gimme that green light

Some of the people whose names were on the letters weren't familiar to Teak, so it took a little doing to hunt out who they were. Fortunately in that respect, the current confuddle and confusion on dear old Mystery-Ass Island worked to his advantage; people were too busy trying to deal with dark and snow and their own securing shelter and warmth and food, that they didn't have the bandwidth to be suspicious when he asked them questions. 

 And that was how he managed to find out who Rebecca was, and that she lived in some cave. Teak was surprised people chose to live in caves, and when he caught sight of Rebecca, he said as much: "Aren't there bats in there? Aren't you like, grossed out by the guana? Iguana? Wait, what's it called, the special name for bat poop? Isn't it highly toxic to breathe in the spores? I'm Teak, by the way. We haven't met." 

 He announced this last part with assuredness and a bright grin, certain he was correct. Well, certain enough. 

Becca had seen him somewhat in the distance, climbing over the rockier terrain of the Western Cove, stealing glances here and there as she tried to collect her limited laundry pile into a net to drag down to the river for cleaning. Rebecca stood, frowning slightly when the stranger walked to the mouth of the cave, chatting like they were thick as thieves. 

She really had to start thinking about making a door for more privacy. 

“Because they do want to mess with me,” James replied with a frown, his tone indignant like a child’s. Teak was always such a golden boy. Attractive, well mannered, charismatic– essentially what every father wanted for his heir apparent. Well, except his own father. Arthur Crain could never stand someone so carefree, so touchy. After all, this was far from the first hug James had received from the man. All of them memorable by virtue of being extremely annoying. Still, James had never disliked Teak per-say. They were different people but it wasn’t like all rich people were the same. Especially comparing the old money of England to the old money of the states. 

No, James didn’t very much mind Teak or think of him in any strong way. Before he and Lillian hooked up that was. It had been years ago when James was still in university. The pair had been arguing about his mother of all things when they decided they needed a break, timing out perfectly to when Lillian was going back home for a month. James hated every moment of it which was probably the point. The break making him appreciate Lillian; spirited but not bubbly, smart but not brash, but most of all she understood him. Listened to him. God when had anyone in his life just listened. When she returned to London James told her he loved her, he missed her, that he would fix things.

She told him she’d slept up with Teak god-damn Middleton of all people. Her furrowed his brows at the description of his wife as some destination holiday. What the hell did that make him then? A local? And Teak the tourist? James didn’t like that at all but he just sighed. “Lillian probably would be flattered by that comment. Flattered but not impressed,” he made the distinction. “Not like she ever needed anyone to tell he she was wonderful. She knew,” a hint of a smirk pulled at James lips as he spoke of his wife. 

“No, she’s not,” he informed Teak. “Thank God.” Lillian could probably handle the island better than either man but what had she ever done to deserve living on an island like this? James knew his sins. Despite everyone insisting this wasn’t hell, and in a literal sense James agreed with them, it certainly wasn’t a random creation. It couldn’t be. How else would he and others keep running into people so key to their past? Piper had mentioned something about the island bringing people together, like loose threads tucked into some tapestry. Teak was perhaps a loose thread in the tapestry of James’ life. Or maybe more a bramble stuck to the wool. 

James groaned at the question, “happy isn’t the word I’d chose. Not because seeing him is a bad thing… it’s just…” He rubbed the stubble along his cheek. glancing down at his feet. “Complicated. Same as it was before the island. But he’s alive and that’s…” Not really a miracle considering the circumstances. Hell, James was alive too. “It would be lonely. Being here without someone who understood.” That was all he could say. Teak perhaps could understand what it was like growing up with the pressure to perform. But he couldn’t, not in a hundred years, understand exactly what it was like to grow up the son of Arthur Crain. Lark knew that and then some… he was the failed son of Arthur Crain despite not being a failure in the slightest. “It’s hard to explain especially to an only child.”

James, when it came down to it, was a much less capriciously spiteful person than Teak was. He got active joy from annoying James, from prodding at him, from subjecting him to the sort of dick-measuring pissing-contest that people in their social class engaged in at all levels of interaction. The fact that James didn’t even actually dislike Teak was kind of an annoyance, really.

But Teak was nothing if not adaptable. James’ placid acceptance of the fact that Teak had slept with his wife was perplexing, but on the other hand? It was one of those perceptables that Grandfather so laid stock in. What did it say about James and Lillian’s relationship that he was so resigned to this part of their shared history? Lillian had been something, all right. She’d been intimidating, if you were inclined to be intimidated, if you didn’t expect that sort of thing. She’d been enticing but standoffish, promising but cold, alluring but on strictly her own terms. James, maybe, liked that Lillian had a strong hand and an authoritarian manner -- at least, that was Tea’s impression of the woman. In the time they’d shared together.

“She knew,” Teak agreed. “Me, personally? I prefer people who know they’re wonderful. Cuts through a lot of wasted time.” It was a little weird, okay, talking about Lillian like this, but then again ... what did it matter anymore, if they’d both been with her? Here on Mystery-Ass Island? Teak eyed James curiously as the other man expressed his gladness that his wife wasn’t here. “You’re glad she’s not stranded like you’re stranded?” he asked, boldly. “Or you’re glad she’s not here because you don’t wanna be with her?”

It was none of his business. But being on Meridium gave people vacation-brain; they’d talk about things they wouldn’t talk about at home, go for new experiences, try on new personalities. 

“Which makes it all the more likely that fate is fucking with me. Fucking with me royally,” James pointed out. Who gave a shit who was here first? They were now both stuck here, not alone with each other thankfully. But James would be lying if he said he hadn’t begged Lillith if they could skip an event because Teak would be there. Lillith was never one for events to begin with and he was usually the one dragging her to make an appearance for business sake. That was the easy part. The hard part was acknowledging that Teak still bothered him. That a one night fling a decade ago still made him feel small. 

Teak approached James with a smile. “Don’t–” he said right as the man pulled him into a hug. James’ soul left his body for a moment, letting himself just stand there, limp in Teak’s arms. It was a good thing the other man didn’t see his face as it resembled a very disappointed pug. His expression managed to return to stoic and cold before Teak pulled away to look at him. Only to turn sour again when he joked about getting there first. James pulled Teak’s arms off of him. “Could you not talk about my wife like she’s somewhere to be? Good god.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to think when it was Teak had gone missing, when he presumably ended up here. Something about a flight… the one from LAX that a whole host of other islanders were on…

“I’m not sure where we go from here. I’ve already–” there was no way he was telling Teak about his spat with Emer regarding Lillian. At least Teak knew Lillian– more than just in a hookup. They had grown up in the same circles. Really, all thee of them did, the rich loving to flock together like flamingos. But James had never been close to Teak. Perhaps the closest thing about them was that they were eskimo brothers– a terrible term Lark had introduced him to when he confided in his brother that Lillian had more experience than he did. “I already found Lark… now you. What’s next my damn father?” He let out a heavy sigh. “Teak, I’m not angry with you. Never have been. I just despise an awkward situation.”

“Ahhh, but you always think everything’s messing with you royally. Or that every one wants to mess with you royally.” Not swearing was an affectation of Teak’s; in the closest of company (i.e. his brother Jamie or Grandfather) he would let a few loose, but to everyone else, Teak embodied the idea of the American too caught up in childish Puritanism to even say ‘shit’ instead of ‘sugar’. It drove people crazy. It was frickin’ hilarious.

Hugging people who didn’t like being hugged was another good time in the making, and from how James’ body went stiff and pained in Teak’s embrace, he had achieved it. Especially when James followed up Teak’s off-colour comment with an objection, and Teak shrugged and said blithely, “I dunno, man. Lillian always seemed to me like a destination holiday. Where just arriving there was boast-worthy enough. Between you and me?” Teak leaned in, waggling his groomed eyebrows, “I think she liked that, too.”

But James, spoilsport that he was, sighed in something like defeat as he bemoaned the particular flavour of reunions he’d had so far on the island. “I’m not angry at you either,” Teak said, as if that had ever been in question or was even his to feel. “It doesn’t have to be awkward. I mean, Lil’s not here, is she? So there’s no reason for it. All that’s between us now is memories of her.”

A statement which, of all things, made Teak feel sort of a wrenching in his gut. He hadn’t thought about Lil in ages -- although there had been a time when she was all he could think about. Teak’s visits to London had been mostly about Jamie and business, but in a way, that was exactly why he and Lillian had crashed together; Teak was not a person accustomed to living in his emotions. Seeing his beloved little brother enlivened his feelings, made him more raw and open, and Lil could smell rawness like a goddamn shark.

James found himself with some downtime. That was to say he hadn’t found another job for him to jump too and was wandering the farm hoping someone would give him something to do. Maybe he should make a sign… the idleness made him feel useless even if he’d already completed several jobs. He didn’t know what to compare himself to. The obvious answers was Emre, who was somehow Tomas’ right hand man despite being a fucking ponce. Then again, Tomas didn’t fancy himself a leader… though James suspected that didn’t change how a lot of people saw him. 

As he wandered along he thought he smelled something burning. Not too odd. People had to cook somehow. Get rid of trash. Pass the time. Whatever. But the smell was oddly sweet and reminded him of Italian food. Then he heard someone should watch out! and James turned towards the sound to find a ball of fire being flung at him. “Shit–” James cursed before deftly dodging out of the way. How many times was some dumb display of powers going to almost kill him? A lot, probably but that didn’t mean he would accept it lying down. “Call me mad but tossing a ball of flame randomly on a farm sounds like a goddamn–”

The voice recognized him. James, now seeing where the voice had come from, stood there with his mouth agape. Then he rubbed his eyes and pinched the brow of his nose. “Fucking kidding me,” he muttered. “Of all the American socialites to grace this hell-island it had to be you, Middleton. Just my fucking luck.” Why? Why why why? Even if they were back home in some pub in London his reaction would have been the same. Most people didn’t have much love for their partner’s exes. Even less love for a partner’s former hookup. 

---oOo---

If it wasn’t James Crain (which brought about a whole raft of other issues), Teak would’ve been more annoyed at the reprimand about tossing fire around on the farm -- it sounded waaaaaay too much like that annoying Madi and her constant lectures about how Teak was accidentally going to burn down the whole island despite the fact that he hadn’t had any fire mishaps yet and she very much had -- but nope, there were bigger fish to fry with this guy.

Such as the very rude way Teak was greeted. “Just your fucking luck? I was here first, buddy.” But Teak Middleton never bothered with antagonism until it became useful, so he gave James a huge, dazzling, white grin and held out his arms. “Bygones? No point us staying mad when we’re stuck on Mystery-Ass Island together!” 

He wrapped his arms around James in a hug before the other man could protest, making sure to wipe the tomato juice from his hands on the back of James’ shirt before he stepped away. “I mean,” Teak said, smile still intact, “under our last circumstances, you were the one who got there first, weren’t you?”

All told, Teak had gotten off from the whole jungle-vine-abduction misadventure pretty light; it was sad of course that Jamie’d temporarily lost his earth-bending powers, given that his little brother was really good at them and enjoyed his powers (unlike some long-eared long-faced handsome but mopey doctor donkeys Teak could mention), but they were coming back. And Jamie, never afraid of a little hard work, had cheerfully rolled up his sleeves and gotten down to practicing.

Teak, on the other hand, had been exercising more caution than usual. He still wasn’t frightened of his fire abilities, but he did act with more tempering than usual. He meditated, he practiced deep breathing, he visualized babbling brooks and shifting colour palettes and all of Gaga’s outfits from the Bad Romance video -- all the things he generally used to get his mind ordered and steady.

All the same, it caught him at unexpected times. Like on the farm, innocently holding a couple of tomatoes, when he was suddenly aware of something that smelled like margarita pizza from the pop-up Neapolitan place with the wood-burning ovens and realized his hands were cooking the tomatoes. “Oh! Oh man!” Teak exclaimed, flinging them away on instinct. And, of course, directly towards somebody else.

ᵒᴼᵒ▫ₒₒ▫ᵒᴼᵒ▫ₒₒ▫ᵒᴼᵒ▫▫·∙∙∙✈

Apparently when the man wasn’t talking about himself, or some inane thing most likely centering on himself, he was rather perceptive. Sharpe-eyed and sharp-tongued bastard. 

“First off, Peter isn’t my boyfriend, he’s my fiancé. So there’s a bit more to it than that.” And second off– Iyaz had nothing but a dry throat. He couldn’t really say that Teak was wrong about him, complaining, moping, prick tease who couldn’t make up his mind about this ‘good’ and ‘bad’ nonsense, constantly leeching off of other-most of all Emre. He wouldn’t put it in such unflattering light but it wasn’t as if Teak was totally off the mark. “Second off. I don’t suck. At least not in  way you want me to.” 

He rolled his eyes, and huffed. “And I may be a prick tease. I can get that you’re mad about that, because as in all things I am an excellent prick tease. But some of us can’t galivant around like we’re on our third vacation for the year and your attunement is just some new mindfulness trend you’re just dying to tweet about.” He found some momentum in his anger, though what came to mind for his self-defense was hardly stuff that would win a debate. Excellent prick tease– Peter’d teased him about that to no end.

“What I’ve been doing is being a Doctor Teak, because some of us have useful skills.” His own temper reached a boiling point as he watched the rolling flame ripple over Teak’s arms. He reached out, pulled at the fire and what and took what he could from it. One of the few tricks he learned when dealing with fire, and mostly cribbed from how he watched Teak pull the flame from Emre’s torch on New Years. “And if you’re not planning on being useful now. I’ll happily go in the jungle alone.”

“OOOOH-ho ho ho!” Teak gave a loud, sarcastic guffaw at Iyaz’ pointed comment regarding which way he sucked (or didn’t suck, more accurately). “Oh, believe me, Doctor Akbar -- any interest I ever had in laying you is out the door and down the heckin’ street on the other side of town at this point! You’re probably the worst at blowjobs anyhow, I bet. You can’t listen to yourself talk all hoity-toity if your mouth’s full of dick and we both know listening to yourself is the only thing that gets you hard.”

All of which was confirming Iyaz’ unbelievably smug claim that he was an excellent pricktease, but Teak in good conscience couldn’t refute that. It was pretty much true. 

“Have you been being a doctor? I guess if you were like, on Grey’s Anatomy kind of doctor, yeah, because all I’ve seen is you wandering around looking dramatic and long-faced falling into one crisis after the other and Emre running behind you with a change of diapers trying to get you to take your bottle.” Teak lifted his nose, looking scornful. “Maybe you just suddenly decided it would get you more attention if you were useful. I dunno. But you sure haven’t been up till now.”

This was probably unfair; Teak hadn’t been keeping close enough tabs on Iyaz to really know what he did with his time. But he was shooting wild now, across the bow, hoping to get Iyaz spooked with a few lucky lands. 

--except then Iyaz turned and charged, instead of sailing in the other direction. Collecting fire from Teak’s arms like he was scooping up freebies from a table into his elbow to tote away with him. Teak considered for a moment getting into it, taking his fire back, lashing out at Iyaz, but -- there would be time for that. Right now, they really did need to get into the jungle. But he wasn’t going to go with Iyaz.

"If that's true, who's asking me this question? HAH! Gotcha!

end.

Jamie felt himself being rolled over, just as the pain began to dissipate and he sat up, reaching for his brother. “Ketts, something’s wrong,” he managed but before he could say anything more Teak was yelling at him to stay down, and Jamie did as he was told, gawping at the fire - the napalm - spraying from Kettle’s hands, melting everything it came in contact with. It was terrifying, and mesmerising, and utterly destructively beautiful.

“Teak?” Jamie asked, still lying on the ground because he hadn’t been told to move yet, “Teak, can you– I mean, is it– can you control it? Or am I just getting behind you and following whilst you burn this whole place to the ground till we run out of jungle?”

Mindful of Teak’s hands and the spray of the lava, Jamie sat up again, still just completely stunned, mouth open, eyes wide, and he gaped at his brother. “You’re in charge, Ketts. I just want to go home.”

---oOo---

“Oh, I can control it.”

Teak could not, in fact, control it. 

The gouts of napalm (Jamie had hit on exactly the right word for it) shooting from him in huge handfuls started to spin in unexpected directions as Teak threw them, swerving as if he was a professional pitcher throwing curveballs at stunned batters. But Teak wasn’t curving them on purpose. The blobs and globs started landing on the grass too, some of them only a foot from where he was standing, one dropping down a few inches from Jamie’s right elbow.

“Okay, maybe we better shake a tailfeather,” Teak revised his estimation of the situation. He shook his hands out, drops of lava streaking from the tips of his fingers, and held his arms out stiffly alongside his body so his fingers were pointed straight down. They were bubbling heat, he could feel it radiating against his thighs, and Teak said, “You run ahead of me through that clearing, I’ll be right behind you, Jame. I don’t want you coming behind me in case this fire goop comes flying back while we’re running. Okay?”

"Well, this is impossib--hah hah! Got you there! It's not impossible to choose at all.

It's super obvious what my answers would be. I'd save me, Jamie, Nora -- and Iyaz, because that would mess with Emre. He'd be so happy that Iyaz got to go back to his dumb fiance, but he'd spend every living moment wondering what was happening in Iyaz's life but with absolutely no way of finding out."

“I am, yeah,” Jamie said as they made their way into the clearing, the water beautiful and oh so tempting - but as soon as he saw the little grove of fruit trees, Jamie promptly forgot all about the river. He was starving - and a nice juicy mango would cater to all of his needs at once. 

He idly watched as Ketts got down to drink, but really he barely took any real notice en route to the trees. Jamie plucked a gorgeous example of a mango down off a low hanging branch, then tore into it hungrily, juice dripping over his fingers and down off his chin. But he took no notice of that either - Kettle had seen worse from him, after all - and he continued to eat, only realising that something was wrong when his stomach began to twist, and he fell to his knees sharply, looking up to see the grove shriveling and dying before his eyes. 

“Teak!” he shouted, but another cramp curled him into a knot, the pain radiating outwards. “Kettle, I–” but by then the pain in his stomach was too much to bear and he simply lay down in the fetal position, waiting for the waves to pass.

Waiting for Teak to realise that something was wrong, and hoping he’d come out the other side unscathed.

---oOo---

The stream trickled away into nothing, just a bare furrow in the ground that rapidly started filling upwards turning green, and Teak looked over at Jamie in alarm when he heard his brother making high, pained, animal noises. Curling up like a little fetal bullcalf and moaning fit to burst, sounding miserable and agonized.

Everything in Teak’s (otherwise non-existent) protective instincts riled up, but he couldn’t move. He couldn’t yell. He couldn’t do anything except lie on his stomach against ground that was now perfectly level and unscarred as if nothing had ever been there other than grass, as it felt like his insides were freezing up. Was that what the stream had been? Was it neutralizing his fire powers?

The thought made Teak bare his teeth in a grimace -- all he could manage -- but then the freezing sensation whooshed out of him. In a gust, and when Teak let his breath out to follow it, the cold air turned rapidly to something hotter, first dampening and then starting to wilt the grass he was lying in.

“Jame!” he shouted, scrabbling up only far enough on hands and knees to launch himself in his brother’s direction. He turned Jamie over, rolling him to try and get his attention. “Are you okay? Are you all frozen inside? I can--”

But Teak leapt away from Jamie, having felt prickles of fire run in circles along the insides of his palms. He turned his hands up, looking at them, and then yelled, “--stay DOWN, Jamie!” as fire sprayed from his hands in blobs and jets, like lava. Teak turned, aiming himself towards the trees, watching in amazement at his own power as the globs of fire hit the trees and didn’t even incinerate them -- it melted them.