Pairing(s): Dave/Kurt is endgame… if I can ever get this fucker of a fic to behave.
Rating: PG, might change later
Word Count: 2,779
Warnings: Lol, my research for this thing sucks. We're flying by the seat of our red knickers people!
Spoilers: Let's go with up to Sexy.
CROSSOVER: STARGATE, BABY. Spoilers up to the conclusion of Atlantis, totally ignoring the crap out of Universe, because I couldn't get into it and have not since bothered.
Chapter 2/? – Everything to Lose
Don't you know you're such a fool
To keep on acting like you do
You're a fool to play things cool
When you've got everything to lose
22-20s – Such a Fool
They spend the day touring DC. Jack takes him to the Lincoln Memorial first, and the sheer size of the thing – the…the magnificence – is enough to boot anything else out of his head for a while. The steps and courtyard are already filling up with wandering tourists, but Abe sits resplendent and solemn above them all, gazing out at the world in a well of eternal calm.
Dave lets himself be enveloped in that aura of ease and certainty and smiles more than he has in the past three months. He's never been effected by art like this, and as new experiences go it's one of the nicer ones.
In the National War Memorial, Jack shows him where to find 'David O'Neill' cut into the dark stone. Dave traces the name, seeing his own face reflected behind it. He's seen photos of this other David; Jack and his mother's older brother, who died decades before he was born.
Beside him, his uncle has his hands jammed in his pockets and a small, sad smile on his face. "You look a lot like him, y'know," he says.
"I know," he says quietly. "There are photos at… at home."
Jack puts a bracing arm around his shoulders. "C'mon. There's a pizzeria Danny and I go to that does a pepperoni just like they do in Chicago."
While Dave hoovers up his lunch, Jack fills him in on the 'family' back at the Springs. Daniel is abroad, as usual, though he's due back on leave next month. Murray – his uncle's strange, foreign friend obsessed with hats – was in town a few days ago and caught up with him. He's apparently getting more sedate in his choice of headgear and Jack tells Dave he almost misses the red cowboy hats and pompom beanies. Cassie is enjoying married life (read: ordering Carl around while he takes leave and plays temporary house-husband) and working on her Masters at UCCS.
"Child psyche," Jack says, between one slice and the next. "Doing a study on high school students, so don't let her head-shrink you when you see her. She's worse than Sam; pair of 'em are always bringing work home with them."
Dave grins. Aunt Sam and Uncle Jack have known each other almost as long at Dave's been alive. Dave knows they worked together for almost a decade before Sam ducked out of Jack's chain of command and they started a brief, long-distance courtship. They'd still had to get a dispensation to get married though, which was lucky, because now Sam was back in the chain of command. Dave was glad they'd got together; he'd always liked Sam, who spoke to him like he was a grown-up and used jokes to explain math problems.
One of his favourite childhood memories is Jack showing up to Christmas lunch on the back of Sam's vintage Harley. There's a photo of Sam sitting on the bike with Dave, then seven, perched pillion behind her. It always made Azimio laugh when he saw it – said Dave was starting his career in badassery early or something.
Like kismet, his phone went off, blaring the 22-20s from his jacket pocket. It's the tone he uses for the guys on the team.
Dave's stomach drops.
"Um, Uncle…"
Jack looks up, then frowns when he catches sight of Dave's face. "What's up, kiddo?"
"I, uh… I'm just gonna step outside. I gotta take this."
His uncle studies him for a minute, then nods. "Stay where I can see you."
"Yeah." He gets out of the pizzeria and tries to focus on breathing as he pulls out his phone and checks the number.
'Azimio'.
Crap.
He's been hoping it would take a little longer for this call to come…
He hits the answer button and –
"MAN! What the hell is wrong with you!" Zee explodes on the other end of the line, and Dave fights a smile, listening to his friend work himself into full flight. "You skip out and don't tell me? Leavin' me here in this HOLE while you off cruisin' or somethin'? NOT COOL. I can't even believe you right now. Ditcher. I should disown you."
He winds down sounding kind of sulky. Dave would laugh, but the word 'disown' is cutting close to the bone right now, and he actually feels a little sick. He swallows hard and tries to find his voice. He wants to be cool about this…
"I'm sorry, Zee. I, uh, shoulda called, I know," he croaks out.
…well, that's a fail.
Zee is weirdly quiet for few seconds. "Dude," he says after a beat, "you okay? You don't sound too good."
"Uh, yeah…" Dave leans back against the shop front and braces himself. "Something I gotta tell you. I, um, got kicked out last night."
"…what?"
"I got kicked out. Of… of my house."
"YOU WHAT?"
"I'm in Washington, with my uncle."
"WASHINGTON? What, RIGHT NOW?"
Dave gets the strangest feeling that if this were a text conversation Zee would be seriously abusing capslock right now.
"Yeah," Dave sighs, "Washington, DC. Right now."
"I can't freakin' believe what I'm hearin'," Zee mutters. "D, this doesn't make any sense. Why the hell would your folks kick you out? You mom and dad are awesome!"
"Yeah, well, clearly not that awesome," Dave says, voice low as he scuffs his toe against the pavement.
Zee sounds honestly puzzled, and that's the only reason Dave doesn't freak out and hang up on him. "Dude," he says, "what did you do?"
Dave's heart pounds and he really does feel like he's gonna hurl now. "I – I – Zee, look I'm not really ready to talk about it."
"'scuse me?" He does not sound impressed, and Dave's right there with him, really but…
But…
"I knew it was contagious. You moved in with that little Kurt kid and now you've got a bad case of the gay."
And Dave suddenly hates – hates – that he can't tell how his best friend is going to react to Dave being gay. This should be easy. This should be cut and dried. Damn it, he knows Zee, knows all about him… why can't he know this thing too?
He hangs his head, crushes his eyes closed. Prays. Swallows down the nausea. Please, please, please…
"Zee, you really have to listen to me on this, okay?"
Zee sounds even more puzzled now. "Yeah, okay."
"I'm serious."
Zee laughs a little. "I get it, man."
"No, I mean, I'm really serious here, Zee. I'm only gonna tell you if you promise not to be a total douche-canoe about it."
"…douche-canoe?"
"You know what I mean!"
"Yeah, yeah. Okay, so, what – should I get the good book and solemnly raise my right hand here?"
Dave closes his eyes again. "Just promise, alright?"
"…you're really serious." Something must have shown in his voice, because Zee sounds hesitant now, like it's really hitting him now.
"Jesus Christ, Zee, I got kicked outta home," Dave snaps, "of course I'm goddamn serious."
"Alright, alright, I get it. I promise." There's a beat, then, "So, what is it?"
Dave's skin is flashing hot and cold and the hand not holding his phone is trembling. He's still trying to think of a way to lead up to it when his mouth has other ideas and goes for what's becoming his signature blurting move.
"I'm gay."
"Very freakin' funny. Now c'mon, man, tell me what the hell is going on."
"I just did."
"What? No, you said…"
There is a horribly, horribly long pause, in which Dave can only hear the rushing of his own blood in his ears and the faint suggestion of Zee's breathing on the other end of the line.
Then Zee says, "I gotta go."
"Zee, wait a sec, I can expl–"
"No, I just – man, I – I gotta go."
"Zee –"
The line goes dead.
Dave's knees fail and he slides down the shop front until his butt hits pavement. He closes his eyes, and doesn't open them until he feels Jack's hand on his shoulder.
The Smithsonian is like nothing Dave's ever seen before. The museums in Lima and Columbus or anywhere else that he's been could ever hold a candle to this.
He follows Jack through the open mall wing of Air and Space and reads the plaques beside each exhibit, listening to Jack's personal stories about some of the military craft they come across. Dave's favourite story is of when Jack brought his old team here and showed Murray the scale replica of the Star Trek Enterprise – and how disappointed he was that Star Wars had not been 'similarly honoured'.
Jack keeps things light, but sometimes Dave catches him glancing at Dave like he wants to ask, or he's waiting for Dave to say something.
Dave, however, it's doing his damnedest to forget that phone call ever happened. He wants more than anything to pretend that he's just here for a day or a week or something, just vacationing with his favourite uncle for a while and when it ends – when it ends he gets to pack his stuff and go home…
He breaks down once in the bathroom halfway through the afternoon. There's no one else there, just him and the mirror that he can't bring himself to look at, and he feels hot all over before his knees threaten to go again and his hands clench on the lip of the sink.
"I gotta go."
"Zee, wait a sec, I can expl–"
"No, I just – man, I – I gotta go."
"Zee –"
Click.
The sound that comes out of him isn't so much a sob as a cough and he lets it out, and the one after it, and the one after that before taking a huge, gasping breath. He sighs it out slowly, closing his eyes and just breathing for moment. His chest unclenches. He takes a few moments to clean up, thankful there were no tears, and gets out just as Jack is coming to look for him.
"Took your time," he says lightly. "Feeling okay?"
Dave nods, not trusting himself to speak and, mercifully, Jack doesn't push the issue. He just gives him another one of those considering looks. "Alright. One last place to go before we start thinking about dinner, okay?"
Dave nods again. "Okay."
It's not what he's expecting.
"…The zoo?"
"Heck yeah the zoo," Jack says, grinning. Dave can't help but grin back.
And it's fantastic, really. Dave hasn't been to a zoo since he was about thirteen – which Jack thinks is a crime – and something about wandering around all the kid-friendly exhibits, watching the animals do their thing and watching all the manic kids freak out over how awesome the animals are is just… nice. The concerns of animals are smaller, easier to be party to, and Dave does what Jack told him to at breakfast and lets his brain take the day off. It helps that he doesn't want to think about what happened at home, or what happened with Zee at lunch. Instead, he wants to think about whether that hippo is going to surface anytime soon, or how a panda is related to a raccoon, or what kind of cosmic joke spawned the platypus, or who the hell taught the blue macaw to swear in Russian.
Then he wonders how much trouble they could get in for teaching the bird how to curse in Latin.
"You speak Latin?" Dave asks, because, really, Jack doesn't seem the type.
Jack grins nostalgic and a little smug. "Long, classified story."
They wander for a while and end up on the Elephant Trail, watching an elderly female go about her day – which apparently consists of playing one-on-one soccer with her keeper. He and Jack lean against the railing and spend a good five minutes putting together a set of rules for a theoretical game of elephant soccer. It's easy, and then Dave opens his mouth.
"Uncle?"
"Yeah, kid?"
"I know you said to take the day off..."
Jack turns to look at him then. "Figure that's what you've been doing."
He smiles. "Yeah, yeah I have, but I just – I'm still worried about what's going to happen. To me. After today."
Jack nods. "Thought you might be." He sighs. "Look, this is all up to you, and I get that it's a big thing to decide, but I've been doing some thinking of my own, and if you wanna hear 'em, I've got some options."
Dave is a little startled, but nods. "Okay."
"Okay. Welp, you know you're welcome to stay here. There's inner city schools you could go to, if you don't want to go back to McKinley...?"
Dave looks down at his hands. "It doesn't really feel like an option."
"Yeah. Well, you could go to school here..."
"Or?"
"Or... Or you could go to school in Colorado Springs."
Dave can feel his face fall. "You'd send me away?"
"What? No! You actually think I'd – goddamn it, Dave." Jack sighs, but he's smiling. "Kid, look, I've been looking for an excuse to get outta here for the past three years. I mean I'm not exactly getting any younger and only seeing Sam and Cass and everyone once in a freakin' blue moon is ridiculous." He turns back to the elephantine soccer game. "Thinkin' of retiring."
Dave freezes. He's pretty sure his mouth is hanging open. No one in Dave's family knows exactly what Jack does at the Pentagon, but they know it's important. Important enough to mean he has meetings with the President.
"Wh-what?"
"Yeah," Jack says nonchalantly, "DC's great and all, but y'know..." He turns to look at Dave again. "The school Cassie went to is in the 'Springs. You could go there."
But... but, the President!
"Y-you're serious?" Dave stammers.
Jack is nonplussed. "You think I'd joke about this?"
"No, but..." Dave whispers, "But what about the President?"
Jack looks amused. "What about him?"
"Don't... I mean, isn't what you do really important or something? Doesn't he, like, need your help or something?"
Jack looks like he wants to laugh. "Kid, seriously, the President's a smart guy – I mean I actually voted for this one. Pretty sure he can find someone else to do what I do. It could take a while, but you could get settled in the Springs while I finish up here. Cass and Carl would be happy to have you. I know they'd love the help with Nyla."
Jack smirks and Dave flushes. Nyla Fraiser-Groban is two and worships the ground Dave walks on. He thinks she's pretty cool too, for someone who still wears diapers.
"Yeah, I guess," Dave says. "But still, I mean... isn't it, like, a big deal for you to retire?"
Jack looks somehow thoughtful and frustrated at the same time, but Dave knows it's not directed at him.
"It is," Jack concedes. "It is, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna do the job for the rest of my life. They need to learn to get on without me. And there are a few people I've got my eye on to fill my very shiny shoes. Like I said, could take a while, but it's gonna happen."
When he meets Dave's gaze his dark eyes are intent.
"But this is just an option, Dave. You don't have to go to school there. We can stay in DC."
It's tempting. DC is huge, and amazing, and maybe in the long run it would be an easier place to be... himself. He could be open about his sexuality like he never felt he could in Lima. He wonders if he could do that in Colorado Springs, an Air Force town because of the base at Cheyenne Mountain and the Academy there.
Dave's been in denial for a while about who he is, but even he knows about Don't Ask, Don't Tell. He knows that the laws around it are changing, but selfishly, that's not what he's worried about; he's not going to join up, but he will have to live around people who have and deal with their attitudes. Jack's attitude isn't typical... but then Jack's not exactly a typical military man, and neither are the 'Springs family a typical military family.
The 'Springs family.
And all said and done, this is what decides him.
"No," he says to Jack, "I think we should do it. I think... I think we should move."
Jack grins at him, slinging a wiry arm around his neck with a laugh. Dave is unable to stop smiling. Jack's sudden exuberance is contagious.
"Alright," he says, "let's get this show on the road."
Author's Continuing Excuse for Her Behaviour: I know it took awhile, but to be fair, my godson is only just four weeks old, and I'm more interested in baby cuddles XD. Also, thanks to my beta Binka, who gave this a once over, but it should be noted is not up to date on Glee and I'm not sure how up to date she is on SG, so bear with us.