for Jag - valentine's day

[st_rummer]

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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[st_rummer]

That was okay, then. More than. "It's like you know me or something," he said with a grin, rarely one to turn down an easy high. "I knew they'd changed up the menu some, but I had no idea they were cooking edibles." Probably because he got a steady supply to smoke from the grumpier cleric. "I should probably check out the rest of their stuff too."

[st_artandstoke]

"She didn't know Kash could hook her up," Jag stated. But now she did, and those cakes were the best. "But yeah, it's really good stuff." He didn't have the sweetest tooth around, but enough of one that he loved stopping by the bakery now and then.

Right then, he got out of his seat to go grab the box of cakes and bring it over.

[st_rummer]

Kind of surprising, but not everybody had Coby's gift for finding the best source of marijuana wherever he ended up, and obviously Kash had hooked Pike up when she rebranded the bakery.

Coby looked at the options, settled on a cookie-brownie mix and broke off a piece. Yeah, his tolerance was good, but with homemade goodies, it was best to start slow. "I can't remember the last time I had edibles instead of smoking."

[st_artandstoke]

"Same," Jag agreed with a nod. "I mean, before last week." He grabbed a Flame Hands himself - cinnamon and chocolate - because it was still his favourite, even now he'd tasted most of the other options.

Bonus, it would go great with rum.

[st_rummer]

Jag was right. It was good. Maybe Coby would try one of the others once this had a chance to kick in. In the meantime, they had the rum.

"You should've been here the other night," he began after a moment and another swig of rum. "I wound up giving lessons on how to do Valentine's day to Kash and one of his buddies." Come on, that was funny. Once they got past a couple of unexpected landmines Coby still wasn't sure what they were.

[st_artandstoke]

"Oh, wow," Jag allowed, and shook his head at the thought. "That sounds - interesting. Though I'd probably have been on their side of the classroom." He'd never been big on Valentine's Day.

[st_rummer]

"No way, man," Coby said, laughing under his breath. "You would've been helping me out. You're at least know what Valentine's day is, which is more than them. And it's not like I'm usually serious enough about somebody where it was a big thing they expected me to get 'right'." A few times, sure, one girlfriend or another had wanted the whole gifts and romance and stuff.

Anael was different. He never asked for anything from Coby but his love, and Coby gave that every chance he got, whenever they were together.

[st_artandstoke]

Jag could have picked on that 'usually', or even asked, straight out, about Coby's angel, or the guy who'd come before he'd dropped hints about a couple of times. But he wouldn't want anyone poking at his own wounds, so he wasn't the sort to do it to other people.

"Val was a total romantic," he remembered, scratching at his jaw. "Probably the most romantic person I've ever been with, in the - traditional sense." Emma was, as well, but in a different way. A way that worked so much better for Jag. A way that didn't involve V-Day, and he pushed the thoughts aside. "Now he'd have been brilliant at giving that class."

[st_rummer]

Coby had never met the Valentine Collinwood of the Collinwoods, and he still had a hard time picturing Jag with someone who was the anything. He knew Jag really loved him and had tried to make it work. And that it had ended badly. Before Em. If you asked Coby, Jag had been happier and more at ease when dating her, but it wasn't on him to judge.

"I'll take your word on that, since I never met him. I'd say Anael would be another good one to give it, except I don't know, traditional Valentine's expectations seem kind of limited for him."

[st_artandstoke]

It was always good to hear Coby talk about his angel, mostly because it didn't seem to break him the way talking about Emma broke Jag. It gave him hope, really. And he was glad that he could talk about him today, too, despite Jag's misgivings that the day might be a tough one on Coby.

"Was he all that tied to Western traditions?" he asked curiously, and took another drink of rum. Christianity had always seemed like a very Western thing to him, but then again, it wasn't like he'd ever left Britain.

[st_rummer]

"Anael is Anael. Organized religion doesn't really come into it, and what he is, really," Coby shook his head. "It's more than any of us can really wrap our heads around. But a day where people are focused on love, whatever the reason, he'd be all about that. Pride's another good one."

[st_artandstoke]

"What about - the shitty days? How does he deal with those?" Not that they had special days set aside for hate and fear, but it had been feeling like there was more and more of that in the world with every passing day, when you listened to the bloody news.

[st_rummer]

"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."

[st_artandstoke]

"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.

[st_rummer]

"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."

[st_artandstoke]

"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.

[st_rummer]

"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."

[st_artandstoke]

"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?"

[st_rummer]

"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.

[st_artandstoke]

"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.

[st_rummer]

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."

[st_artandstoke]

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.

[st_rummer]

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."

[st_artandstoke]

"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."

[st_rummer]

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.