Sir Jacob Frye (brassknuckles) wrote in valloic, @ 2022-02-20 09:54:00 |
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Of course, his mood didn't seem limited to Valentine's. The booze delivery at the club had included an extra bottle of his favorite rum, just for him, and it had made him glower all the way to his office. Someone had shown him a picture of their new kitten sleeping under the arm of their dog and it had filled him with a simmering rage. He briefly considered the odds he was experiencing some kind of hormonal imbalance but that was too medical so he discarded the theory and stuck with everyone and everything was just really annoying today.
He slammed the door to the train shut and headed straight for the sofa in the common room, plopping down face-first onto it. "If anyone's here," he shouted, muffled by cloth, "don't get on my nerves or I can't promise I won't stab you!"
The slamming door caught Diego’s attention because he was like a goddamn guard dog, hackles raised on instinct from someone entering a space he felt comfortable in. It would be really fucking stupid for someone to try and rob them, Jacob was an assassin, Serefin used whatever the hell star magic was, and Diego kicked ass, so he wasn’t very worried. Jacob’s voice confirmed it.
“Who are we stabbing?” Diego asked as he came around the corner. ‘Why are we stabbing someone’ was never something he would ask. Diego was, by nature, a stab first ask questions never kind of guy, but for his friends that was only amped up. The fact that Jacob was becoming one with the couch instead of actively armed meant Diego didn’t have to have one of the many daggers on his person in hand, and instead it could be a protein shake loaded with things like bee pollen, seaweed, and raw eggs.
He crossed the space between them and prodded Jacob right between the shoulder blades. “Are you dying? Are you bleeding into the couch?” Get the important questions out of the way first. Who needed to be stabbed, was Jacob dying, did Diego need to clean up blood. Par for the course, really.
Jacob grunted and swatted blindly at Diego’s hand. “I’m not bloody dying, you twat.” He was self-aware enough to know this mood was not normal and that he rarely talked to Diego without affection in his voice. Bad days happened – he was human, despite the Isu ancestry – but they were rare. And they didn’t feel like this. He turned his cheek to the sofa cushion but didn’t get up.
“You should recognize a grumpy mood when you see it. It’s your life’s calling, isn’t it?” The sofa was comfortable and for some reason, that made him angry. He pushed up to slump against the back of it and kicked weekly at Diego’s ankle. He’d be apologizing for this later. “Nothing happened before you ask. Everything’s just driving me mad today.”
“Yes, so I’m ridiculously offended that you’re trying to take over my moves,” Diego retorted, though it of course was lacking the vitriol and spite that usually colored Diego’s conversations with most anyone else because Jacob was not most anyone else. Case in point, the way Diego dropped down on the couch next to him and elbowed him in the ribs.Whatever was bothering Jacob, well, Diego was in it with him.
He took a swig of the protein shake. It was the third one of the day, but if you asked Diego, the third one was one of the most important protein shakes of the day. “Well, I’m asking anyway. Did something–” Diego groaned then, as if his insides were twisted in barbed wire. He tried again. “Is something wrong with–” nope, he had to cut himself off and take a few deep breaths. Okay. He could do this. Where were his antacids?? The burning in his chest tended to rear its ugly head very unexpectedly, without any sort of notice and Diego contemplated carrying around spare ones as he did with daggers.
When his traitorous body decided to stop rebelling for no reason thank you, Diego tried again, the words coming out in an absolute rush. “Did something happen with Serefin you can tell me if it did?”
As fussy as Jacob was, there was still an insistent part of his brain that was happy Diego sat down. That Diego was there and offering his brand of constipated support. It was a Big Deal and proof of a friendship built from the ground up. The weird gloom over him made him sigh melodramatically about it though. “Christ. You’re being so supportive.”
Still. He didn’t move. If anything, he slumped a little more against Diego’s side as he rubbed at his face. “Nothing’s wrong with Serefin. Everything is so bloody right with Serefin, it’s scary sometimes.” His history with relationships was uninspiring and nearly nonexistent. Of course, the mention of Serefin and his actually quite solid love life was a reminder of Diego’s bad luck in that regard. Jacob squinted over at him. “He’s still here in case you’re getting all worked up with anxiety.”
Diego responded to the audacious claim that he was supportive by wrapping an arm around Jacob’s neck and rubbing his knuckles against his head. “I know. Don’t tell anyone. Otherwise they’ll all be like, Diego, come be by me and listen to all of my fucking problems, you’re such a good listener.” He shuddered, lip curling in distaste. “Fucking pass.” But since it was Jacob, who wouldn’t have accepted Diego’s grumpiness at face value, Diego was of course going to stick around. He didn’t even need to ask and hell, Diego would have done a lot more than prod at him to open up if asked. That went both ways, he knew.
“I fucking figured he wasn’t gone. I meant, you know,” Diego gestured in front of him, as if willing Jacob to fill in the blanks. “If you got in–a fucking–fight or something.” One of the two of them leaving was completely unthinkable to Diego, who had been through multiple iterations of his family members coming and going, and Isabela leaving entirely. It never failed to hurt, no matter how much Diego claimed to be numb to it by now. In spite of that, Serefin’s disappearance wasn’t the first thing his mind leaped to, if only because Jacob would have opened with that, rather than simply complaining.
“I would listen, if you had,” he said, although Diego sounded as if a herd of elephants had sat on his chest at that very moment.. And he would have! He would. He wanted his people happy, healthy, and close by, and would have punched anything in the face to make that happen. Serefin and Jacob in a fight, both of them unhappy at the other? Had Diego wanting to check to make sure his blood pressure wasn’t in the five digit range.
Jacob snorted a laugh at Diego's ridiculousness and then his expression immediately soured. Was laughing even annoying today? He slumped down further into the sofa. "We haven't been fighting, alright? If we had, I would annoy you with every detail. He probably would too." Evie would likely hear more than she cared to as well, but thinking about a future fight requiring that much advice made him uncomfortable. He wasn't particularly good at getting people to forgive him for things.
"Bollocks. Talk about something else. This stupid love holiday…should we be distracting you?" Even though his tone was miffed, his concerned gaze was more genuine. He'd been meaning to check in with Diego after some time living on the train. To make sure it wasn't just making things worse. Now he wasn't sure which answer he wanted to hear, but that was mostly the mood talking. "Come on. Spill. Don't leave me waiting."
“Damn right you would,” Diego huffed. Because in spite of the numerous protests Diego would have made (not to mention the numerous bottles of antacids he would have needed to consume), he always, always showed up, knives ready. Even if those knives had to be emotional ones, his least favorite type of knife.
That was on full display with the way Diego visibly recoiled at the idea of spilling anything resembling his thoughts and feelings about his love life. “There’s nothing to say. I just,” what? Had really shitty luck? With Patch, he’d been an angry shithead with no direction and she deserved a better boyfriend who hadn’t goaded her into action that caused her death. Being with Lila felt like some sort of fever dream because it came from a memory dump, but she had straight up left his ass to be kicked by Swedish assassins, came back, drugged him, kidnapped him, and then straight up left again. His relationship with Isabela had grown into something strong and solid, even when he’d least expected it.
All ended up leaving. And, if it wasn’t bad luck, then what? One consistent variable in Diego’s relationships was, well, him.Shit. That line of thinking tended to hit Diego like a sledgehammer being welded by the one thunder guy with a hammer thing (Thor, he knew mythology okay, it was just the principle of the thing).
“Makes you think it’s something with me. Which, obviously it’s not, I’m fucking awesome. But.” Diego chugged the last of his protein shake and slammed the bottle down on an end table as if both the bottle and the table offended him. “Maybe it’s me.”
Jacob reached over and smacked Diego's chest with the back of his hand. "Oi, none of that rubbish." He channeled all his targetless frustration into hating this particular thought Diego had voiced. It was a better thing to fire at than Diego himself. "People who don't deserve bad luck get bad luck all the bloody time. Terrible things happen to good people. Children even. It's not you any more than it's them."
He sat up and reached for the table on his side, where a half-empty bottle of liquor sat. He'd peeled the label off in distraction so he wasn't even really sure what it was, but he took a long swig anyway. Ah, scotch worked fine.
"You let someone in and life kicked you in the bollocks for it. That's not your fault, mate."
Diego rolled his eyes, responding to Jacob’s smack with a whack of his own. It was a sign that for as much as he was up in his feelings, he wasn’t so far gone that he’d be stuck there. The fact that he was still sitting with Jacob instead of letting anger and his overall visceral reaction to appearing weak rule him was proof. He knew Jacob was right–not that he wanted to give him the satisfaction of saying that, though. And in spite of how absolutely shitty things had been, he knew he had people in his corner. That was something that two years ago, Diego wouldn’t have been able to say–wouldn’t want to say.
“Thanks,” he said, finally, and Diego didn’t even sound like it was pulling teeth to say that! Truly, a Valentine’s Day miracle. “Sometimes my head’s up my ass.” That was, perhaps, an understatement.
When Diego felt like his life had fallen apart, Jacob and Serefin had said without hesitation that he could stay with them. That he should stay with them. That meant more than Diego could say. So instead, he looked over at Jacob and nudged him in the ribs again with his elbow. “Hey. You’re the best friend I could ever ask for, asshole.”
Diego's words made a rather annoying swell of emotion build up in Jacob's chest. He'd rarely gotten close to people at home. Work made that difficult and even when he did make a connection, those people often turned out to have terrible motivations. He's started to assume he just had bad taste in friends, but Vallo had given him more than he knew what to do with. Not even his noxious mood could dampen the feeling of belonging that left behind.
"Sometimes your head is up your arse," he agreed, elbowing Diego right back. "But you still manage to be my best mate too." Jacob gave a great big sigh and collected the scotch bottle for another swig. "Ugh, are you happy? We're getting sap all over the sofa. Come on." He climbed to his feet and reached to pull Diego along. "Let's go throw daggers until I stop wanting to stab everything."
"God, you're so emotional, this is so embarrassing for you," Diego quipped. He let himself be dragged along, even dramatically leaning on Jacob when he first stood up. "Shit, better you than me. Otherwise we'd never stop."