In Arms of Mercury
Title: Swing, Batter
Word Count: 1245
Crossposted: HERE at runaway-tales
I'm moving like I have no control of my body, like I've become a puppet, or perhaps a zombie, a robot being steered by a remote control some distance away. My fingers wrap around the sandpaper-bark of a felled branch, the many tiny twigs snapped off, and I wonder if perhaps this is one of Adrian's branches. Did he sit here, at some point, and pick them off in that thoughtful manner of his? Did he build little figures out of the ones still green enough to bend, whittle tiny spears and arrows out of the ones that weren't? The thought fills my gut with fire, my head with a swarm of angry bees.
Adrian didn't ask for any of this. And maybe this is my penance, just like Ezra said, maybe this is my price, but Adrian deserved better.
Megan figures out what I'm doing just a second too late, and her warning cry does nothing but draw Jace's attention backward, make him slow his steps slightly, turn his head over his shoulder, so that when the branch connects it's across the curve of his face rather than the flat of his cheek. But it's too dry, too brittle, and breaks on contact - solid enough to send him staggering, his skin torn ragged in an arc from the side of his nose to his ear, but not enough to hurt him as badly as I wanted to.
I'm pinned against a tree in a heartbeat, Megan's feet braced and her firm but shaking hand against my chest, gentle for now but more than ready to put me on the ground - or in a coma - if necessary. Jace, however, looks at me incredulously as he presses a hand to his face, blood streaming between his fingers.
"You knew the whole time, didn't you?" I demanded. My voice is a quivering, trembling noise that doesn't sound like me, at all. "You knew he was going to take me. You knew what he..." My tears feel like sand in my eyes and I blink rapidly, trying to dispel them. "You knew what he'd do to me."
"Of course I knew," Jace tells me, in a tone that suggests I am entirely stupid for not figuring it out sooner. He pulls his hand away, stares at his palm in disgust, and flicks a sheet of blood onto the ground.
"And you still let me go?" I demand. Betrayal constricts my chest, making it almost impossible to breathe - I'm gasping like a drowning man, struggling to remain standing.
"What was I supposed to do?" he asks. "Chase after you? Beg you to come back?" He presses his hand to his face again, winces, and thrusts his chin at Megan. "Let him go," he orders.
"But -"
"Let him go," he repeats, and a moment later the somewhat comforting brace of Megan's hand is gone and I stumble forward, the broken branch still gripped in my hand. Jace looks at it a moment, then turns his attention back to me. "I needed to find him," he says evenly. "And I wasn't going to do it by hunting archers."
"So I was fucking bait?!" I demand, the words loud and shrill and sucking the energy from my body. Again that look, questioning my intelligence. "Is that all any of us were to you?"
"He wasn't going to stay around unless we played the game, too," he says with a maddening shrug of his shoulders. The blood has painted half his face and one side of his pale shirt with gore, the pressure of his hand against the wound doing nothing to stanch the bleeding. "Some would say it was worth it."
"Worth it? Worth it?!" I scream. "What he did to Tobs... to Adrian... to me... that was fucking worth it to you?!" I’m gripping the branch so tightly my fingers have gone numb, the muscles shaking the length of my arm. I take a step toward him, raising the piece of dead wood like a bat, ready to see if I can’t smash that beautiful face in, when Megan grabs me roughly around the waist and hauls me back.
“That’s enough,” she murmurs - if it’s to me, or Jace, I can’t tell.
“I told you to let him go.” Jace’s voice is getting that hard edge of annoyance.
“I’m not letting this turn into a fucking three-ring circus, Jace,” she snaps. “You’ve done enough.”
“You want to boss people around, take it to your own crew.” He smiles at her, that grim, cold smile, and even with the tempest of emotions whirling in me I can find the space to be terrified for her. “But I won’t ask you again.” I can’t help but breathe a sigh of relief as she releases me and backs away, muttering to herself. Jace’s smile doesn’t even falter as he holds his arms out to either side, his bloody shirt pulling tight as it sticks to his skin. “Go ahead,” he urges. “You think it’ll make you feel better?”
“Yeah, I think so,” I snarl.
“Then knock yourself out.” He doesn’t break eye contact, even when I stalk toward him, and I remember him staring Yarik down the same way, just day before. It makes me falter, lower the branch just a bit, makes indecision twist in the back of my thoughts. I feel like Yarik, now, like something disgusting and wrong. “This is the only chance you’ll get,” he prods. “You might as well make the most of it.”
“It’s not supposed to happen like this,” I hear myself mumble.
“It always happens like this.”
“No, I mean...” I trip on my words, both afraid to give voice to what I’ve been thinking, and not wanting to say these things in front of Megan. “I don’t want it to be this way... with us.”
He’s quiet for a moment, studying me, and drops his arms to his side, and a horrible expression that I can momentarily pinpoint as pity - something entirely unfamiliar for him - flashes across his features.
"You don’t get it, do you?" he asks. "It’s not about us anymore, Bast. It stopped being about us a long time ago."
His words knock the wind from me, sure as any sucker punch - the sounds of the forest, Megan's breathing, the wind in the trees, everything fades into a pitched hum in my ears, a trembling vibration through my bones.
It's not the truth that hurts. In a way, I knew this truth was coming. In a way, I'd known that I'd never meet the standard Makari joked about, that nobody could ever truly be good enough for Jace, even the ones that shared the same bizarre genes.
What hurts is the truth behind the words. The pieces that he trusts can remain unspoken, as if he actually gives a fuck about my feelings. And that truth coils deep beneath my skin like superheated wire, scalds raw nerves and tissue, sears parts of me that not even Ezra could reach, parts of me that I don't think will ever heal. And I stare at Jace with the twisting knots of my guts blackening under that agonizing burn, with Megan tugging gently on my arm and telling me that I should just go back to the house with her, and everything I can think of to say - everything I want to say - simply dies in my throat.
Word Count: 1245
Crossposted: HERE at runaway-tales
I'm moving like I have no control of my body, like I've become a puppet, or perhaps a zombie, a robot being steered by a remote control some distance away. My fingers wrap around the sandpaper-bark of a felled branch, the many tiny twigs snapped off, and I wonder if perhaps this is one of Adrian's branches. Did he sit here, at some point, and pick them off in that thoughtful manner of his? Did he build little figures out of the ones still green enough to bend, whittle tiny spears and arrows out of the ones that weren't? The thought fills my gut with fire, my head with a swarm of angry bees.
Adrian didn't ask for any of this. And maybe this is my penance, just like Ezra said, maybe this is my price, but Adrian deserved better.
Megan figures out what I'm doing just a second too late, and her warning cry does nothing but draw Jace's attention backward, make him slow his steps slightly, turn his head over his shoulder, so that when the branch connects it's across the curve of his face rather than the flat of his cheek. But it's too dry, too brittle, and breaks on contact - solid enough to send him staggering, his skin torn ragged in an arc from the side of his nose to his ear, but not enough to hurt him as badly as I wanted to.
I'm pinned against a tree in a heartbeat, Megan's feet braced and her firm but shaking hand against my chest, gentle for now but more than ready to put me on the ground - or in a coma - if necessary. Jace, however, looks at me incredulously as he presses a hand to his face, blood streaming between his fingers.
"You knew the whole time, didn't you?" I demanded. My voice is a quivering, trembling noise that doesn't sound like me, at all. "You knew he was going to take me. You knew what he..." My tears feel like sand in my eyes and I blink rapidly, trying to dispel them. "You knew what he'd do to me."
"Of course I knew," Jace tells me, in a tone that suggests I am entirely stupid for not figuring it out sooner. He pulls his hand away, stares at his palm in disgust, and flicks a sheet of blood onto the ground.
"And you still let me go?" I demand. Betrayal constricts my chest, making it almost impossible to breathe - I'm gasping like a drowning man, struggling to remain standing.
"What was I supposed to do?" he asks. "Chase after you? Beg you to come back?" He presses his hand to his face again, winces, and thrusts his chin at Megan. "Let him go," he orders.
"But -"
"Let him go," he repeats, and a moment later the somewhat comforting brace of Megan's hand is gone and I stumble forward, the broken branch still gripped in my hand. Jace looks at it a moment, then turns his attention back to me. "I needed to find him," he says evenly. "And I wasn't going to do it by hunting archers."
"So I was fucking bait?!" I demand, the words loud and shrill and sucking the energy from my body. Again that look, questioning my intelligence. "Is that all any of us were to you?"
"He wasn't going to stay around unless we played the game, too," he says with a maddening shrug of his shoulders. The blood has painted half his face and one side of his pale shirt with gore, the pressure of his hand against the wound doing nothing to stanch the bleeding. "Some would say it was worth it."
"Worth it? Worth it?!" I scream. "What he did to Tobs... to Adrian... to me... that was fucking worth it to you?!" I’m gripping the branch so tightly my fingers have gone numb, the muscles shaking the length of my arm. I take a step toward him, raising the piece of dead wood like a bat, ready to see if I can’t smash that beautiful face in, when Megan grabs me roughly around the waist and hauls me back.
“That’s enough,” she murmurs - if it’s to me, or Jace, I can’t tell.
“I told you to let him go.” Jace’s voice is getting that hard edge of annoyance.
“I’m not letting this turn into a fucking three-ring circus, Jace,” she snaps. “You’ve done enough.”
“You want to boss people around, take it to your own crew.” He smiles at her, that grim, cold smile, and even with the tempest of emotions whirling in me I can find the space to be terrified for her. “But I won’t ask you again.” I can’t help but breathe a sigh of relief as she releases me and backs away, muttering to herself. Jace’s smile doesn’t even falter as he holds his arms out to either side, his bloody shirt pulling tight as it sticks to his skin. “Go ahead,” he urges. “You think it’ll make you feel better?”
“Yeah, I think so,” I snarl.
“Then knock yourself out.” He doesn’t break eye contact, even when I stalk toward him, and I remember him staring Yarik down the same way, just day before. It makes me falter, lower the branch just a bit, makes indecision twist in the back of my thoughts. I feel like Yarik, now, like something disgusting and wrong. “This is the only chance you’ll get,” he prods. “You might as well make the most of it.”
“It’s not supposed to happen like this,” I hear myself mumble.
“It always happens like this.”
“No, I mean...” I trip on my words, both afraid to give voice to what I’ve been thinking, and not wanting to say these things in front of Megan. “I don’t want it to be this way... with us.”
He’s quiet for a moment, studying me, and drops his arms to his side, and a horrible expression that I can momentarily pinpoint as pity - something entirely unfamiliar for him - flashes across his features.
"You don’t get it, do you?" he asks. "It’s not about us anymore, Bast. It stopped being about us a long time ago."
His words knock the wind from me, sure as any sucker punch - the sounds of the forest, Megan's breathing, the wind in the trees, everything fades into a pitched hum in my ears, a trembling vibration through my bones.
It's not the truth that hurts. In a way, I knew this truth was coming. In a way, I'd known that I'd never meet the standard Makari joked about, that nobody could ever truly be good enough for Jace, even the ones that shared the same bizarre genes.
What hurts is the truth behind the words. The pieces that he trusts can remain unspoken, as if he actually gives a fuck about my feelings. And that truth coils deep beneath my skin like superheated wire, scalds raw nerves and tissue, sears parts of me that not even Ezra could reach, parts of me that I don't think will ever heal. And I stare at Jace with the twisting knots of my guts blackening under that agonizing burn, with Megan tugging gently on my arm and telling me that I should just go back to the house with her, and everything I can think of to say - everything I want to say - simply dies in my throat.