Archive of Our Own

Jimmy’s room feels too big, as always. He should be used to it by now, the feeling that he can drown in the masses of blankets on his king-size bed, like the shores of his four walls are much too far apart to even dream of swimming to in time. He feels like an island most of the time, marooned in the middle of the great ocean of his bedroom. Stranded, trapped. It’s familiar, but that doesn’t make it feel any more safe.

It’s even worse because he’s alone tonight.

Rowan is on a date, his first since things ended with Bliss. The girl is nice - Jimmy’s met her once or twice, at parties and press events. She’s some artist/YouTuber/voice actor (or something like that) that Rowan likes because she had no fucking clue who he was the first few times they met. She’s in the public eye enough that they can’t have a repeat of the situation with Bliss, but small enough that it won’t be some glitzy red carpet romance that the tabloids slobber over. If he’s lucky, they could date without it being too big of a deal. Jimmy really, really hopes he gets lucky.

Lister could be anywhere. This isn’t new, but it still worries Jimmy every time. Six months since The Big Yikes (Lister’s term for it, but it’s very fitting and they’ve all taken to using it - even Cecily, who was getting bored of referring to ‘The Incident’ and having the boys ask ‘which one?’) and he’s doing better - his stomach has healed, save for a nasty scar, and he’s no longer on crutches. His walk is only slightly lopsided in the wake of the broken leg, and he’s back in the swing of drumming every day. He still smokes, but he doesn’t drink. Parties are a small, once-a-month affair. He is getting better, but when he goes out without leaving a note Jimmy still panics. He turns on push notifications for @ArkUpdates, terrified that Lister will be seen, spotted by a fan doing something very Lister, but very un- Lister Bird. He fears that a picture will get out of Lister passed out at a bar, or drunkenly kissing a guy in a pub, or something that will be terrible for their image and worse for Lister’s recovery. It scares him.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine is playing in the background, the familiar dialogue only doing so much to comfort him. He can quote this episode word for word, has every shot seared into his memory. It’s his safety show, the thing he always puts on to stop him feeling quite so alone in the world. Most days it helps, others it’s just noise - today is the latter.

Lister has been out for coming up five hours now, which is about three years in Anxiety Time ™, and Jimmy can’t even call him, because of course he can’t, because Lister left his phone behind like a fucking idiot.

It’s stupid. It’s stupid that this is how Jimmy feels when he’s actually, provably less anxious than he was a few months ago. He’s on some meds that are working, his weekly therapy appointments are helping, he’s coping better in day-to-day life. If this is how he’s reacting to being home alone now, what would it have been like way back in August? It’s not worth thinking about, but not thinking is a skill Jimmy doesn’t possess.

Luckily, before he can spiral too much, he hears a click of the latch.

August-Jimmy would’ve taken this as a sure sign that they were being burgled, or that a crazed fan had found their address. August-Jimmy would think he was mere minutes from death, trapped in his bed in his pants with nothing to defend himself but a teddy bear and a stale glass of water. February-Jimmy is coping. February-Jimmy is eerily calm - it’s 9pm, at least an hour until Rowan is due home, so it’s probably Lister. He almost calls out, but before he gets the chance the door opens slightly.

And, of course, it’s him. Lister. Something in him seems changed, different to how he was just a few hours ago. There’s a weight on his shoulders - visible, tangible - that Jimmy noticed months back, that had been seeming to lift for a while but appears to be back full force. His eyes are red-rimmed, his posture slumped.

“Can I come in?”

His voice is small. Jimmy doesn’t know how else to describe it but faded . It’s like the colour is ever-so-slightly drained from Lister’s whole being. Wordlessly, Jimmy shuffles over in bed and pulls the covers aside. Lister pads over and flops beside him without making eye contact. Jimmy brings the blanket in to embrace both of them, holding Lister closer.

Suddenly, without warning, a shuddering sob wracks through Lister’s body. It’s unexpected and guttural and it feels as if Jimmy has been punched in the stomach. He’s almost never seen Lister cry.

Jimmy just pulls him closer, closer, closer. He holds him so close that there’s not an inch of space between them, close enough that the whole room doesn’t feel quite so big anymore. For a split second, it’s just the two of them.

Breathing in, he notices some comforting familiarities. The smell of raspberry shampoo and smoke, a slight dampness to his shirt where he’s been caught in the rain. There’s another smell, just as familiar but far less comforting. A slight tinge of liquor on his breath.

“I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“What?”
“I don’t know what I’m doing. At all. About anything.”

Lister pulls away from the hug, moving over to the far side of the bed and hugging his knees to his chest. He’s shaking a little, but the tears have gone now. All that remains are damp tracks on his cheeks, and a glossy sheen across his eyes. His blank stare into nothingness is enough to break Jimmy’s heart.

“Where have you been?”
“I went for a drive. Out of the city. I’m not sure where. I came off the motorway about an hour south.”
“Have you been…”
“No. I bought a bottle, but… No. Still four months sober.”

Jimmy reaches a hand out to touch Lister’s, but he flinches, pulls away, buries his face in his knees. It hurts more than Jimmy cares to admit.

“I’m having a hard time adjusting.”

There are a million questions Jimmy could ask, but he holds off. He knows what it’s like to be pushed, and he doesn’t want to do that to Lister.

In all honesty, as cryptic as he’s being, this is the most open Lister has been in a while. Jimmy’s starting to think that maybe alcohol was the only thing that could ever get the older boy to bare his soul to anybody. Without it he’s as closed-off as he was at 13.

“I think I’m just… stupid . I knew this would be hard, but I thought I’d at least feel better.”
“You’re not stupid.”
“I just… I felt good when I was drinking. Maybe it’s because I never thought about anything. But it felt good. Now I just feel… I don’t know. Rusty.”
“Recovery is hard, but —”
“No offence, Jim, but how would you know? What have you ever fucking recovered from?” Lister snaps, and Jimmy recoils. Lister’s eyes widen. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

His eyes soften and he moves closer to Jimmy, mumbling apologies as he intertwines their hands.

“I’m sorry. I can’t explain it. I don’t mean to be a dick, I just… am. I fucking suck sometimes, Jim. I really suck.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay.” He swallows thickly, taking several deep breaths to steady himself. “I’m not good at talking. I’m really not good at talking sober.”
“I know.”

Lister is fighting to maintain eye contact, as if he’s terrified that looking into his eyes will grant Jimmy the opportunity to read all of his thoughts, tear into his soul and strip his insides down until there’s nothing left. Vulnerability is far from comfortable for either of them, but Lister especially shies away from it at all costs. He always has done.

It’s part of being famous, in a way, to exist as two separate people. Jimmy knows the feeling well - to be both Jimmy and Jimmy Kaga-Ricci . He has two different demeanours, with different mannerisms, different ways of speaking, even different smiles. He’s seen first hand how disparate Lister can be when the cameras stop rolling. Recently, though, ever since The Big Yikes (and honestly even before) he’s realised that Lister never really stops playing a part. There’s a stark disconnect between Lister Bird, who smiles for the press and charms his way through life, “real” Lister, who is chaotic and ditzy and loveable, and whoever Jimmy sees before him now. This boy, with his tear-stained cheeks and terrified eyes, doesn’t fit with either image. Jimmy wonders if this side of Lister, the one he’s been hiding for as long as they’ve known one another, is the truest form of him. He wonders if, beneath it all, his friend is just a scared shell of a person who refuses to be seen.

“I nearly drank. I really nearly did. I had the bottle to my lips and everything.”
“Did something happen?”
He laughs, bitterly almost. “Nope. That’s the worst bit.”

There aren’t really any words that feel good enough. Jimmy thinks he must look ridiculous - lips slightly parted, eyes wide, just staring at the boy in front of him like he’s a stranger. In some ways, he is. This sad, scared, stonily silent version of Lister is so utterly unlike the boy he’s thought he knows for years now.

“I have a lot of regrets. I know that sounds stupid—”
“It doesn’t.”

Lister gives him a pointed look, a ‘don’t lie to me’ kind of expression that breaks Jimmy’s heart.

The thing is, he doesn’t sound stupid. He sounds upset. He sounds like he has problems he’s never voiced, like he’s trying to finally unravel years of tangled feelings, like there are parts of him he’s pushed so deep down that he barely knew they were there. If that’s stupid, then Jimmy himself is the stupidest man alive.

It’s hard to express that you know what someone is going through when your situations are incomparable.

On paper, they’re similar. Both thrust into fame when they were too young to understand what that truly meant, both becoming adults after a life where they barely had the chance to be kids, both stuck masking their struggles for fear of being exposed to the whole wide world. Honestly though, that’s where the resemblance stops. Jimmy has never felt the need to rely on a substance to cope, never hidden himself from everybody. His grandparents and friends have always known exactly who he is. What he’s starting to realise about Lister is that nobody has ever, ever seen the truest form of him - not even Lister himself.

“I got it into my head that you and Ro don’t need me.”
“We do.”
“Kind of. You need a drummer.”
“We need you, Lis.”
He shrugs, tearing his eyes away. “You’ve always been Jimmy and Rowan. Jowan, I guess. You’re not in love in that way, but like… you are. In love, I mean. Platonically. And I know we’re technically Jimmy and Rowan and Lister, except we aren’t. We’re Jimmy and Rowan… and Lister.”
“That’s not…” Jimmy tails off, shaking his head, because he knows there’s some truth to the lie.

They are a trio, have been for years, hopefully will be forever. But you’d have to be an idiot to miss how different things are sometimes, at the root of it all. There’s a dynamic forged by so many extra years of friendship that really can’t be changed, no matter how much you want it to. It’s a little different since The Big Yikes, but it will never fully go away.

“I kind of felt like I could drive off this afternoon and neither of you would care if I came back.”
“We’d care, Lister.”
“Maybe.” He shrugs again. “But I’m different now.”

Jimmy furrows his brow, trying to make sense of what Lister is saying.

“I was… better when I was drinking. Don’t try to deny it!” He cuts Jimmy off. “I was. In the long run maybe not, but… I was more fun to be around. And I was more fun to be.”

Once again, Jimmy doesn’t try to respond. He realises that he needs to let Lister get this out. No matter how important it is to him to dispute Lister’s claims, he knows it’s 10 times more important for Lister to get them out in the open.

“I’m trapped in my head. Like, all the time. And that’s easier to deal with when I’m wasted. I had all this potential when I was little, but it’s just kind of… gone. I don’t know when it went away. Or why it went away. I just know it’s gone.”

Their hands are still connected, and Jimmy squeezes. Lister looks up at him, wide-eyed. They move infinitesimally closer together.

“It’s harder now, Jim.”
“I know.”
“And it shouldn’t be.”
“I know.”
“Getting help makes me feel worse.”

Jimmy laughs, but it’s sad. The pain in it is tangible, and it seems that Lister can feel it.

“It’s like that. That’s not… bad , though.” He looks up to make sure Lister is paying attention. “When you first start getting help, that’s the first time you have to properly, properly confront it. Even if you know it’s a problem before then, you don’t have to break it down. That’s the part that sucks - it’s real when other people know about it.”
“When does it stop being shit?”
“... I’ll let you know when I figure it out.”

It’s silent then, but the previous tension has eased a little. They no longer feel at odds. Lister’s shoulders relax, and he lies back down, gazing up at Jimmy as if calling him to do the same.

When they’re side by side, with just a few inches of space between them, Jimmy takes the chance to drink in the details of Lister’s face.

He knows what he looks like, obviously. This is the same face he’s been looking at for years - same blue eyes, same straight sloped nose, same mousy hair. He looks like he always has, but Jimmy is starting to see more than he had before. The bags under his eyes are too dark to be endearing, and the lines in his forehead suggest he frowns more often than he’s ever let anybody see.

Lister is still gorgeous, of course. He always will be. This is Lister fucking Bird, carved by the gods. If there’s one thing that fans have right about them, it’s that Lister is the most attractive member of The Ark. Not just from a conventional beauty standards standpoint, either - Jimmy is enthralled by him for reasons all his own, for the traces of humanity that sparkle in his eyes and the very real aura that radiates off him. He’s beautiful, but not just because of how he looks. The whole impulsive mess of him is intriguing to Jimmy in a way he can’t quite put into words.

“The whisky’s on the kitchen island.”
“Oh?”
“I didn’t want to get rid of it. I—” He falters, casting his eyes away again. He looks ashamed. “I want to believe I’ll be able to have some one day. Not soon. But at some point, y’know?”
“You don’t want it to be all-or-nothing?”
“Exactly.” Lister smiles, a wave of relief gracing his features. “I don’t want to have to be off it forever. Just until I can control it.”
Jimmy nods solemnly. “I’ll hide the bottle for you.”

They go quiet again, but Lister inches closer. Jimmy drapes an arm over his waist, eliciting a rare smile. It’s the most real one of Lister’s smiles has looked in a while.

“I want you to know…” Lister tails off. Jimmy hugs him a little closer. “I want you to know that this is me trying. I’m really trying.”

It shocks him a little, somehow. This rare display of honesty has become less and less unexpected over the course of the evening, but that still threw Jimmy for a loop. There’s a raw quality to Lister’s voice, a barely audible crack that speaks volumes about what those four words mean.

“At least you’re trying. That’s enough.”

The tension in the air finally breaks, and it only takes a few minutes for Lister to fall asleep. His eyes flutter shut almost against his will, his ridiculously long eyelashes coming to rest on his cheekbones and the rise and fall of his chest slowing into a steady rhythm.

Looking at him now, it strikes Jimmy just how young they both are. He kind of forgets sometimes, what with how quickly they grew up, and the fact they’re legally adults. But really, nineteen is terribly young - too young to have seen as much of the world as they have.

He thinks of that moment in the bathroom.

The two of them still haven’t talked about it with any real sincerity. After agreeing that it wasn’t the right time to be paying attention to such things, Lister put his feelings on the back-burner to allow them both to focus on getting better. ‘It’s fine anyway,’ he’d joked (was it a joke?), ‘one kiss was enough for me. I can get over it now.’ . The issue Jimmy is finding now is that, given time to think on it, he really wouldn’t be opposed to being something more than friends. He ignored those feelings at first as they slowly dawned on him, but they’re now so prominent that it’s hard not to think of them. Is that how Lister had felt?

It’s a subject he keeps wanting to broach, never quite able to find the courage. Tonight tells him that he probably shouldn’t for a while yet. Though he already knew there was something going on with Lister, it’s apparent now that it’s more than any of them had even dreamed. This isn’t something that will be fixed quickly, or easily - it’s going to be a long fucking road, one Jimmy doesn’t want to make longer by expressing his feelings before Lister is ready to accept them.

Everything is just difficult. It feels like everything in their lives is hanging in increasingly precarious balance, and one wrong move could destroy everything they’ve been working so hard to fix. Their semi-hiatus is officially over in a few days, and the risk of everything falling apart before they can even reach the studio is oppressive. Jimmy just wants things to feel easy again, like they did back in Year 9. He wants the simple joy of playing music with your closest friends - no pesky feelings, no obsessive fans, no invasive press. It scares him to think that admitting his crush could destroy any hope of getting that joy back.

He decides to let that train of thought drop. Overthinking is second nature to him, but he has enough power over himself not to let it happen. It’s a choice. That’s step one towards fixing things - refusing to allow his anxiety power over him. That may be easier said than done, but he’ll be damned if he doesn’t get it done.

He closes his eyes and moves closer to Lister. He lets the sounds of gentle breathing and faraway traffic lull him to sleep, waits for the point his and Lister’s heartbeats can line up.

They’re going to get better. Jimmy is going to speak that into existence. One day, hopefully soon, all three of them are going to reach a point where the discomfort of fame holds no weight over them. Their issues may not totally go away - do anyone’s, really? - but they’re going to learn to live with them. Recovery has to be a choice, but it’s one they’re already making. The three of them are trying, really fucking trying. And isn’t that the first step? Choosing to be better, trying to be better? The best any of them can do is to try.

At least they’re trying.