Where Clover Whitens (Jalex)

Cacophony

Remorse is cureless, — the disease

Not even God can heal;

For 't is his institution, —

The complement of hell.

-Emily Dickinson, "Remorse"

When Jack received a call from Rian shortly after he and Caitlin arrived home from the Carpenter soiree, his first reaction was panic. In his mind, Alex had run home and called Rian crying, and Rian was going to chew him up and spit him out. For a while in the past, Rian and Alex had been roommates, which had made them quite close. So close, in fact, that Jack had been jealous. He and Alex had always been best friends and during that time, he'd felt Alex pull away from him. They'd lived pretty far away from one another, so it was probably more so that, but Jack couldn't help but resent Rian for a while. Thankfully, Rian had moved to LA with Cassadee and he and Rian actually grew pretty close.

It was weird for a certain amount of time. Rian, Jack, and Zack had all lived within thirty minutes of one another in LA while Alex stayed in Baltimore County. Jack couldn't figure out why; most of their work necessitated frequent trips to Los Angeles and the surrounding area, so it just made sense for them to relocate there. Eventually, he was able to wear Alex down, but by then, Zack's dream of living in Hawaii had come to fruition and Rian had long since settled down in Nashville, which just left him and Alex. He was more than okay with that fact, having always enjoyed having Alex to himself.

Regardless, Jack knew Rian was still kind of protective of Alex, even if it seemed like all Rian cared about lately was his girlfriend. She was sweet, but quite a bit younger than them, and the generational gap was...irritating, to say the least. Jack figured that Rian could at least take a phone call from Alex and then try to fix whatever was bothering him. But luckily for Jack, that was not at all what Rian was calling about.

"Hey, JB!" Rian sang through the speaker, and Jack could picture his Colgate smile through the phone.

"Hey, what's up, man?" Jack asked, anxiously awaiting his tongue-lashing. He was sitting in his living room, barely undressed from the party. His tie was undone and the first few buttons on his shirt were unbuttoned.

"Nothing much. Just curious about how married life is going."

Jack's heart sank. So Rian was calling to bitch at him. "Not too bad," he replied hoarsely. "Ri, look-"

"That's great to hear!" Rian interrupted. "Because you're not going to be the only married guy in this band for long."

Pausing, Jack frowned. That was not what he'd been expecting. Clearly, if someone else was getting married, it had to be Rian. Zack's new girl was just that — incredibly new to Zack. And Alex...well, Jack couldn't think about that. "Oh, yeah?" He asked.

"Yeah!" Rian couldn't seem to contain his excitement. "I'm gonna ask Sav to marry me, man. And she loves Tiffany."

Jack rubbed his eyes. No one would be too thrilled to hear that Rian was marrying that girl, but he wasn't going to say so. And of course, she wanted a blue box. "Man, is there not a closer one to you?"
"I mean, yeah, but everybody says the Costa Mesa one is the best. And I want the best for her."

Rolling his eyes, Jack held back a sigh. "Costa Mesa is over an hour and a half from here, Ri. Probably even more with traffic."

Rian huffed. "I know, but I need someone experienced to help me with this."

Zack and Alex can't, Rian didn't say, but Jack didn't need him to. Just thinking about his best friend made Jack's stomach turn, guilt eating him alive to the point that he longed to scrub Alex Gaskarth completely out of his brain.