WIN / DIE

   You get what everybody gets. You get a lifetime.

   daniel rolls his eyes, wondering how it's possible for someone to be so bothered by the idea of taking orders, any orders at all. if told to do something, jacob would do the opposite just for the sake of doing it--which is normally fine and something daniel finds attractive, except the latter has plans and can't go about them without jacob's agreeing. he thinks he'd probably have an easier time getting a cat into a bag, or his sisters to butt out of his business. instead, he grabs jacob by the arm, makes him sit down on the chair angrily. he's trying to lend an air of drama to this and it's not working out. though he's slowly learning that when jacob is involved, most things don't go according to his plans.  

        " no, it's not an arrest, i'm just-- " daniel's flustered, he realizes, though he can't imagine why. he's painted plenty of others before, and in far more compromising positions than jacob is in now: fully clothed, sitting and confused. he throws his hands up, turning around to stalk towards the covered painting. " just ... sit still for one minute. and close your eyes, would you? it wouldn't kill you, fuck's sake. you might actually be happy with it. " doubtful, but daniel can never quite get a handle on predicting what the other will do (which is also something he normally finds attractive, except for now, when he'd like to know the exact parameters and width of jacob's mood so he can prepare himself for it, like taking shelter from a nuclear bomb).

   suddenly nervous, daniel stares at the covered canvas, starting to doubt himself and wonder if he should burn the thing while he still has the chance to do so. then he shakes his head and commits, pulling the sheet off to reveal a rather accurate (and flattering, if he admits to himself) depiction of jacob: expression inscrutable, shoulders hunched, hair pushed back. daniel had spent more time than he cares to admit on the details--especially the scar, which had been tenderly brought to life from a series of memories, facebook stalking, and jacob's occasional modelling. it had seemed so important to get it right at the time, though now, twisting his bracelet around his wrist, daniel's not sure why that is. he clears his throat, then says with false bravado, " okay, open. and no smart remarks. "

daniel’s delicate hands push jacob with insistence. if he wanted to, he could hold both wrists in his hand, bend daniel out of shape in all the ways he likes. he could do the worst things too. if he had to. like he thought he might, weeks ago when he watched a sleek looking man stroll through a gallery in a designer suit. that had been a different time, when daniel was simply a curio, a question mark in the grand scheme of criminal figures he’s acquainted with. now, daniel is more relaxed, though his jeans are perfectly pressed and his cotton top falls just so, bearing up the skin taut across his delicate collar bones like sacrifices stretched over an altar. no suit, but still the same tension, still the same restless energy.

jacob complies, shutting his eyes. sun filters through the room, and he becomes aware of the soft slant against his skin. the dappled warmth coats  his hands, resting on his thighs. his shoulders are back, his head canted slightly to the side. black curls escape the low bun at the nape of his neck. his brow furrows, instinct pushing back against this weakness. he supposes he would probably hear daniel, if the other thought to pull a knife on him. there’s no way he could load a gun without jacob hearing that. his mind flits through these possibilities, while he sits still as a marble statue.

but then daniel tells him to open his eyes, and jacob does. the tension eases out from his shoulders as he returns to the room. the portrait in front of him looks... real. which is a dumb thought, but one that rises unbidden. his gaze darts away from the face, unable to take it in as a whole. it’s different to looking in the mirror, different to catching a glimpse of himself in windows. there’s photos of him floating around online but most of them have been scrubbed, part of the wall of privacy he’s built.

he takes it in piece by piece. the brow, heavy set and so like his father’s. but no frown, no deep lines or furrows that characterise his dark moods. daniel painted each curl, light that streams in from somewhere unseen catching individual strands and painting them copper, blue, emerald, like the tail of a magpie. his fingers touch the strands falling in front of his face, almost to test if this vision is accurate. the scar, of course, is hard to miss. silvery white, with pale pink and a blue at the edges. daniel’s captured the way it stands proud against his cheek. the eyes, though, they’re hardest to meet. dark like charcoal, like a burn, and almost feverish. jacob looks away, looks at daniel through his eyelashes. he wets his lips, unsure of what to say. he has to say something, anything. but he wants to get away from those eyes, all tar and black ice. he stands, steps out of the view of his doppelganger, and clears his throat.

pedyr sucks in a breath. the sun hits rothmunde's hair and the wind lifts it in a caress, and pedyr thinks how remarkably it looks like golden wheat. if only that were the reason for the catch in his chest. but for once, it is not the knight-champion that causes his reactions; it is his prince-captain. pedyr averts his gaze, looks anywhere but in her eyes. her eyes remind him of the open seas he has known so well, but he finds no comfort in the thought. he can still picture the dying spy's face, the look in jacob's eyes as he took the weapon. true, treachery is despised among their people, and the man deserved a traitor's death. but something in the set of jacob's brow, determined without an ounce of mercy, had chilled pedyr. in that moment, the prince-captain had looked more like his father than ever before.

"knight-champion," pedyr replies, delaying the moment as much as he can. "you must know how we deal with traitors?" bregomearckin honour is tough as iron, and once lost is lost for good. "a man without honour in brecomearc is a man awaiting death. to spy for the vertans - the prince-captain was within his rights to slaughter him however he saw fit." instead, jacob had trialled the man by combat. all the army knew there was no hope in it - jacob is a strong warrior, and the spy no more than a lad. a boy. there were floran pages older than the dead boy. pedyr supposed the tattoos and long hair had given rothmunde the impression that he was of age, a man grown. to his countrymen, he was barely a man.

and jacob had doomed him.

"i do not wish to speak too openly. it was significant indeed." pedyr measures his step to move forward and left, closer to the knight-champion. his voice drops, head bent as it so often is when he speaks to jacob. "by taking the lad's sword, jacob condemned his soul. he will never drink mead in the halls of his ancestors. he will never feast with our heroes. our gods will reject him, for dying without a weapon in hand." pedyr's voice gains an eerie seriousness, his faith shining in his eyes. "he is cursed. he will wander the world, without ancestors, without descendants. he will become nameless, all honour lost. there will be no songs, no glory. an eternity alone." pedyr stops, suppresses a shudder. to die in such a way is punishment for treachery - and then some. the lad's ancestors could have cast him out, if he had made it to their halls. or the gods may have intervened. instead, jacob condemned him.

     daniel watches jacob push his hair back from his face and wishes it was his own hand. he knows he’s being cruel for the sake of it. he knows there are better ways to handle this. if he were in a better state of mind, he might choose a different path, one where he wraps jacob up in his arms and blankets, looks after him, has him see daniel’s personal doctor because nothing else is good enough for jay, his jay. but his darling bastard needs to be punished: not just for running away, not just for leaving, but for thinking he can hide anything from the man in the high tower who sees all. maybe, once he’s satisfied jacob has suffered as dearly as daniel has suffered, he’ll ease up. but it’s a strong maybe.

when he listens to jacob’s rough gravel road voice go even rougher, he knows he’s fooling himself, hoping jay will say something that can actually convince daniel to soften up on him. true, the fact that jacob hadn’t even planned to see him again tugs something in his heart, makes the sore spot where jacob once was twinge in agony. he thinks about crossing the table between them, kneeling between jacob’s legs, holding his hands like some rom-com. i’ll always take care of you. you knew that, you should’ve come to me. then he swats it down like a pesky fly.

        “ of course you didn’t want me to know. you’ve kept a lot of things from me, i’ve found. is there anything else i should know about, mr. crane? ” his tone is clipped, like he’s speaking to a subordinate and not a man he’s had in his bed and who, if it were a perfect world, he’d put there again in a heartbeat. he uncrosses then re-crosses his legs, and it gives him away. if it weren’t for the nervous tics, he’d be the perfect image of disdain.

        “ you’re sorry. ” bland disbelief. he doesn’t add anything else, merely lets it sit in the air for a moment before he continues, rubbing the spot between his eyes in agitation. “ do you even … no. no you don’t. ” because how could jacob know about all the late nights on daniel’s end? all the insomniac evenings, wondering what jay was doing, if he was okay or, god forbid, if he was happy. he’d pictured him in venice, eating spaghetti and living out the godfather in the sunshine or whatever it is italians do. now that he knows the truth, it cores something in him. if daniel’s the apple, jacob is the worm, infesting him and eating him alive. funny, because it was meant to be the other way around. “ how could you? because … ” because you were meant to be the only person who knew me and now i feel like i’m looking at a stranger. “ well, you’ve seen me again. and it ought to be the last time you see me. ” even as he says it, it feels wrong, a thousand voices inside him screaming no! he presses on. “ i’m not angry at you for … ” he can’t say it, even if it’s embarrassing, the way he starts and stops like a car turning over. “ i’m not angry at you for your choices, however shit they are. i’m angry at you because … ” you left me, you didn’t come back, i waited for you even if you think i didn’t. he breaks off from staring at jacob to stare at his shoes, perfectly polished in comparison to the grimy room they’re in, unable to finish his thoughts without sounding like a bad movie. even as he tries to return to the cold demeanor, dan can’t look up, ashamed for some god fucking forsaken reason. why should he be ashamed? he’s not the one strung out and fried like an egg on concrete.

       “ you’re clearly prospering without me, so. shall i deport you and be done with it? ” 

jacob sniffs, desperately trying not to rub his nose with his arm in a gesture so feebly infantile. instead, he runs a broad hand across his face and discards the plstic cup on the table. for a minute he feels confused, the shiny shoes before him melting from black to brown, from oxfords to derbys. he’s seventeen again, the coke from his bag sat in front of him. edward glares at him, an iceberg of a man dictating from above. i thought you’d put my money to better use than simply directing it straight up your nose. jacob winces, blinks, and realises the memory is as distant as the house in london. it’s not edward hissing at him in disgust, it’s daniel, dan has reached the end of the road.

well, it’s not much of a surprise. jacob knew this day was coming, thought it had already happened back when he won the election. looks like he gets a second go round, as a special treat for being just that much of a fuck up. he groans into his cupped palm, wishing he could muzzle himself like a vicious, dying dog. his spine feels like it’s crumbling as he forces himself to sit back in his chair. “‘m - can’t tell you. here, i mean.” he stumbles, thinking of the young faces twisting in pain, the expressions going blank, the feel of body crushing beneath his fists. he doesn’t have names, only numbers, and he knows that even if dan lets him back onto american soil that he’ll leave a part of his soul in mexico. he did it himself, just like everything else.

bile rises in his throat, hot and bitter and he looks around desperately for somewhere to vomit. with no other option, he swallows it down, wincing and regretting that his eyes water. arms return to clutch his sides, crossed over like a shield against daniel’s frigid attitude. he wishes bijou hadn’t found him, wishes he’d overdosed in his flat, wishes some other guy had taken out a job on him. a nice new bullet between the eyes, get him out of this misery. shakes race through his body, and he tries to disguise them, hunching up like an old man. “you done?” he asks, voice cracking.

he can’t blame daniel if he is. he expects it. but this time he’s hearing it from that pretty, pouty mouth. “tell me you don’t give a fuck. about me.” he rasps out, eyes on daniel’s pale, folded hands. “last time was different. i need t’know.” because jacob isn’t out, even now while his brain screams for the dope and his body is breaking down and daniel is sneering at him. he can hear the air conditioning system click over and start whirring, and he pulls his leather jacket closer in anticipation. desperate, like a starving man, he runs his tongue over cracked lips. “i am sorry. wish you hadn’t seen... this. send me back then, the cartel’ll figure out what to do with me.” they’ll put him down, too unreliable on the brown and not worth the rehab. he doesn’t say that to dan, though. even though he can picture the long sleep that the drugs bring, he doesn’t want dan to know.

what’s in my muse’s bag?

left: elfriede, ashes to ashes right: jacob, national anthem, not pictured is the drug paraphernalia

      “ bijou told me you weren’t looking your best. so i knew i had to come and see you before tsa roughed you up too bad. ” when danny and his sisters were younger, they’d had a family cat run away, only to come back with his tail between his legs a few weeks later, much worse for wear. mom had helped them wash the little bastard, and he’d eventually moved on from whatever he’d seen out in the big world, but daniel had never forgotten the look on his face when he’d returned to the trewhella household.

           he supposes that this is a little like that. even for jacob, strung out is the only phrase that comes to mind, a far cry from the man who’d oozed easy living when they’d first met, who’d been confident enough to jump daniel’s bones an hour after meeting him. they’d done enough drugs and booze to kill a small child several times over, but this? dan feels the heady mix of concern and disgusted pity when he looks over the man he’d once loved–if he’d known that this sort of trouble was what jay was getting up to in mexico, he’d have intervened sooner. dan pictures hauling the man home by the scruff of his neck, bathing him just like that old cat, tucking him into bed (daniel’s bed, no doubt; scoot over, eliza).

then he remembers the reason he hadn’t known, why he hadn’t been in the loop: because jacob had lied to him. and for what reason? why bother lying when daniel couldn’t have chased after him, even if he’d wanted to? any sympathy he has drains out of his face like a stopper’s been pulled. he straightens up in the plastic chair they’ve given him, the clinical white walls of the airport where jacob had been detained closing in around them like a strangling noose. he’d flown out here to bring jay back with him to the white house, a lost toy reclaimed, but … with his new knowledge he considers leaving him here with the rest of the trash, a reminder of mistakes made. an abandoned toy, not wanted anymore. an unnecessary crutch. the vindication feels satisfying after the humiliation of knowing he’d been had by a man who, apparently, had far more guile than he’d ever let on. dan drums his fingers on the table between them, not letting up his icy stare on jacob, hoping to make him as uncomfortable as is physically possible. bastard, he hisses inside his mind, not wanting to give jacob the vindication of hearing dan’s rage out loud.

         “ she understated it. ” every word is cinched tight as a corset, as the set of daniel’s jaw. much as he’d like to hang jacob and throw him over the white house balcony for everyone to see, there’s the other thing, the thing he’s been gnawing on ever since jacob’s left: the loneliness. no one to make off color jokes with, to play a little bit too rough with. eliza’s, lovely and perfect as she is for the role he casted for her, is a poor substitute for the one sitting across from him. daniel had doubted he’d be able to find a replacement when jacob had gone, and that, unlike everything else, had been true.

            it doesn’t make him soft, not at all. but it eases the anger slightly, enough for him to ask, “ why didn’t you tell me? ”

jacob lifts a shaky hand to push greasy curls away from his forehead, sticky with sweat. daniel’s voice grates against his ears, in rhythm to the pounding against his skull. he feels a twinge of guilt for that - it’s not dan’s fault how he sounds. it’s jacob’s, because jacob is the genius who thought a little mexican black tar would ease his troubles. the guilt surges, twisting in his gut like a knife. or maybe that’s the withdrawal. the flickering fluorescent lights are doing little to help, and he tries to ignore the itch crawling over his skin like insects. he just knows that to scratch like that in front of daniel would doom him. more than he already is, by any shot.

his mouth twists at the thought. head hung in shame, there’s no way for anyone to read the expression smeared across his face like the hot tears of humiliation that threaten to spill out. what good is crying? he brought this on himself, all of it. sealed his fate when he bought that fucking plane ticket, made it worse with every job he took. his finger twitches on instinct, muscle memory betraying the ghosts at his back. maybe that, dan could forgive. what did dan care for anonymous dead mexicans? not one an american citizen, and therefore unimportant. half of them were already criminals. as much as jacob can call it a hazard of the career path, he knows that he could be just another nameless corpse in a ditch, abandoned to whatever scavengers find him. he feels like vultures are already pecking at him. he hacks up a horrible, phlegmy cough that echoes in the space between himself and the president of the united states of america.

“been worse,” jacob offers, thinking of the scar across his face for a start. of course, wounds and withdrawals are different things. one of them can be glamourised. the other is pitiable, sad, disgusting. his arms wrap around the wall of his own torso, still muscular and built for scrapping. the comfort that coated his bones when he worked for daniel is long gone, skin taught across lean muscles. he feels like a coiled spring, with none of the grace or form.  just unspent energy all focused on a single goal. previously, that goal had been getting his hands on daniel’s body. now, the idea of touching him makes jacob feel sick, sicker than he already is, entirely unrelated to the dopesickness wracking every inch.

like dragging weight from the floor, jacob forces himself to look at daniel. eyes like ice and an expression to match. he expected nothing less. maybe this time dan will cut the cord between them properly, and jacob knows exactly how he’ll respond. suddenly, the thought of being a nameless dead body in the wilderness is an appealing notion. “didn’t want you to know,” he leaves of the implied obviously from that statement. who’d love a junkie? he hid it well, but he still thinks in cycles of using, sleeping, waking, and scoring. the in-between tasks that separate each chemical sleep are unimportant and irrelevant. “thought i wouldn’t - see you again,” the phrases are splintered, his deep voice now caught by a tell-tale hoarseness. “an’ then... how could i?”

hi luv, yeah i’m good i’m just in the middle of injecting drugs into my arm and wanted to fall asleep to the sound of your voice. oh, what drugs? a nice little dose of heroin, babe, nothing to worry about! he can’t picture that flying. reaching for the water, he looks away from daniel and gulps it down. it’s cold in his stomach, chilling his battered veins. he feels like it might come back up, and prays that it doesn’t.