Chapter Text
The second time Eric wakes on the morning of Jack’s birthday, he’s alone in Jack’s bed -- alone in Jack’s apartment. He’s gotten tangled in the sky blue sheets and lemon yellow cotton bedspread Jack bought because, he said, it reminded him of the paint on Eric’s bedroom walls. He’d said this like it was just a factual explanation and not a piece of information specifically designed to be the final straw, the final piece of sweet Jack-ness that turns Eric into a puddle of goo.
He rolls over to find Señor Bun glaring at him judgmentally from the bedside table. Bun apparently has opinions about Eric’s decision to sleep in rather than go running with Jack, despite the fact that Jack’s alarm had gone off at the wildly inappropriate hour of five on his birthday. Jack had silenced the radio almost immediately, but its unfamiliar voices had already pulled Eric into semi-wakefulness.
He must have said something, or at least grunted, because Jack rolled back over to press a kiss to his forehead and murmur, quietly, “Hey. Morning, Bits.”
And Eric must have made another sound, or possibly a rude gesture, because Jack had laughed quietly and said, “I’m gonna go out for a run and you’re welcome to join me, but I’ll take that as a ‘fuck off’?”
Eric had rolled over onto his back so he could glare up at Jack. “It’s your birthday.”
Jack’s shoulder had risen and dropped again in the grey predawn light that had begun to filter over the top of the bedroom wall from the living room windows. “It’s a nice morning. I thought I’d try a new route through Swan Point Cemetery. When I get home we can take a shower and make breakfast.”
“I don’t know if it should be considered morning if the sun isn’t up yet,” Eric points out skeptically. This is an old argument, one they've been having since the old checking practice days, but Eric holds firm ... and so does Jack.
Jack grins down at him, “In that case, you’ve got --” he glances down at his phone, “-- eighteen more minutes of night left, if you care to use it...?”
Eric had reached up, then, and pulled Jack down for a good morning kiss. The kiss had gotten complicated. And at some point Eric had woken up enough to remember that he and Jack had fallen asleep without clothes on the night before.
In the end, Jack had made it out the door for his run shortly after six. Once he'd left, Eric let himself doze back off but -- as sometimes happened after orgasm -- he fell asleep for maybe half an hour only to wake up fully alert just before seven. And even though he’s been accustomed all summer to sleeping until maybe eight or nine after staying awake until midnight he can tell he’s awake, now, and trying to fall back asleep will just leave him feeling restless and annoyed.
So he disentangles himself from the bedclothes and swings his feet down to the floor. The daylight spilling in now is tinged with a sunny glow that tells Eric it’s a clear day outside, even before he pads to the bathroom and then out into the living room. There’s something decadent about being here, about being alone in his boyfriend’s apartment, having appropriated one of his boyfriend’s oversized Samwell sweatshirts to hunker down in until Jack returns. He feels a bit like a spy, even if an invited one, given the opportunity to learn everything he can about Jack from the way he’s arranged his space, from the things he’s chosen to keep marking past chapters of his life, from the things he’s newly-acquired this summer to fill this sunlit space.
Things like sky blue sheets and lemon yellow bedspreads.
Things like the black module bookcases along the far wall, neatly filled with photography manuals, history books, one shelf of cookbooks and food writing.
Things like the desk by the window cluttered with photo prints and scribbled lists in Jack’s blocky, cramped writing.
Things like the pie safe Eric had given him, which Jack had insisted on paying to ship to Rhode Island rather than wait for Eric’s parents to bring it up on their fall visit. He’s placed it between the coat tree and the closet that houses the washer-dryer unit, away from the daylight that would gradually fade Frank and Vince into nothingness.
Wandering the empty apartment, Eric can’t shake the impression he had last night that something is subtly … off about the organization of Jack’s things. But it takes the keys hanging on the wall above the pie safe for him to put it together. There’s a little wooden strip with hooks nailed to the wall to the left of the front door, clearly intended as a place for hanging keys. And there’s a Falconers key fob dangling there, two shiny keys hanging from it. Eric notices it on his first circuit of the loft and his eyes slide right past. Yet as he passes it a second time on his way to the bedroom for a pair of socks, he realizes that they can’t be Jack’s keys because Jack is out running and had taken his keys with him. Eric remembers the snick of the key in the lock as Jack locked the door behind him. So these are extra keys.
They’re Eric’s keys.
He takes the keys down from the hook and weighs them in his hand. Thinks about the fact Jack had them cut, picked out a cheesy key ring that he must have known Eric will carry everywhere with him despite the fact it’s the world’s dullest shade of navy blue.
He goes into the bedroom carrying the keys and rummages in his suitcase for a pair of socks, sitting down on the edge of the bed to put them on. He considers the bedroom and the matching bedside tables -- Bun on his, Monsieur Éléphant leaning drunkenly against Jack’s reading lamp. He walks over to the closet -- which Jack had pulled towels out of the night before but which Eric hadn’t actually investigated -- and considers the neatly-hung button-down shirts, the shelves and drawers.
The empty spaces.
He goes back out into the living room and turns a full circle, considering the question of space. And finally he gets it. He gets it and it makes him feel a little shaky on his feet so he gropes his way to the kitchen island and slides onto one of the stools tucked under the counter top.
Jack’s made space for him. Systematically. This apartment, it’s Jack’s through and through. It’s the same balance of organized chaos, of well-used tools on the verge of being neatly stored away, that Eric remembers from Jack’s room at the Haus, from Jack’s luggage on roadies, from Jack’s cubby in the locker room at Faber. But in every room, there’s space for Eric -- for Eric’s clothes, for Eric’s books and DVDs and music, a space for a second desk, for artwork on the walls, he’s left cupboards in the kitchen bare and waiting to be filled.
The bedside table that stood empty and waiting until Eric had dug Señor Bun out of his suitcase and dropped him there to stand sentinel through the night.
Eric’s still sitting on the stool in the kitchen, thoughtfully tossing the keys in his hand, when he hears Jack’s key turn in the lock. A second later, as Eric is twisting around in his seat, Jack slips back in the front door flushed and sweaty and gorgeous from his morning run. Looking at him, Eric isn't sure how he was ever able to play on Jack's team, share a locker room, share a house, share a life without anyone who saw them realizing instantly that he's entirely Jack's.
Well, he thinks, remembering the reactions of their Hausmates to the news, maybe they had all realized. And were just too polite to point it out.
Eric smiles, catches the keys underhand, and fists them into his (Jack's) sweatshirt pocket. Then he slides off the stool to go over and greet Jack with a kiss as Jack pulls off his headphones and thumbs off the radio.
Time for a shower, he thinks, and maybe some birthday waffles.