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[ailerons]

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 hangman

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[hymen]

[ overcoming his worst impulses is not an exercise he attempts often. he is prone to moodiness and petty insults, his finger heavy on any trigger that gives him an excuse to nuke a relationship before it infects his bloodstream and leaves him terminally ill with it. anora doesn’t want to talk to him? fine. jake hates him? even fucking better.

it would be easy to turn tail as a twenty-one year old freshly minted lieutenant on base who didn’t give a shit about anything except who his next fuck was going to be. hell, it would’ve been easy two days ago, before his memories returned to him like a sledgehammer to the brain, act after act in the tragedy of his thirty-eight years of life. but he made a vow to ash during their last night together, a promise to be better, sealed in blood as he watched his best friend, his closest companion, his lover publicly assassinated in front of millions on a debate stage.

he can hardly blame anora when he’s been keenly avoiding ash, too. except ash didn’t actually wrong him. ]

i owe her. [ not sure what yet. ] i want to make things right.
guess that goes for you too. spousal privilege.
i think she should decide how that looks.

[ you just confessed. embry’s brain snags, slows. there’s a block in the conversation, a hurdle that jake isn’t jumping. anora is reacting to this situation in the exact way that he would — in that she’s chosen not to face it at all. impressive and respectable. embry once put an entire continent of distance between himself and ash because he didn’t want to own up to anything he was feeling. but if anora is like him, that means she also hasn’t told jake what happened.

if she hasn’t told jake what happened… ]

well fuck me

[ how the fuck does he always get himself into these situations? ]

[ailerons]

[ Yeah, Jake thinks, sort of idly, staring again at those last three pixelly words. Fuck you. ]

Mighty nice and charitable of you, son

[ The mockery of the difference in age, seniority; the kind of respect you have for people in leadership. US Attorney General, in another life. But certainly not this one. ]

Think we should start playing on the same field
1. I am not her husband
2. She did not tell me what happened
3. You are doing a fine job of digging your own grave

[ Macho-bullshit filtered through downhome Texas, turns of phrase he only uses when he's trying to rattle on purpose. Slick when he wants to be cruel. Buried in it, at least, the flinty implication of something: that this is not a conversation Jake is willing to have. That a man worth his salt apologizes head-on. And most of all: that Jake is not, by any measure, the person anyone turns to if they want absolution. ]

If I were you, I'd pick your next moves very carefully
And they certainly wouldn't be for me

[hymen]

[ words scroll across the screen, and he’s fucking surly about it — not being played for a fool because that slides right off his back, but reaching out to do something fucking nice blowing back up in his face makes him want to… what? his guilt still chokes him, and no amount of petty namecalling will vanquish it. what if it was ash? what if it was greer? embry would have leapt through the screen and thrown punches by now. comparatively, jake is showing marvelous restraint. ]

mighty nice and charitable of you to fill me in, jake. [ B ITCH ] i thought you and anora were closer than that, but i’ll go find her myself.

[ he could leave it that, another ragged end sawn off for the convenience of not having to look at it anymore. but he promised ash to do better, and that doesn’t just mean in the oval office — a goddamn mistake, when his selfishness and empty carnality is diametrically opposed to doing better. ]

i want to say it wasn’t me. but i can’t. not with 100% certainty.
people keep saying what happened last month didn’t have anything to do with who we really are, but i don’t know if i believe them.
i’m not reaching out because i’m a good man. if you knew me, you’d definitely know that. if you’re expecting honor and fucking nobility, don’t.
if you want to even the scales, i can tell you exactly what happened. just find me.

→ 🎬

[ailerons]

[ Just find me. Almost benevolent, an offer like that. A man who isn't good, reaching out to make things square, willing to step up and take what's due. The kind of offer that could practically make him good, by anyone's logic.

Naturally, Jake returns the favor by leaving him on read.

It takes a couple days. A week, more or less. Jake's mornings are routine, by now — an early riser who runs, goes to the gym, who drinks smoothies with microgreens and a specific amount of whey isolate rather than eyeball anything strictly on the menu. Doesn't deviate, by any stretch of the imagination. So it's on purpose. The convenient run-in, later. Not so late that there's nobody milling about the dining room; not so early that it's the first flush of call. A perfect middle ground for an audience. The most likely hour to find someone you're not not looking for.

From behind, Jake's broad palm claps, tight, over Embry's shoulder. As chummy as brothers in fucking arms. ]

Morning, Seattle.

[ He grins. The expression stretches across his mouth, each tooth gleaming in their neat, shiny rows. The hairs at the back of his neck are still damp from his shower.

Barely gives a beat before Jake rears back his fist and decks him, square in the face. ]

[hymen]

[ not hearing from jake for a week makes embry forget about his rash offer, even if he meant it in the moment. he’s more concerned with anora anyway, the person he actually wronged, now that he’s discovered that jake isn’t the husband, nor did anora bother confiding in him about what happened. but — that doesn’t mean there’s nothing between them. how many times has embry hid his most painful wounds from ash, after all?

it happens at breakfast, which embry attends on a regular basis to mingle and swan about. a too-familiar clap on his shoulder has him turning to find jake gleaming and damp, his tell-tale smile chiseled onto his face. a pit opens in his stomach, only because he’s not mentally prepared to participate in brutal honesty today or any other day, and yet he’s the one that told jake to come find him if he wanted the truth, a classic case of his stupidity triumphing over all reasonable thought.

he doesn’t have much longer than that to commiserate over his past self making poor decisions, because when he blinks next jake’s fist slams into his face, embry barely turning in time to keep his nose from being broken (again), his teeth digging into the inside of his cheek from the impact. ]

What the fuck, Jake?

[ he rears back in an instant, blood staining his teeth and trickling from the corner of his mouth as anger ignites like flint against steel. ash is the thinker, the one calm and collected through every force that rips through his life, whether it’s bombs or a broken heart. embry is decidedly the opposite: brash, reckless, always looking for the nearest hail of gunfire to step in front of. today, that happens to be jake seresin, and everything in him itches to hit back.

he doesn’t, anora’s face flashing before his eyes, her bruised throat, his blood strewn over her ruined dress. from the table, he snatches a flute of champagne and downs it in one swallow, zesty bubbles mixing with the taste of blood, then sets it down to grab another, this one held out to jake. ]

You want to talk? [ his eyes glitter, a winter sky caught in crystal. his voice sounds almost eager, an edge of desperation running through his words. ] Or do you want to hit me again?