#self blaming

He walks on quiet feet past Alex sleeping on the floor. It’s been… so many days, and he’s been chained to the wall for all of them. The chain is longer now, giving him enough reach to wander closer to the kitchen, and shuffle closer to the fire pit. But it’s still a chain, and a muzzle, and a cold hard floor.

Jasper remembers it well. How could he forget? The terror and the pain, the confusion, the silenced speech and rigid orders of his new life. He remembers watching his old self slip like grains of sand through his fingers, falling to her fire, burning to ash in her hands. It lasted longer than he’d care to admit, those first weeks, and that first year. After that… time got difficult to grasp. There are blurs and blank spots and all of it is compressed in the oppressive layer of rock and earth that dictate his entire existence and—

He’s lost in his own thoughts, brooding, as his grandmother would say. The touch to his arm startles him and he drops the spoon he was stirring the coffee with. It lands with a clatter on the floor as he spins on his heel.

Alex is standing at the very furthest reach his chain allows and has stretched forward to get his attention. His arm tingles where Alex tapped him, even through the layer of clothes he zeroes in on the spot he was touched.

Alex shrugs apologetically, even though his eyes are still—as always—hard and cold. Not that Jasper blames him, of course he hates the man who has helped to hurt him. Of course he hates Jasper, he’s the entire reason that Alex is here at all. Because he couldn’t handle his imprisonment alone, and Adria kidnapped him to be a fucking gift.

Jasper swallows every thought, of course, and shifts his attention to whatever it is Alex needs. He jabs a thumb over his shoulder and raises his eyebrows, wondering if Alex needs the bathroom.

Alex shakes his head and points at the coffee, and then at himself. Jasper frowns, biting his lip, wondering what Adria would say. Has he earned it? Jasper doesn’t know how to answer that, but Alex does deserve it, so he nods tentatively.

“Milk?”

Alex shakes his head.

“Okay, soon, sit. I… have to do hers first. I’ll come back.”

Alex rubs a thumb along the side of the muzzle, where it must be rubbing painfully into his jaw, and shrugs before slinking back to sit and scowl against the wall.

      -    -    -

Adria questions the coffee when she finds out about it later, of course. But she lets it go when Jasper tells her that Alex initiated touch that morning for the first time. He doesn’t add that it was just because there’s no other way for Alex to get his attention, that it doesn’t mean anything, that Alex is still looking for escape and still hating them. Her eyes sparkle with glee, and it’s enough to let her think her plan is working.

Jasper closes his eyes slowly when she walks away. He knows that either her plan will work, or Alex will end up… gone. She said as much the first night, entangled in her sheets as she assured Jasper that if this one didn’t work out, there were other options. He makes a decision then and there, that he has to try something else, he can’t be the reason that a man ends up dead. Alex needs to not be in opposition to everything.

He grabs a sketchbook and pen.

“Hey, umm, I thought you could write down some lists of books you like. There’s a lot here to choose from, I can get you something you like more than these?” He gave Alex reading materials almost straight away, but he’s barely looked at them. Jasper offers the paper across and Alex just stares at him. “Please?” he jabs it towards Alex again.

Alex rolls his eyes and takes it, immediately clicking the pen and scrawling something.

I don’t feel like reading

Oh. “Puzzles?” Jasper offers instead. “I have crossword books, and Sudoku.”

Alex shakes his head no, huffs a frustrated breath.

“Is it the…” Jasper can’t think of the word he's looking for fast enough in English. He taps the back of his own head. “You can’t think? Because of the head injury?”

Alex smooths a hand over his long hair and shakes his head again before scribbling It’s all THIS he gestures angrily at the room and jabs the pen on the page.

Jasper’s heart breaks for him, and, if he’s honest, a little for himself too. “I’m sorry.” but it’s empty words, and they both know it. “I want… want to help.”

Alex turns to write something else and then pauses. Starts again. Forget it. You can just leave me alone.

“Prosím.”

Alex looks back at him slowly. Jasper flushes. “It means please.”

There’s a long drawn out silence where he feels utterly scrutinised. And then Alex begins to write.

Where are you from?

“Česko. Uhh, Czechia, Czech Republic?” He smiles, cheeks a little tight with how forced it feels. He doesn’t like thinking of home.

Alex writes Prague? And Jasper nods. “Not my home town, but I studied there.”

Alex fiddles with the paper and pen, eyes far away, so Jasper continues the conversation. “Where are you from?”

England. Nottingham. There’s a pause and then more scribbled letters, Alex’s handwriting getting messier with every sentence. How did you end up here?

Jasper frowns, “She… took me?” It dawns on him what Alex might mean. “Oh, the, the doorway doesn’t open in the same place. It can go to different locations, different countries.”

Alex shakes his head and his whole body rattles with it. Jasper thinks for a second as Alex covers his face that he’s crying, but then he realises it’s laughter. It makes no sense— Alex taps the notebook hard, eyes wide and incredulous.

“I know. It’s hardly believable, but it is what happens.” He feels wholly inadequate to have this conversation. Adria had explained it to him, and now it’s his job to get someone else to believe in every possibility of magic? His mind still reels at the implications sometimes, but he has got used to it. Alex still looks wild eyed, frazzled, exhausted with trying to understand.

They’re both quiet for a while and Jasper settles more comfortably next to Alex—who looks at him sidelong and then shifts away. Jasper tries not to mind the distance, no matter how desperately he longs for closeness.

“Do you have family?”

Parents. Younger sister. They’ll— Alex trails off, starts again. They’ll want to know what happened

Jasper only nods, fighting the urge to touch and comfort, squeezing his own hands to hold back. He wants to be touched, Alex probably doesn’t. It aches, but he understands.

You?

Jasper’s breath catches. He doesn’t like thinking about it. “Yes but I—I do not know if they’re still… still…”

Did she? Do something to them, I mean

“No,” he whispers. “It’s just been a long time. No news here, you understand?”

Alex turns, scrutinizing Jasper with narrowed eyes. He makes a sound behind the muzzle and Jasper winces, it’s all moans and groans and grunts and he hates how awful it sounds. Alex decides something, and Jasper can’t tell what it is but they go back to talking, trading little pieces of themselves, so he assumes the decision was to not mind Jasper’s presence—at least for now. It lasts most of the morning while Adria is off in her workshop, and only when Alex starts asking questions that he doesn’t know how to answer does he think that maybe they should stop.

How old are you?

What does he say to that? He was twenty four, technically he still is, but so much time has passed. So many years…

“Twenty—twenty something. I… forget, I don’t—don’t know exactly?”

Alex is agitated by this non-answer. How long?

He shakes his head. Alex writes again. How long have you been here??

“Too long, my friend.”

He leaves the paper with Alex, and gets up to do his chores. When he returns later with the key and some water and Alex gets a few minutes muzzle-free to drink it, he gets glared at.

Alex’s voice is rough with misuse. “Why even try and talk to me?”

Jasper fiddles with the muzzle straps, glad that Alex thinks to talk quietly. “I don’t want you to be lonely.”

“But you won’t answer all my questions, that doesn’t help.”

“I can only help so much.” He grabs Alex’s head and forces the muzzle back on, to a surprised yelp. “Please, I can only do so much for you, and you have to work with me.”

Alex throws the notepad at him as he walks away and it bounces off his shoulder. He picks it up and puts it back near Alex. “Please. I can give you this.”

Don’t want anything from you Alex scribbles

“I know. I’m giving it anyway.” If the situation was reversed, he wouldn’t want anything from Alex. Alex’s hatred, his anger and frustration, they’re only natural, and he tries not to take it personally.

He sits on his bed and covers his face with his hands. Breathe in, breathe out. Of course Alex doesn’t want anything for him, he’s the reason Alex is trapped here. He’s hurt Alex as much as Adria has.

He just hopes, probably in vain, that they will move past it eventually. He hopes that, despite all his shortcomings, he can do one right thing by Alex, and not leave him to suffer alone.

——

It’s hours more before Alex hands him paper with a list of books on, with a pleading look. Jasper smiles, and returns with a large pile of them, and a box to put them in. There’s a blanket in the box too, which Alex touches reverently. And then scowls, even as he drapes it over his lap.

Jasper hides his smile. Alex is trying so hard to stay mad, to hold on to something of himself. “I’ll convince her you, umm, that you earned it. You talked with me, I think that will count.”

Alex crosses his arms and looks away, then turns back with tired eyes. He taps the muzzle, flips to a blank page—How long?

“I’m not sure.”

Can you talk to her about it?

“I can, I can try. Until then, keep this, we can…. we can talk like this.”

It’s not fair, it's not enough, I need… Alex trails off, and Jasper can guess why. He’s learning, bit by bit, that his wants and needs don’t mean much here, unless you can convince Adria to care about them.

“I know, but it’s something.” He pats Alex on the knee and for once it takes a moment before Alex shakes him off.

It’s something. And he breathes in, and breathes out, and hopes it’s going to be enough to hold him together.