave," Jack croaked.

"Jack, I thought..."

"Can ya please leave?"

Randy's vulnerable neediness was so plain that the man looked like a little boy or a kicked puppy by the flickering alien-city TV light, but he stood, and gathered his things in an almost deathly-silence. The only sound was the movie playing, and it was just music at the moment. In less than three minutes, Randy was gone like he'd never been there.

Jack eyed his sweatpants, contents returned now to their pre-Randy condition, and swallowed around a softball-sized lump of tears. He stumbled, less drunk now than simply dizzy, to his computer. He didn't know what else to do. Maybe he was hoping for an e-mail, since he hadn't checked this afternoon (and in fact, he didn't check near as often as he used to weeks ago when e-mail had been new and special...). Maybe he was hoping for a miracle.

But just this once, he got both.