"If you’d asked me at seventeen, I’d have fed you some lie about realizing I didn’t want to spend my life with a bunch of disloyal colonials."
WHAT: A date that includes exchanging secrets about one another WHERE: A rooftop in Vallo WHEN: Nighttime, December 12 (backdated) WARNINGS: Mentions of bad childhoods and some references to death STATUS:Complete!
Jacob didn’t consider himself a romantic person, but it was more that he’d rarely had the opportunity to bother. And perhaps his definition of romance was complicated by being a thrill seeking assassin. It didn’t mean he couldn’t try for Serefin’s sake. He got the impression Serefin hadn’t been allowed much romance himself.
“Watch your step,” he warned, pulling Serefin along by his forearm. The rooftop of this particular building was haunted by the ghost of summer: dusty patio furniture and a sad barbeque grill and a few forgotten towels that looked like they’d baked in the sun for months. It all loomed in the darkness, waiting to trip a poor sod and send him sprawling across the bricks. Jacob moved through it all with ease, heading for a corner of the roof that was cleared of debris.
He’d set up a few barrels with low crackling fires inside and crescent holes carved out of the metal sides so they could direct the heat into the center space. In the center was a haphazard blanket nest and several bottles of wine. It was all a little precariously close to the edge of the roof, but mostly safe enough.
“I know Morningside has a nice garden on the roof but it’s not bloody private at all.” Letting go of Serefin, he picked up a metal poker and stirred the fires inside each barrel. There was no doubt a dozen magic ways to do this easier but if it worked, Jacob saw no reason to fix it. The flickering light of the flames was what his inexperienced brain qualified as romantic anyway. “You’re allowed to hate this, just let me get some wine in me before you complain, that’s all I ask.”
Serefin watched his step. Out of his element, being tugged along by Jacob without complaint was easy to consent. Trust in Jacob had come long before this particular march across the rooftop, so there was no need to hesitate now. It also helped that blindfold training had done some good—Serefin was a little more aware of his surroundings than previously. And there wasn't a god bothering him with distractions. Or exhaustion. Really, everything felt different now.
As they happened upon the designated spot, Serefin understood why it was here and not Morningside. He was ridiculously pleased. The whole setup was unreservedly romantic. Serefin looked absolutely delighted seeing the blankets, and the wine and the fire to keep the whole place pleasantly warm. Jacob went through effort, Jacob went through effort for him.
"I'm not complaining, do not be so quick to sell yourself short," Serefin said, with a casual touch to Jacob's arm and then gone. He leisurely stepped past Jacob, toward the set up near the edge of the roof. There was a sense of comfort and danger, disarmingly appropriate for them.
"You managed to gather all my favorite things." He was circling around in the center of the barrels, like he was attempting to assess the best place to land in the blankets. "It's warm, there's wine—" He picked up a bottle and went to uncork it. "And, of course, there's you."
Serefin was so devilishly smug, as he sat down. "And I am reliant on you to get me back because I cannot remember how we got here. I'd rather not insult your hard work and leave me on a roof."
“I’m glad I picked the right priorities,” Jacob smirked, lowering himself to the blankets next to Serefin. He stretched his legs out and propped one arm behind Serefin’s back so he could lean into his side and nip playfully at his shoulder. “I promise I won’t leave you up here. I trust you could actually find your way back to the fire escape and get down on your own eventually, but I have a way to get us down faster.”
It would take some trust and possibly a bit more bravery than it was fair to ask of him, but Jacob wouldn’t be too terribly bothered if Serefin refused. He was too pleased to be here with him in the first place, and with Serefin looking like the cat that got the canary. Jacob smiled devilishly and looked up at the night sky.
“In the meantime,” he murmured, “what do you think of the view?”
Serefin arched a brow at the idea there was a faster way to get them down from the roof. He was interested, he was slowly piecing together what that could mean, but he had no intention of leaving quite yet, and so the thought was fleeting. Serefin much preferred settling against Jacob, a bottle of wine in his hand and the stars above them.
His attention slid to Jacob's profile—that view was nice—but Serefin knew that wasn't what Jacob meant. He tipped his head up, obediently, to comment on the sky and hummed in approval.
"I understand the appeal of spending your time on rooftops if this is what you see. It reminds me of—" Serefin paused, taking a pull of wine in a blatant move to stall. The stars reminded him of a lot of things, and he had only been graced by the ambient city light to not see them on a regular basis.
He could understand the inherent intimacy of a starry night. He passed the wine to Jacob. "If you like this, you would appreciate the nights in Tranavia. I cannot say the view is better from the roofs of the castle in Grazyk, but you would have options for romantic rendezvous that didn't require you to be up high."
Serefin’s pause didn’t go unnoticed. Jacob raised an eyebrow and watched him drink. When the bottle was handed off to him, he settled back on one propped arm and took a swig. “Is that what this reminds you of? Your romantic rendezvous in a castle?”
He doubted it and he let that amused suspicion shape his smirk. They were on a rooftop surrounded by barrels. While there was romance here, it was of the modest makeshift variety. Surely even a mistreated prince had higher standards. Jacob set the bottle down and leaned back on both elbows, giving Serefin a curious and warm stare.
“Tell me about romance in the castle in Grazyk,” he said. “I burn with curiosity now.”
He shrugged in that non-committal way of his. Serefin wished that was all the stars reminded him of—romance. But he liked the direction this conversation was taking rather than the one it would have if he had been honest immediately. Serefin didn't want to be the start of ruining every moment together. So he gave Jacob an equally interested stare back, his hand coming to rest purposefully on Jacob's thigh.
"You burn with curiosity? You are going to be sorely disappointed. The most exciting thing to happen was getting a moment alone if ever. Most romance was spent forcibly courting slavhki daughters in stiff clothing and over boring meals. We'd catch eyes across the room and ah—" Serefin made a dramatic sweep with his other hand, clutching his heart. "Romance."
Serefin didn't know how to say this was better, without sounding a little pathetic. "I was sent off to the warfront at sixteen, I didn't even get a chance to enact something in Grazyk with someone I wanted. And I would have not thought to do this." He gestured at everything, makeshift as it was. “If word got out about you and your capabilities, I would have to fight all of the competition.”
Jacob huffed a laugh, but there was an edge to it. He despised the idea of Serefin trapped in such a dull existence only to trade it for war. God knew he was accustomed to someone else shaping his future in much the same way, though. He pushed back up to sitting straight so he could press a hand to the base of Serefin’s spine.
“All you’re doing is making me wish I’d put just a little more effort into this. I was afraid to set the bar too high, hilariously. I know neither of us are particularly fond of high expectations,” he smirked. Stroking the flat of his hand up Serefin’s back and then back down again, Jacob squinted around at the barrels. “I don’t have much experience at this. Setting fires, sure,” he snorted self-deprecatingly, “but romance? Not...well. Father sometimes had us practice fooling a mark into thinking they were being romanced, but I’m sure that doesn’t count.”
Serefin was getting better about not hiding his reactions to Jacob's touch. At the first press of his hand against his spine, Serefin took a deep breath, closed his eyes, settled into the feeling. It was too easy to be distracted at the comforting slide of Jacob's hand. And Serefin's fingers may have dug in just a bit more into Jacob's thigh to keep himself from doing anything immediately embarrassing.
"I might be offended that you had romancing techniques built into your training, and possibly used them on me but you cannot fake our shared obliviousness. I would have been on to you sooner." Maybe. Possibly. Or they wouldn't have this moment now and still be dancing around one another in a painful yearning waltz.
He was looking at Jacob now, softly lit under the light of the barrels. "I remain adamant that this is the appropriate amount of effort. Anything else would be too much, you would have been trying too hard." And this was already overwhelming. Serefin's effort would have been making sure there was whiskey stocked in his kitchen and invited Jacob over for a nightcap. Serefin was not the pinnacle of wooing.
"To compete, I would need to pull the stars out of the sky, though..." Serefin made a thoughtful hum, glanced up then back to Jacob. "Not entirely impossible on my behalf."
“Just goes to show you how terrible the lessons were, I suppose,” Jacob joked. It wasn’t like their father had been any excessive amount of charming. An excellent assassin, yes. A smart man, a pragmatic man, but Jacob liked to think all his charm came from his mother’s side. Not that he had any way to know for sure.
He didn’t want to think about that right now anyway. He much rather focus on the way Serefin was looking at him and the liquid weight it left in his gut.
“Wait,” Jacob laughed, crowding closer. “Did you just say pulling the stars out of the sky isn’t impossible for you? You can’t make a boast like that without some proof.”
Serefin liked when Jacob crowded his space, no room for him to run or to look away. All his effortlessness was often for show, but he couldn't hide it here. Serefin reciprocated, leaning in so that their faces were inordinately close.
"Proof, proof. Always proof with you," Serefin said, attempting to sound put out by having to demonstrate his magic, but he liked that Jacob kept him honest.
He took a deep, calming breath, tugging on that well of magic that he had often used by spilling blood in its wake. This trick, this bloodless magic, was from being god touched, but all his own. A secret he had only used a few times before, and certainly not here when Velyos was present. It wasn't much, but the fist he had clenched in preparation opened and spilled dozens of lights—stars—in the air between the barrels, around them.
Serefin was still looking at Jacob as he spoke, the stars nowhere near as impressive than the man in front of him. "No one knows I can do this. And I do not imagine it is helpful in any real sense, but if it ever gets too dark for you, I could send these along for any future rendezvous."
Magic without any bloodletting was unexpected and extraordinary as far as Jacob was concerned. It was enough to pull his attention away from Serefin’s face, which was saying a lot all by itself. His eyebrows rose high and the reflection of the stars could be seen in the depths of his eyes.
“Bloody hell,” he smiled and grazed a hand under Serefin’s, cupping it from underneath. Magic would likely always be impressive to Jacob, but there was something special about Serefin showing him something no one had seen him do. Jacob was weak for feeling singled out in such a good way.
“Well done, love.” He waited for the stars to die out, caressed a thumb over the palm of Serefin’s hand, and then lifted it to his mouth for a kiss. “I would’ve happily settled for an explanation as to what you meant, but I’m very glad you showed off instead. I didn’t know you could do anything without your book and your blood.”
Serefin was jaded to most magic—he lived with it, grew up using it, balked little at the twists and turns it could take at the hands of different wielders. So to watch the awe on Jacob's face was something new, it made him nostalgic and sentimental for a time before everything went to shit. Serefin wanted to stay on this rooftop with Jacob forever.
But he quickly schooled his expression to something more casual and nonchalant—or as much as he could be when Jacob was kissing his palm and calling him love. Serefin made a noncommittal hum to hide a soft, blissful sigh.
"You are the only one who would appreciate it. Everyone else would ask too many questions, Ostyia would fuss, because I shouldn't be able to do magic without my blood and my book." He had grown more accustomed to not strapping his codex to his hip, and hadn't done so tonight, but just the mention of it made him reach for the phantom space.
"I am not even sure if it is magic. It comes from the same source, I suppose, but I have no need to look further. I would have to turn to someone that is currently locked away, since it is his fault." Serefin was quick to move past the subject, his free hand resting on Jacob's cheek. "Is that enough? Should I tell you another secret about myself before you tell me yours?"
“Ah…” Jacob didn’t love that the source of such a wondrous thing was the god locked away inside Serefin. He wrinkled his nose and shifted his hand to stroke up Serefin’s arm idly. “I suppose if you’re going to hang onto something from him, that’s a nice thing to keep. As long as you’re not opening yourself up to him breaking out, anyway.”
Nothing had given them any reason to doubt the jail was doing its job, but it was still difficult to push down the worry that swam to the surface. He managed to look unbothered at least. And he smirked in his charming devil way.
“Did you only show me that so it would count? My secret might be very boring in comparison, you know.”
"Not like that, it's—" Serefin considered his next words, his fingers trailing across Jacob's cheek, down his neck, resting high on his chest. "An unexpected side effect of resurrection. It belongs to me now, not him. I wouldn't risk letting him out for a handful of stars. I would find some other way to impress you."
There was another secret, threaded into Serefin's casual words—he was always trying to be extraordinary in some way to Jacob. Because the other option was being too much of himself and he didn't know if that was enough. But much like the lockbox holding Velyos, he shoved that issue deep down, and grinned back at Jacob with his own carefree smile.
"If you do not think my secret counts, I have more. None nearly as showy, so you shouldn't concern yourself about comparing the two. I did not think we were weighing against each other. Besides..," Serefin said, dipping his head down so that his mouth with featherlight against the underside of Jacob's jaw, "Magic is boring to me, you are not."
“Magic is boring, he says,” Jacob murmured warmly. He was more than a little pleased to be ranked higher than magic, whether he agreed on the boringness or not. He was even more pleased to have Serefin and his mouth so close. Twisting his head, he captured that mouth in a kiss.
“Well boring or not,” he whispered as he pulled away, “I’m glad it’s yours and not borrowed from your hitchhiker. You certainly deserve it more than he does.”
For an assassin, Jacob didn’t have a great many secrets. He tended to live more in the open than he should, really. But he’d started this and he wanted to give Serefin a piece of himself that he hadn’t shared with anyone else.
“When I was seventeen, I very nearly ran away to America.” He stopped and leaned closer like he was saying something scandalous. “It’s another country across a very large ocean. It’s about as far away from my family as I could get,” he admitted, chewing on his lip for a moment. “I got as far as actually getting on the boat and getting out into the harbor before I jumped back out and swam to shore. Lost all my bloody luggage.” Huffing a laugh, he leaned back on his elbows again. “Evie probably knows, being a nosy and clever brat. But we’ve never talked about it.”
Serefin appreciated how he didn't have to ask for clarification, he understood another country and across a very big ocean. The feeling of running away from everything had often surged inside him, but obligation and duty tended to be the hooks that dragged Serefin back in. At seventeen he would not have taken the same steps as Jacob, even if the end was returning to the very thing he was running from. Even the slightest amount of pressure, Serefin crumbled.
He wanted to ask how he explained away the missing luggage. He wanted to ask why he didn't talk to Evie about it. He wanted to know many things, but the first question out of Serefin's mouth was, "Why did you jump?"
They had many conversations about family and responsibility, but Serefin was terribly, desperately curious. "You already made it out into the harbor, you did the difficult thing. It seems counterproductive to go back, unless it was a battle of your own wills, just to see if you could?" Serefin guessed, and badly at that.
Jacob closed his eyes for a second, both pleased and annoyed that Serefin had shot an arrow at the heart of it instead of wandering lazily around the edges of the story. Self-reflection wasn’t his favorite thing in the world, but it didn’t feel terrible - having someone who cared enough about him to be curious about more important things than getting him out of his clothes.
“If you’d asked me at seventeen, I’d have fed you some lie about realizing I didn’t want to spend my life with a bunch of disloyal colonials.” He smirked and exhaled loudly through his nose. “I just...I’d done a very good job of not thinking about the fact that I’d probably never see my sister again. And that she’d have no one to watch her back who’d choose her over the cause.” His hands twisted into his lap and toyed with the assassin gauntlet hidden under his sleeve. He probably should’ve left it in the train, but the idea of being up on a roof without it had been like walking out the door bare-arsed naked. “The more I thought about it, the more it made me angry. I knew my father would act like it was exactly what he’d expected and that made leaving more about him than me which…”
He shook his head, snorting. “I was really, really bloody tired of my life choices being more about my father than me.”
It wasn't pity on Serefin's face, and not quite concern as he listened to Jacob recount his reasoning behind exiting the boat so abruptly, but something close to empathy. The kind that he hated, because the feeling was abysmal, feeling trapped for all the wrong reasons because of fathers.
"You seem to have set yourself up to be miserable no matter the option," Serefin said, plainly, keep his gaze down and away. His hand reached over to Jacob's as he fiddled with his gauntlet. Serefin could tell an anxious habit when he saw one, mostly because he used to do the same things—with the page of his book, with the twisting of his signet ring he had discarded off the cliff.
"But staying meant you could prove him wrong on your terms. Or continue to irritate him! That is a much more enjoyable option to balance negative aspects." There was a soft smile, almost conspiratorial as his index finger traced over Jacob's knuckles. "I promise to keep the bits about your sister to myself though. It could be why she never said anything, she knew and didn't want you to take the sentiment back."
With a sigh, Serefin twisted to settle back beside Jacob, pressing his cheek against his shoulder. "How do you feel about your life choices now? Wholly yours, I hope."
“I wasn’t miserable, just…” Jacob sighed and watched Serefin touch his knuckles, getting a weird soothing pleasure from such a simple touch. Maybe he was a little touch-starved. Ridiculous thing to be, but he could admit he needed contact more than he generally got it. “I just wanted my life to be my own. And for my father to stop bloody training us for ten seconds.”
It was stupid to dwell on it now. It hardly mattered. He left out the part where he wish Evie was more on the same side where their father was concerned, but that was a minor complaint these days. They’d managed to find a good place in spite of it all.
Jacob rested his head against Serefin’s and tangled their fingers more securely together. “I got my wish eventually, if not in the way I intended. But I feel alright about my choices anyway. Most of them even got good results!”
Serefin made a small noise, both in agreement and with interest. He wanted to know more about the life Jacob intended, the one he didn't quite get. Was it something grand, full of impossible reckless dreams or simply a quieter life away from pressures of his father? Curiosity truly burned inside him now, but Serefin stayed resolutely silent. One secret at a time, and Serefin didn't have one adequate enough to trade with Jacob.
"If your record was infallible, there would be no stopping you," Serefin said, grinning, a little private thing as he focused on their points of contact. He shifted closer to get more. "That is too much luck even for one person. I imagine a few mistakes are helpful in being autonomous. Or in my case, many mistakes. I am awash with life lessons of what my personal choices and their consequences have given me."
He lifted his head so he could look at Jacob, squeezing his hand with intention. "Are you exhausted yet? Telling secrets is a lot of work and I do not feel that I have fairly compensated you."
“Oh, yes, I’m just knackered,” Jacob laughed. He lifted Serefin’s hand to his mouth and nipped at his knuckles. “You know didn’t actually owe me anything. I would’ve told you this anyway.” His mouth twitched and he tilted his head side to side. “Eventually.”
Smirking, he reached over Serefin to reclaim the wine and took a fortifying swig. It took a moment to register that he felt safer here between a few barrels with a blood mage than he’d felt anywhere in a long time. There was no demand, no expectation. He could do with a lot more of that.
“Come on.” Jacob tugged at Serefin’s hand and laid down in the blankets. “We can be embarrassing and common and stargaze for a bit. Regain our energy before I get you down from this rooftop.”
There was a soft laugh coaxed out of him at the eventually, but Serefin was much more interested in being embarrassing and common as he was pulled down into the blankets. He wasted no time in settling beside Jacob, but Serefin slid his hand to Jacob's cheek, gently turning his face so they were looking at one another.
Serefin's stare was assessing in a good way—they could not be any further apart from their respective places and yet Serefin felt absurdly closer to Jacob than anyone else. He kissed him then, tender and generous, an unintentional thank you in its uncharacteristic sweetness. Serefin only pulled away when his smile made it impossible to press their lips together anymore.
His next words were filled with slow-burning intention, his gaze playfully devious. "But I have so much more energy to spend."