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Jake
I
Now
“Are you cheating on me?”
Well . What would a devoted, completely smitten man say to his wife after such a starter?
That’s what he’s supposed to be, what he’s committed to be; what he’s pretended to be ever since this thing was put in motion.
It’s what he has embodied to the point of perfection—Rowan’s words.
He has kissed her a number of times—duh, comes with the couple status; he’s obviously had to. Not to mention, other things. Which were… good, all variables considered. It never got into frenzy-veiled, desperate territory; it could be slow, tender, even—but, Jesus Christ, does it make him queasy.
He’s done it time and time again before this, before her.
His teeth grit and Vanessa narrows her eyes as if to say, you’re not getting out of this.
“For the umpteenth time, babe,” I’m sorry, I wish you hadn’t gotten to be the oblivious pawn in this. “I’m not cheating on you,” he sighs, head slightly bowed, eyes locked on hers. “Work’s been hectic, that’s all.”
She doesn’t budge. “Yeah, like that’s not Cheater Speak 101.”
He takes a couple of steps closer, grasps one of her hands, light and tender. “I swear to God, I’m not.”
He lowers his head to kiss her, quick and sweet; the back of his arm rests on her back, gentle as a feather, guiding her towards him.
He holds her, as he’s already done a million times, guilt pressing steadily on his chest. The scent of alcohol invades his nostrils. The show must go on, right?
Her long hair hides his grimace.
II
He had no idea at first. When he met her in that café—although, meet is one hell of a loose term, here—he had absofuckinglutely no idea it would get that far and turn into something as deep as an ocean.
He hadn’t felt it straight away. Then again, that doesn’t exactly mean anything, either.
There is no fixed steps to Soulmate Bonds. Hell, there isn’t even enough proof to have a scientifically sound idea of how or why it happens, let alone phases.
He’d said, “Did I just shortcut your life?” Casual, banterish, good-natured.
She’d laughed just a bit, as though she had forgotten how to do it (he’d known why at the time, had even wondered about the reason it all happened) and something in the deepest part of him gurgled awake, foreign and timid as it was.
That’s why—in hindsight, of course—he had sat in the Oval, stared at Fitz straight in the face and uttered a lie. “She’s unhappy, Mister President,” detachment at its finest. B613 quality; a treat.
“Is she—” Fitz had barely gotten two words out, (he remembers thinking, Rowan would be horrified. Is this the person dictating how the Free World works? Jesus Christ, look at him, he’s like a baby deprived of his favorite toy. Someone get this sorry ass excuse of a spectacle away from me; at the time, it had sounded amusing to picture) as though he had serious difficulty forming the thought, let alone speak it into existence.
“No,” his stomach twisted as he spoke, acid chasing the words up.
He still felt the kiss on his lips—hopeful, fresh, right. He knew how to act that way, sure, even had done so a time or two, but no; this time, it actually went deeper than donning a mask.
“She’s not seeing anyone.”
The lie had come easily enough—which was just the usual occupational hazard by now.
The unexpected bit was the desire to tear it to pieces. He had left the Oval, his expression and stance composed. His impulses? Not really, no.
It had come out of the left field, but he was only at the beginning of the road.
-:-
Before
He saves her again—and he has no idea why he does that.
Sure, he’s been ordered to, but there’s something that makes it feel different.
He sees her fumble with the lock, her frown the typical consequence of being someone who questions everything—damn her for being great at this; a natural—and when the door opens, there’s something in the way it is so precise that makes him snap into action.
She rebels against his hand pressing on her mouth, no doubt jumping to conclusions again, and the jerky movements that only echo against his body somehow make the scene in front of him clearer: there’s a woman in Liv’s doorway, and she’s steadily holding a gun towards her, as though this were her thousandth time doing it.
He knows that look. If he’d ever had a mirror pointed at his own face, he would’ve seen it a lot over the years. It’s the look of a hawk zooming in on the unsuspecting prey. Only inconvenience is, there’s more than a lone hawk in the room this time.
Ice makes its way into his muscles, and he barely has any time to register the calm that has descended over him as his finger goes and pulls the trigger in a quick, smooth, unforgiving movement.
Killing someone has always been a part of the job, it’s undeniable. And yet, tonight, he’s done it even more ruthlessly than usual; a part of him, though, can’t help but be smug about it. It’s low in his gut, but there’s a whisper: it’s the right thing.
His voice is a low murmur, now that Liv has turned away—distanced herself—from his body. “I was sent here to protect you.”
All the way to OPA, she doesn’t say a word. Barely even glances at him or in his general direction.
His chest, weirdly enough, is warm and all of his body—all of the parts she had come in contact with earlier, anyhow—tingles.
It’s a good feeling, if unexpected.
(It had been a sign neither of them had caught)
-:-
Later, she’s the one stunning him. He’s just confessed to sleeping with her out of orders he’d been given, telling her whatever small pattern Command had let him put together – the fact that all those tiny details had escaped his watch on a whim was just absurd, though. And she says, “I was wrong about you,” she’s still a little breathless, but he’d expected full blown hysterics; somewhere deep inside, inexplicably, he feels restlessness beat its way into existence.
Somehow, he knows it’s hers.
“You’re one of the good guys,” her breathing has stopped echoing inside of him so loudly, and her sentence jars the newly found quiet.
“No, I’m not,” he states flatly. It’s automatic of him to say so, because it’s never actually gone through his mind the he could be viewed as such.
Command would be proud that he rebutted so fast. Liv, on the other hand, seems to be fighting the impulse to stomp her way over and scrub that idea away from his brain.
There’s silence and then, “Close your eyes,” she says in three quick, punctured breaths.
She’s kissing him less than a moment later, and he finds himself kissing her back; it’s not what he expected. Her hands press themselves against his skin, and she doesn’t seem to have any intention to let him go.
It seems to stretch out as they stand there; her office plunged into total silence, while he can do nothing but kiss her and hope the beating of his heart won’t break any of his ribs.
He’s lied to her—can’t deny that now, can he?—and spied on her and basically traumatized her, and yet, here and now, the clock ticking away in his head—leave, Ballard. You need to leave—the only thought pounding in his head is, “Whatever happens next I want you to know that I loved you,” and it takes him a minute to realize he’s actually said so, now that he has moved away from her.
He’s on the threshold when he allows himself to look at her well enough to commit her to memory—this time, though, orders have nothing to do with it.
It is only later that it sinks in, anyhow.
Later, when the light makes him squint. Later, when he grinds hit teeth against the next wave of Hole-branded claustrophobia. Later, when a face keeps popping up and maintaining his sanity. Later, later, later, later.
Later, he realizes, whatever happens next I want you to remember that I loved you, it wasn’t a lie.
It should have been—somehow, it wasn’t; he has no idea how it caught his attention now of all times, but it’s like something that’s been permanently highlighted.
He hadn’t been lying—and it felt an awful lot like something he had always subconsciously hoped for. Something to hold onto and fight for and all those things he’d been taught to use and break and dismiss.
(He’ll tell her, at some distant point in time, not even knowing what the words actually meant; he’ll tell her and he will see it on her face: it may be uncommon, a myth—it’s true for them)
Olivia
III
She doesn’t know what this feeling constricting her entire body is. It’s just—sitting there, in her, still and heavy and not even thinking of budging one miserable inch.
She absolutely, completely, wholly and entirely loathes it.
Jake is gone. He left on his own, but somehow, her conscience nags at her in stubborn dark little voice. There’s more to it, Olivia, it murmurs. Figure it out.
She is faced with a dilemma, but the few clues she has—if you can even call them that—are nothing but crumbs. Asking Huck is like plunging headfast into a well that could eat anyone alive at any moment; her alternative however, has the knots in her stomach tied so tight that she fears her entire body might explode before she even nears getting what she needs to know.
(The steel in her voice sounds foreign to her own ears for the entire length of her tirade, her inner voice certain it might slip on the next word out of her mouth, leaving naked, bone-deep desperation in its shattering wake.
And yet—)
He’s at her door. He’s actually stumbling through and crunching down at her door. Sure, he’s bloody and bruised and has probably been beaten within less than an inch of his life,—her father seems to thrive off this particular brand of sadism—but he’s here and he is breathing.
Relief so deep that she doesn’t even feel her knees giving in hits her, and she just sags by him, as though she were a piece of paper falling to the floor.
They lie there, a mess of anxious touching and hushed words. The feeling tugging at her insides is weird; it’s deep and warm and gentle, and she has never felt anything quite like that before.
“Hi,” she utters a bare whisper, in the end. Too stunned to come up with anything else.
He’s found his balance again—finally—and his arms have lightly closed around her body, as if to ensure she’s the real Liv, when he whispers back, voice a little dim, “hi.”
It’s then that it dawns on her, abrupt and kind of surprising for a billion reasons, that what she felt earlier, what still lingers inside of her, humming in the back of her head—like a song you know by heart—is complete and utter peace.
They are still on the floor, her couch now pressing against their backs as they sit, their legs so close that whenever one of them moves—to work out a kink or avoid numbing or just to stretch—they inevitably touch, even for a mere handful of seconds. She’s still a little disoriented by her feelings and the urge to stare at him hits like a wave, as though the fear of watching him disappear had just bitten her like a snake.
So, this is peace , huh? Standing on the edge of a cliff and fearing you’ll fall off in less than a second.
IV
Now
It comes out of the proverbial blue at the office—shortly after the wedding fiasco.
She is aware that it wasn’t exactly the traditional kind of wedding fiasco, thank you very much, but as far as she is concerned—Jake; Jake literally selling his soul to the devil, his faith and her promises broken and bleeding on the church floor. Jake begging her to run away together. Jake holding onto her in the sun. Even Jake yelling at her about her fridge lacking beer. Every memory feels like a stab to the gut—it was the perfect depiction of the dictionary definition of what a fiasco consisted in.
She is still reeling, her balance in shambles; her memory has frozen in a loop of what had once been real and tangible and hers — of what can’t, won’t, exist anymore.
Quinn’s voice breaks the spell. “Liv,” she says, her hand stilling mid-knock. Her voice sounds as thin as a jumper gets when holes start appearing, and the patchwork or whatever pattern is on it breaks.
“I think,” and she steps fully into the office, her voice disappearing as she closes the door.
Quinn is staring at her, as though she were internally debating whether she should drop the bomb on a particular, already in bad shape civilian. Look at me and my sneaky bitch of a subconscious, dragging him into a conversation before said conversation actually starts, without even knowing how relevant that might be.
“No,” she amends, her hand breaking her knocking fist. “Scratch the thinking—I’ve already thought about it, taking apart every frame of this,” her voice halts, doubt marring her collected expression. “This saga you and Jake have got going,”
Tap tap tap. She hasn’t heard his name since her father had spat it at her in church, (Jake Ballard, he’d said—no, sneered, he’s running away from his own greatness) and her heart picks up, furious and strong and reckless against her ribs.
“It’s probably crazy,” Quinn mutters. “But—the whole Us-vs-Them dynamic you two have starring roles in…”
Her mouth opens,—the words blame my sick-as-fuck excuse of a father resting on her tongue, burning to be said—but the former spy in front of her cuts her a scathing look that reads, cut the crap, Olivia Carolyn Pope in big, flashy letters.
“That’s an excuse, plain and simple—and you know it.”
She has got to hand it Quinn, her protégé has a knack for cutting through people’s bull, and the fact that it’s partially due to her—she can’t help but feel proud, in a small measure.
Curiosity bubbles up within her, the impatient edge in Quinn’s voice echoing through her skull. “What is it?”
“You two are actually soulmates, Liv,” she says, not a hint of mirth in her voice.
“Are you gonna start waving a #TeamJake flag at me whenever you see me? Because, let me tell you,” the sarcasm snaps into her voice, thick and cold. Soulmates. What are they, five? “That ship has crashed and burned, by now.”
Quinn doesn’t flinch or retreat. “Spit all the venom you can fit in your words, Liv.” It’s calm, but the dare in her voice rings out loud and clear. “I’m not gonna quiver and curl up into a ball and dissolve into a flame. What I’m telling you, as absurd as it sounds, is the absolute truth.”
Denial sinks deep into her, its claws cold and stony against her temples. Soulmates? The very notion of that makes her eyes roll and her lips draw back in a cringe, her nose scrunching up. In a word: haughty. That’s what it turns her into. Her father would undoubtedly scoff at that—“Don’t be silly, Olivia. That’s reasonable skepticism. Which, in case your memory has decided to go stale, I’ve spent years paying handsomely for.” —; Jake, on the other hand, would shamelessly tease her about it. “Someone disenchanted this way comes; look at you, Miss-Can’t-Be-Bothered-To-Hope-For-A-Second.”
He’d come closer, eyes still—always; as usual—alight with mischief and at the same time deep and bottomless, echoing what God (admitting that such an entity does exist) only knows must’ve been a real life reenacting of Dante’s Inferno, lips slightly curling upward.
Her eyelids, though lifted, seem to be itching as memories press against them, and her objection (fear?) blurs a little.
Before
What cements her certainty about Jake—the other word will not be making an appearance; it’s his specialty, goddamn it—isn’t an island in the actual geographical middle of nowhere. In fact, that particular moment is just a pinnacle, as scary as it is to deem it so.
What solidifies her feel—no, not that word; it is too damn deep to even approach—whatever this might come to be is a simple consideration that slips into her mind unannounced, in one of these odd, blank infrequent moments in her life. Jake has seen her put down the armor. It didn’t unsettle, panic him or break him, though.
He’d softened, when he’d thought he was about to see her cry. “Hey, hey,” her couch had stirred as he moved, arms pressing delicately against her back, voice soothing as though he’d sensed the mess of thoughts and worries and urgency whirling about down to the bones of her skull, echoing again and again and again—in a never-ending cycle of viciousness.
“Don’t cry, okay?” the last word had been thick, even against her head, and something in his voice—the fact that it had almost snapped on the word? The heaviness of it?—had shaken her.
“I’m not crying,” she’d grumbled, torn between snapping, thank you very much, and blinking until the fact that he could read most of her emotions without crumbling made sense. “I’m thinking.”
“Still, you’re not alone in this, Liv,” his grip hadn’t exactly hardened, but she could feel his skin—hot and close. “Okay?”
It’s something she’s gotten used to, having him there, grasping what she is thinking almost immediately, looking at and into her without expecting Gladiator Liv or Ass-Saving Liv or whichever Liv other people might see.
The smile that opens on her mouth is small—full in its feeling, but almost invisible if you don’t look closely.
It’s a good thing —whatever word for it they might come to use.
Now
Her heart does a weird rhythm her chest, almost as if it had no idea what to convey. It’s fast, but in no way close to being furious, and she knows it—has the feeling she has heard it up close more than once, actually.
It’s echoing through her, thunderous and soothing at the same time,—like a pendulum oscillating between the two as the stormy sea would—when she realizes stunningly that she does know it, but this frantic-and-harmonic kind of melody isn’t hers.
Jake
V
After
He wakes up suddenly; sweat clinging to his shirt and skin alike, his heart still pounding as adrenaline sings through his veins, upbeat and restless.
His eyes snap open, pieces of his dream—nightmare?—still lurking behind his groggy consciousness.
Liv. She’s had a nightmare. The bond is funny that way—it’s taken a while to figure out for both of them, but each can feel what the other goes through if the situation gets… intense, for lack of a better word—plunging one of them into whatever the other feels from head to toe. Their state of physical consciousness be damned, apparently.
His arm reaches into the dark. Light, cool bedsheet. No Liv.
He pulls himself up, the sweat on his skin well on the way to drying, while his stomach is, on the other dreadful hand, way past small knots.
“Liv?” He’s out of the bedroom, the sleep-induced grogginess well shaken off, his voice still low.
He doesn’t call again—doesn’t really need to. There’s only one place she could be at. It’s not the first time, and something hollow and heavy in his gut hisses at him that they’re far, far away from even imagining the last.
The living room and the couch barely come into his view, and there Liv sits, staring at nothing, knees hugged to her chest, lips pressed closed.
He slows down his step, her emotions echoing to him even from here, and his stomach draws even tighter, her shaky breaths echoing in his ears as though he’d been the one taking them.
He crunches down in front of her, eyes trained on her face,—pale, trembling up close—his hand barely touching one of hers. “Liv, look at me.”
Not even a blink.
“What’s wrong, mo Cariad?” Switching to Welsh Gaelic isn’t a decision he makes, the word simply slips away from him; the endearment has come out before,—she even laughed once, fully and unironically; it had been just them. No job, no masks—today, though, it’s torn away from his lips, worry weighting on the sound.
Liv blinks, recognition flaring, her hand turning in his. No verbal acknowledgement, no nods.
What comes through his lips is another try cloaked in desperation. “Du kannst mir Alle sagen, du kennst. ” German dances on his tongue easily, (later, she’ll tell him how far from harsh its sound is—her smile watery, eyes shining) low and gentle. “Ich werde immer hier für dich sein, Liv.“ It’s not coaxing. Just truth; one he’s told her time and time again—what’s once more in a different language gonna change?
“Es ist uns gegen die Welt auf dem Sonnelicht, richtig?” the closer hand curls around hers, lightly prompting her to slide off the couch.
The last sentence is muffled against her shoulder because she hugs him—still silent, but she hugs him--tight, impatient, and desperate. “There’s no need to hide, Liv; the good, the bad, the outright shitty. I don’t care; you need me, I’m here.”
They fall asleep like that, limbs tangled and bodies tightly pressed together. Them against the world, indeed. Today, tomorrow; always. The marking of time could be shot to hell for all he cares.
This is their place—and they’ll fight tooth and nail for it.