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He’s laying in bed when he realizes it. It's not the easy kind, either, the one where everything suddenly makes sense and the world becomes a better place because of it - it's very far from that, in fact. His brain hurts in pounding increments. His eyes droop down to his smile lines, incriminating him. His hands fall tiredly at his side as he stares up at the ceiling and breaths in and out in a way that makes him believe breathing is fake. Staring down at his feet, he wiggles his toes like an experiment, realizing they're part of this awakening just as much as his fingers and his ears and his eyes.
Jesse realizes, finally, in a bloated, convoluted way, that he needs someone.
And it hits him terribly hard. His entire body longs for it, now, for an embrace. For a body against his own. For somebody to take his hand and squeeze it and tell him that this is important, god damn it, that life is important. That floating through it is just as meaningful as making a billion dollars, maybe even more so, because you're assiduous and self-serving in a way you don't often get to be. Not everybody needs someone, Jesse knows this, it's obvious to him, and he's always believed (maybe hoped) that he was one of those people. That his body and mind and soul were stimulating enough as a trio and he doesn't crave the appendage of another as his own. And now, somehow, at 3:21 A.M. on a Thursday, laying in bed the night before a two hour interview, he realizes this.
He pulls his knees up to his chest and allows himself to be pulled into the weight of his hotel bed’s sheets, aghast and alone and needing for someone - something - to hold him. It doesn't feel good. It feels like there is an entire entity of his body missing, inside and out, like some evil thing is trying to swallow him alive because it can, and he’s helpless in stopping it. His mind doesn't just wander, it runs away from him, every thought like a letter shoved into the beak of a messenger bird that never makes it to its final destination, until it's no longer his own. Terrified, he lets out a rasping scream. No way to live, no way to die, no way to exist in a happy medium between the two. Life is evil, Jesse notices in a way he's never thought about too deeply for fear that it would send him off the edge, and he's not a hero.
There's a knock at his hotel room door. It's gentle, soft, followed by another knock, and another. Jesse can’t physically make himself get up out of the bed, but the idea of another human being in his presence allows his first breath of actual air since he's started thinking (oh God, it's been fifty minutes now).
“Jess, you in there? You alright?” It's Andrew. Of course, it's Andrew. Spectacularly, it's Andrew.
Jesse thinks, but not too much, because it sometimes makes him feel sick, about the day that Andrew and him met. Their table read. He acknowledges the thumbs up that Andrew shot him at the end of it, and the way his mouth dropped in amazement while Jesse spoke much too fast.
He finds himself at the door, wrapped inside of his duvet with fearful hands grilling at the handle and concerned, concentrated eyes staring back at him as soon as it’s opened.
“Heard you scream from the room next door. What's going on?” Wouldn't he like to know. Jesse would also like to know. Why the universe decided this time to allow him to feel heavier and more useless than he has all his life. He doesn't know. He doesn't understand.
“I’m okay,” he lies, unnecessarily, because he can tell that Andrew knows it's a lie. That his eyes are too expressive even when he thinks that they look dead. Andrew doesn't waste a single beat stepping into the room, hand covering Jesse back through his duvet and Jesse feels it, feels a little piece of himself slot back into place, like it's never left him at all.
He sits him down on the bed, a weariness on his face as he tangles his fingers in with Jesse’s.
It's clear to Jesse, he figures it's always sort of been crystal clear, that Andrew is his appendage. And God, it should've been so much sooner. This could've been so much sooner - all those nights they spent in each other’s hotel rooms, getting blissed off of cheap wine and comfort, add up to something real and the real thing is that Jesse feels, really feels, well, everything.
“What's going on? Talk to me?” His voice drips like honey into Jesse’s lap and coats his spine in the sickeningly sweet scent of love and hate and confusion and he suddenly doesn't think he's breathing anymore.
He turns his head to face Andrew, his forehead wrinkled in concern, and squeezes his eyes shut. He's sure this is the only way he can speak. If he believes, really, truly, believes, that he's all alone.
“I’m scared,” he manages, his bottom lip trembling, “I don't know what to do.”
Andrew envelops his arm around Jesse, pressing him closer and closer until they're so impossibly close that Jesse swears he can taste Andrew’s arteries. “Oh, Jess,” he exclaims, hand wrapped tightly against Jesse’s hair, pressing into his scalp, leaving permanent imprints, “It's okay. I’m right here.”
Jesse lets out a sound that isn't quite a grunt, and isn't quite a whimper, but it's close enough to either one of them that it makes him feel pathetically feeble. “Can you stay here forever?” He whispers, pathetic and unprovoked, his nose stuffed against the white cotton t-shirt Andrew is wearing, sound muffled by his lips caught in the same fabric.
“Sure, Jess,” Andrew breathes back, his lips planting on top of Jesse’s curls in a way that makes Jesse feel like every part of him is reset, back to normal, that this was temporary insanity and he's all good now, thank you very much, until he looks down at his hands fumbling together and he’s still insane. “C’mon, let's lay down, yeah? We can get some sleep.”
Jesse lets himself be cast back by Andrew, pressing into the bed, the duvet that was slumped around his shoulders now suddenly on top of him again. Andrew slots his body next to him, arm wrapped tight around his waist and knees pushed up to rest in the crevice behind Jesse’s own knees. It's beautiful for a moment. Andrew’s breath syncs with his own, two bodies moving as one, and it seems like a fair assessment to say that life is worth it.
“I love you, Jess. I mean it,” he murmurs, nose against his neck. “You'll be okay. I promise.”
Jesse can't stand that. Can't stand the promises Andrew is making, now, because he can't guarantee any of it. He doesn't love him. Jesse doesn't just love Andrew, he needs him to breathe. Needs him to undertake this world and to stay alive and it's killing him, this necessity that he didn't understand existed, and to hear Andrew say it like it's just a little word, a little phrase, is distressing. To say the least. To hear him promise that it's going to be okay forces Jesse into a tempestuous position, tensing his body up until he’s squeezing Andrew terribly hard. It's not okay. He's not okay. Not okay. “How can you say that?” Jesse whispers back, tears finally springing in his eyes. “You don't know that.”
“Maybe not,” Andrew shrugs, then, his breath warm and sickening, “but I do love you. And I know we can get through this together. Though, right now, we need to sleep.”
Jesse shakes his head, blowing a weak raspberry into the air in front of him. “I can't sleep. I don't wanna sleep. It'll all be gone when I wake up.”
He hadn't meant to say it, but his thoughts and his words are blurring together. His inner world isn't safe, now, anything can come up. “What do you mean, Jess?”
“You. You'll be gone. I’ll be gone,” Jesse shivers, pivoting to face his soon-to-disappear appendage. The aftermath of an idiot in need; teardrops. They've taken over his cheeks like troops, made permanent plans to stay at camps settled into his dimples, the creases below his eyes.
Andrew’s face is cotton candy and puppies, wiping away the soldiers with his thumb. Destroying their camps. He shakes his head and plants his mouth softly against Jesse’s forehead. “I’m not going to leave you.” New soldiers storm in. Andrew kills them, too. “That's something I can promise. I'm not gonna leave you.”
His face contorts against his will, scrunching into a tight ball alongside the rest of his body as he wails, blubbers, against Andrew’s chest. It won't stop. It's not going to stop. He’ll he stuck forever in a cycle of troops and murder and unfulfilled promises and it doesn't feel like real life, it's never felt like real life, but he wants it to stop anyway. Everything. Just for a while.
Shhh. I got you. I got you, Jess. I love you. I know, let it out. I love you. Not going anywhere. I got you.
Jesse wakes up to an empty bed.