Chapter Text
As Nick boarded his train to the city with his ticket in hand, he couldn’t help but get more and more unreasonably anxious. His breathing was becoming erratic in a way that could not be entirely blamed on the long walk to the station, and the low murmur of noise surrounding him started to grate more and more harshly against his ear. Nick knew it was irrational, but he couldn’t shake the feeling of upcoming doom, like when an old man’s bones know it will rain before he does.
Eventually giving into the paranoia, and justifying his fit of madness by telling himself he’s already missed an hour of work anyway, Nick decided to depart his train at the first station, which happened to be situated in the East Egg. A quick jaunt to the Buchanans to use their telephone to call Gatsby…Jay…James would calm his nerves. Having to look Tom and Daisy in the eye after last night was a small price to pay for his sanity…or Jay’s safety, if his gut is to be trusted.
He’s getting ahead of himself. Nothing is truly wrong.
However he’s greeted with a sight queerer than he is. Tens of servant-men carry hundreds of suitcases into cars and trucks that are all tidily lined up in front of the Buchanans’s mansion. The butlers looked like ants dutifully marching their crumbs from a picnic to their nest. And Daisy was flitting around the front yard of her manor like a bee, conducting her little ants this way and that.
“Daisy!” Nick found his mouth and feet moving before he could think better of it, “What’s all this”
Daisy’s lovely face had a flustered air about it, “Oh Nicky, how wonderful to see you after all that dreadfulness yesterday,” she spoke her words very quickly, “I was so concerned about you after you snapped on poor Jordan,”
“What’s going on here,” Nick demanded to know.
“Oh,” Daisy hesitated and looked around, “We…Tom and I, have decided to take a small vacation with Pammy. Europe is lovely this time of year, I’m sure you’ve heard and–”
“How long will you be gone?”
“Not too long, but I’m happy you already miss me,” Daisy said, and for once her seemingly never ending charisma failed to convince Nick of anything. She was not intending to return.
“Have you at least told Gatsby about this?” Nick couldn’t help but spit out. Gatsby, an innocent man, was risking arrest for Daisy, and yet the true murderer was fleeing without a care in the world.
“Nick,” Daisy looked at him with sad, tired eyes, “Does Jay really have to be so involved with my life?”
Nick had never been more incandescent with rage in his now 30 years of life, “Yes Daisy,” he spoke through gritted teeth in a pathetic attempt to stay calm, "Considering that last night you briefly told him you would leave your husband for him, I believe he has a right to know you’re moving,”
“Nick,” there was a waver in her voice, “I understand that your upset for your friend, and Jay is lovely, he really is, but–”
“But what,” Nick harshly said, “But what.”
She had no idea. She had no idea how she affected him. She was lucky enough to be the air Gatsby breathed and she saw him as a fun little secret that could be discarded when it was convenient for her. She had the undivided attention of the single most inspiring, beautiful man—a man far better than she deserves—and she simply doesn’t see it. Or simply doesn’t care. Nick doesn’t know which one is worse.
She didn’t know how much he would kill to have Jay look at him like that. To make him as happy as she did. To be able to love that man openly, and have him do the same.
“He’s waiting on a call from you. Did you already call him? Did you ever tell him you would call?” If Gatsby was waiting by the phone for a call that will never come Nick wasn’t sure how he would be able to compose himself.
“Nick…I…you truly have to understand–,” Daisy’s careless attempts to lie were interrupted by Tom marching up to them and planting himself firmly in between Daisy and Nick.
“What is all this about Nick?” he said with forced cheer and dead eyes.
“You tell me Tom. Daisy says you’re moving,” Nick refused to back down, despite Tom’s larger physique and documented cruelty. Not when someone as important to him as Jay was on the line.
“We are. Europe is splendid this time of year,” Tom’s voice just begged Nick to question him. Nick usually wouldn’t, he’d simply walk away and keep to himself, but not today.
“Does anyone know you're leaving?” Nick didn’t ask specifically if Gatsby knew they were leaving, but Tom, miraculously, seemed to pick up on something as foreign to him as subtlety.
“No one you’d need to be concerned about,” he said, “You have to understand this was a spontaneous decision. New York is just too…new fangled these days. No one here cares about the way things should be, but I hear they care quite a bit about good breeding in Germany.”
The phrasing of that struck Nick as odd. No one he would need to be concerned about? So they told some people, clearly, but no one Nick knows? No one Nick will ever speak to? What does he even mean by concerned? Was there a reason to be concerned? What reason could there be to be concerned?
It dawned on Nick that maybe his pointless paranoia was getting the better of him, but that thought didn’t stop his stomach from dropping to his toes. He spoke before he could convince himself not to.
“What did you tell the police,” he managed to squeeze out of his lungs.
“We haven’t spoken to the police,” Tom said, and there was nothing to indicate he was lying, but from behind him, Daisy looked down at her shoes as if the secrets of the universe lie beneath her feet.
“You’re both utterly heartless!” Nick shouted over his shoulder as he sprinted off of their lawn as quickly as possible, “You’ve got gold where your soul should be.” He needed to get to Gatsby’s as quickly as possible, before the police arrived. Damn Jay’s dreams, Nick will throw him over his shoulder and run away on foot if it keeps him out of jail.
The mad dash to the train station passed by in a blur to Nick, but the train ride to the West Egg was torturously slow. Every second was irretrievable, and they were being wasted by the married couple yammering next to him about what their hypothetical child’s name should be. Them and everyone else on the train were just going on about their lives while Nick’s could be being cuffed by the police at this moment. He couldn’t help but shove an older gentleman out of his path while disembarking the train, and wasn’t even in the state of mind to apologize.
Down the path he flew from the train to Jay’s mansion, a path he has taken many times before. He didn’t even need to think about where to put his feet, they simply found their way. The gate was already open when he got there. He sprinted across the massive lawn and leapt up the stairs leading to the marble porch holding the pool. Jay, like a male Aphrodite, was emerging out of water.
He saw Nick, and his eyes lit up, “Old Sport, did you change your mind about coming for a swim?”
Nick could only see George Wilson on the other side of the pool, holding a gun.
“Why do you look so–,” Gatsby started before he was roughly tackled into the pool by Nick. Then they heard the first shot.
Submerged underwater and desperately trying to cover Jay’s body with his own, Nick couldn’t help but recall some of his worse memories from the war. Men he loved as brothers in arms, or perhaps more than that, that he had also hidden from gunfire with. Men who hadn’t escaped with their lives. As the bullets continued, some seeming to whiz past very close to them, he couldn’t help but think that while he may have missed his train, he was right on time for something much more important. He would never lose James Gatz, even if it required James Gatz to lose him.
The loud bangs stopped and after a second Nick resurfaced from the water, making sure to keep Jay completely under water just in case. George Wilson’s body, sans head, laid where he stood just seconds before.
Next to him, a wild gasp ripped the air out of the sky. “fucken’ Christ,” Jay wheezed out.
They treaded water for a second in silence, absolutely bewildered and shocked, and then Jay started swimming to the edge of the pool. Nick followed.
They hauled their weary bodies out of the water, shaking and scared, then, finally, Jay broke the seemingly infinite silence that stretched between them.
“Thanks for that Old Sport,” he said in a hollow way, eyes staring ahead.
Nick stared at him for a minute, and then breached the space between them and clung to Jay like letting go would kill him.