Work Text:
It’s poetry night at the Manhattan residence.
“Johnnie Walker. Jack Daniels. Lagavulin. Glenlivet.” Jack Manhattan looks up and over the crumpled piece of paper in his hands, prompting his family to snap their fingers twice. He looks back down at his poem. The words would be illegible to anyone else through the stains, eraser marks, crossed-out words, and general bad handwriting. But Jack, well, he can’t read it either. He’s bullshitting like he does every week.
“Kickin’ it at the bar. Tossin’ ‘em back. Alright.”
Snap Snap
“Feelin’ like I’m in the bullpen.”
Snap Snap
“Little boy and little girl.”
Snap Snap
“Growin’ up with a dad who kills.”
Snap Snap
“Drinkin’ swill.”
Snap Snap
Jack takes a deep breath and curses Paula Donvalson with every fiber of his being. He hates the taste of his pride when he has to swallow it every week for these poetry readings. He hates the feeling of emasculated shame that he sits in for thirty minutes. Most of all, he hates how much lighter his chest feels once the words are out, almost as if sharing decades worth of trauma, grief, and self-loathing makes them easier to carry. Fucking figures.
“What, what?” he says, chancing a glance up to see Johnny sniffling as he snaps. Johnny always cries at these things, and Jack is starting to think maybe that’s good.
“Can’t ever come home, always gotta be alone.”
Snap Snap
“Until I stop blowing up.”
Jack crumples the poem between his fists and lowers it into his lap, staring at his small audience. His face looks, as it always does, as if the sun is in his eyes. But to those that know him, there’s a nervousness in his posture, as if bracing for the next bullet to lodge in his back.
Then, a chorus of snaps as his wife, kids, and ex-ex-partner stand up and give him a poetry-night standing ovation.
Jack shifts a bit in his seat, expression unchanged, before the discomfort he feels at the attention drags him to his feet. There’s a familiar sting where his tear ducts are. He’s not sure they work, but sometimes they hurt when a strong feeling hits him.
“That was great, dad!” Johnny says, tearfully, before tipping into him for a hug. Jack’s learned that Johnny’s big on the hugs, so his pulls his son close and gives him a solid squeeze. Who’s he kidding, he’s also big on the hugs.
Vicki walks over, less affected than her brother but still with a softness in her eyes that he only gets to see when he’s actually making an effort to be open. She gives his bicep a squeeze since he’s busy holding her gently crying brother.
“That was pretty good,” she says, never one to give him too much credit. She takes after her mother like that. Speaking of, Lucy gently peels Johnny off of him so she can press a kiss to his cheek.
“Oh, for sure,” Cosmo pipes up, “one of your best so far.” Jack can’t help the smile that finally crawls out of the depths of his emotionally stunted heart.
This is the hardest part of these nights; when he’s got everyone he loves in the whole world around him and he feels safe and cherished. In those moments, he desperately wants to say something crass or shoot a car or bite into a grenade. Anything to cut through the sincerity and detonate any trace that he’s just some soft, squishy, human guy. Because admitting that would also mean admitting that nothing, no case cracked or day saved, has ever felt better than this right here. And everything in his body says that if he doesn’t blow it up, someone else will.
But the couple’s counselor he and Lucy are seeing says that’s a trauma response, and not necessarily true. So, instead of causing equal part property and emotional damage, Jack says “thank you,” and nearly vomits.
“Oh-kay, that’s enough vulnerability for tonight,” Lucy says as Jack suppresses another gag. Their couple’s counselor calls this “regurgitative sentimentality.”
His kids recognize a nudge from their mother and know not to let it escalate into a kick (there’s been more than enough of that) so they scoot over to the door and say their goodbyes.
Jack hugs his son and his daughter, pressing a kiss into the piles of curls on her head. After a moment of standing in the doorframe, watching Johnny approach a motorcycle and Vicki climb into her convertible, he clears his throat.
They both look up at him, expectant. They continue looking for a good fifteen seconds before he finally manages to get the words out in a pained wheeze.
“I love you both so much.”
Fuck. Getting stabbed would be easier.
“Love you too, dad,” Vicki says. It’s one of the few times she’s called him that since he started working on himself. His tear ducts sting again.
“Yeah, love you,” Johnny says, and does a backflip onto his motorcycle to conceal that he’s started crying again.
“Don’t cry and drive!” Cosmo shouts after them, but Jack doubts they hear it over the sound of squealing rubber as they both peel out of there as fast as they can.
With a sigh of relief, he turns back to Cosmo and his wife.
“Nice work tonight, hon,” she says, slinging her arms around his neck. He likes when she pulls this move. She’s taller than him in her heels and he feels like he’s engulfed in a floating cloud of hair.
However, before she can plant one or two or ten on him, Cosmo clears his throat.
“Oh, right,” Lucy says, and steps away.
Jack rubs his neck awkwardly and goes over to his partner. Well, they’re kinda just friends now since they both retired. Jack isn’t sure if he’s a house husband or a trophy husband, especially since he can’t cook or clean for shit and looks godawful in a backless dress.
“Good to see you, Cosmo,” he says, and grasps his friend’s hand for a shake. He continues to hold it for maybe six seconds too long. Thankfully, no one comments on this.
“Actually, I’m not heading out just yet.” Cosmo’s eyes are glued to the floor and he’s doing his usual nervous hat-wringing, sans hat. “Lucy and I wanted to talk to you about something. Mind if we all sit down?”
Jack squints, only a little more than usual, and nods stiffly. He’s not sure what’s going on and that makes him jumpy, quite literally. The window looks incredibly jump-through-able, but Jack resists the urge and sits back in his poetry chair.
Lucy and Cosmo pull two chairs over and sit almost close enough for all their knees to be touching. Almost. Jack grimaces and waits for the blow. He can already feel the divorce papers in his hands.
“Any chance for a roll in the sack before you break the bad news?” Jack says. Cosmo blushes and Lucy’s nose scrunches up in that adorable way it always does when she’s mad. Her mad is exactly what he wants. He can handle mad.
“Don’t you start with me,” Lucy snaps.
“What?” Jack leans back, hoping he looks more cavalier than he does terrified. “It’d be shame to never see your rack agai—”
A perfect, high-heeled, nylon-encased leg comes flying for his head. Jack doesn’t even flinch, a kick in the head is exactly what the doctor ordered.
Except it never makes contact. Jack’s eyebrows rocket up his forehead as he takes in the sight of Cosmo, vampiric fangs bared, holding his wife’s leg a millimeter from his face. His ex-partner current-friend had moved faster than the blink of an eye to block the kick. Cosmo glances at Jack, exasperated, and his eyes are blood red.
It’s all extremely hot and Jack really doesn’t know what to do with that.
Cosmo lowers Lucy’s leg with a sigh.
“No hitting. We talked about this, Lucy,” he says, and Jack’s stunning, terrifying wife actually looks a little abashed. How about that?
“Sorry, Cosmo,” she says. “Sorry to you too, Jack.”
They both look at the ex-detective in question expectantly. Jack catches on and clears his throat.
“Er, I’m sorry too. I was…reflecting.”
“Deflecting,” Lucy corrects.
“Yeah, defecting.”
They both sigh, but it’s fond this time as they sit back down.
“What, uh, what did you want to talk to me about?” Jack asks, fidgeting.
Cosmo and Lucy share a look, as if to determine who should broach the subject. Cosmo seems to win the short straw and turns to Jack. His eyes are back to their usual soft brown, but his cheeks are bright red.
“Do you know what polyamory is?”
The raise Jack’s eyebrow does could lift a car from a pinned mother of three.
“…no,” he says. Cosmo blushes harder and turns his eyes to the sky as if in prayer.
“You know what monogamy is, right?”
Jack looks over at Lucy and says, “yeah.”
“Ok, so, if monogamy is being in a relationship with one person, polyamory is like that but with multiple people.” Cosmo holds Jack’s eye awkwardly, waiting for understanding to dawn.
“So…it’s a fancy word for sleeping around?”
Cosmo winces and Lucy takes over.
“No, Jack. It’s not that,” she says patiently. “It still involves commitment, no less than any other relationship. But you can have more than one commitment, and different kinds.”
Jack chews on this, cocking his head.
“Like what the Mormons do?”
Lucy and Cosmo both wince this time.
“No, no,” Cosmo continues, “that’s polygamy. What we’re talking about is less to do with marrying more than one person and more to do with loving more than one person and getting to be with them with the consent and permission of your other partner or partners.”
Jack considers this, the silence between them growing long and heavy. He supposes it makes sense. Lucy is crazy smart, crazy strong, crazy gorgeous, and just straight up crazy. And Cosmo, well, Cosmo’s the best man Jack’s ever known. He’s brilliant, and the undead heart in his chest is better than the world deserves.
It makes sense that they’d fall for each other. Cosmo was there for Lucy and the kids when Jack wasn’t. And who could resist falling in love with Lucy Santangelo? It breaks the delicate corners of Jack’s heart, but they’re better for one another than he’s ever been for either of them. The least he can do is get out of their way.
Jack sniffs, blinking rapidly. Uh oh, seems like those tear ducts can work after all.
“I, uh, I understand,” he croaks. Cosmo and Lucy look skeptical.
“Do you?” Lucy asks.
“Yeah.” Jack wipes at his face roughly. “I’m happy for you, really. You deserve each other. Excuse me.”
He makes to stand up, only for his wife and friend to push him back into the chair and pin him there with their combined strength.
This, too, is very hot, which is very confusing for Jack physically and emotionally.
“No! No!” Cosmo says frantically, his eyes wild. “Lucy and I are not—”
“We are absolutely not—”
“Nothing is going on here,” Cosmo says, pointing back and forth between himself and Lucy. “Here, is where we want things to be happening.” He starts pointing back and forth between himself and Jack.
“At the same time as what’s going on here,” Lucy adds in, mimicking the gesture between herself and Jack.
He watches their moving fingers for a few seconds before it finally clicks.
“Oh,” he says. “Oh!”
“Yes,” Lucy encourages.
“So, both of you,” he looks at both of them, “want me?”
“Yes.” they say in unison.
“And both of you want each other to have me?”
“Yes!”
Jack sits for a moment, letting the weight of the hands on his shoulders ground him. Cosmo, his ex-partner, current-friend, maybe soon-to-be other-kind-of-partner, and Lucy, his almost ex-wife, fill the entirety of his vision. It’s the most beautiful goddamn thing he’s ever seen.
Jack doesn’t entirely realize how long he sits in complete silence, admiring the loves of his life like a renaissance painting, until he registers that Lucy’s eyes are wide as saucers and Cosmo has broken out into a terrified sweat.
“What?” he asks.
“Do you—are you interested?” Lucy asks, her voice pitching high in a failed effort to sound nonchalant.
“What!? Of course I’m fucking interested!” he exclaims.
“Oh, thank God,” Cosmo breathes and hooks Jack by the neck to pull him into a heated kiss. The press of his lips is firm, if a little cool with undeath, and his moustache tickles against Jack’s nose. He’s surprised to find that he genuinely likes it. There’s the faintest swipe of tongue and Jack feels heat run from the tip of his toes to the top of his scalp like his nerves are gasoline and Cosmo’s the match.
As soon as his partner pulls away, leaving Jack feeling breathless and a little love-drunk, Lucy has her pink-manicured fingernails clawed into his lapels and is dragging him into a smooch of her own.
Jack can feel the oily slide of her lipstick and his stomach does a little flip thinking about the crimson she’s tracking all over his face. He likes feeling covered in her, like he’s a plain brick wall at the mercy of the world’s sexiest can of spray paint. She nips sharply at his bottom lip and he lets out an undignified squeak just as she shoves him against the back of the chair.
Lucy and Cosmo loom, both flushed and rumpled and looking down at him with dark, hungry eyes. Jack swallows, hard; half in fear and half in anticipation. Then a smile breaks out across his face as he shouts,
“Cock-a-doodle-doo!”