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

[jackrackham]

At the touch to his arm, Jack focuses in on Eliot. For a moment, he's speechless at the compliment. He knows that this is just how Eliot is with everyone, but he doubts that he'll ever really get used to getting this sort of attention from him.

"Ah. Well. Thank you." He thinks of Anne looking at him, the beach and Darrow behind her as she gently suggested You could be with a man, here. His eyes slide away from Eliot's smile and he pushes past him, patting his arm as he goes. Even if he did want to be with a man, Eliot wouldn't be an option. Eliot is his friend, and has plenty of company besides, when he wants it. Even considering what it might be like to be one of those men feels like he's crossing a boundary. It feels unseemly.

"I'm sure that the young woman will be excited to see you. I doubt handsome fairy tale kings come around for a ride every day." He doesn't look back, but listens as Eliot falls into step beside him. "If she's interested in men," he adds as an afterthought.

He lifts up his hand to readjusts his hat. He's feeling awkward and unsure of himself, and not entirely sure he should have agreed to this at all.

[eliotwaugh]

For a moment Eliot doesn’t reply, trying place the source of Jack’s awkwardness. He doesn’t handle compliments well, Eliot’s noticed by now, but whether they’re unfamiliar or actually unwelcome is harder to tell. And that uncertainty makes Eliot’s plan for the day feel much shakier than it already is, but they’re already here. He might as well make a go of it.

“I’m deeply unqualified to give opinions on the inner lives of teenage girls,” Eliot says as they walk the short distance to the building with the sign that reads, succinctly, ‘office’. He’s aware that Jack’s in some kind of a mood, but that could be because of anything. It’s not, Eliot has to reassure himself, that he knows somehow. He can’t read minds.

“But if I had to guess, someone working at a place like this for the summer is probably far more interested in horses than any sort of romantic entanglements.” He thinks it over, trying to imagine Janet at fifteen. A terror. “Possibly also witchcraft.”

The door is open, so Eliot knocks on the frame before leaning in. “Hi,” he announces, finding, indeed, a teen sitting behind the front desk. She’s intently focused on the computer in front of her.

“...Can I help you?” she asks after a moment. She doesn’t look excited to see either of them, really.

When they step in, Eliot clears his throat. He was never good at interacting with young people, and there’s something about the severity of this girl’s french braid that’s intimidating. “Yes, I called earlier about doing a trail ride? My friend and I haven’t been to this establishment before but we know how to-”

“Yeah no, I know.” The girl, whose laminated paper badge proclaims her as Tasha, looks them over with distinct judgment. “Why are you dressed like that?”

“Well, it’s what people wear to go riding in the world I came from.” He tries not to sound as annoyed as he feels, but the question, and her demeanor, is starting to remind him of school bullies.

“Oh,” says Tasha, almost immediately losing interest. “You’re one of those. Fill these out.” She hands him a pair of clipboards with registration forms and goes back to her computer. “And you gotta wear helmets,” she adds without looking at him. “It’s like an insurance thing.”

“Sure,” Eliot answers as he hands one of the clipboards to Jack, not intending to do anything of the sort.

[jackrackham]

Despite his own reservations about his and Eliot's outfits for today, he still frowns at the girl when she questions what they're wearing. They look out of place, but they don't look bad. "Mine isn't for riding," he adds. "It's more about keeping upright on the deck of a ship and stabbing men with swords when they try to kill you."

"Cool," says Tasha, without any inflection at all, and hands him the clipboard. He looks after her for a second, wondering if he should say anything more before deciding against it. He doesn't need to stand here and argue with a teenage girl about their riding outfits.

Jack looks down at the clipboard, incredulous that paperwork is required to ride a horse. He pauses at the name field before filling it in. He writes 'John Rackham', though it makes him faintly uneasy to look at in print. It reminds him of coming back to Nassau for his pardon, announcing his name only to be pulled away from the possibility and the freedom he thought he might gain by it. He moves on before he can start thinking about what came after he was captured by Rogers. This is just a ridiculous form for a ridiculous excursion. It's nothing serious.

He pauses again when the form requires an emergency contact. He puts down Anne's name and number, thinking about what the look on her face would be if she were called here by some teenager because he fell off of a horse. Even after the past few days, thinking about her looking at him with aggrieved fondness is comforting.

He hands back the form and the girl glances at them before setting both aside. "Okay, Eliot, John- you can go right through." She gestures to a side door as if it is the most obvious exit in the world. "Your horses have been tacked up and helmets are just inside the stable. If you need any help, ask Marcus, he should be inside and he can help set you up."

When they get outside, Jack glances to Eliot. "I'm not wearing a helmet."

[eliotwaugh]

Looking at the form, Eliot struggles to think of an emergency contact to list. If anything bad actually happened to him…if it were any other situation he’d want Jack to know, but they’re here together, so it doesn’t reallly matter. The fact that Jack is with him feels like assurance enough that no catastrophe will occur, and he doesn’t want to examine why exactly that is, just now. Eliot frowns and writes in ‘John Sims,’ figuring that the Archivist would probably Know anyway, if some sort of disaster struck. Good enough.

He pauses a moment when the girl says, apparently, their names, squinting at Jack in confusion to the point that he has to hurry to catch up. He can’t have heard that right.

“Yeah,” Eliot agrees, distracted as they step back into the sun. “I’d at least keep it on until we’re away from the barn so they don’t gripe at us but—okay, John? That’s not…” he loses momentum almost as soon as he’s broached the topic. “I mean, of course that’s your name, I guess, it’s just…it doesn’t sound like you.” Eliot feels odd and uncomfortable about it, and worries he sounds hurt, when there’s no reason for that. He’s being weird and he needs to stop. There’s no time to kick rocks and feel sorry for himself for the apparent slight of not knowing his friend’s full name. There’s nothing to dwell on.

There are, thankfully, a pair of bored-looking horses to divert his attention towards. Eliot makes a beeline for them, greeting the pale dapple gray with a pet on the nose. “I bet these two could use some exercise,” he says, nodding at the other one, which is stark black. “He looks fit for a villain, wouldn’t you agree?”

[jackrackham]

Jack frowns at Eliot saying that John doesn't sound like him. It's true that it doesn't really feel like his name, for how long he's gone my nothing but Jack, but at the same time he doesn't think it's particularly strange that his Christian name might be something other that Jack. "I really should have written Jack. Even my ID card here says Jack, and that was delivered by a magical scrivener, so it must hold some sort of weight, as far as this place sees into the soul of whoever may arrive. I haven't been called John since..." He nearly says since I was a child, but that's not true. He shakes his head instead. He doesn't really know why his mind is so easily wandering today. "It doesn't matter."

He looks back, consciously focusing back on Eliot as he greets the grey dappled horse. He seems at home in this kind of environment, and Jack tries to imagine him out in a royal stables back home in Fillory. It's harder to imagine him among the horses and straw then out riding through the forest with a company of men around him. Despite how Eliot had described Fillory before, he'd never really imagined Eliot in the midst of nature. He wonders, suddenly, if this outing is something Eliot finds comforting, or if it was an outing specifically meant for his benefit.

"A villain? Well, then." He approaches the sleek black horse, patting its nose and then along it's neck as he walks to its side. It's easy to unhitch the horse and mount up into the sturdy saddle. He pushes himself up cleanly and swings his leg around, as if he'd last done this yesterday instead of months ago.

He straightens his posture a little, conscious of putting himself on display. It's somehow comforting to settle back into the idea of himself as an abstract concept rather than a reality. "Do I look like a proper villain?"

[eliotwaugh]

He doesn’t say anything as Jack talks through the awkwardness over his name. Other than the tacit agreement that he was right, Eliot’s better off letting him change the subject and meander onto more comfortable ground. So he turns and watches Jack affirm himself with the performance. And Eliot’s a little dazzled, even though logically he knows there’s nothing inherently impressive about Jack’s ability to mount a horse. He’s just…sufficiently tall. That doesn’t mean Eliot can’t enjoy looking at him, though.

“Yeah, he answers, looking up at Jack with a slightly dazed grin. “Like a real highwayman, I’d better watch my purse with such a brigand around.” He chuckles a little and gives Jack a wink to show it’s all in good fun, and immediately feels like it was too much. He’s not sure why he thought being this playful would make either of them feel more at ease.

“Anyway,” Eliot says as he glances away, spotting a man in double denim mucking out a stall and pointedly not looking at them, “you look quite capable—I’d hate to be your enemy. I don’t think the gentleman over there is likely to scold us too badly but still-“ he locates a pair of helmets set on a bench and hands one up to Jack. “Here.” Eliot pats him briefly on the knee. “Just until we’re out on the trail?”

He puts on his own helmet and unclips the gray’s lead and swings up into the saddle; the little change in altitude helps Eliot shift away from his own overthinking. He can almost pretend they’re going to tour Whitespire’s grounds.

“It’s basically a big loop,” he says, pulling a map from his jacket pocket. “So there’s need to worry about getting lost. Shall we?”

[jackrackham]

He's not entirely sure if Eliot's playful tone is sarcastic or not, but it's enough that he feels the building tension in his chest ease a little.

Eliot hands him the helmet and for a moment Jack isn't sure what to do with it. For a moment he holds it in his hands as he watches Eliot put on the other helmet, his lips twitching up into a smile. It's sweet that Eliot is going along with the rules even though it very much doesn't fit with the rest of his kingly image. It's a funny contrast, but he finds himself being charmed by it instead of amused. He glances over towards a man who he assumes is Marcus, then slips the chin strap of the helmet over the saddle horn instead of wearing it. "He can ask me to wear it, if he cares that much."

He twists his head to look at the trail. It's clearly marked with the intended direction of travel, and part of him wants to go the other direction just to be contrary, but he feels like he's already been difficult enough this afternoon. He's not sure why he can't just be his normal self today. What happened with Anne doesn't feel like enough to explain it.

"Mhm." Jack nods and clicks his tongue, letting the horse know that they're getting going. As they head out, the man doesn't object to his lack of a helmet.

For a little while, he focuses in on the slow jostle of riding and the sound of hooves on soft dirt, letting the background fade into a fuzzy numbness and not thinking about Eliot or Anne or anything at all. It's a couple minutes before he remembers that he needs to talk or else Eliot is going to know that something is off.

"Did you do this a lot, back home?" A thought suddenly occurs to him and he turns to look at Eliot, shaking off the fog. "Did...you've said there were animals that talk, is that all animals? Did you ride talking horses?" He shakes his head and looks ahead at the path. It's so strange to think of what that would even be like. It all feels too whimsical and unreal. "I still don't entirely believe that you weren't lying to me. Did you have to negotiate before you got on?"

[eliotwaugh]

Eliot doesn’t want to belabor the point, since Jack’s being prickly, so instead sets out on the trail. He falls into the familiar rhythm of posting even though the saddle is far more comfortable than the medieval-adjacent Fillorian style. But it’s good exercise. For a while they simply ride in silence, and Eliot takes the helmet off once they’re in the trees and out of sight of the barn, feeling a little foolish and uncool but he doesn’t want to draw more attention to it.

It’s nice, at first. There’s a scenic overlook on the map that he thinks would be a good place to talk; if he’s going to do this it might as well be there. And he focuses on that, and projecting an air of calm, until Jack breaks the quiet and he realizes he’d been clenching his jaw.

He smiles a little at the initial question, and chuckles, shaking his head at what Jack assumes it was like.

“It wasn’t completely absurd,” he begins, “And it wasn’t all of the animals, just…I don’t know, some of them. Maybe a third? You learn to just assume a creature might be able to understand you, as a general courtesy.” He pats his horse’s neck, and a memory floats up to the front of his mind.

“It was so funny actually—like I already knew how to ride, Janet had had lessons I think, but Quentin—god he was so bad at it, he just never got the knack and he had to have a talking horse as a mount because then at least someone in the arrangement knew what they were doing.” Eliot laughs, a wry and snickering thing that turns into a snort and startles a bird up the path.

“Oh it was just, I’d tease him so much about it and he never learned.” He sighs, feeling the prickle of a tear in the corner of his eye, but he doesn’t brush it away. There’s something sad about telling Jack this, like it’s wrong to mention Quentin when he’s not here, when Eliot has a new best friend, a new mess he’s made. He clears his throat.

“It was…that feels like a lifetime ago but it was just a few years. Anyway. I ah, I liked to go out hunting, or if we’d get word there was a Questing beast around, or just to be out in the world. It was…nicer when it wasn’t framed as trying to correct some defect in my character.”

At first he’s not sure why he said that, but it must have been the laughter. A reminder of even earlier days, 4-H club and being teased for flinching at a horsefly and trying to play along. Eliot frowns, and glances back at Jack.

“You see, when you grow up on a farm and you’re…insufficiently masculine they try to get you to learn all sorts of outdoorsy things to make up for it. Only bit of knowledge that actually was useful to me later on, I suppose.” He sniffs, and focuses back on the trail. The rest of it is better left behind.

[jackrackham]

Jack huffs out a laugh at the idea of a third of all animals with the capacity for human-like intelligence, then again at the idea of someone being so bad at riding that a talking horse would be required to successfully attempt the task. He must have been hilariously bad at it. It's not often that Eliot talks about his friends back home, and he's curious to know more about how Eliot acted back home. The last time Eliot mentioned Quentin, it was to say he'd carried him nearly dead out of a cave. To hear something less dire is an intriguing glimpse into what's Eliot's old friendships were like and what Eliot was like before he got pulled into Darrow.

At first he listens while looking out at the path, but Eliot's tone changes enough that he looks over to find him more contemplative than he'd been expecting. Maybe he just misses his home, but maybe there's something else about Quentin in particular that he misses. It hadn't really occurred to Jack before that maybe one of Eliot's friends from back home might have been more than just his friend, but now that it has it seems more likely than not.

"It's hard to imagine you on a farm." He takes one more glance at Eliot, how he truly does look regal (even more so now with the absence of the silly helmet), then hastens to add, "...not because you lack masculinity. Kings don't typically go around collecting eggs and mucking out stalls."

He wants to say something more about how Eliot's parents clearly didn't deserve the honor of his company, but he doesn't want to make Eliot talk about anything that might be upsetting for him. Instead, he decides to pull it back around to something else, though he's not entirely sure what to say.

"Did you and Quentin..." he starts the question without knowing how to end it. He knows that Eliot doesn't do relationships, so what is he asking? Did you and Quentin fuck? "Ah. Were you together? Just how you talk about him sometimes-" Jack shrugs and looks over at the trees, questioning his own intelligence. Surely he could have come up with literally anything else to say.

[eliotwaugh]

At the hesitant question Eliot goes cold, despite the sunshine. He should have expected this, really. It was bound to happen sooner or later that someone would get the wrong idea.

“It wasn’t like that.” The answer comes too quickly, sounding harsh, and he looks to Jack with an apologetic wince. “I mean–” Eliot stumbles over the words as he tries to explain, since the tone of his reply surely only raises more questions. And for whatever reason, when it comes to the whole mess of his history, this is something he needs Jack to understand.

“I mean we’ve seen each other at our absolute lowest, he’s closer to me than anyone, but it.” He pauses, chewing at the corner of his mouth. “It wasn’t sexual.” Eliot can’t help thinking about it though, the morning before the world changed, before Fillory, and waking up in bed with his two closest friends and all he could think was how fucking funny it was. Just hilarious, what awful people they all were. It feels like a lifetime ago. And before he’s even conscious of it, Eliot opens his mouth again.

“Like there was one time that doesn’t count, and sure I think he was probably curious but we didn’t talk about it, and even if anything had happened, like. The way I was, back then, the way we both were, we would have been very bad for each other. Quentin was the sort of person who didn’t seem to have the capacity to be happy with anything in his life, I think because he didn’t really…know what sort of person he wanted to be. He figured it out eventually, though, and I’m glad for him.”

It feels far too quiet after that; Eliot laughs once, nervous, and shrugs. He suddenly wants to be far away from here and this perfectly pleasant day. It feels like he’s ruined it somehow, and he’s not sure how he ever expected to have some sort of confession if he can’t even talk about an absent friend while sounding remotely normal. “Anyway.”

[jackrackham]

Jack already knew that he'd asked the wrong question, but Eliot's quick reply cements his certainty. He's still curious about a variety of things: what does 'one time that doesn't count' mean? Did he want it to be something more? but he's already overstepped by asking in the first place.

"Wasn't my place to ask." He'd like it to be, though. There's a little discomfort at knowing that there's this other man out there somewhere who is closer to Eliot, who knows him better. It's silly, he thinks, to feel jealous of a man who's not even here, and on top of that, one that Eliot seems to feel so conflicted about.

He understands some, though, about how Eliot must feel. There were certainly times when he wished that he could have made Charles happier with who he was and what they had created, but there wasn't the time or space to feel certain about any of it. Things were always uncertain...and it wasn't his place with Charles, either. He was his best friend, and they did understand each other better than anyone, but what Charles really wanted was never his to give.

Maybe if they had been kings on thrones instead of pirates, it might have been different.

The black horse beneath him whinnies as they turn a corner, and Jack reaches down to give her a calming pat. Distantly, he remembers that the last time he was on a horse it was also black, and they were leaving Charles behind. He pats the horse again and takes a steadying breath.

"She wants to go faster, I think." The path ahead is a straightaway that seems to go for a while before it disappears again heading higher up. Makes sense that the horses would be used to picking up into a run along this stretch of the path. "They're probably used to running through here."

[eliotwaugh]

“It’s fine,” he answers lightly, waving a hand. “Really.” It’s not not Jack’s place, but the meaning of the phrase is evident enough. It’s what people say when the truth is messier than what they’d wanted to hear. And that’s always been Eliot’s problem, really—that despite wanting everything in his life to be just so, deep down he’s a mess. Inevitably, too much of a mess for people to want to deal with.

He nods, jolting out of the mire of his thoughts when Jack points out the straightaway. “We’re coming up on an overlook, up past the bend.” The idea of baring his soul there now feels impossible, Eliot was foolish to think he could even decently pretend at something romantic. It’s probably better to just say nothing and finish the ride, since Jack seems keen to get it over with as soon as possible. He can make it entertaining though, if nothing else.

“Shall we race to it?” Eliot asks, the instant the idea comes to him. He makes himself smile and feels near manic with the need to salvage fun from the ill-conceived outing. The grey gelding tosses his head and snorts. He doesn’t wait for Jack to answer but presses on, eager now that he has a way forward. “It’ll be great—I’ll count down from three.”

He grins wider and his hands feel like they’re buzzing and there’s no stopping now, he can only press on. He leans forward and counts down, and he barely has to nudge the horse to ask for a canter when he shouts “Go!”

And then he takes off, and the rush of wind is exhilarating enough that Eliot feels like this will work out. They can laugh about it later. In a moment he reaches the bend, crashing though the shrubs whose branches reach out onto the trail and continuing up the little hill untl the path widens out into a clearing. A short run, but a good one. Eliot reins the horse in, sitting back in the saddle and catching his breath as he looks over the hills and the city and further out, the ocean. He looks back at the trail, and waits.

[jackrackham]

Jack barely has time to register what's happening before Eliot's counting down, but Eliot's grinning again and he can't imagine telling him no. The sleek black horse easily kicks into a loping gait beneath him, and he urges it faster in an attempt to catch up. He watches the shape of Eliot just ahead, but he keeps thinking of himself on the back of that other black horse.

Time blurs and he closes his eyes.

He can't focus on winning the race. He feels like his breath has suddenly been restricted and takes effort to push out. Instead of the race, he focuses on his own breath, the sound of hooves connecting with the dirt, and the motion the speed produces - over and over again a brief moment of weightlessness and then a rough jolt back to the saddle.

His breath quickens against his will, but it doesn't feel any easier to produce. He remembers his arms around Anne, the taste of dust and blood in his mouth.

Behind them-

His breath stutters, shaky at the thought.

Behind them, he hears Charles, clear as if it's another person coming up the trail, yelling for them to go. He can hear the urgency in his voice. The fear. He tastes blood now, dust, now. He smells Anne's hair, and the horse, and the hint of salt on the breeze. He hears the voice and remembers the gunshot. Charles is too far away to see the expression on his face, but he knows it anyway.

He has to go back. The need is almost frantic. He opens his eyes again knowing that this is a different horse. He knows he's not riding that one, doesn't have his arms around Anne, doesn't have Charles behind him - alive, but there's nothing he can do to stop placing himself there in his mind. Seeing the reality of it doesn't help.

He twists in the saddle and brings the reins with him. The horse neighs, turns and staggers back, nearly rearing up in the effort to turn on a dime in the path. His hat tips off the back of his head and falls to the ground, but it's a distant worry compared to reliving this moment.

He's off the horse before he's even entirely reigned it in. It walks further back down the path, and he distantly knows he should do something about it, but he can't make himself move to chase it.

He blinks against the dust and a tear escapes his welling eyes to slide down the length of this cheek. He takes a deep breath and holds it in his lungs until it starts to burn. Charles isn't here and the moment he had to save him is a year and a universe away.

He stands on the trail and stares back the way they came.

[eliotwaugh]

Something starts to feel wrong, as Eliot waits for a minute and there’s no sign of Jack. He grips the reins tighter and forces himself to breathe slowly. He’d heard—he thought he’d heard hoofbeats behind him, at least at first. He’s almost certain of it. But he was so caught up in his own anxious momentum and now, alone in the silence he starts to wonder if he’d imagined it. If Jack simply hadn’t wanted to follow.

But another possibility occurs to him with cold creeping dread, and he wonders if something happened to Jack. As soon as the thought takes shape it becomes a certainty in Eliot’s mind, and he turns his horse around, unwilling to lose a single moment more to fear.

He goes back at a slow walk, methodically scanning the trail for any signs of disturbance, and once he reaches the straightaway a whole tableau reveals itself, almost all at once. There is Jack’s hat on the ground, and Eliot feels his hands start to shake but Jack is standing motionless in the middle of the path some yards away, turned away from him. The black horse is a little further off, picking at leaves but its tail flicks in agitation.

Eliot opens his mouth but he can’t shout, he only lets out a sharp sob of breath. He barely reins his horse in before hopping off, and he rushes over in a blur and lays a hand on Jack’s shoulder.

“You–” he starts to say, and stops abruptly at the sight of him. He’s never seen Jack like this, an alarming absence in his eyes and Eliot can see that he’s crying, and his own throat feels suddenly tight. “Oh god are you hurt?” Did he fall, is he in shock? In an instant he takes Jack’s face in his hands, threads careful fingers into his hair to check for blood. This can’t be happening. “I thought–”

He doesn’t know what he thought, there’s only the dread.

[jackrackham]

Time doesn't seem to be moving forward, and he's not sure how long he's standing there before Eliot is next to him, grabbing for his face and pushing gentle fingers through his hair. At first it's too much fresh input to respond. He opens his mouth and closes it again as he lets Eliot's gentle examination continue.

"I'm alright," he says, still feeling lost and distracted. His eyes skate over Eliot's and then back down the road. He knows he has to explain what's happening, but he doesn't know where to begin. He's thinking about how Charles looked smiling at him in the wrecked carriage, how he pulled him out under his arm, saved his life. He thinks of how he must have looked swinging over Nassau.

He closes his eyes tightly and takes in a shaky breath, then lets it out in one sudden exhalation. "I'm- I'm sorry. I think I'm going mad." He laughs in a brittle way, quietly, and lifts a hand to rub the fresh tears from his eyes. He thinks of the gunshot, and Charles yelling go, and the sound of hoof-beats on dirt. He meets Eliot's eyes, then quickly looks down again. Everything feels like too much right now. Distantly, he knows that Eliot's hands are still on him, but he's barely registering them.

"It really wasn't a bad idea...this outing. Only...It made me think of- " He takes a couple quick breaths. He's probably breathing too fast. He thinks about explaining, about coming back for his pardon, getting captured, Charles coming back for him. How they abandoned Charles alone, and lost him. He opens his mouth to start the explanation, but it sticks in his throat and he shakes his head minutely. He doesn't want Eliot to know. What would he think of him then?

"I had to get off the horse. If you just....give me a moment. I'll get it. I'll be alright. We can keep going." He backs away from Eliot's careful hands. "I'll..." He pats Eliot's chest, then lifts his head and looks for the horse. He sees it, a ways down the path, nibbling at a shrub, and he takes a few steps towards it. His focus feels so narrow now, and the world blurs around the horse as he tries to assemble a series of steps in his head. Don't approach the horse from behind, say something gentle, take the reins, stop living in that moment, get into the saddle, stop thinking about Woodes Rogers standing over Charles, have a normal day. Maybe he can salvage this, if he can just pull himself together.

He stops before reaching the horse and leans to place his shaking hands on the fence rail instead.

[eliotwaugh]

He’s not bleeding, Eliot can tell that easily enough, but there’s still something wrong with Jack that makes him hesitant to let go. He looks too pale, pupils dilated in the sun. But more than that it’s what Jack says, when he’s able to speak, that alarms him. It doesn’t quite make sense, until enough pieces spill out and it seems to take the shape of shock or trauma.

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?”

[jackrackham]

Jack sits down, and settles his back against the fence, then tips his head back to rest against the post. He feels more than sees Eliot settle down beside him, and for a moment just looks up at the clear sky visible behind the line of trees. He hears the question, but it takes him a little while to respond. Even though he knows the answer, it's harder to think of a way to even begin to explain. The idea of speaking about what happened feels like touching an open wound. If it weren't Eliot asking, he wouldn't risk the pain.

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."

[eliotwaugh]

Watching Jack crumble as he speaks, it feels like there’s a physical weight on Eliot’s chest, and it hurts. His eyes sting in sympathy and he aches to hold him, but he can’t move.

“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?”

[jackrackham]

He listens to Eliot's attempt at explaining away what happened as he lets his gaze travel and settle loosely on the horses. It seems correct, but also like not enough. It feels like there should have been more to cause this than a little jaunt in the countryside. There are other things in his life that were equally jarring or stressful, but none of those have come back to haunt him in the same way. "It's a wonder I don't live entirely in the past, if it only requires stress."

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.

[eliotwaugh]

Eliot’s torn—it hurts to see Jack like this, lost and struggling to speak about it. He wants to offer comfort, but the possibility of that being either overwhelming or unwelcome keeps him silent. He sighs inaudibly and looks at Jack sidelong, frowning at the grit on his face. Everything about his bearing is strained and closed-off, but Eliot still raises his hand to brush the dust away before he thinks better of it.

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.”

[jackrackham]

Jack watches absently as Eliot gets up and starts to put things into order, arranging the horses and picking up his hat from the dusty ground. He takes the hat, grabs Eliot's forearm and lets him pull him to his feet. Part of him wants to continue that movement and crash into Eliot's chest -- to just lean into Eliot and disappear for a moment in the crook of his neck, to be comfortable and somewhere other than here. He swallows around the thought. He shouldn't be thinking things like that. It feels pathetic to want more than what Eliot is already offering.

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?"

[eliotwaugh]

Eliot can't reasonably object--if Jack says he's okay to ride back, that's that. Even though he's clearly shaken, from his uncertain half-smile to his uncharacteristic silence. So they ride back, and Eliot fights the urge to fill the quiet with inanity, and wonders what the staff at the stables must think.

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."

[jackrackham]

Jack stares down at the little bowl of snacks, considering it for a moment without following to sit down. He should be doing better, but he's not sure how to do it at the moment.

"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."

[eliotwaugh]

“...Sure thing.” He watches Jack walk off, still feeling troubled. Eliot doesn’t hear what he says to the server, but her expression seems a little strange when she gets to the table.

“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.

[jackrackham]

"Why? oh- well, I suppose for the same reason I'd rather not wear English wool. People in charge thought brandy being unpopular because of the war wasn't quite enough, and that it'd be a fine idea to harass France by limiting imports of brandy...and taxing it highly, while at the same time making it easier and cheaper to make and sell gin. So gin became cheap and readily available." Jack pours out more into his glass, filling it about halfway before setting the bottle back down. "Rarely as refined as something like this..."

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."