#pm!jackie

Regardless, the end outcome is the same.

Marvin screams-- howls, more like, wild and furious, as the strings brand fresh marks atop old scars, and Jackie's teeth rattle in his fucking skull. Henrik shoves himself between Jackie and Marvin, immovable as a winter storm, glass clutched in his hand like a deadly prayer.

The door slams shut. All three of them freeze-- well, Jackie does, staff levelled against Henrik's chest, and so does Henrik, immovable in front of Marvin's shuddering form.

Chase's steps pound up the stairs. "Jacks? Is everything okay? I heard someone scream-"

"Chase, don't-"

"Chase, up here!"

Jackie levels a searing glare onto Henrik; Henrik tenses, and Chase slams the door open, eyes flickering wildly between the three of them. Between Marvin, curled over wrists burnt black, between Henrik and Jackie, at a stalemate.

He has his gun, drawn and to the ready, Jackie notes next, and oh, this is going to get messy.

Henrik sucks in a sharp breath, but doesn't move.

"Chase. Marvin's hurt. Jackie's not who he's been saying he is."

Jackie grimaces, and pivots, ever so slightly. Chase's face, he sees, is impassive, still, gun loose in his hand. "Look. Chaser, I can explain-"

"Shut up for a moment," Chase says, quietly. He brings the gun up; from this position, Jackie can't make out which of them he's angling it to. Judging by how Henrik carefully, carefully lowers his hands to a less threatening position- he can't, either. "Both of you."

"He's a liar," Marvin spits, from behind Henrik; his hair falls, tangled and wild, over his face, but Jackie can make out one burning eye, piercing and gold. "He's a fucking liar, and-"

"I said," Chase hisses, "shut up for a second."

He takes a step closer; the gun remains rock steady. Jackie's barely breathing, feeling for the strings. He can bring them to heel, quickly, but he needs to focus-

"Hen. You first. What happened?"

Henrik draws in a slow, ragged breath. Jackie feels him press against the end of the metal staff. "Marvin tried to cut us free of Jackson's strings. Jackson disagreed, violently."

Jackie huffs a soft laugh, a bitter smirk curling the edge of his lips. Chase doesn't look at him, but he can see the way Chase angles himself in Jackie's direction.

"Jacks. Your turn."

"Marv tried to sling a lightning bolt in my face," he hums, and shrugs, holding the staff still. "He thought he'd get rid of the strings if he got rid of me. I protected myself."

Henrik's eyes narrow, and Jackie only smiles back, mirthlessly. "I tried to protect you two. I really did. But you really try to make my job as difficult as possible."

Neither of them speak for a heartbeat; somewhere along the line, Chase has stepped up. He's side by side, now, with Jackie, and- oh.

Oh.

His gun is trained on Henrik, eyes flinty.

Jackie bites down on the smile, bright and fierce. His sunshine, his guiding star. People always did forget how easily the sun burned.

He lowers his staff before the two of them, and Chase stands, steady and unyielding. Henrik sucks in a sharp breath.

"Chase. Put the gun down. You're not-"

"I'm thinking just fine, if that's your concern," Chase cuts in, cold and smooth. "Put the glass down, Hen. Keep your hands where I can see them."

Henrik stares at him. Doesn't move. Marvin's gone dead silent, not even trembling. "Chase?"

Henrik's voice comes out as a rasp. Chase hums, and clicks the safety off; in the silence, it's louder than a gunshot would've been.

"Glass down, Hen. I don't want to see any of you hurt."

"You're defending him," Henrik says, slowly, and Marvin barks out a laugh, bitter and poisonous.

"Of course he does. It wasn't ever about any of us, and Chaser knows it. But it makes a pretty fucking lie, don't it? The golden hero, protecting his lover, protecting us."

"He did a pretty good job of it, actually," Chase snips back, and takes another step forward. The barrel of the gun is inches away from Henrik's chest, now. None of them have any questions about who can get off a shot first, if it comes to a fight. "Haven't seen hide nor hair of Anti for weeks, have you? He didn't ask shit of you, just asked for you to let him fight for you. Added a little extra assurance. But you like messy, Marv, don't you? You like needing the reason to fight, and Hen likes being needed after them."

His chest heaves in near perfect sync with his own, Jackie notes idly. One half of his heartbeat. The thing about a hearth, Jackie thinks, is that it knows the people who choose to partake in its warmth. It remembers the way they shiver at thunder, or the way that a fight leaves them wild-eyed with lightning in their blood.

Quietly, he taps one end of his staff against the scorched floor.

"I think you should drop it, Hen. You should take Marv, and go."

Henrik ignores him, still fixated on Chase. Jackie watches, fascinated, as the curve to his shoulders sags.

"You knew."

It isn't a question. Chase shakes his head.

"I suspected. This room gets pretty loud for a weapons room. Patrol doesn't burn Jacks that badly."

Jackie winces, and Chase shoots him a sharp smile. "Oh, yes, Jacks. We're going to have a nice, long talk after this."

"After," he agrees, and- oh, he knows there's an edge of- vindication to his voice, because caught out or not, Chase still chose him. Chase is still his.

(He's still Chase's.)

A knot unwinds in his chest, and he gentles his expression, lowers his staff. Henrik is shaking his head, again.

"Why?"

I thought you loved us, too. Jackie is well practiced at not wincing, at tamping down the bubbles of fondness in his throat.

Chase shrugs, takes another step forward.

"He's still mine. He is keeping us safe. And right now?"

The warm barrel of the gun rests against Henrik's chest, Chase's eyes no less steely than it.

"You're the biggest danger in this room. Last warning. Get out."

Henrik inhales, and then steps back, slowly, dropping the glass to the floor. Jackie has that- odd feeling in his gut, again, of taking a curve too quickly, too recklessly.

He bites down on it, hard, and waits, shoulder to shoulder with Chase. Things are working out fine. They'll be fine.

(Chase, at his side. Chase, not leaving. Chase, staying.)

Jackie doesn't have to announce himself. Jameson's already sipping at a cup of coffee, by the smells of it, sitting on the couch farthest from the window in the living room. It's an old thing, the couch is, and it's suffered its fair share of accidents, from spilled take-out to accidental burns to actual stabbings.

Despite this, it's one of the most comfortable couches that Jackie remembers sitting on. He's actually slept on the damn thing- it's a good memory, that night, curled up next to Chase with Marvin draped over him like a great cat and Jameson tucked under his other arm.

He doesn't sit next to Jameson, now. He takes the loveseat nearby, picking up the cup of coffee that Jameson had left for him.

He hadn't told Jameson he was coming. The back of his neck prickles.

(Distantly, he wonders if Jameson would poison it. He knows he could; he knows that Jameson has a cutthroat edge, a desperation to live in the way very few of them do.

He wonders if he would, though.)

"You look good, James," he says finally. It's true; he doesn't see the dark circles under Jameson's eyes, anymore, borne of sleepless nights waiting for his shadow to smile and pull a knife.

Jameson only smiles thinly, and puts down his own cup.

"You don't," he signs back. There's no cheerful jaunt to his movements, not anymore. Only a clipped professionalism. A weary edge.

Jackie shrugs a shoulder, and idly tips the cup. Back, and forth. Back, and forth. A restless habit; and if he catches an oily sheen- or lack thereof- all the better.

"Settling in is always difficult. You know Anti; always determined to cause trouble. Marvin's stubborn as a mule."

"You don't have to justify yourself to me." These signs are... smaller. Quiet, almost, for Jameson. Jackie grimaces, and doesn't chance a sip of coffee.

"I'm not, James. How many times do I have to tell you?"

"As many as it'll take to convince yourself, apparently." Jackie twitches, squeezes his knee with a hand. Jameson's eyes are steady on his, bright, icy green prying apart the fraying seams.

"It's for your own safety. You know this. Do you want to keep prying Anti out of your head?"

Jameson pauses. Considers this in the time it takes him to sip at his coffee again and set it back down.

"Used to be that I would've paid any price in blood to get him out," he signs, after some thought.

Jackie watches him, still and tense. There's a but, here. He knows Jameson as well as he knows the back of his own hand, can feel the way that Jameson is letting the strings thrum, taut and angry.

"But not if I knew it would send you down his path," he finishes, finally, and Jackie bares his teeth in a smile that's just a hair short of a snarl. Fury bubbles in his chest; starts to leech into the strings he's tangled so tightly around himself, and if he's not careful, something is going to catch--

"You think I'm going to be another Anti."

Jameson holds his eyes, still, and he hates it, hates that he feels the need to shy away and paradoxically stare until Jameson's gaze breaks. Jameson, his clever Jameson, always turning the tables at the worst possible moment, always a step ahead when they hadn't even realized he was in the game. His expression hasn't changed once. He loves it. He hates it.

"I saw Marvin's arms," Jameson signs, slowly, deliberately. The skin around his wrists is reddening, reddening. "Henrik cannot look at fire, now. The stove makes him flinch. You lie to Chase as easy as you breathe-"

"But he's safe," Jackie snarls back, and then reels in the heat in the same breath. He will not prove Jameson's point. "He's safe, Jameson, and I would do that and worse to keep it that way."

Jameson's hands still. Jackie has the distinct feeling he's just stepped off the edge of a cliff he didn't know was there, but it's true, it's true, his sun-bright North star--

He'd kill for them. He'd kill them for Chase.

"I see," Jameson signs at last. I see where we stand, what we mean, he doesn't say.

Jackie shakes his head, furiously, and shoves his hair out of his face in the same motion that he stands.

"I'll come check on you later," he says, practically spitting each word out.

His chest twists at that, a sharp little pang, and he instead shifts to tug his arms free from where they'd been wrapped around Henrik.

"Too late to be thinking," he signs, gently, and Henrik only hums, softly. In the dim glow of Marvin's witchlight- none of them much like the dark, anymore- he looks tired as he ever does. There's bags underneath his eyes that Jameson knows weren't always so dark, his eyes weren't always so dull.

Jameson has lived a long, long time. Longer than most of them suspect, though he knows Marvin studies him when he thinks he isn't watching, as if he can pick apart the magic that curls in his chest and hums in his blood with his eyes alone.

He has lived long enough to watch them think they've mastered the skies, the seas, in all of their infinite wit and hubris, to pierce the skies and then the universe beyond it. Has lived long enough to watch them devise new ways to tear each other apart, to kill and maim and suffer.

There are so, so many things to hate, now. How a child will starve in a well-lit street, how an aged man will watch the world decide that his life is not nearly so important as their next coffee date. He keeps each tally close to his heart, waiting- waiting, as he always does.

He has learnt to hate just as ardently the exhaustion that Henrik never seems to put down, that Marvin now finds his release in blood and frost, no use for any of the frivolity that he used to delight in showering them with.

Henrik tells him, quietly, there's nothing keeping you here, and Jameson wonders at how astute and how oblivious a man can be at his own importance as an anchor.

"You could do it," Henrik presses, quietly. "Turn back the clock on these strings; disappear into the city to live a life you should've had."

Jameson knows he could, too. It's child's play, to gently coax Marvin's body into overtime to heal those burns as if they were years old. Well, not child's play, but he'd do it again, and again, just as he'd freeze the night to grant them a few hours of respite.

Jackie's strings are tight, but Jameson is very, very good at disappearing when he doesn't want to be found. Even Anti never fully had his heart.

"Not without you," he decides, upon, finally. He's tired of having to leave behind the things- the people he loves. Henrik watches him; for all he snaps and grumbles his way through anything even remotely sentimental, he sees rather more than they ever give him credit for.

Henrik doesn't ask why he can't take them with. Jameson is rather selfishly glad he doesn't.

(He has lived for a very long time. It rankles, to admit that there are still things he can't peel back the layers from, that he hasn't learnt to help anyone but himself.)

Henrik tugs Jameson close. Jameson- Jameson is used to feeling very, very small. The sea is vast, and the stars are infinite in their grandeur. A human speck is hardly a blink for a mountain's single breath.

Henrik kisses him gently on the top of the head, and Jameson allows himself to feel just that bit grander, curling into Henrik's side.

"Rest," he signs, slowly, and Henrik hums again, resting his head atop Jameson's.

The night is quiet for a few hours longer.

His wrists ache in the cold as he pads out, bare feet quiet against the uncarpeted wood floors. Jackie's visits have been getting-- less frequent, perhaps, but remain memorable all the same.

Henrik isn't in the living room, nor in his study. Jameson pauses, tests the layer of memories that sits underneath the skin of every building, of everything that breathes and several more things that don't.

Nothing has been disturbed. It remains, rich as good soil, but not burnt.

Reassured, he continues into the kitchen, a layer of tension sluicing off as he sees the dim light pooling in the doorway.

Henrik's broad frame is silhouetted against the window. Steam faintly curls over his shoulder; tea, then. Jameson wonders if it's a ginger or if it's a chamomile night.

He can't hum, but he whistles under his breath, low and soothing. Henrik's shoulders draw up tightly, but he turns all the same. His hands are white-knuckled around the mug, angry red scrapes standing out against the bloodless skin. He'll need to rewrap those wounds.

"You should be in bed," Henrik says, voice low. His accent is thicker, now, Jameson notes. A chamomile night, then.

"You left," he signs back, keeping his movements slow and purposeful. He knows Henrik won't ever fear them, trusts them to not raise a hand against him as Anti has, as Jackie does, but Jameson likes keeping them feeling safe. It's a familiar song and dance. One of them slips away in the night; the others follow behind to keep them warm. One of them burns, the others burn with them, try to put them out. "Nightmares?"

Henrik's silence is telling enough. His eyes are sliding away like he wants to turn away, but doesn't.

Jameson whistles again, softer, more sympathetic, and pads closer. Henrik doesn't pull away; only nestles his head over the other's shoulder, something loosening in his back. A dance as worn as they are.

"Come to bed," Jameson signs, again, before wrapping an arm around the other. Come to bed, the day is almost here, and all of its monsters with it, he knows Henrik hears.

Henrik huffs out a soft breath, and brushes a kiss to his temple. Stubble scratches at Jameson's cheeks; he doesn't comment on it, pine and soap flooding his senses.

"In a bit," Henrik says, quietly. Jameson would hum if he could; only nods, instead. He knows Henrik likes the early morning as much as Marvin likes the late nights, the rare times where they can pretend that they aren't pretending that everything's just as it is, forcing themselves along the rusting tracks of normalcy with Jackie's presence burning into their backs.

The first hint that Jackie gets that something is wrong is the sudden squeal of strings in his ear. Behind his sternum, something pulls, and it takes all he has to not let it give.

The moment passes. He drags in a wheezing breath- fuck, thank whatever gods existed Chase wasn't here. Then he stands, eyes dark.

Which of his brothers was it?

Anti, Anti, always so quick to try to slip his leash. But his strings thrum, tight as ever. James' remain, quiet and watchful, while Henrik's quiver.

...He flexes a hand, idly, and lets his irritation scorch through the strings. That ought to keep Marvin busy until he can get there.

Then they can have a friendly little chat.

Chase might have questions. He might not, if he makes this chat quick.

Might have to keep Chase away from Marvin for a few days, though, he thinks, idly, following the throbbing trail of heat pain fury stop please make it stop-

Marvin's jewelry is good for covering plenty up, but if he's slipping his leash- well, it'd be just like the idiot to try to say something he regrets.

The strings are hissing now, in his ears. He's close, then. He steps up to the door. Lets himself in.

The hissing only grows louder; Marvin's always been too proud to scream, even as the strings burn a furious red against pale skin.

Not proud enough to stop the tears, though.

Jackie sighs, and reins in every drop of that irritation, lets Marvin sag to the floor and nearly weep with fury as the cool air pricks against the burns laced around his arms.

"I was hoping it wouldn't come to this, Marv," he says, softly, and loops an unforgiving arm around his shoulders to haul him upright. "You're the smartest one of us. Don't tell Hen I said that, though."

Marvin nearly hisses at him, twitches away; Jackie's grip doesn't loosen. His gentle smile stays. What did Marvin always say? Steel under the silk?

"Don't touch me."

Jackie raises an eyebrow, and wraps a hand around the arm closest to him, forcing it up to the light. They both stare at the weeping red lines.

He says, almost gently, "You hurt yourself with your own consequences. We're past that, Marv. You want to make this easier, or harder?"

He knows his brothers. Knows they look at him, and can't help but see- another protector. Henrik protects them, puts them back together, while Chase keeps them on their feet. Marvin protects them, a torch in the dark. Jameson, clever Jameson who can't be tricked and can't be caught, always comes back for them.

Even Anti, with his strange smiles and cold cruelty.

They just seem to keep thinking that he's a shield, a sword. Hero, protector.

He steers Marvin to the bathroom, where he knows Henrik's neat little first aid kit sits under the counter. Marvin, who's clever enough to see the echoes of that hero, goes.

(The thing about swords and shields is that ultimately, they're made to be used.