To Hold the Hands I Love

He was gone, and Jack felt it before his hand ever touched the knob. He knew this time Will would not be coming back.

He couldn’t say he blamed him.

The calendar said it was December fourth. Three days before their one year anniversary.

He didn’t blame anyone but himself.

All the memories were permanently etched into the walls of this place, their home. The couch still looked like they had just curled up together on it. Jack almost felt Will pulling him close. The kitchen looked homey, as though it hadn’t realized its primary user had abandoned it. Snow hit the same window that they had gazed out at sunsets and rises. The same table where they had shared their first fiery kiss as a couple. And if he went into the bedroom, it would be the same place where they had held each other and made love countless times.

It was all the same. That was wrong. The place should have been dead without Will. The walls shouldn’t be screaming that they had seen everything that had ever happened within them. They floors shouldn’t have been so clean and warm and joyful. The windows shouldn’t show the same beautiful cityscape that they had shared together.

The door that Will had left through shouldn’t sit there so plainly, as though nothing at all had happened.

//Jack’s hand, palm still stinging, clutched the sleeve of Will’s shirt. The other man gently ran his fingers along the red mark on his cheek, surprise and disbelief displayed sharply across his features.

“Will…” Jack’s voice trembled lightly, “I-I didn’t mean to, I… don’t know what came over me… I was just so mad… Are you okay? I’m sorry, I really am sorry. And I didn’t mean what I said, I-I do love you, Will, really… Do-do you need some ice or something? I-I could go get some… some ice…” He stopped as he realized everything he had said was irrelevant. He let go of Will’s shirt, hand falling to his side.

The only sound in the room was Will’s heavy breathing. He looked into Jack’s blue-blue eyes, and Jack saw all the hurt and pain he had caused the only person in the world he had really ever loved. They both cast their eyes downward.

“You…” Jack looked up in surprise as Will spoke, his voice low, tears beginning to pour out the corners of his eyes. “You don’t love me Jack…” his words came out in a half sob, as he chokingly continued. “You’ve never love anyone at all… You don’t know how to.”

Jack began to cry as Will turned and left his heart in the little glass pieces of china, shattered all over the floor.//

Jack laid his face down in Will’s pillow and breathed in deeply. The pillow was fragrant with Will’s scent, making him light headed. His eyes welled with tears, but he closed them slowly and swallowed, pushing them back.

This time, he wouldn’t cry.

He reached over the side of the bed and pulled open the top drawer of the nightstand. Feeling under it, he found the letters he had hidden there. He touch the surface of the top letter. It was obvious which stationary was whose; Will was business-like, but with beautiful, defined handwriting scrawled across the top. Jack’s was pretty, flowers or hearts decorating the colored paper.

Somehow, he found that Will’s felt much more personal.

//Will was stunned and angry as they both stormed into the apartment, their formal wear ruffled from the wind outside. Will stalked into the bedroom without a word, and Jack followed, his expression defensive.

Will spun around and exploded, “I can’t BELIEVE you said that to my client!”

“Well, ex-cuse me for being honest, mister lawyer-first-human-being-later Truman,” Jack shrieked, hurling his jacket full-force at the opposite wall.

“You know, I don’t think you get it, Jack!” Will barked, “You just love to sponge off of me, or Karen, or, hell, even Grace, but that money has to come from somewhere! We don’t just go out to Central Park and pick it off the trees!” His foot collided sharply with the nightstand. The drawer popped open and the letters spilled out of their hiding place, drawing Will’s attention.

“So what if I told her that she had bad fashion sense and she should get a refund for that hairstyle? It was good advi-”

“You kept these?” Will’s voice had softened. He face had become peaceful, and he seemed to have forgotten about the argument entirely. Jack’s face went beat red at the site of them.

“Oh, those… I- just-- well, you know-”

Will grinned and silenced him with a kiss. Easing Jack gently down onto the comforter, he pressed his nose against the other man’s, an intimate gesture.

“I kept the ones that you wrote, too…”

Jack felt his face cool slightly, only to heat up immediately, along with the rest of his body, as he was pushed down onto the pillows. Will burrowed his face into the side of Jack’s neck. “We were fighting a minute ago, weren’t we?”

“Well, yeah…”

“Let’s not.”

“Not…?”

“Let’s not fight anymore, okay?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Jack smirked lightly into Will’s hair.

“Think you can stick to it?” Will teased.

“Oh, I know I can,” Jack stated, only half joking, “I may not be known for commitment, but I know when I can benefit from something.”

“Even when it takes longer then a week?”

“Well, geez, Will, aren’t you needy!”

“Jack…” he felt Will frown.

“But, for you… I could probably go a whole month…” Jack finished.

“A whole month, eh?” Will laughed, “Are you sure that’s not Jack for five minutes?”

“Is that a challenge, mister? Because, when it comes to matters of love, Jack McFarland-”//

“-can go to the greatest extremes,” he recited calmly.

He knew that Will was right. He didn’t know how to love. How could he? He couldn’t keep a boyfriend for more then six days before Will, and it was no secret that that had been no accomplishment of his own, simply a product of the dedication that Will put into every aspect of his own life.

“I’m so useless…” Jack finally felt the tears pour down his cheeks. He didn’t bother to wipe them away. “I can’t do anything right. I can’t do anything without someone there to take care of me.”

What would he do without his Will?

Nothing.

There was nothing he could possibly do without someone there to clean up his mistakes, or pay his way through.

“I’m useless. I’m nothing.”

He found himself in the living room, gazing through the window at the soft, glowing white snow falling through the darkness. His opened the latch, and pushed the interfering glass aside, allowing the cold to seep into his bones.

In three days it would be there anniversary. In twenty days it would be Christmas even, and it twenty-one it would be Christmas. Three days shy of month away was New Years.

And he couldn’t see a second of it spent without Will.

And why should it be?

They said they’d be together forever.

They promised that, if nothing else, they would always be there to hold the others hand.

Jack couldn’t be without Will.

Jack wouldn’t do without Will.

Jack wasn’t Jack without Will.

//It was their first vacation together. Will had rented a gorgeous sweet with a beautiful view of the wide, blue Honolulu ocean.

Jack was dressed stylishly in white, a rather new model of sunglasses gracing his slightly burnt face. When it came to matters of tanning, Will came out of it much better then his partner-in-crime.

The room was scented with something foreign to Jack’s nose. He stretched comfortably on the floor in front of the balcony sliding doors, allowing the sunlight to warm him. They were open slightly and a cool breeze blew over his skin.

He couldn’t remember feeling this happy in his entire life.

Will’s grinning face appeared above him. He smiled lazily up at the man and grabbed his arm, pulling Will down on top of him.

“How you doin’, lawyer man?” he asked, wrapping his arms around Will’s neck.

“Pretty good,” Will replied, “And you seem to be doing okay yourself.”

“Oh, I don’t know…” Jack said, playing with Will’s ears, “I could think of a few ways to be doing a little better…”

Will arched his eyebrows slightly, “Like?”

“Like you… and me…”

“Ahh,” Will said knowingly, “You know, that’s not your worst idea, Jack…”

“I don’t have ‘worst ideas’, Will,” Jack responded.

“Yeah,” Will said, “I know you don’t…”

He leaned down and covered Jack’s lips with his own. A breath of wind pressed into the room, making the curtains billow lazily over their intertwined bodies.//

Jack started out of the memory to find the hairs on his arms standing on end, vying for heat. He stood up suddenly, causing the wilting potted plant on the sill to fall to the floor, breaking over an envelope he hadn’t noticed. He thought about reaching down, picking it up. But it just didn’t seem important enough, lying there.

The world was swirling around him unpleasantly. The window seemed to have frosted over. Snowflakes blew through the window and landed on his bare flesh.

Could he feel them?

His skin could. But he was numb on the inside. He didn’t feel them on the inside.

He stumbled, almost fell. He caught himself, but then didn’t see the point in the effort, and allowed himself to fall anyway.

He landed heavily on the carpet, weeping into it. He felt something hard and solid pressing into his chest. Slowly pushing himself up, he grasped the offending item in his hand.

A bottle of unidentified prescription. He might have thought it was Karen’s, but for the fact that it was full almost to the brim, and that was unusual for a bottle of Karen’s pills. He looked down at it, enclosed in his long, pale fingers, and a thought struck him. He sat there for a long time, mulling it over in his head. Before he knew it, forty-five minutes had passed.

He had decided.

‘Will…’

He was in the kitchen, reaching into a cupboard, and then he was out the door. He was in the snow covered streets, his breath visible in puffy, mist-like clouds. He realized he wasn’t wearing a coat and didn’t care It really didn’t matter now.

‘Will, I need you now…’

He look down at the pills and knew he’d have to do it in one go, if he was going to do it at all. He popped open the top, tilted his head back and emptied the bottle into his mouth, downing them with the bottle of vodka he’d brought. It was difficult to swallow, and took him several more gulps of the alcohol to finally get the last of them to slide down his throat.

‘If I can’t have you…’

Afterwards, he looked at the flakes falling in front of the streetlamp, and awed at how they seemed to burst with light in front of his eyes. He wandered down the street and into a nearby park, swaying slowly down the path. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply into him the freezing air.

‘If you won’t have me…’

Ah. There. Now his skin couldn’t feel.

‘Then no one will… ever again…’

There was no pain for a moment. None in his body, or on the inside of him. When he opened his eyes he was laying in a heap of snow, staring up at the dark, clouded sky. Everything had gone very quiet inside of his head, and one final memory pushed itself forward…

‘Will, I need you now…’

//They were sitting at the table, sipping orange juice and nibbling muffins. Neither one of them felt much up to eating after the club the previous night; hangovers could do that to you.

Will had spent most of the night getting drunk by himself, flirting edgily with a few guys, who inevitably saw Jack and decided he was a better catch. But Jack had had the whole night chalk full of guys offering him dates, dinners, movies, hotel rooms. He couldn’t stop talking about it.

“And I’m going to see the new Mel Gibson movie with Brian tonight, and Jake got tickets to some something or another band for Wednesday, and I think Gale said dinner on Friday, which just means I’m going to be booked all weekend!” He exclaimed happily.

Will rolled his eyes, and if Jack didn’t know any better he might have sworn that Will looked-of all things- jealous.

‘Is he upset because I got a few dates and he didn’t?’ Jack wondered. “What’s with the sour face, Will?” he asked, “Because, you should know I’m one the few who can make a out look sexy, and you just not there yet.”

“Oh, shut up Jack,” Will snapped crossly.

“No, really, Will,” Jack continued, “What’s wrong?”

Will shifted uncomfortably in his seat for a moment, silence fill the air along with the hifting of Will and Jack tapping a well-manicured nail against the surface of the table. Finally, Will gave in.

“If you were actually going to settle down with one guy… who would it be?” He asked.

“Brad Pitt,” Jack said, without hesitating.

Will frowned, “Seriously, Jack… What kind of guy would he have to be to… you know, tie you down for once?”

“Hmm…” Jack pondered the weight of the question for a moment before answering, “Well, he’d have to be pretty stable,” Will nodded slightly, “and he’d have to be willing to take care of me…” Will leaned forward a bit, “And he’d have to be equal to me in prettiness.” Jack finished. Will slumped back down in his seat with a sigh.

“Oh.”

“Why the weird question, anyway, Will?” Jack asked curiously, “And what kind of man would you settle down with, you wild thing?” Jack laughed suddenly, “Oh, wait! I remember now. You’ve been trying to do that for years now,” he giggled with an edge of cruelty to his voice.

“Y-y-…”

“What?”

“You…”

“Huh?” Jack said, surprised.

He let out a startled gasp as Will placed a hand on either side of his face and kissed him full on the mouth. Panicked, Will held on, afraid of the reaction he’d receive when he let go. But then Jack was responding, kissing him back.

The kiss seemed to go one forever, but really only lasted about thirty seconds. Will finally moved back.

The silence continued on for a moment.

“Wow,” Jack said.

“Yeah…” Will said back.

There eyes met across the table and they smiled.//

The clouds of breath had stopped escaping from between Jack’s lips. His skin had turned a blue color and his tears were frozen on his cheeks, completing the image of a sad snow angel.

Back in the apartment, covered in a soil, a neglected letter said on the floor, waiting for Jack to open it. Its contents read, simple and full of love;

Dearest Jack,

I hope you can forgive me for what I said to you. I don’t know anyone that can love better then you; you’re the one who really taught me how to, after all.

We made a promise that we’d never fight again, because of those letters you kept, so I thought it would be the most appropriate way to tell you this; with a pen and paper.

You and me. We’re great together.

I can’t be apart from you. We’re like part of the same set, you and me. And I could never stay mad at you. I was just as foolish that night, it was just as much my fault. Maybe even more.

When I come home tonight, I want to talk, forgive and forget, and all that. And don’t worry about smacking me. I kind of deserved it.

You, me, dinner tonight.

I love you,
Will

P.S., I know we’ll work through this. After all, I was taught by the best, that when it comes to matters of love, we can go to the greatest extremes.

The lamp is burnin' low upon my table top The snow is softly fallin' The air is still within the silence of my room I hear your voice softly callin'

If I could only have you near To breathe a sigh or two I would be happy just to hold the hands I love Upon this winter night with you

The smoke is rising in the shadows overhead My glass is almost empty I read again between the lines upon the page The words of love you sent me

If I could know within my heart That you were lonely too I would be happy just to hold the hands I love Upon this winter night with you

The fire is dying now, my lamp is growing dim The shades of night are liftin' The mornin' light steals across my windowpane Where webs of snow are driftin'

If I could only have you near To breathe a sigh or two I would be happy just to hold the hands I love And to be once again with you To be once again with you

~END~