the grief that does not speak whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break

[jackrackham]

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.

Comments

[eliotwaugh]

It’s hard to take the compliments seriously when Jack just seems to be using them to denigrate himself. Eliot particularly wants to argue at being labeled miraculous; it’s so easy to want to to interrupt Jack when he says these things, but Eliot keeps his peace. And it’s not as if he didn’t have ulterior motives, but they weren’t sinister. Just…inconvenient, and he can’t think about it now when he needs to focus on what Jack’s saying.

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.”

[jackrackham]

A small noise of complaint echoes at the back of Jack's throat when Eliot removes his hand from the back of his neck, and he turns to watch Eliot's hands as they ball into fists in his lap. He frowns down at them and gathers from the tone in Eliot's voice that he's made him angry somehow, but he can't fathom how. Because he said he was weak? He's not sure why it would matter so much to him.

"No, no, I'm telling it all wrong. Just...wait." He leans toward Eliot and settles his hand on top of Eliot's hands, willing him to be fine with hearing the rest of this story. "I haven't gotten to the point of it yet. Even Anne said...Even Anne said I was too weak." He can see Eliot wanting to react, starting to think of a response, so he squeezes his hand. For a moment, his focus shrinks to his hand on top of Eliot's, and he runs a thumb over his knuckles.

"Just...give me a moment." He draws back his hand and looks around him, suddenly realizing that he's made Eliot sit on the floor with him. It may be fine enough for him, but if Eliot means to stay then at least he can be comfortable. "I'm going to get up."

He does push himself up, working slowly and deliberately to get back on his feet without the world spinning around him. He heads for the couch because it's closer, but Eliot takes his elbow and nudges him toward the bedroom instead. It's nice, to have him there to steady him. When they reach the bedroom he shrugs his coats off of his shoulders and lets it fall to the floor, then he sits on the end of the bed and lies flat with his feet still planted on the floor. He's going to have to work himself up to taking his boots off.

"Where was I-" He lets his eyes close and the sudden weight of his own exhaustion is almost overwhelming. "Chaz was gone. Anne and I left- we had the cache, we had a way out, a world of choices for where to go, but I decided to go back. I thought...if I took the pardon, I could keep my name, there would be less trouble for us. But it was folly. Exchanging one compromise for another. God...so I went back. And Charles was doomed, then. When I arrived, they took me hostage to ransom the cache. If I had just left, maybe we would have lost Nassau, but Rogers wouldn't have had the cache in his sights again. Spain maybe...maybe Spain would have wrested the island from him." He sighs, "It might yet, still. They want the cache back and might burn down Nassau to do it."

"Chaz may have been right about...I thought I could maneuver my way back in, take Nassau back or take him down with me. Give my name the same weight as the other men who made Nassau a place for free men. I thought I could be as strong as Charles was. Make the same kind of decisions that he would." He brings a hand up to rub at his eyes, thinking of how many compromises he'd already been willing to make. "I sent a letter to Anne, told her to run with the money."

He pushes himself back up and looks down, considering his boots. "Max was so angry. I'd never seen her so angry." With his hands on his knees, he smiles, thinking about her barely contained rage. "She decided to stay--try to make peace with the new regime. I was ruining everything for her by denying Rogers the cache...and therefore threatening full scale Spanish invasion if he didn't concede. Not a bad plan, in theory. But she was furious."

He huffs out a short laugh that settles into a sigh. "I wonder what she'd think of Anne moving on..." He lets his vision blur out a little, turning his boots and the carpet into an earth-tone collage before he blinks to return them to focus. "I guess I hoped if it couldn't be me and Anne, then it could be Max, for her. Or all of us together again." He shrugs minutely, still looking down at his boots. For a little while there, there had been a hint of something that might have worked. Maybe. "In the least, she let herself be an accessory to Roger's plans, and at most she willfully betrayed Anne and myself."

He considers reaching down and pulling off his boots, but leaning that far forward seems like it might be more dangerous to his constitution than he's willing to risk at the moment. With a mumbled fuck it, he scoots back onto the bed instead, boots and all, until his head is resting on a pillow.

"Am I making sense?"

[eliotwaugh]

Eliot doesn’t startle at Jack’s hand on his, but the touch is enough to almost entirely dissipate his anger. Strange and sad, how Jack seems to have to be either drunk or exhausted to display this kind of affection. Or maybe that’s not it, maybe something has changed between them. Eliot knew going into this day that things would be different, one way or the other, but the way the afternoon unfolded…perhaps some Rubicon of trust has been crossed, and there’s one fewer boundary in their friendship.

Eliot looks at him, all morose and glassy-eyed, and sighs. Better to let him just talk, even if it’s clear that the way Jack sees himself, and the ways he thinks other people see him, are colored by his own depression.

He might be about to pass out, and when he veers in the direction of the couch, Eliot tries to redirect him. If Jack’s going to do this he ought to be more comfortable than that. Not that the bedroom offers a much better option—it’s small and looks barely used, the sheets the same cheap stuff everyone’s apartments came with. It makes Eliot so sad to think of him sleeping here, in this squalor. He deserves so much better.

To his surprise, Jack keeps talking, and Eliot can only stand awkwardly in front of him and let it unspool. It keeps getting worse, and incomprehensible and messy and so unlike the image he’d had of what Jack’s life was like that he’s holding his breath, stiff with tension by the time Jack asks if he’s making sense.

“No,” Eliot answers, but stops and quickly corrects himself. “Yes. It’s just–I need a minute.”

He needs more than a minute; he could have months and he’d still be wrestling with everything Jack’s just laid out for him. He should be alarmed at how little he knows this man, how he’s grown so close to Jack from the barest sliver of personal information. There’s a dismal little voice in the back of Eliot’s mind telling him that rationally, this is too much for him to deal with. That he ought to take this as a sign to cut and run. But instead of balking at this more complete portrait he feels a stubborn resolve to stay and take care of Jack–a duty as sacred as if he swore an oath.

Eliot crouches to pick up the coat, and carefully hangs it up in the bleak little closet. Everything about this place feels like Jack hasn’t so much been living here as inhabiting it like a ghost. It isn’t right, he shouldn’t be alone. It would be a noble, literary kind of thing, loving him by caring for him when he’s depressed like this. And that would be all Eliot would ever need.

He turns back to the bed with a sound that’s half laugh and half sigh. “Oh don’t,” he says quietly. “You’re going to be so uncomfortable sleeping like that, let me help.” There’s no use trying to keep him awake at this point, and he’s been lucid enough enough that Eliot isn’t too worried about him. Physically, anyway.

So he sits on the edge of the bed by Jack’s knees and starts trying to help.

“I probably would have done the same, in your place,” he says, focusing on the task of getting Jack’s boots off. “Making the best of a bad situation, even if all you can do is spite someone else…especially if they’d hurt you—“ he doesn’t want to think about it, Jack making himself the object of someone’s anger like that. And it’s frightening how ready Eliot is to hate these figures in the story, to wish he could go into that world and avenge any harm they caused.

A small muffled sound takes his attention as a dagger falls out of the boot and lands on the bedspread. Eliot rolls his eyes and carefully picks it up. “Old habits, huh?” He huffs a laugh and leans over to set the blade on the little nightstand. “Makes sense, after all that.” He could chide Jack that there’s far less danger here, that he doesn’t need to go armed if they’re out together, but that feels like maybe too much. He’s not Eliot’s ward, he can do whatever he wants to feel safer here, no matter if it makes Eliot feel a little sad.

So he gets the other boot off and sets the pair on the floor, and finds himself without any other neat orderly tasks that are immediate apparent to distract him from his feelings. He could get up, leave, but the story didn’t seem done and he still has questions. Eliot stays where he is, and gives him a commiserating pat on the leg.

“I guess I just thought…” of course Jack might not be in any state to be grilled about his personal life, but he’s the one who brought it up. Eliot frowns. “It seems like your…relationship situation was more complicated than you ever let on, and sure you don’t have any obligation to dig it all up but…” he stops, one hand resting on Jack’s ankle and looks at him sprawled on the bed in such bleak disarray. It feels like a mockery of every idle fantasy Eliot’s tried to quash lately. He shouldnt be seeing Jack like this. “Why are you here alone? What happened with Anne?”

That’s it, the elephant in the room. Eliot’s not sure he should have said anything, but this might be the only time Jack’s willing to address it.

[jackrackham]

"Nothing that wasn't already happening before." He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. He feels exhausted, and also ridiculous for feeling so tired. "Here? Greta. There? Max. And before that...a chasm of misunderstanding going back a decade. I'd thought maybe there would be something I could do but it's just...me. I'm never going to be enough for her. Whether because I was her liberator or because I don't have tits, I don't know. The point is- with Max, Anne was different. There was something there that I hadn't seen before."

He tips his head to look at Eliot as he continues to talk. "Before Charles came back and tore half the fort down, we were both with her. Anne wanted me there, with them. It was a month or so we were both fucking her." He takes a breath and thinks a moment. He's not sure how to describe what happened with Anne and Max, he's not really sure of anything that happened during that time- What Anne was going thru, or what Max really wanted.

As he continues, his tone is uncertain, as if he's searching for words as he goes.

"Max is cunning...intelligent, beautiful...Anne knew that if I wasn't there then she'd get into her head. Push us apart. It happened anyway, but I think Max was genuine. I do really think that she loves her." If the same is true for Greta, he doesn't know because he doesn't know Greta the same way, but he hopes so.

He pauses, the discomfort of his position only now hitting him. He looks away and feels at his waist until he finds his belt. He has to shift to pull the two buckles closer around to the front, and then takes a minute to focus on undoing them. When he finishes, he shifts to pull the belt out from under him and unto the bed. That's much better. "And I thought maybe..." He pauses, he face scrunching together in thought. He hadn't really thought anything. It had all been a jumble of trying to understand Anne, to understand Max, to understand himself. "Max put her fingers in my mouth once, when we were all fucking. I think maybe she was trying to see if she could get in my head too, or if the three of us would really work...or both, but Anne didn't like it."

He sighs again and focuses more towards Eliot's shirt and the glittering chain around his neck. There's more to tell, but he can tell that he's losing the thread of the story. "Things happened. I got my ship, she left. I didn't know if she ever meant to come back. When she did...I had Nassau to manage, a fort to rebuild, a bay to defend. She stayed with Max. I didn't."

"Here in Darrow, it was back to how it used to be. I thought maybe I could finally be enough for her, but..." He shrugs gently. "It was only a holdover. I love her, but she deserves to be happy."

[eliotwaugh]

Eliot regrets the question almost immediately, just from how it seems to drain Jack of all his remaining energy to answer. He’s not sure what he expected; all the signs pointed to a breakup, but this…it’s too much to conceive of. Anne’s gay, and that shouldn’t be surprising to him, but somehow it is. He’d thought of the two of them as some sort of inspirational example, a sign of stability in this purgatory and evidence that perhaps romance wasn’t just a capitalist invention to sell flowers and jewelry after all. Good for them, he’d think, and of course he had it all wrong.

The truth feels uncomfortable and tawdry and Eliot finds himself standing and pacing as Jack fumbles his belt off. It reminds him of messier times, of the one bad night before Fillory that he can barely remember and he grimaces, folding his arms over his chest. As awkward as that was it seems like Jack had it worse—a bad night that just kept happening, and maybe only now is it really over.

But that’s his own baggage, and Jack has a tendency to wave off things that seem, to Eliot, completely horrifying, so who really knows. He sits back down on the edge of the bed, hesitant to get too close but not wanting to stay away. He can’t find it in his heart to be angry at Anne, exactly. Not if it’s as Eliot’s inferring, that loyalty and circumstance kept them together despite her orientation. And he can’t be mad at Jack for not telling him about it.

“I’m sorry,” he says, picking up the belt and looking at the little silver ornamentations. “I’m so sorry, Jack, if I’d known you were dealing with all this I wouldn’t have asked you on this dumb outing in the first place, like…fuck’s sake, I’ve been so pushy. If you’d said something…”

But there’s no going back to do things better. Eliot sighs, frowning. “Greta’s a surprise but…she’s kind.” He doesn’t know what else to say. There are things to say, things normal people would say in situations like these maybe, but they seem impossibly out of reach. He stares at the little figures on horseback and wishes he were better at helping. He wishes he could even look at Jack, but that feels like too much.

“You deserve to be happy too, you know.”

[jackrackham]

Jack finds himself frowning up at at Eliot as he apologizes for asking for his time. That's the last thing that he wants apologies for.

"I don't need your apologies. Eliot... It's alright. It wasn't bad with Max. And...the outing was nice, it was..." He stumbles over the thought of slamming his head backwards into the fence post at the ranch, and thinks to check the back of his head for blood. It's clean. That assurance in place he settled more solidly into the pillow, his head tipped to examine Eliot. "It was nice to be somewhere that felt more familiar. I'm sorry that I did all of this. Maybe we could try again another time."

He sighs and tries to read Eliot's expression, but he's not sure how to decipher it. Maybe Eliot just needs to calm down. It had been a rough afternoon for both of them, but he'd ruined Eliot's time to be closer to his own world and dumped a world of pain on him. He's surprised that he's still here.

"You weren't pushy. Don't worry. Anyway, pushy can be nice." He huffs out a breath, barely a laugh. "Here. Lie down, relax." Jack scoots to the side of the bed, offering up a space for Eliot to lie down. When he does, even awkwardly, something in Jack relaxes. It's comforting, to have someone there beside him. He can still smell the hay from the ranch. He wonders if he'll be able to smell it on his own clothes later, but assumes that It'll be gin that lingers there instead.

For a few moments he lets his eyes close. He thinks of Anne with Greta, in the little cottage at the edge of the woods, and hopes that she feels a measure of ease there that she never could when she was tied to him. It seems like a nice place, with a family already built in, a warm hearth already made.

"Greta has a daughter. Did you know that? I led her out of the woods once." He smiles softly, remembering how awkward he'd been, how strange the situation was, and how Greta swept the girl up into her arms once they returned.

"As much as dying at sea has its appeal, I used to think...once I finally hung up my hat, we'd be married, we could have-" A son, a daughter, a house by the sea and stories worth telling. It feels impossible for him now, but if it is possible for Anne he wants her to have it. Even if he's not there to enjoy it with her. He opens his eyes again and stares up at the white ceiling. "...something like that. Safe. I think Anne is safe here. It doesn't matter that I'm not part of it like I'd planned. Not really. It's better for her, and that's what matters." His lips make it halfway to a smile, but the result is more of a grimace. It still does hurt.

"If I can find a way back maybe I could fix it all there too...Anne's love, Flint's war, Charles." He shifts to his side and takes in a breath then lets it out slowly. "But maybe that's as much a dream as the old one."

He watches Eliot's chest rise and fall for a few moments, and wonders what he dreams of when he thinks of home.

"I wish I could see your kingdom. I keep imagining it wrong."

He reaches out and settles a hand at Eliot's bicep, fingertips light against the fine linen to gently urge a response to his question. "What was it like? Not on a quest or under siege. Just...how you remember it."

[eliotwaugh]

It’s unbelievable, really, how Jack constantly misses the point. Eliot gives a quiet scoff at his efforts to take the blame for today. But he’s not amused. He’d be angry at Jack if the whole thing weren’t so desperately sad. Really, Eliot’s angry at the world that made him that way. Because it’s not just a misunderstanding due to the cultural distance between them, he thinks. This man really seems to believe he’s an inconvenience for having feelings. But Eliot can’t argue with that, and he can’t think of a good reason to refuse Jack’s own pushiness.

So he nods, but when Jack shifts to make room for him Eliot freezes. He’s suddenly too conscious of the logistics of this, and he thinks, bent over to take his boots off, that even though he just made a fuss over Jack being in bed with his shoes on, this is different. That if Eliot were to adhere to rule he just established it would somehow be unacceptably intimate, making it too real that he’s getting into bed with him.

He’s overthinking, of course. Jack offered, and he’s too sad and tired to care, and Eliot will drive himself crazy fretting over each minute gesture he makes. He frowns and takes his boots off, setting them on the floor by Jack’s belt, and when he lays down he fixes his gaze on the ceiling and stays absolutely still.

He stays like that, listening to Jack seemingly come to peace with what’s happened, only it’s the most bleak thing Eliot thinks he’s ever heard. This is the saddest man in the world beside him, living off the crumbs of someone else’s contentment, and Eliot wants more than anything to hold him. It would be both too much and not enough; as much as he feels sick with the need to make up for the lack of love in Jack’s life, it seems that what he wants is more than what someone like Eliot could give him.

He almost startles when Jack touches his arm, turning his head in surprise at the question. "I wish I could show you," he answers, quiet. "Description hardly does it justice. If—" Eliot shakes his head. He wants so acutely in that moment to be able to take Jack back with him that it makes his chest ache. But there’s no point entertaining that thought; even if he got the button working again, Jack wants to return to his own world, not to be a stranger in an even stranger land than this.

It’s a struggle to pull his thoughts away from that impossibility, and to describe what makes Fillory so dear to him. But he tries. “There’s a quality to the air there that just seems to sparkle. The magic is so present that if you take a deep breath it just feels…so invigorating.” He sighs. The air in Darrow doesn’t feel like anything. “I could say that’s because there’s no industrial smoke in the atmosphere but it’s more than that, somehow. Plants grow so quickly there, it can seem like some parts of it are fresh and brand new while other parts like the old forests are impossibly ancient and sentient.”

“I lived in the castle of Whitespire, on a peninsula that looked out over the Eastern Ocean. The…the foundations were massive pieces of clockwork made by the dwarves–and the whole thing would turn slowly throughout the day so you could always have a good view no matter where you were in it. I miss feeling that motion. It was so hard to sleep here at first, everything’s so still. Like being on a ship, I suppose,” he adds after a moment, “and coming back to land. There’s something missing.”

Eliot clears his throat. “Every day in the afternoon we’d go out on the largest balcony and wave to the people–they’d come out from the town of Whitespire, from the gates of the castle all the way down to the harbor and they’d be so happy to see us. And I know it sounds stupid but there was something so radical about that, just–an assurance that people were glad I was there.”

He can’t say more; his throat is suddenly tight and he could cry from how much he misses that certainty. Eliot takes a shaky breath and holds it a moment, and when he feels a little calmer he glances to his side to gauge Jack’s reaction before continuing.

He’s asleep. Fucking asleep.

Eliot almost laughs–it wasn’t a particularly good bedtime story but apparently it was effective. He studies Jack’s face for a while, wanting to remember what he looks like from this angle because, he realizes, once this moment has passed he’s not likely to see it again. Jack’s expression has softened a little from the previous tension and distress, and his fingers are still just barely touching his arm, and Eliot smiles. There’s a certainty here, too. He’s helped, in some small way, just by being here. And that’s enough.

[jackrackham]

Jack keeps his eyes open, watching Eliot's chest rise and fall as he talks. Then, after a few moments, he lets his eyes slip closed and he listens to his voice instead. He has a nice voice: clear and soft and never so full of longing as it is now. He wishes that he could open a door for Eliot too, so he might watch him walk happily back home, but it also hurts to think of him leaving. There's another part of him that wishes that Eliot might want to stay next to him in this bed forever. He wants to keep his soft voice and his kind hands tucked safely away - like Eliot's button and his coin, warmed together in a dark place.

Whitespire, he thinks, trying to fix the word in his mind as sleep begins to take him. His last thought before he loses consciousness is of an enormous castle made of sun bleached coquina stone, great white sails full of wind flowing back from it's battlements.

___

Below the sails and the wooden planks, the ocean heaves. Jack stands steady on the deck calling out orders to the men below while trying to keep an eye through the great sheets of rain pummeling the deck. The sky is a sickly jade green swathed in mists and he can hear through the wind the echoes of voices not clear enough to form words. If they're yells from the men or from his own imagination he doesn't know.

Out from the mists and storm an enormous castle appears, wreathed in fog and storm, the white of its walls almost glowing in pale green light. He stands, for a moment, transfixed and confused. A sound like the crack of thunder signals the break of a line. In a fraction of a moment - he looks down to see a flash of light illuminate the hard angles of Charles' face- he's shouting urgently, but this words are swallowed up by the storm. Before Jack can move or speak, the snapped line hits Charles and pulls him up into the rigging. He hangs from his neck, permanently silenced, the wind of the storm swinging him back and forth like a pendulum.

___

Jack wakes feeling sick, the imagery of the dream messy in his mind and heavy on his heart. It's a mercy and a disappointment both that Eliot isn't still lying beside him. This whole day has been a mess and he hopes that Eliot went home, or to find someone that would guarantee a nicer evening. He lets out a soft laugh when he pushes himself up from the bed. He hadn't noticed Eliot sitting on the floor, resting against the bed asleep.

He intends to stand and get a better look, maybe wake the man up and tell him that he's free to leave, but once he stands, his stomach start to rebel against its contents and he has to walk quickly to the bathroom.
It takes a few rounds before his stomach feels truly emptied, and halfway through he feels more than sees Eliot lingering in the bathroom doorway. Once he no longer feels in danger of vomiting again, he pushes himself up, flushes the toilet, and moves past Eliot to the kitchen so he can refill a glass with water and take a sip.

When he closes his eyes for a moment, savoring the sip, he can almost see Charles' face in his mind, and the approaching walls of that strange and beautiful castle in the storm.

"You-" His voice sounds rough and he takes a moment to clear his throat. He's looking down at the glass instead of looking up at Eliot. "You didn't have to stay."

[eliotwaugh]

He can’t stay here, tempting as it is, because he knows he’d doze off and the thought of waking up next to Jack makes something inside him break. Eliot gets up, moving as carefully as he can to avoid disturbing him. It’s very quiet in the room; after everything Jack had told him, the space feels weighed down by the enormity of it, and it’s somehow right that everything is so sparse. Jack’s past has made this a wasteland.

Eliot looks around and tries to make sense of it all. His first thought is to tidy up, but it quickly becomes evident that there’s just not enough things in this space to clean. He takes his boots at least, padding to the kitchen to gather up his jacket. He hangs it on a hook by the door, and with his own things neatened he can almost feel like this is normal, just a guest visiting a friend.

He hadn’t been looking too closely before, but as Eliot observes the apartment now he thinks that Jack can’t have been here alone for very long. There’s a loaf of bread just sitting on the kitchen counter, not yet stale. That and the near-empty fridge scream ‘not handling a breakup well’ but at least there’s a rotisserie chicken that’s been picked over, so Jack hasn’t been starving.

The other room looks a little more lived-in, with a small desk covered in books and papers next to a ratty couch. “Oh, dear,” Eliot sighs, smiling sadly at the desk. It rings familiar, his own apartment had looked much the same when he’d first arrived and hadn’t worked out how to use magic here. But Jack had a much larger gulf of knowledge to span, and the fact that he was still at it after all this time was…somehow disheartening. Eliot examines the collection, and he tries not to get anything too out of place but he’s not entirely successful. It’s like Jack had said, he’s trying to understand how Darrow functions within a system of multiple dimensions, because he’s never stopped trying to get back to where he belongs. And there’s something so grim about it, seeing the evidence of all the work he’s doing to catch up–exercises written in the margins of an old pre-algebra textbook, reading about history and astronomy and physics and asking himself questions about travel to other worlds. And yet, sad as Eliot feels that Jack wants so badly to leave, he loves to see Jack’s tenacity on display like this.

He leafs through the notes, smiling to himself as the neat handwriting, how incongruous it is to see old-fashioned text in ballpoint pen. He writes with long curly esses, the kind that look like fs. Jack feels so out of place here, he’s made that clear, and Eliot doesn’t doubt that something like this contributes to that feeling. Eliot finds it endearing, though; a lot of the writing in Fillory was like this. He traces his fingertips over the words, full of an incredible fondness.

Eventually he gravitates back to the bedroom; some latent paranoia about snooping transforming into a certainty that Jack will choke on his own vomit if Eliot’s not in the room. But he’s restless, and he spends a few minutes poking through the closet.

Jack didn’t bring much over to this apartment, it seems, and Eliot hates to think of him as diminished in this way, less able or willing to explore modern fashion in his solitude. But there’s some things he smiles to see, like the lovely pink wool coat, and the scarf Eliot had given him when they first met. It’s not his anymore, Eliot thinks, and he finds himself pressing his face into the soft weave for a moment. It smells like spices and coconut, like Jack’s hair.

And then, as he idly runs his hands over some shirts, Eliot notices something. A motif of embroidery, running along the collar and placket, but it looks unfinished. He blinks in the dim shadows of the closet and turns the fabric around to the back where the pattern leaves off. There’s a needle, threaded and tucked neatly next to the seam. Jack’s made this–and the instant Eliot completes that thought he sucks in a sharp breath through his teeth and he rubs his thumb over the curved shape of a vine. He knows exactly where he’s seen these stitches before, this exact green floss.

“What the fuck,” he whispers, looking from the shirt to Jack, asleep, out towards the hall. In a pocket of his jacket, the handkerchief embroidered with little pink roses, that Jack had given him. That Jack had said he’d bought.

Eliot doesn’t know what to do; there’s nothing to do, he can’t just wake Jack up and demand an explanation, and even if he could he dreads to think of what kind of answer Jack could possibly give. It feels wrong somehow, like he’s wrong, and he backs away from the closet and returns to the bedside, frowning.

Jack looks troubled, brows furrowed in his sleep, and Eliot wishes he could know what he’s thinking now, or what the fuck he was thinking when he made a present for him. Mostly Eliot wishes he could reach inside him and soothe everything that’s bothering him. Instead he reaches a careful hand out and brushes a lock of hair off Jack’s face. He sighs, feeling impossibly tired.

For a moment he’s stuck, indecision trapping him in place. He can’t leave, he knows that for certain. He needs to stay, and look out for him. But he’s leery of pushing boundaries any more than he already has. So after a moment Eliot sits on the floor, resting his back against the side of the bed. He can hear if Jack’s in distress this way, and he isn’t in danger of getting too close if he dozes off.

Eliot isn’t aware of falling asleep. He doesn’t dream, there’s just a vague half consciousness and the white noise of the room, and then after an indeterminate span of time he’s jolted awake by the sound of retching.

He gets to his feet after a brief effort, and finds Jack in the bathroom, hunched over the toilet. Eliot doesn’t say anything, not wanting to startle him. He just hovers in the doorway, grimacing in sympathy. Jack barely registers him, it seems, and he hardly makes eye contact once he’s done and stepping past him, so Eliot follows in an awkward silence. He seems to come back to himself after he has some water, though Eliot’s troubled by how Jack still won’t look at him. The question, when it comes, doesn’t surprise him. But it makes him sad.

“I wanted to,” he answers simply. He wants to say more, about how he couldn’t live with himself if he just left Jack alone in that state, after everything that’s happened. But he keeps quiet and looks at him a while. He looks rumpled, and Eliot doubts the sleep was comfortable. What he probably needs is food and a shower, not someone hanging around and prodding at old hurts, and certainly not questions about a handmade gift from months ago.

“Are you…feeling any better at least, after all that?”

[jackrackham]

After all that Eliot says, and Jack wonders if he means the vomit or what came before- drunken rambling and grief and sobbing in his arms.

"A little," he admits with a wince. He takes another sip of water to wash back the taste of acid and juniper then sets the glass aside. For a moment, his gaze lingers on the kitchen floor, thinking of his face pressed tightly into Eliot's neck. How long has it been since he cried like that? He cant remember. It must have been when he was still a child. It means something that Eliot was here for this, that he wanted to stay despite the whole mess of him.

When he looks back up at Eliot he sighs to see his soft and concerned expression. He doesn't know what he's done to deserve this man's care nor what would possess Eliot to offer it despite everything that he should find reprehensible in him.

"I know you will say it's not needed, but I am sorry for-" he shakes his head minutely and meets Eliot's eyes, both balking at the idea of describing the events of the afternoon and embarrassed that they happened at all. "I know it's not an easy task to take care of a drunken fool against his own wishes." He'd done it for his father, he'd certainly done it for Charles more than once, and neither were experiences that he'd want to repeat.

He's not sure what to do with his hands. He ends up leaning back against the counter and gripping its edge. It does feel better to have something to lean against- he still doesn't feel steady, or clearheaded, or well.

"I am sorry for it." He pauses just a moment, wondering if maybe he should just let Eliot leave without the promise of some other meeting, but the idea scares him. Despite Eliot's kindness today, there is a part of him that is still terrified that he's misunderstood- that Eliot was simply too kind to leave him alone with his grief and now, once he walks out that door, he'll be gone for good.

He imagines himself taking two steps forward, how it might feel to rest his head, again, in the gentle crook of his neck.

He swallows the bile building at the back of his throat. "Perhaps- There's a talented violinist that plays in the park weekend mornings...we could meet there tomorrow? If you still want to hear about the rescue and all that entailed...I can finish the story then." He smiles weakly and runs a hand back through his hair, another tired sigh escaping his lips as he does. He feels wrung out and tired and grimy, and he's sure that he looks worse. He's not sure whether he wants an hour long bath or to simply crawl back into bed and not get back up til morning. "Do you like violin?"

[eliotwaugh]

It’s awkward, now that Jack isn’t deep in the throes of despair, and Eliot wishes he could get him to stop apologizing. He wants to stay, because Jack looks raw and unfinished, and after seeing him so broken down Eliot wants to see the process by which he puts himself back together, to understand the whole of him. But he can’t. He’s seen more than Jack wanted him to already.

He fidgets, the air of discomfort seeming contagious. Jack is being polite but clearly wants him to leave, and everything that had gone before feels like far too much now. All their closeness feels like it had been a gross violation of privacy, and the only reason Jack had allowed it was because he was too distraught to protest. So of course Eliot can’t stay and make him some real food, or hold him until he falls asleep. He doubts Jack would even want a hug goodbye.

“Violin’s fine,” he says in answer to the question. It hardly matters. Eliot rubs the back of his neck, sighing. “Whatever you’re comfortable with,” he adds, trying to put as much warmth into his tone as possible. “I’d love to meet tomorrow. I want to hear the rest.”

He takes a step forward, reaching out to give Jack a brief pat on the shoulder. It’s the most he can justify allowing himself.

“It wasn’t,” Eliot begins, before crossing his arms over his chest and chewing at his lip for a moment. “You’re not a hardship, you know. I didn’t mind. I’m…I’ve been the fucked-up drunk more times than I can count, and it was never for as serious a reason as yours, so…it’s only fair I take care of someone else for a change.” He sighs, and tries to smile. “Please don’t feel bad, not on my account.”

[jackrackham]

"Alright." The hand on his shoulder is there and gone too quickly. It feels like Eliot is feeling uncomfortable with having been exposed to everything that happened today, and how he'd acted. If this were a normal day, if things had gone alright, Eliot might have hugged him goodbye. His fingers tense a little at the edge of the counter as he thinks about hugging Eliot goodbye. To thank him for following him here, for taking care of him.

He takes a step forward, but he took too long considering. Eliot is already backing away and gathering his things to leave. He thinks that it's probably for the best. He'd made today difficult and Eliot definitely doesn't want to be close enough to smell him at the moment. Regardless of whether or not Eliot had his drunken revels in the past, he doubts that it had been anything like today's sad confessions. He's amazed that it seems like Eliot is still willing to touch him at all.

"Tomorrow, around nine? He should be there, just follow the music, I won't be far off." Eliot says his final goodbyes and leaves. Jack shuts the door behind him and gently rests his forehead against the door. For a full minute he stays there, listening to his own breathing and feeling too exhausted and mortified to move. He doesn't know how tomorrow will go and he regrets what a mess he made of himself today. Whatever happens, he can't let that happen again. Eliot deserves better.

He sighs, pushes himself back from the door and heads back to the bedroom. He should take a bath, but he's tired and doesn't covet the idea of falling asleep and waking up in a cold bathtub. He brushes his teeth, changes into sleep clothes, and buries himself back under the covers- not in his usual spot, but on the side Eliot had occupied a few hours ago.