Crackerbox ✔

six: family ties

The sun dangles in the apex of the space-time continuum, warm and bright and dripping with scarlet paint. It is silk and fire and divine mercy, hueing the tip of Jack's straight nose in tangerine tragedy. The sky falls, Eridanus already dancing amongst the translucent stars, the world coated in cherry wine and stained-glass tapestries. The hazy edges of orange and red and yellow melt into bittersweet vulnerability.

Against the peeling walls and leaking drainpipes of Jack's rickety house, the garden is shockingly well-maintained. Rows of muticoloured tulips line the cobbled walkway, waxy leaves bursting from the trimmed shrubs in puffs of emerald green.

Lee can't help the way he reaches out to brush his hand over the verdant foliage, inquisitive fingers leaving stardust behind. Jack's head has lolled limply onto his shoulder, and he curses when Lee moves, prompting a lengthy string of apologies.

"Shit, don't move," Jack mumbles, palm clasping itself tighter against his own neck.

"Take your head off my shoulder, then," Lee taunts, because he knows Jack won't do it. (On occasion, Yumeko tells him he has nice shoulders before proceeding to use him as a pillow. It's the closest thing to a compliment that he ever gets from her.) And then, to fill the awkward silence that he knows is coming---he can't stand it when there's space between them, when everything's blank and not bursting to the brim with one-sided jokes and little smiles that Jack desperately tries to hide, he remarks, "The garden's beautiful."

"Yeah. Dad tends to it pretty regularly. Nothing else to do, he always says. No one's hiring."

No one wants to hire the one-armed man. The words rest on the tip of Jack's tongue, Lee can tell, but he holds them back. Jack holds so much back. The way he follows his job like a religion and pads his resume with good grades, more activities, completed duties---all to keep the scholarship that controls his education afloat. The way he prickles like a Christmas tree at Lee's affections but always gives in anyway. The way he hurts, hurts almost as badly as Lee himself does, agonised frustration bulging against the translucence of his crystal skin.

(And yet, even though Jack tries to bottle everything up, Lee likes to think there's something about his presence that makes cracks bloom through the zippered silence of Jack's lips and send all his secrets spilling out.)

"Your mom's not going to be too happy, I suppose," Lee says, and maybe his grin's a little too wide, but fuck it, Jack Sang's on his shoulder. Happiness---no matter how artificial---is terribly temporary. Lee's learned to grasp his fleeting moments of genuine joy like he's clutching the stars.

Jack snorts incredulously. "Please, she could never be mad at you. She loves you."

"Oh, no, I didn't mean me. I meant that she's going to be royally pissed off at you," Lee replies airily. He probably deserves the smack Jack delivers to his arm right after.