Chapter Text
For once, Jacks had no idea what just happened. He was (accurately!) teasing Evangeline for even giving Luc the time of day, while leaning on Chaos’ moldy stone wall. Luckily Jacks appreciates mold. Chaos only cares about its “aesthetic.” That’s when Luc actually managed to do something for once. Even as a vampire, Jacks didn’t think it was possible for Luc to move that fast.
Yet he did, attacking Evangeline like a rabid wolf, and suddenly Jacks was in front of Evangeline with a sharp pain in his neck. Luc had always been a pain in the ass, but this was even more annoying.
Then Jacks’s brain faded until everything was fuzzy, and he almost felt the usual dark cloud in his head dissipating.
He didn’t come back to himself until a sharp, cold breeze brushed the fuzz away, and startled Jacks back to his body. He realized he is out of Chaos’ dungeon, and the bright stars make him gasp. How had he not noticed their beauty before?
His thoughts reorganized enough to notice more beauty, the pink-haired girl dragging him forward by his arm. She smelled just as she looked, sugary and pink, but also spiced and wrapped in a black corset with a wildly mad expression. She was also stronger than she looked, cutting off circulation where she gripped his bicep. Jacks decided he needs to learn her name…
~
For perhaps the thousandth time since that damn wedding started it all, Evangeline also had no idea what just happened. The crisis of seeing Luc again, and him trying to kill her, was now overshadowed by dealing with Jacks.
As soon as he broke Luc’s neck, Jacks had almost collapsed, leaving Evangeline to basically carry him out. She was oddly reminded of the first time Marisol got way too drunk, and dragging her home to sneak them both back in.
Can I just have one fucking minute to break down by myself??
Evangeline approached the lair’s final exit, dragging Jacks, who was uncharacteristically distracted. She used his distraction to shove down all her tangled thoughts. Well, until he tried to touch the moldy walls, then her hair. Luckily whatever state he was in made his reflexes slower, and she could smack his hand away before he put mold in her hair. She had to bite back the smile at finally getting to hit him a little, as she had been dreaming of since meeting him.
Evangeline watched as his smile fell at the smack, and a bit of guilt scratched at her chest. But neither lasted as they crossed the threshold outside, and Jacks’ head tilted up.
His sudden switch from staring at the ground to the night sky made Evangeline jump. She felt insane when her nerves were fried like this, almost expecting Luc to come attacking from the sky somehow. Evangeline realized Jacks was just looking at the stars, but her heartbeat refused to slow. At this rate she expected to die from an early onset heart attack, before needing to worry about vampires. She thought she knew Jacks decently well by now, but she never thought of him as the sentimental type.
She also didn’t realize how heavy he was. His twisting to see the stars from every angle, while leaning all of his weight on her did not help. With his whole immortal-fate-that’s-better-than-you thing, and tendency to disappear quickly, Evangeline wouldn’t have been surprised if Jacks only weighed as much as a few apple cores and a sprinkle of story dust.
“Am I actually, finally descending into insanity now?”
Evangeline didn’t realize she had thought that out loud until Jacks’ laugh startled her out of the mental spiral.
Right now he didn’t look like an immortal fate, usually with a witty comment at her expense. He looked…happy. She hated that her first reaction was confusion, and envy.
After just a few minutes of dragging Jacks outside Chaos’ stupid, dramatic, and moldy vampire-lair-exit, Evangeline’s limbs felt weighed down. Her pace, and Jacks’ by extension, was glacial. She attempted to gently lower Jacks to the ground. Just a little bend at the knee-Evangeline laughed under her breath, remembering old advice to lift with your legs, not your back-and her entire body collapsed. She was too busy with the whole collapsing business to see Jacks’ awe-struck look at her smile.
Evangeline expected something annoying, a sassy comment, glare, anything from Jacks for the indignity of being dropped on an old grave. But he just…giggled?
Unfortunately Evangeline didn’t even have the energy to hold this over his head. It took everything she had to roll off of Jacks’ legs, and lean against the nearest gravestone. The stone immediately stole all of her warmth, and as her eyes closed, a distant part of Evangeline’s head thought that she probably had mold in her hair now anyway.