Carnival without Lights

Jesse had finished wiping down the table in the last booth as the clock struck nine. It wasn’t a particularly busy night at work—the small coffee/pastry shop on the corner, the one beside the daycare center, not the Starbucks up the street—but there was still work left to be done before he could leave. Tables: clean. Floors: clean. Kitchen: Kathy’s job. (She was still working on it.) Dishes: clean. (Tony’s job.) Cash registers: balanced. (Hank, the boss’s, job.) Trash: still in need of going out. Wash rag: still in need of going into the hamper where it would magically clean itself and return beneath the counter the next night. (At least it seemed magical. So long as Jesse didn’t have to wash it, it cleaned itself.)

“Got the dishes done and set up for tomorrow, Hank,” Tony called as he walked from the backroom into the seating area where Jesse stood absentmindedly.

“Alright, see you on…Wednesday!” Hank called cheerfully from behind the mesh screen that separated the small seating area from the kitchen. (What? It’s hard to work with people staring at you. And if you spill they aren’t watching to give you the “aren’t you trained? How hard is it to pour a cup of coffee?” look.)

“See ya!” Tony chirped back and then clapped Jesse on the shoulder to bring him back from his thoughts. “Catch you later, Jess,” Tony said with a smile before slipping off towards the front door.

“’Later,” Jesse mumbled back, watching the man leave, the chimes over the door ringing behind him. Tony was nice, but when he was in the kitchen making coffee he was a Grade A asshole and a control freak if he saw anyone else making a coffee and had time to complain. Kathy, on the other hand, who kept trying to bring a splash of colour to her black and white uniform, was just happy-go-lucky. It sounded cute, but in reality it just rubbed Jesse the wrong way. “Oops! I spilled a cup! Guess I’ll make another—sorry! Oops, I tripped and spilled it. Guess I’ll go get more—sorry!” She wasn’t clumsy, it was just…how she said things? Jesse didn’t know.

He tossed the rag into the back hamper and passed a small wave to Kathy as she finished up her share of the work with a smile. “Oops! I’m holding everyone up! Guess I’ll work at the same pace regardless—sorry!” Aside from Angela, Jesse didn’t really like girls. Not the girly-girl ones, not the butch ones, not the average ones, and not the pretty ones. They were just…ugh. Half of the things that he didn’t like them for, he came to notice, showed up in Rupert. Yet he still forgave the man for those things, but not the women. Rupert couldn’t help that he was obsessed with the idea that he was adorable—at least he didn’t wear make-up to emphasize it…or something…

Jesse tied up the loose ends of the trash bag in the back that was a compilation of the other garbage bins throughout the store. When Jesse first started, a couple of months before leaving Daniel, there had been enough trash to fill nearly three bags. Now, there was only enough to /really/ fill one.

The chimes began ringing again as Jesse opened the back door and tossed the trash towards the pile in the back street. He’d assumed that Kathy was leaving, but when he heard her voice call out that the store was closed and she was “sorry” about it, he felt himself shiver. Daniel used to come right at closing to pick him up. But Daniel stopped showing up when Jesse asked to switch shifts around for a couple of weeks so that the vicious rapist couldn’t ever figure out when he was working next to drop by. Needless to say, the first week that Jesse returned to his regular shift, he was terrified from eight to nine on to nine fifteen when he got to his new apartment where he locked the door and the deadbolt and the chain lock and sat in the bathtub thinking “if he knocks, I’ll grab that drain cleaner and drink it before he can break in and get me.” He’d only been that way for a week though. After that time and no appearance from Daniel, there was no reason to be afraid anymore. So he didn’t waste his own time worrying about it.

As he swung closed and locked the locks on the metal back door, Jesse heard the late customer start mumbling, and then Hank started talking and laughed loudly. The customer did as well and Jesse felt his palms get sweaty. A friend of Hanks? Did Hank have friends?

Jesse knew there was no point to get nervous, years had gone by without any interference from Daniel, but that paranoia was still there. It was always there. Every time he went out by himself he could see something of Daniels. A product in the store, something on a menu…everywhere there was Daniel. He wished there’d be a Daniel in a hole in the ground with a tombstone over it that said “here lies a—

“Jesse!” Hank called out at the end of a laugh. “Come here a minute!”

“No, I don’t want to. My shift ended at nine, I don’t have to listen to you. Kathy, lock the door behind me, Kay? I’m going out the back tonight.” He thought it, but he didn’t say it…even though he really, really wanted to. He heard his boss resume talking to the customer who still mumbled. Jesse listened intently for a moment, despite the strange look that Kathy was giving him, and didn’t move.

After that he felt his chest pitch with a sigh of relief and found his legs again and walked towards the screened off kitchen where Hank stood counting cash. He knew the pattern of vocals that accompanied that sly mumbling. Stupid Rupert and his stupid-fucking late night surprise visits and his damn stupid way of mumbling when he didn’t want Jesse to hear and he knew he was around.

“Sorry, Hank,” Jesse said as he stepped from the backroom into the kitchen where Rupert stood dressed expensively casually beside his boss. “I already took out the trash—guess I forgot some.” Rupert looked at him hurt, but was distracted by Hank’s chuckling. A man with money in hand was always happy.

“Got your work done then?” Hank asked, turning to look at Jesse through a mop of shaggy hair. Hank looked like a hippie, even though he was about to turn fifty. And he still had a lot of hair…

“Yeah. I’ll get him out of your way.” Hank laughed.

“Nah, he’s not in the way. He’s funny—but I’ll see you on Wednesday. Be more awake then, alright? Get some sleep?”

“Right,” Jesse responded, confused. Be more awake? ’The hell did that mean? Tony was the only one who ever fell asleep on the job and he’d only yawned twice all night, and never in the presence of the customers. Jesse assumed it had to do with the time he spent thinking about Daniel as his mind grew restless with being in the warm shop while they closed down for the night.

Regardless, they went through their routine of good-bye words before Jesse practically shoved Rupert—still smiling—out the front door and into the empty street.

“What the hell are you doing?” Jesse snapped at him once they were out of earshot of the store. Rupert looked hurt, but still forced on his smile as they walked steadily towards Jesse’s apartment.

“I came to see you! I got lonely back at home.”

“Don’t you have a job to do? You know, something to keep you from showing up and getting me in trouble at my job—what did you even say to my boss?” Rupert laughed quietly to himself and Jesse felt a nearly uncontrollable despite to slap him until his nose bled. /That/ would get some space between them.

“You know I can get my day’s worth of work done in an hour if I try—and I tried. I wanted to come see you.”

“You saw me two days ago. You made me hang up the phone on you last night.”

“Aw, come on. Don’t get—”

“Scratch that, /this morning/. And then I get yelled at for being tired at work.”

“He didn’t yell,” Rupert chided, sounding irritated.

“Whatever! It doesn’t matter! I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but at my work, I can get what’s called ‘fired’ where my boss gets mad at me because I’m not working well and then takes my job and gives it to someone else.” Rupert’s face actually darkened and Jesse sighed angrily.

“You don’t /need/ a job though,” Rupert stated, his rage draining quickly the way that it always did. He only got mad if he was yelled at…that is to say, so long as he wasn’t crying because he got yelled at. “I can take care of you.”

“No,” Jesse affirmed. “I don’t want you ‘taking care of me’.” Jesse crossed the street last minute and cut Rupert off before he could even begin to argue as a car blasted by him just before he stepped out into the street to follow him. His original intent was to keep walking and leave Rupert behind, wander around for a while before going back to his apartment—forcing space between them for a while so he could clear his head. However, after realizing that he could have just gotten Rupert run over by a car because he knew the man was blindly following him and wouldn’t have noticed the damned machine in time to get out of its way, he waited on the other side. It was a disquieting thought…if Rupert had taken a step forward a second faster he’d be nothing but a bleeding heap in the middle of the road.

“I just wanted to pick you up from work,” Rupert said sadly after crossing when the light turned red.

“Yeah, I know,” Jesse answered tiredly. He grabbed Rupert’s hand and held it as they walked, but stood close enough to him that no one on the streets or in the passing cars would notice. To them, it would look like they were two men walking close to one another because they were probably thugs plotting something—people you didn’t want to catch you looking at them.

“I’m sorry,” Rupert said, looking down at the sidewalk in a pathetic way. Yes, Jesse was sure he was trying to gain sympathy for something, but he wasn’t going to get it. Holding hands was as much as he was going to get, and that’s only because he’d almost gotten ran over.

“I know.”

“I missed you.”

“How could you miss me?” Jesse spat, pulling his hand away. “Are you really that pathetic? You saw me Sunday morning, you talked to me on the phone Sunday night until two today! How could you /possibly/ miss me?” Rupert flinched and allowed a distance to span between them as they walked back towards Jesse’s apartment in the dark.

“Jesse, I just think it would be nice if…” The word he was saying were rehearsed and Jesse could sense it. “If you and I moved in together. My house is big enough—”

“Your house is over two hours away. I have work and it’s not worth a two hour drive.”

“Right!” Rupert said, sounding cheerful. “You can leave your job—”

“No!” Jesse shouted, probably sounding like a fed up date trying to avoid a one-night-stand. “Stop! I’m not quitting my job so you can take care of me! I can take care of myself! I want to take care of myself!” Rupert’s heart sank and Jesse could see it in his eyes. It just made him angrier. Rupert didn’t get it. Rupert didn’t understand anything!

…He’d have to help Rupert understand, and he didn’t want that. Was it so hard for him to figure it out? He’d left so many hints about it, repeated it enough times…Rupert was just pushing it and pushing it…was he blind to it as well?

They finished the walk to the apartment in silence, Jesse feeling bitter and Rupert feeling hurt. Jesse unlocked the door and let Rupert in before entering himself and relocking all of the locks—including the chain, as was habit. They sat on the couch awkwardly, the TV off, the dim light by the door on, the coffee table was a mess…Rupert hated clutter. Jesse didn’t give a damn.

“You know why I don’t want to move in with you,” Jesse stated.

“Because you don’t…want me anymore?” Rupert pressed, lacing his fingers and pressing his hands to his mouth in a way that looked like he was praying with his eyes open. He was staring at the clutter on the coffee table.

“You know that’s not it!” Jesse hissed. Rupert jerked, face looking pained, and dropped his hands, one of his legs starting to shake with restlessness.

“You keep saying that I know, but I don’t! I don’t know! I can’t figure it out, Jesse! I try really hard to please you and you get mad at me. You’re always mad at me. What do you expect me to think?” Rupert’s eyes flickered from Jesse to the table and then back. Jesse said nothing, but only because Rupert looked like he still had something to say. “Do you even love me at all?” Jesse flinched. Where had that come from?

His initial response was no. But it was only no because, by asking, Rupert pissed him off. The answer really was yes, but Rupert was able to see that flash of doubt and Jesse saw that it killed him.

“Rupert,” Jesse stated firmly as the other visibly pulled inside himself. “Rupert, I love you. You just make me mad! It’s /easy/ to make me mad!” He hated the way his voice sounded desperate, but hated more the way that Rupert was going through this row like every other one. He wasn’t pretending to be happy, he wasn’t faking a smile, and he wasn’t saying anything. “Fine!” Jesse shouted, feeling his jaw start to quiver involuntarily. “Fine! I’ll tell you what you want to know!” Rupert had slid away from him on the couch and now looked at him nervously. It was strange to see Jesse close to tears over anything. “He said we never spent time together! I had work in the morning and class at night. I moved out of my parents’ house to move in with him and when he got a second job he told me I didn’t need to help with the rent anymore. Then I didn’t need to work anymore! Then I started failing class because I couldn’t go out in public with bruises on my face! And I couldn’t leave because ‘I owed it to him to stay’ since I didn’t pay rent or pay for the food! And my clothes got tore up! And books got tore up! My phone went missing, and my laptop got smashed! I didn’t see anyone! No one could call me! No one knew where I was except my parents and they never cared to visit so no one knew a thing!” The tears were falling heavily down Jesse’s face and Rupert didn’t know if would be safe to move closer and try to touch him. When he saw Jesse hurt he wanted to help, but Daniel had left his mark forever. He was afraid that touching him would make it worse. “I was trapped! And I know you’d never do that to me, but I can’t go through all of that again.” Jesse fell silent and Rupert moved closer on the couch until he was able to place an arm gently around Jesse’s shoulders and pull the other onto his chest to console him. Jesse always had a way to make him feel guilty…for loving him, for what happened with Daniel…for everything.