Print page
Notes: This is part of the Mary Sue Verse - see Crack!tastic for more info and the stories.
Contributionfic for moosesal. And because Kita and Ros asked what happens to the boys after the Mary Sue stories?
Thaw part of MarySueVerse
Vince works long fucking hours, building little houses out of balsawood. It's crazy, Jimmy thinks sometimes, when he's at home in the evening running Callie's bath or sorting through a pile of warm laundry to find her second alligator sock. It's a crazy way to make a living. He can't really get his head around it. Vince hasn't built any real houses yet, or even designed any. But he gets paid more to build little tiny model houses out of matchsticks than Jimmy does to fix real-sized engines in real-sized Fords. He also works long fucking hours.
Callie's fighting a cold she got from daycare, so she's pissy when he tries to feed her dinner, then clingy when he tries to put her to bed. He's tired, he's been up since six just like every day these days, and it's Thursday now. He can remember when Thursday meant a quick dinner of sandwiches and cold stares at Viggo's kitchen table, then escape into a night of stolen six-packs and wet joints and blowing shit up with Kelly's homemade pipe bombs. Thursday night used to mean excitement and danger. Now it just means he's four days into a five-day working week, and he's tired.
"Let go, honey." He pulls his index finger out of Callie's sleeping fist and waits to see if she's going to wake up again. She frowns and squirms, but her eyes stay closed. Carefully, he puts Max's New Suit on the bedside table and clicks off the light. The nightlight glows pink. It's a whale. He has no idea why it's pink.
Sugar's curled up on her mat by the back door, waiting for Vince to get home from work the same way Katy used to wait for him to get home from school. Mary Sue said Katy used to wait on the back porch like that for months, after Vince went away to college. She just couldn't get it through her head that he didn't live there anymore, that he wasn't coming back. Jimmy used to think that was because she was just a dog, and dogs were dumb like that. But then Vince did come back, so what did that say about dogs and, for that matter, people?
"Be another couple hours," he says, opening the fridge and taking out a beer. Sugar's tail hits the floor a couple of times, and her blue eyes watch him pop the cap and flick it into the sink. He takes a long drink, staring out the kitchen window at the soft night sky. His own reflection's there, staring back at him. He's gained a couple of pounds, now that he's not running himself so ragged. He's lost the circles under his eyes. He doesn't hold much with men studying themselves, but these days when he shaves in the morning he has a tendency to pause and look a little closer in the mirror. He looks better than he used to.
"Maybe I'll just be a supermodel," he says wryly, and Sugar thumps her tail again. "Yeah, sure." He yawns, turns away from the window, and picks the phone up off the counter. Scratching his belly with his knuckles, he carries the phone into the front room and falls into the couch. Mary Sue's probably watching some crappy show on Sci-Fi right now, eating rice and soybeans or something. He hits the speed-dial button and takes another drink with his eyes closed.
"Hello?"
"Hey. It's me." She sounds tired. Lately he's started noticing how she sounds--a little tired, a little low, a little under the weather. It makes him antsy. "Just wanted to see how you're doing."
"Hey, sweetie. How're things up there?"
It goes like that for a while, just back and forth, no real depth to it. He tells her about Callie's cold, about the tick Sugar got in the park, about the asshole who drove into the oil bay too fast and almost dropped his SUV into the pit. She tells him about the compost bin and the new preacher's pro-choice editorial and the puppies she was tempted by outside the supermarket.
"You should get one," he says, watching his thumb peel the label off his beer. "You shouldn't be all alone out there."
"A dog's not going to do me any good, Jimmy," she says grimly. "I need a man."
He laughs a little warily--he's still not sure he's comfortable hearing about that stuff, the same way he's not really comfortable talking about that stuff from his own end. Sometimes he wishes everyone would just agree to drop the subject. He doesn't give a damn who sleeps with whoever, and as far as he can tell, talking about it just makes people want to fight. There's a hard, hidden kernel of bad feeling there, too. From Viggo, from the things Viggo used to drill into his head. From the things he let Viggo drill into his head about Vince, once upon a time.
The conversation swerves--Mary Sue knows when he's not happy on a topic--and they briefly cover baseball, then the movie that's just coming onto her television, Anaconda.
"I saw that," he says, frowning at the ceiling. He has a vague memory of rainforests and Ice Cube. "Vince and me. In the theater."
"That's sad, honey." There's a pause, and he can hear the theme music playing. "Oh my God, Danny Trejo?"
"It ain't good."
"I'm shocked." She sounds happy; he can imagine her getting comfortable in the couch, settling in for the next couple of hours. "How's Vince doing?"
"He's okay." He lets that hang there, just like that. Part of him just has nothing more to say. Part of him doesn't even know where to start.
She pauses, then says gently, "You guys getting along?"
"Yeah. We're fine. He's, you know...busy."
There's another pause. She's muted the television, or turned it off. He can hear her thinking. "I guess being an architect takes some time."
"It does." He studies the knee of his jeans. "He's fine, though. We're fine. Listen, I should go, I gotta make lunch for tomorrow."
"Be patient with him, Jimmy."
"I'm patient. I just gotta go."
"Okay. Well...remember he's still Vince."
"I know who he is." He doesn't mean it to sound bad, but it comes out sounding scornful, so he backtracks hastily. "I mean, yeah, I know. Don't worry, I'm not lookin' for trouble. It's just--"
She waits.
"It's just weird," he says finally. "You know? It's weird being home when he's not."
"Do you miss him?"
He doesn't know what to say to that. He's not sure how he ended up painted into this particular corner; he was going to hang up a minute ago. "I don't know. I just...I'm not his wife, you know?"
There's silence on the line. He has the immediate sense that he's said something wrong, something low and unworthy. Something he didn't even mean to say. Or maybe he did. He sits up and puts the beer on the coffee table. "I don't know, I don't know what I mean. Forget it. It's fine."
"Okay," Mary Sue says. "I'm gonna go watch my movie now, Jimmy."
"Okay."
"Kiss Callie for me, will you?"
"Yeah."
She hangs up without telling him she loves him, and it's the stupidest thing in the world, but it makes his belly ache.
He wakes up to a key in the lock, the front door opening, Sugar running through the room. For a second or two he doesn't know where he is, or what's going on. He's lying on the front room couch, his feet up on the arm and the scratchy old mohair throw pulled down over his chest. How come he's not in bed?
Then Vince walks into the doorway. He looks tired. He's wearing jeans and his khaki zippered jacket, pulling his messenger bag off his neck as if it's almost too heavy to lift. Sugar's dancing around his feet, getting in the way while he tries to toe his shoes off. He leans against the wall and looks into the front room. When he sees Jimmy lying on the couch, he smiles that same smile, the one he always gets when he sees Jimmy, the one that makes him look shy and delighted and fifteen years old.
Lying on the couch in a bleary haze, Jimmy gets that same hit he always gets, the unlooked-for warmth in his belly and legs, the happy faltering realization that Vince looks like this at him. He starts to smile back. Then he sees the phone beside him on the cushion, and his beer half-drunk on the coffee table. It's full dark out, he realizes. He frowns.
"What time is it?"
Vince is pulling his coat off, stroking the dog's ears. He hasn't noticed the change in Jimmy's face. "Eleven. Sorry, I had to wait for the plotter to finish. God, I'm tired." He yawns, rubs his hands over his face, and walks into the front room, headed for the couch. "Can we sleep here?"
"I already did." Jimmy sits up just as Vince sits down. There's irritation in him now, and something else that's sharper and more painful. Shame and anger and that old dark urge to hit out. He hates feeling that. It's like there's a little bit of Viggo's poison still in him, and he can't ever get it all the way out. "How come you're so late?"
Vince is staring at him, the smile fading from his face. "I told you. The plotter."
"It's eleven o'clock."
"I know." Vince's eyes are getting wary now. "I'm sorry."
Jimmy just stares at him, at the confusion and fear in his face, at the way he's cringing back into himself. It's terrible. He wants to just lean forward and wrap his arms around Vince's shoulders, pull him down and lie on top of him and keep him safe, keep him from ever looking scared like that again. But at the same time he's snake-mad. He wants to lash out and say awful things, make Vince feel just as bad as he does. He doesn't know why. He just feels rotten and mean. Once upon a time, feeling like this would have made him start throwing punches.
He doesn't do that. Instead he bites his lip, picks up his beer bottle, and walks into the kitchen without another word. Behind him, Vince gets up and follows.
"Jimmy? What's the matter?"
"Nothing." He drains the bottle, leaves it on the counter, and walks out again, down the hall to the bathroom. Again, Vince comes after him.
"You mad at me?"
"No." He goes into the bathroom and starts to shut the door, but Vince is standing in the doorway.
"What's goin' on?" His eyes are big and scared, way too clear. You can see everything Vince is thinking, you always could. It's stupid, he shouldn't be like that. Anyone can bully him like that.
"Nothin'." Jimmy tries to swing the door shut again, but Vince blocks it. "Can I take a piss, please?"
They don't care about closed doors for that--they've pissed in bushes together since they were kids--so hearing that makes Vince look even more scared and upset. He lets the door go and Jimmy swings it closed.
He doesn't have to piss. He sits on the closed toilet seat with his chin on his fists, staring at Callie's step-up stool and wondering if he's gone insane. After a while he gets up and brushes his teeth. Then he runs a cold washcloth over his face, turns off the light, and steps out.
The house is quiet and dark. He walks down the hall to the bedroom without bumping into anything--they don't have much furniture and he knows where it all is. When he gets to the bedroom there's just enough moonlight through the window to see the lump curled up on Vince's side of the bed. That almost undoes him, seeing the way Vince is lying. All curled in on himself like he did when he was a kid.
Jimmy strips off in silence and gets in on his side. The sheets are cool, almost cold. Vince doesn't move. He's not asleep, because he's not breathing in long slow pulls with little hitches at the end, the way he does when he's asleep. He's just lying there.
"You think," Jimmy says after a couple of minutes, "you're ever gonna get home at a regular time of day?"
Vince doesn't answer for a minute. When he does, his voice is flat and emotionless. "Maybe. I don't know."
"Be nice if you did."
"Be nice if I make enough money for us to live off, too." That's the thing about Vince, he's always been the little one and he'll crumple like a wet paper bag if he thinks he's done wrong, but he can also be a prick. A real little prick.
Jimmy takes a deep breath, staring at the ceiling. "I don't give a fuck about money. Never had any anyway."
"Yeah, well." Vince turns onto his back and stares at the ceiling too. "I give a fuck. I want Callie to go to college, for one thing."
"Why, so she can work twelve hours a day and never see her daddy?"
"No, so she doesn't have to change other people's oil for a living."
"Fuck you."
Vince is silent for a minute. "Sorry."
Jimmy wants to say, How come? It's true, it's a dumb fucking job and I don't want her in it either. Engine oil gives you cancer, you work with it long enough. And sooner or later some asshole's going to drop his SUV into the pit and flatten you. If he'd gone back to college when Mary Sue told him to, maybe he'd be doing something else. Building little houses out of balsawood. Fuck, no. He's not smart, he's never going to be a brain worker. He blinks, trying to breathe away the tight coil of anger in his chest. He may not be smart, but he's not an asshole anymore either. He's different now.
"Maybe..." Vince says. "Maybe we should figure something else out for a while."
"Like what?" Jimmy can barely get the words past the lump in his chest.
"Like, I don't know. Something different. Maybe we shouldn't...live like this for a while."
Jimmy lies staring at the ceiling, flattened. He can't breathe.
"Okay," he hears himself say.
"If you want," Vince says. He sounds miserable.
Jimmy puts both hands over his eyes and presses until he sees red stars. Then he turns on his side, facing Vince. "Hey."
Vince turns his head. There's not enough light to see his face, so Jimmy reaches over and clicks on the bedside lamp. The room is small and cluttered, full of their bed and dresser and clothes all over the floor and Callie's toys in the corners. Sugar, curled in the corner on a pile of Vince's T-shirts, looks up in surprise.
"Hey," Jimmy says again. Vince is pale and shocked-looking, his eyes glassy with fatigue and tears. He smells like he's been at work all day, like he needs a shower. He's too skinny.
"Hey," he says back, and licks his lips nervously.
Jimmy leans forward and kisses him. Gently, without any particular feeling of love or urgency until their lips meet, and then he can smell Vince and taste his breath, and the familiarity is like an electric shock. Like he's got one hand up to heaven, a finger in a socket, and one foot knee-deep in a river. Like someone up there finally looks down and sees the state he's in, makes a soft clucking sound, and whacks him mercifully upside the head so all the bad falls out. All of a sudden he's not mad or ashamed or jealous anymore. He's just desperate to be as close to Vince as he can get.
Vince, thank God, doesn't ask questions. He makes a little whimpering sound in the back of his throat and that's it, he's kissing Jimmy back with everything he's got. His hands all over Jimmy's shoulders and the back of his neck, scrubbing through his hair. His legs scooting over under the blankets to tangle up in Jimmy's, to lever their bodies closer together. His mouth greedy and demanding, wanting reassurance and forgiveness and tongue. Jimmy does his best.
They tussle together, rubbing and rolling, until they end up with Vince on the bottom where he always is. Jimmy likes being on top. It makes him feel big, in a good way. Makes him feel like he can do for Vince what Vince needs done. Like he can protect him and pin him down and open him up and fuck him. Like he's the man here, except they're both men, and whatever that means he doesn't know, but it's for sure a better way of being a man than getting drunk and hitting, amen.
"How come you're mad at me?" Vince whispers, his fingers locked behind Jimmy's neck, his back arching, his legs splaying. Jimmy shakes his head.
"I'm not mad at you. I'm just an asshole."
"Yeah." Vince smiles faintly, then closes his eyes in bliss as Jimmy's fingers touch him. "God, that feels so good."
"I'm sorry." Jimmy leans down and kisses Vince's neck, kisses the bone behind his ear, kisses his soft hair. Vince strokes his back and hooks their feet together, then travels his own feet up to Jimmy's hips. "Something you want?"
"It's late." Vince disengages one hand and reaches for the bedside table. "I got to get to sleep."
"Well hell, if I'm inconveniencing you--"
"Shut up." Vince drops the lube onto his own belly. "Don't be an asshole."
Jimmy laughs silently through his teeth, flipping the cap open. Then he's wetting Vince with the stuff, rubbing him inside and out, and Vince's eyes are closed, a wide unconscious smile on his face, and his dick is hot and hard and Jimmy feels dumbstruck with love. He's felt like this for months now. Totally stupid with it, light and giddy and idiotic. It's like walking a cliff's edge and not caring about the drop. It's fucking scary. He hates it and loves it and moments like this, when Vince is in his arms, wide open for the taking, he's so deep in it he can barely breathe. He feels like he could drown.
"Do it," Vince says, his smile dopey now, his body accommodating. He's radiating heat, climbing his legs unselfconsciously up to Jimmy's shoulders, trying to force the issue. He wants this, Jimmy reminds himself. They've done it hundreds of times, but lately he's finding himself hung up on that one incredible fact: Vince wants this. It's enough to make Jimmy come, just thinking about it.
He thinks about engine oil instead, and when he's got the situation under control he gets one hand under Vince's tailbone and the other behind his neck, gripping him at the base of his skull. Vince goes limp, still smiling. When Jimmy eases into him, he lets out a low groan and the muscles in his legs flutter.
"Okay?" Jimmy asks, trying not to pant. Trying to keep control, like a man whose balance is almost lost, trying to find his center again.
"God. Yes. Please." Vince, perpetually greedy, arches and angles, and they both moan. Jimmy fumbles for the lube. More is always better.
They fuck for as long as Jimmy can take it, which means as long as Vince lets him hold out. That's another thing that's started happening lately--Jimmy's started to suspect that he's not really in charge. More than anything, he wants to make Vince feel good, but embarrassingly and inevitably, he finds himself clinging to the edge by his fingernails. On a Thursday night near midnight, it doesn't take long to get to that point. He thinks about carburetors and fan belts and engine blocks and then Vince grabs his arm and he looks down and sees Vince jacking himself off with his head thrust so far back in the pillows that his face is almost hidden. That's it.
He comes hard, his fingers as deep in Vince's hips as Vince's are in his arms. Coming inside Vince feels like what they sell in church. Ascension, benediction. He's going to hell for thinking that, but it's worth it. Coming inside Vince turns him inside out and backwards, leaves him shaking and wet and giddily happy. Maybe it's how people feel after they speak in tongues, or after they sell themselves to the devil. He couldn't care less. He just wants to do it again and again and again.
"Holy..." Vince is wiping his eyes, wiping his mouth, easing his legs down and wincing slightly. "God, wow."
"Yeah." Jimmy does his part, easing onto his heels and sliding a hand under Vince's back. Then he falls forward and covers Vince's body with his, both of them hot and lax and breathing hard. "Yeah."
"Yeah." Vince yawns, wriggles, and digs his forehead into the curve of Jimmy's neck. "Light."
Jimmy fishes the lube out of the sheets, drops it back into the drawer, shuts it, and reaches for the lamp. He hesitates with his hand on the base, though. Vince is almost asleep already, his face tired and flushed and untroubled. His eyelashes, the curve of his lips, the strands of hair sweated to his forehead. They're so familiar, it's like standing in the kitchen staring at the reflection in the window. It's like looking back in time, to a childhood spent in a bad, distant land. Or forward, to a future in a luminous city.
"Light," Vince says again, frowning slightly, so tired he's slurring.
Jimmy lowers his head and kisses Vince gently on the cheek. Then he turns the light out and they fall asleep, entangled.