Horseshoes and Hand Grenades

"This is terrible," Jack remarked, as he flicked some water at Alex. Narrowing his eyes in response, Alex sighed.

"It's not so bad." He tried sounding upbeat, but it came out in more of a sarcastic way.

"It could be worse," Jack agreed, resting his elbows on the deck of the pool. Alex moved from his side to his front, narrowly avoiding some kid who swam past under the water. "But, it does kind of suck. There's way too many people here."

"But we paid two dollars, so it's fine." Alex reasoned. Jack grumbled in reply.

"So did everyone else, that's why it's so fuckin' busy." He continued to frown as Alex pouted at him mockingly.

"Don't be a grump," he laughed, wading forward and hugging Jack, his arms around his neck. "We don't need two, we already have me."

Jack smiled at that, kissing Alex's cheek before he noticed something out of the corner of his eye that wiped the grin off of his face once again. "That woman has been glaring at us for the last hour."

"I know," Alex said, and Jack was surprised that he had not said anything. Then again, Alex was good at not caring about that kind of stuff. "Just ignore her."

"It's hard," Jack spoke lower, "I feel bad. For us, and for her."

"Stop paying attention to her," Alex said, smiling, "You're wasting on her what you could give to me."

"You're right," Jack chuckled, "I'm sorry." Pulling Alex in by his lips, he placed a kiss on his forehead, before Alex's lips came to meet his.

"Don't look at her," Alex mumbled against his mouth, and Jack kept his eyes as shut as he could.

On their walk home, Jack could not help but to ask Alex about it again. "How do you not let people like that bother you?"

"Do you mean the woman at the pool?" Alex asked, and Jack was not sure which one he was referring to, so he confirmed this with Alex.

"The bitch, yes." Alex laughed at Jack's comment. The confusion arose from earlier on, when they had another interaction with a young lady at the ticket booth. She had been surprised by Alex's accent, and she called him cute. Jack was glad she looked much older than them, otherwise he would probably make Alex go mad with his jealousy. He just could not help it sometimes. The situation also reminded Jack that Alex's accent still existed. He forgot sometimes, and Alex also began pronouncing certain words differently, but it was still pretty prominent. He remembered how in love with it he had been when he had first met Alex, and realized he needed to pay more attention to it, as it could disappear one day, for good.

"I don't know," Alex shrugged, "I guess I've always had really supportive people around me. I knew some other gay kids back home, it wasn't a big deal. Nobody ever said anything."

"You're lucky," Jack sighed, "With your parents, too."

"Somewhat," Alex rolled his eyes, "But they can also be really annoying. I swear, my mum keeps insisting that she had a feeling about it since I was young. It's kind of weird, since even I didn't know for sure until I was a bit older, but whatever."

"Yeah," Jack nodded, "At least nobody else is rude about it, though, besides the occasional stranger."

"That's also true," Alex hummed, "I would have thought high school here would have been terrible regarding that, but nobody's said anything."

"Not necessarily," Jack eyed Alex with a grin, forcing the blond to groan.

"I don't want to talk about them," Alex said dismissively, "I spend enough time seeing them at school."

Jack could not help but to laugh. Over the past couple months, a group of younger girls, ninth grade Jack was pretty sure, had accidentally made themselves known to Alex and Jack. More and more often, the couple would see the other students giggling or 'aw'ing whenever they kissed or held hands in the hallways, and it did not take the boys long until they realized the girls were a tad bit obsessed with them. They never talked to them, only watched from afar, and Jack wished they would at least say something if they were going to ogle at him and his boyfriend whenever they passed by. It was kind of a compliment, though, so he appreciated them. Their attitudes were a lot better than other things Jack had heard. Alex, on the other hand, became extremely embarrassed whenever he noticed the girls looking at them and whispering. He knew they were saying good things, but it still made him extremely uncomfortable to be such a point of attention. Jack always bothered him about it, confused as to why Alex hated it so much, because it was kind of cute. Alex always ended up being dismissive, but he did not mind Jack poking fun about it that much, either.

"That's true," Jack nodded, "I'll give you that."

Jack ended up going over to Alex's house, and the two boys were so tired from their day in the sun that they ended up falling asleep in Alex's bed right after they ate dinner. Jack found Alex clinging on to him like a koala later on that night, and he decided to let his mom know what had happened, before getting up to go to the washroom. His mom agreed that it was way too late for him to head home, and it was fine as long as he spoke to Alex's mother. When he came back into the room, he tried waking up Alex, but all he got was a grumble before he was tugged back into bed. Before he knew it, he, too, was asleep again.

When they woke up, Alex curled into Jack, sleepy and happy before he noticed that, wait, Jack was in his bed. They had fallen asleep, and he totally had not asked his mother about it.

"Jack," Alex whispered, "Wake up."

"What's up, babe?" Jack murmured, rolling over and nuzzling his face into Alex's neck. Just as he placed a kiss there, Alex nudged him back.

"My mom doesn't know you're here," Alex said, and Jack's eyes widened.

"Oh shit, you're right." He said quietly. Scrambling out of the bed, Jack got dressed as he spoke to Alex. He was wearing his shirt, but he did remember being uncomfortable and throwing his pants on the floor. "Go distract her in the kitchen, and I'll slip out the front."

"Okay," Alex yawned, following Jack out of the bed and meeting him at his bedroom door, kissing him quickly before padding down the stairs. "Mom? Where are you?"

"Kitchen, Alex," he heard back, and followed her voice to where she was making lunch. It was that late? Oh.

"What're you making?" Alex tried to distract her, but she seemed somewhere else. A few moments later, they both heard the click of the door handle, and Isobel rose an eyebrow at Alex.

"Are you not going to say goodbye to Jack?" She asked. Alex's eyes grew wide. When he opened his mouth, his mother spoke again. "Don't you dare, Alex."

"Fine," Alex shrugged, "He was here for a little bit this morning. I guess I forgot to ask you if he could come over."

"Then why did I see him in the hallway in the middle of the night?" Alex's mother narrowed her eyes, and noticed her son's expression fall right away.

"I'm sorry, mum."

"Are you?" She spoke smoothly, which made Alex feel much guiltier than any yelling she could have done. "Because it doesn't seem like it. You tried to sneak it past me, and then lied about it just now."

"I know, but-"

"No, Alexander, listen. This isn't like you, not at all. You're taking advantage of a privilege I gave you only for select times with permission." Alex could not look at his mom. He rarely ever got in trouble like this, so to say he felt bad would be an understatement.

"I know," Alex sighed, "I really am sorry. We were just really tired, he fell asleep here by accident. Jack even called his mom to tell her where he was, but we passed out before we could tell you about it. I lied now because I panicked, I'm sorry."

"I understand," Isobel hummed, "It was a mistake. Overall, it's not a big deal either, but I'd like if you actually tried to listen to me a tad more. Maybe you need some restrictions on your time with Jack?"

"NO," Alex accidentally yelled, quieting down, "No, please. It wasn't his fault, and it won't happen again. I promise."

"Alright," Isobel nodded, "He shouldn't be too far down the street by now, go see if you can catch him and invite him in to eat." Alex's mother could be super serious sometimes, but at other times, she was the one of the best and most spectacular people Alex could ever imagine, and not even just because she was his mom. She was just generally amazing.

Notes

sup! sorry i'm such a giant piece of shit! writing has been hard, but i think i'm getting it- there will be a new part of Death of a Bachelor up in a day or two! let me know what you thought of this, because tbh i think the fact that this barely has any direction is what's making it so hard for me to actually get any writing done. how do you guys feel about time skips? do you think it could work? because i think if i continued to write from march all the way to june, that would be boring as fuck. i'm thinking of just skipping to their trip, but idk if it will work or not since i haven't done any huge skips yet. lmk!

thanks to Alltimegabi and SophieGaskarth for commenting :^)