#reichandwrong

Bingley had rushed here quite confidently. But all this waiting has stewed in him. Turned his belly nauseous.

The familiar tick of the wheels on Jakob’s old bicycle (like the cluck of his tongue against a wall of teeth) echoes around the corner. Away, when not here--in bed or eating breakfast with Caroline--Bingley finds himself dreaming together the shape of Jakob’s mouth based on every word it has made at him, like a greedy fruit bat with its all-sound world: big, eased and easy, rough or soft or rougher, open.

The old bicycle clucks closer. 

Bingley’s learned to love the old. Love Jakob’s refrigerator that wheezes water from its metal back. Love the wobbly door hinges to the bathroom. Love the sand-dollar-thin bar of soap for soap (and not a bottle). Love the window that never closes. Love the floorboards that sing like a hundred cricket legs. Love the windowpanes with holes the size of doves, from when burglars came (but the thought of doves is sweeter isn’t it? that something that delicate would want in). Bingley wants in.

There’s an unconditional acceptance the less fortunate have for their old belongings. No matter how poorly a mattress is a mattress or a toothbrush is a toothbrush or a towel is a towel, they love it. Because they have to. Because it’s the only one they’ll have. Bingley is not the only person Jakob has. So what use is he?

Jakob stops in front of Bingley, still perched on his bicycle, outside the complex’s staircase.

Bingley blinks fast, faster than his hummingbird heartbeat. He wrings at the web of skin between his thumb and index finger nervously with his other hand. He feels light headed and heavy hearted and the contrast leaves him exceptionally dizzy. Bingley grasps both of the bicycle’s handlebars for support.

There is no hello. There is no greeting. There is only a blushing boy, a smile as curved as cupid’s bow, and a half memorized speech.

         “I know-- I know you must, or might, or, well, maybe--because I don’t presume to know what you feel, of course, but--I know you perhaps may be wondering how it is I feel about, ah, you and the-- tailor shop. I did not say anything to you about-- it then, or after, or any of the many following days (which I am very sorry for, that was most selfish and cold of me) because I didn’t know what to say, you see. I was... I was cowardly and confused. But I’m not now. Jakob...”

They met in a coffee shop, or something warm and cozy like one, when she was practically an infant. It’s only fitting they should reunite in one: Spirit taking up an entire table with photographs and newspaper clippings that, at a glance, hold no particular commonalities; Jakob, potentially oblivious, slumped after a hard day doing, you know--whatever old men do for a living. Knit. Yell at game shows.

mi child

a little sheepish -- because he looks busy, and there’s laundry folded on the table and she’s sure he doesn’t want to be interrupted in the middle of it -- she slinks around the corner and rocks back once, quickly, on the balls of her feet.

     ` look, i’d really, really love to go. ‘

and she would. he has no idea how much it means to her that he makes the effort to include her in this.

five word prompts.

          ( accepting. )

she is more hurt by what jakob’s said than she thought she’dbe. more than she has any right to be, really, because everybit of what he said was true. they don’t know each other, notreally, and it’s never been a problem until now and she can’thelp but wonder why that is. has he heard something? a care-less whisper from erik or raven, a neat red string leading rightto her? something about what she’s done or what she will door -- something. something he doesn’t like. something that ledhim to i don’t know you when -- he does. 

(he does, doesn’t he? doesn’t jakob know her? he’d met herso long ago, when she was all watchful eyes and lingering toolong in doorways, asking him questions she didn’t deserve theanswers to. he’d seen her through westchester and into thecity and through so many other things -- meeting roman andthe giddiness that came with it; the blue loneliness that followedher everywhere, though she’d thought she’d be able to shakeit with the rest of the mansion; the ache that came from himknowing she was involved with the brotherhood and how deeply.

if jakob doesn’t know her, she wonders, then what has theirfriendship been?)

so she avoids him. for days. for weeks. she doesn’t come overto sleep on his sofa and she doesn’t go to karaoke. she avoidsany mention of him when roman asks, quiet and careful, and shetries not to think of what he might be doing. how he might befeeling. it doesn’t matter, she tells herself. but it does.

eventually, because they are both too soft for their own goodeven when they are trying to be so hard, they run into each otheragain. she doesn’t want to think of it as an accident because shelingers at the street corner where she knows he passes by on hisway home from work, one foot spinning the pedal of her bicycle,and waits for an hour and a half before he comes cycling by. hecatches her eye and she feels -- embarrassed, suddenly, or maybea little ashamed, because she’s here waiting for him when, for allshe knows, he doesn’t want to see her at all.

but they talk. awkwardly at first. a little stilted. he asks aboutroman and she asks about raven and then that’s over, out of theway, and they have to ask about each other. 

it surprises her when he says it, and something catches in herthroat, and her hands curl a little tighter around the handlebarsof her bike and she absolutely, completely refuses to cry in frontof him. especially because of this.

          “Yeah, I -- um. I -- I miss you, too.”

she swallows, drops her head to hide her face, and then looksback up again.

a look of deep concentration --- 

Send a 👫 and I’ll write four headcanons I have about our muse’s relationship.

          ( accepting -- mutuals. )

1. had he not had to stitch her up that one time when the brotherhood had nowhere else to go, josephine never would’ve told him she was in the brotherhood at all until he either a) found out on his own or through someone else or b) she was forced to. she doesn’t care that he knows she’s a mutant (especially since they met while she was still at westchester) but i think she’s still afraid of the things he might think of her if he knows what she actually does and how deeply she’s involved in the brotherhood. 2. josephine is honest with him in the way she is honest with anyone who’s not in her inner circle, which means she lies by omission -- a lot. still, i think she does give jakob more than she might give someone else, mostly because she trusts him and also because she looks at him as a kind of -- father figure, in a way? they’re definitely friends, but i think she probably does look at him as someone she can come to for advice or guidance because he knows things she doesn’t. she doesn’t ask the same honesty of him, because she probably thinks he gives her as much as she gives him. she’d likely be crushed to find out just how much he keeps from her, even if she doesn’t deserve to be.3. when jakob and raven split, josephine probably avoids jakob for a very, very long time.4. when she gets pregnant, she shares a lot of her fears and insecurities with jakob, something that continues even after she has all of her children.