He hadn’t thought to do this. It was just going to be harmless fun. If Edgar wasn’t attached to Johnny anymore, there was no harm in it. Jimmy hadn’t expected to be completely charmed by the end of the night, or disappointed when Edgar left in the morning. He thought he had only imagined that Edgar was disappointed too, but discovered he was wrong when Edgar reappeared at Jimmy’s door the next day.
“Hi.”
“Hello?”
“Look, I need to let you know that I guess I was wrong last night, and maybe I actually am staying with Johnny.”
“Oh. So… you need me to…”
“Not say anything, yeah.”
“Right, okay. I get it.”
“I’m sorry, I really just wasn’t thinking very well.”
“It’s fine,” Jimmy said. He started to close his door, but Edgar pushed his arm inside.
“Wait! I- I had fun.”
“Good?”
“No, I mean I’m really sorry. I would have stayed or kept coming back if…” He made a vague nod toward his house – and Johnny.
What Jimmy wanted to suggest was that Edgar keep coming back, but they’d both been living under the ‘Johnny Comes First’ philosophy for so long that neither of them could heartily back a plan that involved cheating. Sadly, they’d both been focused on Johnny all this time that they’d clearly missed something in each other.
“Yeah, that would have been okay,” Jimmy said, for lack of anything else.
Edgar continued to apologize, though Jimmy didn’t hear any specifics over his own thoughts. Now he was stuck with feelings for a guy who was cruel to him and a guy who had been friendly, attentive and interested in him and they were off involved with each other.
Jimmy stayed mostly bitter until Edgar turned up at his door another time, weeks later. They’d been awkward in the group until then, trying not to look at each other or say anything damning, but according to Edgar, they hadn’t hidden it well enough.
“He found out,” Edgar said.
“What?! How?”
“He’s just Johnny, he knows. I tried to explain the circumstances what with the fighting thing and the drinks here, but he wasn’t listening so…”
“So you’re here, of all places? Won’t he get angrier at you for running to the guy you cheated with?”
“I’d rather be with you than Devi.”
“But you’d rather be with Nny than me.”
“Please don’t do that.”
“It’s true, though.”
“And it’s just as true for you. Go ahead and chase him if you think he won’t kill you in the process. Can I stay?”
“Yeah. Yeah, you can stay.”
The temptation was there, but so was his loyalty to Johnny. It wasn’t right to take something from Johnny, even if, or maybe especially if, that something was a person. Edgar apparently felt the same way.
“You think you’ll go back?” Jimmy asked, flipping mindlessly through the channels on television.
“I don’t know.”
“Do you want to?”
Edgar looked at him, shook his head slowly, and managed to mutter, “I don’t know.”
“Edgar, seriously.”
“Shut up, I know.”
--- one random life-saving later!---
“I think he should just stay here.”
“Okay.”
“What, that’s it?”
“I guess.”
“Are you alright?”
“He looks different now.”
“The black eye is helping, I think.”
“No, I mean… Yeah.”
“Really, I think he should stay. I want him to stay.”
“Then dump him back when his face looks normal again?”
“No. I want him around. I think we’d all be happier if he stayed.”
“You think so?”
“Yes.”
“You’d be happier if he stayed?”
“Hey, wait, don’t turn it into that.”
“Why not?”
“It’s not about just me. There’s three of us to consider.”
“Three, huh?”
“Well, yeah, he- Oh. Yeah. Yeah, three.”
“Maybe. We can see what happens.”
--
“Just stay here.”
“I can’t stay here, he’d kill me.”
“You really think so?”
“He doesn’t like me like you.”
Edgar titled his head, trying to decide which way to interpret what Jimmy had said.
“I think you’re wrong.”
“What would I do here? Just sit and be backup to you guys and marital bliss or whatever?”
“There’s not much blissful about it, but no- you’d be with us.”
“You want me to have some kind of threesome with you guys? God, if I’d known that you’d get kinky afterwards, maybe I’d have gone after you earlier.”
“It’s not that,” Edgar said. “Or it could be, I guess, but I really just mean stay here and be with both of us. I care about both of you, you both care about me, and I think Johnny cares about both of us.”
“And you’re not going to ask him about this?”
“I did. He was typically vague about it, but I think it’ll be okay.”
“Only think? Edgar, if you want us to be some kind of three-man couple, he’s gonna need to not be vague about it.”
“Yeah.”
“That… is what you’re suggesting, right?”
“Yes.”
Jimmy touched his swollen eye and Edgar flinched with him.
“And you really want me?” Jimmy asked.
“I came to you when things went bad around here, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, but, what am I gonna do? Just sleep in your bed and eat all your food and hang all over you and pretend everything’s fine?”
Edgar shrugged. “It’ll be an adjustment.”
“I don’t want to uproot your thing going on here.”
“You’re not,” Edgar insisted. He sat on the cot next to Jimmy and followed the lines of a faded tattoo on his arm. “We want you to stay.”
“It’s both of you now?”
“Stop stalling and just agree, okay? This is what you want too.”
Jimmy laughed. “And what would you know about what I want, huh?”
“What you want lives here.”
“And how long before someone gets jealous and I get kicked out?”
“You won’t get kicked out. You belong here too.”
“You think that?”
“I do. I want you here.”
“Okay. But if you guys are just fucking with me…”
“We’re not.”
“Alright. Sure.”
---
Johnny stood in the doorway for a long time before he said anything.
“Still bruised?”
“Yeah, but it’s no big deal. I’ve been hit by worse.”
“No you haven’t.”
“How would you know?”
“Because I was the one that hit you with everything else.”
Jimmy pretended to be deeply offended for a moment, and then realized Johnny wasn’t going to continue on to call him a moron. Johnny was quiet for a moment while he eyed Jimmy’s injuries.
“Edgar asked you to stay,” he said, studying the bruises on Jimmy’s forearm.
“Yeah. He said he asked you, but…”
“He did.”
Jimmy’s bruises throbbed when he tried to shrink back into the cot. “Annnd?”
“You’re here, aren’t you?”
“So that was it? All I had to do all that time was get my ass kicked for you and fuck around with Edgar?”
“Fuck off and be grateful.”
“Do you even want me here? Did Edgar just bribe you or something?”
“I’ll see you later.”
Johnny left the room, and Jimmy wasn’t visited again until he heard yelling about pasta from downstairs. Moments after, he heard footsteps.
“Do you eat rotini?” Edgar leaned into the room, holding a fork.
“Ravioli?”
“Rotini. Spiral pasta?”
“Sure, I guess.”
“Good. Gimme half an hour.”
“Wait, wait, are you cooking for me?”
“No,” Edgar said. “I’m cooking for all of us.”
“Nny helping?”
“No.”
“Can I?”
“Jimmy, you’re not a guest, just do whatever you want and try to let the bruises heal.”
Jimmy followed him downstairs ten minutes later anyway. Edgar was startled to see him, but let him help even though he had no idea where anything was.
“Can you get me the can opener?” Edgar asked.
“Um, yeah…” Jimmy stumbled around through a drawer or two until he found one, and handed it to Edgar, who looked confused.
“Oh, no, that one doesn’t work. I need the one with the red handle.”
“Why do you keep them if they don’t work?”
“I don’t know. The other one is over there, no, one more down. Yeah.”
Edgar bumped into Jimmy several times, and almost dropped more than one can while he shuffled around the kitchen.
“Sorry,” he said, “I just normally don’t have anyone else in here.”
“Nny doesn’t help?”
“Think about that for a minute and then see if you really want to ask me that.”
“I didn’t know you were so housewife.”
“It’s not housewife, it’s just easier to do this by myself.”
---
He didn’t know where to sit, where things went, that the knob on the sink leaked, that the oven light would never come on, that the light in the hall was always half lit, that the closet had towels in it, or that the fireplace actually worked even though it was never used. Edgar told him to sit wherever he wanted, and tried to brief Jimmy on any little thing he could think of, which still was not enough for him to understand all of Johnny and Edgar’s inside jokes.
By the end of the day, Jimmy felt a little lost and had missed his favorite show. He also had avoided touching both Johnny and Edgar for the duration of the day for fear he’d explode some secret taboo.
…SOMETHING HERE…
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I guess. “
“You don’t... have to stay if-”
“No, I want to, I want- It’s just kind of awkward.”
“I think it’ll get better. Is there something specific or…?”
“What, like, ‘Where do you usually sit?’ or ‘Where the hell am I supposed to sleep?’”
“Those would be specific, yeah.”
“Does Nny really want me here?”
“Yes.”
“Are you lying to me?”
“No.”
“You’d better not be. If this is another, “Ha ha, Jimmy is a moron!” thing, I’m done with both of you. With all of you. Fuck the whole guitar of the dead thing, I’m out. Because this? This is worse than any baseball bat to the head, okay? This is not like a hose, or crashing into pavement. This is-”
“Calm down, it’s not like that. Promise.”
“What do you want with me? I’m looking at you, and I’m looking at him and thinking, “Yeah, I’ll take this.” But you guys are so…situated.”
“So you need to be more comfortable,” Edgar said, almost to himself.
“Would be nice, yeah.”
“We’re not trying to make it uncomfortable, you know.”
“Mmhmm.”
Edgar sat down next to Jimmy on the cot, among all the things that Jimmy had dragged along with him. He picked up Jimmy’s arm, and examined a tattoo or two before pointing to a spot with a scar near the inside of Jimmy’s elbow. “Where did you get this?”
“Chain link fence. Devi pushed me over.”
“Really?”
“…yeah.”
“Do you remember when you guys dragged me to that old playground?”
“And you got your leg stuck on the fence? Yeah. Mine was a different fence.”
“Yeah, but look.” Edgar rolled up one pant leg and showed Jimmy his knee. “Mine scarred too.”
“Fuck, yours is a lot worse than mine.”
“I wasn’t trying to win the injury war or anything.”
“Nah, I know. Here, look at this one,” Jimmy offered, pulling the collar of his shirt away from his neck. “This was Johnny and a broken bottle.”
“What was he doing with a broken bottle?”
Jimmy held the collar and stared at the wall, trying to recall anything about the incident.
“I have no idea,” he said, not without some wonder.
“Mine aren’t quite as exotic,” Edgar confessed. “There’s one on my hand somewhere from a cheese grater, and one on the side of my head from a door handle.”
“A door handle.”
“I was running and I wasn’t really looking and just…” He crashed his fist into his palm to illustrate.
“Still, were you running bent at the waist or what?”
“Look,” Edgar said, sliding his hand over his temple to clear away his hair. “I swear that’s what it’s from.”
Jimmy poked the faded line and saw that it slightly interrupted Edgar’s hairline.
“When was this?” he asked, wondering why he hadn’t seen Edgar with gauze on his head at any point.
“Before I knew you guys.”
“What the hell were you running from? Furniture?”
“Shut up.”
“Or was it the cheese grater?”
“You can stop now.”
“Okay. What about-? Oh. Yeah, I guess you don’t have tattoos to compare.”
“Sorry. Not cool enough for that.”
“Yeah, especially if you get your ass kicked by a cheese grater.”
…
“So, do I just sleep here again, or…?”
“You want company?”
“Are you kidding? This thing is like two feet wide.”
“You can come with me, it’s fine.”
“And Johnny won’t flip out that I’ve stolen his pillow or something?”
“Do you hear the TV?”
“Yeah?”
“He won’t even consider sleeping for another six hours, and when he does, it will be on that recliner for about another three, and then he’ll be up again. He might venture up here for the bathroom. Maybe.”
Jimmy must have looked confused or hesitant, because Edgar went on from there.
“What? I can stay with you when it’s cheating and not when it’s fully approved?”
“That first time was just… yeah. I don’t know, sure. Okay.”
The bed was comfortable and smelled like Edgar and Johnny. He was surprised he knew that they had smells at all, let alone that he could identify whose was whose. Edgar seemed happy to have Jimmy there, though Jimmy was not sure how he felt about the arrangement. Edgar felt familiar in layers - as a friend he knew, as someone he’d seen in various states of undress for shows, as a person he was used to seeing in general, and as the last person who had spent the night with him. At the same time, there were things about Edgar that were entirely foreign to him.
“Your scapula sticks out sorta far,” Jimmy observed, though he hadn’t meant to say it aloud.
“My what?”
“Your shoulder blade.”
“Oh, it does?” Edgar twisted a little as though he thought he could see his own back.
“Yeah, it’s a little weird.”
It turned out Edgar’s wrist bones were particularly pointy and his fingernails were a strange shape, too.
“My nails? What about them?”
“Look how wide they are. Mine are like half that.”
Edgar’s hands were larger, but Jimmy’s were rougher. Jimmy’s skin tone was yellower, Edgar’s palm was squarer.
When Jimmy left the next day to see Devi and collect a few more of his things on the way back, she and Tenna refused to believe that he spent an entire night in bed with Edgar comparing hands.
---
“What is that?”
“What’s what?”
“You have a tattoo on your back – I saw it the time I came over, but I somehow didn’t think it was the time to ask.”
Jimmy snickered, but let Edgar continue.
“I think I always thought Tenna put that on you. What is it?”
“It’s kind of dumb,” Jimmy admitted.
“I’ll let you supply the inevitable question here.”
“Yeah, I got it because a lot of other people were.”
“It’s in German. A lot of other people have German tattoos?”
Jimmy sighed. “No, it’s my song. It’s just, you know, German.”
“Who are these ‘other people’?”
“I know it’s dumb, okay? Just shut up about it.”
“No, I didn’t mean it like that, I’m really just interested.”
“In my shitty tattoos?”
“Yeah.” Edgar shrugged. “They’re like the scars, I guess. I want to know.”
In the past, Jimmy told the girls he took back to his hotel about his tattoos, but he usually made something up about how he’d gotten them. This one was a dare that the other guy wasn’t manly enough to take on, and that one was actually an ancient symbol of power and not a thing he picked off the wall in a cough medicine-induced delirium. And yes, of course he actually knew the Chinese on his ankle, he wasn’t stupid. But instead of those stories, he told Edgar the truth.
“I got this one with the stars as soon as someone could see me,” he explained, twisting his arm so Edgar could see his elbow. “I went without even knowing what I wanted, and when I got there, I got the first thing that came to mind. They’re even the right colors.”
“I don’t think I even noticed these happening,” Edgar said, examining a skull on Jimmy’s forearm. “I seriously had this image in mind of you just materializing one day with all these intact.”
“I’d have been the baddest fourteen-year-old no one could see.”
“I would have been terrified of you.”
“And Nny would have laughed at me.”
Edgar’s expression fell for a second, and he glanced up at Jimmy apprehensively.
“There aren’t any…”
“Of Nny?” Jimmy laughed and shook his head. “No. Don’t worry.”
Edgar sighed with near-tangible relief.
“Sorry, I just had this fear that you had his face on the inside of your thigh or something.”
“News Flash, Edgar: You’ve seen my thigh.”
“Oh. Right.”
---
VISIT DEVI SOMETIME.
“How the fuck did this happen? You get Edgar to cheat on Johnny, and this somehow results in no one dead and you in a threesome? What the fuck, Jimmy.”
“I’m not really sure how it worked either, when you put it like that.”
---
“We have a problem.”
“What? What’s wrong?”
“Okay, look. I’ve been promoted from ‘single loser’ to ‘guy with two boyfriends’ and I have had exactly one sexual experience with another person since then even though I’ve been sharing a bed with two people for weeks. I’m pretty sure I was getting more when I had zero boyfriends, so this is kind of fucked up to me.”
“Oh. Sorry, we can… do something about that, I think. I guess I’m just used to Johnny. He really… doesn’t have any kind of drive for it. I think if I didn’t hint at him he’d forget about it entirely.”
“No wonder you came to me.”
“That was not it at all.”
“Says the man who insisted on having two partners. It’s very pimp of you, Edgar.”
“No, I just said it’s not like that! We’ll just have to figure something out. I wouldn’t hold out hope for Johnny anytime soon, though, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“You could decide you want to collect them all and add Devi to keep me busy, I don’t care.”
“Hey, come on. You don’t have to be a bastard about it. Shut up.”
“Sorry, just… figuring something out would be good.”
“Okay, I really have to ask: In all that time that you wanted Johnny, what were you planning on doing with yourself if you ever got him?”
“When we were younger, I thought he’d just come around. I didn’t know it was a weird control issue with him until I talked to you.”
“So wait, after he teases you and leaves you naked in your trailer, you don’t figure it out then? Because that’s… a pretty big hint.”
“I thought it was an isolated incident! Look, I don’t know, you’re talking about the same thought process that brought you the tribal tattoo, alright? All I know is that I shouldn’t be sexually frustrated in a house with two people that like me.”
“I get it. It’ll just be a little weird to figure out.”
…
“I figure it’s unfair to kick Johnny out of the bed just because you want some sort of action, so-”
Jimmy made a noise that he hadn’t intended to sound so desperate.
“…so we’ll have to be a little creative,” Edgar finished.
“Sorry.”
Edgar looked slightly uneasy, but continued.
“He has the same right to none as you have to some, so unless he’s involved, it’s sort of on us to- wow.”
“What?”
“I just realized how bizarre this is. I really wasn’t even thinking this involved me, it was just, ‘Jimmy needs some way to get what he needs.’”
“What did you think I was going to do?”
“I’m … not sure. Anyway, look, it’ll either have to be before he goes to bed, or in another room until he’s a little more okay with everything.”
“And then what, we just go at it while he’s lying there?”
“Do you want me to make an effort?”
“Sorry, sorry. It’s just like this is all forced because he doesn’t want to.”
Edgar looked angry. It wasn’t an expression Jimmy saw on him often.
“Okay, this is how things are working: There are three of us. That’s you, me, Johnny. You’re okay with this, I’m okay with this, Johnny is okay with this. You needed to get comfortable, I needed to get comfortable, Johnny needs to get comfortable, are you following so far?”
“Whoa, hey…”
“I’m fine with all this, you’re fine with all this. Johnny is completely allowed to take time to be fine with this. You’re going to have to contain yourself until then, all right? When he’s comfortable, we can reserve nights with each other and put them on the damn calendar for all I care, but just hold the fuck on and stop assuming that you’re the only one whose life is different now.”
Jimmy nodded. Edgar had been so adamant that Jimmy stay in the house that Jimmy had assumed things would just start working as soon as everyone said they wanted to do it. Foolishly, three incompatible sex drives and one bed to contain them hadn’t factored into his equation.
---
Edgar had made attempts to make Jimmy comfortable with the new arrangement, and truthfully, they’d done well. Jimmy felt half-acclimated to his new surroundings and had hope that when Edgar stopped feeling the need to initiate Jimmy into the world of his house and his lack of tattoos, that Johnny would do something similar, but it took two weeks after Edgar had stopped before Johnny even approached the same topic. Perhaps it was because it was the first time since Jimmy had been moved in that Edgar was out of the house, but Johnny slipped into the room with no sound at all. When Johnny spoke, Jimmy thought all the muscles in his body clenched, taking brain function with them for a minute. He had to ask Johnny to repeat himself when he could move his arms again.
“Wh-what?”
“I was thinking about this.”
Jimmy did not have to ask what ‘this’ was.
“Gonna get rid of me while he’s not here? Nice, Nny.”
“Why am I getting rid of you?”
“You don’t want me sleeping in your bed. Or with Edgar?”
“That’s not it. He asked to see your scars, didn’t he?”
Unimpressed that Johnny had borrowed Edgar’s technique, but still hopeful something would come of it, Jimmy nodded. “Yeah. And he showed me the door handle one.”
“Heh. I’ve asked him to recreate that scene a few times, but he always avoids the topic.” Johnny smirked. “He thinks I haven’t noticed the way he dodges it.”
“He knows you pretty well, though.”
“He’s got an advantage over most people, yes.”
“Nny, I’m not an-”
“Show me the worst one.”
“What?”
“Show me the worst scar.”
“Uh, what, like the biggest, or the one that hurt worst or…”
“I don’t care.”
Jimmy considered for a moment before he shared the jagged shiny scar on his ribcage. It had been the one that made Edgar wince the most when he saw it, and if Jimmy’s memory could be trusted, had hurt the most when Devi tried to sew it up with Tenna’s thread from her sewing class.
“I remember that one,” Johnny said, running two fingers over the scar’s length.
“I don’t think it even needed stitches.”
“No, it didn’t.”
“I want to see yours.”
Instead of mocking Jimmy, or teasing him with a fake strip show before telling him to fuck off, Johnny appeared to think about the request for a moment. He attempted to offer up his hands, covered in small scars.
“That doesn’t count,” Jimmy said. “Something I don’t see.”
“I’m not here to take my clothes off for you. I think you’re looking for Edgar.” Though as he said it, he pulled the cuff of a torn pant leg up and pointed to a scar that traveled from just under his knee cap to the side of his leg. It was only a few inches long, but was noticeably whiter than the rest of Johnny’s skin.
“What is that from?”
“I don’t remember.”
“What do you want?”
“What do you want?”
“You. Him. To stay here.”
“Why did you do that?” Johnny motioned to some of the darker bruises on Jimmy that hadn’t healed.
“Because they were after you.”
“I want,” Johnny said slowly, “more than anything, to tell you that was stupid. But I can’t.”
Jimmy eyed Johnny carefully, trying to be sure he was really speaking to Johnny and not some changeling. Johnny laughed at him.
“Fuck off, Jimmy. “ He was smiling, broadly, and partly laughing. He looked happier at that moment than Jimmy had seen him in weeks. In half a wave of his arm, Johnny managed the elegance that had captured both Jimmy and Edgar’s attentions in the first place. He reached forward in a choreographed gesture and pulled the edge of Jimmy’s shirt back down from where it had rumpled after showing off his scar.
“And keep your clothes on.”
Johnny’s eyes and his smile said something entirely different than his words.
--
It seemed strange to Jimmy that Johnny would allow the relationship he had with Edgar to be invaded when he had previously been intensely possessive (even if he never admitted to being so). Nights Jimmy spent alone with Edgar were always accompanied by a worry that he was doing something he wasn’t supposed to.
---
“I waited all that time for you to like me at all, and now you’re just gonna-”
“Maybe if you stop freaking out.”
“I don’t know. I don’t think I’m ready for it. I spent all this time thinking I was ready to have you the moment I saw you and now I-”
“It’s cute that you think you know what I’m doing.”
“God, Nny, no, you can’t mess with me like that again.”
“I’m not.”
Johnny’s hands on Jimmy’s skin felt frigid and like they were on fire at the same time. At first, Jimmy wasn’t sure was he was doing, but soon realized that Johnny was tracing every scar on Jimmy’s body. Johnny was not looking for them; he knew where they were.
“What are you doing?”
Johnny didn’t answer, and Jimmy thought his brain might be boiling in his skull. Johnny was allowing himself to be touched, though only in certain places or ways, and he was voluntarily touching Jimmy not with a sharp object, but with his bare hands. He knew the locations of scars that Jimmy had nearly forgotten about, and some that he hadn’t even shared with Edgar.
“How do you know all these?” Jimmy asked, trying to hold onto Johnny’s elbow in an effort to prolong the touch.
“I did them all, didn’t I?”
“Most of them, I think, but – ah- I didn’t even remember some of those. Seriously, what are you doing?”
“You don’t remember this one?” Johnny asked, dragging a finger nail over a raised white line on Jimmy’s forearm.
“Not really.”
“You scar easily.”
“I also used to get beat up every day.”
Johnny ran out of scars and settled his weight on Jimmy’s thighs. Jimmy flinched with the weight on his old bruises, but didn’t want to encourage Johnny to leave.
“How long are you going to tease me?” Jimmy asked, propping himself up with his elbows behind him.
“As long as I want.”
“Or until Edgar tells you to stop?”
“Maybe,” Johnny said, sliding off of Jimmy’s leg, “until you beg me.”
“Whoa, what?”
Johnny disappeared into the other room and left Jimmy plastered to the couch in confusion, his eyes wide. Moments later, Edgar rounded the corner twirling a pen in his fingers.
“Hey, do we have any- are you okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m good,” Jimmy managed with a nod.
Edgar looked at him for a few seconds, unconvinced. He tucked the pen behind his ear, and fished a blank piece of paper out of the pile of paper in front of the fireplace.
“Be careful,” he said, grabbing the pen to jot something down. “That’s how he got me the first time.”
--
“I want a night with you.”
“A what now?
“You told me to ask, so I’m asking. I don’t really care how you organize it, but I want an actual night with you. Not a ‘Make me comfortable’ one, but an ‘I’m comfortable and I belong here’ one.”
There was some surprise in Edgar’s expression, but he was good at hiding it.
“And when do you need this?”
“As soon as you’re up for it.”
Edgar laughed. “Really? You just want me to find you at some point and say, ‘Take me now!’?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I think that’d be great.”
“Don’t wait up for me.”
“Oh, come on. I didn’t mean literally.”
“We’ll see.”
Jimmy had hoped the direct approach would have a more immediate effect, but he slept alone for the majority of night because Johnny had fallen asleep on Edgar while they watched a show that Jimmy hated. Edgar wandered in later and apologized when Jimmy looked hopeful, but reported that he truly did just want to sleep. He stayed awake long enough to talk to Jimmy about a few small things and then remind him that he didn’t have to sleep with acres between them. Jimmy fell asleep back to back with Edgar and his strange shoulder blades.
The morning revealed that Johnny had joined them some time during the night. Johnny had done little more than tease him so far, but Jimmy still felt pleased to see him lying there. One day, asking for a night with Johnny would be as plausible as asking for one with Edgar.
…
Hours later, Edgar wandered into the room Jimmy had been keeping himself and his things in while everyone got situated. Jimmy tried to suppress the hope that this was the night he was vaguely promised, and gave Edgar a generic hello.
“You keep hiding out in here,” Edgar said.
Jimmy shrugged. “I like having space. What’s going on?”
“Nothing. Johnny’s sleep schedule has caught up with him, so he’s passed out in the other room.”
“Oh.”
“Thanks,” Edgar said suddenly.
“For what?”
“For not asking me over and over. Don’t get the impression that something’s going to happen every time I come in here, but if you’re still after a night with me, I think I can offer.”
“You only think?”
“I could be wrong, you could be over it.”
There was a sarcastic comeback in there somewhere, Jimmy just needed to find it.
…
Being with Edgar was different than being with Johnny. Johnny had a way of twisting the experience around so much that by the end of whatever they’d done, Jimmy was not sure what had happened.
“I just feel like I shouldn’t be unsure if I had sex or not,” Jimmy had told Edgar once.
“He’s sort of like that. And as soon as you’re used to it, he’ll change it.”
“It’s kind of maddening. Hot, but maddening.”
Edgar, though, was not using any kind of tactic to hide or control, he just was. When Jimmy said ‘This is what I want,’ Edgar either said, ‘Okay, I can do that,’ or ‘No, I won’t,’ and that was it. It was to the point, and there was no dodging around it. Conveniently, being with Edgar also gave Jimmy a picture of what Johnny was like when he wasn’t playing mind games. There were a lot of things Edgar had never done, which meant that Johnny either wasn’t interested in them or hadn’t thought of them. In a few cases, it had been that Edgar wasn’t interested, but most of Jimmy’s suggestions were met with at least a single trial. Edgar liked things less rough than Jimmy, and from what Jimmy later learned, Johnny preferred things even less rough than that.
Though they’d been involved before and had shared scars and other various oddities on their bodies, Jimmy learned something else about Johnny through a mark he hadn’t seen before on Edgar’s shoulder.
“Hey, wait, wait, what’s this?”
“A freckle? I don’t know, what are you looking at?” Edgar sounded either dazed or out of breath.
“I don’t know, a scar or something? Looks like there’s a few…” Jimmy traced the length of two of the marks, which sparked some kind of recognition in Edgar immediately.
“Oh, oh that. That’s Johnny.” Edgar coughed once and brushed some hair away from his eye. “He scratches. I think he just likes drawing blood.”
“What the fuck, how did you put up with this for so long? He taunted you, made you go after him, feels like sleeping with you once every couple months and tries to tear your shoulder off when you do get some action? What the fuck?”
Edgar shrugged. “Maybe you’ll be surprised if you’re ever on the receiving end.”
“Edgar, I’ve been getting injured by Johnny longer than you’ve known him. I don’t think-”
“I didn’t think I’d be into it either. I don’t have the nails for it, or I’d show you.”
“You’d sit here and fake enough passion to cut me, if only you had the nails?”
“Maybe I wouldn’t fake. I think that’s up to you.”
(God, what the hell. All of Edgar’s relationships are like, “Yeah, this is my best friend. We fuck on alternating Thursdays.”)
---
*insert long stretch of time here*
“What is this about?”
“What?”
“Why am I still the off-camera guy?”
“We can’t just spring it on people.”
“Johnny did that with you, what’s the difference?”
“People still think I’m a publicity stunt. Can you imagine what it’ll look like when he says, ‘Oh yeah, and Jimmy!’ to everyone?”
“I’d rather be a publicity stunt than not there at all. I don’t actually like having to stay back while people want pictures of the freak couple.”
“We can always tell people, but as soon as we do, we can’t take it back.”
“I won’t want to take it back! What’s the problem?!”
“I’m not opposed to mentioning anything either, not really. I don’t like the idea of you being seen as a stunt, though. Still, Johnny wants to do something with it.”
“He won’t tell me what it is either.”
“I didn’t think he would. You’ll have to talk to him about it, okay?”
“Why can’t we just do it?”
“Because there’s three of us. We have to wait for all of us to be ready to do something, you know that.”
“It’s always Johnny that decides when things will happen.”
“You should have thought of that before you decided you couldn’t live without him.”
Jimmy let out a frustrated sigh.
“Okay,” Edgar said, “how about this? Everyone knows you like Johnny, don’t they?”
“I think so.”
“So, what harm is there in getting friendlier with him in front of audiences? It’s not both of us, but it’s something.”
…
“You always cave to whatever he wants. What’s that about?”
Edgar shrugged. “It’s what he needs.”
“You do everything he asks, but I get questioned. Why am I still low man on the totem pole?”
“You’re not. You just cope the easiest. Johnny doesn’t like change.”
“And you do almost anything I ask, too. What’s with that?”
“It’s just like what I said about Johnny. It’s what you need.”
“I don’t need you to do everything I want.”
“No, but if it coincides with something I want too, what’s the harm?”
“You’re just resigned to it?”
“It’s what he needs.”
“And what do you need?”
“I have what I need.”
“No, really. What did you want from Johnny when you went after him?”
“To make him happy.”
“Arrgh, not that again. Really? That’s it?”
“That’s it. And I’m perfectly content to do the same with you.”
“So you listen to all his crazy and sleep with me because it makes us happy?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“What about you?”
“I’m perfectly happy like this.”
“Okay, let me try it this way. What did you think Johnny would do – what did you hope he would be like, before you lived with him?”
Edgar looked slightly lost, and tried to recall something he’d evidently forgotten about long ago.
“Have you ever heard a voice on the radio,” Edgar began, “and had an image in your head of how that person looked?”
“Edgar, don’t stall.”
“No, I’m explaining. Then you see that person, and you say, ‘They don’t look anything like I imagined,’ and then someone else asks you what you thought they’d look like. And then, you say, ‘I don’t know, just not like that.”? It’s like that. I didn’t expect him to be like he is, I didn’t hope for him to be like he is, but I can’t say what I really hoped for.”
“And you’re happy with what you got?”
“Of course. You are, aren’t you? And he abused you.”
“I just feel like you should have been able to get out of it. You have two people with you, one of them should give you what you really wanted from the start.”
Edgar smiled. “Tess used to say nearly the same thing. Everyone seems to be so eager to save me from a place where I am genuinely happy that I worry that no one will come after me when I’m suffering somewhere.”
“You just seem scarily happy. It’s sort of ‘Johnny abuses me, but I don’t tell him because he’ll throw me down the stairs’ kind of happy.”
“You of all people should know that doesn’t happen.”
“I want to make you happy, okay? You came to me once when you thought you’d have to run from him. What were you looking for?”
“I… don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
“I guess… I just wanted someone who would talk. I wanted to only have to listen to the words that were said instead of what they were code for. Something straightforward.”
“There, that! That’s what you wanted.”
“That doesn’t mean I can’t be happy with what I have.”
“But you can have both. This is pretty straightforward, right?”
“This doesn’t really solve anything, you know.”
“What? Why not?”
“I already told you – what you need coincides with what I want. “
“I-”
“Don’t worry about it.”
---
It turned out Jimmy had a different idea of decorating than Johnny and Edgar.
Originally, the house had had standard, bland but tasteful decorations, and Edgar was fine with them. As soon as Johnny moved in, however, he replaced all the calm scenes of lakes and beaches with pictures of scary children, monsters and random chunks of machinery. Edgar had acclimated to Johnny’s tastes and even started adding his own oddities to the walls. So when Jimmy wanted to add posters of guitars and naked women, he was met with some opposition.
Edgar tried the compromise approach, which was met with challenging hostility.
“You guys can have your stuff all over the house, why does mine have to be just in one room?”
“Because we outnumber you,” Johnny countered.
“That’s not fair! It’s supposed to be a relationship, not a democracy.”
Jimmy put the posters up anyway. Edgar hated them, but tried to ignore them. Johnny hated them and made mention of it with every other word.
One afternoon, Edgar left to borrow something of Devi’s. When he returned, the house felt oddly quiet. As he made his way around the house, the posters pulled at the corners of his eyes, begging him to look. When he finally did, he wished he hadn’t.
A blonde woman with a breasts each larger than her head posed at him from the wall above the stairs. She now had a speech bubble scrawled across most her head that read: “I am so hot for Edgar.” Mortified and disturbed, Edgar took the poster down. Unfortunately, one poster was not the end of it. Every poster in the house had been altered to beckon at Edgar, including the ones that Jimmy had actually put up in the room he’d been told to use. ‘We want you, Edgar!’ ‘God, Edgar is so much sexier than Jimmy!’ and ‘If only we didn’t belong to Jimmy! Do you think Edgar has time for us?’ greeted him at every turn.
When Edgar opened the door to the bedroom, he found Johnny lounging against some pillows and looking very satisfied with himself.
“What the fuck is this?” Edgar asked, holding up his collection of vandalized posters.
“Just thought I’d ruin the view for Jimmy, too.”
Jimmy was furious, but never again put a poster where he wasn’t absolutely sure it could go.
---
---
I don’t think he likes me. “
“Yes he does.”
“No, really. He won’t talk to me, he doesn’t go near me, he doesn’t want to do this stuff with me.”
“You’ll just have to wait for him. He‘ll come around.”
“Come around? You make it sound like he wasn’t interested in doing this from the start.”
He is, you just need to give it awhile.”
. . .
“Try to subtle about it. He doesn’t respond well to being blatantly propositioned.”
---
“You can’t be so rough about it.”
“Are you kidding? He fucking scratches you. He seems to really enjoy the violence thing.”
“Yeah, but he doesn’t like it turned back on him.”
“Do you say this from experience?”
“It’s more inference, really.” Edgar shrugged. “You could try, but I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t be amused.”
“But you haven’t tried?”
“No. Seriously, you know him better than this. He likes to be in control of things, likes to hurt people, but gets sort of whiny when he gets hurt himself.”
“So now I have to be gentle with him, the guy who used to beat me up all the time, and I can be as rough as I want with you, the guy who shyly geeked his way into the group?”
“I guess.”
“What the fuck. I was all ready to actually enjoy this.”
“You will. I can’t believe I’m saying that, but you will.”
…
Subtle did seem to work. Jimmy managed to earn some of Johnny’s trust by trying to sneak around saying what he really wanted. It took weeks to get Johnny comfortable with falling asleep on Jimmy like he so often did with Edgar.
While waiting for Johnny to decide that Jimmy was worth spending the night with, Jimmy had Edgar, who was almost always willing to give Jimmy what he asked for.
…
“What are you going to do when he decides you’re okay?” Stretched out over pillows and sheets.
“What do you mean?”
“The longer you’ve been here, the rougher you’ve been.”
“Sorry, you should have said something.”
“No, no. I don’t mind, but Johnny will. If you’re planning on actually getting somewhere with him, you might want to hold back a little.”
“I’m fine. You don’t do the same things with me as you do with him. Why should I be different?”
“Just checking.”
--
“I have a problem.”
“Jimmy, you can’t do this every night, it’s just-”
“No, it isn’t that.”
“Oh, then what’s wrong now?”
“I think my feelings have changed.”
“Oh. Well…”
“No, not like that. I don’t want to leave. It’s kind of the opposite problem, really. I think I love you. A lot more than I do him.”
“I see. You know, I don’t think this is really a crisis or anything. It’s sort of bound to fluctuate by the day, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, but this is more than just, ‘I like Edgar because it’s Tuesday.’ This is consistent.”
“What do you want me to do about it, exactly?”
“You like him more, don’t you?”
“I didn’t say that!”
“But it’s true! I’ve been number two since this all started!”
“There’s no reason at all to be having this conversation. If you’re done freaking out, I’m going to bed. You’re welcome to join me.”
“Edgar, I’ve stopped being jealous of you for having him, and I’ve started being jealous of him for having you.”
“It’s going to happen. It’s not really supposed to be easy to share your partner with someone else. You’ll have to try to work at it a little.”
“But…I’m supposed to adore him. I mean, I lived for how long just thinking entirely of him? I didn’t sleep with you again after he found out because I was trying to do the right thing for him, and… fuck. Now I’d have done it in seconds. Being with you, I had someone who wasn’t trying to torture me and I didn’t realize…”
“I’m sorry? I still can’t do anything. Are you saying you want out, or you just want me, or what?”
“I don’t know. I still want to be with both of you, but I don’t know if I want to be with Johnny because I actually give a shit, or because he’s been all I wanted for so long that I feel like I’d be made fun of if I stopped going after him.”
“Why would you get made fun of?”
“Seriously? ‘Oh, Jimmy, you chased after this guy for ten years and now you’re just over him? Good job!’”
“I really don’t see a problem with that. I mean, objectively.”
“It was practically my personality for years! What do I do if it’s gone?”
“Just be Jimmy? If you’re planning on staying with both us, I don’t see a problem.”
“I…”
“But, just so this is out there, don’t think that you can just ignore him and have only me and still think you’ll be part of this. At the same time, you shouldn’t be forcing yourself to be with one person you don’t want. So you’re either all in this, or you’re not at all, okay?”
“Yeah. Sorry I brought it up.”
“I’m sorry, Jimmy. I can’t just leave him and run off with you or anything.”
“No, I know. It’s fine.”