Chapter Text
On Friday morning, Eric makes pancakes for the four of them. While he works, Jack sits on the kitchen floor near his feet with Angus and Fergus flopped hopefully within ear-scratching reach. The kitchen of Billy and Yannick’s summer place is small but functional, opening out onto the back patio where they do the majority of their grilling and hosting during the season. There isn’t even a table big enough for four in the kitchen, and Uncle Billy’s laid the plates and cutlery on the table outside, under the big shade umbrella.
This will, in fact, be second breakfast for Jack. He was up at his usual time and went out for a run followed by a smoothie, then allowed himself the pleasure of kissing Eric awake in the spare bedroom under the eaves. It’s a tiny little space with angled walls, the ceiling too low for Jack to stand fully upright on except in the center. The bed is a mattress on a box spring on the floor in front of the northerly-facing dormer window, where a box fan blows sea breezes through to where an exhaust fan at the other end pulls the warm air out.
“Hey, sleepyhead,” Jack had said, sitting down next to Eric’s hip and leaning over to press a kiss against his bare shoulder.
“Gnh,” had been Eric’s response, as he rolled over and blinked up at Jack. “Time izzit?” They hadn’t gone to bed until past midnight the night before, since Billy and Yannick were on theatre time during the summer and Eric still hadn’t adjusted completely to Jack’s earlier hours -- it was hard to remember that less than a week ago, he was still working at Camp Oconee, regularly returning home after nine o’clock at night.
“Almost nine,” Jack said. “Want to shower with me? And then I can make us coffee while you make the pancakes.” Eric had volunteered to do brunch the night before while they were unwinding post-show with the beers he and Jack had brought from Rhode Island.
They had rolled into Dennis mid-afternoon the day before, after Yannick had already left for work, and Uncle Billy was hunched over an article draft at his cluttered desk in the corner of the living room. Following their disrupted night Jack had stayed in bed with Eric until he was ready to get up -- after the sun was well and truly up in the sky -- and then gone for a quick run while Eric threw together a batch of muffins and brewed a French press. They were on the road by eleven, and even though Jack was driving he put Bitty in charge of the music.
They would have arrived earlier, but Jack had decided on the spur of the moment to take Eric to lunch at the Hot Chocolate Sparrow in Orleans because he understood it was an ice cream sort of day. And he had been right, because Eric considered the sandwiches and then asked if they can make the grilled chocolate sandwich into a sundae with the maple walnut ice cream
“There are times,” he’d said to Jack by way of explanation, “when ice cream for lunch is what’s called for.”
“Did I say anything?” Jack held up his hands in surrender.
“I could feel you thinking it,” Eric said with a smile, pulling out his wallet as they reached the cash register. “Honey -- let me buy this time?” Jack’s aware that he’s the one with the job, right now (not to mention the family trust), and has been paying for most of their restaurant meals and groceries. So he’d put his wallet back into his pocket without protest. He realized, as Eric chatted with the cashier about their coffee roasts and requested a bag of beans ground for a French press, that they should probably talk about money at some point. But he doesn’t even know where to start. He’s always had what he needs, which he knows is a privilege, and it means he has no real grasp on what it might mean to Eric that Jack is comfortable considering what he has to be Eric’s too without condition.
“How long have your uncles been together?” Eric had asked, as they sat down at a tiny table with his sandwich sundae and Jack’s turkey-pesto panini.
Jack had had to think about it for a second, “Fifteen, sixteen years? They had their tenth wedding anniversary last summer, and they were together for a few years before that.”
“What was it like…having gay uncles growing up? That sounds wrong,” Eric had asked wistfully and then quickly backpedaled. “I mean...I don’t know. I just -- I never really knew anyone older than me who was openly gay? Before I came to Samwell. There was a couple at church, two women who lived together, but no one really talked about it -- not even them. And apart from that…It must have been nice, to...have someone to think, ‘I could grow up to be like them,’ you know?”
Jack blinked down at his lunch because he’d actually never thought about that in so many words, thought about what it would have been like not to have Uncle Billy in the back of his mind while he was living through the whole thing with Parse, getting over the whole thing with Parse, trying to decide what he wanted next. Even when his brain was needling him with all sorts of suggestions that he could never have what his Uncle Billy had, he’d known someone had it, somewhere. And it wasn’t an abstract someone or an abstract somewhere. It wasn't some celebrity claiming it would get better. It was someone in his family, less than an hour away in Boston.
“Yeah,” he finally said, “I guess it was, is…reassuring? To know someone’s…someone’s done this before, eh?”
“Yeah,” Eric had snorted, “it would have been nice to know I had that too, right?” Jack had put out a hand and covered Eric’s wrist. Eric had turned his hand immediately so that his palm slid into Jack’s, and Jack squeezed.
This morning, Jack thinks about that conversation as Eric flips pancakes and Yannick shuffles into the kitchen, giving Uncle Billy a pre-coffee kiss on the cheek and stepping over Fergus to pour himself a cup. Yannick’s asking Eric about his work at camp and his plans for the upcoming semester. The kitchen is comfortable and familiar, the pancakes smell amazing, and by mutual agreement no one has asked about statements to the press or public relations events.
Jack suddenly remembers telling Eric, back in May, that the Cape has always felt like home to him -- the most like home of all the places he’s ever lived. Maybe he -- they -- maybe they could buy a summer place out here, someday, and split their time between Pawtucket during the season and the Cape during the off-. Some of it will depend on what Eric does after graduation -- Jack knows he’ll want to work too, and may not be mobile -- but if they start talking about it now, when they both still have options, maybe…
“There!” Eric says above him, in a tone of satisfaction. “Now tell me y’all who’s ready for blueberry pancakes with their maple syrup.”
Not a single member of the family dissents.