Archive of Our Own ^beta

It is ridiculous, and you know he'd been training for it ever since he could grow facial hair (age fourteen, he was always bragging about it) all because of some dumb movie. And you'd laughed about it and even recently toyed around with your fading mental picture of him, imagined it on him, pushed and pulled at his face trying to age it in your own head like you could still see him somehow, still had some link to him, but - but -

It's obvious now that that link never existed. You never could've guessed that Jake, in his own timeline, would ever grow up to be the man standing in front of you.

Then he smiles at you and you see his bright eyes and his crooked teeth and you just - 

"Jesus fuckin' Christ."

"Oh no, nothing so formal - it's just Jake, old chum!"

Is he even serious.

"Although I guess technically you could call me Grandpa Harley now, huh. Bugger. Weird thought."

"J - Jake?" Goddamnit. You haven't stuttered since you were - well, sixteen. (AR supplies something about old habits and another something about getting the band back together, which you ignore.)

You expect him to thrust out his arm, proud and charmingly pompous as ever, but he doesn't. Instead, he slings the rifle over his shoulder around so it rests firmly on his back, and barrels into you for a hug. The second you feel his arms around you you know you're about a thousand percent done with this whole situation because he's stronger than he looks - taking good care of himself, apparently - and you can feel his smile against your burning neck.

You know immediately that you want to fuck him (AR helpfully calculates his age and you want to die), but you feel it kind of in your heart more than your dick and wonder if that's what falling immediately head-over-heels for an adult while simultaneously remembering their orgasm face from when they were sixteen is supposed to feel like.

He pulls back too fast, but he accents it with a harsh thump on your back, and just - everything in your body feels too warm, like it wants to scatter out of you and jump out the window into the pre-war city outside to go sizzle on the sidewalk twenty stories down.

"Dirk," he says, and you shift your weight as if that'll really help you recover any ground at all.

You reach up and adjust the brim of your hat - but even that isn't comforting right now, because you remember him laughing at you when you didn't have one that fit your head, and you remember when one actually did fit and he'd been long-gone, moving on with his own life by that time.

"Dirk?" he repeats, and he sounds cautious, like he's maybe beginning to realize that not everyone is always expecting him to stars-and-garters himself in front of them at any given moment of any given day.

"Sorry," you reply, still shaky. "Sorry, it's just - " And you gesture to him and he looks like he gets it but what he got wasn't really what you were trying to say in the first place. Fuuuck. "This is... Wow. Hey." Smooth move, fuckass.

Jake looks sheepish, but still happy to see you. with some effort, he removes the - helmet? - from his head and shakes his hair out. Something about the distinct silver where there used to be a dark chocolate brown makes this more real, makes you a little less afraid of just waking up on the floor by yourself, chasing dreams.

"Sorry," you offer again. "Thirteen years and I still don' know how to talk to you." You wonder if the honesty will help this time around.

"Thirteen?" he asks, and runs a hand through his hair. (You can tell that it's sweaty and shove your tongue into the roof of your mouth to stop yourself from licking your lips. Christ. He's old enough to be your father, no matter your history.)

"For me," you affirm. He nods.

"Doing well?" he asks, and it sounds stilted and loaded and so honestly awkward that something in your heart wriggles at it.

You gesture to your apartment, nonjudgmental. "What's it look like?" An actual question, and you wonder if he'll answer you or just think you're patronizing him.

Jake looks down, embarrassed. "I mean - I'm not. That isn't - " He frowns and his mustache twitches and oh my god why are you even still in love with this man. "What I meant to ask, Dirk, was... Can you help me?"

That.

Oh.

Something in your cheeks flares and you hope he's too dense to notice. "With, uh. With what?"

He has a look in his eyes (the corners have wrinkles attached now and they make him look wise and loving and you seriously have to stop) like he knows what's happening in your head, like you may have set the gears in motion long ago but he's not dumb enough anymore to think he can't trace the way they spin. But he leaves it in his eyes. "I need you to do something for me - and - and you, really. Well, it's - " He mumbles some kind of antiquated curse. "Time. I have to make sure something happens the right way, something - I need people that I trust to - "

"Tell me what to do." You'd been fucked as soon as he'd said he trusted you.

He looks so grateful and your fingers twitch with how much you want to grab him and kiss him and also immediately scour your files for the dumb pictures you'd taken of him as a teenager.

"There's a record shop - " he gestures, but you know exactly what he's talking about and wave him on. "I need you to be there at a specific time. Thursday. This week - b - but not too early, I don't want you - "

"Jake," you interrupt calmly, and he seems grateful again for the opportunity to get his thoughts in order.

"Right. Sorry, chap. This Thursday, a meteor will hit the shop." Something in your stomach jolts in surprise, but Jake looks so serious and you know by now to trust him. "I need you to be there almost directly after it hits. Ideally at about 4:15, your time. Try not to be too late, and - dear god don't get there before then." His eyes go dark. You want to ask, but don't.

"Alright," you say, so he knows you're paying attention. "Meteor. 4:15. Anything in particular I'm meant to be doin' there?"

Jake nods absently. "This is where things start to get a bit wild," he starts. "How much experience do you have with children?"

"Um. None. Wh - "

"Try to forgive the streak of presumptuous drivel, but you're about to get some."

"Sorry?"

"On the meteor - or rather, in the crater, as it should be by the time you get there - "

"Jake - "

"No, please, let me finish - there's going to be an infant in the crater."

"An - " (AR sounds almost overwhelmed when he tells you well, this conversation sure took a turn.)

"Yes, an infant. He's actually a clone of the man you regarded as your older brother - "

Wait what.

" - but who was actually your ectobiological father - "

Come again?

" - created in a lab and sent back in time."

Um.

"It's - look, there's really no simpler way I can explain that - there just isn't time - but I - basically need you to be there on time to get the child away from the wreck, and take him in as his guardian."

What. The fuck.

Jake is silent for a beat before he relaxes, like he'd needed to get all of that out, first. "Can you do that?" he asks finally, like he's asking you what fucking shampoo you use.

"Jake, you want me to - "

You hold a second. Nope. Still doesn't make sense.

"...adopt a kid? A kid version of a - a dead movie star? From space. You want me to adopt a zombie alien baby from the future-past and put them up in my house? Indefinitely?"

He reaches for the back of his neck and scratches at his hairline, a nervous habit you remember. "When you put it that way, it sounds bloody ridiculous, doesn't it?"

It does. It so does. You don't know why you're even considering it.

Because he said he trusted you, AR pings at you. You indulge him for a moment and think back the answer to a question I didn't fucking ask. He lets out a long-suffering blip into your temple. You know it's true. You're just falling all over yourself because that's already more than he ever gave you in the game.

You go back to ignoring him, even though he's mostly right. "Kind of," you finally say out loud.

Jake looks up at you again, and his eyes are still this foresty, bright, clear color even through your shades. You wish they didn't muddle the color, tint it grey, but it's not like you're going to take them off. Your throat tightens up just thinking about it.

"Too ridiculous?" he asks.

"No." Maybe a little too quick on the reply, but you can't help it. It's reflexive. You've always trusted Jake, and apparently even a story about orphaned clone children in meteors isn't enough to shake that foundation even a little. "Not too ridiculous. But..."

"But?"

"Jake, I have no idea how to raise a freakin' kid. I don't even know where to start."

He bites his lip, like he'd expected this, and you have to finish the thought.

"You know my bro disappeared. He left when I was barely old enough to talk. I'm not goin' anywhere, but..." You take in an unexpected breath. "...but I'd be an awful parent. I have nothing to go from. You know that."

He's quiet, not meeting your eyes, for longer than you'd expected, but he looks like he's thinking rather than just being awkward and you have to give his older self credit for that one. You can tell when he's made a decision, it shows all over his face, and for some reason your stomach feels tiny and shriveled and like it's about to hop out your mouth.

"I..." he starts, then seems to remember that he's not looking at you and corrects that. "I'll come back."

Your heart jumps into your throat.

He smiles, sheepishly. "I'll come back and help you. I'm new to this too, but... We can do it together. Of this I'm convinced!"

You swallow convulsively. Your head pounds. "J - Jake." You need him to realize what he's saying. What he's offering. You've been alone for thirteen years (and sixteen before that, but who's counting) and now all of a sudden your high school sweetheart equivalent is swooping into your life and proposing that you raise a child together.

Jake's face goes stoic, his eyes more powerful than you expect. His resolve threatens to make you stumble over again. "Dirk. We can figure this out. We will. I know what I'm doing."

And you trust him.

"I - alright," you tell him. "I'll be there."

He wraps you up in a hug again, and this time you can feel his hair against your cheek.

"Thank you, old friend," he says, and you laugh at him, at the absurdity of him and the whole situation.

When he pulls away from you, he lets his hand slide down your arm to take one of your hands. The leather burns against your palm where he's got it in his grip.

"There's just one thing I have to do first," he says. "An errand to run, if you will." Off your look, he smiles fondly. "Some old friends needed a ride." That's cryptic, but you don't question him, can't find it in yourself to worry about him.

Stupid.

You wonder if he'll be back the next day, or if he'll somehow meet you at the crash site, when and where he'll show. If he'll just materialize in your apartment again or if he'll actually show up at your front door with a suitcase.

On Tuesday you craft a little pair of sunglasses for the kid, after excruciating research about the size of a baby's head. You think Jake will get a kick out of them.

On Wednesday, you obsess about what to name a child. You remember that he's supposed to be - your brother, and you resolve to put the rest of the day toward scouring the internet for any trace of him or his history. It only takes you half an hour to find his name, and you wonder why you'd never tried before.

You don't sleep Wednesday night, partially out of some fairy-tale hope that Jake will show up in the night. You follow that train of thought, but instead of jacking off like you expected to, you end up researching how long people live based on their lifestyles, eyes wide open behind your shades.

Thursday arrives. At exactly 4:13 by your watch, something shakes the ground outside, muted by the bass in your headphones. You wait exactly two minutes, then get up from the futon so fast you trip into your flashstep and nearly break the tiny pair of sunglasses. (Jake hadn't told you about the horse. Go figure.)

Everything goes as it's supposed to, except that Jake doesn't show up that night. You wonder if he's still traveling. You murmur to Dave about waiting for your husband to come home from war, and the baby gurgles at you and reaches his chubby hands out for the brim of your hat.

You deny and deny and deny for a month.

It's 9:00 PM but you're already in bed, Dave curled up on your chest with his pinky in his mouth. It's like he can tell the exact moment you lose hope - or at least the moment your chest seizes with it - because he wakes up, little red eyes piercing in the way a baby's shouldn't be. You're relieved you still have your shades on.

"Hey, it's cool," you whisper. You put one hand on his back, and he lols into your palm the way he always does when you touch him. Babies are weird. "Everything's fine. Go back to sleep."

It takes him a bit - he's got a pretty serious deadpan face for such a tiny human, and it makes him look like he can see right through you all the time - but he does eventually snuggle back into you, fists curled against your bare skin, and drift off again.

You don't know where it comes from, that instinct to comfort him and lie to him until he can rest easily, but you think it's what saves you. You're clueless and overly anxious and fucking awful at being a guardian - Jake's fabled reappearance long shoved out of your thoughts - but you can't even think about that. Dave keeps you present. Like he knows you're a terrible guardian but forces you to try all the time anyway, just by virtue of existing.

You're mad at Jake. It's underlying, and you don't really get a lot of time to think about it, hands full with taking care of Dave and being so bloody bad at it that you have to do everything three times. But you are. Somewhere in the back of your mind, your sixteen-year-old self is sitting with his chin resting on his knees and just thinking he promised in a torturous loop and that doesn't go away for so long that you begin to think it never will.

It does on the same day you find out what happened to him.

By this point you've set up your old bedroom to make it livable for a growing pre-teen, and set enough tricks and traps around the house that Dave doesn't think you're molly-coddling him. It's a tough balance with him, he's vastly different from the way you were at eleven and you still flounder to keep up with him sometimes, but you think you've at least done enough for the day.

It's early evening, and Dave comes and joins you on the futon. He wants to tell you about a new friend he's made, and you try not to look surprised. He actually does look happy - his own muted, understated form of happy brought on by a case of resting stone-face - and you're extremely curious. He's only ever mentioned having one friend before, and you've been practically punching holes in the walls hoping he won't make any of the same obsessive mistakes you made as a teenager.

You knock the TV remote out of his hand and wrestle him to the floor, then sit back on your haunches and make him tell you about her.

You find out that Jade Harley's grandfather died when she was just a baby, some kind of gun accident "that her dog won't tell her about." He was shot as a pilot, died with honor, blah blah. You can't bring yourself to ask any more about him, not wanting to arouse Dave's suspicions, and you wonder when exactly those priorities switched.

Four years later, you finally see an opening to get what you need. Once you know your bro and your home are both safe from impending meteors, you call for Sawtooth.

The medium is as vast and pointlessly intricate as it was when you were sixteen. You remember specifically a long trip across deep space in shorts and tights, fueled by cold and a ferocious need to see Jake English alive. You try not to make any parallels between then and now. You know AR would've made them if you hadn't deactivated him years ago in the haze of adopting Dave, and you let the thought sit there uncorrupted.

It doesn't take you nearly as long to reach Prospit as you remember, but then - back then you were primarily flying by your own manpower. The Prospitans seem mildly alarmed to see you, so you dismiss Sawtooth in hopes you won't be quite so intimidating all on your own. They more or less leave you alone after that, so it doesn't take you long to find your way to the right palace and to find the transportalizer you remember seeing. You're positive it's the right one, and it deposits you in a place so dark you're suddenly seized by the panic of not knowing if your head is attached to your shoulders.

It is.

You're able to use light from your glasses to find the exit from what appears to be a damp cave with some decrepit lab equipment inside. Ordinarily you might explore it more, but that's always really been his thing anyway - and besides, you're on a tight schedule as it is. You receive a status message from Sawtooth that makes it sound as if he's parked illegally and give him a time. This won't take long.

The lab-cave deposits you outside. The temperature is tropical and you feel it sink into the back of your neck where you've already worked up a nervous sweat, but you don't let it stop you.

The sky is enormous and you know immediately, in your blood almost, that this is the right place. You can't categorize what you're feeling, but you walk robotically toward the water nearby. It's a coast, you realize, with no other landmasses for god knows how long. You don't know where you are, even looking up and around for landmarks, but it occurs to you that you don't really need to know.

You sit at the waterfront.

"Hey, old man."

The water doesn't reply.

"It's a serious dick move to go back on your promises, you know," you say. "But you know me. Obsessive to the last. Always looking for closure."

The grass blows beside you, around the hard line of your worn-out shoes.

"I forgive you," you say, and it sounds kind of clumsy but doesn't feel forced so you don't qualify it. "I do.

"That thing you mentioned, when you told me to pick up the kid. About time, and making sure they do what they're s'posed to... I think I did it. Or at least started it."

You pause and take in a breath. "I didn't even have to behead anyone to do it this time. I guess practice makes perfect, huh?

"...sorry, that was probably bad." For some reason, you laugh. "Too soon?" You laugh again, but it quiets down quickly when it's just you and the wind.

"I'm gonna keep doing what I can," you tell him. "I'll take care of 'em. So don't worry, yeah?

"I think we've basically established that you ain't gonna sprout back up again in a speedo, so I'll make sure they get through it okay."

You don't know what else to say. You're quiet for a bit, hunched over your own knees, and you listen to the ocean and the breeze, racking your brain.

"Probably nothing else I can tell you that you don't already know," you begin, "but I figured I'd say it for good measure anyway. I loved you, you old kook. I mean - I know you knew that, but I mean. Again. Future you. I guess I never really stopped loving you."

You reach for the back of your neck, suddenly feeling awkward. "Yeesh. That was a line if I ever heard one. Hope you're still enough of a cornball to appreciate that wherever you are."

You wish you had time to sit and listen to the ocean talk back, a gentle lull of white noise, but you don't. You stand up, feet firmly in the dirt. You feel like you should have something to throw in the ocean after your little run of confessions, something to finish it and end Jake's chapter of your life.

Unfortunately, your pockets are empty. You put your hands in them. Maybe it's better this way.

"See you, Jake."

You make your way back into the cave and feel out the transportalizer. Sawtooth collects you off of Prospit and you start the trip back. In a stunning show of sensitivity, Sawtooth speaks up.

Seeking Jack?

"Yup."

Yes sir.