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Jeff had always had a tumultuous relationship with mortality. When he was young, at around eight or nine, he’d despised mortality. He had so much to do, so much left to discover, so much love to give, so many animals to befriend, and so many new foods to try. As he got older, at around fifteen, he became all too familiar with mortality. With blood. The older he got, and the longer he lived, the less morality looked like the curse it had when he was young, and it became a safety net to him.
No matter what he did, or what mistakes he made, he could always kill himself before any of the consequences caught up to him. No matter what, he could always kill himself.
So, really, nothing mattered. He was a man with nothing to lose and so he lived like a man with nothing to lose.
He drank himself to sleep every night and smoked his way through the day, only to wake up and do it all again. He fought with the people he loved because it was easier to frontload the pain than to prolong it—and those were the only two options. To feel pain now, or to feel it later. There was no secret third option that involved no pain at all, or, there wasn’t for Jeffrey Woods.
He chose to feel pain now, because then he had a reason to be miserable and self pitying. Because then when someone asked him why he looked so miserable, he could say, “my family are dead” or “no one loves me” or “I got into a fight with my best friend” or “everyone always leaves”. He kept making reasons to be sad because he just always was sad. He either had a reason or he didn’t, and there was nothing more shameful than having to answer, “I’m not sure yet” when someone asked him what was wrong. He just knew it was something. Something deep within him, always sinking, always heavy.
Well, today things were heavier than usual. There was no real reason, and to be honest with you, there was never going to be. Jeff’s suicide was inevitable and it was never going to be the result of some epiphany or screaming match with the only person he had left. It was always bound to be on a random Wednesday in March when nobody was expecting it, when nothing bad had happened for a week or so and the lingering dread never ceased.
Today was that day.
When you make a promise to kill yourself at fifteen years old, you have a lot of time to consider how to do it. Jeff had eleven years to consider, apparently, given he was now twenty six and following the list he’d made in his head at eighteen when he’d chosen the best way to die.
You might expect that he’d use a knife—perhaps purged directly into his stomach, leaving him gasping and choking on the floor, messy and ugly , just how he’d want it. Now, it was true that Jeff wanted to die an ugly death, the kind you can’t look away from, but he was also a coward. Only cowards commit suicide, you see, because Jeff was trapped in a losing battle and he simply wasn’t strong enough anymore, and when all of the proxies found his cold, pale body in the morning, that was what they’d see.
Weakness.
A man who hadn’t been strong for 26 years, but a man who couldn’t even make it to thirty before deciding he wasn’t strong enough to live anymore.
So, a knife was too painful, and Jeff couldn’t stomach (no pun intended) the thought of it. A gun was scary for the same reason, because Jeff was convinced he’d feel the pain for a fraction of a second, and he didn’t want that.
A bridge was out of the picture, because he couldn’t leave the cabin without the sirens and the flashing lights and that was too public of a death, even for him. He wanted all eyes on him, but after he was dead, after he no longer had to deal with it.
After years and years of speculating and trying to find the most painless death, Jeff had his answer.
Jeff was a chronic insomniac, and for years had suffered with night terrors that made him too afraid to sleep until he physically couldn’t keep his eyes open a second longer.
After falling asleep on two different missions, Jack had stolen some sleeping pills from a pharmacy for him and insisted he take them because his “drowsiness was affecting his performance”, and Jeff remembered the conversation exactly.
He was 21 when Jack had cornered him, a bottle of pills gripped in his hands and rattling against the plastic bottle. Jack stood there and berated him for what felt like hours, insisting that everyone had nightmares and that Jeff was just being silly.
He could still recall the conversation word for word. That is, Jack’s words—Jeff didn’t say a thing. He just stood there like a cornered animal, throat burning as he tried not to cry, but he could feel the warm tears creeping towards the corner of his eyes and he just knew that if he’d blink, they’d fall. Neither of them mentioned it, thank God.
He took the sleeping pills without much of an argument, and he’d taken them every day since. His way out had been there the whole time, and after a few months, he stopped taking them. He hid the bottles in his drawer and hoarded them for years, pretending to take them and collecting as many as he could. His drawers were full of nothing but full pill bottles, ready for the day when he decided he’d had enough.
It was two AM in the morning and Jeff couldn’t sleep. He was stuck laying on his back and staring at the ceiling, and the weight in his chest was so heavy that he couldn’t even turn onto his side to get comfortable, and he knew that today was the day.
He’d been waiting for years and now he was finally brave enough to do it.
He propped himself up with his elbows and threw his legs over the side of his bed, and he just sat there. He leaned over his knees and his long hair trickled over his shoulders and fluttered from the movement, and Jeff watched through drowsy eyelids as his hair swayed back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth.
Jeff swore he’d never cut his hair after the murder of his parents, because then he’d always have a piece of him that he could see, that he could hold, that had been touched by his family. As the ends of his long hair shook, he was struck with the realisation that with him, the little boy that had cried about moving house would also die with him. He’d be killing the boy who’d pretended to be a lesbians boyfriend to keep her safe from bullies in high school. He’d be killing the boy who kept his brother’s scarf under his pillow to hold to his nose when things got too rough, and he’d ugly cry into it for as long as it took until it was out of the way.
Oh well. It wasn’t like Jeff had never killed before.
It felt a little like a mission. He carried as many bottles of pills as he could in his hands and brought them into the kitchen, keeping his steps light so he wouldn’t wake the others. It would be hard to explain what he was doing if someone saw him hovered in the kitchen, dumping as many pills as he could into a glass of water to chug.
The only thing more embarrassing than killing yourself was failing to kill yourself.
He closed the door and switched on the light, and counted in his head the seconds until the light finally flickered on.
One… two…
The lightbulb roared with light, causing Jeff to shield his eyes and squint uncomfortably. He put down the bottle of pills and grabbed his favourite mug from the top cabinet.
Every time he’d made himself a coffee in this mug, he’d never imagined ending his life with it. He smiled down at the bottom of the mug and caught a glimpse of his face staring back at him. He didn’t recognise the eyes he saw there and quickly filled it with water to drown him.
He filled it half-way and pondered his stance on the half full or half empty question. He titled the mug and watched the water swirl, not quite spilling over the rim. The water swirled in the cup and gently sloshed in the silent kitchen for just long enough that Jeff felt his eyes beginning to close and he realised he was wasting time.
Not because he didn’t want to die, but because he didn’t want to kill himself. If there was a way for him to die at his own hand that wasn’t suicide, he’d choose it immediately, but the angry fighter inside of him didn’t want to admit defeat.
Well, no more wasted time. He’d waited for an opportunity and none had come. Life laughed in his face at his every attempt to die, so now it was his choice.
He opened a bottle of sleeping pills and dumped them into the mug of water, swirling it once more to watch as the chalky pills dissolved. The water turned from crystal clear to a thick, off white, and Jeff smiled when he could no longer see his reflection in the liquid.
He grabbed another bottle and emptied it into the glass for good measure, too. When he was content with the amount of pills in the mug, he turned on the tap once more and filled it completely, leaving it neither half full or half empty.
He stared at the water and brought it to his nose in contentment. He wondered what his death would taste like. He parted his lips and tipped his head back, swallowing before he could stop to taste it, and with a few generous gulps, the mug was empty. He instinctively cringed because the water was so thick and chalky that he almost instantly threw up, but he forced himself to keep it down.
It was cold going down, and for a second the heaviness was gone.
They say those who jump off bridges always regret it just before they hit the water—call it “post jump clarity”, but Jeff didn’t feel that way after he’d finished two whole bottles of sleeping pills in a few sips. As he sat on the cold kitchen floor, knees to his chest and head tipped back to lean against the cabinets behind him, all he felt was relief. He was so glad he wasn’t scared because he’d always worried he’d overdose and then panic and force himself to throw up, only to live another day.
Not one part of him wanted to move as he sat, cold, shivering, and so so tired.
The good thing about overdosing on sleeping pills was that you usually fall asleep before you die, so you don’t have to worry about the pain. As he began to doze off, Jeff thought about a lot of things.
He wondered who would walk into the kitchen first tomorrow and find him dead on the floor. He wondered what they’d think. The only reaction that felt realistic was a scrunched nose and closed eyes, and for someone to flinch away and sigh in disappointment, as if saying, “today? Of all days, you had to choose today? Now I have to clean this up.”
He wondered if anyone would feel guilty for being so cold to him. Oh, he wondered what the news would say. “Killer dies by his own hand—couldn’t handle the guilt.”
Well, this wasn’t about them. This wasn’t about life as a proxy or his family or anything measured in numbers. This was more than all of it. He thanked a God that he didn’t believe in that he wouldn’t be around when everyone else was dealing with the fact that he was gone.
He wondered if Toby would cry. They argued constantly, and the last conversation they’d had—now their last conversation ever—had been the two of them arguing about their siblings. Toby had come to Jeff, begging for advice about how to deal with the grief of losing a sibling, and Jeff offered his best; realise you have disappointed them beyond redemption and you will bever be the same. Smell their clothes. Burn their clothes. Move on.
Toby didn’t like that advice very much, and he started to shout that Jeff didn’t get it, that it was different for him because it was his fault and that Jeff could have saved Liu, but Toby could have never saved Lyra. The two of them argued for hours about who had it worse, and after it ended in Toby breaking his nose and Jeff covered in bruises, they hadn’t spoken since.
He wondered what Jack would think. He didn’t want to think about it because it only solidified everything he’d been trying not to admit; that he was in love with someone who could never love him back, that all it would take was one word from Jack and he would have dumped all of his pills down the drain and straightened his life up. He hated being so dependent on one person, because it wasn't fair on him or Jack. He liked to pretend that no one knew how miserably he adored Jack, but the truth was that everyone knew, Jack included. They had to. He became so stupid around him; he changed the way he laughed, the way he talked, and he was always staring, waiting for any sign that he was impressing him, that he was making him proud. He talked about him incessantly, even when he made a point not to. He snuck into conversations he didn’t belong to and made Jeff feel mortified, because nothing he tried worked. Jack was his every waking thought, his only motivation, his absolute weakness.
Jeff was tired of weakness.
His head lolled and rolled against the cabinet, and he could no longer keep himself upright. His thoughts were cloudy and beginning to make less and less sense, and sentences fell apart in the middle and merged together where they didn’t fit, leaving him frustrated. The only thing that he could make sense of was the face he was always looking for, that he now couldn’t look away from.
When everything else in his mind was breaking down and beginning to rot, Jack was still staring back at him, clear as day, with that pitiful, stoic expression on his face.
Jeff reached out into nothing, fingers outstretched and using the last of his energy to claw at him. He was a dying man. He deserved one kiss, even if imaginary.
Maybe he could control his hallucinations, and he could pass away believing he was getting the one thing he’d always wanted. He reached further and further but Jack wasn’t there. He wasn’t fucking there, and Jeff’s arm fell against his side, and he couldn’t control it. It hit the floor suddenly and he let out a small grunt, before letting his eyes shut. He didn’t need to see any more of the kitchen. All he wanted to see was in his head.
He thought less and less, but all of it was still of Jack. Jack Nyras. Jackson Nyras. Jeffrey Woods. Jeffrey Alan Woods. Names, he was good at those.
Liu Woods. Roman. Roman Woods. Liu Roman Woods. Jeff Roman Woods.
Roman?
Whose middle name was Roman?
Who was Alan?
Nyras.
Jackson Nyras.
Jeff Woods.
Liu Woods.
Jeff.
Liu Woods.
Liu.
Jackson Nyras.
Jackson Nyras.
Jackson Nyras.
More light flooded into the kitchen. Jeff’s eyes were still closed, but he could tell because the colour flickered in through his closed lids and turned his black vision slightly red.
Light wasn’t supposed to get brighter on its own, and Jeff had the sudden fear that it was morning and the sun was rising, and that he was still alive. If it was morning, he was supposed to be dead by now, and that meant he’d done this wrong.
He forced his eyes open and they immediately watered because it was so bright and he’d been dozing off for so long. When he looked out the window, it was still dark outside, but the light was coming from in front of him.
The door was open. Jackson Nyras was holding the door handle, and light was filtering in from behind him.
Jeff couldn’t move.
“What are you doing?” Jack asked, frustrated.
I’m sorry, Jeff tried to say. Nothing came out. He didn’t move. Not even a twitch.
“Jeff?”
I know, Jeff tried once more. I’m sorry.
Jack stepped inside the kitchen and closed the door. He had something to say but he was caught off guard by the sight of two empty pill bottles on the counter next to an empty glass, and for a second he stopped moving. His mask was off, and that stoic look on his face, the one Jeff had memorised, disappeared.
Jeff couldn’t name this new expression. He was proud to have been the one to create it though.
“Tell me you didn’t,” Jack whispered, head turning back to face Jeff in genuine horror.
Jeff could name that.
He was good with names. Did you know that?
Jack stepped forward and knelt down just in front of Jeff, reaching out a hand to tip his head back. Jeff went limp, and head head rolled back, showing Jack his neck. He didn’t know what was going on but he couldn’t stop it even if he wanted to.
Jack checked his pulse and flinched at just how cold Jeff was, already. He pulled his hand back as soon as it made contact, and then he was covering his mouth, staring at Jeff (if you could call it staring, given he didn’t have eyes) and trying to stop himself from freaking out.
“Why?” He whimpered. Jeff lazily smiled.
I don’t know, he thought. I’m sorry that I scared you but I’m happy that you’re here.
He wasn’t in pain like he thought he would be, but he felt like he was dying. It was hard to explain, especially given he couldn’t think about anything except from the fact that he was dying and now he wouldn’t have to wonder what Jack would think. He was seeing it firsthand.
Given he was only a few inches away, Jeff summoned the absolute last of his energy and leaned forward just enough to fall against Jack’s chest, only to turn his head up and try to inch closer to him.
Jack caught him and held him steady, despite his own shaking hands. “What— what are you doing?” He asked.
Jeff let out a small groan and closed his eyes, leaning up to try and kiss him. Jack pushed him back, covering his mouth with his hand.
“Jeff, what are you doing?” He repeated frantically, shaking his head from side to side.
Please, Jeff silently begged. I’m dying. This is all I’ve ever wanted. Please let me have this.
He kept trying to lean up, eyes closed as he fought back the sudden tears that were brimming in his eyes.
Jack slowly moved his hand away and leaned down, connecting his lips with Jeff’s in a quick kiss. It was all Jeff needed, because as soon as Jack pulled away, he collapsed against him once more, this time not getting up. He barely had the energy to breathe. He could feel the drowsiness beginning to take over, and he was content to die like this.
Jack didn’t seem to like that idea, because as soon as he felt Jeff go limp, his hands were around his waist and he was pulling him to his feet. Jeff audibly protested, an incomprehensible string of grunts and whines as he was tugged to his feet. He couldn’t even try to steady himself, and just as quickly as he was upright, he was sinking to his knees again. Jack steadied him by sliding his hand under Jeff’s arm and wrapping it around him completely. He carried Jeff’s entire weight and forced him to stand, even with no energy, before propping him up on the counter.
He turned Jeff’s head towards the sink and made him lean forward.
The panic gave him a surge of energy and Jeff weakly croaked out, “no,” before he could even think.
Jack cooed gently and opened his mouth with his thumb. “Don’t panic,” he vaguely instructed, before sliding two fingers into Jeff’s mouth and pressing against his gag reflex. Immediately, Jeff began to gag, and then he was leaning forward and dry heaving into the sink, saliva pouring from his mouth as he trembled.
“No,” he repeated, and this time he was begging. Jack didn’t say a word as he placed his fingers back in Jeff’s mouth and reached down the back of his throat, seemingly careless.
Jeff promptly vomited into the sink, just as Jack pulled his hand away in time to steady his head and coo softly at him, “good boy, good boy.”
Jeff was hunched over on the counter, saliva dripping down his chin as he threw up. He tried to focus on Jack’s voice, the whispered praise and the way his voice quivered slightly.
Jeff didn’t want to live after this. He couldn’t live knowing Jack had pity-kissed him when he was on his deathbed, couldn’t live knowing Jack had pushed him away the first time.
But then Jack was turning Jeff’s head and wiping saliva or vomit or whatever it was from Jeff’s bottom lip with a swipe of his thumb, and he was leaning down to kiss him again. He didn’t seem to care that just seconds ago Jeff had been throwing up, because he was cradling his cheek so gently and he didn’t pull away after a second like he had the first time. Jack stayed for a moment, pressing kiss after kiss to Jeff’s bottom lip as an apology, both for what he’d just done and for what he was about to.
Jeff opened his eyes slowly when Jack pulled back, expecting to see something like vulnerability or concern or even love, but before he could process the kiss, Jack’s fingers were down his throat again, and he was throwing up once more.
Jack had him throw up three times before he stopped and let Jeff down from the counter, now sobbing. He dug his nails into Jack’s hoodie and weakly heaved, the taste of chalk lingering in his mouth while his head spun.
“I’m so sorry,” Jack whispered as he sank to the floor, setting Jeff’s limp body on his lap and leaning him against his chest. Jeff’s sobbing continued, and he turned his head to hide his ugly crying. He didn’t understand what was going on, and he couldn’t tell if it was the pills or if this was just a really disorienting situation. He took every ounce of comfort he could get from breathing in the scent of Jack’s cologne and gradually began to calm his nerves, aided by Jack’s knuckles stroking his hair.
“You’re okay,” Jack promised. “Everything is going to be okay.”
Jeff hiccuped and turned his head to gaze up at Jack from below him, sweaty and shaking and so fucking tired.
Jack cupped his face once more and leaned down, but he waited before kissing him. He lingered as their noses crossed, inches away from Jeff’s lips.
“Please,” Jeff gasped out.
Jack kissed him a third time, head tilted so that he wouldn’t bump his nose against Jeff’s. He kissed him a third time, and a fourth, and a fifth, and Jeff stopped counting when he realised Jack wasn’t going to pull away any time soon. Neither of them knew if he was going to be okay—that was, if he was going to make it to the morning—but Jeff didn’t mind waiting to find out if this was how he was waiting.
When Jack finally broke the kiss, he did so with a trembling exhale.
“How long had it been before I found you?” He whispered. Jeff gave a small groan and shifted on his lap until he was comfortable.
“I don’t know,” he mumbled. His throat felt raw. “I think I fell asleep…”
“An estimate?” Jack pleaded.
“Mm…” Jeff closed his eyes. He wanted to go back to sleep like this, with his head against Jack’s chest, with someone holding him for the first time in years. “Half an hour? Forty minutes?”
Jack tipped Jeff’s chin up so he could look into his eyes. Jeff gazed up at him, eyes fluttering, fighting sleep and losing.
“I can’t let you go to sleep,” Jack said softly.
Jeff just groaned and closed his eyes.
“Jeff,” Jack called. Jeff didn’t respond, instead scrunching his nose and enjoying the lightness of his limbs. The perpetual heaviness in the pit of his stomach was gone so long as Jack’s arms were around him, and his shallow breaths felt refreshing, cold against his burning throat.
“Jeff!” Jack cried, and started to shake him. Jeff’s eyes opened at that and he began to grow frustrated. He was just starting to doze off—why was Jack shaking him?
“Stop it,” he grumbled. He waited to be shaken again, or to be scolded, but it never came. Instead, all he heard was a broken, pathetic, whispered:
“Please?”
Jeff opened his eyes once more to see Jack’s bottom lip trembling.
“Please stay awake,” he breathed out, because he was too scared to say what he really wanted. ‘Please stay alive.’
“I’m so tired,” Jeff confessed, and they both knew he wasn’t really talking about being exhausted. He was asking permission to die like this, being cradled and kissed like he was worth gentleness.
“I know,” Jack nodded. “I know. But I need you to stay awake for me.”
Jack seemed to be under the impression that for as long as he could keep Jeff awake that he couldn’t die. It was him falling asleep that concerned him, as if Jeff had to be already unconscious before he could die properly.
“You don’t need to do this,” Jeff mumbled, and he let his eyes close once more. This time, he couldn’t open them. His throat burned and his breathing almost stilled. Everything was peaceful.
“Do what?”
Jeff exhaled the last of the air in his lungs and sunk further against Jack’s torso as if trying to melt into him completely.
“Do what?” Jack repeated, more frantic this time. “Jeff?”
Jeff’s head lolled.
Jack cupped his cheek and lifted his head to kiss him once more, quickly pressing their lips together. Jeff gasped for breath in between kisses, and he felt how he imagined Frankenstein’s monster felt as its corpse was reanimated—electric, and confused as to how he was alive.
“Please stay awake,” Jack almost sobbed.
“Stop,” Jeff whimpered. Jack immediately pulled away, stiffening uncomfortably.
“I thought you wanted me to kiss you.”
“I do,” Jeff groaned. “But not because you have to.”
“You think I’m only kissing you because I have to?”
Jeff nodded weakly. “To keep me alive.”
“And why do you think I want you alive?” Jack pressured.
“Because you’re the doctor… and it’s your job.”
Jack let out a miserable snort and shook his head. “I want you alive so I can keep kissing you, you idiot,” he promised, before leaning down and lifting Jeff’s chin with his thumb.
“If you stay awake until morning,” Jack whispered, leaning closer to Jeff’s ear, “I promise I’ll let you sleep like this in my room.”
“With you?” Jeff croaked.
“With me,” Jack confirmed. “… And if you promise me you’ll stop trying to hurt yourself,” he murmured, tracing just underneath the cuts on Jeff’s cheeks with his thumb, “then I’ll never stop kissing you.”
Jeff’s mind was still hazy as he weighed his options. He could either fall asleep right now and potentially never wake up, content with the small moments of intimacy Jack had spared him, or he could stay awake until morning with the only person worth living for and do all the things he’d ever wanted to do with him, like kiss down his jaw and neck and stomach and curl up on his lap like a dog while Jack scratched his scalp and never ever ever leave.
Jeff sighed and leaned his head against Jack’s shoulder for a moment.
Finally, when he spoke up, he did so with a lazy smile.
“I want cereal for breakfast,” he hummed. Jack buried his nose in Jeff’s hair and let out a relieved sigh, and finally let himself sob once he knew Jeff was safe. It was unusual to hear Jack cry.
He wrapped both of his arms around Jeff’s waist and pulled him flush against him, holding him tighter than he probably should’ve given how weak he was, but he couldn’t help himself. He cradled him and gently rocked them both side to side as he took in the scent of his hair.
“You can have anything you want.”