𝐅𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

i thought i told you to stay back.

i love you too much to let you get hurt like this.

this affects me, too, you know.

every time you leave, i sit up all night waiting, praying you'll come back alive.

you keep pulling stunts like this and something bad will happen.

do you have a death wish or something?

this isn't fair to me.

i deserve better than this.

i didn't get any sleep last night because i was so worried about you.

you promised me you'd stop going out at night.

i don't like hearing this.

you've been risking your life, and for what? so you can feel like a goddamn hero?

i said i would handle it.

what the fuck are you doing here?

you told me you'd stay put.

so much for laying low.

you remember how bad it was last time.

seems like you haven't learned anything.

i believe you promised me you'd lay low.

i can't keep doing this.

don't give me that look.

we'll discuss this later.

this stops now.

i'm tired of picking up the pieces once you've left.

you keep throwing yourself into danger.

you don't give a shit about yourself, do you?

i'm sitting here, worried out of my mind, while you're out doing god knows what.

that was really stupid of you, and you know it.

i thought you knew better than this.

what's your excuse this time?

you do realize what this does to me, right? seeing you get hurt like this? you know it hurts me, too?

you really don't give a shit how this affects me, huh.

that was the dumbest possible thing you could have done.

i need you to stop throwing yourself into harm's way.

that was completely unnecessary.

they had it handled.

you didn't need to step in like that.

why do you think you're invincible?

the last time you pulled a stunt like this, it nearly got you killed.

i can't just sit here and watch you get hurt.

what are you trying to prove?

you just like fucking with my heart, don't you.

this shit hurts me, too, you know.

you're not the only one affected by this shit.

you've got a lot of people counting on you to come home every night.

what happens if you don't come back?

you think we can just carry on without you?

you think i can handle things if you end up dead?

i'm not sticking around to watch you get hurt.

you're not even slick.

you think you're invincible, don't you.

quit pretending you've got everything under control.

let someone else do it for a change.

you can't keep putting yourself through shit like this and expect me to just sit back and watch.

i'm done with this.

next time you do this, i'm not coming back.

promise me this is the end.

look me in the eyes and tell me you'll stop doing this.

let the authorities deal with it.

you're making a big mistake.

is it worth dying for?

slides 20$ in monopoly money onto the dash

Fun fact but I feel like Jake is somewhat notoriously everyone's least favourite Animorph, perhaps only in front of Cassie. Which, first off, I will defend Cassie to my dying breath because she is my favourite, but back to Jake for a second:

The men who are young and restless do not wear shirts. I am young. And I am occasionally restless.

SOMETIMES,        jake  is  ….  strange.  stranger  than  the  things  they've  encountered  through  their  new-found  extracurricular.  is  it  because  he's  a  guy?  marco  is  this  tenfold,  her  eyebrow  reaching  her  hairline  every  time  he  speaks.  strike  her  dead  if  she  ever  says  aloud  that  he  has  good  ideas  —  that's  how  they'll  know  she's  out  of  commission  fully.  jake  is  smart,  sensible.  usually  doesn't  make  her  go  what  the  fuck?  but  every  dog  has  it's  day,  she  guesses. 

FAR TOO MANY OF THEIR BEST IDEAS WERE ADJACENT TO MOVIES AND TV FOR HIS COMFORT. things were all well-and-good when marco was making fun of rachel for being wonder woman, or rolling his eyes at him for " another michelangeo moment . " it seemed a different matter, entirely, to be doing what they were doing now. the truth was that jake really had no idea if this would work, and he had already thought of at least three ways it could go spectacularly wrong. he had no idea what he was doing ── much less what he was making everyone else do.

          " MARCO WOULDN'T BLAB, " Jake tilted his head; he raised his eyebrows; then he looked up to the ceiling, like he was half-considering the possibility after all. maybe he could hear it ── something like ' no really officer, my friends have all gone psycho! the blonde one thinks she's a superhero; her cousin thinks he's captain planet or something. you gotta help him, man. '

of course, jake still knew where marco's mom was, and sometimes he felt kind of guilty about that. like his best friend probably wouldn't even be here ── probably wouldn't been a lot safer ── if they had just been five minutes in either direction. if they had just never known.

arthur shuffles out of the room and finds a curb just outside the office doors. chill nips the pale expanse of skin revealed beneath an unbuttoned collar. he settles himself down on the ground as if the weight of the world causes his legs to buckle out from under him. there's a soft thump followed by the crinkle of plastics and papers. he places a cigarette languishingly between the lips and snaps his fingers—once, twice, three times—before a spark shoots between the nails and ignites the thin wrap around the drug. heat lingers, combatting the winter freeze with a strange electricity shot from heart to vein to hand. as the light eventually dies from the fingertips, there is a long drag of silence that filters between the pink of his lips and the flare of his nose, a familiar burn following—down the throat, fire, and over the tongue, sand.

stars call the dark wood of his eyes. somewhere up there, orion flitters between scattered cloud cover, coupled with taurus and gemini. the hunter, the seven sisters, and the twins. the smoke from his lips obscures them almost as much as the clouds do. he finds a deep sigh rummaging from the cavern of his chest. with it, does his eyes flutter closed.

if he could sleep, it would here, outside in the cold. concrete and dirt familiar, flame but a tongue away from touching the teeth. thoughts of ongoing case linger between the crease of his brow and the wrinkle of his nose, churning any chance of sleep like wood in a cutter, chips violently splattering over the ground. inescapable, the sickness that is stress, molded under the iron fist of duty and the familiarity of pain. the director's voice rattles the empty space of his head, disapproval between the lisped draw of spit. a religious hymn tucked somewhere between manilla folders and shaky recordings. then the sound of company arriving by the wayside.

he feels the heat before he bothers to open his eyes, a walking furnace of a person who sits nearby and radiates indoor insulation. how long was he out here alone for his skin to have gotten this cold, that mere presence could light it warm, paint color on desaturated skin and make the chill scamper into the dark sky ?? his cigarette is whittling down to a small white line between the huff and puff of his breath. goosebumps tickle the neck and chest as he reaches into his breast pocket and pulls another. brown eyes train on the motion of his own hands—though he stops himself when he realizes he didn't think to bring a normal lighter out here. hesitates, then tucks the thing back and away.

arthur extinguishes himself against the concrete instead. lays ridiculously with back against stone and eyes upward, browns and ambers illuminated by starlight and warm outdoor fixture overhead. crinkled white button up pulls just a bit out of his belted slacks and exposes the slivered chill of flesh by the navel. shaking fingers pluck the small bone from the lip as he blows out more smoke. it takes a long moment before his gaze lands on jake's face, the man watching him from where he sat. brunette hair curls over the forehead, messily spilling over with each twitch of the head.

“ only if you want what's left of mine. i—my light is empty. ” lie twinkles between the tempting change of colors in his gaze, the dip of beige that simmers just around the pupil to a trained eye. hard to catch in the darkness, furthermore when he blinks and looks away. arthur extends his hand, the chronic tremble shaking the little firefly between the middle and index fingers. gaze moves from the other's face to the sky once more. waiting for sound. an answer or action. and then, pointing with free hand to the great expanse of space, one bright star in particular.

DEAD GLIMPSES OF A STOLEN CHILDHOOD FLICKERED THROUGH HIS MIND AS ARTHUR'S CIGARETTE DIMMED. he could hear his father's muted disapproval, as well as the brisk voice of of that terrifying old skeleton on tv, laughing and fuming as it dragged a smoking child to their grave. at the time, that commercial had been one of the most terrifying things he'd ever seen. the sort of memory that hits you at that nebulous time between nightfall and morning and leaves you feeling small and thirteen again.

he wondered if tom had ever had any secrets like that. jake remembered his brother's old cds ( "open up and say … ahh!" and "appetite for destruction" were certainly two that they had had to hide when their mother came by ) and some odds and ends that he certainly wasn't supposed to have, like the vampirella comics that were always conveniently stashed beneath all his others. if there had been any more contraband that had fermented in the hushed whispers of boyhood, then neither of them had endured long enough to share it.

he wondered sometimes if tom would've grown to shoulder all the hopes he'd ever had for himself. in even darker moments, he wondered if he'd ever be able to piece together the adolescent dreams he'd had for himself.

arthur's fingers were cold when jake reached for his smoke. it spun up and away from them, chasing a galaxy of its own before dying on the wind.

          " YEAH ── DOG STAR. GUESS ITS ALREADY THE END OF WINTER, " jake smiled, and felt the bizarre passage of time turn with the earth for the first time since he'd gotten here. it really wasn't a bad rhythm at all, the city, the company, the nine-to-five of it all. he appreciated the structure, and was still getting used to the relative peace of CIRG.

          ...

sometimes, like now, he didn't even mind the quiet. it was all early mornings and arthur branham, late nights and arthur branham ── petty sure, if everything went well, it was going to be guns and arthur branham too. he looked over to him again as he pressed the other man's cigarette to his lips, wondering what it was about certain people that made it so impossible to imagine them in a state of violence.

he guessed it was his stillness. pretty ridiculous, jake thought, considering that's how most predators evolved to strike. he knew where he'd learned his too.