Work Text:
The Tigers Mouth
In the grand rule of Mother Nature, the hare and the fox do not duel. But human nature, rebels. The island’s heartbeat pulses through its roots. Footsteps disguised themselves amongst the chirps, the crawls of creatures never seen. Animals, it's their design to hunt.
The hare cleans its ears. While the fox stalks behind the tall ripe grass. The cycle repeats, and forever will.
One out of a hundred circles him, the rest of its pack gone to sniff out other prey, but this one was his, its scent too organic to ignore, sweet flesh familiar to fresh pork. The foxes' nose is overwhelmed by the promises.
“Jack this isn’t you! Stop! Why are you doing this—I thought you were a warrior!”
Simon ducked away from the stampede, his anger loud in chase. “Warriors. Do not. Kill what is theirs!” There’s footsteps to his left, so he swerves away, but the gates of the wilderness lose him. He was cornered. The hare’s fur stands on end, irises alarmed.
Jack’s spear aimed for his heart, but stopped dead in midair, the grasp that held it stuttered.
“You’re no warrior!” Simon shrieked. Horrified at his own words. He did not cover his mouth, hands used for prayer now clenched in rage.
The voices in Simon’s head pulled him to reach out, grab Jack into his own place.
Jack gasped as his left foot fell under his body wrong. This was wrong. The story did not end this way.
Time switched them, behind Jack, he could witness just how close the beach lingered past the forest. Awaiting to feed. It unravels in a sense of dread, of hunger.
“And I am not a beast!” Simon cried out. He grits his teeth, the pressure rings a crack in his skull.
“No.” Jack snarled with broken teeth, “you’re a just a damn coward!”
“A weak dog! Begging for scraps every minute, Ralph doesn’t need you anymore and now you're useless! A useless coward suits you more than ‘Simon’ does! Go on—bark! Bark you dog!” The fox lets out a horrid string of laughter.
Jack crowed: “you think I don’t know? That you watch me when I sleep—that you cross the forest just to look at my face! You’re pathetic! I know what you are Simon, and it’s dirty!”
In a fury hands shoved him to the dirt, mud splatters over Simon’s face, mixes with the weeps that fall ruthlessly. He hiccups over his screams, “how could you do this”, “we were friends”, “you’re a fool’s!” Till the angel’s last cry. Echoes through the forest and in Jack’s sharp ears. Who knew the kindest dove would claw his eyes out.
“There is no beast Jack.” Simon held his head low, thick eyebrows drawn a haunted shadow. “It’s just us.”
The fox twitches in its trap, its prey stands still to watch.
Air shards past their ears, hits the wood and grass around them in furious heaps. A force falls backwards.
“The beast,” Jack hollers like a hit dog, “I found it!”
The betrayal delivered karma in a swift wind.
Blood ripples out of his chest, spreads like ink onto his thickened stomach. It’s getting harder to breathe. Jack places his hand on the mark, red, the sight of it awakens rabid hysteria. An arrow to the neck. A crack of thunder blinded the world, and revealed a pathetic painted boy underneath, Jack trembled under the shower of tiny angry fists on his chest.
“We singed together—” Simon sobbed. He hit him again.
“You’re the only person I cared for—we laughed together!” Yell after yell, the moon watched with a sorrowful brow. The leaves hushed secrets untold to pastors and friends, only between them. The tension linked by them is now free.
The hare lifts an ear.
Something’s coming.
It floods arrows and desperate shouts, the army leaves torture in their honor. Amongst the midst of rocks and gore, Jack was lost. Screams erupted from the rapture, animal grunts broke and tore in waves. Night blindfolded Jack, all he knew was his own hands and feet.
“Jack—” An angel called out to him.
“Jack!”
“Don’t hurt him!”
The hoard parts in two, splits off from the damage.
Wet blood spat from Jack’s chapped lips, dripped down his pulsing throat in slow gutters. The rings of black pupils shrunk to dots, then blew up tenfold. His vision blurred, pale splotches of skin molded into one against the dark green. “Can‘t see...” a voice unlike his hissed. Rain mixed in with the copper scent of gut, he couldn’t tell if he was blind from the rain or his bleached tears. There’s a mass of red, pink, and grey atop his intestines, the smell, putrid. The war cry of spears broke for the ground, piercing it ruthlessly.
“We’ve got it!”
“Tear it apart!”
Numbness prickled his skin, left in the wake of twenty arrows, the shrill whines of Simon shouts were loud enough to wake the world.
“Spill its blood!”
“Slit it's throat!”
Simon dragged Jack’s wrists together, ankles heavy in his palm. A trail of innards followed him. He carried the burden, up the mountains, leaped over streams of smoke dyed water, not a trace of green. Where there was once beauty, now it is in ruins.
Jack gurgles as he’s put down. “I see you.” His relief is cut short as he rolls.
Sour paste leaked from a spear stuck in the side of his soft hip. Rancid. Jack closed his eyes for a second that lingered too long. The one space protected from the reign , was his face, pale and smooth. Unusually dull, and blank. A face that would suit Simon much better.
Warmth bloomed on his cheek, Jack’s long fingers swept up a tear. Simon’s lashes were glued together from his sorrow, “Jack,” a sniffle, “please look at me, look at me.”
Show me. By staying alive, I want to hear the joy in your heart. It wasn’t that long ago. It’s there, in all of us.
Their gazes met. A cerulean blue deeper than the sea, so luminous it blinds Simon in a beam of retribution.
The forest cannot hide them for long, if he does not move Simon will be slaughtered next in the dark. Abandoned. A sound whistled in a low vibration. Tender, to the naked eye. Inhale. Exhale. Jack’s tanned chest rose and fell. Simon’s eyes took up half of his face, he could see everything. The white of Jack’s own eyes gleamed, with the shine of rain, finally at peace. Drunk off the mint that stuck to Simon like a halo.
Inhale. Exhale.
“Sing.”
Let me count the ways I adore you. Remind me. You’re the hope I need. Tell me you’re on my side. I need you on my side.
The word was a breath, barely brave enough to make a sound. It was an order.
“No. No— I need to find Ralph.” Simon shook his head low. “He’ll know what to do…”
Jack did not speak. That was his last word. But he did flinch at the mention of Ralph.
“If you go. What will be left?” Simon’s muffled coughs struck a pitiful chord. “There’s always time. There’s still time Jack.”
There’s still time to be together.
A strangled wheeze. Jack’s silent gaze. The fire crackles behind his ears.
Simon was folded in two, his hands clasped together, the Father John taught him that when he really tried, the lord could hear his wishes. Father said that song was a way of prayer. One of the many ways to prove your devotion to Christ.
Blond curls rocked back and forth in Simon’s hands. He felt like a little boy again, as he cradled him. His voice did not carry a chorus, yet it was holy. His falsetto clipped from the hiccups, but he carried through, made up lyrics that made no bloody sense. But Jack gave a smile, a damned smile. There he lay, a Trojan soldier, left for dead on the battlefield, his comrades gone after the bloodshed.
His hand still handles Simon’s face. Until it is too weak to hold it. Drifting back to the grass. It did not make a sound.
“You’re going home Jack,” he pulls the strands that stuck to his forehead away, "I’ll take care of you until we get home.”
Like old times.
It didn’t have to end this way. Simon would have accepted his own death but this was too much and not enough. This is not a victory, nor a surrender. Its nature. All of full of love. He connects his ear to Jack’s heart. And lets his heavy eyelids flutter shut, knees on Jack’s encaved stomach. He wants to stay on the island, and never see that house again. He wants this. Wants him.
“Good night Jack.”
Solemn. Was the word to describe this goodbye.