Jack Rackham (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jackrackham) wrote2022-02-04 06:05 pm
jackrackham) wrote2022-02-04 06:05 pm
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the grief that does not speak whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break
Jack gets ready slowly. He's still not entirely used to this new place, still hasn't made it feel like a place that he belongs. Waking without Anne feels wrong and he doesn't want to think over anything that she told him out on that boat.
He takes a shower, puts on his old clothes and looks in the mirror. Eliot seemed to think that they might be suitable for horse-riding outside the city, but at the moment he only sees how incongruous they seem compared to this modern room in a modern city. He takes a deep breath and lets it out as he settles his hat on his head, telling himself that the clothes won't matter, and he will attempt to be amiable, for Eliot's sake. He doesn't quite understand why riding horses is an activity all on it's own, but it will be a diversion all the same.
When he arrives at Villa Cordova, he wanders up through the entrance without going to the main building. It's dry and warm, and smells of dirt and hay and animals in a way that feels familiar. For a moment, he pauses and rests his forearms against a rough wooden fence. There are horses to watch, but he closes his eyes instead, listening to the relative silence of this place and feeling the sun begin to warm through the back of his coat.
He takes a shower, puts on his old clothes and looks in the mirror. Eliot seemed to think that they might be suitable for horse-riding outside the city, but at the moment he only sees how incongruous they seem compared to this modern room in a modern city. He takes a deep breath and lets it out as he settles his hat on his head, telling himself that the clothes won't matter, and he will attempt to be amiable, for Eliot's sake. He doesn't quite understand why riding horses is an activity all on it's own, but it will be a diversion all the same.
When he arrives at Villa Cordova, he wanders up through the entrance without going to the main building. It's dry and warm, and smells of dirt and hay and animals in a way that feels familiar. For a moment, he pauses and rests his forearms against a rough wooden fence. There are horses to watch, but he closes his eyes instead, listening to the relative silence of this place and feeling the sun begin to warm through the back of his coat.
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Eliot drops his hands to Jack’s shoulders and lets him babble, keeping quiet even as his concern grows. Jack’s usually so certain of himself, but Eliot can see none of that now. This man, fearful and lost, feels almost like a stranger. It’s not how he presents himself, and it makes Eliot feel a little sick to see him like this—no one should see him like this.
Jack draws away and makes to get his horse and Eliot follows, his hands up to brace against some further catastrophe. But he only makes it as far as the fence.
“I’ll…” Eliot sighs, feeling shaky himself, and pats him on the shoulder as he passes. “I’ll get it.”
It’s easier to know how to approach the horse, and Eliot hopes it will give them both space to breathe.
“Hey now,” he says quietly as he takes hold of the black horse’s bridle and rubs its nose. “What’d you do, hm? Why’d you scare that nice man?” Eliot only feels a little ridiculous talking to an animal who can’t understand him like this, but it helps to have someone to blame besides himself. Something affected Jack, and it doesn’t much matter what but Eliot needs to deal with the result. This was his idea, and now it’s his responsibility. He just has to figure out how to fix it.
He leads the mare over to the gray and ties them up together before returning to Jack. He still looks about to collapse, and Eliot frowns, laying a hand on his arm.
“Here, just…come sit down a moment.” Eliot coaxes him down with surprising ease, and sits at his side.
“Did it-“ he begins, pondering over how to phrase a question Jack might not know the answer to. “Were you reminded of something?”
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He feels like he could let the moment stretch on indefinitely and still feel like he's elsewhere hovering outside his body, or in another time riding away from his best friend.
He presses his fingers into the dirt beside him and focuses in on the sun-warmth of it, the texture a mix of grainy and soft. "I remembered...You know," he swallows and continues, his voice soft. "In moments of upheaval you don't really think about how the air smells, or..the color of a horse. But it all comes back in your memory." His bottom lip quivers and his breath catches. "So vividly. I could hear-"
He brings a hand up and wipes at his nose, then takes a shaky breath. He's still looking up at the sky. It feels like any words he's saying are being pulled up by force.
"We were escaping on a black horse. And that's the last time I saw Charles alive." He closes his eyes tightly and lifts his head from the post behind enough to smash it back into it. It's a quick impulse, but he needs something to ground himself now. It does help, a little, so he does it one more time.
"I'm sorry." Jack stays leaning against the post, but slowly pulls up his knees one at a time, opening his eyes and reorienting his vision towards the other side of the path. "I didn't mean to ruin your plan."
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“Hey—“ it comes out in a breath, and Eliot is too shocked to stop Jack from hitting his head against the post. It’s so much worse than he’d thought. For a moment he feels lost and incapable of forming a response, the same as he did when Janet, all cold calm, told him about her dead brother. The same helplessness and certainty that any comfort he could offer would be unwelcome. He starts to reach out a hand to touch his shoulder but stops; it might just make things worse.
Jack’s apology needs answering, though, and Eliot draws back his hand and follows his gaze out to the path.
“You-you didn’t ruin anything, I’m the one who should apologise,” Eliot says with a grimace. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t know.” He didn’t know any of it, and he should have asked. The least he can do now is try to give Jack some clarity, if he’s able. But explaining something Jack doesn’t have the language for feels like a minefield.
“It’s not…you’re not going mad.” It’s as good a place to start as any, really, and he glances at Jack briefly before continuing. “I think this is…what you’re feeling is like. This is a thing that can happen sometimes, I can try to explain? Like sometimes if you experience something that’s jarring or stressful, that trauma…your mind holds on to it in a way that’s…different than other memories.”
Eliot sighs; he has his own catalog of persistent little triggers he’d rather let go of, but it wouldn’t help Jack to hear about them just now. “And little things like sounds or smells that you might not even think to associate with the memory can…make you recall that event but instead of remembering it your mind and your body react like it’s actually happening? Does that…match what you’re feeling at all?”
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Eliot said this is a thing that can happen sometimes like it's normal or expected, but this feels too big and too much and he doesn't want to think about it anymore. He looks away from the horses.
He lifts his hands from the dirt, and rubs them roughly over his knees, as much to remind himself that he's here in the present as it is to wipe the dirt from his hands.
"I-" I left him there his mind says to him. He traded his life for mine and I didn't do anything to stop it. He lifts his hands to wipe the remains of tears from his face, not caring that he leaves a fine layer of grime behind in their place. "I needed to go back for him. I know-" He knows he can't go back and save Charles, knows that even if he had he would have probably failed Charles again anyway. His breath hitches before he can say it and he shakes his head minutely, swallowing the words. He doesn't want to prove to Eliot that he isn't worth his friendship.
"I know I'm here." He looks down the road the way they came, and there is a part of him that still feels like if he just walked back there Charles would still be fighting for his life...but no. There's nothing there.
He pauses for a few long moments, urging the tight bitter feeling in his stomach to subside. "In fact, I'd like to stop being here, now." He huffs out an approximation of a laugh, but it sounds more like a gasp. It takes him another shaky breath before he can turn his head to meet Eliot's gaze.
"Maybe a drink?" He knows there's something desperate in the question and in his expression, but he is desperate - he needs to leave now and he needs a distraction. Staying here might be inviting this feeling to continue, and if he doesn't put his mind elsewhere he knows it's going to grip onto him for the rest of the day.
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The suggestion of drinks feels like a lifeline compared to the thought of—what, staying here and talking it out? Eliot can reason and reassure all day but the easiest thing would be to take Jack out of the environment that caused this in the first place. He’s not the most informed about trauma responses, and maybe a drink isn’t the optimal way to come out of this kind of episode, but Jack knows himself best. And it would certainly help to assuage Eliot’s own guilt about his part in it.
“Of…of course,” he answers, glancing at Jack before slowly getting to his feet. “I’ll just…” He needs to get the horses, but he stands there a moment without moving, just looking down at him and wishing he could say something to just fix this. But he learned long ago that magic doesn’t work like that. So he puts a hand on Jack’s shoulder and gives him a gentle squeeze that he hopes is reassuring, and goes to untie the horses.
They’re both a little restless now, probably confused about stopping and going the wrong way, but Eliot hushes them and leads them back. He stoops to pick Jack’s hat up from where it must have fallen, knocking some of the dust off before he tucks it under his arm.
“We can walk back,” he says, giving Jack the hat and offering a hand up. “It shouldn’t take too long. And you–” You don’t have to tell me anything, he thinks, despite how much he wishes he could take this burden off Jack’s shoulders and carry it for him a while. “We don’t have to talk at all, if you don’t want.” Eliot offers a small smile. “Whatever you need.”
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Jack settles his hat back onto his head and takes a step back. He attempts to smile back, but he's afraid that it doesn't look right. He doesn't know what he needs, if it's better to talk or stay silent. This hasn't happened to him before...at least not like this.
But it's also clear what Eliot wants, and that's easier. Eliot saying it's alright if they don't talk is probably a kind way to ask that he not talk about this at all. The best thing that Jack can do now is probably to salvage the day. They're going to a bar, he'll have a drink or two, and then he'll be able to act normal again.
"I can ride back." It seems ridiculous to walk the horses back...and anyway, going back is what his body is urging him to do. He hums as he approaches the black mare, then pats her side to let her know he's there. She was probably as startled as he was by his sudden stop, so he pats her coarse neck for a moment before stepping into the stirrup and pushing himself back into the saddle.
Riding back is what his body wants to do, but arriving back at the stable doesn't alleviate the feeling. if anything, the discomfort in him grows.
When they arrive back, he says something vague to the stable-hand about wanting to cut the ride short. He may not believe what Jack has to say, but he takes the horses, and soon they're both walking back towards town. Each step feels like he's moving further away from Charles, and from the possibility of really understanding what happened back there, and if there was something to learn from feeling it all over again.
He imagines Charles calling and saying things he didn't say then: Jack yelled over and over, his voice cracking. He would have gone back, he thinks, if he had called his name. He would have gladly died in the dirt beside him to prevent what happened later.
His steps slow, then speed up again. He keeps his eyes down, and struggles to find anything to say.
"I haven't really been to the bars here," he says, looking down the length of a street. What's more, it's early. Probably not every bar is even open yet. "Do you know a place?"
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He doesn't actually care about them, though, he doesn't have the energy to. Jack is the only thing that's important now. But they settle up without incident and he keeps a pace behind as they depart, watching Jack as if he were liable to collapse the moment Eliot looks away.
Jack's stride falters before he speaks, but he only asks where they might go. It's a sensible enough question, given the time of day and the distance from the city center. Eliot half wants to offer his own apartment, though that feels...somehow presumptuous. What he wants is to hold him, to go someplace familiar and safe and be able to take care of him, but Eliot can't be certain that urge comes from more than just altruism and concern for his friend. And it's not what Jack wants, so it doesn't matter.
"I think I might," he answers, looking at the street they're on and picturing the neighborhood where it leads. "Once we hit the more residential bit up ahead," he pats Jack on the shoulder and points, "there's a place a couple blocks down to the right that should be open."
It is, thankfully. This far from the boardwalk and the college, bars tend toward the subdued, and the difference between a speakeasy and a dive is negligible. Eliot's been to this one once, and found it friendly at least to the closeted surbuban type he was there to meet. It might even be a place for vampires to hang out, but that's less of a concern at this hour. As long as it's quiet and they won't get hassled, it'll do.
It's an unassuming facade, a plain door off the smoking area of an apartment building, but there's a light on above it and the door is unlocked. The man behind the bar barely looks up when they walk in, and Eliot nods in greeting before heading to a corner booth in the back. The place is nearly empty; he'll take all the privacy he can get, for Jack's sake.
"Well there some food at least," he sighs, sliding into the booth and looking at the little bowl of snack mix that passes for refreshment. "The salt might be helpful for you, actually."
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"I'll be right back. I'm going to...wash my hands. And maybe my face." He sighs and removes his hat, then sets the hat onto the table in front of Eliot. He feels grimy and burdensome. His fingers had been digging into the earth for purchase not too long ago, he thinks, there must be dirt on his hands, under his fingernails, on his cheeks. And more- he needs time to think to himself.
The server is on her way to their table and he nearly walks into her in his haste to be alone with his thoughts for a few moments.
"Hey, uh-" she says, "What'll ya have? we can get it started. Or I can bring a cocktail menu?" She looks up at him, then directs her glance back down towards Eliot.
Jack steps past her. "Gin," he says. It's an impulse- he wants something that is going to be strong enough to stop whatever is currently going on in his mind, but he instantly cringes at the choice. The smell of gin is one that is buried deep in his memory. His father smelling like gin as he tried to carry him out of church or to his bed in the middle of the night is a familiar burden, but maybe it's for the best. Maybe a familiar burden is better than one that he doesn't know how to deal with in this moment.
"Like...on the rocks? Gin and tonic?"
He keeps walking past her, and his back is already turned when he adds "Just a glass and a bottle."
The bathroom is small, a single door and questionable toilet. He steps inside, locks the door behind him, and looks at himself in the mirror. The smell is chemical and unfamiliar. He sighs softly, seeing the dirt and the messy residue of tears, then dips his head to remove each ring from his hands and set them carefully on the sink. He slowly washes his hands, watching the dirt disappear from his palms, then trying to dig the dirt out from under his fingernails. He'd wanted time to think, but it feels like he can't access the things he wants to start processing. He doesn't know where to start, and he stays a little too long staring at his hands and the water running over them.
He washes his face quickly and towels off both face and hands, then carefully takes each ring, brushes the dirt off of them, and slips them back to their familiar fingers.
When he returns to the table, he joins Eliot behind the booth. "Much better," he says, without really meaning it.
The bottle and glass is there, and he cracks the seal on the bottle. He pours out a small amount and brings it up to his nose to smell. The smell hits him and he huffs out a laugh. "Always avoided gin before." He downs the amount and he winces around it, then considers the taste on his tongue. It tastes like winter and pine and loss. "It's not terrible. Not bad."
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“Anything for you?” she asks, something amused and incredulous in her tone.
Eliot furrows his brow and briefly looks at the laminate of specials without any of them registering. He sets it back down with a sigh.
“Uh, whiskey sour,” he answers, but his mind is elsewhere. He wants to look toward the restroom, wondering how long Jack will be, but he also doesn’t want to invite any further scrutiny from the server. “Thanks,” he adds after a beat.
Eliot rests one hand on the hat, as if he could transmit all his care and concern through the sea-battered leather to its owner. He takes a small square pretzel piece and holds it in his mouth instead of chewing it. All he really wants is the salt on his tongue, to feel jarred out of his thoughts by the flavor so that maybe, by the time Jack gets back or their drinks arrive, he can act normal about all this.
The drinks come first, and Eliot’s so startled by the bottle of gin that when he reaches to pick up his own glass he sloshes some on his hand. He takes a sip and it steadies him somewhat, though the bottle and the empty glass stand like puzzling megaliths on the table and he cannot fathom what would possess Jack to order that. It’s not even a particularly good gin.
Mostly, his confusion lies in the fact that Jack’s taste has always seemed so much more refined, relative to the world he came from. It’s been a difficult day, certainly, but Eliot expected he’d order a bottle of wine instead of what passes for Seagram’s in this city.
When Jack returns and joins him in the booth, announcing himself refreshed, Eliot nods. He doesn’t quite believe it but there’s no point in questioning, and he’s too full of other questions besides. So he stays quiet and watches Jack open the bottle and take an initial drink, but his assessment is so…jarring that Eliot knows he has to say something.
“Why–” he stops to clear his throat and have another sip of the sour, focusing on the transition from cool tartness to slow curling warmth in his chest as he swallows. It’s a familiar comfort, and it makes this easier. It always made things easier, up the point where it made them impossible. And the quiet ominous dread in the back of his mind that started when he saw the bottle of gin, that’s familiar too.
“Why’ve you avoided it?” Eliot asks. It’s the simplest question he can think of in response to Jack’s demeanor, and he tenses in his seat in preparation for whatever the answer might be. He doubts it’s anything good.
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He tilts the bottle back, examining the filigree-covered label before he rests it back in its place. He doesn't recognize the brand, but it does look more official and commercial than anything his father ever brought into the house. It certainly smells less caustic than some of the bottles he remembers. "-but good enough for the landowners who would profit of the sale of their bumper harvests."
"When you give an easy method of dissolution to a public that is already struggling, then make it cheap as well..." He shrugs. "It ruined men." Jack looks down at the glass in his hand, thinking of a time before it all got bad. Baked apples and music in the parlor, his father laughing. A soft smile comes to his lips and part of him feels like throwing the glass against the wall. The smile quickly sours.
"They hand men the bottle and then they call them inferior for taking it. It killed my father...or at least brought his body to the state where he could finally give up...and so he was damned twice over to line the pockets of men in parliament."
Jack takes a sip from his glass, and lets the smell and the taste bring back memories from later - the smell of piss, rancid breath, the endless rants against god and country.
"My mother died when I was young, and the end started there. I don't remember much of her, but he- he was devastated by the loss." Jack sighs. "God, he'd go on rants, yelling up at the rafters in church til I had to carry him out - he thought God had forsaken him." He huffs a laugh. "Maybe he was right. Maybe God's got a seat in parliament."
Jack takes a larger sip from his glass and winces around the taste. He can already feel the warmth spreading down into his stomach. The tension in his chest hasn't eased, but it's still early. If drinking was worth destroying the rest of his father's life, maybe there really was something to it's effects on the grieving heart. Charles wasn't a wife and nothing close to it, though Jack's sure that in this moment he'd rather lose himself for a little while than focus on the loss.
"I suppose I wanted to know if it actually helped, in the short term. Y'know..." He turns to Eliot, a smile on his lips that looks like it's been screwed in place. "I think it does."
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He sighs a little shakily and rubs his face, looking at the glass in front of him but not touching it. He wants to down the rest of it, now that he can see the magnitude of how badly he’s fucked the day up, how he keeps fucking it up, but he can’t. He has a responsibility here to keep his shit together. Maybe it’s not as dire as the early days in Fillory, with Quentin in a coma and his hands shaking very time he didn’t have a task in front of him, but it’s still serious. He still has a job to do.
The awful narrative apparently concluded, Jack smiles at him in a way that makes Eliot feel sick. He has to say something and all he can think of is the bloody file in the Archive, and Jack saying ‘I was twelve’ and knowing now how bad it must have been before that.
“I…” Eliot chews his lip for a moment. His throat feels too tight to breathe normally and he can’t find the words to give this information the gravity it deserves.
“Thanks for telling me,” he says, though that, as mild as it is, feels insufficient. “That must have been…” Eliot wants, absurdly, to apologize on behalf of a stranger centuries dead and a universe removed. I’m sorry for your loss, he wants to say. I’m sorry your father left you like that and burdened a child with his debt. I’m sorry I share his weakness.
He reaches out, not for his drink but for Jack’s forearm, to rest his hand there and give him a gentle squeeze. A paltry effort at comfort compared to the pain upon pain Jack’s covering with that smile. “But you endured it,” he finishes the unvoiced thought. “I don’t think—no, I know I wouldn’t have gotten through that situation as well.” Eliot tries to smile at that, though his jaw still hurts. “You’ll get through this, too.” At least for this, he won’t have to be alone.
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Jack sets his hand on top of Eliot's and squeezes it in return. Eliot's hand is dry and soft, and he spares a moment to worry if he minds Jack's calloused hand on his. He wants to reassure him that he's been bearing all of this since before they met, that he doesn't need to be cared for, but he feels somehow that voicing how upset Eliot looks would be an insult. He pats the hand once and then returns his hand to his glass to take a sip.
"It wasn't all enduring, with my father. Other's have had far worse. Anne had worse. Charles had worse. There were good days and bad days. And I wasn't on the street for long, after." Really, he was lucky that he was given the chances he had.
"As for this-" He's not entirely sure what to say, but he knows he doesn't want to worry Eliot further by explaining how much he really doesn't want to get through this, sometimes. "I owe it to him to finish what he started. Until I can do that..." He shrugs. Until he can do that, there's no getting through it. And while he's here there's no accomplishing what Charles' wanted. He's stuck.
His gaze slides towards the table, and he finds Eliot's hand resting on top of his tricorn hat as if it might run away if he were to remove his hand. It's a puzzling thing, and he can't imagine why he hasn't just left it where it was.
He nods to the hat. "Why did you ask me to wear my clothes from home?"
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“Uh,” he says at the question, suddenly very aware of how odd a request it must have been. He takes a moment, scrambling to think of a reasonable reply, or at least part of the truth, while he takes his hand from the hat and nudges it back to Jack.
He can be honest, mostly, and highlight his own absurdity. When Eliot answers, he laughs softly. “I suppose it was a little self-serving. I’ve missed going riding, it was what I’d do with my friends in Fillory. We’d just…tour the woods and pass the time, but here...” He looks up at Jack for a moment, and glances at the bottle. “I wanted to remember how I used to feel, and so I wanted to dress up a bit, and I thought I’d feel less awkward if you were dressed up, too.”
Eliot considers his drink, rolling the glass between his palms. “That probably didn’t help, did it? Making things…too reminiscent of a bad time. I’m sorry, for my part. Just because I felt homesick doesn’t mean–”
He shakes his head, sighing. It does neither of them any good if he wallows in guilt, when what he wants to do is help Jack cope. “Anyway, it…makes sense, feeling that way, unable to progress if you were just snatched up in the middle of it. But I think…I’d hope that as time goes by, no matter which world you’re in, you’ll eventually be able to-to be less shocked by things that remind you of it. Or at least be able to remember without feeling like it’s happening again.”
He pauses and has another sip. It doesn’t taste as good as before. “Is it all right if I ask how long ago he…?”
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"I wasn't even wearing this before I got taken. Whatever took me here gave me my hat." His shoulders round slightly and he keeps looking down at the hat. "I don't know why. I can't wear it here without someone looking at me like I've lost my goddamn mind."
He scoffs and pushes the hat away, then returns his hand to his glass to down the remaining gin. It's a big gulp, but he doesn't want to be feeling what he's feeling anymore. He's starting to feel effects already, but he doesn't really feel better. He feels like he's slowly sinking, dark water building pressure around him.
"Four days. It was three days of not knowing, after the rescue. The fourth day -Teach brought the news. I met you a week later." He sighs and pushes his back into the seat, then forces his hands back through his hair. It's a rough motion, and he's sure that it lets Eliot read just how agitated he is. He doesn't want to seem so undone by all of this, but he can't seem to stop it from happening. "I like wearing the clothes, but they're wrong here. I'm wrong here. None of us belong in this fucking place."
"It's been the greater part of a year and I still-" He swallows thickly and shakes his head. Eliot doesn't need to know how little he sleeps still, or how stupid he feels even trying to fathom the basics of what has happened to bring them here. He doesn't want to tell Eliot how hopeless he feels about the possibility of ever making it home again, or how often he imagines Charles looking down on him, regretful that he ever let him aboard the Ranger.
He lifts his face to meet Eliot's eyes. His own are welling up and he looks away again before he can read anything in Eliot's expression. "Did you ever try to figure out a way back? With magic?"
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And Eliot met him in the thick of it, he’s never known him when he wasn’t weighed down by it. For all Eliot’s grown close to him he doesn’t know what Jack would be like, if he wasn’t carrying this pain. That man would be a stranger to him.
He opens his mouth to say something, but there’s no words for this. He can only sigh, and sit in the silence looking on as Jack downs the rest of his glass. There’s no question Eliot would be drinking like that, too, if he were in Jack’s place. But he winces all the same, knowing that this is unlikely to end well.
Jack looks about to cry when he asks about Eliot’s own early days, and it’s clear he needs a change of subject.
“I tried,” Eliot answers, looking away from him to frown at the table, “as soon as I was able to use magic at all. I kept fidgeting with this in the hopes that it would just—get its enchantment back all of a sudden and I could leave.” He pulls the silver button out of the hidden breast pocket in his jacket and holds it out in his palm. He really ought to keep it locked up with his crown and all, but that would feel too final. Like he’s giving up on ever leaving. And if he did he’d have to think about the fact that he has reasons to want to stay.
“And even if it worked, I think…Darrow just plucks you right out of time, is what they say. When you go back it’s to the exact moment you left. But traveling the way I’m used to, Fillory could be a century in the future by the time I got back. I…I don’t know that I’d want to make the attempt if everyone I knew…” Eliot shrugs and puts the button away, just a dead lump of metal over his heart.
“So it looks like you’re stuck with me.” He smiles ruefully, picking up the whiskey and gesturing with it to Jack’s now-empty glass. “It’s not my place to tell you what to do, and you've got more than enough reason to drown your sorrows. But I’ll just say from experience that that isn’t going to treat you well, especially if you haven’t had it before. You might consider slowing down.”
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So it looks like you're stuck with me, Eliot says, and it doesn't feel like enough- one drunken pirate to make up for the loss of a kingdom filled with talking animals and quests and the divine right of kings. The warning that follows is probably warranted, but he lets the advice slide over him nonetheless. He knows it's not going to treat him well. That's the point. It's what he deserves.
"This fucking place..." He sighs, leans back against the strange leather of the booth, and lets himself drift for just a moment. He's hoping for ease, but only feels regret coiling itself around in his stomach. "It's taken everything I hadn't already lost. Though..." Who's to say he hadn't already lost, back home. Sure, Darrow is another world, but it was him that lost their future, his good name, Anne's love, Charles' war. Charles, full stop.
"I talked to...a scientist. Mn- Not a mathematician..." He fumbles over the memory, struggling to find the appropriate word. "Physicist?" He shakes his head and immediately regrets the motion. "And I talked to you. I thought...If I could just understand it, the reality and the magic, maybe it would be an opportunity. To go back, fix the wretched mess I made. Be...stronger...or listen to Anne, when it would have kept him out of it. Or kept her with her love."
He shakes his head and sinks a little further into his seat. Moving seems to come with more sensations than usual, none of them pleasant. He closes his eyes against them, but that only seems to worsen the situation. He groans lightly and opens his eyes again.
"But it's not possible. Here. here." He leans against Eliot, one hand fishing into the inner lining of his coat to reveal a gold coin. He grabs Eliot's hand and turns it so that he can press the coin into his palm. "My home with yours. Both lost." He folds Eliot's fingers over it and clasps his hands around the hand, cementing it in place. If Eliot ever does manage to leap his way back to Fillory, Jack would hope for the possibility that this small thing might go too, to be a reminder of him and where they'd been trapped together.
Instead of moving back, he shifts lower and rests his head on Eliot's shoulder. He needs somewhere solid, and this will do. "Keep it."
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But he doesn’t get the chance to ask–Jack grabs at this hand, abrupt and emphatic, and presses a coin into his palm before Eliot fully realizes what’s happening. It’s so very bleak, Jack giving him this piece of his home like he’s giving up on…all of it. But Eliot can’t keep a startled sort of smile off his face. Nor can he fully suppress the shameful little thrill he feels at Jack touching him with such intent.
Eliot clears his throat, glancing in his periphery as Jack settles down on his shoulder. It’s certainly not the most comfortable place to rest, but he’s not going to object if Jack fiends some brief measure of peace there. “I’ll hold onto this for you,” he says, his voice low and quiet. There’s no telling whether Jack will want it back once he’s sobered up, but he appreciates the gesture.
He thinks for a moment about the magic that would be needed to cross worlds and time in one go–it’s something to chew on, combining the necessary approaches in theory, but it wouldn’t help Jack to muse about it now. Not since he’s already getting a little drunk.
Instead Eliot turns his head a little, Jack’s face partially obscured by the dark fall of his hair. “You know,” he says, as gently as he can manage, “if you want to tell me more about it…I just-you make it sound like it was your fault, and I fail to understand how that could be.”
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He takes in a breath and lets it out slowly, trying to quiet his thoughts by thinking about the gold coin settled in next to the little silver button in the inner pocket of Eliot's coat. He's trying to think about the coin and the button, picturing them in his mind's eye rather than the feeling that being here and acting like this is wrong.
The nearly empty bar seems to cement that he shouldn't be here. He focuses his eyes across towards the entrance. It's still the afternoon and light is streaming through the front window across a table by the door, lighting the wood and glinting against an abandoned crystal ash tray. No one is sitting there- they'd get sun in their eyes if they did. The place is pretty deserted. Besides them, there's one other man- seated at the bar and writing in a notebook.
It's still early, he thinks. Too early for being drunk and ranting about being slighted by the universe or his failure to keep Charles alive. Eliot doesn't need to hear any of that. He doesn't want to do to Eliot what his father did to him.
When Eliot offers to let him talk more, Jack cringes. He thinks of sitting in that carriage nearly a year ago, and Woodes Rogers smirking at him like he knew the secrets of the universe.
He says "All you know about me...is what I want you to know." He sighs lightly and pushes himself up from Eliot's shoulder. It's only true because he wants Eliot to know everything about him. But here, in this moment, he doesn't want to risk Eliot's care by telling him the truth. He knows that if he tells the entire truth about Charles that Eliot, at best, will think he's a coward. Worse- he might see him as a traitor not worthy of his friendship.
"I should go. I'm going to go back. I'm sorry for all this." He scoots out of the bench seat. When he stands, he suddenly becomes fully aware that he's drunk- the world spins around him for a moment and he stumbles a step to catch his balance. He reaches back, no longer meeting Eliot's eyes, grabs the bottle of gin, and tucks it into his outer coat pocket. It weighs down the left side of his coat, but it'll work for the walk back to the apartment.
Walking also presents some difficulty, and he discards his initial thought to take out his wallet on the way to the bar in favor of walking there and then standing still while he fishes it out.
"Here" he pulls out his credit card and slaps it onto the bar, then turns to leave. At least he won't be making Eliot pay for one part of this terrible afternoon. "Ill come get it later."
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Except it doesn’t make sense. For a moment he’s too startled by the loss of pressure at his side–bereft of that point of contact Eliot can’t immediately react, but he registers Jack making his apologies and staggering to his feet.
Eliot frowns, watching him take the bottle and make his way to the bar. He can’t just assume Jack’s meaning because he’s feeling sensitive, especially not when this dramatic, disparaging exit feels uncomfortably similar to his own past behavior.
People don’t say things like that because they’re necessarily true, not in Jack’s condition anyway. They say it to be refuted. They leave so that someone will follow—it’s what Eliot would do in his place.
He downs the rest of his whiskey with a grimace, still swallowing as he pushes himself to his feet and exits the booth. Jack’s already at the door, and the server behind the bar is watching him with an expression that might be mild concern.
Eliot rolls his eyes and pulls out his wallet as he approaches her. “Sorry about that,” he says, taking Jack’s card from the lacquered surface and replacing it with far more cash than a rail gin is worth. “Been a bit of a day.”
“Is your friend gonna be all right?” she asks, blinking at the money for a moment before taking it to the register and starting to key in the transaction.
He gives her a harried smile; the crooked line of his mouth twitching. “He will if I have anything to say about it.” Eliot nods in thanks and leaves without waiting for change. He’s got no patience left for anything that isn’t catching up to Jack and keeping him from being alone.
The air was a little stuffy in the bar but the full blaze of afternoon sun hits Eliot as soon as he’s out the door. He feels a trickle of sweat at the back of his neck, and whether it’s the heat or the anxiety, the difference hardly matters. Fortunately Jack hasn’t gotten far, moving at a shuffle instead of his usual loping gait, and it only takes Eliot a few paces at a jog to catch up.
“Hey, hey." he grasps Jack by the arm to stop him, and tries not to sound harsh. He’s a little out of breath despite the short distance. “You can do the self-loathing shit all you want, but you’re in no shape to be alone right now. I’m going to make sure you get home safe, okay?” His thumb strokes a reassuring arc over Jack’s sleeve and he rests his other hand on Jack’s shoulder.
“And…whatever you have to say, if you want to say anything, I’m just going to listen.” Eliot gives him a pained look, trying to make him understand. He sighs. “I have far more practice than you at being the difficult drunk, so if you think I’m going to–to argue with you about whether or not you’re a bad person just so you can feel more hurt, you’re just. You’re wrong.”
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Eliot's hands steady him, but he feels wary about accepting the support. He looks down, focusing his eyes on the crooked line of his mouth. "Eliot, you're a noble man. In more than title. A good man. -If I tell you all that I've done, I sincerely doubt that you would be so free with your good opinion. I-" The words nearly start tripping out of his mouth, he feels the urge rising like bile. Jack sighs, then lays his hands on Eliot's chest and gently pushes himself away from Eliot's grip.
He keeps walking back. His voice is resigned when he adds, "Come if you like."
When Eliot does follow, he feels both relieved and despairing. He wants Eliot by his side, but he also doesn't want this to end today. His steps become ticks in a clock, counting down to the time when Eliot won't want to follow him anywhere anymore. When Eliot says they're going the wrong way, he keeps walking. "We're not going there. I don't sleep there anymore."
Jack leads him towards his apartment- the old one that he never shared with Anne. The walk is much longer than it usually is, and he hates the feeling of his senses being distorted and wrong. The bright sunlight doesn't help. When they finally reach the cool lobby of the building, he breathes a sigh of relief. And as he leans heavily against the elevator wall, he starts to talk.
Eliot should know the kind of man he is. He deserves to know.
"I've killed men who begged my forbearance- begged for the sake of their wives and children that I might spare them- and nothing they could have said would have stopped me." The elevator dings and he squints up at the number to confirm it's the correct floor, then pushes himself out. Even resting for that short amount of time makes movement seem like a burden.
"I enslaved men. Brought them to rebuild the fort." He huffs a bitter laugh as he continues. "I had access to a fortune unknown to anyone on Nassau before or after, but I was too weak to convince men to work for any wage. So I tricked Charles into running after a slaver. I'm surprised he didn't kill me for it." He fumbles with his key. It's one key, attached to a small fob, and he examines it for a moment before sticking it in the lock the correct way round. He's speaking without looking at Eliot now. When he stumbles into the room he leaves the door open behind him, allowing Eliot to enter or leave. He tosses his key onto the counter in the kitchenette and they glance off the side and fall to the floor, but he doesn't bother to pick them up. Instead, he stands at the counter and fishes the gin bottle out of his coat pocket.
He sets the bottle on the counter and leaves his hand on it. In retrospect, making Charles compromise had been for nothing. "...he was a slave himself, once."
He lifts his eyes enough to see that Eliot is inside, that the door is closed. The small number of dishes he owns are all sitting in the sink- two glasses, a bowl, a plate, a small collection of plastic utensils. The living room contains a couch and a desk covered in a few books, notebooks, and a lamp. Nothing else seems altered or used or unique. It feels as foreign and strange as it did the day he first arrived.
"I started the whole race to the prize without his permission...bungled the exchange then, too...Silver burned the page containing the schedule. It's only luck that we were able to retrieve the treasure later." He looks down at his hands and the counter dotted with fresh tears, thinking about the sum of the ship's wealth swimming in front of him because he'd been scared. He wonders if, if he were less clever, if he'd been stronger, if he had never been in Nassau at all- if Charles would still be alive. "If you can call it luck."
Jack pulls a glass from the sink and pours a bit more of the gin into it. It hurts that Eliot's stayed, because he's sure that by now he's regretting his choice. He feels dread at the thought of continuing to speak, but he does anyway. He needs to see this through. Whatever this is, Eliot doesn't deserve half-truths from him. He can't stop now, so he takes a big swig from the glass and keeps his grip loosely on it as he continues.
"He was out- Safe, with Teach. We blew up the damn Fort to get him out. We were all of us out that wanted out- Anne and I had the cache and we were out and that could have been it." His voice cracks and he takes a shaky breath. It doesn't help. "Rebuild a life, fuck Eleanor Guthrie and Woodes Rogers and Nassau and Max and all of that. Head to the continent. Or anywhere." Jack crumbles by degrees. He starts by leaning against the counter, his shoulders hunched forward. Then something in him lets go and he kneels to the ground there in the kitchen, his forehead pressed against the empty cabinet drawers, the glass of gin still in his hands. Quietly, his voice creaking out between tears, he says, "He could have been safe. But I went back. They were offering pardons- I wanted my name free and clear." The contempt is clear in his voice. His desire to keep his name ruined everything. He's crying in earnest now. His shoulders are shaking with it. "I knew Charles was an exception...fucking Sea Witch made sure of it. I didn't know....that I'd been added to that...illustrious list."
Jack falls softly back until he's sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor. A splash of gin falls across his hand and onto his shirt, but it feels like a trivial worry right now. He sets the glass aside and stays, hugging his own legs. He can barely talk now through his tears. He shoulders shake and every minute or so a sob forces its way through his body. "I left him behind. He came to save me and I left him behind."
He can't look at Eliot. He can only sob and wait for the sound of the door opening and closing.
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Eliot does his best to monitor him, in case he starts to get sick or pass out or wander into traffic, but the trip is mostly uneventful. There’s just the moment when he touches Jack’s elbow to steer him towards the apartment and Jack keeps going the way he had been. He doesn’t sleep there anymore, and Eliot gets no further explanation to quell the sharp sense of dread he feels at the words.
He hopes for a while that Jack is just confused, the layering of alcohol and trauma making him forget where he is and wander to some other random location. That would be, Eliot thinks, somehow more sensible. But they reach an unfamiliar apartment building and Jack gets on the elevator like he knows where to go and that’s more alarming than anything he says about murder.
Eliot opens his mouth to speak, to ask what the fuck is happening, but his voice is gone. He’s just cold and horrified at the tale Jack is telling and how he has a key to this dismal little place, an apartment that’s nearly empty in a way that feels like a bomb’s gone off.
It’s too much. He can’t take it all in and make sense of it, as Jack rattles off names and events and some of them seem familiar and others not at all. Far too much for Eliot to make any sort of character judgment from, as Jack has apparently been afraid of. All he can really think is that something has gone deeply, terribly wrong. Jack is spiraling and Eliot wants to ask Anne what the fuck is going on, but she’s not here. She’s not here and it’s all wrong and Jack is alone and absolutely lost.
There’s no words or magic to fix this, not when Jack is so despairing. All Eliot can do is love him. Not like how he thought might be possible when he woke up this morning—that is something foolish he has to put away, in a little box at the back of his mind, and try to forget about. The way Jack needs to be loved, here and now, this is something Eliot will do his best to provide.
Crouching down to meet him on the floor and nudge the glass away from Jack, it takes only a moment’s concentration to levitate it and send it back up to the counter. And when the glass comes to rest on the formica with a dull clunk Eliot’s arms are already around him to pull him close and hold him there in the hopes that something about this awful day can start to feel better.
“Okay,” he says, softly. “Okay.” It’s not actually okay, there’s no way it could be, from what he’s managed to parse, but this is what people say in times like these. His knees start to ache from being in an awkward squat on the floor, but he ignores it. He ignores the way Jack smells like sweat and gin, the cloud of it covering him like a pall, and how odd it is to be on the other side of that feeling of misery made palpable.
Instead he focuses on Jack’s shoulders, the fabric of his coat still warm from the sun. Eliot holds on tight, breathing slowly to try and steady him, and counts the intervals between the tremors of his sobs.
Eliot wants to say more, his instinct is always to try and fill a void with words, but there’s little good that would do now. He sighs though, and it turns into a low hum with his face pressed into Jack’s hair, and he rubs his back in slow circles for the worst of the shaking, and that feels more useful than any verbal reassurance he could offer.
It feels good, to be useful to him. To be close to him and provide some measure of safety or comfort. The thought settles something in Eliot, heavy and soft, and he thinks he could stay like this forever if Jack needed it. He doesn’t feel the strain in his legs at all.
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"You don't-" Eliot must not understand. "He pried me out...Carried me out." He wraps his arms around Eliot in turn, and as he is able to say a little more, he clings to him. "God..." He thinks of Charles smiling at him, joking as they pried the shackles from the wall of the carriage, how it felt to escape death under Charles' arm.
"I think-" He tightens his grip and sobs for a couple minutes before he's able to continue. "I loved him. And I left him behind."
He feels like a burden, but he doesn't have the will to reject what Eliot is offering to him. Instead, he buries his face in the hollow of Eliot's neck. He's not sure how long he stays there, but he sobs until his shoulders ache and he's sure that he's making a mess of Eliot's jacket.
"Fucking Billy Bones...said he could turn the street-" His breath hitches and he breathes quickly a few more times before he's able to slow his breathing down again. "Shit-, I'm sorry-" Jack awkwardly pulls at the knot to his neckerchief, then pulls the whole thing over his head instead of untying it. He pulls away and attempts to undo some of the damage done to Eliot's jacket.
That done, he lets go of Eliot and awkwardly falls back to a seated position against the solid back of the fridge. He takes a minute to slowly untie the knot in the neckerchief, then slowly unfolds it, wipes his nose, and scrubs it over his face. He's attempting to stop crying now, but he's still breathing hard and his breath keeps hitching. He can't fathom why Eliot is still here, after everything that has happened today. "I don't know why you're so nice to me."
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It doesn’t fully make sense, what with the way Jack talks about several things at once, but the overall effect is…troubling. Eliot frowns; it seems like Jack was hurt somehow, but he acts as if it was his fault–a betrayal of someone he loves.
He loved him. The word could mean anything, but the circumstances leave little room for doubt about the nature of Jack’s feelings. He is heartbroken, Eliot knows this with a grim clarity. He wonders about every time he thought he’d noticed something in the way Jack sometimes looks at him, if he’d inferred interest where all Jack felt was loss.
And this other name sticks out somehow, another in the pile of ghosts of Jack’s past, but Billy Bones sounds both familiar and unreal and it bothers Eliot that he cannot place it, and Jack’s too upset to ask.
When Jack starts to apologize, Eliot barely manages not to roll his eyes. “It’s fine,” he murmurs, and disentangles himself as Jack pulls the neckerchief over his head. But he doesn’t stop Jack from trying to dab at his clothes. It’s something to occupy him and maybe settle him down.
He pulls away soon enough, and Eliot lets him go. Jack only makes it as far as the fridge, still on the floor as he fusses with the fabric in his hands. It feels like this is becoming less of a crisis, until Jack’s last miserable statement freezes Eliot in place.
It shouldn’t be hard to answer: I care about you, I love you, I want you to be happy. But for a moment Eliot says nothing and he can’t look Jack in the eyes and he’s quiet for what feels like a moment too long.
“I-” he says, with no ability to follow up. “Well.”
He needs something to do with his hands. Eliot stands up and looks around the space while he tries to choose his next words. He finds Jack’s keys and puts them on the counter, adding the credit card from his pocket before he shrugs off the jacket. It’s certainly seen worse. Eliot flicks his hand at it, a basic somatic cleaning spell, and in a moment the leather is clean and dry. He lays it on the counter as well and pushes up his shirtsleeves and finally speaks, as he looks in the dish drainer.
“Well someone ought to be.” Eliot’s tone is matter-of-fact but he’s so desperately upset that Jack feels this way. He takes the other glass from the sink and fills it from the tap—the glass of gin he pours down the drain. “You’re my best friend here. I think—I hope you’d do the same for me if our positions were reversed.” With a sigh, Eliot chills the glass in his hands and turns back to him. “I don’t want you to be unhappy. Here—“ he hands Jack the water and slowly sits down beside him, folding his knees up close to his chest. On impulse he reaches out to stroke Jack’s hair, tucking it behind his ear and leaving his hand to rest gently on the back of his head. He hopes it helps.
Eliot speaks after a moment, needing to ask about one of the things that’s bothering him. “You said he carried…Jack, you make it sound like you were injured, is that…? Something happened and you couldn’t help, is that what it was?”
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He likes to hear that he's Eliot's best friend here, though at the moment it feels like a duty he's not fit for. Still, he's comforted by Eliot settling down next to him, by his hand brushing through his hair. He sighs and scrubs his handkerchief over his face once more before letting it fall into his lap. He focuses for a moment on the feeling of the cool glass in his hand and the gentle weight of Eliot's hand at the back of his head, and though he hears Eliot's question, he takes a minute to slow his breathing before he tries to speak again.
"You're miraculous, Eliot, truly." It's not just the magic, it's Eliot's capacity to sit here next to him and ask questions like he cares about the answers. He closes his eyes and brings the glass up to his forehead while he tries to put events in order in his mind. "Anne is kind, in her own way- Charles was a kind man, but very...straightforward. I'm accustomed to people that are straightforward like them. You know where you stand. You're more like me. So...I kept waiting for an ulterior motive to present itself. Perhaps I should have given you more credit."
He opens his eyes and his vision reels in front of him for a moment before it settles again. "hng."
"I know I'm not making much sense. Let me try to explain. It's just...it's difficult to talk about him. I left, the other night, because I could feel myself..." He gestures vaguely at himself and the kitchen floor. He knows that Eliot must have put two and two together by now, but he wants to be sure that he knows it hadn't been his fault. "...losing my composure. I didn't want you to see me so weak."
Jack takes a sip of water and sighs around it. It feels good. The floor is cool, too, and he doesn't mind sitting here for a little while. When he starts to explain, his voice is as steady but heavy with grief.
"When I first saw all that gold on the beach, I thought I'd build something in defiance of all forces that would come to bear against it. That we could build something together that might stand the test of time. Charles told me...and he was right, that just having it demanded a response. It was too great of a prize and promised too much to go unanswered. I don't know why I thought I could build something, I couldn't even persuade men to rebuild a fort that would insure their futures, whether or not they cared about Nassau itself.
We had it changed...coin for gems, pearls, things easier to transport. And Max and Anne set aside a cache. There were...I kept a few coins." He takes another sip of water and glances towards Eliot's coat up on the counter, thinking of the gold coin and the little button together in the inside pocket. "Call it sentimentality."
"When Rogers came back with a fleet and the vengeance of Eleanor Guthrie brought to bare...they offered pardons in exchange for surrender and a bounty for the capture of Charles Vane. The fight was over before it even began." He sniffs and takes a deep shaky breath.
"We sheltered in the fort, and then I blew up the damn thing to cover his way out to the jetty." He furrows his brows and he dips his head down a little against the threat of more tears. "We said our goodbyes. He was out." His voice shakes to say it, and he pauses, his shoulders shuddering. "They got past the blockade, lit a ship on fire to do it," he huffs out a shaky laugh, "they were out."
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So he nods, intermittently petting Jack’s hair as he listens to the story spin out. He’s gathered by now that he can learn more from the way Jack says things in his rambling explanations, and the things he doesn’t say, that paint a fuller picture than just the words themselves. Jack’s not straightforward, that’s true enough, as precise as he is about how he presents himself. But for something like this, something that’s caused Jack so much pain, it seems like he lets the details hide the roots of it. Of course, the gin certainly doesn’t help.
Figuring Jack out is like deciphering a spell, he thinks. Eliot had this talent drilled into him, being able to seek out the meaning of a thing, the filaments of functional magic amid the background noise of the world. He had to train himself to be a good listener but the process is similar.
The story itself is thrilling in a way. It has all the hallmarks of a pirate adventure, but hearing it only makes Eliot tense. He’s gritting his teeth by the time Jack stops talking. It’s like Jack thinks there’s some deficiency in his character that made him unfit for the challenges of his world, as brutal and full of dangers as it was. He’s sentimental, and he sees that as a weakness, and Eliot hates whoever made him think that.
“So you…forgive me,” Eliot says, dropping his hand to his lap, “but if you’re implying you’re at fault for his death when there were all these other players involved–it’s like you see yourself as some kind of tragic flaw in this narrative? Like…yeah maybe I don’t have all the facts still but there’s nothing inherently wrong with you for being sentimental, or.”
Eliot has to stop and take a breath, but it catches in his throat as the next thought comes to him because it makes him so suddenly angry. He looks at his hands curled into fists and exhales, and he doesn’t raise his voice but the words are strained. “Jesus fucking christ you’re not weak for grieving someone you love, I would never think that of you, you can’t believe that.”
He shakes his head, trying to suppress his agitation. He needs to be steady for Jack, and this outburst surely isn’t helping. “Sorry, I’m sorry, I just had to…” Eliot clears his throat. It’s a minefield, trying not to be upset on Jack’s behalf when every third thing he says is horrifying on some new level. But he owes it to him to listen. “So he left, but you stayed and…I assume the situation deteriorated.”
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