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[assassin_daddy]

Jᴀᴄᴏʙ Fʀʏᴇ "I'm no criminal. I just do as I please."

 

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[chrisisofaith]

[Chris pulls up outside Jacob's place and retrieves the coffees from where he'd magicked them into stillness inside the storage part under the seat. He's trained his head into a form of anticipatory quiet, at least, setting aside anything else to deal with later.

He hears the front door as he balances the cups in one hand and closes up the bike and when he turns to greet Jacob, it's with a small smile.]

Hello, handsome. Here, as you like it.

[He holds out one of the cups between them, grateful for the moment that his hands are too full to reach out to the other man just yet. He needed to make sure his grip wasn't too tight or too clingy before he tried it.]

[assassin_daddy]

"Brought to me by you, which makes it better."

Jacob takes the cup, not even needing to check that the little boxes on the side are ticked in the familiar order- tea, milk, no sugar- because Chris knows him well enough. And as his fingers brush Chris' own briefly he can feel how they're both holding themselves back, that much both want to close the distance and hold onto each other. It takes half a heartbeat for Jacob to give up on the pretence and to wrap an arm around Chris, pulling him in close. He holds him there, just for a moment, before he lets him go.

He wishes he hadn't laid all that at Chris' door, in those circumstances. He wishes he'd known he'd been the one to say those words, so he could have explained it better. But they're together now, they can talk.

"Shall we walk and talk? I think we've got a fair amount to talk about."

[chrisisofaith]

He doesn't bother masking the small sigh of relief that escapes him when Jacob's arm comes around him and his own free one comes up to return the brief embrace. There still might be rough ground ahead, but that didn't mean they couldn't lean on each other not to trip. That would always matter more to him than anything else.

"Yes. The air's crisp, like there's ice in it already. Some of my favorite, honestly." It reminded him of the chilly lands he was born in, but it always made him feel like he could think clearer.

He steps out towards the back and the woods around the house, his free hand finding a place in the middle of Jacob's back just to touch and trace over his jacket. "I'm sorry, I...I shouldn't have brought up the pit like that. It's my job to have more care in such matters, and not just because you're my boyfriend. As a cleric of death, I shouldn't have been so clumsy."

[assassin_daddy]

Jacob is used to harsh winters, snow banked up in the streets, the rivers topped with ice and every chimney billowing smoke in an effort to make homes warm. He's only had to light the fire in the cabin once or twice so far this winter, who knows what keeps it warm, but there's something in the air, just as Chris says.

"Fresh and clear, good for walking," He agrees, glad he has his own long coat on, and his usual amount of layers. And with a hot drink in hand? It couldn't get better.

When Chris speaks, Jacob looks to him as they head down the path, fallen leaves a thick blanket on the ground, edged with frost.

"The Pit isn't, for me, a problem." Which isn't true, necessarily. It isn't the current problem. It isn't what makes his heart ache right now. "I'm sorry about... what I said. Then. I don't remember it, I was in a bad way, but I shouldn't have... said words like that to you and not explained the meaning. And I shouldn't have been so blasé when I told you what they meant."

He hadn't spared Chris' feelings any thought, but he'd had no idea where Chris had heard the phrase or what context they'd been in. He should have done better.

"I didn't mean to... be so callous."

[chrisisofaith]

The leaves crunch and shift under their feet in a way he's only used to here, there'd never been many fallen leaves in the streets back home. He likes the sound, though.

Chris shakes his head. "You weren't callous. How were you to know? I only gave you context after the fact, for all you knew, I could have simply read them somewhere." His hand slips form Jacob's back to curl around his upper arm instead. "I know you don't recall...think I could tell from the moment I saw you again. I just wasn't sure if I should talk to you about it or leave it, seeing as I think it's a far kinder thing you don't remember it much."

He opens his mouth a moment. Closes it, and then sighs. He hasn't talked to anyone about this. The pit has come up, he's talked about the pain and fear and anger, but there's two moments he remembers with crystal clarity and hasn't breathed a word of them to anyone, including the men they involve. One of them lingers now on the edge of his tongue. Still, he hesitates. Maybe it was kinder to keep that piece himself. A body isn't meant to remember its own demise and, blissfully, Jacob doesn't. That's as it should be.

[assassin_daddy]

"I couldn't have. But I didn't stop ti consider the possibilities. What if Jon Sims had said them to you? He's from a version of my world. I should have... at least talked to you in person. Explained better."

The moment Chris' hand leaves his back in keenly felt, but at least its back a moment later, on his arm. He wishes he could see more easily, but Chris is on his blind side, trusted there, and Jacob has to fully turn his head to see Chris' movements or expression even somewhat.

"We should talk about it. And ypu should talk to me about whatever you're holding back." He says, after Chris' pause goes on too long. He had wanted to talk about them, but Chris needs to talk about this, and Jacob wants to give him every opportunity to do so.

"I know you have your duty. I know you care about it. But please, Chris, do not hold back from saying what you need to say."

[chrisisofaith]

'What if Jon had said them?' That very nearly startles a laugh from him. He couldn't imagine. He'd like to, as much as he'd like to imagine it coming from Jacob, earnest and lucid and said like a promise. But no, he doesn't indulge in either right now, that was better for late nights when the mind was allowed some peace in rest.

For now, he hesitates a moment more before breaking the silent crunch of their path. "You read me too easily." He offers to start, but it frees the rest. "I know what a dead body feels like. I've made enough of them in my time. I know a body gets heavier when its soul chord is cut, leaving nothing but flesh and muscle and none of the person behind. It's...less immediate now, but if I close my eyes and remember that moment, my arms remember the feeling of how your body grew heavier nearly all at once. It's not a scar I can show, but it lingers in my skin and aches as keenly. The way your eyes went dull and stopped seeing me. How your skin cooled under my lips...I-"

His hold tightens on Jacob's arm and he's distinctly grateful in that moment that Jacob can't see him. "That's part of why I want to hold you in them so much now, whether peacefully or in a tangle, I don't want to forget that moment, but I need the reminder you're still with me sometimes. At least until it's healed more." He shakes his head. "I should weather it better, I'm sorry...for all the death around me, it's only been twice that it was someone I loved more than anything else."

[assassin_daddy]

"You've said that before," Jacob replies, amused. "And you do the same to me. You just have to live with the fact you know me and I know you." He doesn't mind that Chris can read him, and guess his thoughts with more accuracy than most. It's good, to feel... known. Understood. He hasn't felt like that with someone for some time. Longer than he'd like to admit.

"I'm sorry I put you through that." He knows what it's like, to hold someone when they die. He knows what it's like to hold someone you love. It's just worse when it's someone you've also had to kill. But he doesn't want to think of Roth, not after so many years. Not when he's with Chris. "I know that I didn't intend to do that. I don't- I don't want to go like that."

Not in any world, not at any time. But he can imagine, being aware it was coming, and feeling safe, loved, wanted in Chris' arms. He doesn't think the cleric would have forced him away.

He shifts, his free hand finding Chris', fingers winding together, so he can squeeze him, send all the support he can that way, turning his head to look at the other man and wanting so desperately to take the pain away, replace it with the warmth of the love between them.

"Does it help, to think that death couldn't hold me back from you? That I came back to find you again?"

[chrisisofaith]

He has, hasn't he? Well, it's still true and leaves him feeling exposed in vulnerable in a way he doesn't abide by my most people. Jacob is not most people. It helps to know he can see him, especially when his thoughts and feelings get tangled and words become difficult.

Jacob says what Chris would have said before he can open his mouth and he doesn't interrupt. Something settles a little more in him, not entirely healed, but a little lighter to bare. There was a part of his mind that still caught him in the quiet of the kitchen some mornings when his thoughts were no where near the pit, and yet suddenly he would be back there, holding Jacob close like he could keep his soul from leaving him in those desperate moments and Chris would come back to himself shaking and eyes burning and needing to breathe. Hopefully talking about it would finally ease some of that.

Jacob threads their fingers together and Chris brings them up so he can kiss each finger and then the back of his hand he held. "Yes. It helps...you told me 'If you love someone, you never say goodbye to them.' So keep doing that for me, alright? I'm selfish...and I'd rather know you'll always come back to find me."

[assassin_daddy]

Jacob smiles slightly at the kisses, the cold air around them means the warmth of Chris' kisses stand out all the more, as if the world is highlighting each and every one to him. They're a gift, a benediction that he should treasure and keep close to his heart.

"I intend to. Trust me." He says, as solemn as a promise. He loves Chris fiercely, intensely, and he isn't about to stop, or let anything come in the way of that.

He squeezes Chris' fingers again, keeping their hands together as they continue down the path. Normally it's warmer amongst trees, so much life gives off heat, but the temperature is still low, the frost in the wind almost tangible.

"The words I said. They really stuck with you?" He doesn't want to make Chris dwell on that time, that pain, but the fact Chris' asked about it, remembered them so clearly, means something.

[chrisisofaith]

He folds Jacob's hand in against his chest as they go, green eyes trailing over the trees and fallen leaves around them, though he glances over to his assassin for the question.

"I've a sharp memory and that one lingers in me yet...but I remember thinking the phrasing struck me. It sounded like a prayed oath, and yet I know you're not a religious sort so, even at death's door, it hadn't seemed...it seemed odd. Now knowing it was words from a wedding vow you were referencing, it makes a bit more sense, they've a similar tone."

He's quiet a beat more. "Mind's an odd thing for it to have come to yours then, but in extreme circumstances, our thoughts can't be predicted." He'd just been glad to offer Jacob's dying mind the delusion of a sweet morning in rather than the reality, even if he didn't remember it now. It mattered in the moment and Chris could keep that for them both.

[assassin_daddy]

Jacob enjoys this trail. He's taken it a few times since moving to the Hollow, he's also run it, in better weather. Maybe that's something Chris might enjoy when the new year rolls around. It's a beautiful place, and even if this topic is a painful one to a degree, they at least have these surroundings.

"Do you really think it's all that odd? For someone to say to someone they love?"

Jacob doesn't think so himself. He doesn't rememeber the circumstances, but he doesn't think its too odd for someone to reaffirm their love to another in that moment, to let their lover know their love is still strong. But Chris is a death cleric, maybe his experience is different. Jacob's certainly tried to ensure when he completes an assassination, its not with the loved ones of his target around them. That's not how he works.

[chrisisofaith]

He thinks on that a moment, mind tracing back through thoughts and memories of various deaths, his own included. Never once had he or anyone he'd ended had the chance, really, to say something to a person they loved before dying. Life rarely made such a promise. But thinking on it in the reverse, if he had been able to Send to Jacob before the shipwreck had claimed him...

"No, I suppose not. I wouldn't want those I love to doubt my feelings, especially not if I thought I might be running out of time to express them." An oath of love made perfect sense, thought of like that.

He thinks, then, of the doubt in him when Jacob had returned. The fear of time having taken those feelings and muted them. Perhaps he'd been too unkind, even if the logical part of his mind knew it hadn't been an entirely unfounded fear, perhaps he would have held more faith if he'd known. "I'm sorry I didn't know their meaning until now. Our vows are different, I hadn't recognized the sentiment behind it. I wish I had."

[assassin_daddy]

People like them do not get many favours in life or in death, fate seems determined to make existence as hard and as harsh as possible. So when something comes along that is good, or can be shaped into something good, he'll take that. He's had to, so often. More often than not you can't, but when you can you have to make the best or it, or you'll just go mad.

"Nothing to be sorry about," He says, easing his hand from Chris' and wrapping it instead around the other man's waist, squeezing him into Jacob's side. "We come from different places. There's different traditions all over the place- and I don't think anyone one person can be knowledgeable about them all. I'm just glad ypu know now."

They walk in silence, just for a moment, the sky getting darker and the air growing crisp.

"I don't take it back either. I've never said those words to anyone else, I'm glad I got to say them to you."

[chrisisofaith]

As the sun's light fades further, Chris spares a second to reach down and cast Light on the buckle of his boot by his knee so that some of their path might keep light ahead of them. As Jacob speaks again, however, he draws them to a stop, the hand not wrapped around Jacob's shoulders from having been pulled close, now coming up to cup the other man's jaw. He searches his boyfriend's eye a moment before leaning in to press their lips together.

It's a deep and heated kiss, but not one he lingers in too long before drawing back to press their foreheads together instead. "You cannot possess me, for I belong to myself. But while we both wish it, I give you that which is mine to give. You cannot command me, for I am a free person, but I shall serve you in those ways you require. I pledge to you the first bite from my meat and the first drink from my cup. I pledge my living and dying, equally in your care. And tell no strangers our grievances."

There are those he would have said this to. People back home he'd intended to marry, if they'd all made it out of that final fight...but he hadn't, had he? And if he had, did it matter? He was here, not there. This was his life until it wasn't. Even here, there were maybe two of his boys he might say this to, even if he wasn't sure it was wise for this place. It was nice to say them even just now, Jacob deserved to know Chris would say them without hesitation to him.

"I love you...I hope you never have cause to doubt that, because it will always be true."

[assassin_daddy]

The touch makes him pause, but he doesn't have time to voice any question before Chris is kissing him, and Jacob slides both arms around the young man, holding him close as he kisses back. That's when he feels it, the first flakes beginning to fall and land on any exposed skin, in their hair, on the dark fabric of their coats.

Wheb Chris speaks, the vow itself is unfamiliar and so for a moment he's confused, about to protest that he doesnt think he can possess Chris in any way, but soon enough he realises. He swallows thickly, the peace and perfection of this moment settling around them, his heart full. He's not sure of he's about to laugh or cry or both, and he leans in to catch Chris' mouth again in an equally heated, adoring, devoted kiss.

"I should never doubt you, not for a moment." He says, a little breathless, as one hand comes up to gently touch where Chris still wears that token, that lucky charm around his neck. "And my love for you hasn't waivered. Nor will it. It'll only grow stronger, every day."

[chrisisofaith]

Chris kisses back, pouring everything his ineloquent words can't offer into the moment while snowflakes catch in their hair and on his nose. When they break apart again, he brings a hand up to cover Jacob's against his throat. He brings his hand up to place a kiss against his wrist. "I believe you, love. Nor will mine."

He gives a slightly wry smile as he pulls Jacob's skin from his lips and frees his hand to trace his fingers along the older man's collar. "Even if you had cause and desire to send me from your side, my feelings wouldn't falter. I've never known them to be anything but stubborn and unwavering things anyway."

He looks up into the gently falling flakes with a small, mischievous smile. "Do you think, if I caught a flake on my tongue and kissed you, you'd taste the chill?"

[assassin_daddy]

"I'm stubborn and selfish enough not to send you away. Besides, you give as good as you get in a fight." He smiles. They've not pulled far apart from each other, enough so that the words, the smiles, the little gestures are still private and intimate between them and it makes Jacob's heart sing out.

He hasn't even noticed the heavier fall of the snow, it's only when he does catch sight of them landing in Chris' hair that he becomes aware of it at all. But Chris' question makes sure that he is, and he laughs at the suggestion.

"I'm not sure, you should try it. But my money is on the fact you're too warm for that snow to stand a chance."

[chrisisofaith]

He gives a small hum and looks up into the snowfall, the flakes falling down into his hair and catching in the stubble along his chin and cheeks. "Probably...but won't hurt to try it."

A thin 'excuse' to kiss Jacob he didn't actually need? Yes. He wasn't sorry about it.

Chris sticks his tongue out to catch a flake and it's instantly cold and melted on his tongue even before he dives in to try and kiss his assassin while the chill lingered. No, probably not detectable, but he doesn't pull away immediately to try again either, his fingers curling in Jacob's overcoat as though to make sure he stayed close.

When he pulls back again, his voice turns low and quiet as though to avoid the snowflakes and trees hearing them. "I think....we should walk a little further, then turn back and take a nice long soak together...and then maybe a long nap by the fire or in your lovely bed. What do you say, Mr. Frye?"

[assassin_daddy]

Jacob doesn't mind Chris taking any excuse whatsoever to kiss him, and frankly Jacob wouldn't deny him anything, especially not here and now, with the snow falling around them and Chris' cheeks pink with the cold and flakes of snow in his hair and beard.

Jacob's hands move to hold Chris' sides as the blond man catches snow on his tongue, the kiss that comes after as hot and sweet and as wonderful as all the kisses they have shared, and no different for the addition of snow.

"I think that's a very good idea, Lord Sonom." He says, chuckling at what seems to be an unnecessarily formal tone. "And perhaps on the way, we can try your experiment again once or twice more? Perhaps that snow flake wasn't as cold as the others."

Because Jacob is happy to have an excuse for more kisses too, if that's the game they're playing.

wrap! we'll start something new soon <3

[chrisisofaith]

Chris chuckles and steals another, simple and quick kiss before turning to lead them back onto their path. "I think that sounds perfect, love. Gotta be sure of these things, of course."

It sounded like an excellent way to spend a day. Slow, simple, with no other aim than to be near the man he loved. The man he'd sort of exchanged vows with? In a very loose fashion. The thought makes him smile in a way he doesn't think will be going away any time soon and his fingers find their way to the coin necklace he's never without more than once as they walk.

Yes, no better way to spend a day, really.