Chapter Text
Jack and Eric decide to stay a second night in Dennis, and then a third, because the weather is cooler here by a good ten degrees and Jack isn’t needed in Providence and Eric isn’t meeting Ransom, Holster, and Lardo at the Haus until Monday. So they decide to extend their vacation-within-a-vacation until Sunday just because they can and it will be the better part of a year -- maybe more -- before they’ll be able to say that again.
It’s taken a good forty-eight hours for Eric to work the residual tension from the nightmare out of his muscles and his mind. He hasn’t had a reaction quite this bad since before college and he doesn’t have to look far to understand why although the explanation makes him irritable and frustrated and sad. He sees the worry lines at the corner of Jack’s eyes and has to fight against his impulse to smile and pretend and make Jack believe him.
So instead he lets Jack coddle him through music and food and sleeping in and shared showers and dozing with his head on Jack’s lap on Billy and Yannick’s sofa while Jack and his uncle talk politics and travel and academic publishing. He drifts in and out of conversation about Bob and Alicia’s evolving work with Syrian refugees, the long grind of peer review, the ins and outs of open access. Jack has an ecological history of the Cape in one hand, though he’s talking more than reading, and with his other he’s smoothing Eric’s hair away from his face in a gesture so comforting Eric silently begs for him never to stop.
And then, on Saturday morning, Eric wakes up to the rustle of Jack moving about their guest bedroom, and realizes he’s okay again. That he’s actually feeling brave, again, and excited about the idea of exploring this piece of Jack’s life that he hasn’t been a part of before.
He rolls over to see Jack pulling on his jogging clothes. “Going out for your run?”
Jack pauses, midway through pulling his t-shirt on, to look around, then rolls his shoulders and pulls on the hem to get the shirt all the way down before padding over to the bed.
“I was, but you’re awake? I can --”
Eric smiles and puts a sleepy hand out. “I’m good -- it’s good. I’m feeling -- thank you.”
Jack takes his hand and leans into a kiss. Eric likes how easy Jack is with his kisses, always giving them to Eric like there will be more where that came from, why save them for later?
“You wanna come with me?” Jack asks, “I told Uncle Billy I’d take Angus and Fergus and I was thinking of running down Chapin Beach Road. There’s a nice beach at the end.”
“Okay,” Eric says. He hasn’t actually been to the ocean yet, since they arrived. Now that he stops to think of it he realizes he hasn’t been to the ocean (in the sense of getting sand between his toes) since his first year at Samwell, when a group of them had road-tripped out to Nantasket.
So he rolls out of bed and pulls on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and his sneakers.
They jog together in the early morning light through streets empty of all except fellow joggers and dog-walkers. The majority of summertime residents are still sleeping the sleep of vacationers on no fixed schedule. Angus and Fergus are happy to keep to heel along the pavement, and Eric knows he’s slowing Jack down -- he really hasn’t kept up with regular exercise over the summer and damn next week’s conditioning is going to hurt -- but Jack doesn’t say anything and keeps pace like they do this every day.
Maybe, Eric thinks, he shouldn’t hide in Jack’s apartment in the mornings and actually go out running with him. People work out with their teammates, right? He sees exercise buddies running across campus, through the arboretum, working out at the gym all the time. There’s nothing...nothing telling about going out for a jog together.
It had been so much easier back when he hadn’t realized they were dating and the whole coffee at Annie’s, study sessions at the library, baking pie in the Haus kitchen, walks by the pond disguised as photography sessions were a thing he could do without worrying someone might get the wrong idea.
Back then, he’d kind of secretly (not very secretly) hoped observers would get the wrong idea. Because imaginary-dating Jack was as close as he’d thought he would come to the real thing. And if worst came to worst and rumors started Jack would just deny it because obviously Jack was straight. So there was no way these were honest to goodness actual dates.
Now that they’re actually dating -- now that they have a concrete plan for coming out -- he’s assessing everything that comes out of his mouth, every physical interaction, to determine whether a casual bystander would construe it as flirting. It's a cruel irony he's just going to have to live with for another few months.
But not here, he tells himself firmly, not today. Today he’s going to let himself be Jack’s boyfriend in (a mostly deserted) public and if someone sees then someone sees and if someone puts two and two together then someone puts two and two together and that’s what the firmly-worded press statement in a locked drawer in Erin’s office is for.
Yes. He can do this.
The beach is almost deserted, but for a few distant beachcombers chasing the outgoing tide. Jack nods that they can release the Setters from their leashes and Fergus waits patiently while Eric unhooks the catch, then goes surging after his brother down to the edge of the surf.
They sit at the edge of the sand to take off their shoes and tie the laces together. Then Jack tugs Eric back to his feet and they walk hand-in-hand after the dogs. Eric laces his fingers into Jacks and leans into his shoulder, smelling the familiar sweat of exertion that clings to him beneath the brine of the sea.
Jack finds a piece of driftwood and picks it up to toss for Angus, who seems more interested than Fergus in chasing sticks; Fergus is distracted by the gulls riding leisurely on the surf -- disdainful of his attempts to swim near.
They walk along the water’s edge, bare feet leaving side-by-side tracks in the wet sand that get drawn away as fast as they’re created by the slowly outgoing tide.
“So what do you think?” Jack asks, after they’ve walked out to the tip of the point and stand looking out into vast expanse of Cape Cod Bay.
Eric shakes his head, “It’s so different, is what I keep thinking. All the scrub trees and beaches and the ocean --” he sweeps his arm out toward the horizon where the arm of the outer Cape is all that stands between them and the wild open waters of the Atlantic. A tanker floats on the horizon, slowly making its way toward Boston harbor. “It’s so flat. Where I grew up, you were always heading up a hill or down into a valley. Here it’s...empty. However do people live with so much...exposure?”
Jack stands next to him, looking out toward where the morning sun is dancing on the gentle surf. Eric looks up just in time to see Jack shaking his head, slowly, to himself before he speaks.
“It’s...maybe you’re exposed, out here, but it doesn’t matter. The ocean and the wind and the sand don’t care who you are or what you do, eh? I think that’s what I like about the shore. It reminds you how unimportant you are.”
Eric looks back out to the water and thinks about Jack and the weight of expectations, and how heavy those expectations must be if it takes the force of an entire ocean to help him feel like who he is and what he does aren’t under scrutiny.
A particularly strong wave rolls in and washes over their toes. Eric is used to the freshwater of rivers and streams and the saltwater of the ocean bites at his skin. It’s sharp and clarifying.
He lets go of Jack’s hand and takes a few steps out into the surf. The outgoing tide swirls around his ankles and then his knees. A particularly high swell catches the edge of his nylon jogging shorts and before he realizes what’s happening he’s soaked to the groin.
The ocean water is cold, particularly once he gets out passed the shallows where the outgoing tide will soon leave the sand exposed to the open air. The surface of the water, down maybe six inches, is comfortable, but the water washing around his toes is noticeably chillier.
Suddenly arms snake around from behind him and he lets out an undignified squeak of surprise as Jack catches him around the waist and pulls him through the water, his feet losing contact with the sand.
“Jesus! Fuck, Jack! Cold!” He protests, somewhat shortly but (he feels) to the point, as Jack swings him in a lazy arc through the water.
“Chicken,” Jack teases. “The water was reported at seventy yesterday.”
“Well it doesn’t feel the least bit like seventy now, does it?” Eric says, sharply, just to prove the point even though Jack’s right that once the surprise wears off the water isn’t inhospitable to swimming.
He fights to get his feet back under himself in the surf, and Jack lets him with a steadying hand under his elbow. Once he has his feet underneath him, Eric twists in Jack’s grasp and wraps his arm around Jack’s neck, letting the water buoy him up into Jack’s arms for a kiss. Jack tastes of his own sweat and the Gatorade he’s been making them both drink and the stronger salt taste of the ocean that tickles the back of Eric’s nose as he inhales.
Out here in the water, it doesn’t feel like they’re exposed and maybe he’s starting to get what Jack means about being insignificant because how important are two boys kissing in the surf compared to the drag and release of the water around them -- water that has spent millennia carving these beaches. Back on the shore, Angus is chewing on his captured stick and Fergus is lying beside his brother having given up on the gulls. The beachcombers might see them if they looked up but Eric finds he genuinely cannot bring himself to care for the first time since he got off the plane at Logan. And judging by the enthusiastic response he’s getting from Jack, he realizes that Jack has stopped caring too.
Yes. They can do this.
He adjusts his arms around Jack’s neck, feeling how steady Jack is braced against the tide, and then let’s the saltwater lift his feet off the sand with the swell and trough of the next incoming wave. He kicks, slightly, against the current and hooks his legs around Jack’s hips, crossing his ankles against the small of Jack’s back so he’s wrapped arms and legs around Jack’s torso. The better to kiss him with, he thinks with a grin.
“Well hey,” Jack says, grinning back against Eric’s cheek.
“Hey,” Eric says. “Thank you.”
“Should I ask what for?” Jack inquires, shifting his feet slightly to widen his stance against the water.
“Just...this,” Eric says, burying his face in Jack’s neck. “You’re a good boyfriend, Mr. Zimmermann, you know that?”
Jack’s arms tighten around him, though he doesn’t say anything, and neither of them let go.