#janejake

The Alpha Kids Aren’t Alright

Jake knew exactly how long he and everyone else had been on the Lifeboat.

Three years, six months, 13 days, 7 hours, 40 minutes. But who was counting? Certainly not Jake. Certainly not the man who had spent the past three years, six months, 13 days, 7 hours, and forty… one minutes waiting for the inevitable blow waiting for him at the end of the journey. 

One has a lot of free time to watch movies in three years, six months, 13 days, 7 hours, and 41 minutes, and Jake had one hell of a backlog in the entirety of the surviving films of Planet Earth, and an infinitely long lifespan in which to watch them. Within the first year, Jake had finally gotten around to watching Akira Kurosawa’s body of work, a suggestion once given by Dirk without ever having actually seen any of these films himself. These days, Jake felt like Toshiro Mifune at the end of Throne of Blood, constantly bug-eyed, pelted with arrows, hiding around every corner. It’s not so much the fate at the end of the tunnel that haunts him as much as the fact that all he can do is wait. To hear that voice in his head again. For the other shoe to drop.

The ship had, unfortunately, had their Friday (as if the day of the week even mattered anymore) movie nights commandeered into Jake’s command. Everyone had stopped showing a while back. For the third week in a row, Jake came out of his and Jane’s room in his red boxer-briefs and sock-garters, sat down on the inflatable couch next to Jane, held her hand softly, and put on The Cat in the Hat. A dull smile crept across his face as they watched together.

“Janey, don’t you love Mike Myers? Isn’t he simply delightful?” he said, soft and hoarse.

“Uh.”

Jane didn’t quite know how to say she was more fond of the man in the Austin Powers films. Something about this film had made the scrawny, hairy man that reminded her so much of Jake when they were young look grotesque. The handheld dolly zooms onto a stiff face that filled the screen constantly, that wheeze of a laugh, the way everything was so clearly an artifice, from the whitened muzzle of his face to his visibly dirty, hairy feet with no pawpads, made him horrifying.

“Yeah, I uh… I think he’s great, dear.”

“This is my favorite movie of all time.” There was no joy in Jake’s voice. “I love how Kelly Preston clearly wants diddly squat to do with this movie. She had the right idea getting out fifteen minutes in. She was great in Battlefield Earth. I like when they make her blue. 'Cuz of the light.”

Another awful, wicked laugh emanates from the ship’s powerful speaker systems, and Jane recoils. Jake doesn’t even flinch as he peeps the horrors. “Jake… don’t you think we should maybe turn this down?” She squeezed his hand a little tighter than normal, putting a free hand on his bicep.

Jake put his clearly-exhausted face in his clearly-worn hands. “Sure.” His voice sounds so pathetic when it’s muffled. “Just turn it off.”

Jane breathes the biggest sigh of relief Jake has ever heard before he hears her scramble for the remote, before he changes his mind. They stood there, silent a moment. She wants to touch him, but she can't bring herself to reach out her hand. “Do you just want to lay down with me for a minute?” “Yeah.”

The pair laid there for a moment, in the cold dark of their bedroom, on opposite sides of the bed. Jake was silent, still, practically dead. The only hint he showed any signs of life was the shallow sound of his breathing.

“Jake.” Jane’s voice was soft, burdened with worry.

“Darling.” 

She tried to put a hand on his chest, but he caught her hand gently, placing it on her side of the bed. The motion stung. “I love you.”

“I know.” His voice somehow managed to sound even more hollow as he turned away from her.

Jane tries to search her mind for when things started to fall apart for them and comes up short. Three years. They’d been hurtling through space together for so long, knowing something difficult to swallow was waiting for them at the end of all this. She touched the side of his face, feeling the brush-bristle hairs of his beard, wild and light around the edges. “I miss you.” The words slide out before she can stop the thought from happening.

“I’m right here, Janey.” 

And then it all comes tumbling out of her. “No you’re not, Jake. You haven’t been you in years. You’ve been a shambolic corpse since we were months into this trip.” She grabbed his shoulder and forced him to turn over, staring him down. “What the hell is wrong with you? You’ve been avoiding contact with everybody else on this ship and they’re worried about you. I can’t keep telling Roxy that it’s just a blue period. He’s terrified you’re going to do something rash… It’s been two years of this, Jake. Two years of you only shuffling out of bed for routine food and drink and movies, movies you don’t even enjoy anymore.” Her throat burned. “What’re you so goddamn scared of?”

Jake’s voice finally rose above a whisper, impatient, coarse. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to know that at the end of this little fancy flight, we're going to do something to Dirk? To know there’s a greater-than-zero-percent chance I will have to look that chap in his eyes, after everything we’ve been through, and give him the what-for? The thought of being in the same room as the gentleman saps me!” Jake sits up and sits on the edge of their cold bed. “It’s just icing on the cake that after I work through all my bullshit with Dirk, suddenly we’re here. On a ship I gave to Kanaya and Roxy and Calliope to go handle this themselves. I don’t want to be here for the end. I can’t be here for the end.”

“Is that all?”

And that is, in fact, all. For now. I want to come back to this when I'm in a better headspace and give you the work you deserve, anon. We'll get 'em next time. Thanks for your patience and for your support.