st_rummer | for Jag - valentine's day

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for Jag - valentine's day

Coby hadn't given much thought to Valentine's day other than knowing it was coming up – hard to miss when Caroline had exploded hearts and gold cherubs over every available surface – until he'd had to explain the holiday to Kash and his friend. It wasn't as though any of the people he was sleeping with would expect anything of him. As far as he knew, some of them weren't from worlds where Valentine's day was a thing, and even the ones who were knew he wasn't the exclusive type. He'd rather show them how he felt when he was with them anyway, because he felt it, not because some calendar told him too.

Valentine's day was just a day.

When that day came, though, being caught between happy couples happily coupling, unhappy singles who couldn't look forward to half-price chocolate, and fat foil babies with wings that felt creepier than the description, it all felt like a terrible way to spend the day. He'd gone down long enough to throw together things to eat, because he wasn't sad sack moping, but he didn't stick around. At least he'd been here long enough he'd learned to ignore the Valentine's pink of his hearts and romance room. It was as good a place as any to work on this song that was refusing to come together the way he knew it could. He sat at his keyboard, trying the melody over and over with slight tweaks, leaning over to make notes on a, yes pink, notepad he'd picked up at the gift shop, then sticking the pencil behind his ear to try another variation.

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"It probably sounds sappy, but the same way he deals with everything. With love." Sappy maybe, to hear Coby talk about it like that, but it was true, and just one of the things Coby loved and was in awe over about Anael. "Giving it, and celebrating it when he finds it. There's a lot of shit in the world, and he hurts with it more than most, but he loves."

"He really does sound fucking corny," Jag remarked, but there was no criticism in the words, just a memory with Em, and, possibly, a hint of envy. "It's good that he had you." Anyone would be lucky to be loved by Coby, but it sounded like the angel would have known what he had, too.

"Nah, man. It's the other way around. I'm lucky to have him." Blessed was probably the right word, but there was only so much cheese Coby could handle when he'd only been drinking however long they had tonight.

"I'd be a lot more fucked up still, if we hadn't found each other in London."

"You fit together, you were both lucky," Jag answered with a one-shouldered shrug. Especially since Coby had just explained how Anael dealt with all the negative emotions out there, and Jag couldn't imagine anyone more suited to give him that than Coby. But beyond that, this was something he'd learned with Emma, in time. That he was giving her things, even if he felt like it was just the other way around.

He needed to stop thinking about her so bloody much, and he reached for the bottle to top up their glasses. "You keep saying you're fucked up, but you don't seem like it at all," he added, redirecting his own thoughts on Coby.

"I've been... good, lately." He started to think back to how long, but counting was probably a bad idea. "Almost as long as you've known me, I think." Coby credited Anael with that. "But I have... Sometimes I–" how did he describe this? "I lose myself. Get confused. Go dark."

He ran a hand through his hair, and took a long drink. "Shrinks. Hospitals. Disappearing for weeks and finding myself in another part of the country. Voices in my head. Hallucinations. You name it. Been there, done that."

"Fuck, that sounds... hardcore," Jag said, and shifted on his chair, unsure whether he should reach out but instinctively leaning towards Coby anyway. "Is there any way to help, if it happens again? Anything I ought to know?"

"Good news, I guess, is I can't wander too far." Not without winding back at the inn.

"And what I was saying, that's... that's like worst case. It's not always as bad as it can be." If he was lucky, it wouldn't get that bad here, or if it did, somehow he'd be able to spare his friends the worst of it. "Touch helps. Food. Company I know, who know me. Anything that grounds me in the here and now and in my body instead of wherever my head's trying to take me.

"Sex. Sometimes." Mostly it was better at keeping him from losing it bad in the first place. "Depends on how with it I am, and it can be hard to tell. People have hooked up with me before, and nobody realized until later I wasn't exactly myself at the time." Casual hook-ups or friends with benefits where things were different and he only remembered the after-effects, not the tine together.

"Fuck, really?" Jag asked with raised eyebrows, looking a little horrified.

He'd been listening attentively, and making mental notes to remember everything. The mention of sex as something that would help was a bit of a shock to start with, for reasons that were more personal than not.

But then he'd kept going and - bloody hell - that sounded so many levels of unsafe.

Coby walked out the balcony, face lifted toward the sky. Not meaning away from Jag, but needing to move, maybe feel there was more than wall-to-wall explosion of pink.

"I don't know. Sometimes things get turned upside down and inside out. When I'm in the middle of it, there's no way to see how fucked up choices are or who I'm hurting. Or how I'm hurting myself."

It felt like it was 'away from Jag', and it felt horrible in its own right, like Jag had fucked up the right way to react, and now Coby was pulling away. He shrank a little in his seat, watching Coby with muted eyes. It didn't help that what Coby was saying sounded, so much, like that fucking curse he'd been under.

There wasn't really anything to say to it, so he looked down at his hands in his lap, one of them holding the glass, his thumb playing with the rings on his other hand, he now realised. He stopped fiddling, and looked up and over at Coby. "I'm sorry."

For whatever he'd done, or failed to do, and for Coby have to go through this at all, never mind over and over again, by the sound of it. Never mind wishing his Emma was here. If his angel could help Coby, then Jag wished Anael was here, because no one should have to go through that shit.

It was easier breathing with the night sky above him, and Coby turned, leaning ass against the railing so he faced Jag again. "It is what it is. And I don't know, maybe I'm past the worst of it, teenage hormones and bad life choices making it worse than it has to be.

"For now, it's all good. As long as I remember that can change, I'm going to enjoy it while I've got it. And make my apologies for when I don't."

"I don't think it's anything you ought to apologise for," Jag said, but very tentatively. He also felt as if he could never apologise enough for what he had done when cursed. But it was different - Jag remembered everything. And it all still felt like him, like things he might have done, might still do if he wasn't careful. Of course it was different.

He scratched at his bearded jaw, then dropped his hand. "But I hope so. That the worst is behind you, I mean."

Coby's shoulders rolled, aware of how the weight would settle if his wings were out, deciding not to manifest them now. "There's a difference between when I ought to apologize and when I need to. When I feel the need to, I mean." Then there were the things that deserved an apology, whether it was his fault or not.

"...yeah," Jag agreed in a sigh, something very much like relief at hearing someone put into words something that felt so right, but he'd never known to articulate. Something he'd struggled with so much. "That's true enough."

But this wasn't about him, and he didn't want to make it about him. He took a large drink from his glass, then looked back at Coby. "Is it because of - what you were?"

"Probably?" Fuck if he knew for sure. "What I was, who I've been."

He ran his hand through his hair again. "Not like there's anything in the DSM to explain what I am. Even Anael's never met anybody else me." There were the ones who Fell. And peris, who'd retired. Coby wasn't really either of those.

"But it fits. My head's not big enough for everything I shouldn't know. Most of the time, I don't know any of it. But maybe... I don't know, sometimes stuff bleeds through."

Jag had no idea what the DSM was, but it didn't matter enough to ask. He really wanted to go over and hug Coby, but Coby had put distance between them for a reason, and so he stayed in place, rubbing the palm of his free hand over his thigh. "I'm sorry," he said again, sympathy, not apology.

God might have given Coby a gift, but it was a cruel one, he reckoned.

"Yeah." With a brief shudder, Coby shook off the things he couldn't do anything about it. No use dwelling on what might happen. Better to just take it as it came.

He pulled his cigarettes out of his pocket, took one for himself, then held the pack out toward Jag. "Want one?"

Jag frowned briefly as he looked around the room, trying to remember where he'd put his. But in the end, he stood and joined Coby on the balcony. "Cheers," he thanked him as he took the cigarette, stuck it between his lips, and lit both it and Coby's with a little flourish of one hand. He settled beside him, shoulder to shoulder, nothing more, so Coby could easily move away if he wanted.

And he forced himself to move on from the conversation they'd been having.

"So you've never really celebrated Valentine's Day either?" he asked, raising eyebrows as he looked at Coby.

Coby upchinned his thanks for the light and leaned into where their shoulders touched, appreciating the closeness. "Sometimes. I mean, I dated some girls who'd couch me if I got Valentine's dad wrong. Or I've gone out with a friend when we weren't exclusive, but didn't want to be alone when it felt like everybody was being all coupley. But a lot of times, I worked. It's a good night for somebody who's mostly got love songs."

"Oh, you must've made a killing in pubs," Jag agreed as the thought hit. He was glad to feel Coby leaning against him, and breathed a little easier for it.

"I didn't do too bad." Coby would've been a musician if he didn't make a cent off it, but that didn't mean he wasn't glad he made enough for the things he needed. "And it was good usually, watching a bunch of people all being in love."

This year, here at the inn, he wasn't sure he could stomach it. It made him think of how much Anael would enjoy it, and made missing his angel harder than it already was.

Jag didn't miss that 'usually', or the fact Coby hadn't been planning on spending tonight at the bar, either. He shifted on his feet, leaning a little more squarely against Coby, as he took another drag off his cigarette, focusing for a moment on the low buzz he owed to the cake. He wouldn't ask about tonight; they'd already had one hard conversation, and that was one more than he'd planned on having. Unless, of course, Coby wanted to have one, but that would be up to him.

"Well, if you want to play tonight, I'm not going to complain," he ended up saying, looking at Coby by his side, a small smile on his lips. It was a simple offer. Either way, as Coby would say, it was all good.

Coby glanced over at Jag, a similar smile appearing for how easy it was with him. They finished their smokes, not needing to fill the space with words. And after, he went back in, leaving the door open onto the balcony, the night air cooling but not chilled yet. He played for awhile, just him and his guitar, old favorites blending from one to another. "Hey. Got any more of that cake?"

Jag had elected for sitting on the floor, by the balcony, and eventually ended up lying on his back, playing with fire as Coby played. It was a callback to his days with Victor, and also nothing like it at all. No one was using anyone here, and he was just relaxed in the moment, helped along by the lowkey buzz of the Flame Hands and Coby's voice as he sang.

The question had him kill his flames, and look over at Coby with raised eyebrows. Then he sat up, and stretched out towards the box of cakes, then moved over to Coby on his knees (there was no point standing up) to get it to him. "There's still quite a few," he said, and plopped his arse down again. (No point standing up. Really.)

By this point, you had to call Coby in the armchair a sprawl more than anything else, and he had to sit up some, setting the guitar off to the side, to take the box and choose a bite of the dark chocolaty one Jag had liked. his other hand smoothed over Jag's hair. Not consciously, but because it felt natural, contact and touch they both loved.

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