Even Now

Chapter 28: Deliver Me

Saturday, February 12, 1994: Seattle, WA, USA

Jerry groans as he rubs his forehead, woken up by some random fucker running around in the outside hallway. Groggily he opens his eyes, widening them when he sees Layne lying beside him.

A feeling of disbelief comes over him.
Then... relief.

Layne's lying on his back, face turned towards him. He looks almost angelic.
His cuts and bruises are already fading away, the bandage over his nose kind of peeling off to reveal a pretty healed-up gash.

So. Last night really happened.

The level of intimacy they'd experienced the night before was near mind-blowing.

Jerry had fallen asleep long after Layne, his mind racing.
He didn't know why he'd been late to the Music Bank that day. He'd just been unable to stop thinking about his current situation. Namely, where he stood in Layne's life.

He felt like he was some kind of... mistress, or whatever.

Maybe he was just a fuck-buddy.
No, no, that couldn't be it... if that were the case, Layne wouldn't have stayed the night.

A thought suddenly occurs to him. A recurring one as of late: Layne was going to be a father. A real father, to a kid and everything.

Sadie. They'd already named her.

So, back to the main point: on his way to meet Layne yesterday, Jerry'd wandered the streets, eventually passing by the house where the two first met.

It reminded Jerry of how he felt. How he'd always felt.
It wasn't like the setting of Layne's wedding date had made him realize his feelings. In a way, he'd always known they were there.

Before he'd put a name to the ugly face brewing inside, Jerry'd always thought himself the protective older brother or something. He knew he was already the best friend, and that was fine. But he'd always felt, always desired something more. He just never knew what that was.

He'd always been unusually close to Layne- but some people just have relationships like that.
Although, it was weird how they always jokingly flirted with each other before any of this started.
Maybe they'd both been suppressing things; curiosity, or maybe... something more, something that would inevitably bring them together like this...
It wasn't like either of their families, or the world for that matter, would accept what they now had. Suppression was easier than risking everything.

Jerry'd never felt particularly attracted to Layne before. He had always thought of him in a familial-love kinda way, as he did for the other guys in the band.
Still... things always felt different with Layne.

Layne was an incredibly attractive man. Jerry wasn't blind, and he knew he wasn't the only guy to have ever thought that about him. They'd actually had a straight photographer say out-of-the-blue that Layne was the most beautiful man he'd ever seen.

Layne was everything Jerry wasn't. He was outgoing, eccentric, and carefree in all the right ways where Jerry was reserved, conventional, and serious in all the wrong ways.

Still, in many ways, they matched each other. They balanced each other out.
Strong where the other's weak, y'know?

As he watches Layne's chest rise and fall, Jerry knows. There's no doubt in his mind anymore. He closes his eyes as he rolls to the side.

He knows exactly how he feels.

He knew it when he saw Layne on the corner of the street the day he'd come back from his stay in rehab.