Chapter Text
Enoch swept a thick brown lock out of his eyes, to no avail. His hair always seemed to have a mind of its own. Right now, however, it was behaving in accordance to gravity, at least partially, as Enoch was hunkered around his work table in the damp basement. The humidity never helped tame his unruly curls, but he scarcely minded the obstruction of his hard, brown eyes, directing the entirety of his intense concentration to the homunculus before him. At this moment, he was inserting the pancreas of a mouse into the tiny clay figure. “Perhaps he'll live longer, the more organs he has. The more that can go wrong, the more conscientiousness required ...”
His intense fixation on the bite-sized creature he was stitching was the reason that he didn't notice the hushed voices outside the rarely-open door to the basement.
"I wouldn't recommend that. Enoch's a sour git at the best of times, and downright murderous when he's interrupted. You don't even want to go down there anyway, it's honestly just disgusting."
"Well I'm too curious not to bother him now, for the principal of it." A lower voice replied to the female one before it, which was just a bit melodramatic and more than a bit flirty.
"Your funeral."
"That should be entertaining, Enoch being there. Tell him my left kidney's off limits. That one's my favorite." And with that, Jacob Portman swung open the door with a skinny hand, shutting it behind him.
For a split second, he regretted his decision. The basement was dark and smelled of the crudely preserved organs that had stood the test of time outside of the loop, but this only piqued his curiosity further. Carefully, he moved down the stairs, croaking with age. Perhaps the stairs wouldn't groan with his weight if he were just a few pounds lighter, as he was before Dr. Golan bogged him down with ridiculous amounts of medication that made him feel even crazier than everyone was telling him. Two weeks ago, he'd decided to ditch it. No regrets.
It took him a few seconds to adjust to the minimal lighting, a pale yellow lamp illuminating the figure of a young man hunched over a desk. He was so pale it was obvious that he never saw the light of day, too busy in the basement. Enoch's eyes didn't lift themselves from the wooden table where he was standing, stool abandoned long ago, an impediment to progress. It didn't take Jacob much smarts to know that he was much too immersed in his work to take notice of him, and that if he disturbed him now, everything, including his left kidney, would be in a jar on that shelf.
He decided to push his luck and close in on the poodle-headed boy. He smiled at the observation that such a menacing presence had the hair characteristic of a dog breed, one of whose members, named FeeFee, had accidentally suffocated herself in a Doritos bag. Jacob once made a snide comment about that incident to his father and was grounded for a month, which was forgotten about after a good four days. Grin still plastered to his face as a result of these random recollections and observations, Jake, very, very cautiously, lifted the rickety old stool and moved it a few feet further back, where he could perch himself without stifling his breathing for fear of disrupting the old curmudgeon.
Enoch was still completely oblivious to the antics of the other boy as he finished up suturing the minuscule mannequin. From afar, Jacob admired the intensity of the legendarily cantankerous necromancer, his crimson lips pursed ludicrously tight together, probably to prevent his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth, like an overly-focused cartoon character.
An inkling of fear passes over Jacob that Enoch would be irate that he had watched over him, without knowledge or consent, and so he started plotting a slick getaway, too absorbed in his own thoughts to notice the homunculus finally hop up. Jacob directed his attention to peeling off his clunky, borrowed shoes, not seeing Enoch as he turned on his heels to face the direction his newest homunculus was pointing with a doughy arm.
A devilish smirk crosses Enoch's sultry features, and he clears his throat. The exaggeratedly loud noise in the silence of the musty basement startles Jacob, who jumps like an idiot and consequently falls a good two feet onto the dusty, chill floor, one shoe barely on his foot and the other a feet over top of his head, loosely tossed during the fall. Laughter as cold, deep, and dark as the basement itself fills the air, despite the fact that it wasn't very loud. Enoch never laughs very loud, if he laughs at all.
He bent down to observe the stunned boy of the floor, bending his neck in a slightly awkward contortion so as to let a few week rays of light illuminate the terrified expression of the stranger. If there was something Enoch always prided himself on, it was being able to terrify someone with very little physical imposition, more like a general, psychological unease.
"What's all this about?" Everyone's favorite probably-sociopath skips introductions, as he's always been keen to do, skipping right to the chase. Though the inflection of the slightly raspy, his deep voice is too soft for Jacob's liking, too calm. It has an edge, but it's hard to find. The most dangerous knives are the ones you can't see. Jacob can't see his face due to the fact that the lighting is behind it, and he makes a movement to sit up, but is swiftly forced down by the shorter, yet considerably better-muscled boy hovering over him.
"I said, 'what's this about.'" The edge to his Scottish voice is sharp enough to cut this time, the annoyance palpable.
"I was just stopping by to watch. I'm Jacob, Abe's grandson." Jacob tried to sound friendly and perky in an attempt to diffuse the situation, but his words were too quick and he sounded just as nervous as he was, hyper-aware of the wide heel of Enoch's palm digging into his collar bone and the feeling of his warm breath hitting his face, calm and even.
"I-I'll just be getting out of your hair," Jacob nervously chuckled, using his right hand to give himself a noogie, sure he was making himself look like even more like a flustered idiot to Enoch's unforgiving, harsh eyes.
Instead of being a normal person, Enoch decides to crook his elbow, and even before Jacob knows what he's doing, Enoch's propelled himself onto his feet by grinding further into his poor clavicle, earning a pained whimper from Jacob, who was profusely blushing.
He decides to stay down for a few fragments of a second as Enoch closes the distance in between himself and the staircase, homunculus in hand. After deciding that his bones probably weren't broken, Jacob first grabbed the shoe over his head and then swung himself onto his haunches, bending over to remove the lose second shoe and rectify the somewhat-heavy metal stool. By this time, Enoch had reached the second plywood step after the landing. "You coming, or not? It's supper time." His accent is thick with irritation, but it sounds nearly forced, his voice casual otherwise.
Unhesitatingly, Jacob pushes himself up, off the dirt-coated floor, and bounds toward the staircase with long legs, staying a safe three steps away at all times.
The light was a shock to his eyes as Enoch swung open the thick, oak door, and he's too blinded to see that Enoch's hand lingers on the outside of the door for just a moment too long. “I could slam the door in his face, even lock him in there. No, that's no good. Last time I did that, Emma burnt the door down. Besides, he's not without charm...” Startled by his own softness, Enoch decides to slam the door, but can't bring himself to bash that charming face. Instead, he settles for walking onward, refusing to acknowledge Jacob, lengthening his strides to distance himself further.
Enoch took his normal seat at the very edge of the table, with Horace on his left and nobody to bother him on his right. If he were being completely honest, he would have to consider Horace his best friend in the world, even though he doesn't know Enoch very well. Nobody does. And that’s the way he likes it.
A few seconds later, Jacob comes along, and he’s instantly greeted with a chorus of “You’re alive!” and “Enoch didn't kill you!” erupting from the congregation of peculiars. He replies with a simple smile and nod, focusing on the seating arrangement. A seemingly-empty sweater is gesturing him to sit in the actually-empty set beside him, but Jake has other plans.
“Will you switch me seats, please?” He bends down to be ear-level with Horace, probably looking like an idiot, as tall as he is and as short as the tuxedo-clad prophet is.
“Most certainly, good chap,” was his simple reply, but his face was more curious as he strolled over to the seat beside where a hurt-looking Millard was, if one can look hurt with no physical facial expressions.
“Sorry, Millard. I've got business to take care of,” Jake announces, sandwiching himself in-between Emma and Enoch on the huge wooden table.
“Hmm!” Millard sounded quite intrigued.
He seemed to be on the verge of growling before, but it was evident that he now had no care as to whether or not he got in trouble with the bird for inhospitality due to a low, animalistic growl radiating from the home’s most savage member.
At this, Jake scooted back in his seat about a foot from the table, turned towards Enoch and just laughed. “You laugh, buddy,” Enoch thought as he craned his neck around, slowly, for dramatic effect, emphasized by the fact that the dining room was now pen-drop silent, everyone in attendance hanging off the edge of their seats.
In the face of his murderous glare, Jacob just smirked. That was all he needed to do before Enoch’s normally olive-toned face took the pigmentation of Piglet’s behind. The entire crowd erupted in a roar of laughter, and that's when Enoch lost it.
If he weren't so flustered, so smitten, Enoch would've thought of something halfway-intelligent to do, but because the moment was as hot as his face, he just did the first thing he could literally see. With a stiff fist, Enoch lunged for his glass of water and just gulped, as if the cool liquid could extinguish the fire raging across his cheeks. After a few seconds, the laughter dropped off, making it awkwardly silent as he chugged. The half-way mark was the point of no return, and even though he knew there was no way on God’s green earth he could justify doing it, he finished it out, the slam of glass on oak hidden by the sound of the laughter of the group picking back up. The only one he could hear was Jake.
“You’re going to pay for this, Portman,” he thought bitterly, the focus of the children shifting back to Miss Peregrine, “At least I'll have a decent excuse for a bathroom break.”
“Alright, children. You've done a good job at welcoming Jacob, Abe’s grandson. I do hope you like it here, Jake?” Miss Peregrine first addressed the group, but soon her eyes were on jake, as well as those of everyone else's, excluding the twins, whose dangerous eyes were always shrouded with masks, and Enoch, who chose to look anywhere but at the bright-eyed boy beside him (assuming, also, that Millard’s invisible eyes were directed toward Jake.)
“Yes ma’am,” he replied, smiling out of politeness, a gesture Enoch could never remember doing in all of his 117 years.
“If I may ask, Jacob, how’ve you managed to soil your clothes again?” It was at this point that it donned on him that due to the skirmish in Enoch’s laboratory, he was still covered with a distinct layer of dirt and dust native to the seldom-trodden floor, and his hair was askew. From his view from behind the other boy, Jacob could see Enoch’s cheeks twist slightly, probably into that maniacal grin, the one that bears an uncanny resemblance to that of Norman Bates, which won't grace cinema with its presence for twenty years from the loop day.
Smoothing his straight, black hair down with his hand, Jacob moved forward in his seat. If he hadn't been so flustered, so smitten, he probably would've thought of something better to do, but in lieu of the situation, Jacob, too, reached for his glass, but his sip is too quick and too small, and it, too, looks ridiculous (though decidedly less so), earning him quite a few snickers from those he had just joined a few seconds ago. The only one he could hear was Enoch's, which was much more like a contented hum than a snicker.
“Well, alright then.” Miss Peregrine drops the subject and the meal commences. During this time, Enoch doesn't speak at all, which is normal. His appetite isn't as voracious as it normally is, however, having been filled up with water. Despite the fact that he hasn't grown in a century, Enoch still eats like a seventeen year-old boy, a seventeen year old boy who sometimes skips meals for reasons no normal person in the world would guess and, secondarily, accept. It's for this reason that he finishes sooner than normal, and instead of excusing himself early, as he would've done otherwise, he stays rooted to his seat, anticipating what’s coming up next.
Setting her napkin down daintily on her finished plate, Miss Peregrine clears her throat, and after a few hushed whispers and a giggle from Claire, all is silent once-more. “Jacob, it's about time for you to leave, isn't it?” She waits for him to nod before she continues. Enoch, now facing him, can't help but notice that he seems a bit disappointed. “It's highly inadvisable to brave the bog alone; it can be quite perilous. We don't need another bog boy, now do we? Any volunteers to escort Jacob through the bog?”
“I will,” Enoch declares, fairly forceful and booming, before anyone else can snatch the covered position.
“If it's alright with you,” Miss Peregrine adds, trying her best not to look concerned.
“It is,” Jacob confirmed, and after putting away their plates, the two were off.
Enoch twisted his head around during the short walk from the sprawling house to the edge of the woods to check if the taller boy was still there. He was, but a safe three steps away.He smirks as they head into the woods, thinking he’s intimidated the other boy enough to keep his distance.
That smirk was wiped right of his face as soon as they reached the cover of the woods, where Jacob took an unusually long step to shore up the distance between the two, taking the grumpy boy’s hand. This earned a low grumble, but no other protest as they navigated the woods, Enoch’s hand occasionally squeezing Jacob’s tighter.
Soon enough they reached the bog and Enoch released the other boy’s hand to complete a series of particular steps so as not to fall into the murky, man-killing bog, which Jacob accurately mimics. This action reminds him of “Dance Dance Revolution”, which would not take the world by storm for another 58 years.
After a fairly short sequence of steps, they reached the stone cairn. Without a look back, Enoch pivots to face the home, but is stopped by a warm hand on his beige woolen sweater. He sighs as he turns around, but is soon interrupted by a voice that’s smooth, unlike his own.
“Will you come through the loop with me? I've got something to show you. It won't work out here,” he explains, pulling a thin black box out of his pocket. Intrigued by this object from the future, Enoch follows him through the loop, careful not to dirty his shirt or pants. Not that he personally cares whether he does or not; he's not Horace. He simply doesn't want the others to deduce that he's been through the loop with Jacob, which they most certainly would, as much as they’re reading into this.
He emerges in 2016, where Jacob is standing in the open air, thick with impending rain, waiting for him, blending in with the grey sky due to his sweater. “Beautiful weather,” Enoch comments. Jacob can't tell if he's teasing or not.
“This song reminded me of you,” Jacob says softly, fishing the black box out of his trousers again.
“You mean I reminded you of this song,” Enoch corrects, standing over his shoulder, eyes wide, amazed as the other boy manipulates the device, bringing up an image that resembles a spiderweb, but is recognizable as a circuit board.
“Same difference.” Jacob rolls his eyes playfully as the song starts playing.
“We’re all going, we’re all going...”
The song had a good rhythm, to which Jacob was subtly bopping his head, and a captivating melody. It was harsher than any of the music available in the house. Enoch likes that very much, and he also appreciates the talk of clones made out of bones and moving on to the next place as if the last never existed, which he’s had to do twice so far in his long life. Eventually, the last note was played and Enoch was slightly disappointed, but didn't show it, making no comment to the other boy as he positioned himself to duck into the cairn. Again he was stopped by Jacob’s hand on his shoulder, and he starts to sigh for the 987,786,954th time in his life when his breath hastily changes direction, barely registering the soft lips pressed to his thin cheek before the other boy speeds off, just as quickly, but with decidedly sloppier athletic form.
For a second he stands staring, stunned, but it doesn't take long at all and he’s off, bolting through the loop and the bog and into the basement, not caring what people think when they see the usually cold, collected, and calculating Enoch run as if his life depends on it. But not even in the scantily-occupied basement is he safe from the enigma that is Jacob Portman. The only thing that's louder than his palpitating heart is what it’s beating to: his new favorite song, “Lampshades on Fire”, by a strange band called Modest Mouse, from the strange world Jacob lives in, where people carry endless supplies of music and information around in their pockets and, apparently, it's okay to kiss other boys. Not that Enoch’s ever cared what's “okay”.