Work Text:
1989
The day everything changed started out like any other. Danny left for the studio before the others woke. Half an hour later, Jesse and Joey met each other on the stairs, mumbling sleepy morning greetings as Joey ascended to wake the girls and Jesse descended to start on breakfast. It was a fine-tuned routine. When they’d first begun helping out, Joey, being closer to the kitchen, had taken on breakfast while Jesse, being upstairs, had woken the girls. However, it hadn’t taken them long to realize two things: 1) If anyone could mess up cereal and toast, it was Joey and 2) Jesse was a lot more cheerful once he’d had his first cup of coffee. So instead, Jesse began his day in the kitchen, scrambling eggs and caffeinating while Joey knocked on the girls’ bedroom doors and roused them in cartoon voices.
By the time Joey got Michelle dressed and Stephanie and DJ out of bed (which on this particular morning required not only impressions but also open window blinds and pulled back covers), Jesse had breakfast for the five of them on the table and two school lunches on the counter. He took Michelle from Joey and gave her a kiss before settling her in her high chair. Stephanie was anxious about a spelling test and had DJ quizzing her.
“Cone” DJ read from the sheet of paper.
“C-O-N-E”
“Bone”
“B-O-N-E”
“Phone”
“F-O-N-E” Stephanie recited, her mouth full of scrambled eggs.
“No,” DJ corrected, turning the list towards Stephanie and pointing to the word, “it’s got a “PH” at the beginning. And don’t talk with your mouth full!”
“What?” Stephanie exclaimed, her mouth again full. She grabbed the paper from DJ and squinted at the word in front of her. “P-hone” she said, pronouncing every letter carefully.
Jesse jumped in to help his niece, “the ph make an f sound, like in elephant or, or…” he looked across the table, “Joe, help me out here.”
“Phonetic, Phoenecian, epitaph…” Joey responded with a smirk. He rarely chose to pull out his college words, but he knew being a smartass would make Jesse smile.
“Right, like those are words the kid knows! Those aren’t even words I know!” Jesse responded with a laugh, chucking a piece of toast playfully at his friend. Joey caught the toast in his mouth and everyone applauded. Jesse and Joey locked eyes, sharing a smile until Stephanie drew their attention back to her.
“Uhm guys, hello, remember me? The girl who is about to flunk spelling right here!”
The rest of breakfast was spent reassuring Stephanie that she would not, in fact, fail her test. Joey patiently explained silent letters, trying a few approaches before finding one that made sense to her. By the time Jesse was handing out lunches as the girls headed out the door, Stephanie seemed much more confident.
Once the door was shut, the men high-fived. “Another morning, another second grade crisis solved!” Joey said, and Jesse began a victory chant as they headed into the kitchen to start the washing up.
The rest of the morning was spent playing dance party, tea party, dollhouse party, and backyard party with Michelle. They each tried to get a little work in for their pitch next week, but the parties demanded most of their attention. If they were being honest, they were both grateful for the distraction. They had pitched to a major client three days ago and still hadn’t heard back. Nothing gets the mind off things quite like putting on a frilly hat and sipping apple juice out of tiny plastic teacups.Following lunch, they took Michelle upstairs for her nap.
“No nap!” she said loudly, as they changed her into her pajamas.
“Yes nap.” Jesse responded smiling.
“No nap! Party!” Michelle said, and she began dancing.
Jesse knew he should be firm, but her dancing was so dang cute. Instead, he stood, his hand resting casually on Joey’s shoulder. The two of them shared another smile as they watched her wiggle around the room.
“Alright, Michelle,” Joey said after a minute, “now it’s time for a nap party!”
“Yes! A nap party!” Jesse cheered, scooping up Michelle and placing her in her crib. Michelle smiled, excited for another party.
“Okay, Michelle,” Joey said, “you gotta lie down for nap party, and your uncle Jesse and I will sing the party music. Michelle lay down and Jesse and Joey began the naptime lullaby medley they’d perfected over the last year. As usual, Michelle was out by “Nappin’ Robin” (their parody of “Rockin’ Robin”).
In the basement, Jesse and Joey busied themselves with the yogurt commercial they were preparing to pitch. Joey was acting out comedy bits with two sock puppets and Jesse had his head bent over a piece of paper, scratching out yet another line.
“What even rhymes with ‘yogurt’”Jesse asked as he tossed the pen onto the desk.
“Jogurt, hogurt, flogurt” the puppets on Joey’s hands responded.
“Hansen Yogurt-the flogurt jogert” Jesse sang, playing the jingle on the keyboard. “Why yes, Joseph, I believe that’s the one!”
It wasn’t a particularly productive hour. Between staring at the phone (waiting for word from their client) and making jokes to distract themselves from the waiting, they managed little progress.
They were tossing Mr. Potato Head’s nose back and forth when the phone rang. The plastic nose dropped to the floor as both men rushed to answer it. Joey got there first.
“J and J creative services, J speaking.”
Jesse had both hands on Joey’s shoulders as he leaned in to try to hear. He could feel Joey’s heartbeat speed up, and knew it was the call they had been waiting for.
“Oh hello, Sir. Uh huh, uh huh…”
Jesse peered at Joey, trying to read the news on his face.
“Okay, alright, thank you. Talk to you tomorrow.” Joey said. He hung up the phone then turned back to look at Jesse, who stood mere inches away.
“We got it” Joey said, his face breaking into a grin.
Jesse shouted and pulled Joey into a hug. After a moment, Jesse pulled back, reaching up instead to cup Joey’s neck in his hands and bring their foreheads together.
“We did it!” Jesse exclaimed, “we did it, we did it!”
“Yeah,” Joey whispered, not breaking eye contact,”we did it.”
It was at that moment that everything changed. Jesse didn’t plan it. He wasn’t even sure what he was doing until he felt his lips press against Joey’s. Felt Joey’s lips press back. Coherent thought eluded Jesse as he ran his tongue along Joey’s lower lip. Joey opened his mouth slightly, and Jesse deepened their kiss.
Sometime later (a minute? Ten minutes? An hour? He couldn’t tell), coherent thought returned to Jesse. He broke the kiss, bringing his hand to his mouth as he pulled away.
“Jess…” Joey said, opening his eyes and reaching out.
Jesse looked down at Joey’s hand, extended to him. He looked up at Joey’s kiss-dazed expression. His eyes grew wide as realization and confusion overtook him. This was his friend. His friend Joey. His friend Joey who he’d just made out with.
He couldn’t think. He couldn’t breathe. He needed air. Now.
“I gotta go.” Jesse said hoarsly, “I gotta go. The girls will be home in a few hours…”
Joey nodded, his expression knowing and sad. “I’ll be here,” is all he said. Jesse turned and sprinted up the stairs and out the door.
******
The cold, salty air burned as it beat against his cheek. The roar of the cars on the highway hammered at his ears as he cruised down the PCH heading south. Jesse had two goals: get away and don’t think.
‘Don’t think’ went great for the first hour. The air, the noise, and the adrenaline as he swerved between cars all worked together to keep Jesse’s mind on the road and off what had just happened.
Eventually, though, the wind and the noise faded to the background, the adrenaline wore off, and Jesse’s thoughts caught up with him. He had kissed Joey. And Joey had kissed him back. Joey, his friend. Joey, his buddy. Why had he done that? Why didn’t Joey stop him? Did Joey want to do it again? Did *he* want to do it again?
Once the questions started, they just kept coming. Did he like guys, or just Joey? (wait, did, he like Joey?) What did this mean? What should he do?
Another hour he rode. No answers, no clarity- only a barrage of endless confusing questions and snippets of memories. The flip of his stomach in 9th grade math when David Fogerty smiled at him. The flutter in his chest when the captain of the football team had asked him about his weekend. The heat low in his abdomen whenever he’d watch Elvis move onstage… The feeling of Joey’s lips pressed against his. Of Joey’s hands on his shoulders. Of Joey’s breath on his skin.
At this recent memory, Jesse’s thoughts began to shift, to coalesce. He recalled the warm feeling he’d get whenever Joey listened to him play, always sitting a bit closer than strictly necessary. It was the same feeling he got whenever Joey did something goofy to make him laugh, or smiled at him from across the table, or held his gaze for a beat too long while they did the dishes.
Jesse had never thought about these things all at once before. Now, though, the answer to his most burning question rang clear in his mind, drowning out all noise from the highway, the sea, and his own chaotic mind: Of course he loved Joey Gladstone. Of course.
Jesse barely glanced over his shoulder before pulling a U-turn on the highway and speeding as fast as he could back up the coast.
*****
Running from that one thought- “I love him”- had taken Jesse over one hundred miles. Now, it drowned out all other consciousness, playing on repeat as muscle memory and instinct propelled him forward.
Monterey, Santa Cruz, Pescadero, Half Moon Bay, and Pacifica all flew by in a blur. As he got to the city limits, a thick fog blanketing South San Francisco forced Jesse’s mind out of its thought loop. He navigated the winding road and forced himself to stay alert to the other traffic. This effort at clarity of mind invited other thoughts into Jesse’s head. The answer he had uncovered had driven the onslaught of other questions from his mind, but they returned to him as he rode slowly through the white expanse.
‘Do I like guys?’
Again, the memories came back to him- boys in high school whose smiles had made his stomach flip, arriving early to the mechanics just to chat with the mechanic and watch him work, and of course, Elvis. He reflected on these and the many other seemingly insignificant, disparate fragments his brain had locked away until he was ready to piece them together.
Jesse rode for several minutes, working with this new information about himself. Turning it over in his mind and soul. Understanding himself anew.
After a while, he felt another question creeping from the margins, and he desperately did not want to consider it. However, once he thought it- ‘Does he feel the same?’- he couldn’t let it go. He played their kiss over and over in his mind in hopes of gaining insight into Joey’s heart. He’d looked sad when Jesse had said he was leaving, right? That had to be good. Or maybe he was sad that Jesse just ruined their friendship. He needed to talk to Joey. Now.
He tried arguing with the fog. He tried yelling at the fog. He tried reasoning with the fog. He tried bribing the fog (as it turns out, non-sentient masses of condensed water are not easily bought). Still it remained, forcing Jesse to little more than a crawl.
The last few miles home took an eternity. When he finally parked, Jesse all but flew off the bike and up the steps to the house. He threw open the front door to find Danny and Michelle reading a story on the couch. Danny was home? Jesse realized he had no idea what time it was. He also realized he did not care.
“Where’s Joey?” He blurted out before he’d even closed the door.
“Hello to you too!” Danny said with a smile,”how were your errands?”
“Huh?” Jesse asked as he glanced around the living room. No sign of Joey. Michelle ran to greet him, and he scooped her up for a kiss on the cheek. “Huh, errands?”
“Joey said you had errands this afternoon?” Danny asked, his tone slightly questioning.
“Oh right, right” Jesse answered absentmindedly. Some small part of Jesse’s mind knew he should try for more subtlety, but that small part lost. “Yeah they were fine… hey uhm where’s Joey? I need to speak with him about something.”
“He’s up in the girls’ room,” Danny responded, head tilted in concern, “is everything okay?”
Jesse was already on the stairs. “Yeah, yeah” he managed to say over his shoulder before taking the rest of the stairs two at a time.
He slowed as he approached Stephanie and DJ’s room. He’d noticed how his energy had confused Danny, and he didn’t want to concern the girls. He took a deep breath to calm himself before stepping into the doorframe.
DJ sat on her bed reading a book on horses, and Stephanie sat at her little table, playing some sort of math card game with… with Joey. They were all facing away from the door, and none of them noticed Jesse appear. He took a moment to soak it all in. As much as he felt an immediate need to talk with Joey, seeing him made it all so real. He was painfully aware of what he might lose in the conversation he needed to have.
He rapped his knuckle softly against the doorframe.
All three heads turned to look at him. Jesse looked only at Joey. Joey’s eyes widened for a moment before he schooled his expression to neutral. Jesse stared deeper, trying to read beneath the neutral veneer, but Joey gave nothing away.
“Uncle Jesse!” Stephanie yelled as soon as she saw him. “I got a check plus on my spelling test!”
“That’s great, kid!” He responded, breaking Joey’s gaze and raising his hand for her to high five. DJ then waved at him to look at one of the horse photos. He told her that when he was a gajillionaire he would buy her one just like it. Jesse was sure he could feel Joey’s eyes on him the entire time.
Once he felt like he’d fulfilled his minimum unclely duties, he took another breath, summoning the courage to speak.
“Hey Joe, can I talk with you in my room for a minute?”
Joey nodded, placing the cards he’d been holding on the table. Stephanie protested (her spelling crisis behind her, she now seemed sure she was on the precipice of mathematical failure), but Joey assured her she would be fine studying without him.
The men walked across the hall, neither seeming sure how much distance to leave between them. Jesse held his door open for Joey before following him in and shutting the door behind him. Joey’s eyes cast around the room. Jesse gestured to the edge of the bed, “please, sit,” he said then added, “if, if you want to.”
Joey sat on the very edge of the bed, his feet remaining firmly on the floor. Jesse moved to sit next to him, but as soon as he’d sat down, he found sitting intolerable. He had too much energy. He stood and began pacing. Several times he paused and opened his mouth to speak, but words did not seem to come.
“Jess…” Joey said after Jesse’s tenth failed attempt to speak. Jesse froze at the sound, turning to face Joey whose face was still unreadable. “Jesse what happened was…” Joey tapered off and Jesse felt his heart hammering in his chest. He waited for Joey to continue, but the other man remained quiet.
“Was what?” he managed to ask after a moment of willing his voice to work. He stared at Joey, asking the question not only with his voice but with his eyes as well. Joey returned his gaze and Jesse could feel Joey’s eyes searching his own from beneath that carefully neutral expression.
Joey closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. Jesse stilled, watching him. When Joey opened his eyes again, he had dropped his guarded expression. He stood, facing Jesse. “The kiss meant whatever you want it to mean” Joey said at last, his voice open and calm.
“What does that…”
“If you want it to mean nothing, that’s okay,” Joey said in response to Jesse’s question. “We can be two buddies who got caught up in a moment of celebration.”
“Or?” Jesse asked, his voice cracking slightly under the weight of his nerves, “or what else could it mean?”
Joey took another breath before responding. “Look, Jess. I like you. I’ve liked you for a long time. But I promise this doesn’t have to…”
“I don’t want it to mean nothing.” Jesse said in a rush. “I want it to mean that other thing. Because I… because I like you too. Well, I think I love you actually.”
Joey’s eyes widened as Jesse talked, a disbelieving expression settling over his features. In response, Jesse took steps forward, closing the distance between them. That was all it took. They fell into each other’s embrace. Where their first kiss passed in a daze, Jesse made sure to savor every moment of their second. He noted the way Joey’s lips pressed urgently against his own, as though he needed to convince himself of the moment’s reality. The way Joey’s hands moved to cup his face. The feel of Joey’s hair as he raked his fingers through it. The falling sensation as they dropped to the bed.
*****
Later, as they lay in bed together, Jesse asked, “when did you know?”
Joey looked down at him and smiled, understanding what he meant. “Remember when you serenaded me with “Love Me Tender” during Michelle’s bathtime?”
“When I… Joey that was over a year ago!”
Joey just nodded, tracing shapes on Jesse’s bicep with his finger.
“Joe, I had no idea…”
“That was kind of the idea,” he said, his tone almost sad for a moment; however, the moment passed quickly. “Why? When did you know?”
Jesse stared up at Joey from where he rested on his chest. A wry smile spread across his face.
“About four hours ago.”
This cracked Joey up, which in turn cracked Jesse up. They were both laughing when D.J. knocked on the door to call them for dinner.