Someone must have (taken pity) been watching over him the night that he had gotten out of Jerry’s car and made a complete idiot of himself because as soon as he had gotten up to his apartment, he had fallen right asleep without a drop more to drink. He woke up fully dressed at almost three in the afternoon slumped over on his couch, his legs curled up on the end of the couch. When he had noticed the clock on the TV that said that he had slept for almost eleven hours, he laughed. There was a throbbing in his sinuses and an ache in his stomach, but he was sober and alive, something he had been told time and time again that he should be thankful for. The sun screamed in his face and his throat remained dry, but there was something good about the morning, despite his hangover.
He hadn’t fucked Jerry.
He had been expecting this feeling somewhere in the back of his mind when he first went out with the vampire the night before. Somehow, Quinn knew that as much as he wanted the fuck last night, he didn’t want the repercussions of it – the awkwardness between him and Jerry at the Pompeii afterwards, the stigma of sleeping with him, the knowledge that he had done that to John. It was bad enough that he had gone as far as he had with Jeremiah; that guilt alone was enough to make him want to go to bed and sleep until everyone had just forgotten he existed.
Quinn stumbled his way to the bathroom and after fighting a fit of dry heaves, stepped into the hottest shower he could remember and stayed in there until he was a prune. By the time he was supposed to go to work, he was just getting out of the shower. He called up Hank personally and told him that he wasn’t going into work, whom had expressed his honest disappointment at not seeing his naked ass on stage. As soon as he had hung up, he dressed himself in a simple pair of jeans and a polo, and wandered around his apartment in a mood. After he poured himself a drink (or two), he started picking up little things and putting them back where they belonged, feeding his fish, examining his life for the past year in photographs. When he came upon a picture of him and John with some friends at a bar, he paused after he took it off of the fridge. He stared at it for a long few moments, focusing on himself. He could remember that day easily – it was their third date. Tommy had taken the picture.
He took the picture and went to his bedroom. He tore down the shirts hanging in the closet that were John’s. He opened the dresser and took out his pants, his socks, his tees and anything else that was his. He went into the bathroom and took down his toothbrush, his deodorant, his cologne, his soap and everything else. As he raided his apartment for things that weren’t his, there was a sort of pleasure in him at doing so, as if he were fixing up something worn down. After about two hours, there were three bags of clothing and another bag of all the other shit that he wanted to be rid of. It sat in a pile in the corner near the door, the picture of him and Quinn together sitting at the bottom of one of the bags.
The next day Quinn went back to work. It was a bit frightening at first, because he didn’t want to see Jerry so soon, but he had a job that needed to be done and bills that needed to be paid. Fortunately he hadn’t seen the vampire the night that he went back, and Tommy hadn’t known about their little horrid rendezvous, so nothing was said about it (though Quinn had spent the entire shift worrying about whether Jerry would come in that night).
The next few nights passed in a similar fashion. At first he was relieved that the vampire hadn’t shown up, but after two or three days Quinn began to feel even worse about it all. He reckoned that he had scared Jerry off for good – as ridiculous as that sounded. Each night he would return home and stare at John’s stuff sitting in bags in the corner of the room, delete his messages that were left on Quinn’s voicemail and texts in his inbox. Similarly, every night he’d go out of his way to not check Facebook to see if his favorite vampire was online – his apartment was dirty, there were drinks with Tommy, his computer was too slow. The less he saw of Jerry, the more horrible he felt about the entire thing.
That is, until one night, a week or so after their date, Jerry magically appeared in the club again. It was sort of relieving at first, to know that the vampire hadn’t been scared off so easily. But then he realized that as soon as he went out there they would catch each other’s eye and something – whether good or bad – would happen. Either he would be ignored or it would be awkward, or he would just act as if nothing had happened. Honestly Quinn didn’t know which to expect.
It turned out, that when Quinn, in his honest attempt at not making things awkward, went over to Jerry’s table, nothing had changed. To his great surprise, Jerry was still Jerry and his comments were still boyishly crude and casual, as if nothing had happened to make things awkward. It made him feel loads better when the subject of what had happened wasn’t breached until Quinn himself had breached it. With a shrug, Jerry told him what Quinn already knew – of course he was a bit angry, but he wasn’t about to do anything about it, and that he felt shitty about it. By the end of the night, things were back to normal between them and Quinn felt better about life in general.
The next day he texted John back finally and said that he wanted him to come over and get his things and talk. He agreed, and brought over Quinn’s things. His eyes seemed swollen, like had stopped crying during the car ride, despite the coldness in his tone. Quinn had no sympathy, only an awkward feeling that he hoped would be the last thing he ever felt towards his former lover. They had sat down around his table and had a cup of coffee together as they talked. There was a little laughter, more polite than genuine, but mostly the discussion of what happened now. It was over, and Quinn wasn’t what he was looking for in a partner. Surprisingly, they both agreed. He would never love John, but telling him this came a bit too harshly upon the other, who sat there for long moments behind his glasses and drank his coffee in sad little sips. In the end, he hugged John on his way out the door and thanked him – truthfully – for the past six months. As he pulled away from the street corner where Quinn stood shivering in the spring cold, he smiled as John left his apartment for what would be the last time.
He was finally free of any responsibility towards anyone and for the first time in a long time, things were looking up.
