Chapter 20 #2
Jackson withdraws himself from Eddie’s lap, allowing him to grab a spare shirt from his gym bag.
Jackson pulls the tattered shirt from his arm, marveling at how the skin had reformed as if nothing had happened.
The only evidence of his outburst being the deep cuts along the floor, the destruction on the back of the couch where he currently sat and and the ruined state of his room.
Years of memories in this apartment and one bad dream risked tearing it all apart.
He almost hurt Eddie. Jackson can’t imagine how he came away unscathed from the same blades of shadow that ruined the apartment.
Eddie slips on a new shirt and a pair sweats, after washing Jackson’s blood off his chest. He’s feeling a little lightheaded. It seems Jackson drank more blood than Eddie had realized.
Eddie makes his way back, plopping onto the couch, grunting on his way down.
“You okay, Eddie?” Jackson moves in closer, placing a hand gently on Eddie’s shoulder, the muscle tensing under his touch.
“I’m sorry about all this. I took too much blood and the apartment is wrecked.
We can probably ask Hakeem to fix it, but I hate the idea of him draining himself on a spell big enough to fix this.
Ugh, this whole day has been a disaster.
Can we go back to having Princess making a mess in the kitchen be the biggest issue? ”
Eddie chuckles softly. He wraps his arm around Jackson and pulls him in close, causing a blush to creep up the elven man’s neck and staining his cheeks and pointed ears.
Princess emerges from her hiding spot under the couch, curious, chittering and sniffing as she investigates the damage.
“The apartment can be fixed. If you really feel bad I’m sure Hakeem and I can find a nice and expensive restaurant for dinner one day for you to treat us to.
Princess can probably be bribed with food as well.
” A happy little purr from Princess, who has curled up on the arm of the couch next to Eddie, signals her approval.
Jackson’s body feels heavy, that long nap having the opposite effect. Eddie draws him in closer allowing Jackson to rest on his chest. “Eddie, you’ve helped plenty, I can make my way upstairs.”
“To your destroyed room?” Asks Eddie with a raised brow.
“Fuck,” Jackson sighs, defeated.
“I’m too tired to go back upstairs and you still look like you need to let some stuff out. Can we just stay like this for a while till the room stops spinning?”
Eddie’s arm wraps around Jackson gently, a comfort he didn’t want to allow himself but can’t find the strength to refuse.
The boys lie on the couch, Jackson resting his head on Eddie’s chest, Eddie fully spread out, arms wrapped around each other.
The room is dark save for moonlight seeping in through the glass terrace doors.
Jackson lets his mind focus on Eddie’s heartbeat, the steady rhythm grounding him in the moment.
He wonders to himself how the hell he let himself fall into this position.
There is no voice taunting him now. Only a ruined apartment he’d have to ask Hakeem to fix, a frazzled raccoon watching over them from the armrest and a gentle giant who won’t let him suffer in silence.
Steeling his resolve, Jackson tells Eddie as much as he can recall before falling back into tears.
He tells him about Ravi. Tony and Vinny.
Their little apartment in New York. The time he spent in the human realm.
How he and Ravi were both young elves looking to explore a bustling human city, who fell hopelessly in love.
He shares his joy and sorrows, the times they laughed and fought.
Nearly two decades they spent together, and how they were the most precious memories he made in the human realm.
When his voice begins to crack, Eddie is there to soothe him. “It’s okay if you want to stop, you don’t have to tell me everything. I can imagine how painful it must be to remember.” He rubs small circles on Jackson’s back.
Jackson takes in a shuddering breath, “No—no, I want to talk about it. I kept it in for so long I think that’s why my magic lashed out. Why the nightmare hurt as much as it did.”
Eddie holds the elven man closer, nuzzling into his hair. “Okay, I’ll listen as much as you want me to then.”
Jackson tells him about that day in 1969, that fateful day that left its mark in human history.
How he lost his best friends and the love of his life.
How he felt Ravi’s body go cold in his arms, the screams of the surrounding riots silenced by his breaking heart.
He tells Eddie how he saw the light leave Ravi’s eyes as he whispered his last words for only Jackson to hear.
“I love you Jackson, never forget that. Live your life well, for both of us.”
Jackson’s tears come quietly, a steady stream of sorrow forming after letting these buried memories free. All the while Eddie never lets him go. “It’s okay, it’s okay. I got you.” Eddie says softly.
Jackson fears he won’t want to be near him if he tells him what had happened next. How his worst fear will finally be realized when he lets his darkest secret to light. The burden of the secret is too much to bear, he needs to be free of it if he has any hope of a future.
With or without the men who have thawed his heart.
He tells Eddie what happened after he lost Ravi, after he lost sight of Vinny and Tony but could hear their screams piercing through the crowd.
How his grief turned to rage, his sorrow to blood lust. He tells Eddie how his magic had awakened that day, causing a massacre.
The bureau covered it up, no trace of him—or any shifter or magical creature—was ever recorded in the history of the riots, the deaths erased from history.
They couldn’t let the only heir of House Nocturne face judgment in the human realm, so they made it as if he was never there.
With the condition he stayed away from New York, the home he built and the memories there, until no human would remember his face.
Jackson tells Eddie how he spent the next thirty years running.
From his responsibilities as heir to House Nocturne, from his crimes in the human realm.
How, instead of fighting for the right to change the world that took so much from him, to march alongside the community he had come to love as they fought for their rights, he ran.
He spent decades trying to forget and lose himself in sex, drugs, liquor and other thrill seeking adventures.
He spent so little time in the magical realm, only coming back to visit Brenda Lee when she couldn’t come see him, putting on an act even for his oldest friend.
Any visits to the fae realm were limited to once a year on the Winter solstice.
He had all but abandoned his duties as a member of the royal fae courts.
He confesses things no one knew outside of family, things not even Wendy was privy to.
All the while he waited, expecting for Eddie to shove him away in disgust, but he never did.
Jackson spent years putting on a brave face, a mask for the world to see so he wouldn’t bring shame to the family name.
His mother never forced him back during those thirty years, letting him run wild as he saw fit so long as he kept up appearances and returned for the solstice.
She wasn’t as caring as she is now, something having changed in her during the last thirty years.
He didn’t have to worry during the pandemic that threatened the queer community during the 80s and 90s, how his vampiric blood kept him safe, no disease daring to mark his body.
All he did was stay out of human affairs besides partying, traveling, and debauchery.
The bureau wouldn’t cover things up twice, but he was a Nocturne.
So long as he kept a low enough profile they would let him come and go as he saw fit.
Then his world came crashing down again thirty years ago, during the Winter solstice celebration at Nocturne castle.
Jackson snapped at a guest, years of bottled emotion spilling out.
He thinks it was over being called a disgrace, a weakling who would be the downfall of House Nocturne.
Maybe it was someone who blamed him for the losses that night decades ago.
He can hardly recall anymore. He showed them all that night, the power that he awakened all those years ago.
He showed them all what it meant to be Lord of the Darkest night.
His power went rampant, almost causing another major incident.
His mother stopped him before a scene was caused, before his shadows lashed out against the guest who pissed him off.
Then, in the depths of the castle, away from prying eyes, in front of his concerned father and his furious mother, Jackson broke.
The mask he crafted shattered as he fell into his mother’s arms. He cursed his magic, resented the blood that flowed through him, heart still bleeding from being broken years before.
That was the day Annabella Nocturne saw her son not as the heir to her family’s dynasty, but as a broken hearted little boy who had no one to turn to for so long.
That was the day she truly became his mother as she held him in her arms and let him fall to pieces, so that she could help him come together again.
Five years later she insisted he return to his training and begin his slow and steady path into a career in politics.
He was still the heir to House Nocturne, but she made sure he knew he was her son before all else.