[Cardiff] The solace and the silence.

[onlysayinghello]

Distracted was putting it mildly, and he knew that everyone at the Hub could see it too. Of course it wasn't as if he had much to divulge to them. There were the glances though, burning gazes at the back of his head that the moment he turned to face them snapped away as if caught doing something they knew they shouldn't be doing.

He thought for sure that Gwen would question him, all her needing to know just what made him tick, it had to be eating at her to see him so out of his element. Yet there he was seated at his desk in the Hub trying not to think about the fact that there was a four hundred year old man at his flat, that had been buried alive... and that Jack had grown a bit more than fond of him. Of course all the unanswered questions were inching up in his conscious as well. None of it made any of it any easier.

Still he'd just taken off. Flight to Japan and back again without so much as an explanation as to just what had gone on. It was routine for Jack, they should have been aware of it by now, that not every thing he did had an answer available to give, even to them. It was better for them, or at least that was what he convinced himself of. Glancing to the clock he was relieved that it had been a slow day, well relatively slow at least. Owen was off looking into something or another and the rest of the cases had been tied up for a few days now. Jack could have taken time off, he could have just rested up, stayed in bed and taken care of things for Adam.

Instead he felt torn... because he wasn't sure what to even think, and having Adam in his flat... around him all the time wasn't helping him keep a clear head on it all. So the time apart was something he needed, and he knew Adam needed it as well. A time to just be alone and not with anyone around him to ask questions that Jack knew wouldn't be easy to answer. Questions Jack knew he had more than a few of.

Standing up he grabbed his coat off the rack and said his good nights to Tosh, telling her not to stay too late. He stopped and picked up something for dinner and then headed up to his flat. Keys slid into the door and his toe pushed it open, hands still holding the food. A few steps into the room and his foot nudged the door shut behind him before the food was placed on the counter. The chill in the room surrounded him, even with his big coat, but he didn't actually mind. Temperatures didn't seem to phase him these days, and he could see the slight flush to Adam's cheeks proof that once more he had been standing in the cold. It was the moments like this, where Jack saw something he hated seeing in anyone, and it was that exact reason why Jack knew he was right going into work.

It pulled at him, tugging him in so many different directions he wasn't even sure which way was up, let alone right. All he saw was the despair and the half empty gaze from across the room. Jack let his eyes meet Adam's and in that silence Jack wished he already had all the answers, but he knew he was far from that moment... so far he couldn't even think what the horizon looked like.

"You didn't have to shut that," Jack's words cut across the cold of the room before he started to move toward Adam. "The window, I mean."

Comments

[changehistory.livejournal.com]

Adam shifted further away from the window, toward the center of the room to meet him, nervous as a cat and trying to hold himself still inside because of it, wary of betraying any weakness, even to Jack. Glancing around the brightly lit flat and managing a rueful smile dropping down as a mask.

"I think I've done enough damage to your utility bill..."

It was so ridiculously domestic, even with everything running underneath. He couldn't remember the last time he'd shared someone else's space with any sort of intimacy. Jack's eyes were so full of questions and they seemed to mirror his own, the whys and whens of it all a tangled mess in a brain that managed to lose and keep track of time obsessively at the same time.

"You brought dinner?" Which was horribly obvious, but the silence had swirled around him all day and he couldn't bear to let it continue to linger, breaking it with the first thing that came to his mind, forcing some semblance of normalcy onto a situation that lacked it in every capacity.

[onlysayinghello.livejournal.com]

Jack turned around to look at the bag on the counter, as if he'd almost forgotten about the food. Everything sort of slipped from his mind when he saw the near gloss of darkness in Adam's eyes. His hand shot to the back of his head rubbing at his hair as he nodded in agreement, "Don't worry about the bill, somehow Ianto's managed to get this as part of the Torchwood budget, no clue how but I think he wasn't all too comfortable with me living at the Hub."

Which was an answer and a question all in one... considering Ianto's actions in the Hub... and then in his office. Jack's life if not interesting, was still complicated, always complicated actually.

"I know my fridge isn't really food friendly, I actually think all I have in there is a bottle of Vodka, which isn't even in the fridge itself, more like the icebox."

It sounded like mindless chatter, just anything to fill the silence, because it seemed to be swallowing them whole, "So... take-out."

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"That's convenient," Adam remarked, starting to mirror the gesture with his hair, before dropping his hand. "The budget part..." Gods, but he was close to babbling, just standing there in the middle of the room, unsure of which way to go next or what to do.

He broke away from the awkward stance, half of him wanting to touch, to be touched, to be reminded that things were real and he was here and not there lost in some sort of pathetic delusion, but he rather hoped his delusions wouldn't be this awkward. Veering away from possible rejection if he reached out, he headed to the food.

"Nothing wrong with just vodka. There was a time in Russia when I tried to live on the stuff." He sent Jack a sort of rueful look over his shoulder. "But take-out is better, yes."

[onlysayinghello.livejournal.com]

Jack let his arms fold across his chest, unsure of if it was merely something to do with his hands or something on the subconscious level he twisted his body to follow Adam moving toward the food. It had become incredibly awkward entirely too quickly. Shrugging his jacket off his shoulders he moved to hang it up on the rack by the door, then shoved his hands in his pockets as he moved toward Adam where the food was currently being looked through and taken out of the bag.

"One thing I can say for certain is that in the future alcohol gets a lot more creative, there are some planets out there that have devised an entire system of drinks that will allow your mind to forget whatever rules and boundaries it might have already set up. Then there are still the drinks that make you forget your name when you wake up, or make you wish you had at least."

Jack grinned trying to ease the tension in the room, which wasn't an easy task given all the stuff that was unsaid. He didn't want to rush right into twenty questions though, but at the same time questions seemed to be all he had at the moment. He knew Adam hadn't slept during the night, and it wasn't that he minded that fact, but he hadn't slept either.

Running a hand over tired features Jack leaned against the counter behind him, "It feels like it's too soon to ask, but really Adam... you have to realize the questions that have been racing through my head since the other night."

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The idea of other planets, other life, was still so foreign, going from science fiction to reality in the space of a few weeks, and it made him uneasy about the place of humanity inside of it all. His place.

"That sounds like a rather dangerous combination of alcoholic beverages," he commented with a smile back that was real for all that it was tinged with something like uncertainty, or shyness.

He needed to be useful, all things considered, even if that just meant getting them silverware, getting out the boxes, glancing at the choices Jack had brought. Freezing at Jack's words, his fingers wrapped around a fork, he let the idea of questions, and answers, sink in.

"You have a right to the answers," he said, finally, setting the food on the counter, before turning to meet Jack's eyes. "Perhaps we could have some of the vodka?"

[onlysayinghello.livejournal.com]

As much as the smile tugged at the corners of his lips he wasn't sure if getting alcohol involved was a wise way to start the evening, and the fact that Adam seemed to think it was set off a small alarm in Jack's mind. He was approaching it wrong, coming at him as if he was interrogating him, despite his effort to make it seem out of concern he knew what he was asking of him, and it was something that so far they hadn't even wanted from each other.

Before this moment they were a commonality, a bond of two that knew how it was to look back at their past and see nothing that they could still hold onto for their own except memories. They had no motives, no truths to be sought out or lies to unearth... just each other to realize how simple life could be to share with someone else.

Now it had changed, and the shift in it all was as stark as the room was stilled by silence. Even now Jack stood as if he was looking at Owen, or anyone else that had betrayed him... and Jack wasn't comforted by the thought at all. Withdrawing his hands from his pockets he moved closer to Adam, knowing it was even more of a gesture to move closer, and even more of a temptation to remove that space between them.

His hand rested upon Adam's for a moment trying to meet his eyes with a sincerity, to ensure him that they'd be okay despite not even knowing what was to come of it all. Everything changes... his own words echoing back against him now, because everything was changing, and he had no guide to it at the moment. Time would catch up with itself eventually... repair the damage that had been put forth... but now in this room, with this man... there was nothing to fix him except time.

Time was all they had.

"Having a right to answers, and being ready to give them are two different things, and if you think that drinking is going to ease them from you? I'd rather not hear them." Swallowing his own curiosity for a moment he let his fingers curve into Adam's palm, trying to comfort him, "I do want to know though, I want the truth and I'm willing to listen."

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Adam let his fingers curl slowly back around Jack's, trying not to cling, but just to hold them. He watched where their hands met, frowning a little at the strange sensation. Everything Hiro had said....he hadn't denied a word of it. Jack had to know that it was bad, whatever the answers were.

Adam still didn't think he had been wrong, but he wasn't so insane as to not realize that not everyone was going to see it that way. Jack would never understand it, he thought. Never condone it. His fingers tightened on Jack's, with a flash of unaccustomed fear. He'd spent 400 years alone, moving through countries and wars and cities like a ghost. Thirty years before he'd tried, for the first time, to bring people together, to have more than men under his command, but instead a group of people at least somewhat like him who understood.

They turned on him. It didn't lend itself to him wanting to trust, to put any reliance in Jack or that the sincere look he was giving him might be actually sincere. To tell him anything would be risking losing that, and Jack would have reason to, as well, at least in his mind. But if he told him, and he stayed...he struggled to push back the little whisper of hope that brushed over him against the threat of continued loneliness, looking out at the dark of eternity stretching on interminably.

"Sober, then..." Though that made a flash of fear slice through him again. "What...I want to tell you." That might have been a slight exaggeration, but he couldn't stay here, lying next to him at night, drifting through his house, with the questions between them. He had to talk, or he would have to go, and he wasn't ready to go. "I just don't know where to start. What do you ... What questions...if you ask, it will give me somewhere to start to answer."

[onlysayinghello.livejournal.com]

There was no right way to start into this, and Jack knew that now more than ever. The back of his mind flashed to the thought that he was asking something that his team asked of him all the time, the truth about just who he was... about what he was even doing in this world still. Death barely a shadow on his record, and they all knew that now... but that was where the line was drawn for them.

Adam knew though, more than his team did at least, and now he wondered how much he could get Adam to tell him now, and what right he had to any of it.

He left his hand to Adam, feeling that added grip against fingers for a moment, and he knew it wasn't going to be the simplest thing.

"Everyday my team ends up with more reasons to either doubt or trust me, and every day I have to protect them from the truth, because me being just another guy without a past keeps them safer in some backwards way. There's no answer I can give them that won't put doubt into their eyes of just what I am to them. I'm their leader, and they don't want to hear about how I started out a coward, leading people on, tricking them out of things that I had no right to. Going in and altering time, changing things because it was something handed to me on a slip of paper. That was who I was, the man I am today has seen so much more than all of that, and through it all I've found my own path. I know," Jack paused meeting his eyes trying to truly express that he was going to try and listen with as open a mind as he'd want for himself, "I've known that things are far too complicated for you to just tell me the truth, but I want you to at least trust that you have my hand, because if you can't trust that simple gesture then I know you can't trust me with the answers, and I don't want something that you just give to me to placate and stop the questions."

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Adam wanted to say things that he didn't trust anyone, not with anything, and most certainly not with the truth of himself, all the pieces he kept locked in. Except Jack had told him things, things he apparently hadn't told his own team.

"I don't want to placate you." Well, possibly that would be nice, temporarily. "As you said before...we have time. But if you need to know, and I cannot tell you, then I cannot expect you to keep offering..." His fingers tightened again on Jack's hand. "You came. You found me, and you got me out of there. I am not completely convinced Hiro would have let me out before I had lost all reason. I owe you my life, or at least my sanity." What there was of it. "Every time I think of that..."

He broke off, a faint tremble running through him. "I have never liked confined spaces. After that...to thrust me in there, into that...And you got me out. I don't trust easily. Everyone I have ever trusted with anything of myself has turned on me, left me alone, thrown me aside. But I...you didn't leave me there. It's not something I want to talk about, but not because I am ashamed. And I think, perhaps, you will hate me a bit for that. And I find that I cannot stand the thought of that."

[onlysayinghello.livejournal.com]

Jack kept his gaze to Adam's, watching him fight his own well being in a sense to try and explain the struggle, a struggle that Jack knew almost all too well. Faced against greater odds, greater men and yet Jack knew how easily it all could falter if trust was lost. He knew he was asking too much, to ask a man who'd just been a victim of what Jack had seen for trust was no doubt a daunting thing for Adam, and Jack wanted that trust so much, but he was certain that it was something he was still in the process of earning. No bond of intimacy could stretch as far as the trust Jack was asking for, and he knew that.

The fear in Adam's words, the waver in his tone ever so slight put a grip around his heart, because if these questions had answers that made Adam think that there would be hate left when the cards were laid out, then he wasn't sure he wanted to hear the answers at all. It would be far simpler to just ignore it all, to just not give questions that had answers that could hurt. He did the same to his own team, denied them the truth to protect them from the distrust.

This felt so different to him though, and the things he knew, had come too close to things that Hiro had mentioned, that not asking, not knowing if the events from history were Adam's... it was slowly pulling him apart.

Jack let his free hand move to the nape of Adam's neck, a light touch to the short hairs that teased to fingertips if Jack would let them. It was meant for comfort, to give him solace in the silence that was growing between them.

"I'm sorry you went through that, I'm sorry that trust is hard for you to give, I can understand that I'm asking a lot of you, and know that I can understand also why you have such a fear of the truth finding it's way to me, but I would rather hear it from you, than from someone else."

Jack let his forehead press lightly to Adam's for a moment before a soft kiss brushed to Adam's lips, drawing back Jack met his eyes, "I know what was supposed to happen in Odessa, I know that two timelines were struggling with each other since the events of Kirby Plaza, because there were two archive records of the events. I can't stop them... I can't even tell people what they can do Adam, I just prepare myself for the worst... and the worst didn't happen, but you were there."

Jack sighed, "In New York, I gave you the coin, for good luck. I lied, I was worried about you, concerned that you'd end up in some sort of trouble with your hiding, and your trips to places? It's tagged, registered with the Torchwood databases to me. Wherever I was with that coin, the data base could run a scan and know where I was. When you had it... you were in Odessa, and then... then you were in Japan. I knew in that moment, that something had gone wrong... or right, but I knew that you were in Japan, and your elevation reading... wasn't right. So I came for you, because I couldn't just not know."

His thumb rolled gently against Adam's neck for a moment, "And now it's tearing at me that I don't know if you were there to start... or stop what might have happened in Odessa. Before the other day though, I didn't even realize any of it was connected, so please don't think that I knew this in New York..."

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Adam leaned into his touch, his lips wanting to linger against Jack's, to breathe him in and pull him closer and let it be there, between them. He hadn't realized how much Jack already knew, how their live were once again...his life was once again one in the history books. It was almost funny, in a way that made the little bits of hysteria that were so close to the surface want to bubble over. That sort of funny, then.

That it had been supposed to happen twisted around in his gut, mingling with the rising hysteria. They all thought they were being so sly and clever and yet events were just there, always around and he wondered if they'd fixed them or if he was always supposed to fail so miserably.

"Four hundred years ago a time traveler appeared in feudal Japan. I was a mercenary and a drunk, with no sense of my own power. I chose a symbol, a name. Takezo Kensei--Sword Saint. And a symbol. 'Godsend.' Then this boy appeared and told me I was a legend. That I was supposed to save Japan, and marry a girl who wanted nothing to do with me at the time. I didn't believe him, so he went off and saved the girl, disguised in my armor, my mask. He pushed me toward deed after deed after that, creating the history he once read in a book. He convinced me that I loved her. I had to, of course, because it was history. So, I convinced myself that I must, as well. Then, while I was saving her father's life from a bandit...he betrayed me. I did not react...well." His voice was soft, pain lacing through it, even now. "He betrayed me and then he left me there, alone, a villain, not the hero he swore I was."

Adam's eyes closed, for a moment.

"He taught me to love and he taught me to hate and he showed me what I was, and swore I was meant to play a great part in history, then he stole the part and the girl I never wanted and there was nothing left."

He looked at Jack again, open, vulnerable and yet somehow still distant, still that wall. "I watched the world tear itself apart for the last 400 years. I walked it alone. I saw death and destruction and nothing ever improving. Humanity has fallen to a depravity of soul that no one can fix. But it was fixed, wasn't it? Your future...it sounds so much better than anything the world has now." There was a bit of a light now, a fervor of belief. "I wanted to fix it. To give the world a fresh start, like the flood. To save it from itself and start a new world of peace and equality.." He broke off, too tired for all the justifications, though his eyes plead with Jack to understand.

"You heard what Hiro said," Adam said, softly, taking a breath. "He didn't lie, this time, no matter what he said about Japan and that fucking woman. I was there to start it."

[onlysayinghello.livejournal.com]

In his lifetime he'd known of the events that changed the world, heard the legends, read the archives... even visited a few of them during training. All the agents being sent out to maintain, to protect their way of life. The human race had come so far in so many years and now that time travel was allowed, the smallest change could create a maelstrom of events. So the Time Agency was enacted and everything that fell out of line was tracked and recorded. It was why Jack knew that at the core of it all the big stuff was happening now.

The big stuff apparently was happening at the hands of the man he'd shared a bed with. All the talk of changing the world and this was it, this was the plan. To simply start again, anew, and Jack wasn't even sure what to think. His past had the events of Kirby Plaza.... the bomb... the destruction, but it also had records of it not happening. Even the Time Agency had archive upon archive of alternate timelines, ones that had transpired or had shifted off. Always keeping track of how things could have gone... just in case the timelines met up again.

When the date came for Kirby Plaza Jack was ready, but the event had changed. Jack wasn't a Time Agent anymore, and for all he knew the fifty-first century was forever changed by that. For all Jack knew his entire history had shifted off the books he'd studied at the Agency. Not that it mattered to him because he was still there, still existing apart from it all.

An impossible thing, words that echoed in his mind all too clearly, all too often. Now he was faced with a truth that he knew all too well... Adam had intended on the destruction, and even in Jack's own memory the events were still hazy. Whether they had happened with Kirby Plaza... or apart from, or even at all, and he was more confused than he wanted to be.

He also knew he was becoming too reliant on things that could have changed. The rift changed it. Kirby Plaza changed it, and now Odessa had changed it. Constantly, always, never ending things weren't happening the way they were supposed to and maybe that was the way it was supposed to be.

Jack didn't move from Adam, he didn't drop his hand from his neck, or the other from the tight grip that was still there.

"Everything changes..." it was the only constant thought he had in his mind, the only thing repeating over and over again, "I thought I knew what I was getting myself into. I'd save the world, I knew the events, the way things were supposed to happen and then... everything started to change. Little things, like... well big things actually, right now," Jack met Adam's eyes, "Right now running right under Cardiff there's a temporal rift. Time... just seeps out of it, all the timelines fighting for space in there, and it just changes everything."

He wasn't even sure he had a point, or even if his thoughts were coming around to anywhere cohesive, "I can't stop it all, I can't fix any of it until it's right there... right on that edge, and I knew about Odessa... and I wasn't there to stop it. Because everything changes. There isn't a constant in my lifetime anymore."

His hand slide from the back of Adam's neck to against his jaw, "Even you... it's changed. It's honest, and it's real- raw to the point where it hurts, because if you had the choice- if you could go back and change it, you'd do it."

Jack exhaled, a half smile of assurance there, "You'd have done it and one of a thousand things that eats away at this existence would have happened... at your hands. And I'm standing here trying to reconcile it in my mind, trying to put it into something that doesn't sound like it goes against every fiber of my being...."

The pause is ripping at his heart because he can't seem to make it right... he can't fix it.

"Because it does. It goes against it all, but everything changes. That's the one constant I have is that at some point there's going to be a change and it'll happen again, and again... until the timeline I know actually sifts itself out of the sieve, and we'll be left with the one timeline... the one future, and a thousand pasts."

Shutting his eyes he kept his hand to Adam's jawline, needing to touch, to feel something just to ground him to the moment, "Everything changed... and I don't think I was ready for it this time."

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Adam lifted his hand to curl around Jack's at his jaw, still holding tightly to the other. The touches helped steady him. The fact that Jack hadn't lashed out, hadn't pushed him away--it helped. He wasn't sure what to say, what words there were. Jack sounded as lost as he felt, wondering, always, what came next.

To think you knew that, to think you had some idea of it, then find it ripped away and everything changed...he understood that on some level.

"I don't know what comes next," he said, softly, meaning in life, in time, with them, with Hiro, with the world. "I don't...I never thought of failure. I couldn't afford to. I didn't count on Hiro being there, ready to stand in my way, yet again."

He let his eyes slowly travel over Jack's face, resting on his lips. "I wasn't ready for that, for this, for...freedom in a world where things continue to crumble to dust at an alarmingly slow rate, and ..." He shook his head a little. "Events change. The people and places and names change. But at its core, nothing really does, Jack. The world goes on as it always has and people are as they have always been. No one learns, no one remembers, no one..." He trailed off, aware he was trembling again and hating himself for it.

Taking what he hoped was a steadying breath, he shifted just a bit closer to Jack. The heat of the shower was sliding away and being replaced by the ice of the room he'd let get cold. Chest and feet still bare, adding to the emotional insecurity, he was shivering. At least he wanted to blame it on the cold, rather than need, a desperate need to make someone, anyone, understand. Linderman had. Angela had. Arthur had. Before they twisted back on him and changed their minds and chickened out, they'd understood. It had been so long, and part of him knew Jack never would, not really, but he needed him to, so knowledge and need warred.

"It needs to change. Something has to, eventually, and it will be drastic and chaotic and out of control with no vision for what comes after, no plan to rebuild, nothing in place to clean up and move forward. The world is spinning madly toward its own destruction. It needs saving."

[onlysayinghello.livejournal.com]

Jack let the words sink in, the slight sting of them gave his heart more to think on than he wanted to, and in a way he knew what Adam was thinking, but he'd seen it... seen the survival, seen the human race through all the efforts. History repeats you can cleanse with the flood of an ocean, and it'll all build up the same as it was in time... and both of them would be there to see all of it return.

His head shook slightly in disagreement as he pulled away from Adam, seeing the chill on his skin apparent as the confusion in his own eyes. His hand gently brushing to a cheek before he allowed a soft kiss to be placed upon lips. His hands held Adam's face for a moment trying to tell him things he couldn't even find the words for.

Instead he placed a hand to his shoulder, securing him there for a moment as he moved away from him trying to take a step away, trying to take a moment to clear his mind. Jack moved to the bedroom to grab Adam a shirt, feeling a slight bit of guilt that he'd been standing there in the cold of the room for so long before either of them noticed.

Jack returned shrugging the shirt over shoulders before he moved in front of him again trying to get all his thoughts to tether into one cohesive sentence, "It's true... it's spinning faster than you can feel, and maybe toward it's demise, or it's destruction... but it's not the big things that do it. It's not those grand gestures that make the greatest impact. It's the one person that lives... instead of dies. It's the choice to believe in a Utopia, and then the choice you make when you realize that it's not there."

Jack's eyes were earnest, and his brow furrowed with such determination that he was certain he was going to sound like he was preaching the cause he'd fallen into for himself.

"I've seen the human race go from what you saw four hundred years ago, to now, all the way to the actual end of time. I've seen the hope they give each other, and I've seen the choices they make... and it's never the big things. It's never the floods, or the locusts or the bombs in Kirby Plaza that does it... it's the one person not doing what they were meant to. It's the small things that need changing, it's..."

Jack paused, trying to reign in his thoughts once more, "The end of humanity is a cold dark space... they put all their hopes into one plan, one place thinking it's their fresh start... it's their dream... and when it's not there they do the only thing they know they can do... follow someone else, and blindly."

It was a year of his life, a year that only a handful of people would even know of, but it happened.

"The world needs saving, but wiping it clean won't save anything... wiping it clean is the destruction it's spinning toward."

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Half of Adam wanted to argue, to say that was exactly what the world needed. His eyes blazed for a moment with a fervent light, a prophet, a messiah ready to die for his cause, but then he glanced down, lashes sweeping across his skin, words dying unsaid on his lips.

How could you argue with what someone from the future knew, ever? It was too familiar, always pulling him against every natural inclination. First toward action, now toward patience, struggling for some sense of autonomy of self from the vagaries of a history he couldn't ever seem to find.

"It could be there," he said, softly. "Utopia, I mean...." But it had slid through his fingers, again. He huddled into the shirt, pulling it on with numb fingers that couldn't quite find the buttons. It was something against skin, though, even if the cold went deeper than just skin and bone and nerves.

He touched Jack's cheek, just briefly, sliding fingers down his jaw before he turned back to the food. "I can't...have this debate now, Jack. The right the wrong, the way to do it, the things to come. I told you what I did. I told you why I did it. Can we...save the rights and wrongs of the whys for after we've both slept? Facts I can give you, answers to questions, but I can't...I haven't the fight in me for the rest."

[onlysayinghello.livejournal.com]

Jack had felt the day wear on him longer than any other. He'd been dead for three days and that felt like a walk in the park compared to the agony he was going through in his mind right now. The truth of it was that it wasn't going to be something as simple as one discussion and all would be set aside. Jack knew that things like this didn't disappear over night, and the certainly didn't get any easier to sort out.

Running his hands through his hair he exhaled a breath he wasn't sure he'd been clinging onto for so long. Slight frustration and exhaustion had washed over him, and he knew that Adam was right, and they couldn't just get this all done and over with quickly. If it was going to be that cut and dry he'd be upset with himself for not giving Adam the same chance he'd have wanted for himself.

"You're right, it's a lot... it's too much in a lot of aspects, but it's a lot to try and sort through in one night. I told you in Japan that there was always time, and I meant it. So let's just eat and maybe tonight at least one of us will actually be able to sleep."

Jack met his eyes again, trying to give him that slight look of reassurance, to let him know that despite the trust not being there completely, it was worth looking for in case he needed it.

[changehistory.livejournal.com]

Adam managed a smile in return. "I'm sorry if I kept you up," he said, softly. "At least for something not so fun..."

He needed that reassurance more than he could say, more than he could pull in and process for the moment.

"I'm not going anywhere," he promised with a slight frown. "We can talk...I imagine we could talk about this over and over and again and again for a very long time and not hit the bottom of it all. I..."

He picked up one of the take out boxes blindly, not caring what it really was at the moment. "Let's...you had a full day at work. Let's eat, maybe you can tell me something of popular culture I've met and why there are quite so many channels on the television now...and we can just...be."

He wanted to be, wanted to find his center again, to get back from Kensei to Adam and shake off some of that until he knew who he was again, to have that talk, to find that certainty, somewhere back inside of him.

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The words where there, a slight promise of sorts to not leave him with no answers, but Jack could see the heavy regret that lingered there behind it all. It wasn't regret for offering answers though, Jack was certain of that... it was that for once Adam felt like he had no where to really go. For Jack to see a man who before had so much that he felt he had to do now broken down and pinned to one spot... he knew the weight that could put on someone.

Jack moved to the counter, resting a hand lightly against Adam's shoulder, letting it skim across as he brushed past him to settle opposite of him, with his own hand reaching for a container of food, popping the top open and grabbing a fork to take a bite of something. Even to see if he could stomach food now, with all the anxiety that had been building up around everything from just a few less than simple questions.

Now there was the silence, and Jack could almost hear the sickening sound of the food unsticking itself from the edges of the container, that near sucking sound that made Jack set the container down and move to the cabinets to grab a bowl. He took one out for Adam as well, offering it out in that same stark silence of the room.

Exhaling sounded so loud, and almost annoyed but Jack wasn't annoyed he was just tired for the most part, tired of trying to figure out what his place was supposed to be in all of it. If he was the side of righteousness trying to stop a belief he thought to be wrong, or if he was just not on a side. It didn't feel like he'd have sided with Adam, but he didn't like the idea of being so against him either. He sought that middle ground he knew probably didn't exist, and if it didn't exist... then where did that leave them?

Pinching his fingers to the bridge of his nose for a moment trying to stave off a headache from all the over thinking of things. Shaking it off he went to the fridge and grabbed the bottle of vodka and two tumblers, "So maybe it was a good thought after all."

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"Recent events aside, I do occasionally have them," Adam said, lips half quirking into something resembling a smile as he tried a weak joke. The tension in the air was making his head start to throb, though that could have been the lack of sleep.

Transferring his food to the bowl, he glanced over at Jack, eyes watching him closely for a long moment. "Let's go sit down, at least, before we both fall over," he said, nodding toward the couch. As tired as he was, his legs were back to feeling a big like jelly as they had before, standing on the edge of the grave. Perhaps because this...whatever this was...was almost as terrifying as that.

Why he was here, why he was trying so hard to explain to this man, to make him understand, to make him believe...it mattered, and he was so used to nothing mattering at all. That it mattered made him twitchy, unsure, trying to work out the whys and the whens and it shouldn't, not so quickly, not when he was still so angry with Hiro. All the reasons it shouldn't matter, and yet it did.

Glancing to see if Jack would follow, he moved to the other room and settled on the sofa, hoping he could ease the restless feeling enough. Maybe the vodka would at least take that edge off.

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A smile tugged at the corners of Jack's mouth as he let the neck of the bottle of vodka fit between fingers as he grabbed two glasses stacking them and in a feat of balancing managed to also get his bowl of food and follow Adam into the other room. They probably both needed to just sit down and take a breath, but really there were still moments when Jack felt like there was no air in the room to take in.

Taking it in stride though was actually getting a bit easier for Jack given the circumstances of late. He'd been through more than his fair share of the insane lately and maybe this wasn't so far off the books for him just yet. He at least thought maybe he owed it to Adam, and probably to himself as well to at least see it through... to what end even Jack wasn't sure himself but he knew what he was feeling, and for once it wasn't something that he knew would have to end because of just what had happened to him.

Setting the tumblers down and then his bowl as well, Jack eased into the couch, leaning forward so his elbow rested against his knee for a moment while he poured the vodka into the glasses and then leaned back passing one to Adam.

"To good thoughts," Jack toasted, thinking it was slightly ironic and still light hearted enough that the smile he gave Adam would give him some sort of ease that he too was just trying to figure it out and wasn't trying to make things overly complicated. Despite how overly complicated they actually were turning into. He almost wanted to forget the discussion and just let his head fall against Adam's shoulder and shut his eyes and just fall asleep but even that just seemed too easy of an option. So instead he toasted the moment and tried to actually eat something because he knew if he didn't it would make him even more awake at night.

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Adam clinked his glass against Jack's, returning the smile with a tired one of his own. "To good thoughts..."

Which was at least something, somewhere. He wanted good thoughts again, and wanted, even more, to just curl closer to Jack and see if maybe out here, with the lights on, he could sleep without worrying about the things hiding in the shadows or the dark pressing down around him, suffocating.

With a shiver that did shift him closer to Jack, Adam forced himself to take a few bites, mostly as his body demanded something, anything, to keep on going. He didn't taste much of it, mind still wandering over the story, over Jack's reaction, over wondering where they went from here and trying to push it back to something else, something easier.

A few more bites and he had to put the bowl down, fingers curling around the vodka glass instead. He took a long sip and let it burn, leaning his head back against the back of the sofa and closing his eyes. His free hand slid in a silent offer, to settle on the sofa next to Jack.

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It was overwhelming knowing that everything had gotten so strained, and not even just between the two of them but with everything that had happened for Adam. Questions unanswered almost felt secondary to the fact that the man that Jack had welcomed into his home was feeling so lost in a world that Jack felt he almost didn't belong in. His food, what little he had managed to eat was sitting in the pit of his stomach like a rock, and it wasn't going to get any better by adding more to it.

Exhaling deeply and pouring himself another shot of vodka he swallowed it quickly not even letting the burn linger anywhere in his throat before it hit his stomach. He was still leaning forward a bit but he could feel Adam shifting slightly closer and his peripheral picked up the site of an offering of a hand against the cushion and it tugged at Jack, letting that side of him spark to life again, the one that didn't want the answers, that didn't want to know why it was all Adam thought he could do to save the world... he just wanted to forget that he'd heard the words, and go back to just having one person that actually knew how it felt to leave everyone behind.

Jack glanced over to Adam, seeing his head resting back, eyes shut trying to stave off whatever anxiety was no doubt still building up inside of him. Jack shifted on the couch, letting is body face Adam, as he took his hand into his. He was here, he had stated that very matter of factly that he was there for Adam, and there for whatever it was going to take to understand. Now he wanted to just let them rest, and let Adam know that the offer of time had no expiration on it, and if it took them fifty years to sort through it, he'd welcome those fifty years. Which in his own mind even sounded like rushing things, but in another sense he couldn't help but feel like he'd been living all these years going from one to the next only because he knew if he stayed too long... he'd have to say goodbye.

Now goodbye had an option of never having to be, and it made Jack suddenly more aware of so much more about just what he really had to offer to someone else, if he could just be that sort of man. Jack tugged gently on Adam's arm pulling him against his chest, letting him settle in his arms, as he placed a kiss atop his head, "You look as tired as I am sure both of us feel. This can wait, all of it..." Jack stated as he let his hand stroke though Adam's hair, "As much as I want to know, right now I don't need to know anything except that you're here."

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Adam settled against him with a sigh, feeling his whole body tense first, then relax into the warmth of Jack's embrace. He was solid against him, stable in a way Adam wasn't used to. He didn't lean on people. He had moments, flickering and brief of something that passed for connection. Just to be there, be held, and to not be having to examine it for every angle was disconcerting. He found his mind still sliding over things, over the events. He looked for the advantage, but giving in to Jack seemed more disadvantageous. Good to have an ally to have his back, who cared, but not as good when that person was likely to highly disapprove of your actions.

Perhaps it was just a draw then, and for his plans, for his hopes, his dreams...Jack didn't fit. But he fit in other ways, ways Adam didn't examine very often. The soft sound of his heart under Adam's ear echoed Adam's own. Slow. Steady. Eternal. He wasn't going anywhere and that in and of itself was better, different. It scared him in a lot of ways, and steadied him in others.

Against what he actually meant to say, he found words tumbling out, murmured through a haze of exhaustion. "Every time I let my eyes close for too long, I can feel it again. The dirt around me, the stale air, the way it ran out..." His eyes fluttered open. "My throat won't open up from it. I know, logically, that it's healed, but it still feels raw..."

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For some reason or another the silence that befell them was actually comforting for once. It wasn't the stifled stale air shoved between them, instead it felt like a lull between all the unsaid and unanswered. It was the feeling of Adam's head resting against Jack's chest, rising and falling with each breath that gave him comfort, some sort of peace of mind that it could be just so simple to let it all slip away for the moment. Jack's life was full of trust issues, of questions he didn't dare answer for those that asked, and he almost wanted to rationalize it away that way, that he didn't need to know.

Deep down though he knew he did, maybe not needing to know, but wanting to know and it was something he wanted to understand at the very least. To see how a single man could think the world was that doomed that something that drastic would actually fix it. Still it was too much to think about, so Jack just let himself focus on the slight damn hair at the back of Adam's neck, and the steady breathing that came from Adam.

Then the words that Jack hadn't expected at all, and it sliced through him, because he knew the darkness... he knew the thought of never getting out of the black... and he knew more than ever that he didn't belong in there. Jack let his fingers lightly curve in against the nape of Adam's neck, trying to ease tension and still remind him that he wasn't there, he wasn't in the dark... he wasn't in the ground anymore.

His mouth pressed atop Adam's head, soft words murmured into the blond hair that still smelled like Jack's shampoo, "It's still fresh in your mind, I know that... it's why you don't sleep, it's why you need the windows open, I know that closure... I know the darkness and I want to say it'll get better... but I can't say that for sure. I can say that I'm here for you, and I won't let you feel like you're back there."

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Each touch was a comfort, and he let the tension ease very slowly, taking measured breaths. All those years of training normally helped him stay calm, Zen. It was a definite sign of how rattled he was that he had to find the breath, find that quiet place in his mind. That he'd admitted to the fear, to the weakness...it wasn't like him, and that in itself sort of added to the fear.

He slid his arm around Jack's waist, holding as much as he was being held. At least then it wasn't like he was curled up like a shaking child he'd never really been. It was two of them, curled close together, snuggling, or something.

His eyes flickered open at the kiss, then closed again as he reciprocated, pressing a kiss to Jack's shoulder in acknowledgment. Shivering a little, he tried to focus in on Jack's heart and the breaths they both took. Steady, even, they were there and real and something that hadn't been in that tomb.

"If I sleep...the few times I've drifted off...I keep dreaming I'm back there. I hear myself screaming. I can feel it close around me. When I can stay here, and now, awake and in the present...it's better. Almost normal, whatever normal is anymore. I don't think I know anymore."

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If there was something, anything Jack could have done to end the nightmares he would have, his own even still gave him issue at times, but how could he offer up something that he couldn't even remedy for himself. All he knew was that he had a willingness to be there for him. It was hard not know what to do too, all the years of being with different people, he'd barely had time to actually think through to the point of knowing how to be with someone... part of him tugged at a notion that he knew that he could deal with this, and well but the thought of someone he was caring about slowly crumbling at their own fear, scared him.

He could feel the body against his tense for a moment, the slight brush of cold reaching Adam. Jack shifted on the couch, letting his hands shift to Adam's shoulders, not really wanting to tug his grip away from his own waist, but knowing that it was still cold, even with the windows shut. Standing up for a moment he still held onto Adam's hand lightly, "Then we'll stay awake, but it's freezing in here, and regeneration or not I don't want you sore from your body tensing from shivering all night." Jack smiled lightly trying to pull a bit more warmth into their conversation.

They'd given up on talking about things that neither of them could sort through, and Jack just wanted to go back to when things were simpler for a moment, even just a night so that all the talking and all the stress could just keep for another time when both of them could actually have the strength to deal with how difficult it was going to be.

Jack's hand lightly tugged on Adam's, "Come on... we'll go to bed, and we won't sleep, I won't let you scream in silence with me around."

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Even if he was far too tired to seriously consider any non-sleeping events beyond snuggling and talking, Adam's lips still curved a bit in a teasing smirk as he stood, hand in Jack's. "Why, Captain...going to bed, staying warm, and not sleeping? Someone could argue you had designs on my virtue..."

The cold was starting to get to him, catching up with the physical exhaustion so that he really couldn't help the near constant shivers running over his skin. Possibly opening the windows hadn't been his smartest move. He glanced at the lights, the rational part of his brain knowing he should turn them off, and the less rational part dying to leave every single one on. Leaving the lights up to Jack--it was his flat after all--he moved toward the bedroom, fingers still clinging to Jack's.

"Do you have extra blankets?" He asked, all joking aside, partly hesitant, as if he hated to ask for anything.

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The comment got a smile from Jack and a slight bit of laughter that almost sounded foreign in such a still atmosphere. It wasn't entirely unwelcome, just distant sounding to his own ears, "Now... if I was intending for that sort of activity I'd have just left us on the couch knowing we'd eventually raise our body temperatures on our own."

Trying to sober his expression though it was a bit difficult given the topic that he'd been repeating now that it had been mentioned he shook his head and ran a hand through his hair before meeting Adam's eyes again, "I have extra blankets, and I'm not looking for sex, well I am, but not right now. The way the day has been the last thing we need is that, I just don't want to wake up with a kink in my neck, and it really is cold in there," Jack stated.

Leaning in a bit to press a kiss atop knuckles even Jack felt the cold hit him at that moment, his back tensing for a moment before he pressed another quick kiss to Adam's hand before letting it go, "It has to be something with the heat," Jack said as he moved to the thermostat and fiddled with it before opening the linen closet near the bathroom to grab blankets.

"I'm all for staying in bed and keeping warm, but when did my flat turn into an ice box?" Shaking his head, and arms full of blankets he stopped in between where he was and where Adam was standing, to just look at him, still slightly cold still more lost than he was willing to admit, and Jack felt like he was right there in the middle of it with him.

Exhaling he smiled at Adam and moved toward the bedroom tossing the blankets onto the bed before turning around, "I'll deal with the dishes and food tomorrow when I get up for work."

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"I wanted the fresh air," Adam said, with an apologetic glance at the thermostat. "I didn't think..." Now that he did, he didn't want the cold, either. It was too much like the cold of the grave, and the cold that lingered inside of him, too deep. "I'd forgotten how cold winter was."

Which was an inane sounding thing to say, given where he'd spent some of them, but also true in a way. More true was that he hadn't quite thought about it.

He frowned a little, then followed Jack to the bedroom. Leaning in the doorway, he paused, just watching him for a moment, before making sure his smile was real when it answered Jack's. "That sounds like a better plan than doing anything else tonight..."

Moving in, finally, he reached for a blanket and helped Jack smooth it out on the blankets on the bed. "I don't want to keep you up, if you need to sleep..." He needed to, too, but doubted he'd be able to without a lot more of the vodka.

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Jack shook his head in reply, "You don't have to apologize for the cold, it's nothing that a bit of warmth can't solve. I know how it is when all the open space around you still feels like the darkness is closing in," Jack's features sobered a bit in that moment, trying to push back his own qualms about how things had been for him lately.

Dropping the corner of the blanket he had he ran a hand through his hair before moving before Adam, letting a hand rest to his hip, "I actually have the liberty of being able to nap in my office, so even if I don't sleep now, I can sleep later." Jack let his forehead rest upon Adam's for a moment, a thumb straying against the back of his neck as soon as his hand rested at the right spot, "I'll stay awake with you."

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Adam's smile flashed, sweet and grateful as he leaned in and kissed Jack, very lightly. "Thank you." The words are soft, but sincere and in them is far more than just gratitude for being willing to sit up through the dark of the night. He'd come for him. He hadn't left when Hiro came. He'd taken him home, given him somewhere safe, even with questions. He hadn't pressed too hard for answers, and he hadn't run from the ones he did get, no matter that Adam could tell he'd disturbed him.

He hadn't kicked him out yet, and he was staying up, and right now that seemed like the kindest thing anyone had ever done for him. So he kissed him again, just as soft and sweet before pulling back. "I don't suppose you have...sweats or something to sleep in? With the cold..." Though his cheeks heated a little, and he couldn't quite say why.

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Jack smirked at him, "I'm sure I have something for you." Brushing his lips across his for another kiss that was barely there Jack smiled against his mouth, "I've spent plenty of time buying clothing."

Parting from Adam, Jack moved across the room to his closet, tugging on the string that flipped the overhead bulb on. Glancing along the rows of shirts and pants his eyes settled on a box he'd almost donated a dozen times but hesitated each time. Pulling the box off the shelf he brought it into the bedroom setting it atop the dresser. The lid slid off and Jack pulled out a few pair of drawstring pants, and tanks that he knew might be too light for tonight, but he had a few longer shirts in a drawer, which he pulled out as well. The stack of clothing was minor, but it would do for now.

"If you find anything else you're welcome to it, trust me I have things I haven't worn in a few years still. All of it still up to date, but really I just have a habit of buying too much."

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"Thanks," Adam said with a rueful smile. "I should probably hit the shops while you're at work. I didn't have much before, after...well. The Company didn't exactly let me shop. And the few things I did manage to acquire are all in Montreal, still." Except the suit he'd been wearing in Odessa, but he wasn't ever putting that thing on again.

He was sort of amused at how much there was, just for pulling out and stacking for him. "I can't say I've ever had quite as much as you have in there, though," he said with a slight grin, nodding at the closet.

He slid out of the shirt Jack had brought him before they ate, tugging on one of the long sleeved ones, then tugged off the jeans and pulled on pajama pants quickly, changing with as little fuss as possible, just wanting to crawl under all those blankets.

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Jack caught himself watching Adam change, even though he'd seen it all before it wasn't like he'd ever get sick of looking. Flashing a smirk to Adam about his reference to just how much he had in his closets he shrugged, "Despite only wearing pretty much the same thing day in and day out for a while, I happened to find comfort in knowing that I actually could wear something else if I wanted to."

Jack spoke as he unbuttoned the aforementioned shirt that was just like the other three dozen in his closet. Tugging suspenders off shoulders and letting them hang against his hips he shrugged his shirt off laying it against the dresser. Opening a drawer Jack pulled out a tank, knowing the cold wouldn't bother him as soon as he got used to it, and then a pair of pajama bottoms from a drawer for him as well. Pants came off, and for once he was actually wearing underwear. It was a rarity but Gwen had a lead on something in a swamp, and after the tiny eels in Suria, he knew that water was not his lower halves friend when working on a job.

Tying the drawstrings a bit loose Jack moved beside Adam once more, taking him in his arms for a moment pressing a kiss against the slope of his neck, before leading him toward the bed. It had all the makings of going to be a bit more than just a night in bed, but it was really all Jack even had the energy for. Tugging everything back off the bed, Jack eased in moving to the far side so that he might allow Adam the space he needed.

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Adam watched out of the sides of his eyes, smiling just a little, both at Jack and the normalcy of it all. Back to normal, to domesticity, to something he remembered reading about before, but which he hadn't touched, hadn't felt in a very long time. He could remember when, but he wouldn't, pushing thoughts aside that might soften parts of him he still wanted hard and sharp.

"Yes, well. It's still quite the collection. I never got in the habit, but perhaps you'll inspire me." Perhaps to more things than clothes shopping. It hung there, but he didn't say it, instead sliding into the bed next to Jack and tugging the blankets up, half-huddling under them as if external warmth could reach the internal chill.

He allowed himself the weakness of curling close to the other man, sliding one arm around him in a way that could almost be called snuggling, though Adam would probably snarl at anyone who tried to call it that. It was a strange sort of fast-intimacy that had sprung up around them, around the situation, around their lives as they twined together and parts of it still confused him. But Jack being close was oddly comforting, despite the fact that he knew far too well that Hiro or Peter one could both pop in her, freeze time, and take him before Jack could react. He had to trust that they wouldn't, relax into the comfort of the other man's presence, and believe.

It was a hard thing to do.

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The bed shifted slightly under their shared weight, a quieter time shared between the two compared to the prior night where it was merely a matter of getting Adam to bed and himself to the couch for the few hours of sleep he could afford before he had to leave for work. Now it seemed like the start of a routine, the state of something actually resembling reality... and it comforted him.

As Adam moved toward him Jack welcomed the closeness, that odd calm that had settled around them. It was a welcome reprieve from the distress and overwhelming fear that things weren't as simple as he was letting them be. He didn't want to care though, he didn't want to allow his mind to flood with all the questions and what ifs of the moment. Instead he let Adam move in, winding an arm against him, and allowing that closeness, that intimacy that felt natural for them all things considered. Jack felt that it was because of their similarity, that common thread wound tight around their lives made the little details less important in the long run, because for them it could be a very long run.

Jack allowed himself this moment, trying not to cloud it with other doubts, to just actually have something to hold onto, someone that in the morning would still be worth something to him. His hand strayed through Adam's hair, just trying to keep the silence, and hoping that maybe Adam would actually fall to sleep and get more than a few hours between the touch and go of reality.

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Adam let his eyes close, breathing Jack in as he curled closer to him. He let his head shift closer on the pillow, under the brush of Jack's fingers. It was a comforting touch, a comforting closeness, no matter how scary the comfort was.

He consciously slowed his breath, trying to drift toward something resembling relaxation. He'd slept a bit on the plane, exhaustion taking over, but he kept waking fast and frightened. The night before, once Jack left the room, he'd stared at the ceiling. But his body was exhausted, trauma and relief mingling to make him shaky almost with it. He wanted to sleep and he was terrified of it at the same time. Afraid of the darkness behind his eyes, and the cold that was waiting underneath consciousness.

But here, with Jack, it was warm and safe. He shifted until his head was almost on Jack's shoulder, pressed close against him, welcoming his warmth, the solid presence there next to him. His fingers curled a little in Jack's top, then released, then curled again, holding on reflexively.

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Feeling all the tension still in the body resting against his Jack couldn't help but feel a twinge of guilt for making everything between them a bit too distressing. He knew he wasn't to blame for what Adam had done, or thought he should have done, and the exact details of that were still a bit hazy, but he knew that it was too soon to try and understand it all. He felt it too, that they had gone from one thing so rapidly into another that neither of them were ready for any of it.

More than anything in the moment Jack wanted to take away all that tension, he wanted to assure Adam that things weren't always going to be this difficult, in fact if he could help it he'd prefer them to be a lot simpler. As the fist shifted in his shirt slightly and his own hand strayed against the nape of Adam's neck he couldn't help himself. It was hard to resist the body beside his warming up, nor the clean scent of shampoo in his hair. Each motion closer to him made Jack's heart beat a bit deeper, slowing everything down for his body.

Jack let his hand slip from the nape of Adam's neck and draw against his jaw, light touches ushered and guided Adam's mouth to his own where a soft kiss started, but a deeper one took over. He had every intent of simply laying there beside Adam, letting him try to sleep or at least give the thought to it, but Jack was Jack... and Adam was right there.

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The kiss took Adam by surprise, but it was a welcome surprise. He shifted to meet Jack's mouth, lips parting for his kiss with a soft sigh as he kissed him back. His fingers still clutched at Jack's shirt, but he forced his hand to open, smoothing lightly over the shirt, feeling the lines of Jack's side underneath.

It was a kiss, but it was more. It was comforting, and there was a tinge of exhilaration there, too. A reaffirmation of connection and life, real and warm and beating against him, blood pumping in response to the touch of Jack's lips, the light trace of his fingers on Adam's jaw. Every touch reminded him that he was here, that Jack was here, that he was safe and warming and had somewhere to be.

He murmured Jack's name, soft with a soft plea, into the kiss, then deepened his kiss, tongue tangling with Jack's with a shivering desperation. His fingers slid up into Jack's hair, needing to hold him, to know he was there.

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Even if all his intentions had been honorable, even if he hadn't been hoping for something to escalate into a more physical act, Jack still was always taken aback by the passion that could meet his own efforts. That small truth that in these moments Jack felt as if Adam held nothing back from him, that despite all the wrongs versus rights that this was the one thing that had nothing to be misused. It was the purest thing between the two of them, and neither wanted to let the one connection they had, although purely physical, be cluttered with everything else around them.

The fingertips against his scalp, the pressure of Adam's tongue against his own was enough to let Jack sigh into the kiss a bit deeper than he'd anticipated. Breathing him in, a bit louder than he'd wanted but still it filled his senses with Adam, and with thoughts of New York, and of a parade he'd missed yet again. The need and distinct urgency of needing something now pulled him back into that moment when everything wasn't hindered by knowledge or questions... it was just the two of them.

Hearing the murmur of his name between parting lips Jack felt his chest ache for a moment, drawing in a breath and clinging to the man beside him. His own hand stayed against the strong jaw of Adam, thumb grazing against his chin every so often, easing his mouth open so that Jack could deepen his kiss further. The other pressed between the bed and Adam's side, until it could find purchase against his back, pressing him closer to his body, and closer to where Jack knew the warmth of his own body could permeate the chill that Adam still had upon him.

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Adam pressed closer, feeling like he could melt into the heat that Jack was giving off. It seeped inside him to all the cold places until he wanted to just be a part of it for a moment longer, and then a moment after that as well. If he could, perhaps the rest could really go away. The stress of failure, the rudderless existence creeping back on him in a way it hadn't in 400 years. The feel of the grave close around him and the darkness on the other side that seemed to merge with that inside of him.

All of it could just melt, he thought, flowing out of him and away, somewhere, leaving him clean and pure and pressed tight in strong arms, teased by a talented tongue.

He slid his hand down to Jack's neck, curling there lightly, feeling the heat of his skin while he kissed him back, more hungry, more needing, more wanting to imprint him onto himself, and let the rest of it just disappear.