Jack/Joseph in CDCverse

[cicatrize]

[ Ajna was a bitch and a half. A cold bitch and a half, but still, still, when he hears the others rattling on about when do we go home and what do they miss, Jack's feelings on it are utterly void. He doesn't miss home. He'll never miss home. Not anymore. There's nothing left for him there, and the tablet settled in his lap, as he sits in one of the dining hall booths, is testament enough to that.

The month on mission settled a lot for him. For one, there are a good few who know the secret he would have killed people over back home, and care absolutely nothing about it. He's just normal, not diminished, not disgraced, not unfit, and what he wouldn't have given to have that back home. No one cares that he's a prince, and while that aggravates him on most levels, on those more subtle, uncommented on ones, it's freeing. And he's learned there's worse things to have lost, after spending time with the man sharing his face. Barnes. That doesn't make him any more willing to take the trip home, but it sets perspective.

Something he thinks on as he pulls one leg up on the bench edge, tucked against his shoulder, and watches the lips move on the face on the screen, sound muted. Joseph. If he'd been as comfortable in his own skin as he is here back then, Joseph wouldn't be six feet under. If he'd realized, then, that Silas was never planning on giving him what he wanted, regardless of what he did to appease him, Joseph wouldn't have made this video. Wouldn't have followed it up with an action Jack feels he can hardly blame him for, after what he'd been put through. After all that Jack had done to him. A hand reaches forward, pausing the feed on a sad smile for a moment, before Jack reaches into his jacket, pulling out the flask he'd filled on mission. About that time again, drowning out guilt and regrets with the first substance or venue of venting he can find. He's been doing a lot of that here. Funny how these things catch up with you, once you stop running from them. ]

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[vraiment]

[ being in space is... not at all what joseph thought it would be. although what did he think it would be like, really? it's not something you can really prepare for or imagine before it happens. there is one thing he definitely wouldn't have expected, even if he had thought about being in space before -- the whole destroying planets thing. he was dropped on ajna right before the end of that mission, hadn't gotten to see much of anyone at all who wasn't on his team or in his rover, and it was... well. it was. during his time in shiloh joseph's gotten used to doing things he doesn't strictly want to, so destroying planets really isn't all that big a deal. it's something to do that isn't sit at home, waiting on jack's word, watching him be miserable and being powerless to do anything about it.

during the sales pitch they'd said they could make it so that he and jack had never met, and god forgive him, that's what got him to say yes. not the threat to his own planet, but the chance at peace, finally, the opportunity to have a life beyond closed doors and whispered conversations in the backs of nightclubs. maybe it was when the recruiter came to him -- right before he was about to record that video, send it off to jack and the news and then -- but at the moment all he'd wanted was for it to be over. he hadn't always been like this, willing to put aside everything that made him happy just so he could take the scraps that jack would give him, but... well, love makes you do things you'd never have done, otherwise. joseph knows that better than anyone.

it seems like god is not so forgiving, because when he comes into the dining hall his eyes are drawn invariably, as they always are, to jack. he hadn't known he was here, hadn't even thought to look, but it seems that what he does and doesn't know doesn't matter where jack is concerned -- to abuse an already cliched notion, joseph is the moth drawn stupidly, fatally to jack's flame, and there is nowhere that joseph can go to escape him.

not even space. ]

Jack?

[ the name comes out small, almost scared, hoping that he's wrong -- but he knows he isn't. he would know jack anywhere. ]

[cicatrize]

[ That small, timid, uncertain voice. He knows it, and at first, Jack thinks it's part of the drink. it's hanna or topher or dirk come up to bug him and he's just been sitting here for hours, listening to that voice over and over and over again as something inside him bleeds out, and the sadist in him is just... pasting it over everything else, to continue the trend. lazily, his eyes come up from the tablet, head moving to loll back, but only gets about half way.

jack's entire body jumps, recoils, actually, scooting back like a frightened cat, with shoulders tensed his, eyes wide and lower lip hanging with a tremor quivering it slightly. joseph. it's not the drink - he wouldn't be that clear, and it wasn't a hallucinogenic. for the moment, the tablet, still paused on joseph's face, is completely forgotten, and jack's just trying to figure out how. the color's drained from his cheeks, but his eyes are red, nose and lips mimicking it in that way jack's always hated, because it makes it so obvious when he's gotten emotional. ]

No. [ of course. the cdc. he'd heard some others asked for a dead loved one to be restored, and they were able to see them, privately, but jack hadn't requested joseph. no, he made hims suffer enough and he should be allowed to rest in peace, away from him and away from this mess that the cdc contract is. he's not quite so selfish to raise him, and not quite so stupid to think that happiness could ever really be theirs now, after all that happened. but he's here. jack didn't ask for him but he's here and what the fuck did they do. breathing is coming stuttered, and jack's jerking up from the bench, standing at the opposite side of the table from his old lover. ] No, I didn't do this. I didn't ask for this.

[ he's not able to hold in how shakey that comes out, as much as he would have liked to. he's gotten too soft here, too comfortable. and maybe that's why they sent him. to remind him of the person they recruited, not what he's becoming. at peace with himself. it stabbing to see him, to remember the last night they spent, and the hundreds of nights before, lying around on joseph's mattress and chatting long into the night. smiles and snickers and rolling around bare and careless in the sheets. deep, sweet kisses and soothing hands and fuck, jack's lips are twisting into a grimace, as hard as he's trying to keep his features schooled. ]

They shouldn't have brought you. [ he whispers, a rasp in his voice. ] I'm sorry.

[anaesthetize]

[ watching the way jack recoils from him hurts, but there's a dark, angry part of him that whispers at least he isn't trying to hit you and he feels relieved in all the worst ways. joseph tries to ignore the voice, wants to move forward and take jack's face in his hands and soothe away the fear there, kiss him and kiss him and kiss him until he smiles again, but even he's not that much of a masochist -- jack would just push him away, and he's had enough of that to last a lifetime. he's tired, so tired, of being jack's dirty secret, living his life in shadow, waiting for calls that got further and further apart until they stopped coming at all. he'd meant to use his time with the cdc to try to move on, to work through the mess that jack had left of his head and of his heart, and now --

now he can't do that, because jack makes him stupid. if he'd known that jack was going to be here -- well, if he'd known that, he never would have said yes in the first place, but -- he would have expected a reception something like this. maybe not with these exact words, because they don't quite make sense following everything they've been through in shiloh, but the fear, the desire to put as much space between them as possible, the assertion that he shouldn't be here? he would have taken those for a given.

that doesn't make them hurt any less, and joseph looks down at the floor, trying to breathe past the sudden terrible pressure on his chest. ]

They didn't tell me you would be here or I wouldn't have said yes.

[ that was meant to come out... well, differently than it must have. it was meant to be about joseph respecting jack's wishes and staying away from him because jack didn't want to see him anymore, not...

but that same dark, angry part of him means it like that, too, means that he doesn't want to see jack anymore, would let the world die in order to avoid seeing him. that darkness wants to see what jack looks like when he's the one getting his heart broken, instead of the one doing the breaking. ]