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Jerry wanted to go camping, Rosa was keen on the idea as well. Jack however would much prefer not to enter those woods. Nothing good comes from out there, and he still has that deal with the sprawling forest– he minds his business and it leaves him alone. He did not want to break that contract, so they compromised; they’d set up a tent in his backyard and camp out there for the night.
It still made him a bit nervous, he felt kind of exposed sitting in the surprisingly spacious tent Jerry had bought off of Travis in what really looked like a drug trade off. (It probably was, knowing Jerry.) He probably wasn’t any safer than he was in his house, in fact nobody was safe anywhere at this point. Safety is an illusion and he’d long since come to terms with that.
“Okay, okay okay– my turn!” Rosa exclaimed. None of them had any sleeping bags or blow up mattresses, so they had ended up piling a shitload of old blankets in the tent to soften the floor a bit, the result being what could easily be assumed was a nest of some kind. “Never have I ever… left town!”
It was Jerry who had brought up the idea of playing such a childish game, and when Jack had pointed out that he was in fact down a finger, Jerry had simply informed him that he’d just have to start off with one less point than them. Rosa seemed to be trying to be more empathetic and helpful about it, which he really did appreciate, but in the end he chose to decline taping a popsicle stick to what remained of his pinky.
He and Jerry both dropped a finger. Of course Jerry had– he wasn’t even from around here and it was pretty obvious. He didn't have the thick Southern accent that he and Rosa both boasted. Rosa did not drop a finger.
“You’ve really never left town?” Jack asked sceptically, to which she responded by nodding her head.
“Nope, my family is all here and we’ve never really been people for taking vacations. Where have you guys gone?” Rosa scoped a couple of chips out of one of the bags and munched on them as she waited for one of them to answer. Jack let Jerry speak first.
“Man– I’ve been to a bit of everywhere, spent a couple weeks in Cuba a while ago, uhh, visited France and stuff. Loooot’s of places like that, you know?” He chugged back his beer a bit too quickly. Any normal human being would have choked on it all, but he didn’t seem fazed. Once he emptied the can he crushed it in his fist and tossed it out the open tent flap.
“You’re cleaning all that stuff up, you know.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll take care of it tomorrow real early!” Jerry rubbed his hands together and grabbed yet another drink from the six pack. “More importantly, where have you gone dude?”
He leaned back on his arms and sighed while he thought. “A field trip to a zoo in the next town over back in middle school. Other than that I’ve only left town for doctors appointments.”
Rosa looked curious, pulling her legs up and resting her chin on her knees as she asked, “You don’t go to a doctor here?”
“I mean, at this point I’ve probably seen every doctor in town at least once.” Rosa gave him a very clear and obvious ‘that wasn’t what I was asking and you know that’ look. “But yeah, I have appointments about four hours away.”
“Jeeze, that’s a really long drive for a doctor's appointment.” Jerry nodded like this was brand new knowledge to him despite having on several occasions accompanied him to spend some time around a new town.
He shrugged. “I’ve been going to those appointments for… nine years? They’re monthly.” Rosa grimaced.
“What do you even do on a drive that long? Do you have audio books or something?”
“My car doesn’t have bluetooth and I really don’t want to pay the monthly subscription fees. I do have one music disc, so there’s that at least.” Jerry suddenly looked excited.
“Dude, tomorrow I’ll rip some audio books for you and see if I can burn some CDs! Then you’ll have plenty to listen to on your boring ass drives!” That… would be nice. He’d probably be able to completely eliminate the reading while driving habit he’d been trying to kick.
“Oh, uh, sure. That’d be cool.”
Rosa poked Jerry, “It’s your turn now!”
Jerry sat up a bit straighter, gaining a pinched, thoughtful expression as he spoke slowly. “Never have I ever…” He looked at Jack, then his fingers. Jack was getting a bit closer to having all his fingers down, only two more remaining. “Had sex!”
They remained silent, staring at the blonde man before them. He waggled his eyebrows at Jack as he put a finger down. “I’ll take one for the team, Jack, so you aren’t out of the game so early!”
“Jerry.”
“Yeah dude?” Rosa had her head in her hands, groaning at the question Jerry had decided to ask.
He formed his words very carefully, “I am not a celibate.”
Jerry’s eyes widened, almost comically. He stared at Jack as though he’d grown a second head, and for a moment he’d debated checking if he had something on his face.
“Why are we talking about Jack’s sex life!?” The moment the words left Rosa’s mouth she looked mortified, face bright red as she registered her own words. Perhaps it was the fact that she’d engaged in this topic at all, or maybe it was that she said ‘Jack’ and ‘sex life’ in the same sentence, either way the effect was the same.
"I agree. Why are we talking about my sex life?" Jerry ignored him easily.
“Because it’s interesting! Are you sure you’re not a virgin? That it wasn’t an elaborate dream?” Jerry grabbed Jack by the sides of his face, shaking him rather roughly. “Was it the sex androids?!”
“Stchop schaking mwe.” Really, Jack was about to smack him if he didn’t let go, but luckily for Jerry he had. Or maybe not luckily– Jack doesn’t exactly have a whole lot of strength in those skinny arms of his. Jerry’s arms instead dropped to a firm grip on his shoulders. He sounded surprisingly serious as he said, “It’s important, I must know this information!”
“No.” Jack replied flatly.
“What? But I tell you about my sexy-fun-stuff all the time!” He replied, sounding scandalized.
“Against my will. Plus, even if you weren’t telling me I already know. You’ve sent me pictures of your dick by accident like… three or four times.”
“Really, that’s it? I thought I’d done it way more than that…” His voice trailed off as he seemed to be trying to recollect something. Jack decided to interrupt and steer this conversation in a different direction, for Rosa and his sake.
“Anyway, let’s do something else. This is just a weird topic.” Rosa nodded in agreement.
“We can do something else! Like… I don’t know, just talk about non-sex related stuff.” Jerry relented to their efforts.
Jack laid back on the pillow and blanket pile, staring up at the top of the tent. Jerry took this as an invitation to lay down beside as well, and after a seeming moment of deliberation Rosa did so as well. To one side he had Jerry, and the other Rosa.
Even after the strange direction Jerry had taken the topic, it wasn’t uncomfortable or awkward between them. The only light that illuminated their tent came from an old battery powered lantern that Jerry had managed to find after sifting through his old foster family's stuff. The only noise around them were the occasional shifting of blankets, and the whistling of some nearby trees. Jack’s never been one to take comfort in the sounds of the outdoors, but in this circumstance… he finds he doesn’t mind it all too much.
“Have you guys ever gone camping before?” Rosa asked, breaking the silence. Jerry hummed.
“Yeah, I used to go camping quite a bit. Lived in the woods for a while too, if that counts as camping.” Jack shrugged at that. Did that count as camping? He lived in that bus and all, maybe it was, like, advanced camping or something. Is that a thing? If living in a bus counted as camping then living a trailer probably did too, at least in Jerry’s eyes.
“You Jack?”
“Yeah, back when I was a kid. Me and Sabine would go all the time.” They’d bring a small tent and a ton of blankets and snacks, set up a bit into the trees, just close enough to her house that they could go in at any point. No one ever informed them that they shouldn’t keep food in a tent because it could attract animals they really didn’t want sniffing around, but thankfully there were no incidents. They’d stay up late into the night talking and munching on more snacks than Jack had ever eaten in his life. It was pleasant, nice. He remembers it as a fond memory, though he does try not to think about it. The less he thinks about her, the better.
“Mann, no wonder you were the owners favourite!” Jerry exclaimed. Being their ‘favourite’ didn’t tend to do him any favours, it just meant he was the first one they would call to deal with all the problems they didn’t want to. “Taking their daughter on camping trips. I’m a bit surprised they let you!”
Jack raised a brow at that. “We were like, nine, and I definitely wasn’t taking her anywhere. You could still see her house from where we were in the woods and she was the one who brought snacks and supplies.”
“Yeah, fuck the patriachy! Reverse gender norms!” Jack was a little confused, but there were very few times he wasn’t.
“I don’t know what you're talking about. Anyway, have you gone camping Rosa?” He didn't want to give Jerry a chance to get into some long winded explanation.
“No, I don’t think I have? This is probably my first time. My parents were super strict about that stuff, you know? The rumours around here. I’m surprised your parents allowed you to go out like that, Jack! The missing kids aren’t a new thing, you know?” Yet another thing no one informed them of. He’s pretty sure if they knew about the rate in which people went missing in those woods they probably would have stuck to staying indoors.
“No one really cared where I went. I’ve had a lot of foster families and most of them had a ton of kids, so one just… not being there for the night doesn’t get noticed. Lot’s of them were the type that were only in it for the paycheque, you know?” He shrugged a bit. Rosa gained a weird look, the kind of look you’d expect when someone saw a cute puppy get put through a woodchipper. Or something.
“That’s so fricking sad dude.” Jerry murmured.
“Not really. I didn’t mind it, I just got to be over with Sabine a lot.” Rosa rolled from her back onto her stomach, sitting her upper body up on her elbows as she looked down at him. Her long hair fell over her shoulders and kind of brushed up against him.
“Yeah, but they're obligated to take care of the kid, not just cash in the cheque and ignore them!”
“Rosa…” He began carefully, thinking over his words. “The foster system sucks. Like really, really sucks. They don’t exactly keep much of an eye on what goes on with the kids they place. Should they? Yes. Are they obligated to? Also yes, but it doesn’t mean they do. My social worker once placed me in a hoarder house– the type you’d see in that A&E Network show, and I lived there when I was eleven for a full year. It wasn’t even the mess that had me get moved, the mother asked them to take me away. And that was after she’d visit and ‘check’ the state of the house and judge whether it was suitable for a kid every month.”
“Is that why the house is always so tidy? I just thought you were getting after me because you were a clean freak.” Jack lightly smacked Jerry in the shoulder and he made a faux wounded noise in response.
“That’s unrelated, I just don’t want to live in a messy house. The gas station is enough of a shithole and I stay there for most of my day.” Jerry shrugged, muttering ‘fair enough’ under his breath.
Jack caught a glimpse of a troubled look on Rosa’s face, pinched and upset.
“What’s wrong?” She seemed to snap out of whatever held her thoughts captive.
“Nothing! Just… I don’t know, I just don’t get how that’s allowed to happen.” Rosa had mentioned her family a fair amount, her superstitious parents and werewolf erotica reading Nan, and while they sounded a bit eccentric, they sounded like good people. Between them all they held experiences of which the others did not, and one of those were families. She grew up very differently from him, and Jerry… Well, he knew he had a brother and parents and that he grew up wealthy, but aside from that he didn’t really know. Jack wasn’t one to prod, after all. Jack’s upbringing was chaotic, volatile even. At any point he could have been swept out of the door and shuttled off to some new stranger's house, and personally it felt as though his dignity had been stripped away. He was just something that tossed between people, none of which actually wanted him around.
“It’s allowed to happen because no one really cares, at least no one in charge. I didn’t even have it that bad, other people have it way worse so there’s no point in complaining. At least I wasn’t living in a trailer with a crazy meth head anymore, so personally I took that as a win.” He paused for a moment before adding, “Well, I am living with someone who’s crazy. Just a different kind of crazy.”
“Thanks!” Jerry replied with far too much pride than he should have in being called crazy.
Jerry rolled onto his stomach and toward Jack, eventually squishing him under his weight. Jack yelped and jabbed him in the ribs, drawing a squeak from the other. Rosa just narrowly avoided being crushed by Jerry as he finally came to a stop between them, throwing an arm over both of them with a cry of, “Group hug!”
“You could have just asked for a hug instead of nearly flattening me!” Jack groaned but didn’t try to shake his arm off
“Yeah, but where would the fun be in doing that? Plus, I like the element of surprise!” Jack did not like the element of surprise, especially when it was Jerry who had it. When Jerry surprised him it was never with something good like a cake or a puppy, no instead it was usually with some eldritch monstrosity that he wanted to keep as a pet in the gas station and then when you tell him no he gets all sad and pouty… This metaphor may sound incredibly specific, and that’s because it's not really a metaphor but still manages to be just vague enough to encompass several events.
“Hey, what do you guys say to a game of strip poker?” This time it was Rosa who got the honours of smacking Jerry upside the head for that comment.