THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL ``

[renee]

march nineteenth. several things always happened on march nineteenth. for one, jagger always closed the shop - hell, there was no point in leaving it open when none of the employees really had the drive to show up. no appointments were ever arranged for march nineteenth. none of the housework got done on march nineteenth, either. the hospital went short one pediatrician. the university of hartford missed a student. remedy was sent off to be with her grandparents for the day. and life...well life just completely shut down.

not that any of them meant it to. it was just when tragedy struck, everyone had their various ways of coping with it. no one in the wilson clan was really stable as it was - toss in something that shook every member to their very core and...well, the earth stood still. life stopped functioning properly. and everyone tried to cope in their different ways.


"we can't stay in bed forever." kendall looked over at barbra, chest still rising and falling with heavy breaths. the brunette raised her eyebrow, waiting for a response but kendall just ducked in for another kiss, delaying having to speak. which is what she'd been doing for the past few hours, keeping the brunette in her arms and distracting her with sex to avoid talking. kendall wasn't a big fan of facing problems head-on. that was more jason's thing and while jason might be coping well (she honestly didn't know; he was off with alec and she had been with barbra all day) she was not. fuck, no one in their family was. not her, not jagger, not zane, not mick. the only ones who were relatively okay were the ones who didn't know any better. del and brad and alec and babs, though the last two were dragged into it simply because of who they were dating. the wilsons weren't open about their problems. out of all their secrets, how cait's death affected them was their biggest.

"kendall..." the blonde let out a frustrated sigh as barbra once again pulled away, settling back against her pillows. she wasn't going to get so lucky again. barbra liked sex as much as the next girl but kendall was not so surreptitiously hiding something. not exactly easy to keep that from the other girl. "kenny, just talk to me."

"nothing to talk about," she lied, and it was an obvious lie but she couldn't be bothered much to care. not on this day. she leaned up to kiss barbra again but the brunette avoided her lips and pushed her back down onto the pillows again.

"try again."

kendall sighed. "how about it's none of your goddamn business?"

"oooh, so close. but still wrong."

"no, i mean it, this is really none of your goddamn business." she watched as one finely shaped eyebrow rose, barbra's gaze turning somewhat dangerous. but she didn't care. barbra was new to the game. it was nice of her to come by to help get her mind off of things but barbra didn't know cait. she didn't know what it sounded like when she laughed or looked like when she smiled or how she made her feel or the way her brother looked when he was around her. she never knew what it was like to stay up all night talking to her or the sound of her voice. she never tasted her cooking or helped her with her homework or any of the shit that kendall did for caitlyn jensen.

she sighed and pulled away from barbra's arms and her dangerous gaze, picking up her robe from off the ground to pull onto her arms. she covered herself, loosely tying it, and glanced back over at barbra, who was no longer looking angry but still a tiny bit hurt. like she was offended that kendall wasn't going to open up to her. "babe, just talk to me."

"i don't really feel much like talking," kendall snapped and barbra looked startled for a second before her gaze turned more angry again. kendall braced herself for the onslaught of words. honestly? bring it on. she was just looking for a reason to fight.


the middle wilson wasn't doing much better though at least he could say that he wasn't angry. just....sad. sad beyond belief if he was being truly honest with himself. he turned over in bed, pulling the blankets higher up over his head to cover his ear. he didn't want to be alive. he didn't want to be awake. he just wanted to die or at least sleep until the day ended so that he didn't have to think about it. about anything. he looked up as the door opened but quickly laid his head back down, closing his eyes against the light that flooded in when cain opened the door.

"hey," he mumbled quietly and jagger grunted in response, curling up even further into a ball. he felt bad. on top of mourning, he had been rather neglectful toward cain and he knew that that wasn't fair of him. cait was his past; cain was his future. but cain knew cait just as long as jagger did. jagger knew he'd understand or hoped he would, though it didn't ease the guilt any in knowing that he had been acting like a sour puss all day while cain tried to take care of him.

if cain had any complaints, though, for once he kept them to himself. he just climbed into bed with him, wrapping his arm around jagger's waist to pull him back against him. unsure of how to react to this, jagger cuddled back into him.

they lay like this for a while, not saying anything. cain brushed his hip bones lightly with his fingers, head rested against his shoulder as he kissed down occasionally, not saying anything. and jagger just leaned back into him, grabbed his hand to entwine his fingers with his boyfriend's. it never got easier. he had been seventeen when cait had passed and he still missed her and it still hurt as badly as the day he found out he'd lost her. he knew he had no right to sulk the way he did. everyone else had loved cait, too. but they didn't understand how much he'd lost with her. he didn't just lose the love of his life. he lost his child.

he was crying before he realized what was happening, his body shaking in a gentle tremor while cain pressed soothing kisses to his cheek, his neck, his shoulder, his back. if he was disturbed by the tears, he was kind enough not to show it, careful enough not to say anything, just to plant kisses on jagger's body until the shaking subsided somewhat and jagger found it in him to turn to face him. "i miss her," he managed out, his voice hoarse, and cain whispered a quiet, "me, too," before jagger started crying again, leaning into his chest and shaking silently.

cain held him close, pressing his lips to jagger's temple, his eyelids, his nose, his cheek, his lips until jagger had calmed down enough to recuperate the motion. he captured cain's lips with his own, pressing his hips into his boyfriend's while cain ran soothing circles on the back of jagger's thigh with his fingers. this wasn't what jagger needed. what he needed was proper closure - to visit her mom in jail and talk to her or see a counselor or do something but push it to the side. he didn't need more sex, more affection from a different source. at least not psychologically speaking according to jason, but fuck, what did jason know?

his kiss quickly turned desperate and heated and needy like most kisses with cain when something was going on, and he clung to his body so tight that it was damn near aggressive. their legs entwined and jagger took the opportunity to move on top of the familiar body, rutting his hips down roughly while cain let out a slightly strangled moan into his mouth. one hand entangled itself in familiar hair, the other supporting himself as he hovered ever so gently to keep from crushing cain under his weight. the actions were familiar, the feeling, the sounds, but it was wrong, it was all wrong because they never did this on the nineteenth of march, they never spent this day in bed together, they never gave that final betrayal to the girl cain had called friend and jagger had called girlfriend. but cain was so warm and jagger needed him so badly and when he tried to pull away, cain's lips just followed, his hands pulling on jagger's shirt as if he couldn't get the offensive garment off of him fast enough.

and after that, he couldn't stop, wouldn't stop, and cain let out a quiet whimper as jagger roughly explored the skin of his neck with little nips while his fingers worked to remove anything that was keeping him from being with him in the most intimate way they had discovered they could be, and cain encouraged it with the removal of his shirt and the familiar feeling of his fingernails digging slightly into jagger's back. neither could be bothered to think of what they were mourning. neither could care enough to stop. jagger needed him; he needed his boyfriend, he needed him there, he needed him to not stay away for the day like what they were doing was offensive, like cait wouldn't approve, because fuck lord knew if he couldn't have cait the first person she would have pushed him toward would have been cain. because cain was there and cain understood and cain was beautiful and cain was everything that jagger needed in the world, and he told him so before he kissed him again and the world became a sea of nothing but jagger and cain.


"he's hurting," jason said, closing his eyes as alec's fingers ran through his hair, playing with the blonde strands while jason busied himself with tracing the outline of the button on alec's jeans with his finger. "i mean we're all hurting. but i think him more than anyone."

"funny," alec responded, biting down on his lip lightly. "i thought it'd be jagger." he paused. "if it were us in the same place...i dunno, jase. i don't know how i could live." jason gave him a quick, pointed look, a look alec immediately refuted with another look of his own before jason settled his head back down on his chest. "i suppose," the youngest wilson sighed. "i mean, i know jagger's really upset about the whole thing but it's just...i can't imagine being cain in this situation. he loved cait almost as much as jagger did and to have to fill that void in his life...i don't know, alec. what if that were me? what if the only reason i was single when you met me was because my last girlfriend and my child had been murdered?"

alec didn't say anything. he just continued running his fingers through jason's hair and after a while, jason went back to focusing on the button of his jeans. he had called alec over as soon as he woke up and realized that the house was empty. cain and jagger were either being really fucking quiet in jagger's room or were at cain's. kendall was at noah's with barbra. she left some money near the phone and told him to order whatever when he got hungry, and he'd known then that they planned on leaving him alone while they mourned. but he didn't want to be alone. he was tired of going through his own mourning process alone. it just hurt too badly. so he'd called his boyfriend. after an exchange of a few heated kisses, the two had settled on his bed in the position they were in now - with alec laying back against his pillows and jason resting his head on his boyfriend's chest and playing idly with his clothes. and there they had stayed. jason just didn't have it in him to have sex.

"i'd try to give you everything i could," alec replied after a while and jason tilted his head up to look at him. "you can't...you can't ever replace someone's true love. make them forget them. but you know, if you needed me, jase, i would do everything i could to make you happy. it's what i'm doing now. it's what i'd do in that situation. i'd just want you to be happy." jason smiled slightly and moved himself further onto his boyfriend as he turned to give him a loving kiss. alec returned his affection before jason pulled away and rested his forehead against the curve of alec's neck.

"i just wonder if he feels like he's not enough," he mused, planting a light kiss on alec's skin. "like he's not cait."

"that's stupid," alec replied quietly.

"hm?"

"jagger loves him, jason. i mean hard as it is to believe he's capable of it. he wouldn't be with him if he didn't love him."

"yeah but," he bit down on his lower lip. "how is cain supposed to feel secure when jagger's convinced he already had his great true love?"

"i'm not so sure jagger's convinced of that," alec said quietly. "when it's right, jason, you feel it. you know that."

and he supposed he did. it wasn't like he sat there and asked about alec's ex-girlfriends and tried to compare himself to him and he definitely didn't share anything about his past relationships with his boyfriend. but it didn't matter. none of those girls mattered. alec was the one. there wasn't a doubt in his mind that the man he was resting against was his soulmate, not just his boyfriend or his lover but someone who was destined to be with him for the rest of his life. alec wasn't temporary. alec was today and tomorrow and the next and the next and he was twenty years from then and fifty from then and nothing in the world was going to keep that from being a reality. but the thing about alec was that alec was the only one he had ever felt that with. he couldn't help but wonder if jagger had felt that same feeling twice. he couldn't help but wonder if one was stronger than the other.

"jason, you worry too much." he felt a kiss right above his ear and smiled slightly, cuddling into his boyfriend. "enough about cain and jagger. how are you coping?"

jason didn't respond for a second. to be honest, he didn't know how he was coping. he had been a freshman in high school when cait passed and though he had been messed up before that, that was what really triggered the worst in him. since, the feeling of agitation and worry that he had associated with being near a cemetery from a very young age hadn't gone away. he had been tense and scared and jumpy at the funeral and the feeling had just been walking with him for the rest of his life, devouring every aspect of his life until eventually he just shut down. it wasn't until recently with alec that he'd finally gotten the agitation to subside. and even then it never faded completely away.

"i don't know," he answered honestly, and alec nodded and planted another kiss on his head. "i'm sorry, though. for the morbid thoughts." alec shook his head. "don't apologize, jason. food for thought. i just want to be here for you." jason smiled and pushed himself up to press his lips against his boyfriend's, pulling away with a few short pecks but keeping his face close, their foreheads pressed together.

"i love you," he said quietly, testing the words on his lips and alec grinned widely, leaning in for another sweet kiss before replying, "i love you too, jason."


zane hated leaving remedy at his mother's house. honestly, nothing annoyed him more and it wasn't because he wasn't fond of his parents. no he loved his parents, probably was of the few in the wilson clan who could stand up and say that he honestly loved his mother and father. it just made him feel so weak to pass her off like that. like he couldn't handle her on his own or like mickey suddenly just wasn't enough help. which he supposed on this day, that was true, though he had gotten rem to stay with her grandparents more because of mickey than him.

because since they started dating mick had been irritable as hell and zane knew why. because he wasn't being any more lenient on his sex rule in spite of the fact that he was already positively sure he was in love with mick. he was waiting - waiting for him to prove to him that he could wait, he could love him, he could be someone zane could feel safe with. it wasn't working out and then add the fact that they started dating at the single most inconvenient time in the world and...well, mickey wasn't pleasant to be around.

because he was switching moods so fast it was hard for zane to keep track, and zane himself was feeling so emotionally drained that he wasn't sure how to handle it. one minute mickey was slamming him against the wall and kissing him so intensely it made him see stars and the next he was pulling away and throwing a fit about not getting sex when he needed it and then he'd get upset about being upset over something that trivial when they all knew what he was really so upset about and then zane would move in to comfort him and mick would get him up against the wall again. it was a long and exhausting (and extremely sexually frustrating) process and about the fifth time mick got him against the wall with his arms pinned above his head, zane was close to just saying fuck it and giving his best friend and boyfriend what he wanted. rem wasn't home. it was just them. he knew he loved him. all his criteria were met.

but then mick would pull away and call him a tease and he remembered again why he couldn't do that. because it was still a game. just a game. and they were both mourning the death of one of their best friends and it was still just a game to him. and he wasn't going to give everything up just for a game.

"fuck zane, please," mickey pleaded quietly into his ear as he rolled his hips down onto zane's, keeping his shoulders pinned back against the back cushions of the couch while mick himself took the liberty of keeping him in place with the weight of his own body as he straddled him. this time he had avoided the wall, taking a much gentler approach and instead catching zane when he was trying to drown his sorrows in episodes of spongebob, which he had been happy to discover was streaming on netflix. he had walked up and apologized for the way he'd been acting (or more, he had said, "i know i'm a fuck up, zane, i'm fuckin' sorry, but god you could be less of a fuckin' prude," but zane liked to rationalize that into some sort of apology) and had leaned down to kiss him and the rest was, as they say, history. "i need it. i need you, please just to tide me over, just for today, just..." he kissed just behind zane's ear, causing an involuntary buck up from the older male that pulled a moan from mickey's lips. "zane..."

"mick, i just..." his refusal was cut off with a heated kiss from his boyfriend, and he had to remind himself that he was doing this because he was sad, he was doing this because he was in mourning, he wasn't doing this because he wanted to show he was in love with him and that he had to think cooling thoughts because fuck if his body wasn't just encouraging him. he honestly was happy mick's hands were busy keeping him pinned down because honestly if that man got around to removing any articles of clothing, zane would be done for. "mickey, you know i love you and..." he cut off as mickey continued his not at all decent or gentle thrusts against him, lips running across his jaw and down his neck in a way his friend had long since discovered always drew a satisfying reaction out of him. the whimpered sounds he made only seemed to encourage him and it was all he could do to clear his head and speak. "mick, please..."

but again - just more encouragement and he thrust up once when mickey bit down on the curve of his shoulder. "no, mickey, please, just....stop." he tried leaning forward off the couch cushions just to be pushed back. "mickey..." his voice took on a more dangerous tone but he could just feel his friend's lips curve into a smile against his skin. little shit. "this isn't how i want to mourn cait, mick, so can you please just...?"

and that was what did it. mick didn't move - god no, zane would have been shocked if he'd have moved - but his movements became less insistent and when he moved back up to capture his lips in another deep kiss, it wasn't nearly so much heated as it was passionate and his grip on zane's shoulders loosened. he felt comfortable now wrapping his arms around mickey and pulling him into him, finding comfort in his kiss and mick leaned into him probably for the same reason. what was heated suddenly turned....almost sweet and zane couldn't keep the sweet smile off his face as mickey pulled away. "i love you," he said quietly, kissing his chin. "and i know that you need me and fuck mick i want to be there the way you want me to be. but right now i'm just...i'm upset and i'm sad and i don't feel in the least bit like having sex..." he bit his lip. "will you just lay out here with me?"

"yeah yeah yeah," mick said, moving to plop down next to him, though not hesitating to rest his head against him when he did, "whatever you say, needy."

"needy? i--no. no just...nevermind."

mickey smiled. "i miss her, z."

zane returned the small little smile and kissed the top of his head. "me too, bud. but let's just....sit around. drink. watch tv. carry on, y'know? it'd what she'd want."

"she'd also want us to have sex."

"don't push it."

"she told me."

"no she didn't."

"she wants your dick inside of me."

"i'll rip yours off, how about that?"

"as long as you touch it."

zane snorted and mick laughed and kissed him. they were going to be okay. maybe not in the long run. but then and there...things were going to be fine. things were going to work.


"jagger?" he looked up from where his head was resting on cain's stomach, raising an eyebrow in response to cain's questioning, almost unsure tone. they had been lying there for a while - at least an hour after having sex and another thirty minutes after having sex again - in relative silence. jagger didn't really know what to say. the last of all barriers had been broken. he had had sex on march nineteenth. twice. with his boyfriend. honestly, he didn't know how much more broken that mental promise he had made to cait could be. he didn't regret anything. he liked to think she'd be happy for him. just...he didn't know how to talk to someone after something like that. evidently, though, cain did.

"it's just...i know that i'm not...cait. or anything. and i know that i can never...replace that. what you two had." he swallowed and jagger watched the movement of his throat with almost predatory eyes. "but i want you to know that i love you. and i think...i think she'd....i don't know what i'm saying. forget it, ignore me."

jagger smiled and pressed a kiss to cain's stomach, chuckling quietly. "no, no, i get it," he said, keeping his voice low. "i was just thinking about that. how she'd probably....punch me or something if it was anyone but you." he saw the corner of cain's mouth twitch in the makings of a smile. "and i love you, cain. and you know, maybe i was side-tracked from that for a little while because god had given me this....angel who was just too much for this fucking earth and then stole her away...and maybe i haven't always treated you right but you know i have always, always, always loved you." he punctuated each 'always' with a kiss to cain's skin, slowly making his way up his boyfriend's body to meet his lips when he was done speaking and even if he could feel cain smiling against his lips, he didn't pull away until he'd gotten his fill.

"you're a sap," cain said as he pulled away and jagger just shrugged and rested his chin on cain's chest. maybe he was. maybe the feeling of being in love again after all those years had made him soft when it was just him and cain alone together in a room. but was that really such a bad thing? "well i love you, too, you fucking sap. and i'm happy you're not thinking twice. about..."

he trailed off but jagger caught the message. "i've never had a better march nineteenth," he said truthfully. "and i'll never regret having sex with you. never have. never will." he leaned up for another kiss and smiled as he pulled away. "now come on. let's go to the cemetery. little as i regret it, i have a feeling that cait is just waiting for this story."

cain chuckled and caught jagger's lips again as he sat up. "okay, okay. but i get to tell it. you suck at telling stories."

"whatever."

"and i get to let her know what a sap you are."

"she already knows, cain."

"yeah, i know, but this time i can say it in public and see how badly it makes you blush."

"i don't blush."

"do too."

"shut up, cain."

"i love you."

he smiled. "i love you, too."

[/justify]