Fraternization

Jacob does not like the Junior Deputy. That's to be expected, sure, given that they're on opposite sides of the fight, but usually he regards the people who cause trouble for Eden's Gate—his enemies—with a chilly and impartial dislike. This feels more personal than that.

For starters, she talks way too much. Always got some smart-mouthed quip chambered, no matter how disadvantageous her position, no matter how little encouragement (or how much discouragement) she receives; it's almost like she can't help herself, a trait which earned Jacob's scorn early on. She has no self-control. She is weak.

And then there's the laughing. Seems like he can't go a day without hearing her distinct cackle, bubbling up from somewhere deep inside her like someone just told her the filthiest joke she's ever heard. She laughs when she's hanging out with those idiots she takes everywhere with her, Drubman and Boshaw, she laughs as she keys on her radio to tell him she's trashed another one of his beacons. She laughs at Joe; she laughs at John.

She doesn't laugh at Jacob much, but he's not about to jerk himself off too hard taking credit for that, because what she does instead is worse.

She flirts with him, almost constantly, starting the day they met. Looked straight into his eyes as he bent over her, waited for him to pause, then whispered, "You wanted to tie me up, Jacob, you coulda just asked."

He ignored it at the time, because fear makes people say and do some dumbass things. Anyway, he'd thought as he straightened up, wound the music box, she'll learn soon enough that shit won't get her far with me.

Only she hadn't. Two training sessions down and she's still coming onto him every chance she gets. She asks him over the radio if he's free for the night, apparently undeterred by the stony silence she gets in reply. The second time he told her his men were coming to collect her, she replied with a distracted-sounding "Oh, hell yeah, daddy, let's rumble." She tells him whenever she's leaving the mountains and whenever she comes back, invites him to come out from St. Francis and meet her for drinks, teasingly asks, "Hey, Jacob, you up?" all hours of the night. (He always is, and he never says so.)

He doesn't answer her, thinking maybe she'll see that her needling is doing nothing and she'll lose steam. She never does.

He hates her for it, hates her guts. She knows he's not receptive but keeps at it, and he believes that she's either intentionally trying to make him avoid her, best defense is a good offense and all that (tough shit, he's not gonna shy away like some pimply kid spooked at the prospect of talking to a girl), or—most likely—she's mocking him.

It's juvenile bullshit is what it is, pretty young thing like her trying to get a rise out of an ugly old son of a bitch like him, the kind of dumb shit that teenagers think is funny. Sometimes he listens to her talk to him and imagines those morons she keeps around giggling, waiting for him to get mad or get hopeful.

He wants to stomp it out of her. She should be taking this more seriously. That sense of humor should have burned out a long time ago; she should be afraid for her life, for her friends' lives. She shouldn't feel comfortable enough to talk to him the way she does. He could rip that lightness right out of her, tamp down her spirit, and eventually, he will.

But he waits, because he knows that reacting to her is not acting entirely of his own volition, and handing that measure of control over to her would be a weakness on his part. He's going to be patient, and he's going to be measured. He's going to do the thing she seems incapable of doing: he's going to control himself. Just more evidence that between the two of them, he's the strong one.

At length, the time is right, and Joseph's mad enough to greenlight him, and he sends his hunters for her again. This time he starves her for seven days before bothering to make his approach, and he can tell by the look of her, scrambling for the bowl at his feet, that he's finally making some headway. She looks sick, bags under her eyes, cheeks already hollower, and she almost chokes on the coils of raw meat. If she eats too fast, loses it, it's not his problem.

She doesn't say anything this time. She just listens as he tells her about the desert, about Miller, her eyes fixed on him, huge and unblinking. He thinks maybe she's finally starting to get the message, subdued by the realization of just how easily and quickly she can lose everything—that everything can be taken from her. He feels a sense of grim satisfaction after running her through the third trial, confident that this will be enough to make her steer clear of him from now on.

He's not completely wrong—she leaves the region immediately and it takes a week before he hears from her again. But when he does…

"Jacob Seed, come back," chirps his radio, right about the time he's receiving intel that his guys have eyes on a crop duster that has just crossed from the Henbane into his region. He doesn't answer, but as usual, he doesn't have to. "Rook here. Just wanted to tell you I'm back in the area and if you're free for dinner, I'm down. But I get to pick what we're eating, cause your taste is s-h-i-t shee-yit. Okay. Let me know. Over'n'out."

And he's tempted to actually say something this time, to hold down that button and unload on her, what in the goddamn hell is your problem, are you really this committed to your little game or do you just have the survival instincts of a lemming, but he slowly, quietly exhales through his nose and takes his hand off of the walkie altogether.

Just gotta be patient, he reminds himself. She's more stubborn than he thought, but he'll just keep pushing, and pushing, and eventually, inevitably, he'll crush her. It's the way these things always go. No one can withstand the pressure forever.

But she's making him fucking look bad, and he shouldn't be bothered about that, wouldn't be, except his family is starting to notice, and family doesn't play by the rules. John doesn't play by the rules.

They're driving together to Joseph's compound, alone in a truck—they're both good at concealing it, John more than Jacob, but neither has much patience with Joe's followers, their glassy awe-struck eyes and their endless and repetitive stream of zealous chatter. They're useful, but terrible company as a whole, so whenever they can, Jacob and John travel together, when travel is called for.

(John's a little shit, but he's Jacob's brother, and those bonds hold tight. Jacob hasn't loved anyone new in years, years, is pretty sure he can't anymore, doesn't want to, but his little brothers were the first people he loved, and despite the time they spent separated from each other, he's found that that love hasn't gone anywhere.)

Jacob is driving, and John's riding shotgun and has one stylishly-booted foot carelessly propped up on the dash. Jacob is increasingly tempted to tap the brakes and drive John's face into his knee just to teach him how stupid that is, but then John's radio goes off with the news that the Deputy has blown up yet another of the dwindling number of silos, and John unconsciously saves himself by bringing his foot down to the floorboard and straightening up, eyes sharp with anger.

"This awful little cunt," he mutters, far less cautious with his language around Jacob than he is around anyone else, and he starts fiddling with his radio.

Jacob realizes he's tuning into the frequency that the Deputy uses and protests immediately, both because he really doesn't want to hear her voice right now and because John is giving her the reaction she's after: "Fuckin' don't—"

But John is already pushing the button, and Jacob cuts himself off abruptly, because he doesn't want her to hear him and know he's there—too abruptly, because John's eyes, half-sly and half-curious, cut towards him. Goddamnit. Jacob's hands tighten on the wheel, but he forces his grip to relax before his knuckles can visibly whiten. Last thing he needs to do is help his bloodhound of a little brother sniff out his reasons for not wanting to talk to her.

"You should exercise restraint, Deputy," John oozes, the poisonous anger Jacob just saw completely tucked away behind a soft voice, a nearly playful tone. "The more destruction you cause, the more you'll have to make up for once you join us."

The Deputy's answer, when it comes, surprises Jacob a little. She laughs first, of course, and then says, in a tone harder than he's ever heard it, "Fuck off, John." That's it. No joking, no flirtation, no taunts, no indication that she wants him to talk back.

John, being John, talks back anyway. "You're not going to make any friends talking like that. Do you talk to Faith that way? Do you talk to Jacob that way?" Jacob shoots his brother a sharp, decidedly threatening look, and John, seeing that he's struck the right nerve… his eyes are alive and overjoyed.

"Faith's never really around and I actually kinda like Jacob, so no, I don't."

"Oh, you like Jacob? Well, in that case, I guess you'd better talk to him." John abruptly holds the radio out to Jacob.

Jacob glares at him. "I'm driving."

The Deputy's voice comes through again. Her tone, as Jacob feared, is audibly more lighthearted. "Jacob's there with you, huh?"

John, the little rat, presses the button, though he doesn't bother to bring the walkie back to his own face. "Listening intently to every word."

"Hell, Jacob. You don't phone, you don't radio, you don't write—was it something I said?"

Jacob glares through the windshield and does his best to ignore the fact that John is pointedly wiggling the radio in his peripheral vision—then he makes a snap decision and snatches the thing from John's hand, because this is all so stupid and he is going to put a stop to it before John can start inventing his own reasons for Jacob's reticence.

"Too busy to waste time chitchatting with you, kid." He makes sure she can hear the contempt he's feeling.

She's got something stupid to say to that, per usual: "Didn't say we had to talk." He can hear her grinning, and beside him, John makes a quiet choked sound, a stifled laugh.

He keys on the radio and growls. "Deputy, you are poking the fuckin' wolf."

"Well, jeez, I wish the wolf would poke back."

There is absolutely nothing to say to that. Jacob turns off the radio with a sharp twist of the knob and then sets it on the dash in front of the steering wheel before returning his hands to ten and two. He doesn't look at John, because he knows exactly how John will be looking at him, with that delighted knowing that always makes Jacob want to punch him.

John, of course, won't be ignored for long. He gives it about five seconds before saying. "So—does she always talk to you that way?"

Jacob has a decision to make. He can shut down, answer in grunts, and ensure that John's interest is well and fully piqued, doubtless setting his brother on a quest to find out what he's hiding, or he can answer the questions and control the flow of information. He hates both options.

"Yeah," he says at length.

"Oh," John says, in a tone that's much too deliberate, too casual. After another moment: "She doesn't talk like that to me."

"No shit," Jacob snorts. "She knows exactly how you'd react."

"Watch the implications you're making, brother."

"Not implying jack shit. I'm saying she knows if she tried that shit with you, you'd take her up on whatever she was offering."

"Oh, and you wouldn't?"

"No. That's the point. She feels safe tryin' to mess with me because she knows I'm not interested."

"Hm, and have you considered the possibility that she's interested?"

Jacob scoffed. "Real fucking funny, John."

"I'm not joking, Jacob."

"Oh, yeah? You think there's even a chance this isn't her trying to wind me up? You seen the girl? You seen me lately? Aside from bein' on opposite sides, aside from what she's done to us and what I've done to her, I'm twice her age—"

"Oh, please, she's hardly a baby," mutters John—

"—broke-down, soulless sonuvabitch, oh, yeah, I'm sure she thinks I'm a real catch. Get your head outta your ass. She's playing a game, and she's not doing it very well."

"I'm just saying this could be an opportunity, if you were willing to see it as such. You—you've decided already that she's weak, so you refuse to give her a second thought until you've made her strong, but she's smart, Jacob." Jacob scoffs again; John ignores him. "She's methodical and elusive and I for one can't believe that she'd willingly risk your anger and attention all to, to what? Get a rise out of you? As if she even thinks that's possible. The idea isn't logical, so why don't you tell me—what's the alternative?"

Jacob glances at John, and he's a little surprised to see the envy twisting his expression, burning in his eyes. It doesn't help matters, because it means John actually believes the shit he's spewing, believes that the Deputy is actually carrying a torch for Jacob, and that idea makes Jacob profoundly uncomfortable.

As has this whole interaction. He doesn't think he's had a conversation this long with another person (speeches obviously exempted) in months, and it's making him itchy and irritated, making him regret engaging in the first place. He wants it to stop, but John is incorrigible, so…

It's not a move he's proud of, not a move he'd be seen making by anyone but one of his siblings (or, realistically, anyone but John), but he lifts his arm and smacks John hard across the back of his head, knocking those blue sunglasses askew and disturbing the perfectly coiffed hair. John recoils, cocking his arm at the elbow in a defensive move, and then, rage flashing across his face, he socks Jacob hard in the shoulder.

They'd never do this in front of Joseph. Joseph is adamant that they shouldn't re-enact the physical violence on one another that their parents (guardians, COs, etc) inflicted on them; he's all gentle touches and a soft voice. Jacob and John, though, have a bond that excludes Joseph in that as controlled as they work to be, they crave violence on occasion, in that sometimes, it's the only way they can really express their anger and frustration. (Of course, as violence goes for them, this little exchange is about as rough as a pillow fight.)

Jacob sucks his teeth to show his contempt but doesn't retaliate, and after ten or so seconds of no sound but the humming truck motor, he says, "You hit like a girl."

John smooths his hair back, fixes his sunglasses back in place on top of his head, and says, "Just don't be a fucking idiot and let a good opportunity pass you by because you're too goddamned stubborn to recognize it. That's all I'm trying to say."

Jacob doesn't respond to that, because he doesn't want to get mired into more talk. A few moments of quiet pass, then John leans forward and cuts on the radio, where that choir song of his is playing, and Jacob doesn't move to switch it off, because hokey music is better than the alternative. They don't speak to each other for the rest of the trip, and by the time they get to Joseph's, the hatchet is buried and they're refocused on the issues at hand.

Jacob isn't worried yet that John will tell Joseph (or even Faith, for that matter) about their conversation. John likes to sit on secrets until they're a relative powder keg and only then unleash them where they'll do the most damage; Jacob figures that at the rate the Deputy's going, he has a few weeks before he has to have an extremely awkward conversation with Joseph because John won't keep his mouth shut any longer.

However—

The conversation with John has opened a can of worms. Jacob knows his brother, and he knows John likes to fuck with people's heads, including his siblings', but he keeps thinking back to the jealousy he saw on John's face, like he really, really believed that the Deputy was giving something to Jacob that she had never bothered to give to John, and…

Before that, Jacob hadn't even considered the possibility that the Deputy's flirtations with him might be rooted in anything genuine, but John's input is making him doubtful. Of course, doubt is weak, useless bullshit, and Jacob is increasingly irritated by the time he has to spend not thinking about this.

A few days after the conversation with John, Jacob hasn't slept, and it's a few hours before dawn, so he grabs his rifle and his knife and he leaves St. Francis without a word to anyone. Hunting will focus him, keep him calm.

He hikes till maybe an hour before sunrise, till the sky is starting to lighten and he can see things pretty clearly, before he starts looking for a place to set up and watch. As he's looking for an ideal position, though, he hears something in the distance—some shouting, and a bloodcurdling scream, cut off abruptly. It came from somewhere a little further east.

He makes more of an effort to silence his footfalls, to keep to cover, and he heads in the direction of the sound. Maybe ten minutes later, he reaches the edge of a tree line, looking out over a rocky cliff face housing a small waterfall.

He spots the source of the noise pretty quickly, three faithful, all lying dead around the edge of the pool the waterfall spills into. He also sees something just beyond them—a red flannel shirt, hanging from the edge of a ledge above the pool, and above that, the Deputy, in just jeans and undershirt despite the cold of the predawn air, sitting beside a thin stream of falling water.

She doesn't look much better than the last time he saw her. Maybe she's had a few solid meals since then, but she doesn't look rested, and with her hair tied up high and out of her way he can see that there's a big gash through her eyebrow, probably inflicted by one of the three dead, given that it's still bleeding heavily. She's rummaging through something out of his sight, but pauses and lifts her head even as he watches, sensing something off.

Jacob steps out from the tree line, intentionally drawing her eye to his raised rifle, trained right on her.

True to form, she doesn't take him as seriously as she should. "Oh. Hey, Jacob. Weird to see you this far from your fortress; you come to kill me?"

"Toss away your weapons," he orders.

"I don't actually think you're here to kill me," she continues, jerking her pistol from the holster on her leg and flinging it carelessly over her shoulder, making him have to work to keep from flinching—gun safety, you complete idiot—"because I'm pretty sure that Only You bullshit you're putting me through every time I see you is leading to something wherein I'm more useful to you alive than dead, but—" a knife follows the pistol—"I've been wrong so many times before, so it'd be cool if you just tell me."

"You've got more on you than just those," Jacob says when she doesn't appear to be discarding any more weapons.

"Well, yeah, but it's all in the pack that has the supplies I need to stitch this." She gestures vaguely at her bloodied eyebrow. "So excuse me if I'm not keen to throw it aside. Pointless, anyway—I'm not gonna mess with you right now. You can come try to take it if you're feeling rowdy, though."

"Or I could just shoot you."

"You could, but you haven't yet," she says, and turns back to her task like that's the end of the discussion.

Jacob, irked, takes a few steps forward. He's not about to say so, but she's more of a threat to him in this situation than he is to her—he's supposed to avoid killing her if at all possible, whereas he has no reason to believe she has compunctions about killing him or any of his siblings, regardless of what she says.

As he draws nearer, he can see that she's wedged a little mirror into the cliff face just in front of her and is using it to examine the cut. He watches, rifle still at the ready, as she goes into her bag and emerges with a needle and sutures. She splashes both with whiskey from a bottle sitting next to her, takes a quick pull, then sets the bottle down and starts threading the needle.

"You gonna stitch that up yourself?"

She glances at him and asks, "You offering to help?"

He snorts. She smiles a little bit, says, "I thought not," then turns back to the mirror. "So, if you're not planning to kill me, does that mean you're here to abduct me again?"

He doesn't answer, just draws closer, till he's just a yard or so away from the ledge where she's sitting. The ledge is about at his chest level, which puts her above him, but gives him a good view of her hands and what she's doing. For now, she appears to be focused on stitching her cut, peering into the mirror as she lifts the needle to her forehead.

The realization dawns on him that this is the first—might end up being the only—time he's got her completely to himself, no soldiers watching him lecture her, nobody listening in. No witnesses to what might be said and done. Means it's time to deal with the thorn in his side.

"You plannin' to quit your bullshit, or do I gotta make you?"

She scowls reflexively as the needle breaks her skin. "What bullshit?"

What bullshit. As if there's anything else he could be talking about.

"The goddamn come-ons," he says, too impatient to deal with the issue to call her out for playing dumb. "It's not cute. Knock it off."

She shoots him a quick look—seems almost surprised—but just as fast, she looks away, reaching towards the stream of water falling just a foot away from her, catching some in her hand and using it to dash at the blood that threatens to fall in her eyes, holding the needle steady in her other hand. "Oh," she says, shaking the excess water off of her fingers. "I, uh—didn't realize it was bothering you."

"It's not bothering me. It's idiocy. You know, frankly, I'm surprised your people haven't told you to quit it by now."

She makes another stitch and she laughs, not her usual witchy giggle, this a quiet, low sound that makes his hackles rise, lifts the hair on the back of his neck. "Oh, man. They don't think I've got a shot in hell, so they don't really care."

Try as he might, Jacob can't make that last sentence make sense. He casts about for something to explain it and after a few seconds, lands on something feasible. "What, you got a bet running or something?"

"Yeah."

He fucking knew it. "Who with?" he asks, mentally pulling up the list of people he plans to kill before this is all over.

"Sharky."

Boshaw. Of course it was that idiot. On the plus side, Jacob doesn't have to modify his kill list; Boshaw's been on there since he burned down a whole hectare of forest just half a mile from St. Francis, sparking a very real concern that the fire would reach the building.

"How much?"

"Twenty bucks."

Jacob tries very hard to keep from seeing red, but fails. Twenty dollars. Weeks of irritation for twenty dollars.

He glances around, makes a decision. She's not going to try anything, he's pretty sure of it by now, so he slings his rifle across his back and goes over to the fallen faithful, stooping and going through their pockets. Jacob hasn't carried a wallet in a good while, certainly not since this all began—no use in carrying ID when everyone knows who you are; no use in carrying money when you just take what you need—but he's able to scrounge some cash from the dead. By the time he's searched all three, the Deputy's done with her stitches, rinsing her hands in the waterfall and watching him with open interest.

He heads back to her. "There," he says, dumping his haul on the rocks beside her. One ten, one five, eight crumpled ones. "Twenty-three dollars. That enough to make you put this shit to bed?"

She looks at him like he's the one who's lost his mind. "Jacob, I'm gonna stop because you asked me to. Seriously, I didn't think you cared one way or the other. Definitely didn't realize it was bothering you this much."

"I don't. It's not."

She ducks her head, taking her hair down from its topknot to keep from having to look at him, but he's below her and can still see the skeptical little frown she's trying to hide. It irks him, and he squares his shoulders and starts to turn, to leave.

"You—"

He stops dead, turns back to her even as she cuts herself off, hitching an eyebrow pugnaciously high. What? He doesn't have to say it out loud; his frown and his stance demand an explanation.

She looks nervous and puts off answering by shifting to the edge of the shelf, turning to face him, crossing her legs. "You do realize that the bet was just… incidental, right?"

His forehead furrows. What the hell are you talking about, he doesn't ask.

She looks away again. Scratches the inflamed skin around the fresh stitches with a short fingernail. Mutters, "This is the stupidest thing I've ever done," then looks back at him, obviously having come to some decision.

"Look, I wasn't just fucking around, okay? Like, if that's what you're mad about, then don't be. If you think that was all just a joke, or me trying to win a stupid bet, it wasn't. I was sending out real feelers, but now that you've told me to knock it off, don't worry, all right? I'll stop."

"You're not making any sense, Dep," he says, slowly. "What are you telling me, that you…" He can't even say it, it's so absurd.

She does it for him. "Kinda like you, yeah. Stupid to admit, but worse to hide from, I think. Don't want to give it too much power."

He looks at her hard, looking for signs of bullshit, waiting for a punchline that he gradually realizes isn't coming. On her face he sees nothing but a grim determination, undercut by naked fear. Jesus, John was right, he realizes—he will never admit it to him, though—and with that realization, he feels like he's been punched hard in the chest.

"Why?" He can't seem to control himself; the question comes spilling out before he can decide if it's a wise one to ask.

She laughs again, that low, almost mean sound, and he realizes he's hearing bitterness. "Million dollar question, isn't it? I can't figure it out. I mean, the attraction part is obvious, you've definitely got the looks in the family—" what the hell, thinks Jacob wildly—"but the rest of it? You kidnapped my friend, you torture me, part of me is sure you planted all this in one of your little brainwashing sessions, though I feel like if that was true you would've done something with it by this point. Plus you look as confused as I feel right now."

Jacob knows he should say something, take control of this whole mess somehow, but he neither moves nor speaks. She's right: he's completely thrown, has no idea how to deal with this. He realizes much too late that he should have listened to John and prepared a course of action for this outcome, but in his defense, this is crazy.

Rook straightens up, rolls her shoulders back, and looks away from him. "And—I don't know—responding to it by trying to flirt with you was stupid, I know, but it made me feel better about the whole thing. Like if I threw it out into the open it couldn't do anything to hurt me. Obviously that was a dumbass idea. But like I said, I'm done, and I'm sure it'll fade more with every new horrible fuckin' thing you do, and I would really like you to go right now so I can experience my complete shame and humiliation in private."

Jacob doesn't move, just looks at her. He recalls seeing her in the church for the first time, remembers not really thinking one way or another about her then. He didn't really understand John's weird thing for her until he was leaning over her for the first time, staring for longer than he should, recognizing the fire in her eyes and suddenly believing fully for the first time that this was the girl who was cutting a path of destruction through the county. Her ferocity distinguishes her, makes her beautiful, and beauty is useless to him, so he pushed hers away, ignored it as he went about his business, but he's kind of wishing he hadn't, because it's kicking him in the ass right now.

This girl has ripped apart half the county, taking their buildings, their supplies, countless lives. He calls her weak and in a lot of ways that holds true, but in other ways, especially when it comes to her proclivity for inspiring and surviving total chaos, she's tough as hell. Looking at the pure facts, ideology aside, she's the single greatest threat to Eden's Gate, and he's the single greatest threat to her life.

And she wants him.

It's the most foolhardy thing he's ever heard, but he's also unexpectedly electrified. If he could think clearly, he'd consider John's words about this being an opportunity, he'd figure out the best way to use the information to his advantage, but he's not thinking about much of anything as he takes a step forward, towards her.

The motion draws her attention, and she must see something in his expression, because hers changes. She goes from looking ashamed and afraid to—well, still afraid, he's done a damn sight to make sure she'll always be at least a little scared of him, but startled, surprised he's not going, and then, slowly, some sort of understanding dawns.

She shifts, slowly, like he's a wild animal she's trying not to spook, and unfolds her legs so they're hanging off the edge in front of him. He steps forward again, and now his chest rests against her knees, and she's reaching for him, sliding a hand down the edge of his face to grip him by the jaw so she can tilt his face up. The touch isn't a questioning one—demanding, if anything, and doesn't that just knock the wind right out of him—but in bending down towards him, she pauses, her face a few inches from his, and looks him in the eye.

"Say no," she says, almost whispering, and he can't tell if she's challenging him or begging him, and the look in her eyes doesn't help him suss out which. "Tell me to stop, and I will."

(He should. This is reckless, this is foolishness, this is weakness.)

He doesn't.

When she finally kisses him, everything seems quiet. She's slow, purposeful, like they've got all the time in the world, and she smells like the woods, tastes like the whiskey she's been drinking. Her nails scrape at the stubble starting to grow in along his scalp and she makes a soft little noise when he opens his mouth to her and goddamn, he'd forgotten what this was like.

The quiet turns into a pulsing roar as the blood rushes in his ears; he feels his heartbeat picking up. He needs to put an end to this now, and he lifts his hands, thinks about pushing her away but instead reaches up to grab her by the hips and drag her off the ledge, closer, into his arms.

She makes a noise of approval and hooks her legs around his waist, anchoring herself with an arm around his shoulders, her other hand still holding his jaw tight like she's afraid he'll pull away. Not much chance of that anymore, sweetheart. With her flush against him like this, he can feel that she's running hot despite the chill in the air, probably still revved up from the fight she just had. He palms her ass with one hand, the other tangled in the roots of her hair, tugging at it just enough to make her whimper and squirm against him, and for the first time in a long time, he's not thinking about the work to be done.

She actually moves to pull back first, and he lets her, loosening his hand from her hair and slipping it instead beneath the hem of her undershirt, splayed out against the soft skin of her lower back. She doesn't go far, resting her forehead against his, eyes closed, wincing as the move puts pressure on the fresh stitches he feels prickling at his eyebrow. "Shouldn't," she mumbles.

She's right, but Jacob's a made-your-bed-now-lie-in-it kind of guy. "No takin' it back," he points out, his voice a quiet rasp, and he feels a shudder ripple through her whole body before she leans back down to meet his waiting mouth.

There's more urgency now, now that she's reminded herself of exactly how bad an idea this is. She kisses him hungrily, and he wonders faintly how it was possible that he hadn't seen this. She's always watched him like she's physically incapable of looking away, and he always attributed that to the danger he posed, but the way she's clinging to him right now, like she never wants to let go…

He slides his hand heavy up her spine and she breaks away from him to rest her head against his shoulder and moan into the side of his neck, like she can't help herself. When she comes back to him, he catches her bottom lip between his teeth before he lets her kiss him again, scraping at it hard enough that it'll be sore later, that she won't forget about this soon. She makes another little pleased sound, her nails scratching a spot just beneath his ear that makes him—

Boy, you really are an entire idiot, aren't you?

The voice in his head is an old one, not his voice, a voice he hasn't been able to shake in all his years, and it jars him like it always does. He snaps back to himself all at once, dropping her and stepping back like it'll burn him if he touches her again.

She's obviously surprised, but gets her feet back under her in time to keep from falling, though she has to grasp backward at the ledge to get her balance. She looks confused, then horrified. "Oh, god. You weren't Blissed out, were you? I didn't smell anyth—I never would have—"

"I'm not on Bliss," he says, his breath coming heavier than it should. His heart's still beating fast; there's no way she hadn't felt it, her chest pressed up against his like that, but there's no changing it—he let her get that close, it's his fault, and he accepts that.

She's starting to look like she understands, and he waits for the shock and self-loathing to dawn on her face, but it seems to be taking a while. She looks flustered, sure, also a little out of breath, her hair rumpled, mouth a bit swollen, and her bottom lip red where he bit her, but she doesn't look upset yet. "Oh," she says. "Okay. Um—"

He takes charge of the situation, because it doesn't matter if he doesn't feel calm and unaffected as long as he acts right. "This little ceasefire ends as soon as you're out of sight, you understand? Don't make the mistake of thinking anything's changed."

It's like he flipped a switch. Instead of the quiet, contemplative Deputy he's been dealing with this morning, she's instantly back to the hellion, giving him a broad grin he usually only sees from afar as she cracks skulls with her baseball bat. "Hey, right back at ya, Buttercup," she says easily.

Normally he'd come down on her hard for the mocking nickname, but nothing about this morning has been normal and he's eager to end it, put it behind him as fast as possible. He draws a breath, holds it for a second, meets her eyes, and says, "This is never happening again."

"Yep, I agree."

He exhales slowly, then gives her a decisive, terse nod. "All right, then. Go on, git."

The cheery demeanor doesn't falter for a second. She turns and grabs her shirt, slipping it back on but not bothering to button it up, then lifts her pack off the ledge where she left it and slings it onto her back. She turns back and brushes past him, firing off a cocky little salute on her way, and kneels down twice on her way back to the forest to retrieve her discarded knife, then her gun. She doesn't look back at him even once, just breaks through the tree line, and he watches until the red of her shirt becomes indistinguishable from the autumn leaves and the fire of the rising sun.

That's about the time he finally is able to get a deep breath. He glances around, checking the scene, double-checking that no one's watching or that nothing incriminating is lying around, but he's just met with the sound of running water and the sight of the faithful's glazed eyes staring skyward.

This has been a mistake—an indulgence—and Jacob accepts that at some point, he might face consequences for it, but he can't do anything about that, so there's no point in getting all neurotic about it. All he can do now is refuse to let it affect his life, his work, and to that end, he starts the hike back to St. Francis.

The sun is well up in the sky by the time he gets back, and he's feeling warm and worn-out in a way he hasn't felt in some time, the sleepless nights finally catching up to him. He checks on operations at the Center (running as smoothly as can be expected), reviews the happenings in the Whitetail Mountains (the Junior Deputy was spotted about an hour ago, she'd bombed a beacon and vanished again), and then he tells his subordinate Marsten that he's retiring till evening and that no one but Joseph should be allowed to disturb him.

He showers off for about a minute and a half, just long enough to scrub and rinse, pulls on some sweats, and heads to the little room adjoining his office where he keeps a cot. He lies down and is asleep in moments.

He sleeps soundly for six hours, uninterrupted. If he has any dreams, he doesn't remember them when he wakes.

notes - Hi I'm new here and I think it's neat that Jacob's southern accent is the only one you can kinda still hear, you done good Pellegrino.

Rook definitely just sexually harassed Jacob for a straight month until the man snapped, which is super uncool but he's also a deeply shitty person so they're both just the worst, I guess. Now the question is: will this piece be sufficient to exorcise my FC5 demons or am I doomed to write stuff for this void for the rest of eternity? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(pls talk to me about the ginger mountain man. or John if you want, bc I am obsessed with John but not in the way he'd probably want me to be lol)