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“You’re still here.”
Phil leans against the front door; the dogs for once staying back. Lethargic with grief at losing their owner and one of their pack. Brow furrowing he quirks his head at Frank - Jack, really - standing there on the stoop; hands tucked in his leather jacket pockets. His eyes are red-rimmed, but Phil figures the other man wouldn’t appreciate him pointing that out. “Uh, yeah. You weren’t gone long.”
Barely two hours.
Phil had hardly had any chance to clean up after the undertakers had taken away the two bodies.
”Right.”
”You coming in?”
Jack jerks out a nod; the confident façade of Frank TJ Mackey stripped away through tears and conflicting heartache and the cruel hand of time, that waits for no man - especially one with regrets - and leaving the young boy that had been left to care for his sick mother when he should’ve just been allowed to love her, underneath.
Phil steps back, shutting the door behind them both with a soft click.
”What would you have done if I’d left? You don’t have a key.”
Jack shrugs wandering into the living room; taking off his jacket and tossing it onto the back of the couch. “Gone back to mine.”
Phil nods; following him into the other room at a more tentative and somewhat confused pace. He hadn’t expected him to come back. Thought being seen - exposing his vulnerable underbelly - would put his back up. Make it so he would turn tail and run; get far away from the house of the man who had caused so much deep-seated trauma. Phil was pleasantly surprised to be wrong. “Fair enough. How was Linda?”
”She tried to kill herself.” Phil had thought that might be the case, even if it was still sad to hear. “She was shocked to be alive.” Jack huffs out a sardonic laugh. “Even more shocked to see me.”
He hums. Shoves his hands in his pants pocket; curling his shoulders a little. Doesn’t know if he should sit or—
“Stop hovering behind me, and sit down, Phil,” Jack snaps; taking the decision out of his hands.
”Sorry.” Phil sits next to him on the couch. He smells of sweat and a citrus-scented aftershave and the faint hint of sorrow. He’s not sure if Jack is aware of it though.
They sit there in silence for a while. Jack’s hands rest on his thick thighs; fingers clenching and flexing and clenching back again. So unlike the confident man Phil had glanced on tv, who had stared out at him from that advert in that magazine.
“You were crying.”
”What?” Phil croaks. He swipes under his eyes, but they’re dry.
”When I was here before. And when he - when he—“ Jack tucks a strand of hair behind his ear; the dark strands falling across his face now they were no longer tied back. “At the end.”
”Oh.” Phil clears his throat. “Right. Yeah. It takes a toll, I guess. Should probably harden myself against it, but…” he shrugs, trailing off.
”Before I got here - when I left my Seduce and Destroy seminar - I thought the only person who would cry for that asshole’s death would be Linda, and yet you were crying and I - I—“ he growls in frustration at himself, the whole situation maybe? “I fucking cried! Even though I wanted to do the exact fucking opposite because that fucking fuck doesn’t deserve my tears, and - did you like him? Earl, my father, I mean.”
He sneers the word father, like being linked to Earl Partridge by blood was a horrible inconvenience he thought he’d done everything possible to rid himself of, and yet—
Phil considers his words. Doesn’t know Jack - or Frank, whichever one he was - very well. Only met him a couple of hours ago. Before that he just had a dying man’s regret-filled confessions to go off of. He’d nursed Earl Partridge for months. They got on fine. Phil is very aware though that people change when the know the end is staring them in the face; and that the relationship between a nurse and their charge, and a father and his son is completely different. And despite how much Phil thinks all that ‘no pussy has nine lives’ stuff is absolute bullshit, he can also see that the man next to him is more complicated than that.
”He was an interesting patient,” he settles on eventually.
”Interesting?” Jack huffs, unimpressed.
”He had regrets. Especially when it came to you and your mother.”
Jack’s nostrils flared; jaw clenching, nails digging into the meat of his thighs. “Easy to regret things with hindsight and with decades between then and now.”
Phil dips his head in concession, because he wasn’t wrong. Phil has heard a good number of deathbed confessions, and the hardest thing about hearing them is knowing the words were never truly meant for him and were always uttered much too late to ever really fix things. “That is true. He would’ve been glad you came though.” Phil hesitantly rests his hand on top of Jack’s. Blinks in shock when it’s not shoved off in disgust. “I think he thought he’d never see you again. I wasn’t sure - I mean, it was pretty hard getting hold of you. Your number wasn’t listed so I had to resort to finding one of your adverts from a magazine and calling that number and hoping someone would help.”
“What magazine?” It wasn’t the question Phil had been expecting.
”What? Oh. Either Playboy or Hustler, I think.“
”You can’t remember which porn mag you got my number from?” Jack asks; huffing out a laugh.
“I don’t know! It’s not my sort of thing, okay?!” Phil gestures defensively.
”Big-titted women with their muffs out isn’t your thing?”
Phil swallows thickly. Knows it’s dangerous territory, because there’s a high chance Frank TJ Mackey doesn’t like men who don’t want to fuck women. He’s too tired to hide the truth though. Death makes you feel like that - exposed, reckless. “I’m one of those, what your dad would call, a cocksucker, Jack.”
The other man blinks at him; long, sooty lashes framing endless green eyes. “He called you a cocksucker? He called you that to your face? You were his fucking nurse for fuck’s sake!” Phil can’t quite work out the cadence of his voice, but there’s something there that hints at everything boiling under the surface, threatening to spew out even more viciously and painfully than it had hours before.
”It’s technically true - I do suck cock,” Phil drawls. “When I have the time and someone offering, of course,” he feels the need to add. It had been a good few years since he’d really had either.
”How can you just admit that?” Jack whispers sounding terribly child-like, a tear spilling down his cheek. And oh, that would explain a lot.
“It’s less painful than hiding.”
“He used to call me it all the time, y’know, think I was ten maybe when he started.” Jack frantically swipes at his face; sniffing back tears. “I didn’t even know back then that I - that I liked—“ he shudders out a breath. Phil squeezes his hand in comfort and encouragement. Jack carries on. “He saw right inside me into who I truly was and he hated it. Mocked me and reviled me, and by the time I realised that he was right - about what, who, I liked - I hated myself, but I also hated him more. I mean, who does that? Who does that, Phil, hmm? Who makes a young boy hate himself just because he likes other boys? Who? Well, my fucking father did. And he hated me right there alongside too. I could see it in his eyes. He couldn’t bear to look at me. My mom getting sick was just the perfect excuse for him to leave, but I knew if I was different he would’ve stayed. He loved her, he just hated me more.” Each word is spat out, Jack almost choking on the venom of it. It makes Phil’s heart clench in the worst kind of way.
”If you like men, why…?”
”Why Seduce and Destroy?”
“Yeah.”
“Because I thought that if I fucked women and made my life’s work about seducing them, then maybe my asshole of a father might look at me without disgust in his eyes.” Jack stares ahead, avoiding his gaze. His voice toneless; like he’s resigned to how sad and pathetic that naïve hope really was.
Frank TJ Mackey, or Jack Partridge, whichever one he was, was a smart man. Even if he’d spent years spouting stupid shit. He had to be clever to make others believe it. It was obvious to Phil though, that he never really believed what he was saying himself. He just wanted to be loved by his dad, just like any boy would.
”I’m sorry,” Phil says; skimming his finger tips along the sharp line of Jack’s jaw when he turns to look at him. “I’m sorry he was such a shit father to you, Jack.”
Jack’s gaze bores into him. Phil doesn’t know what he’s searching for. He then surges forward seeking out Phil’s mouth. Their noses knock together. Phil grunts as he’s pushed back against the arm of the couch. Jack’s mouth is soft against his own. Tastes of coffee and the slight salt of his tears. His fingers spasm in shock against Jack’s cheek, but he doesn’t push him away. Just kisses him back, gently tugging him closer.
”I shouldn’t have—“ Jack tries to pull back; fear colouring his face. Phil shakes his head; capturing his lips again. Pulling him closer again.
”Don’t think about it,” he murmurs into the kiss; spearing his fingers through the soft strands of Jack’s hair. “It’s okay. No one else is here. You can kiss me. It’s okay.”
Jack blankets his body, the angle awkward and desperate. Bites at his bottom lip, their teeth clacking together. It’s not smooth. Phil likes it all the more for it. Tempers Jack’s urgency with a stroke of his thumb over Jack’s cheek bone; sipping from his mouth druggingly slow until he hiccups out a rough sob; whole body shaking as he moves away, but only to tuck his face in the crook of Phil’s neck.
He enfolds Jack into his arms; pressing a kiss to his temple as he holds him. Lets him cry; expunging the poison from a wound that had been cut open time and time again it was thick with scar tissue. Skims his palm down Jack’s heaving flank, coming to rest on the dip of his waist, the curve of his hip. Child-bearing just like his mother’s, he thinks idly.
Noses at his hair, breathing him in. Jack clings to him like a man who hasn’t been touched with care in far too long. Like a boy who misses his mother and who hates his father even as part of him still loved him.
Eventually Jack’s sobs peter out, and he sits back with a gruff sniff. “I think your scrubs are ruined,” he husks.
”S’fine, my patient is dead. S’not like I need them clean anymore.” He thinks for a moment, maybe it was too soon to joke, but Jack snorts out a laugh.
”That is true.” He tucks his hair behind his ear. “You going home or are you staying here for a while?”
”What do you want me to do?”
Jack wets his lips. “I was gonna stay - at least for tonight anyway. Just wanna crash. But, maybe, you could—“
”I’ll stay if you want me to.” Jack’s shoulders slump in relief, just a fraction. “I’ll even suck your cock if you want that too.”
Jack arches a brow; the red around his eyes just highlighting the green. “No seduction? Just coming right out and saying it, huh?” he smirks.
”Figured it might be better, Jack - Frank?”
”Call me, Jack. No one else does.”
Phil nods. “Okay. Jack. Do you want me to suck your cock before we go and sleep?”
Jack exhales deeply and then says, “only if you let me suck yours.”
Phil just chuckles and nods. “Sure,” he says.
And with that, the ghosts clinging to the walls and Jack Partridge’s bones loosen their grip, his next breath, and the immediate future, no longer quite so difficult to deal with.