Curate, connect, and discover
Jack looks at him for a moment, blinking slowly as the gears click in his drunken brain, as he takes in the tight line of Davey's mouth, the knot in his jaw, the clench of his fists. His smile quivers, crumples like wet paper, and his whole body tears itself around a sharp, pained sob.
“Jack?!” Davey blinks, suddenly off-kilter, like he’d been punched in the stomach.. “What’s wrong, what happened-?”
“I got nothin’, Dave,” Jack laughs wetly, his mouth squared in a poor impersonation of a smile, all stretched and wrong. A crayon drawing, a caricature. How long has he been posing? “Got nothin’ at all. Ain’t that funny? All these folks got me, and I got nothin’.”
“Jack-“
“I could be anyone’s.” Jack hiccups. “Anyone at all, y’know? S’long’s they were nice enough. An’ I give all these little bits o’ me every day, and no one-“ He shudders, quivers out a laugh like it’s funny, like this is all some cosmic joke. “No one wants ‘em. No one wants me, Davey…”
“Hey!” Davey lurches forward, his body not knowing anything other than help Jack, hold Jack. He grabs him by the shoulders, supports Jack’s limp body with his own, like a shield, like armour. “That’s not true, you understand? We want you. We want you right where you are.”
Jack shakes his head, curling forward until his brow meets Davey’s collarbone, a feeble prayer. He quakes against him, hiccupping broken laughs, dampening Davey’s shirt with tears.
“No one’s mine…” He whimpers, like he didn’t even hear a word Davey’d said, like they weren’t real at all. “I’m everyone’s, all the time, and no one’s mine.”