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ozmissageCharacters/Pairings: Jacob/Esau
Word Count: 1,781
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not Mine. Title taken from “Paradise Lost”.
Original Fic:The Fall by
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toestastegoodA/N: The Fall was such an interesting, awesome story; I loved the concept of Esau and Jacob living normal lives in New York. The original story was told from Jacob’s POV but I’m a sucker for Esau and I couldn’t resist the temptation to tell a sort-of love story from his POV so I flipped the perspective. A big thank you to the wonderful
mollivanders for the beta! Summary: Esau does not love Jacob, but he realizes suddenly that he wants him.
He was a god once.
They both were, good and evil, black and white, the division was simple and necessary. It was a matter of balance, of scales. They struggled and it was never ending and exhausting (intoxicating).
That’s over now.
He used to be a god, now he is a man. A mortal, a thief, a companion, a prisoner (some things never change).
He is not happy.
***
When the island disappears beneath the ocean, Esau feels humanity latch on, feels his strength ebb away to nothing. He looks down and sees his hands and for the first time in centuries they are his own. Jacob is beside him, a smile playing on his lips.
“How does it feel?” he asks, something like happiness dancing in the corner of his words.
“Like death,” Esau answers.
They spend the rest of the trip in silence, Jacob marveling at his new life, Esau wondering when his will end.
***
He didn’t have to stay with Jacob.
When the boat docked, when he first set foot on this new land, this patch of earth that did not hum with power or magic, he could have parted ways with his old friend, but then who would he be? What would he be? They are halves to a whole, always have been.
It’s easier to stay.
“Where should we go?” Esau asks.
“New York,” Jacob says without thinking. “You’ll like it there.”
Esau does not.
The place is teaming with humans; they live on top of one another all of their petty struggles and fears and anger all pressing in on the city, on Esau. He can still feel it, the darkness inside all of them waiting for a spark.
In the old days he would have happily played the role of the match and watched as the city burned to the ground.
Instead he takes to pick-pocketing and grumbling, commiserating with cabbies during rush hour, coming home to eat supper with Jacob every night.
***
Jacob cooks for them, food that comes in boxes and packages warmed on a stove instead of over a fire. Nothing is fresh or clean, it tastes like death on Esau’s tongue, but he eats it just the same.
“Do you like it?” Jacob asks.
The sincerity in his voice, the hopefulness, it stirs something inside of Esau. Jacob has always been good at letting go of things, of moving forward, one group of people would fall and he would calmly call forth another to the island. Esau lives in the past, prays for nothing but solitude and peace, a quiet and uneventful existence far away from the mess of humanity.
And yet when Jacob asks him if he likes these eggs that came from a carton and not from a hen, he feels. What he feels exactly, he isn’t sure, he doesn’t want to be sure, but it is something and most remarkably he can not bring himself to hurt his old friend. So he lies. This at least feels natural.
“They’re fine, Jacob.”
***
He dreams of the island, of the grass beneath his bare feet, of the waves crashing into the shore. He dreams of it as it was before---when there were no men, no women, just the two of them, when he thought of it as home.
He wakes to sirens blaring outside his window and babies wailing in the apartment next door.
For years he wanted nothing more than to leave the island, now he wants nothing more than to go back.
He imagines Jacob sleeping in his own room, his chest rising and falling with the steady rhythm of a living, breathing human man.
He would have to come with Esau; one of them could not be restored without the other. But Jacob will not want to go back.
Esau closes his eyes and begins planning to plunge another sort of knife in Jacob’s back.
Only this time, the thought elicits a pang of regret deep within his chest.
***
Jacob has begun watching him. This is not so unusual, but where his eyes once held mistrust, they now hold something else, something that looks remarkably like hunger.
Esau uses this.
He tempts Jacob with half smiles, goads him with arguments over petty, mortal things like bills and dishes, he pushes him, crowds him, all the while waiting for him to snap.
One night, Esau sits watching the flickering images on the television screen. Of all of the human rituals he finds this one the most comforting. It is familiar, this watching, this observing. This is how you learn. Esau has known this for thousands of years. In order to conquer, you must first know your quarry.
This program in particular fascinates him. It is a game show where the humans are given the answers and must then formulate the question. This is how they win.
It reminds Esau of the ignorant, sad souls Jacob drew to the island over the years. They were always demanding answers, why this, why that. It never occurred to any of them that they already had the answers; they were simply asking the wrong questions.
Jacob keeps glancing at him out of the corner of his eye. Esau calls him out, watches a red blush spread across Jacob’s cheeks. This is new and surprisingly not unwelcome; Esau feels a heat rising in himself as well.
He pushes it down.
“I’m thinking,” Jacob says.
Of course he is.
Strangely, Esau finds that he is thinking too.
***
“I killed you,” Esau snarls.
It’s late, he walked home in a downpour and he’s drenched straight through to his bones, his body shivers and he hates this, hates being cold, hates being wet, hates this whole miserable existence.
Jacob says nothing, just offers him a towel.
“We were not meant to live like this, Jacob.”
Jacob turns away from him, sinks into his chair.
“We were never meant to live, Esau,” he says.
This stops Esau. They were conquerors, destroyers, creators---they had power beyond their imagining, but they did not live, not really.
Esau stares at the puddle growing around his feet and sighs.
“Do we have any tea?” he asks.
Jacob laughs and some of the cold begins to ebb away.
***
Esau has never contemplated love. He does not understand it, could not identify it. So many of Jacob’s little pets claimed to know it, to have it, to lose it, they claimed that all of their great tragedies came down to the absence or forfeit of love.
And none of them ever talked of love without sacrifice. It seemed then that it was an emotion so powerful that one would be willing to give up their very life in the name of it.
Silly, arrogant fools all of them.
It seems to Esau all of their problems really came down to a loss of self. In allowing themselves to be consumed by another, always knowing that it would end, they ensured their own unhappiness.
Esau does not love Jacob.
He is accustomed to him, yes. And connected (but that was not by choice) to him, but he does not love him.
Jacob sits across from him at the kitchen table, his arms bare and exposed. Esau watches his fingers, calloused and practiced, wrap around his cup, watches the corners of his lips quirk upwards in thought as he reads the paper spread out in front of him.
Esau does not love Jacob, but he realizes suddenly that he wants him.
***
It’s lust.
This emotion Esau understands. And it is good, Jacob wants him as well. It will make things easier on all counts to give in.
One morning, he pushes Jacob too far and is rewarded for his efforts.
Jacob slams him into the wall, their bodies press together and Esau can feel every part of his old friend, hot and hard, the want coming off of him in waves. There’s confusion shining in Jacob’s eyes as well, and fear.
Esau smirks and this seems to infuriate Jacob, he presses his lips, red and wet against Esau’s mouth and shoves his tongue inside viciously.
The feeling is electric, like a shock, a spark. Esau pushes back.
“I want to make love to you,” Jacob says, his face clouding with a childish frown.
There’s that word again.
Esau wants to correct him, to explain that this is not love, that this is something else. Fucking, he might say---something dirty and primal and so very human that Esau should be ashamed of partaking in the act at all.
Instead he tells Jacob that his turn of phrase is antiquated and groans when Jacob thrusts inside him.
***
Afterwards, Esau finds that nothing has changed.
He still hates it here, in this world. He still wants to go home.
Jacob lies beside him on the small patch of his bed that Esau hasn’t claimed as his own. His friend, and even now after centuries of fighting and this new sensation of fucking he still thinks of him as friend, seems sated, happy.
(Everything has changed.)
Esau broaches the subject of the island, of returning, and a sadness instantly falls over Jacob.
Jacob does not want to return. He would be perfectly content to live and die a human life with Esau at his side. He does not say this, but it is implied in his silence. Esau knows this man, this old god, knows him right down to his core.
If Esau loved him, he would grant Jacob his wish. He would sacrifice his own yearnings, his own wants.
Beside him Jacob drifts off to sleep.
He is quite beautiful. Esau recognizes this now.
***
All things must come to an end.
This is a human adage. Trite and simplistic, narrow minded as always, but still true.
Esau was once a god; he lived on an island and spread darkness over everything he touched.
He is a man now and lives a normal life and he will die a normal death. Jacob is at his side (always has been, always will be.) What exists between them is complicated and messy and sometimes Esau dreams of leaving him, of returning home to loopholes and bloodshed and eternity.
There is bitterness, a growing festering thing deep inside of him, but he keeps it at bay, refuses to let it consume him.
It’s easier when Jacob’s hands are tangled in his hair, his teeth nipping at Esau’s ear.
***
He does not love Jacob. Will never say that he does, but still he stays. They both do.
It is a mutual sacrifice.
At least that’s what Esau tells himself.
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no subject
Date: 4/21/10 05:04 pm (UTC)There are so many lines of awesomeness that I picked out while I was reading. Sorry, I have to quote a ton of them back at you!
“I’m thinking,” Jacob says.
Of course he is.
Ha, I love Esau's thoughts in response to that. Sounds so snarky and so put-upon. I can practically hear the eye-roll that would go along with it!
“We were never meant to live, Esau,” he says.
This stops Esau. They were conquerors, destroyers, creators---they had power beyond their imagining, but they did not live, not really.
This thought is so striking. The thought of immortals having endless life but not 'living' as we would know it - I really like something like that actually occuring to Esau, him being forced to realise that not being human had had its disadvantages too. I can bet that he would not have been happy at all with having to consider something like you!
Esau does not love Jacob, but he realizes suddenly that he wants him.
Unf, I love this sentence for very shallow reasons. It's a simple sentence but there is something especially yummy about it. I've got a little private thing for non-human characters discovering desire and lust, and this so hits me.
so very human that Esau should be ashamed of partaking in the act at all.
♥ This is part of my personal canon for Esau. Sex is so animal and human; I feel he'd feel it was beneath him and feel guilty, dirty even, for wanting it.
(Everything has changed.)
I love that little bracketed acknowledgement. Your use of brackets throughout is really effective in general, come to mention it.
If Esau loved him, he would grant Jacob his wish. He would sacrifice his own yearnings, his own wants.
This makes me so, so happy! Because he goes ahead and he does exactly that! How lovely and wonderful is that! Squee! He lovesssssss him, even if he would never actually admit to it. He loves him and Jacob must know that he loves him and I bet that every time that Esau denies it Jacob gets one of his smug little smirks on his face because he knows better. :D
This is lovely and you are lovely and I am grinning like a FOOL. When I was randomising the assignments I was quietly delighted to see that I had got assigned to you. You're beautiful. Thank you so, so, so much! ♥
no subject
Date: 4/21/10 11:35 pm (UTC)OMG, thank you so much! I'm so pleased that you liked this. I didn't realize how stressful it would be to remix someone elses fic until I started, but then I was worried I was completely screwing up your gorgeous story.
I had to write it from Esau's POV though. He just feels so cantankerous to me and I love the idea of him falling in love and being kind of disgusted with himself about it and completely refusing to admit it. :)
These two are so delightfully dysfunctional it's a blast to write them.
This is seriously the sweetest feedback I've ever received my dear. Thank you again, although if it's any good at all it's only because I had such amazing source material to work with. You write these guys so beautifully I knew I had to bring my A game. *Hugs*
no subject
Date: 4/21/10 06:42 pm (UTC)Esau wants to correct him, to explain that this is not love, that this is something else. Fucking, he might say---something dirty and primal and so very human that Esau should be ashamed of partaking in the act at all.
This is so great dear :) I haven't read much of Esau/Jacob but I think you captured Esau's voice really well - his resentment, his boredom, his distaste for this life even while he slowly learns to embrace it. I hope you write more of them!
no subject
Date: 4/21/10 11:38 pm (UTC)I have this weird thing for Esau. He amuses me. There's just something about the way he carries himself. It's like he just has no use for any of this nonsense, and he just wants to hang out and read his paper in peace...or something. He's like a grumpy old person who occasionally eats people. I <3 him. ;)
(BTW: Gorgeous Juliet icon.)
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Date: 4/21/10 11:41 pm (UTC)thank you :)
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Date: 4/22/10 06:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 4/24/10 03:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 4/23/10 03:16 pm (UTC)I love, love, love it -- so great! :D
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Date: 4/24/10 03:45 pm (UTC)It's weird, I only really like Esau and Jacob when they're paired together. The rest of the time they drive me crazy. There's something intriguing about Esau though. :)
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Date: 4/25/10 06:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 4/26/10 04:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 4/25/10 07:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 4/26/10 04:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 4/26/10 06:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 4/26/10 10:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 5/18/10 09:03 pm (UTC)I like your version of that fic (I loved hers too)! I really like this point of view, it's less sunny, and definitely more cynical. I also love his denial of his feelings for Jacob.
Very nice!
no subject
Date: 5/19/10 02:41 pm (UTC)Toes does amazing things with this pairing, I'm pretty much in constant awe of her. :)