#idling

“Khonshu said—”

“Listening to a word from him is the first place you went wrong tonight. Better questions. Con prisa.”

“You’ve been working for Khonshu even after Marc and Steven bargained for their freedom. Why?” 

“I like the work,” he says. “And it keeps us safe.” 

“They don’t want you to kill anyone.” Jake rolls his eyes and says nothing. You press him: “I’m serious. Steven wanted to turn himself in. Have you ever spent time in a psychiatric ward? Or prison?” 

The look Jake casts at you could freeze the boiling water in a kettle. You can’t help but blanch, stomach dropping somewhere between your feet, heart pounding with an instinctive fear. How can he look at you with such obvious hate when his hands are so fucking gentle?

“That is never going to happen,” he grits out.

You gather whatever guts you have left that haven’t twisted into knots and say, voice trembling more than you would like: “Then no more killing.”

“You don’t control me,” he snaps, placing the last steri-strip in place. He crumples the packaging with obvious violence, like he would much rather be crushing your throat. “You might have Marc and Steven by the balls, but not me. Never me.”

A scream of pure frustration and fury bubbles in the back of your throat. It takes all of your mindfulness to swallow it down. This conversation is getting you nowhere—it is getting Steven and Marc nowhere. You need to try a different strategy. Pulling your arm back, your eyes scan the neat little wounds which will likely scar. 

“Thank you,” you say a little stiffly, trying hard to infuse the gratitude in your voice that you are sure you feel for the man—deep, deep down. 

Jake snorts. He is placing unused supplies gently back into the box, latex gloves snapping as he removes them and leaves them in a bloody pile on the tabletop. Your window of opportunity is closing before your very eyes. Though he hasn’t said as much, you know that Jake doesn’t want to spend a moment longer here with you than he has to, and once he has finished this job, he will disappear back into the headspace. 

“You care about them,” you say. His eyes flash upwards from his work, dark and mistrustful. He still says nothing, but you figure that perhaps that is as much encouragement as you could expect from him. “This is important to them. Steven’s heart, his conscience—it’s huge. And Marc already feels like he has too much blood on his hands. Do it for them. Please.” 

After a long stretch of silence during which you hold your breath, Jake mutters something beneath his breath. 

“What?” you ask softly. 

He turns in his chair, the legs screeching against the hardwood floor. He stares at you straight-on, and it’s almost too much. If you thought Marc’s gaze could pin you in place, then Jake’s has you feeling like a frog pinned to a lab tray, ready to be taken apart by a scalpel in his skillful hand. 

Looking you straight in the eye, he says: “I said, you are the dumbest bitch I have ever met.” 

You gape. “Excuse me?”

“‘Do it for them?’ Like everything I have ever done has not been for them? If I wanted a lecture on how to care for my brothers, I would ask for it from anyone in London but you. Because not a single person in this dismal fucking city has hurt them the way you did tonight. You know what I will do for them? I will spare you my hands around your neck. This. One. Time.

“You let them know that I said, you’re welcome.”

And with a strange shiver, face grimacing, Jake is gone. 

The body looks at you, and for a moment you don’t know who is fronting. The eyes are perhaps just as unfamiliar to you as Jake’s were, though there is no hate in them. He looks at the table, taking in the supplies. His eyes rake over your wrist, even when you clutch it against your chest as if you could hide it from him. As if you could take it back.