Work Text:
The first inkling that Jackie had had that something was wrong was when the bathroom scales made a gradual reappearance from their spot in the cupboard- every so often Jackie would enter the bathroom, towel in hand, and spot the scales, still showing wet footprints. That wasn’t worrying on its own – anyone could want to stay a healthy weight. Hell, Jackie had started dancing since the pandemic began. But her partner was healthy, she thought, and she grew accustomed to tidying up, slipping the scales back into their place at the back of the bathroom cupboard without talking about it to anyone.
It was a lockdown lasting for months on end – people’s fashion tastes were sure to change, right? Jackie had noticed her partner’s switch from wearing tank tops and button-ups to wearing hoodies and sweaters over the months stuck inside, but she didn’t dare bring it up. Not that she wasn’t okay with the change- it wasn’t her body; she didn’t have the right – but the growing lack of purple and other colours was concerning, to say the least. When she asked, she didn’t get a proper answer anyway.
“I’m good! Not much point getting dolled up when we can’t go outside,” Jan would reply, and dazzle Jackie with one of those perfect smiles as she tucked her hands further into her sleeves. So, Jackie would trust her, and leave the matter for another time.
Jackie didn’t notice how the skimpy dresses and jumpsuits that used to be an instrumental part of her partner’s drag wardrobe slowly disappeared or ‘got lost’, replaced with gowns and sweaters for the digital shows the two took part in. she didn’t notice when her partner would stay up half the night on her sewing machine, mending and taking in outfits that she had definitely tailored before.
Maybe she should have.
Maybe the quarantine would have ended on a better note.
Jan had started a new fitness regime – both of them had. Where Jackie had decided to take up dancing classes in the afternoons, her partner instead preferred to run. She would wake up ridiculously early, when Jackie was still fast asleep, and extract herself from the tangle of Jackie’s limbs to go for a run around Central Park. She would grab breakfast on the way, she said, and she was always in the shower or cooking Jackie breakfast when Jackie woke up at a far more reasonable hour. Occasionally, Jan would bring a pastry or donut back to their shared apartment to present to Jackie proudly, but had always already thrown away the receipt. Jackie had noticed this, but she put it down to not wanting to waste paper.
In August, Jan left for Los Angeles to film a certain TV show that Jackie, as another drag queen, probably wasn’t supposed to know about, but definitely did anyway. That month was hard, to say the least, and to Jackie, the small apartment in Hell's Kitchen suddenly seemed massive. The bed was too empty, each morning too silent, and Jackie missed her. She filmed a segment in case her partner was eliminated, hoping to whatever deity existed that it wouldn’t be used. At the start of October, she received a phone call and nearly cried. It was Jan, telling her that she would be back soon and not to worry. Like a whirlwind, Jackie cleaned up the past month’s depression-induced mess in order to appear as stable as Jan expected her to be.
At the airport, Jackie noticed immediately how much smaller and thinner her partner was than before. It was hard to miss, but she chalked it up to the stress of the competition. They had been on a season together; she knew the impact that the long working days could have. As they hugged there at the arrivals terminal, Jackie swore she could feel her partner’s spine and vowed to keep a closer eye on what she ate.
To Jackie’s surprise, Jan had started to eat a keto diet throughout her time on the show. She wouldn’t listen to Jackie when the older queen tried to convince her not to go on a diet and promised to run less in return.
Jackie wasn’t fooled. Although Jan was in bed with her when she woke up, the younger queen’s towel was damp, and the scales, now living permanently on the bathroom floor, were decorated with Jan’s wet footprints. Workout clothes lay tucked under the top layer of the washing basket.
Jan slept in a baggy hoodie that she’d owned for years, and wouldn’t cuddle Jackie at night, instead curling up into a ball and crying herself to sleep. Jackie noticed. Her love was fading away next to her but wouldn’t accept any help. She tried to speak up, she really did, but Jan would just shut down every time.
The fans noticed eventually; it was hard to miss. Comments flooded Jan’s social medias, but in exactly the wrong way.
@lozzaj.52: does anyone think jan’s lost some weight?? ugh stunning
@meowmeowhytes: ikr she looks like a dream in these gowns recently
@jaida_del_rio: we stan a fitness queen!!!
@thequeeniestqueen: um HOT
Jackie knew this was bad, she knew the effects this would have on her partner, but she didn’t know what to do. Jan would get texts from their fellow season 12 sisters complimenting her new style of drag, and the small smile each time she got a compliment was almost worth it.
It was a Thursday morning when Jackie got the call. She would never forget it, try as she might.
“Hello, is this Mr. Darius Rose? We have you listed as the next of kin for a Charles Mantione.”
With that one sentence, Jackie felt like the Earth had dropped out from beneath her.
“Y-yes, that’s m-me,” she stuttered, barely mentally present enough to register the few important details she was being told.
“…passed out…hit his head…intensive care at Lenox Hill…life support…will and testament.”
Although it felt like the darkness was closing in on her, Jackie knew she had to be there for her partner. She threw on her winter jacket and boots and left the apartment, cursing the freezing weather under her breath.
At the hospital, everything was too calm. Christmas decorations decked the hallways, and the nurses were too cheerful. The hospital was too empty.
When Jackie was directed to her partner’s room, she initially thought she had gone into the wrong one. But no – there was the name chart; there was the familiar pair of sneakers. The frail figure in the hospital was what was wrong. Ever so carefully, she inched closer to the bed, carefully stepping around the life support equipment. There, swallowed up by blankets and wearing an oxygen mask, was her Jan.
She broke down crying. Sitting down in the chair next to the bed, she took Jan’s hand and started to talk in the hopes that she could be heard.
“Oh my god, I should have noticed. I sh-should’ve been there for you from the start. You’re withering away baby, can't you see? I-I love you so m-much, you’re my reason for living, you really are. Jan, I-I-”
Jackie was interrupted, in the one way that devastated her the most. The long high-pitched beep of the heart monitor rang through the room, drawing nurses and doctors alike into the room. Jackie took one last look at the love of her life before she was swept away.
“Time of death: 6:38 am, Thursday the 26th of November 2020.”
Jackie felt alone, more than she ever had before.
It took three weeks for Jackie to finally accept what had happened and gain the courage to turn her phone back on. Missed calls and texts filled her screen, and with a heavy heart she set about explaining what had happened.
“He’s gone…”
“My partner died…”
“I needed time…”
The hardest crowd to tell was her sisters from season 12, and of course it was. Messages and calls flooded her phone, all asking why she and Jan had been inactive for so long, and if they were okay. Jackie typed out a short and honest message, sent it, and immediately muted the chat for the first time since the creation of the group chat over a year earlier. She also muted her individual chats with the girls - she wasn’t feeling up to any honest conversations so soon after her world had ended.
She also searched up Jan’s Instagram account, tears streaming down her face. Understandably, fans had flooded the comments sections of her most recent posts asking why she was inactive. It was hard for Jackie to read, but in the end, she drew herself away from the comments and marked Jan’s account to be memorialised. After a quick post on her own Instagram story - “Jan’s gone.” - she closed the app and deleted it, with no intention of getting it back. There was no point.
Jan was her world, and her world had crumbled.