(no subject)
Be on Caution Where Lovers Walk
part 3
"Castaway"
Jack/Stephen
Murderers and love like rust: I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.
(Jack dreams of Stephen's diving bell, of being on the cold silent sea floor, the light from above barely filtering through. Dirt swirling around his feet and the fingerprints, his fingerprints on the smooth glass, his hands where Stephen's were. Animals and plants he doesn't understand and he wishes Stephen were here - to make sense of it all - but there are sharks sliding along the bell and cracks in the glass that grow, always grow - )
x
Steven has killed men before, but he doesn't care to think about that side of himself. It is far easier to put it aside, to recognize it only when he needs to. He forgets about it, lies about it, covers it with his work. That is only natural. He has always been a secretive man.
Now, though, he draws his silence and reticence tightly around him like a cloak, as if there were some comfort in it. Everything is written in code: the encryptions that were once serviceable are now almost uselessly complex, growing more and more unbreakable until one day he invents an alphabet that he himself does not understand. He uses it anyway, writing pages of thoughts that he does not trust to himself.
I find myself in love again, he imagines the words to say. And it frightens me.
And if his handwriting grows shaky, well, who else but him will know?
x
Jack says the sea heals: slights seem lesser over water, sure, and broken hearts are mended by the distance, but the blood drawn by teeth will not be stopped with salt water. Besides, the sea is Jack's mistress, lover, mother and wife - the waves embrace and welcome him but they will not touch Stephen. If they had a choice, he thinks frequently, they'd push him back to shore, throw him out on the sand and rocks.
x
Sometimes he still has to bite back Diana's name, because despite the obvious physical differences, there is a similarity that begs and gnaws at him. Perhaps it is the sense of losing control, or the blurring of the line between lust and fury. Maybe the act itself is too entwined with his memories of her. He pushes her out of his mind but she never fully leaves, no, because the rust of blood that still stains Jack's shirt is a match for her iron-black hair, iron-straight neck.
I love you, he moans (the burning in his throat like saltwater on an open wound), his fingernails crawling cuts down Jack's sides.
x
Jack says,
Sometimes it seems that you fear nothing.
Stephen frowns and shakes his head and says, only a fool is afraid of nothing, brother. I am required to conceal my fear, that is all.
x
Of course, the laudanum is only to settle his stomach, for the sea tosses and turns like a sick child and gravity shifts in his ears with an unsettling hum that lingers for hours after the storm is over. He digs his fingernails into his desk, adding to the collection of half-moons cut in the wood, wincing as his skin shifts nauseatingly around his muscles.
Behind the sickness and the drug there is a constant scratching in the back of his throat, and he is sure that if he were to reach into his mouth, he'd pull out a terrible beast, with hooves or claws or wings but always teeth, long and glimmering.
In his haze he imagines himself pouring blood over the side of the ship, drop by careful drop, and waiting for the sharks to come.
x
He deals in uncomfortable reminders, reality as sharp as his spine,
like,
They're starting to suspect
or
This is madness
But Jack always smiles and says "Out here, they cannot touch us."
x
Stephen has killed men before and the memory of it lingers on his hands, trigger finger strong and capable from years of surgery - or is it the other way around? - but he doesn't care to think of it. He is a pragmatic man, nothing more. He does what is needed of him.
(The streets of nations capsize with discontent and the letter crushed in his hand trembles, trembles, a disembodied voice saying they must not know, they must not know, the security of the nation depends upon it - )
x
Jack is married to the sea, but Stephen is a castaway and no amount of time or reassurances will make a ship his home. Stephen sits unmoving on the gig as he is rowed ashore, and he stumbles as he descends from the boat but his feet are sure, so sure and stable on the sand. There is a matter he must attend to.
In the nights before these strange parting days, Stephen does not put his heart into anything (not music, not his animals, not physical touch) and Jack notices. He is not so thick as to not notice, no matter what Stephen says, and certainly he would never miss this. He reaches out - his blunt hands still held carefully for fear of hurting Stephen - with a heartbreaking uncertain look that sits so awkwardly on his face, and Stephen hates himself for bringing it there.
Joy, what is wrong -
But there is nothing, nothing wrong.
cut tag from Desolation Island.
part 3
"Castaway"
Jack/Stephen
Murderers and love like rust: I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.
(Jack dreams of Stephen's diving bell, of being on the cold silent sea floor, the light from above barely filtering through. Dirt swirling around his feet and the fingerprints, his fingerprints on the smooth glass, his hands where Stephen's were. Animals and plants he doesn't understand and he wishes Stephen were here - to make sense of it all - but there are sharks sliding along the bell and cracks in the glass that grow, always grow - )
x
Steven has killed men before, but he doesn't care to think about that side of himself. It is far easier to put it aside, to recognize it only when he needs to. He forgets about it, lies about it, covers it with his work. That is only natural. He has always been a secretive man.
Now, though, he draws his silence and reticence tightly around him like a cloak, as if there were some comfort in it. Everything is written in code: the encryptions that were once serviceable are now almost uselessly complex, growing more and more unbreakable until one day he invents an alphabet that he himself does not understand. He uses it anyway, writing pages of thoughts that he does not trust to himself.
I find myself in love again, he imagines the words to say. And it frightens me.
And if his handwriting grows shaky, well, who else but him will know?
x
Jack says the sea heals: slights seem lesser over water, sure, and broken hearts are mended by the distance, but the blood drawn by teeth will not be stopped with salt water. Besides, the sea is Jack's mistress, lover, mother and wife - the waves embrace and welcome him but they will not touch Stephen. If they had a choice, he thinks frequently, they'd push him back to shore, throw him out on the sand and rocks.
x
Sometimes he still has to bite back Diana's name, because despite the obvious physical differences, there is a similarity that begs and gnaws at him. Perhaps it is the sense of losing control, or the blurring of the line between lust and fury. Maybe the act itself is too entwined with his memories of her. He pushes her out of his mind but she never fully leaves, no, because the rust of blood that still stains Jack's shirt is a match for her iron-black hair, iron-straight neck.
I love you, he moans (the burning in his throat like saltwater on an open wound), his fingernails crawling cuts down Jack's sides.
x
Jack says,
Sometimes it seems that you fear nothing.
Stephen frowns and shakes his head and says, only a fool is afraid of nothing, brother. I am required to conceal my fear, that is all.
x
Of course, the laudanum is only to settle his stomach, for the sea tosses and turns like a sick child and gravity shifts in his ears with an unsettling hum that lingers for hours after the storm is over. He digs his fingernails into his desk, adding to the collection of half-moons cut in the wood, wincing as his skin shifts nauseatingly around his muscles.
Behind the sickness and the drug there is a constant scratching in the back of his throat, and he is sure that if he were to reach into his mouth, he'd pull out a terrible beast, with hooves or claws or wings but always teeth, long and glimmering.
In his haze he imagines himself pouring blood over the side of the ship, drop by careful drop, and waiting for the sharks to come.
x
He deals in uncomfortable reminders, reality as sharp as his spine,
like,
They're starting to suspect
or
This is madness
But Jack always smiles and says "Out here, they cannot touch us."
x
Stephen has killed men before and the memory of it lingers on his hands, trigger finger strong and capable from years of surgery - or is it the other way around? - but he doesn't care to think of it. He is a pragmatic man, nothing more. He does what is needed of him.
(The streets of nations capsize with discontent and the letter crushed in his hand trembles, trembles, a disembodied voice saying they must not know, they must not know, the security of the nation depends upon it - )
x
Jack is married to the sea, but Stephen is a castaway and no amount of time or reassurances will make a ship his home. Stephen sits unmoving on the gig as he is rowed ashore, and he stumbles as he descends from the boat but his feet are sure, so sure and stable on the sand. There is a matter he must attend to.
In the nights before these strange parting days, Stephen does not put his heart into anything (not music, not his animals, not physical touch) and Jack notices. He is not so thick as to not notice, no matter what Stephen says, and certainly he would never miss this. He reaches out - his blunt hands still held carefully for fear of hurting Stephen - with a heartbreaking uncertain look that sits so awkwardly on his face, and Stephen hates himself for bringing it there.
Joy, what is wrong -
But there is nothing, nothing wrong.
cut tag from Desolation Island.