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Henley leaves.
She gets scared, they can all respect that, and she wants out. Dylan arranges for her to get a new identity, and move away, to France, where she can blend in and get a job. She packs, and the apartment she’s been living in looks bare when they all get together to say good-bye.
They end up on her bed, this relationship they’ve been cultivating hanging thickly in the air. They cling to each other, tears shed among all of them. Merritt makes a joke about Eye Witness Protection Program that falls unbelievably flat. Henley swats him on the shoulder with a watery smile.
When Dylan comes to get her, they are all waiting on the sidewalk in front of her building. They are trying to stay strong, but Danny is slumped a little and Jack keeps sniffling bravely. She hugs Merritt, gives him a kiss on the cheek, Danny gets much the same, but a few words are exchanged. Then she gets to Jack.
She presses her palm to his cheek, and he leans into it, staring at her sadly. Her lips quirk up.
“Wild child,” she whispers.
He grins back at her, a hint of humor shining through his grief.
“Queen of Hearts.” A few tears drip down her face.
“I am so, so sorry Jack,” she sighs. He just kisses her forehead before pulling her in for a tight hug.
She gets into the cab, and Dylan just eyes them all for a moment.
“Don’t do anything terribly stupid,” he orders gently. He gets in and the cab pulls out into the street.
They stand there until the tail lights disappear around the corner, and then go their separate ways without a word. Jack flips up the hood of his sweatshirt and pockets a passing lady’s credit card just because he can. When Henley gets to the airport, she pulls out her wallet and immediately breaks down. There, among her unfamiliar new ID, rests an old, worn queen of hearts.
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Merritt tells himself he will give them all a week before trying to find them, but ten days later he’s still in the same position on the couch, only having moved to eat and shower. He’d tried to practice throwing cards, like Jack had been teaching him, but after a few tries he had gotten frustrated and thrown down the deck, freezing when his eyes landed on a familiar red card. Since then, he’s been flipping endlessly through the informercials on tv.
A knock interrupts his thoughts.
When he opens the door, he’s surprised to find Danny instead of Jack. He’d thought the youngest of them would seek comfort first, but looking back on it, he sees why he was wrong. Jack has always been alone; he works through things by walking, thinking. Danny needs an audience to figure things out, someone to rant and rave at.
Except this time, he seems different.
J. Daniel Atlas has a carefully cultivated exterior; a stage face. He smirks, he tilts his chin, he talks and gestures and distracts, simply by using his emotions and the force of his personality. He pulls off tricks not only because he is good, but because he knows he is good, and the audience drinks it all in. His tricks are almost a side effect of all that.
Danny, though. Danny is something different. At home (around them), Danny is kind. It’s not an open kindness, and he’s still more liable to belittle someone than compliment them. But there’s an undercurrent of fondness there that can’t be found when he’s putting on a show. His smiles are smaller but much more genuine. He relaxes more.
This Danny, the one who has knocked on his door at- Merritt glances into the kitchen- 11:00 at night, is defeated. His shoulders are tight, like they haven’t been since before Vegas, and when he looks at Merritt, he doesn’t even try to be snarky.
“Hey,” he says quietly, shuffling a little. There’s a question there, an are you doing ok? that Merritt has no clue how to answer. Instead he takes in the younger man’s appearance and says, “You smell. Please shower.” And when Danny tries to turn away, Merritt drags him in and gently shoves him towards his bathroom.
When Danny exits in a pair of Merritt’s sweats and an old t-shirt, he is handed a cup of hot chocolate and pushed down onto the couch. The couple of feet between them on the cushions feels like miles, too much to cross. The silence stretches.
They don’t really do emotions, these two. That’s something that they always leave up to the other two. When the occasion called for it, Henley would raise a cry, a laugh, a sob. Jack was always ready with a whoop and a grin, spilling enough for everyone to have a bit of. Danny and Merritt were always orbiting those two endlessly. Now, neither of them knows what to say.
Merritt finally slumps back and tips his head onto the back of the couch in exhaustion. A sigh escapes before he can stop it. There is a soft clunk as Danny sets down his mostly-full mug, and then a rustle as he scoots closer.
“What are we going to do?” his voice sounds hoarse, and Merritt had been trying to ignore how red his eyes were when he got out of the shower, but geez, they’re all so young. This hurts all of them as much as it hurts him.
“I don’t know, Danny-boy. I guess we just wait.” For orders. For a sign. For Jack, for Dylan. Something. Merritt knows he sounds defeated, but he hasn’t really been sleeping lately. His apartment was too small, his bed too big. The couch sags in the middle.
Danny just rests his hand on Merritt’s knee, and they sit.
Hours pass. Merritt is just falling asleep when Danny bumps his shoulder. Merritt cracks an eye and the smaller man tugs on his sleeve.
“C’mon, you’re gonna kill your neck. And your back.” Danny sits him on the bed and pulls his socks off. Merritt wants to protest, but it’s just so nice to have someone else there that he only feels grateful. When Danny bullies him under the covers and switches off the lights, Merritt is almost afraid that he won’t come back. But with a rustle and thump and a soft curse, a body curls in next to him.
The bed still feels really big, but it’s at least bearable right now. Just before Merritt slips off to sleep, he feels lips on his forehead and a barely audible love you. His heart twists painfully, because none of them said that often, and to pull it out tonight feels like the worst tragedy in the world. He tightens his grip on Danny’s fingers, and doesn’t dream at all.
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When Merritt wakes up, he feels infinitely better. And then he feels guilty for that, and has to take a few deep breaths before he feels together enough to get out of bed.
Upon entering the kitchen, Danny gives him a smile with a trace amount of a smirk in it, and Merritt knows that its going to be ok. Probably pretty rough for a while, but in the end it will all work out. A cup of coffee lands in front of him, along with a pastry from the bakery down the block. By the time he gulps down the drink, he’s marginally more awake and Danny is prattling on about some trick he’s been designing that he needs Merritt’s help with.
They spend a few hours sketching out ideas, and then put on some nondescript action movie, something with explosions and not a lot of plot. Every now and then Danny turns his head to look at Merritt, as if to make sure he is still there. Merritt keeps poking Danny in the thigh with his foot, assuring himself of the same.
The sun is just starting to get low in the sky when there is a click at the door, and it swings open to reveal an extremely exhausted Jack. He peers at them with red, puffy eyes for a moment before his face crumples in with a weak sob. They are on their feet in an instant, pulling him in and down on the couch, where they sandwich him between them as he shakes and cries.
At one point, he cries so hard that Merritt has to tuck him close to his body, shushing him as he rocks back and forth. Danny looks tired and worried and sad over his shoulder, and rubs his back in long, sweeping strokes, repeating breathe, Jack, breathe, over and over and over again.
When Jack finally cries himself out, he falls asleep almost immediately. They transfer him to the bed, stripping off his leather jacket and shoes before settling on either side of his gangly frame as he breathes softly. Every now and then, Danny strokes his hair. Merritt lets a few tears of his own leak out.
They sleep for awhile, and when they wake up they don’t immediately acknowledge that the others are awake. The quiet is soothing. Finally Jack shifts between them.
“What does this mean for us? Are we still… together?” He sounds so vulnerable, and Merritt is reminded again that they are both so young.
Danny doesn’t even hesitate.
“Yes,” he proclaims, as if there was ever an alternative. Jack relaxes completely at that.
There is silence for a bit, and then Jack blurts out, “I love you guys.”
And yesterday, last week, last month even, Merritt would have hesitated. But he’s seen what happens when even one of them leaves, and he can’t imagine the others doing the same.
“I love you too, Jack,” he says calmly, and squeezes Danny’s hand where its linked over Jack’s back. Danny just kisses him.
For awhile, they just touch and kiss, reminding each other that they are still there. There is some crying, but they can’t tell who it is, or who is where, and when they settle a bit later, they are so wrapped around each other that Merritt can’t tell where one of them ends and the other begins.
They sleep again, and when Merritt wakes up the next morning, he has to chuckle. Danny is wrapped completely around Jack, cheek pressed to the top of his head and legs tangled. Jack is smiling in his sleep.
When Merritt walks into the kitchen, he can’t breathe. There, on the table, sits a single white rose, just like the one that started it all a year and a half ago. Jack’s breath hitches behind him and Merritt pulls him into a hug without a thought. Danny picks it up gently.
“I miss her,” he admits.
“Yeah, so do I,” Merritt sighs. He presses his lips to the side of Jack’s head, just resting there.
They put the rose in some water, and though they are slow to get going, soon enough conversation and laughter fills up the kitchen. It’s not perfect, and they are still hurting, still looking for a person that no longer exists, but they’re going to be ok.
They still have each other, after all.