Starlight

Friday night Jack decided that it was the right time to finally start looking for some information for his essay. The one that was about everything. The one that didn’t even have a normal and understandable topic. At first he didn’t even know what to look for. But he started with basics. He just searched for every possible information about ancient Rome, Auschwitz and Nazi experiments.

By now he had only found similarities about Auschwitz and Nazi experiments and that wasn’t even that hard. Both comes from the same time period, both include world war two and Germany. The only problem was with ancient Rome. There were nothing that would be like with the previous two.

While everything about ancient Rome seemed good, even perfect for those times, there were still nothing that would even come close to twentieth century. Romans understood that poor hygiene is the source of disease. They took care of their personal hygiene, they made sure that there’s clean water next to their houses, they paid a lot of attention to health of their soldiers. Maybe they weren’t the best when it came to surgeries or diagnosing diseases, but it still sounded better than those experiments.

But if you think the other way Nazi did their experiments for the good cause. What better way to find the cure for typhus or tuberculosis than doing experiments with people no one will look for? Of course it’s cruel and pictures proves it, and survivor stories proves it, but they had good intentions. Kind of. Those good intentions could be debatable once Jack finds stories about experiments with twins and sterilization experiments. What the fuck is that all about? What is there to experiment with twins? And sterilization? That one word already sounds bad enough and Jack doesn’t even want to read further or look at the pictures.

All of this kind of goes together and kind of doesn’t. He’s not even sure if he’s looked for the right information. He’s sitting on his bed, staring at the screen of his laptop, chewing his nails and throwing quick glances at his note book that says nothing he would need at this moment.

“Alex?” he calls out, hoping that he’s not asleep in the other room. When he left the room Alex was watching reruns of ‘Castle’.

“What?” comes response. Jack is ninety percent sure that Alex has no intention to move from the couch.

“Can you come here?”

“Why?” of course he doesn’t want to move.

“I need to talk to you,” maybe it wasn’t that good idea. He has learned that sleepy Alex means grumpy Alex and that means he’s not up to conversations.

Few seconds later he hears steps coming towards his room, before Alex shows up in his room with incredibly good looking bed hair, “what?”

His hair might look good but his voice says that good looks are only on the outside. For now.

“What do you know about ancient Rome?”

“What?” it sounded more like – you called me here to ask about Rome?

“Okay, not about Rome, but something about it that would be similar to Nazi experiments and Auschwitz.”

Alex’s furrowed eyebrows and the look he gave me said that now I was the one who sounded crazy.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“You do know about…”

“I know what you mean, but why do you need to know about similarities?”

“I have to write an essay about…something…I don’t even know what I’m supposed to write!”

“Good for you,” he smirked, enjoying the fact that I was suffering because of some stupid essay.

“What’s good about that?”

He said nothing, leaning his shoulder against doorpost and blinking his tired eyes more than necessary.

“So you know something about it?”

Alex’s eyes were locked to Jack’s face, but it looked like he didn’t see him. He was looking further, searching through his mind for some information. Jack looked back, waiting and hoping that Alex might know something that would help.

“I know a lot about ancient Rome, but nothing that would come close to something like Nazi experiments,” Alex focused his eyes back on Jack, “sorry.”

With a loud groan Jack fell down on the bed, closing his eyes and silently cursing his old professor. What was he thinking that day? He was definitely high on something. And what the hell was Jack thinking when he signed up for history! What will he do after college? He is not going to teach at school or college! Work at museum or become an archeologist? That sounds too boring.

He felt his bed sink in, something pressing against his leg. Quiet “move” made him open his eyes and see Alex sitting next to him and staring at his laptop. He read through the three articles Jack had opened, then flipped through his note book and then finally looked at Jack.

“So you’re going with medicine?”

“What?” Jack sat up and looked over Alex’s shoulder at his laptop.

“Well, all these articles are kind of about medicine. Even those experiments are kind of about medicine. And you’ve searched for medicine in ancient Rome so I’m guessing you’re going with medicine.”

“Oh, well this medicine thing was the only thing that brought together those experiments and Auschwitz so I looked for something like that about Rome.”

“Mhm…and do you know what you need to write about?”

“No,” Jack felt like seven year old talking to his mother.

“Then just write about this medicine. Look through the facts about ancient Rome and everything about those experiment, look for what they intended to find or come up with. About those experiments, I mean. Just mix it all together. If your professor didn’t say what he wants to see then just write what you think you should write about.”

“I love you,” he hugged Alex so tight that he could’ve broken his neck.

“What?” Alex’s heart was racing so fast like he just ran a marathon.

“Oh…no…I mean no…not like that…” Jack released Alex and scooted away from him, now sitting on the other side of the bed, “I mean, you just…about that essay, you…I just didn’t know what to do about it and you just came here and read all of that shit on the internet and you just said what I should write about and it’s like you…it’s like you said the other day…that we don’t have that bond here and you don’t know what’s going on in my head and you can’t help me with anything and I feel it too because there’s times when I just don’t know what to do and that’s when I understand that there should be you saying something and there’s not and…”

“Jack, just shut up!” Alex practically yelled to get his attention, “I get it, okay? Calm down.”

Jack looked at Alex with wide eyes. Because of what he said or because Alex yelled at him or because of both, he didn’t know. He felt like he’s looking at him for the first time, in completely different light. He saw every little detail of him and he liked it, he loved what he saw and that scared him. He loved Alex’s messy, dark brown hair, he loved his chocolate-like eyes, he loved that little amount of stubble on his chin and that scruffy look it gave him.

He loved how Jack’s shirt looked on him, slightly too big and hanging loosely on his shoulders. He loved how he looked in the mornings and he even loved this grumpy Alex because he just looked so cute then. He loved how awkward he would get around people he didn’t know and then how talkative he would get when it’s just two of them. He loved how innocent he was, but at the same time how much he knew.

And he haven’t even slept with the guy. Fuck that, he haven’t even kissed him!

Almost six years ago he promised himself that he won’t fall for that. That he won’t fall for someone’s good looks or intelligence or sense of humor. He promised himself that he won’t be that stupid and for a while it worked. That was until Alex started to send him those stupid notes. He made Jack feel like someone still cared. Cared more than Rian or his family. Of course they cared, but somehow Alex made it different. He cared about Jack on a completely different level.

Notes

it's too short and too shitty for my liking but I'm working on the next chapter so it shouldn't take another two weeks for update ;D