Log: Jack, Phil, & Pete Who: Jack Murdock, Phil McCoy, and Pete McCoy When: BACKDATED to Sunday morning, prior to Jack leaving for Canada Where: Phil & Pete's room What: Jack goes to apologize to Phil, ends up being invited in, and a very awkward and uncomfortable experience ensues. It's nasty.
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Jack's felt terrible for days. He's been trying to distract himself by hanging out with May, by working on a new translation, by visiting his mother. All kinds of things. There's just this gnawing feeling in the back of his mind that something is wrong, something is wrong. There's a hole in his heart. There's a broken place. What was once righteous indignation is now guilt. He was waiting for Phil to come back again. Phil's not coming back. Phil's not coming back. Not after that awful thing that Jack did when Phil came to see him that last time----maybe Phil was trying to apologize. Jack was cruel. He's so used to being an emotional pushover that when he fights back, it's hard and vicious. Too vicious. He oversteps a boundary when he fights back, and for a while he's very proud of himself just for standing up for himself. But his nature is to give a damn about other people, about the human condition in general. He can't stay proud for long. He hates himself a little for what he did.
It's impossible to avoid Phil. Jack doesn't see him, but he knows when he's been somewhere. He hears his heartbeat from a distance. His room still smells like him, even though he's washed the sheets and all his clothes. It's like a constant reminder, and he can't ignore. Jack's never been good at ignoring problems.
So that's why he's going to Phil and Pete's room, and once he's in the hall he can hear the heartbeats of both McCoy boys. Fuck. For a few seconds, he just stands outside the door. Silent. Listening. He doesn't want to eavesdrop, but with his powers, he pretty much always does. Eventually, he knocks. Knowing full well that Pete is in there.
"It's Jack." He just barely speaks loud enough to be heard through the door, because he doesn't actually know how loud he has to be for a normal person to hear him. "Phil, I know you're in there. With Pete. And you don't have to open the door, you don't have to see me. All I want to do is tell you that I'm sorry. For what I did. That was awful, and I'm sorry. That's probably nothing, but... it's what it is." Pete will probably beat him up again if he knew. "And I'm sorry for pushing at you the way I do. The way I did. You have your life and it doesn't involve me and I don't understand it. I want to. I wanted to understand it. I'm ..." Jack closes his eyes and rests his forehead against the door. "I was so scared of being something you're ashamed of."
---What was it Phil had said? He didn't want to let Jack into his family life because Jack's unpredictable and violent. Because he snapped and hit Phil. It's not just that Phil's uncomfortable with a boyfriend. It's that Phil has a Safe Place with Hank and Pete and he doesn't want Jack in there. Jack's not part of that Safe Place. "I don't ... know what to say anymore, I'd ... like you to say something to shut me up, but I just... it wasn't sitting well with me to just not say anything. I was wrong to you. You were wrong, too. So you can... take this and... I just had to get it off my chest."
He waits a couple of seconds for some kind of response. "Okay." Kind of awkward, and then he's walking away from the door with his hands shoved in his pockets.
Phil sat on his bed, reading. Or rather, pretending to read. Because he kept talking to Pete, he read the same sentence a good fourteen times. Then he hears Jack outside the door, monologueing like a super villain. Phil just listened. He'd throw a nervous, embarrassed glance at Pete during it.
Then he's closing his book, to hell with marking the page he was on, scooting off the bed and to the door. He sticks his head out, "Hey, come hang out with us."
It's a start?
Jack blinks softly and looks back over his shoulder. It looks like he's either going to ask Phil if he's batshit crazy or cry. So instead, he does neither: "You two aren't planning on cutting me into tiny pieces and then dissolving me in a vat of acid, are you?"
"What? No! Never!" Phil plays like they've already got the acid nice in hot in there. "Not tiny pieces. No. Get in here?" Please, we've had enough of this hallway stuff lately.
Jack's mouth twitches. Almost a smile. He's not at a point for smiling, especially if Phil is going to do the avoidance thing. Oh, and what if they really are going to kill him? ...Nah. He should say no, because how fucking awkward is this? But he doesn't want to shy away and run off. So... he goes back to the room. Tentatively steps in. All right, McCoys. Open fire. Or... or release the hounds. Or... do... something. Don't just let him stand there with his hands in his pockets looking like an idiot.
Phil walks back to his seat on the bed, but not before pulling a desk chair out to sit between the boys' beds. There, Jack, sit. "Pete, this is Jack, I believe you've met?"
Pete has the amazing ability to sink into the background of most anywhere. Call it being a product of a laboratory, blame it on being naturally quiet, but through all that, it was like Pete was invisible, phased out of this world like Sarah and letting it all go by. Because this was Jack and Pete was still a little ashamed of his actions. Alright, a lot ashamed and found himself really wanting Jack to just walk away right now when his brother went and fetched him.
As they walked back in, Pete's face was set by the glow of his monitor. He hadn't stopped looking at it and wasn't about to stop now. His glasses reflected the light enough to hide his eyes, but there was certainly something new with Pete McCoy: fear. He was actually afraid of Jack being in here. But why?
There's quite a bit of fear in the room, isn't there? Pete's afraid of Jack, Jack's afraid of Pete. And Phil, too. He sits in the chair because he feels he has to. "Hi." To Pete, kind of shy. "I'm... glad you're okay." He means that. He does. He absently rubs at the hand that Pete broke and Duckie healed, then looks from Pete to Phil, and back to Pete again, because he finds he can't look at Phil without this uncomfortable tugging feeling in his chest. ---It's not poetic, it's like he's going to throw up.
Phil lifts his book up-- oh hey it's the book he stole from Jack's classroom. Phil is adding kleptomania to his growing list of ticks. He lets the other two people in the room talk. Just me, fly on the wall Phil.
Welcome to Chez Uncomfortable, population: 3.
"I'm sorry I wanted to break your hand and choke you," answers Pete in a quieter voice than normal, not exactly the even and distant tone he normally talked in. In fact, he even seems to be a little slumped in his seat, as if trying to hide behind his computer. Phil said he should apologize if it would make him feel better and now that he's said it... he kind of doesn't feel all that better. Would Jack take retaliation? He's seen the wounds he's inflicted on Phil...
"Um." Jack tilts his head, shakes it. "Hey, you weren't yourself." Or so Jack thinks, anyway. "It was that thing, wasn't it? So, really now. It's... y'know." He wiggles his fingers. "All better now." If we're going for the absurdly cliche, it's just his heart that needs mending now, and Duckie can't fix that. "You didn't want to break my hand and choke me... 'cause it wasn't you." Right? The fact that Pete says wanted instead of sorry I did catches Jack's attention a little late and strikes him as odd. And disconcerting.
Phil doesn't look up from his book. Just states, "It was the nanovirus. Made him drunk with power." Jack, don't pry into Pete's fragile mind.
What a terrifying idea. Thanks, Phil. He finally looks up from the computer. "I can go," he offers quickly and makes a gesture to the door.
Jack's immediately getting up out of his chair. "I'm sorry," he says quickly. "No, don't... don't think about----no, I'll." He's awfully concerned about impeding on Phil-and-Pete time and he's made an ass of himself and he doesn't want to kick Pete out of his own room. He glances at Phil, wonders if Phil wants him to leave. ---Probably. That's the assumption, anyway.
"Pete, this is your damn room." Damn! He said damn! "Jack, sit." It's a firm voice. Like Jack and Pete are cheeky puppies. The book is finally lowered, and Phil comes up with this, "We're all cool now. Pete's sorry, Jack's sorry, and I'm sorry." In a roundabout way, Phil apologizes. And -- PHIL HAS SPOKEN. "Pete's not leaving, and Jack's not leaving... like this. Do it in a pleasant way, if you must. Say something like..." Phil looks up, twirling his first finger around like he's trying to swirl an answer from the air, "Well, this has been nice, but I should go, we should have a spot of tea later, old bean."
Right then. Pete puts his hands back on the keys and goes back to coding, a steady rhythm of tapping against the keys. Slowly, he looks down, a little cowed by the whole thing and still wonders if he can make it out of here. And why he wants to leave so badly. He's uncomfortable here and he doesn't exactly understand why.
Jack frowns at Phil. "We're cool? Hold up there, old bean. I don't think we're cool. We're not cool just because you say so." Oh. He's one of those we have to talk it out people. "Me and Pete, we might be cool. Maybe. But you and me? Let's hold our horses on that one."
"All right, now you can leave, Jack." Phil rolls his eyes and goes back to the book. This is one boring book, people.
Pete's rather surprised by the sudden outburst. "Under those conditions, you and I also not cool just because you say so, Jack," he chimes in with the utmost politeness. Normally, that kind of thing would have rolled right off Pete, used to being told how he felt about things and taking cues from others. Not anymore.
The color drains out of Jack's face. He said maybe! Jack's torn between leaving the room with his tail between his legs and coming up with something to say to that along the lines of Well, hey, I'm not to cool with you either, because you broke my fucking hand and tried to kill me and I still don't know why. But Pete's got the whole nanovirus excuse. Phil and Jack? Don't have that excuse. So instead, all he manages is, "Well, fuck." He has to chuckle a little, just because he's so damn uncomfortable and he thinks he'll throw up or do something equally undignified----like... cry, or something. "All right. Okay. None of us are cool." Except Phil and Pete are cool. Obviously. So it's just Jack that's the problem in the equation. He's actually suddenly aware of that, like he wasn't aware of it before.
Running out with his tail between his legs is looking like a good option.
"Pete, we cool?" Phil's voice is soft when it's used towards his brother.
Pete looks up and nods, comforted by his brother asking, even when he didn't have to. "Ice cold," Pete answers simply.
"Yeah, I think we're done here, Jack." A therapist and his Oh, We're Out Of Time voice.
Jack's breath hitches before he can stop it. He's suddenly aware that he's taking up space where he just doesn't belong. He wipes his hands off on his jeans like they're dirty, and gets up off the chair. Opens his mouth to say something but knows that whatever he says will be ... problematic in one way or another, for whatever reason. He said what he had to say at the door. He should have just kept on walking. And God, please. Please let this be some kind of unfortunate accident, the way this whole thing turned out... instead of deliberate. Though if it's deliberate, Jack might deserve it, after what he did to Phil. Apology or no.
And so, his mouth closes, and he looks away when he nods. Right. Okay. The walk to the door is long and silent and painful, and he slips out and closes the door behind him without a word.
Phil closes his book, looks at the cover and tosses it on the ground. "Let's go watch something with people's heads falling off." You know, if you're not busy, Pete.