Disclaimer: Not my characters, and I make no money from them.
AN: Unbeta'd but well proofread this time! Let it not be said I don't deliver on a promise wink

Chapter 18

Jack sat at the sofa eating his dining hall takeout. It was the last food he wanted, 'cause he worked there, after all. It was a sandwich no less, made at his own sandwich counter, but he'd been coming back from there, so it made the most sense. As much as he hated half the people he worked with, the other half were really nice and just as unhappy there as he was, so Eleanor hadn't even rung him up as he left, meaning, in addition to easy, the roast beef and cheddar was free.

He had his legs kicked up on the sofa as well, watching some stupid movie-- True Lies with that Schwarzenegger guy who'd been so awesome in Terminator and T-2-- when the phone rang behind him in the kitchen. He looked over the back of the couch like the phone might walk over to him, but no such luck. He didn't move from his spot; didn't care enough about whoever was on the other end of the line to make the effort.

A minute later, though, the sound began again. Jack groaned and ignored it again, already suspecting that simply pretending the phone didn't exist was not going to work tonight.

He found he was more than right when the thing sounded a third time. "Shiiiit," Jack groaned, moving from the couch and shuffling his socked feet over to the kitchen. He picked up the receiver in the middle of the fifth or six ring and said only, "Yeah?"

There was no immediate answer, and that, more than anything, let Jack know who was calling. His heart usually leaped into his chest when Ennis called, but now his stomach sank and he regretted the roast beef. This was going to be nasty and he wanted no part of it tonight.

"Uh, Jack, it's me," Ennis finally spoke.

He sounded tired, and Jack was momentarily distracted by something more pragmatic. "What time is it over there?"

Ennis laughed. They were both trying to hold off the inevitable argument with meaningless conversation. "Late. Or early depending on how you lookit it."

"You sober?"

"Mostly."

Initial formalities over with, Jack's mind clicked back to business. He felt himself in the right, so no reason to delay his doom. "K. Why're you calling?"

"Jack..." Ennis floundered a bit, "You see I... I was at-- no no. I saw that, I mean..." He heaved a sigh of frustration, but Jack was not about to help him.

"You want me to move out, then?" Jack said it flatly, no emotions betraying the sickness he felt when he uttered that sentence.

"Jesus! No!"

"Then why are you calling?"

"Jack..." Ennis sighed again. "Listen, I was wrong to send you that e-mail. I was just not thinking straight. I guess I was angry--"

"What right do you have to be angry--"

"Would you just shut up a second? This is all new to me, too. As new as it is to you, you know. Jesus Christ, Jack, I miss you so bad... Sometimes I just want to pack it all in and head back home." His voice was tight and Jack could tell he was holding back tears. Something in Jack broke at that, and he lost focus of the main issue at hand.

"Sometimes," Ennis resumed quietly, "I wonder if it would hurt less if we weren't together. But I guess I don't see how that would stop my feelings."

"Oh Ennis, I wish I could fix this whole damn situation, but I don't even know what situation I'm talking about. I wish we could live in a blissful little cloud somewhere, and maybe money would just rain from the sky." His voice dripped with sarcastic amusement and he even let loose a thin laugh.

Ennis returned with a watery chuckle. They sat on the line in silence before Jack's feet, back on the ground, opened the topic again. "What did you mean by that e-mail, Ennis?"

Ennis sighed. Jack could just imagine him pacing or biting a hangnail or digging his thumbnail into something: his nervous habits that somehow had become as soothing to Jack as they were to Ennis.

"I guess... I guess I just... Well, shit, Jack, for a minute there it felt like you were, I dunno, moving on without me."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"You're all ready to move to San Francisco, want to leave me behind. It feels like you're wanting to go on to a life where I'm not... not going to be able to follow."

Jack let that sink in, working his mind around it, trying to remember what he had said to Ennis in the first place and how it could be taken that way. Yeah, he could see it. Ennis studied abroad and Jack suddenly is calling himself gay and going to meetings and talking about all sorts of forward-moving plans that Ennis can't even be in on if he wanted to be, 'cause he was too far away to be involved. Jack swallowed.

"Ennis... It feels kinda the same for me, you know? Your friends over there know about you, and about us, but my friends here don't know shit. Sometimes I get to thinking how come you get that and I don't? Maybe my friends would be as cool with it as yours? What makes you think my friends are somehow more... less..., I don't know, they could be just as cool as your friends, but you basically said you'd leave me if I even tried to find out."

Jack heard Ennis exhale long and slow on the other end of the line. "Sorry."

"Besides, what the hell was that? Every time we have a fight, are you going to threaten to kick me out? Maybe sometimes you even will? Should I be getting a place of my own so that you can't hold this damned apartment up as some kind of leverage against me?"

"Oh, Jesus..." Ennis moaned. "Jack, if I could take that back, you have got to know I would."

"That isn't an answer Ennis."

Ennis didn't speak. Jack waited in the ensuing silence before Ennis said, "I wouldn't ever kick you out Jack, and I'm only just ashamed of myself for making the threat. I hope... I hope I learned something and don't do it again, you know? But if I do, I got to tell you now that I don't mean it. Don't go, please? I guess... I guess sometimes I don't think really hard before I do something."

"You think?" Jack bit out sarcastically.

"Hey, no need to make me feel worse. I feel bad enough, I guess."

"So you say."

The conversation stalled, Jack wrestling with whether or not to forgive Ennis so easily, with a single phone call, or not. He wanted the fight to be over, but he also had some self-respect and had to stand up for himself sometimes. But was that pride worth losing his relationship over?

"Hey, you go to that meeting?" Ennis asked quietly, breaking the meditative air.

"Fuck yes, I went. You got a problem with that?"

"No, no. Jack...," Ennis seemed to be pleading for understanding. "I figured you would go, 'specially after I told you not to," he laughed. Even Jack interrupted the line with a little snort. "I was just curious how it was, what all went on. I'm just asking about it..." Again that pleading voice. Jack could not evade Ennis when he was begging.

"It was nice. Pretty normal for any student group, I guess. They talked about their budget and about events they were gonna do. Then there were snacks, and I made a couple friends. Both girls," Jack was quick to add, "one's straight, I don't think the other is."

"Why would a straight girl come to that kind of meeting?" Ennis asked, confusion clouding his voice.

Jack laughed. "They can. I mean, anyone can. It's not just a gay social club, Ennis, they do activities to improve the lives of people where they see it needs to be done or whatever. Dawn, in particular, was raised by her gay uncles."

"Oh. Well, I don't see how my life needs to be improved. Except I could use more money. And to be closer to you, of course."

Jack smiled to himself, but he could also hear the smile in his voice. "That's sweet Ennis. You're a good apologizer, believe it or not."

"I didn't know that. Never had much cause to try."

"That I don't believe," Jack answered. "I think it's more likely you never had much cause to succeed."

"Mmm."

"It's the little things: being able to say the word 'boyfriend' without worrying how people will react, for example. Or, like, they're having a party."

"How does a party help people?" Ennis sounded not only speculative, but downright against th idea.

"Think about it, Ennis. What would it be like to go to a party where you wouldn't have to be careful how close you were standing, or you could dance with whoever you wanted, or kiss if you wanted to kiss."

"Huh. Think that would be dangerous. A person might forget to stop when they leave."

Jack sighed. "You don't think a night of freedom sounds exciting at all, do you."

Ennis was silent for a while on the other end of the line. "I'd go if you wanted me to."

"Well, that's not an option anyway 'cause, like you said, you're too far away."

"Huh."

"Maybe next semester, though, 'cause you'd best believe I'm going to remember that you said that."

Ennis was silent for a while, finally murmuring, "I know it."

"And you better not go ignoring me at the party either and think that's how you're going to get away with it."

Ennis made a noise. Jack figured he was getting pretty sleepy.

"No, man. You'd better be rubbing shoulders with me all night. And after you get drunk, I expect you to make out on the couch with me like a couple of college students should when they're dating, and then when that's to much, we're going to find a room in the house and fuck until we pass out. 'Cause we have a goddamn right to have as unholy a time as anyone else has at a frat party." Jack knew he sounded self-righteous, and he probably was.

"Jack, I wouldn't even do those things with a girl."

"Yeah? You sure? You never tried to kiss a girl or take her to a bedroom at a party?"

He sounded choked when he said, "I don't even go to parties."

"I'll give you that. But if you did go to parties and were to go in a bedroom wouldn't you want to do that with a guy?"

Ennis was long silent on the other end of the line, probably trying to figure out how to answer without saying the exact wrong thing. "If I had to go to a party an' be in a bedroom doing something with someone, I'd sure as hell want it to be you, Jack."

Jack paused, hearing the pain in Ennis's confession, almost like it was an apology. His heart started to hammer in his chest and his palms went cold. "What did you do?"

"Huh? I didn't do anything."

Jack said nothing. He didn't have to because he knew that, at the very least, Ennis didn't believe his own words. The tight strain in his throat and the plea in his voice said that for him. When he didn't challenge Ennis again, Ennis finally relented.

"I was drunk. It wasn't anything, but I tried to kiss a girl."

Jack didn't answer, his angry eyes boring holes into the wall.

"It didn't happen, though..." There was no urgency in Ennis's voice, only fatigue.

"Ennis..." Jack paused to gather his thoughts. "I don't know how much of this I can take. I don't know that you can expect me to sit here and let you do whatever the fuck you want out there, and, and--"

"Jack. Please, I know."

"Do you know? I feel like your-- I feel like I'm helpless and just waiting, waiting for-- Jesus, Ennis, if you're just going to leave me or kick me out--"

"I said I wouldn't. I said I wasn't. Jack..."

Jack winced at the continued pain in Ennis's voice. "Sorry. You just make yourself a little hard to trust. And right now, that's all we have."

Ennis didn't answer and they sat in silence until Jack asked, "You there?"

"Huh? Yeah."

"Well?"

"Can't we just start over? Like from when we left D.C.? Those were good times, weren't they?"

"...Yeah, they were."

Jack had slumped into a seat at the kitchen table, and he looked now into the middle distance, lost in memories that made him miss Ennis only more, that made him ache for Ennis like he had a physical wound. "Ennis?" He heard his voice turned suddenly quiet, maybe even tender.

"Yeah." Ennis, too, sounded profoundly relaxed all of a sudden.

"What were you thinking about? In particular."

"Mmm. In particular?" Jack could imagine Ennis blushing. "You want to know the truth, I was thinking about just eating pizza in the bar together, going to the talks together sometimes. I'm thinking like a girl, huh? Hey, you ever talk to that professor?"

Jack sighed. "It's in the works. I've been busy. Don't you want to know what I was thinking about?"

"I know what you're thinking about."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. And I'm trying not to think of it 'cause I'm in the public lounge."

"In the middle of the night, though. No one else is there." When Ennis didn't respond, Jack chuckled. "You wanna do it?"

"What?" Ennis snapped.

"We had a major fight. I think we just made up. Isn't this what we do next?" His voice held no humor, no teasing. He knew that it wasn't going to happen, that Ennis wouldn't give him even this, despite all the miles and arguments between them now.

"Shit," Ennis murmured, his voice pained. "Alright, I'm... I'm takin' my dick out here in the lounge. It's not so hard yet. Talk to me, huh?"

Jack's breath caught in his throat, his dick hardened to iron nearly instantaneously, and he was pawing one-handed at the button and zipper of his pants like they might have been filled with fire ants. In fact there was an altogether different type of wild animal living in there, and, pants and underwear around his knees, he turned and leaned over the chair to capture it in his one free hand. He tried to speak but already he was choked down to sputters and coughs.

"Jaaaaaack." It wasn't a sexual moan. It was a plea for togetherness. Jack tried to make his tongue answer, but he couldn't find very many words. He gave what he had.

"Ennis," he panted, the words struggling out, "love you, love you--"

"Jaaaaaack." Yeah, that one was clearly sexual. Jack smiled proudly to himself.

"You're going to make me come on a kitchen chair, oh my God, oh my God, soooon." The thrill of Ennis deciding to do this, deciding nearly on his own, and in the public lounge, was almost enough for Jack already.

"Fucking kitchen chair. I'm in the lounge." Ennis, panting now also, didn't know how that restatement of facts was adding to Jack's feverish sexual agony.

"Hard now?" Jack growled.

Ennis made a strangled noise. "If I was there, you'd find out just how hard I am when I shoved it down your throat."

"Uuuunh," Jack's words had taken on a rhythmic breathiness when he answered, "I'd be... happy... to take it."

"Jaaa--" Ennis made the one last noise before it twisted up into just a prolonged grunt.

"That... make you... come," Jack continued jerking off, his dick Mars-crimson. His war-sense flared with the still unresolved vestiges of his anger. "You... like... a gay guy... to suck you offfffff?"

Ennis, words slurred and voice quiet, answered calmly, "I'd like any kind of guy to suck me off, as long as it's you..."

Jack managed to say through his own tightening throat and chest, "Shooting! Unh. Gonna cover this place in my come!" Then he cried out for real, and covered, if not the apartment, his hand and the chair and a bit of the kitchen floor. His senses returned to the sound of Ennis laughing happily.

"Huh? Wha?" Jack's chest still heaved in its need for air.

"I don't mind, but you better take up that decorating idea with Teng. He doesn't seem like the type."

Jack started with a low snicker that grew into a lazy belly laugh as the happiness of finally blowing off some sexual steam with Ennis hit his bloodstream. "I'll wait 'til you get home, then."

"Alright. I'll look forward."

"Just don't go kissing girls at parties. Or guys. Or anyone."

Ennis laughed this time, though it was a nervous one. "I, uh, good luck with your classes and... those meetings."

"Yeah."

"Yeah. I'm sorry. I really am."

"I know. Me too for going through all this shit while you're away, like I said. But I don't plan on walking through campus in a bikini holding a sign, so stop acting like that's what I'm talking about. Other than that, I'm just over-all sorry that you aren't here."

"I can't believe you're not more sore at me over the e-mail."

"Ha! I know you!"

"Hmm. Sorry, I'm barely awake here. I've got to go. Plus I don't want to think about what this will cost."

Jack smiled to himself. Ennis lived in constant fear of losing a dollar here or there. "Alright. This Germany thing is really starting to weigh on my nerves, Ennis. It's a bitch. I'm doing my best to stand it, and you're only making it harder."

"I love you, Jack. We can do it."

"Not much longer."

"A few months. No more."

"No more. I love you too, Ennis. Goodnight."

"Night."

Jack heard Ennis reluctantly hang up. He set the phone in its cradle himself and only then drew up his pants. There was also a mess in the kitchen he knew he had better get up before Teng came home. But all in all, he felt soothed, and if he didn't force his attention too hard to the separation in time and distance before he could touch Ennis again, he felt downright jubilant.

When Jack was done cleaning, he picked his sandwich up and flopped back down on the couch to finish the movie. It seemed like nothing had changed, but Jack knew differently.