Chapter Text
It started in New Covington.
Okay, it started before New Covington, when he and Allison were on the road and Allison defended some old couple but didn’t try to kill Jackal in his sleep over it. When he decided to ignore the paranoia that had kept him awake for the past week and didn’t get hurt for it, and his chest started itching like it was full of crawling things. Jackal handled pain on the regular, so he didn’t pay it much mind. He actually took notice of it in New Covington. When they were meeting with Salazar, and Sarren was there, and Jackal was scared and angry and willing to kill everyone in the goddamn room if he could get everyone out safely.
That night, alone in a room that wasn’t his and a body that wasn’t real, his chest started burning, and he spat up a mouthful of flowers.
He had heard of Hanahaki disease. Azura told him about it, a passing don’t let yourself catch Hanahaki for me while he was young and flirty because flirting was a fun challenge to keep him occupied. It ended up leading to a very interesting conversation, a didn’t your parents tell you stories about it when you were human, a so you’re flirting with a master vampire because you like flirting, not because you’re trying to gain anything, a you’re fun, I’d follow you up on your suggestions if you weren’t so young. He hadn’t loved Azura. He hadn’t understood the sentiment surrounding love, how people could willingly die for it, and wrote it off as an emotion that he couldn’t feel. In fact, if Jackal weren’t spitting up flowers in the sink, he’d think he was still incapable of it, and he was pretty sure he wasn’t feeling it correctly, because if the surgeries or medications to remove the things still existed, he’d take it in a heartbeat. Love was loyalty, and loyalty got people killed. There was no way he was dying for some Alabama bullshit like loving his sister.
(He had no idea what Alabama had to do with anything. It was a sourceless phrase that was stuck in his head, but it had to do with marrying one’s flesh and blood, so it fit.)
(Jackal knew that love was a pretty big word. It covered a lot of things, not all of them romantic. It didn’t mean he was suited to have any version of it.)
The petals were purple-blue, and Jackal didn’t need to know about plants, but he could still recognize that they were flax flowers. It made an irrational, half-crazy laugh bubble in his chest. It bounced around the room, echoing in his head, until a petal caught in his throat and he started coughing. (In a time before Jackal took a corpse off the side of the road and called it his own, in a time that never existed at all, a child lived with his family and grew flax, weaving it into cloth. Of course Jackal remembered what the flower looked like. Of course it had to be these flowers.)
(Of course he had to love his family.)
%
The thing was, Jackal wasn’t sure if vampires could die of Hanahaki disease. It hurt, but he was a vampire, and vampires didn’t need to breathe. He couldn’t suffocate the way humans did. It wouldn’t be a pleasant way to live, but there wasn’t a reason to stop living just because he accidentally started loving his sister.
Maybe he could care about his sister less. (It didn’t work that way.)
Allison wanted to save the person who barely felt real outside of his nightmares, migraines, and paranoia, and Jackal helped her, because Kanin was his sire, too, and he could at least stop the nightmares even if the other two problems persisted. And Kanin promptly called him James, and Jackal had to very quickly remember and come to terms with the fact that oh right, James Tran wasn’t just a person I made up when I was lonely and bored.
He came to terms with that as well as he always did, which was to say that he didn’t, but he faked it well enough. No one noticed that he was horrible at responding to the name of an imaginary (dead) boy, or that he only talked about his life as a vampire because while james had been both, Jackal had only ever been a vampire. They had bigger things to focus on, after all— Allison wanted to save New Covington because she cared, and Kanin agreed with her. She wanted to love a human because she was stupid and had low standards, and no one was stopping her.
Jackal vaguely wondered if killing her would make the feeling go away, because caring about and loving people wasn’t something that was safe to do anymore. James, he remembered (he remembered because it was so much harder to forget when Kanin knew James better than he knew Jackal), had learned that the hard way. His love had turned to grief and ripped him apart. Jackal didn’t want to have to bury himself by the end of everything, not after he buried James. He didn’t think there was enough of a person left to keep going, if he stopped being real.
(Jackal could feel himself cracking to pieces under the roads of New Covington and the stare of his sire, but he wasn’t done yet, and this body might not belong to him but he was using it for as long as it could take him, flowers or not.)
He didn’t kill Allison, because he didn’t want to see her dead. Because he was weak. Because he fucking loved her. She was a good person, and she treated him like he was a bastard (which he was), but she treated him like a person, and that was nice after being treated like a god and a monster and a ghost. It made him feel real in a way that he hadn’t felt before.
She still picked Ezekiel over him when he tried to leave, because Kanin was dying and Ezekiel was dying and Kanin hadn’t told him, and Jackal was sick, too, and hadn’t told anyone. Jebediah's abused child was going to do his best to kill him, and Allison was going to help, and Jackal spent the rest of the night spitting up flowers and cursing both of them, because of course, of course his paranoia was right and it wasn’t safe to love anyone. It got James killed, and it would drive Jackal into insanity. Again.
(James had loved his sister, too. Jackal couldn’t care less about the human girl who probably burned to death, but he remembered how much James had loved her. He wondered if it was easier for him, or if it tasted like iron and anger and flaxseed, even if only metaphorically.)
It was at that point that Jackal decided to track down Sarren. He wasn’t sure if it was for the cure, or if it was because he knew Allison would be tracking him down and getting herself killed for her efforts, or simply because he was in pain and therefore feeling vaguely self-destructive. But he did it, and Sarren was crazier than Jackal, and that felt strangely comforting. He didn’t have the cure, which was less comforting. He wanted to torture Allison, and Jackal wasn’t supposed to care, he wasn’t supposed to have the ability to love, he had left that feeling behind so he could stay safe—
He wasn’t real for most of the fight, so he couldn’t feel the pain when Sarren stabbed him in the chest, or when he impaled him on the cell bars. He couldn’t even feel the pain when Allison looked at him, prone and defenseless, and told him to justify his right to live, because Jackal had loved her, but was Jackal any more real than James wasn’t?
The body ground its teeth and told Jackal to get back in his lane, because he needed to be real, and if that meant he loved Allison then he fucking loved Allison, and if he had to be in pain while doing it then he could handle the pain. This body had faced worse pain, thrown off the tower of Old Chicago, attacked by rogue coups of his men, stabbed by his own sire (dying at the hand of bandits, seeing a vampire who could save him ponder over if he was worth it while he was bleeding on the sand, seeing the family that loved and raised him die ). Jackal didn’t die in the old hospital of New Covington. He gathered up the body that was anything but his and kept his identity firmly in place, because he wasn’t real enough to make another one. He kept loving Allison, too, because apparently that was part of the package.
It was hard to stop loving someone once he started. (James had learned that the hard way, too, and Jackal obviously hadn’t been paying enough attention.)
(He promised himself this: Allison would be the first and the last. Love was a poison, and he wasn’t inclined to kill himself.)
%
They weren’t supposed to leave New Covington together. Allie, Kanin, and Zeke were supposed to go to Eden, and Jackal was supposed to go back home (not home, because Old Chicago wasn’t safe and didn’t feel permanent no matter how much he tried to make it). They weren’t supposed to leave New Covington together, but Sarren meddled, and Ezekiel died, and they stayed together because there wasn’t a better choice.
Allison didn’t notice the flowers. Kanin did. Because of course he did.
“It’s rare, for vampires to get Hanahaki,” he said softly, after Allison had buried herself in a shallow grave and Jackal had tried to make sure Kanin wouldn’t follow him so he could spit up flowers in peace. He didn’t know if it slowed anything down, but he was fairly certain it helped with the pain a little.
“I’m full of surprises,” Jackal said instead of trying to deny it. There was no point, when there was blood dripping down his chin and he was hugging his ribs like pressure would make them stop hurting. “So you knew it could happen?”
“Yes.”
“That made one of us... thought that Azura was making a jab at my age. That I was practically human or something,” he gave a short laugh, and tried to shake the crawling under his skin, because he was covered in blood and kneeling on the ground, and Kanin was standing above him, and he couldn’t let that night happen again, not again, he couldn’t be killed again— “Do you know if it’s fatal?”
“It is,” Kanin responded. Jackal nodded, because he couldn’t really be surprised. Time had always been hazy to his mind, but it hadn’t been too long since he started coughing. He could already feel the flowers scratching against his chest, taking and taking until he had nothing left to give. Love was a toxic thing. No wonder James died. No wonder he was dying.
(But he still loved Allison. Some stupid, desperate part of him thought that this was worth it, because he was a real person in her eyes, and he had forgotten what that felt like until he was choking on it.)
“It takes longer. Months. Years, even, depending on how intense their love is. Though most vampires either have it resolved or meet the sun before that much time passes.” He didn’t stab Jackal through the spine. He sat beside him and put a hand on his back of all things. Jackal took that as permission to start coughing again. He had forgotten how much work coughing took.
“May I ask who it’s over?” Kanin asked.
“No,” Jackal responded.
“If we find who it is, we may be able to resolve it.”
“Now is not the time to start caring about me, old man,” Jackal laughed weakly and spat a strand of hair out of his face. It was long. Was it supposed to be this long? “You gave up on me a long time ago. I’ve gotten over it, and I don’t intend to reopen that particular… fuckshow.”
Kanin pursed his lips into a thin line, but nodded. “You mentioned Azura?”
“ No. Ew. She just lets me flirt with her because it’s funny,” he said. He swallowed, feeling his throat scratch and ache. “How will it kill me?”
“From what I hear, once the flowers fill your lungs, they start breaking through your skin,” Kanin’s voice sounded calm. Or maybe everything felt calm, because this conversation didn’t feel real. “It’s... not a pleasant way to die.”
“Is there a pleasant way to die?” Jackal asked, a small laugh bubbling to his lips. He took another deep breath and kept coughing. He knew that eventually, the flowers would grow so thick that he wouldn’t be able to get enough air to force them out, but until then, he could feel like he was doing something.
“Probably not,” Kanin said softly. “Allison will want to know.”
Jackal shook his head, and he couldn’t identify love until he was dying from it, but he understood the jab of desperation that went through his chest. “That human died on her and she went off the rails. She just got her emotions back a day ago. No need to add more…”
He was going to say grief, but that wasn’t right, was it? You had to love someone to grieve for them; that was why he thought he buried love in the first place, right along with compassion and morals and innocence. No love meant no grief. No pain. James had gotten too much of that the first time around.
(He missed the innocence, though. It was one of things he hadn’t so much buried as had ripped to shreds in front of him.)
“Love is a very pointless emotion,” he heard himself say. “It’s vile and toxic and poisons everyone it touches. I don’t know why people act like it’s something to strive for. I went— I went decades without loving anything and I was doing great. ” He hadn’t been a person those years, and that had hurt, but it had been simple and easy to play into. Allison insisted he was real, that he was a person, but he didn’t believe it most days. He was just whatever filled the cracks of a dead body.
“Perhaps in Eden we can find a surgeon,” Kanin said. “I don’t know how operating would work on a vampire—”
“I’m not letting a human scientist touch me,” he snapped, and paranoia felt familiar and rotten on his tongue. “I’m not an idiot, I’m not anyone’s labrat, I’m not—” he coughed again. “I hate flax flowers so goddamn much. If God is real I think he’s mocking me.”
Kanin didn’t respond to that. Jackal was pretty sure there was nothing to be said.
%
“Are you… okay?”
That was the question Allison asked two hours outside Old Chicago. Jackal wasn’t entirely keen on returning, because he still felt like Jackal, but he knew he had changed in his time away. He didn’t want that identity to be challenged. He was cracking, he knew he was cracking, but maybe he could get through it. Grow and change like real people did. Maybe he didn’t have to leave another identity in the dust like a shedded skin.
“Aw, it’s so sweet to know you care about your big brother,” Jackal grinned in the way that made everyone around him nervous. Allison averted her gaze.
“Kanin seems worried about you.”
That little snitch, was something Jackal didn’t say, because that would be confirming that Allison was right, and Jackal intended to finish their mission, get far away from his merry family, and rip the flax out of his lungs himself . No human doctors to strap him down and do whatever they wanted, no Kanin to stare at him condescendingly, no sisters to… exist in the general vicinity. (No sisters to see him in pain, see him weak, see that he cared because he was the raider king and it wasn’t safe to care, and because that would hurt her.)
“Kanin worries about a lot of things.”
“You’re not talking as incessantly as you normally do.”
His throat hurt and his lungs ached and Kanin said it had been a month since the flowers started coming up, which meant he was declining fast.
“You miss my voice?”
“ No. ”
Jackal snorted on a laugh and immediately had to clamp down on the cough that tried to follow. Vampires didn’t cough.
Strangely enough, comments like that didn’t hurt, didn’t make him need to make an excuse to get out of sight and spit up flax until he remembered what flaxseeds tasted like (He hadn’t been the one in this body to taste it, he didn’t know that it tasted like harvest and a childhood that wasn’t his and innocence that he never had.). Those comments felt like ribbing jokes that he could respond to in kind.
Which it wasn’t, because he wasn’t Allison’s brother in the way she was his sister. And he needed to accept that. He’d cut the flowers out eventually, and he wouldn’t feel like this ever again. She was his first and last.
(And that thought wasn’t supposed to hurt, because it would keep him alive.)
(Even though he had always been a vampire, so he was never alive to begin with.)
%
Old Chicago wasn’t his anymore, and the anger and vengeful hatred felt familiar and disjointed at the same time.
He had built his ambition from the ground Kanin had murdered James on, his raider army promising him power, promising him domination, promising him (safety, for once in his life, he wanted to stop looking over his shoulder for Kanin or Sarren or Jebediah or every other enemy he made because he couldn’t be a person but he could be a demon well enough) the ability to defeat those who opposed him. And they turned on him just like that (just like his paranoia always warned him, because he could never, never trust anyone). And he was dying slow, and then he was dying fast, and then Kanin was giving him blood and letting him vomit flowers five seconds after and telling him that he hadn’t looked for him for two days.
Which. Fair. Jackal was going to die anyway, if he couldn’t carve his lungs out of his chest in time. Jackal wouldn’t have looked for this body, if he had the chance to leave it behind.
And then Kanin told him that he had left Allison to take care of Ezekiel.
Jackal promptly decided that he wanted to burn this city down, anyway (it never would’ve let him feel safe, anyway), and that he could fight through a raider army with still-healing injuries and pain in his chest if it meant getting his sister out of there alive. Even if he had to kill what used to be Ezekiel, and his sister would hate him. (Not like it would change much.)
He didn’t have a gun, so it was him, his axe, and every piece of anger and desperation and hatred that he had. He didn’t have to restrain his paranoia, tell himself that he needed these people until he had a cure (because he never would’ve given it to them ), because he didn’t care about anything other than getting his family out safe when he was never coming back to the city. He was quiet, even with a grin or a snarl fixed to his face, following his blood tie and painting the city red as the blood in his throat.
He tried to kill Ezekiel, because Ezekiel was a threat, because childers didn’t just come back from what happened and Jebediah raised a vampire killer, because everything from the past three days was screaming unsafe, unsafe, unsafe—
He didn’t kill Ezekiel, because Allison told him not to.
They left Old Chicago with the raider army still partially intact, and a vampire was full of blooming flowers that tasted like lost innocence, blood that wasn’t his. And it felt like it would’ve meant more, if he were Jackal, if Jackal had even been any more than an insane child’s attempt to keep on living through what killed him. He was pretty sure that Jackal had been dying for the past two hours or two months, and he was tired of carrying his corpse.
Except.
Except that this vampire, this body, this mind was so empty. He couldn’t feel the corpse he was in, he couldn’t match a personality to the person beside him, even if he knew his name was Kanin, and he didn’t know why this chest hurt. The colors and shapes surrounding him looked fake, like an old painting, and he couldn’t make sense of any of them.
Someone was calling for Jackal, and he recognized the girl’s voice, even if he couldn’t find the emotions that were supposed to be attached to it.
He was nothing. He wasn’t real.
Was any of this real?
The vampire closed his eyes tightly, and reminded himself that Chicago had been significant, Chicago had been almost his home, the raiders had been Jackal’s, so they had been his. He had slaughtered everyone there because they had betrayed him, and that made him pissed, and that was important.
He was leaving that city behind him for the same reason that his chest itched with growing flowers. The person calling for Jackal’s name was his sister, and he would burn the world to the ground for her, because he loved her.
Jackal came back slowly, clawing his way out of unreality in a way only a crazy person could, because he had rebuilt this broken mind from James to Jackal, and he wasn’t going to do it again. He wasn’t going to let Old Chicago kill him.
Jackal let out a long breath as they drove into the night, and made plans to return to this city, so he could burn it to the ground.
%
“You look horrible,” were the only words Ezekiel spoke to him after they made it out of Old Chicago.
“Thanks, you too,” was what Jackal managed to rasp out.
%
Jackal only slept half of the day. The other half, he’d find a shaded area, cover as much as he could with his jacket, and tried to get as many flowers out of his lungs as possible. It wasn’t enough to keep him from declining, and it meant he’d sleep in later than anyone liked, but it was enough to keep him talking. He could last until Eden, until their crisis was over, until he was alone with no one else in the world to force him to be (let him be) real and he could open his ribcage and pull the flowers out, because if he wanted something to be done right (if he wanted to be safe ) he had to do it himself, and no emotions were worth dying for.
(She treated him like he was real, like he was a person instead of a god-monster-demon- broken, but that didn’t stop him from nearly blinking out of existence in Old Chicago. That didn’t make this body belong to him. Love didn’t fix insanity when it was fifteen years deep. He had to remember that.)
(His head always hurt, and it was getting hard to tell the difference between James and Jackal. Which one was real, if either of them were real, which one was alive and which one was dead, which one could claim this body as their own if this body actually belonged to someone.)
(This body wasn’t Jackal’s and it never had been, but James was bronze skin and short hair and brown eyes. Did James ever have this body? Was he real, or had Kanin made him up and convinced Jackal that those memories were his? Whose body was he living in? Whose trauma was he proof of?)
(His head hurt. )
Kanin sat with him sometimes during the day, and it was terrifying, trying to choke his paranoia down and cough the flowers up, but he had to admit that it was better than being alone. Kanin never spoke, never gave any comfort, any it will be okay, but he didn’t leave when the sun got intense or Jackal curled up on the ground and lied there and laughed to himself because it hurt and it hurt even more that it couldn’t be cured except by cutting open his chest.
“It’s for Allison, isn’t it?” he asked one day, a day or a month or centuries after Chicago. Jackal didn’t respond. “I saw you in Old Chicago. You would’ve burned down that city to get to her.”
“I’m going to burn down that city either way, and none of you can stop me,” Jackal’s voice came out weak and rasping. Kanin nodded, like he understood. “It wasn’t personal. ”
“Yes it was,” he replied. His voice was soft and understanding, and Jackal wanted to hate him for being right . “There’s no shame in it.”
“It’s not in the— the Alabama sense. Not romantic.” He gave another cough, and vaguely thought that by the end of everything, there’d be a trail of flax from New Covington to Eden. “I thought it had to be romantic.”
“It’s rare for it not to be. Then again, it’s rare for a vampire to contract it in the first place. You are, in fact, full of surprises,” Kanin said. Slowly, he raised an eyebrow. “The Alabama sense?”
“His grandmother used the phrase. I… I remember that, now, why I know it. The vernacular stuck even after— after.” And if he were less exhausted, less insane, he’d care that he just used the wrong perspective. As it was, it was nice to be honest for once.
“I don’t want this,” he whispered.
“I know.”
“I don’t understand .”
“I know. I don’t think anyone does.”
“I’m supposed to be able to feel that way. I thought I learned my lesson after he— I—” he coughed. “It’s not safe .”
“Emotions aren’t designed to be safe. You don’t get to decide what emotions you feel. Allison… you and she have something that most vampire siblings don’t, believe it or not. There’s no power struggle that clouds your relationship. You two never had to fight to be better recognized in the family,” he paused. “She never gave you a reason to mistrust her.”
“We tried to kill each other,” Jackal laughed weakly, even though that didn’t actually discredit what Kanin said. When they were enemies, they tried to kill each other. When they were allies, they watched each other’s backs. She never went back on that agreement. And he never backed out, either.
No one had ever kept that agreement before. Jackal had gotten so used to watching his back whenever an ally presented themself that he fell apart the moment it wasn’t necessary.
“I should stay behind,” he heard himself say. “I shouldn’t be trusted in Eden. Dying takes… a lot of blood, turns out. I’m very hungry. I might go crazy next time I see a human person.”
“I don’t think Allison’s willing to leave anyone behind. Even you,” Kanin said. Jackal looked up at him sharply. “Maybe if you tried talking to her, explaining how you felt… it might not be the same intensity, not the same way, but maybe it could be enough. Maybe you could reach an understanding.”
Jackal swallowed a flower down to reply, to tell him that friendship and siblinghood were different universes, that he’d rather have quiet unrequientance than outright rejection, that he didn’t want this loyalty and love in the first place when it told him to lower his walls that he had built for a reason. It made him reckless, and being reckless got him killed, and he and James were separate for a reason —
Swallowing flowers wasn’t a solution. He threw it up on the grass along with the blood that remained in his stomach, and dry heaved even when it was gone. Kanin let out an audible sigh and swept back his hair, away from his face. Something told him that the motion was supposed to be familiar, that sires (fathers) (family) weren’t supposed to hurt him, but those memories weren’t his and weren’t real. (It felt insulting to pry into them.)
(It felt painful. )
(He was so sick of hurting.)
“You said that now wasn’t the time to start caring,” Kanin whispered
“It’s— it’s really not,” Jackal gasped.
Kanin ran a hand through his hair. “Too late.”
%
Jackal didn’t have it in him to try and fix up any cars after theirs broke, so they travelled by foot. Allison spent most of her energy on Ezekiel. He obviously needed it, even if Jackal didn’t think she could do anything about it. If he had the lung capacity, he’d probably start screaming. Or laughing. Or crying. Because Ezekiel was dying in the same way James never existed in the first place, and maybe Jackal could fix it if he weren’t coming apart at the seams, but he was, so he couldn’t.
Allison would also shoot him looks, brow furrowed with confusion. Jackal honestly couldn’t tell if it was out of self-preservation or the ever present urge to self-destruct that made him brush off any of her questions and stay closer to Kanin than anyone else. Kanin had stabbed him (James?) in the back fifteen years ago, but he was the only person who knew what was happening. The only person who wouldn’t ask questions when he couldn’t keep the pain off his face.
“Is he... sick?” Jackal heard one night, because he was smart enough to only speak to Kanin when the wind was blowing their voices away from Allie and Zeke, but Allison hadn’t learned that trick. He’d have to teach her after—
He wouldn’t care after Eden. And the thought hurt, it made him ache in a way that Hanahaki couldn’t replicate, but it didn’t matter because he wasn’t going to let this kill him the same way he wouldn’t let Old Chiago kill him, either. He always survived. Always.
“I believe he’s preoccupied with other matters. He did nearly burn down his city last week,” Kanin replied. “Or perhaps he’s simply grown bored.”
That was one way of putting it.
“You sure he didn’t secretly get Red Lung back in New Covington?”
“I think he would be dead by now if he had contracted Red Lung.”
“If anyone could get Red Lung and survive for over a month, it would be Jackal,” Allison muttered. Jackal grimaced slightly. Had it been that long since New Covington? It felt like no more than two weeks. “He’s not talking and he’s sleeping more than I am, and I’m worried, okay? I just got Zeke back, and I— I don’t know if Zeke’s going to live through this, let alone after Eden. And now Jackal’s acting weird. He’s a bastard, but I don’t want to lose him after all of this.”
Jackal wandered over to Ezekiel, who gave him a quick glance before focusing back on the road.
“So… can you hear them?” Jackal asked.
“Yes,” he responded, monotone. He didn’t ask if Jackal was sick, and Jackal didn’t tell him.
“You know that shutting down your emotions will probably drive you crazy, right?” he said. “It can fuck you up big time, and Allison can’t love a crazy person. It’s not healthy.”
“That explains why she doesn’t love you,” Ezekiel said, and Jackal managed to dark out a laugh instead of shut down at the statement. He was just speaking the truth, the same way Jackal was. No need to cry about it.
“Fair,” he conceded. “Look, I know this probably feels better and safer, especially after your psychopathic-murder-dad— step down from your evangelical-abusive-dad, which is saying something— did his best to make you just as crazy as him. He’s really good at that.” he swallowed the blood in his throat, ignoring how much effort it took to get his words out. “Not to mention that Chrisitanity fucked you over big time.”
Ezekiel furrowed his brow.
“You heard me, preacher boy. You and Kanin and Allie are all so convinced that there’s some horrible demon inside of you that needs to be contained. News flash: it’s not a separate entity. It’s you, and it’s trying to keep you alive. You’re a corpse. A very hungry corpse, but still just a corpse, not a monster. Do with that what you will.”
“I will definitely take the word of the person who actively enjoys killing things,” Ezekiel responded. Jackal snorted on a laugh and promptly choked on a flower petal.
“Don’t get me wrong, puppy, I’m a monster, or a demon, or whatever you want to call me. But I chose to be like that.” He was pretty sure that was true, even if it wasn’t in the way everyone thought. James hadn’t had much cruelty in him, but Jackal scavenged all of it he could and wore it like warpaint (like a shield). “If you don’t want to be a monster, then don’t be a monster. That’s your choice. Allison does it. Kanin does it. Take a leaf out of their book. But I will warn you: I shut down my emotions, too, for a long time . And I went insane. That isn’t something you easily come back from.”
Ezekiel looked at him that time, eyes wary. It was the most emotion he had in a long time, and Jackal had to fight down the irrational urge to growl at it, because he cared about Allison, not Ezekiel, and he shouldn’t even be doing this. (Except he should, because he knew insanity like Allison and Kanin didn’t, and it wasn’t like they could go to Sarren for advice.)
“Why are you telling me this?” he asked.
Good question, because he could feel his throat actively bleeding from strain. He knew he was rasping, that it was noticeable, that he’d prefer if this conversation didn’t take as many words. He generally liked talking. It made things less awkward. But this hurt. (But he was doing it anyway, because Allison had already lost Ezekiel once before, and she was going to lose Jackal whether or not he actually died. She deserved this much.)
“You see, puppy, we both have someone in this merry band who we care very deeply for, and she already had to grieve for you once. Let me tell you, it was messy. I’m not letting you put her through that a second time. If I have to lead you to mental stability myself, I will. Neither of us want that, and it would involve a lot more murder than if you let Allie or Kanin help, but I can do it.”
“You tried to kill me last week.”
“When you live through what I have, you develop a certain amount of paranoia. Again: Insanity isn’t easy to come back from. Childers qualify as insane in my books.”
“Do you qualify as insane in your books?”
“Meh,” Jackal shrugged.
“Oh god, they’re talking,” Allie muttered to Kanin. “This isn’t going to end well.”
“We can both fucking hear you,” Jackal snapped. “Next time you want to have a private conversation, make sure you’re downwind of us. Think about what I said, puppy. And if you go crazy, try to at least be vaguely entertaining about it.”
Those ended up being the last words he spoke.
%
“So do you have Red Lung?” Allison asked, either a few hours or a few days after the flowers had crowded his lungs and he couldn’t get any air past his throat. He faintly remembered trying to pull the flowers out through his mouth and Kanin telling him that he’d just rip his neck open, but that memory could very well be fabricated.
Jackal raised an eyebrow in response.
“You said you could hear our conversation last night. I thought I’d ask you directly,” Allison asked. “I know that there’s something wrong. And Kanin won’t say anything to me, but he’s worried.”
They had had this conversation before, back before his lungs felt like they were being ripped to shreds and he couldn’t speak. He wasn’t inclined to repeat it a second time. He didn’t like talking to Allison. Or to Kanin or Zeke, but especially not to Allison, because he was quite literally choking on a secret that he couldn’t tell her (that he wanted to tell her, for the love of god, he wanted it out of his chest, in the open, he wanted her to tell him that it could be resolved, that he wouldn’t have to give it up, that she cared— )
(But she didn’t. He wasn’t her brother and she didn’t care, so he would keep this secret until it wasn’t true anymore or he was dead.)
(He didn’t know which one he was hoping for anymore.)
“Do you have Red Lung or not?”
Jackal shook his head.
“Why aren’t you talking to me?” she asked. “You’re obviously speaking to Kanin, you talked to Zeke even though you hate each other…” she paused. “He won’t tell me what you talked about, but he seems… I don’t know. I think it might’ve helped a bit. I don’t know if it’s enough, but he’s a little bit more like himself. I don’t know why you decided to be helpful for once, especially after Chicago, but... thanks, for whatever you said. It might keep him alive.”
He couldn’t tell if the words hurt or not. He couldn’t tell why she was so concerned in the first place.
“I want to help, but I can’t do anything if you don’t tell me what’s happening,” she tried, because she was the type of person to try and keep trying and ( you and me, sister, we’re exactly the same, he had said, but that wasn’t true, because even then, even before he had to remember that unreality, he knew she was like James) refuse to stop trying until she succeeded or broke herself trying. He wasn’t Ezekiel. He wasn’t Kanin. He wasn’t going let himself be the thing to break her, because he doubted there would be much grief, but there would be guilt, and he could spare her that.
“Giving me the silent treatment isn’t going to work. It never worked with you. I learned from the best,” she said. “I can be a bastard, if you make me.”
Jackal smirked slightly, and hoped it didn’t look too fond.
“Kanin will tell me something if I pester him enough about it,” Allison said. “He cares about you, too. Don’t roll your eyes, he does. ”
Jackal didn’t dignify that with a response. Time was blurry and indistinct, and sometimes it still felt like a few days ago that he was feeling the last of his sanity shatter under his fingertips and Kanin aided him with his knife through the body’s spine (it was the same knife Kanin still carried, and he hated that knife, he hated that knife, he hated it. )
He straightened his posture, squared his shoulders, and brushed past Allison. He walked over to Kanin (he hated that knife and he hated that memory but Kanin was the only person who Jackal could run to and it wasn’t time to be picky). He was staring at Jackal in a way that told him he had been listening. Jackal shrugged, because he didn’t know what else to do. Kanin closed his eyes briefly and shook his head, but didn’t say anything. It wasn’t like Jackal could respond.
(He was grateful that Kanin hadn’t told anyone.)
(He knew he breaking his heart.)
%
Within the week, there were sprouts breaking out of his chest. They hadn’t broken his skin, but his lungs were tearing like wet paper, and it was starting to take most of his energy to hide the pain. He didn’t have to stay up during the day to cough up flowers, but he was still sleeping as much as Ezekiel, which Kanin noticed and no one else did. And if being in pain proved that he was real, then there was no doubt in his mind that he was real. (There was plenty of doubt in his mind that he was real. There was even more doubt in his mind that being real was worth it.)
(Kanin said that some vampires could get years with Hanahaki. He said that it depended on the intensity of the love. And Jackal loved his sister. That single emotion was more real than James or Jackal combined.)
(He survived so much just to get killed by his own emotions. That sounded about right.)
Kanin was the first to smell the blood, but Allison and Ezekiel were quick behind him. Jackal couldn’t breathe, so there wasn’t much scent to reach him. Ezekiel was the one that noticed the rabids in the middle of the road, attacking a conveniently placed van that looked exactly like a trap.
Allison was the one to insist they take a look, just in case someone was alive in there, like Sarren ever left living humans. No, he just let the bloodbags rot when Jackal was fucking starving because dying like this took up so much blood. And he didn’t even get to object because his throat was clogged with flax. Why did he love Allison, again?
(Because her bleeding heart extended to him, like no one’s ever did.)
At least killing rabids felt nice. That was a consolation.
“Do you think anyone is actually in there?” Ezekiel asked.
Jackal walked up to the van and kicked it hard enough for the door to dent. There was no noise from inside. He shook his head and gestured for them to keep moving. He had no idea what was in there, but he knew a trap when he saw it. Sarren had been targeting Allison with most of his little presents, and Jackal wasn’t sure how many more she could take before she snapped. He’d rather avoid that.
Allison ignored him. Because of course she did.
When she lifted the bolt and opened the van, he wanted to warn her not to, because this was so obviously supposed to mess with one of them, maybe all of them, and she could’ve at least gotten Kanin to do it because Kanin seemed stable, or gotten him to because he was already beyond saving.
It wasn’t a message for Allison.
It wasn’t for Ezekiel or Kanin, either.
The van was covered in blood and purple flowers, coating the floor like a blanket, partially covering the single body in the center. It was a man— a child, did Jackal really look that young?— in his late teens or early twenties. He was laying on his back, arms at his sides, looking almost peaceful, if it weren’t for the blood and the fact that his chest and throat had been ripped open, flowers in the cavities, shaped like blood-stained bouquets of purple that marred childhood memories that weren’t his, they didn’t belong in this mind, they were personal. (Vaguely, Jackal knew that Sarren had gotten the flowers wrong, because flax bloom marked the beginning of summer.)
There was a message written on the wall of the van, the blood black and glistening.
Scared yet, Jamie?
“Jamie… who— oh. Oh. ”
Jackal couldn’t tear his eyes away. He had seen worse than this. He had probably done worse than this, even though everything was blurry and real-not-real and was any of this even actually happening?
His chest hurt. It always hurt these days, worse than his head, and he didn’t know if he had it in him to give up his love for his sister, because he missed having a family (he couldn’t miss what he never had, it wasn’t his family like it wasn’t his childhood and his innocence and his body and his trauma , so why was he still carrying it? Why wasn’t he allowed to put it down?).
(James’ mother had called him Jamie, he knew that like he knew about those lives he read about in Red Lung diaries. Removed and personal and not-him.)
(He was scared. He was so, so scared.)
“Jackal?”
Jackal blinked and shook his head, like that would clear the image of his corpse laying in front of him. (He hadn’t recognized himself in the mirror in a long time. He felt the same amount of connection with this child’s face as he did his own. And it was a child, it was a child, a child, a child, and Jackal had never been that young.)
(Maybe he was actually in the van, covered in flowers, and James could finally get his body back, if James was actually real and still out there and this was actually his body, whose body was he living in —)
There was a hand on his shoulder, pulling him back, and suddenly he wasn’t looking at his body. Kanin was in front of him, holding him by the shoulders, and Jackal couldn’t feel anything, because Kanin wasn’t a safe person to lose his mind around, even if it was only temporary. James had learned that hard and Jackal knew it better than he knew his own face and— and—
“Jackal,” Kanin whispered. “Jackal.”
Jackal reached up to grab Kanin’s wrists, and he could feel the body that wasn’t his again. He felt wrong, like an intruder, but he wasn’t dead in a van, surrounded by flowers that were the right color and the wrong species.
He swallowed, ignored the petals in the back of his throat, and motioned to keep going.
“No.” Kanin shook his head, and he sounded sad and just as scared as Jackal was. “I’m not letting you die. Not from this.”
If he had been able to breathe (if he had enough bitterness inside of him), he probably would’ve told Kanin that he was always perfectly fine with Jackal dying until he was doing it to himself.
Apparently there was enough bitterness (fear) left to spit at his feet, lips pulling back in a snarl, because if they didn’t keep going, that meant they were going to address what the van was about, and Allison would know, and she still wouldn’t love him, and Jackal would still be dying but it would hurt more.
But he couldn’t talk, so he didn’t get a say. Kanin led all of them away from the van, away from the rabid corpses, and sat Jackal down on the sidewalk like he was still James and still a child. It was a testament to his current state that he didn’t fight back.
“I didn’t think Sarren would know,” Kanin said. Jackal glared at him wearily, because anger was safer than fear. (He couldn’t identify love until he was choking, and apparently he couldn’t identify fear until a vampire crazier than he was pointed it out.) Anger was more productive than fear, too, they were wasting time —
“I don’t understand,” Allison said. “Did you know that kid?”
Jackal shook his head, opened his mouth, and snapped it shut just as quickly, like someone would be able to see down his throat.
“I believe it was made as an… effigy, so to speak. A representation of James,” Kanin said. Jackal winced at the name. “Which part of that statement do you have a problem with?”
All of it was what Jackal didn’t say, because he couldn’t speak.
“But they didn’t even look similar,” Allison said.
“They’re both Asian,” Zeke pointed out. By the way that he was looking at Jackal, he knew exactly what was going on. “I’m guessing he couldn’t be picky, finding a look alike in this area.”
“That feels vaguely racist,” Allison muttered. Jackal smirked weakly, because if he weren’t halfway panicking and still not entirely real and had no idea what he looked like, he’d probably be fixating on the same thing. “But I don’t get it. There’s… something really bad is happening, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Kanin responded for Jackal. “James…” The name was like nails on a chalkboard, because James was so real to Kanin and that meant that Jackal wasn’t. “Jackal. Jackal is dying. There’s... no better way to say it. I’ve known for the past month, he’s known for longer. I thought that we could wait until after Eden to resolve the issue, but that’s becoming less of a possibility.” There was a long, long silence. “Have both of you heard of hanahaki?”
There was a long pause. Jackal kept staring at Kanin, because there was no way he was going to look at Allison. This was all a bunch of Alabama bullshit and he wasn’t going to dignify it by searching her expression as if it would give him anything.
“I didn’t know that vampires could get hanahaki,” Ezekiel broke the silence, voice calm. At least one of them was calm during this.
“You have…” Allison murmured, before her voice rose considerably. “You hid it? Out of all of us, you hid it? ”
Of everyone, Jackal thought he’d be the person not to have to worry about it. He wouldn’t have to be the person keeping his eyes on Kanin, because looking at Allison would hurt, it wasn’t worth the pain, none of this was supposed to be worth the pain (it was), and he knew that this wouldn’t be fixed by a conversation even if he wanted it—
(She cared about everything, she loved everything so fucking much that it was a wonder she didn’t explode, why couldn’t she spare some for him? He had never been loved before, and he wanted, he wanted—)
(Love couldn’t fix him, love wouldn’t make him real, no emotion was worth his life—)
(Was it a life when he wasn’t fucking real in the first place?)
“Can it kill a vampire?” Allison asked.
“Yes,” Kanin responded, and his voice was smooth, but his face contorted with pity (with concern, with care, even though he hadn’t cared for fifteen-twenty-thirty-however-many years— ) “It takes longer, though, depending on how... strong the feelings persist.”
And they kept talking, even though Jackal would give them a lot to stop. Kanin was talking for him, because he hadn’t been able to talk for a while, telling them that it started in New Covington, that it would’ve killed a human by now, that he was probably going to die within the next two months (that he loved strongly enough to have this disease progress that quickly), that Kanin was going to cut it out after Eden—
Jackal looked at him sharply and hit his arm. Kanin turned to look at him like he was the world’s biggest idiot.
“I’m not letting you cut it out yourself.”
Jackal kept glaring.
“I’m not letting you leave it in, either.”
Jackal kept glaring. (he could feel his eyes burning) He wasn’t letting Kanin near him with a knife, not again, not after his army betrayed him and Ezekiel betrayed them and Kanin had been respected in vampire society until he started letting humans run their experiments and no one would care if Jackal went missing because everyone who loved him was dead and had loved James and Kanin had murdered him. (The bandits murdered him and Kanin murdered him and Jackal scavenged his body and kept moving because he wasn’t allowed to let a little insanity kill him.)
(His eyes were burning.)
(He needed to leave.)
“Well, who’s it for?” Allison asked. “We can find her— or him, I guess— after Eden. I know that it might not solve anything, but there’s a chance, and then you’d know what needed to be done for certain.”
And he was crying.
Jackal stood, brushed off Kanin’s hand on his jacket, and left. (He hadn’t cried in years, and he wasn’t going to let anyone see.)
(He didn’t have the breath to tell Allison himself, and he wasn’t going to stick around for Kanin to tell her for him.)
%
Allison found him later in the night.
“Hi,” she said, a little lamely. A lot lamley.
Jackal gave her a mock salute and wiped his eyes. Crying had never been fun, and as a vampire, it was honestly rather gross. (Being a vampire was honestly rather gross. He was covered in blood and dirt and rabid guts. He wanted a bath.) Allison sat down next to him on the only porch swing in the town that was still intact, even if the chains were groaning from rust and the floor beneath them was definitely unstable. She knocked their knees together as an obvious request to pay attention to me.
“Ezekiel decided to go to sleep, and Kanin is… around,” Allison said. Jackal nodded. “He told me, if you didn’t guess.” He nodded again. “What’s the Alabama sense? ”
Jackal smiled and shrugged, because he still didn’t know why James’ grandmother blamed Alabama for marrying one’s cousin. They settled into a silence, listening to the wind and creaking chains. The sky was a dark grey, now. Allie would have to sleep, soon. Jackal probably would, too. Probably earlier.
“I guess that Sarren found out in New Covington, then,” Allie said. Jackal nodded. “It was a dirty move, pressing on that of all things. Everything he does is dirty… that poor kid.”
Jackal thought about that corpse in the van. He didn’t feel anything towards who he had been. He probably had a family and plans for a future, but now those were about as real as everything wasn’t. It was just some nameless corpse that might look like Jackal, if Jackal ever looked in the mirror.
“I thought you were suicidal,” she whispered. “It happened a lot in the fringe, when people went through too much. Lost too much. After Old Chicago… after you stopped talking… I was scared.” She pursed her lips into a thin line. “I guess that letting Hanahaki fester could qualify. It would’ve been nice to hear it from you, though. Hearing it from Kanin stung.”
Jackal tapped his throat in response.
“You could’ve told me earlier,” she said. “I— Kanin, Zeke and I were planning on leaving you in New Covington, and you would’ve been facing it alone. You wouldn’t have been able to resolve it. You would’ve died, and no one would’ve known.”
No one would’ve cared.
“I don’t want you to die over this,” she said. Jackal raised an eyebrow. “I don’t. Look, you’re an unrepentant bastard, but we’ve travelled together for two months, and… you’re going to break everyone’s heart if you die. And what is with me being the only person in New Covington who wasn’t sick? Did you guys coordinate? You couldn’t have spread it to Sarren while you were off dying?”
Jackal tried to laugh and immediately choked, spitting up a few petals. It was more blood than flower.
“Don’t laugh, I’m— this is your life! You better take Kanin’s offer to cut them out!”
Jackal stopped trying to laugh.
Allie’s eyes widened.
And there were flowers tearing through his lungs, between his ribs, and he couldn’t feel the pain or taste the flaxseed because love was a toxic, lethal drug and he had forgotten that, nothing was worth his life (he wanted to able to care), nothing was worth his life (he wanted to be real), nothing was worth his life (he wanted a family— )
His sister was crying. She was crying harder than he had ever seen, and she was crying over him.
“I can’t lose you,” she whispered. “I can’t. I’m not going to Eden and stopping the end of the world and then watching one of us die, let alone die over me. I can’t. You can’t expect me to do that.”
His sister was crying, and Jackal couldn’t say anything to make it stop. Nothing to lighten the mood, to remind her that he was still the same, to tell her that she didn’t have to watch, because no one stuck around when he became inconvenient and he didn’t expect her to be any different. (To tell her he didn’t want her to watch, because he didn’t want to hurt her.)
He put a hand on her shoulder, and then slowly, slowly wrapped her in a hug. It wasn’t safe, it would be too easy for either of them to hurt the other, he wouldn’t be able to see if she was going to stab him in the back, but there wasn’t exactly any better comfort he could give either of them (He had never been hugged before. Not as Jackal, because it wasn’t safe to get that close. But he had ignored his paranoia around Allison before, and he had never suffered for it. He could do it one more time.) He rested his cheek on top of her head, and she was still crying, and he was crying, too, but no one could see him do it, so it was okay. Allison’s hair was caked in blood and dirt, anyway, and the shirt she was crying on had been dyed red for a reason.
“Are you going to let Kanin take it out?”
Jackal shook his head, because sitting alone with Allison, fear and grief and love cutting through his lungs like ribbons, he felt real. His body wasn’t his and he still wasn’t James and he knew, he knew that love couldn’t fix insanity, but at least he felt real.
“So— so you are suicidal.”
Jackal shook his head again. He didn’t want to die. He knew that much. But being a monster and a king and a ghost and a broken thing left him tired in a way that the flowers didn’t, and he knew pain, he knew blood, so he could take the flowers if it meant someone saw him as a person.
It was easier to think clearly, when he was a person.
“I care about you,” Allison choked. “I don’t know if that’s enough, but I do.”
Of course she did, because she cared about everything, and Jackal didn’t have it in himself to fault her for that anymore.
“I don’t want you to die,” she whispered.
I know, Jackal wanted to say. You never want anyone to die, he wanted to say. I’m scared, too, he wanted to say.
I won’t make you watch, so you won’t even know when it happens, he couldn’t say, because he knew his sister’s bleeding heart and he knew she’d be listening to their blood tie until it flickered out. Because that’s who she was.
“Does it hurt?” she asked, choked.
Jackal lied, shook his head, then changed his mind and nodded. It hurt more than the usual sharp throbs, and he was digging his nails into Allison’s jacket, so there was no point in lying. (He had been lying about it for so long, it felt good to tell the truth.)
They hurt a lot. Like they were crawling across his nerves, burning like acid, like they suddenly didn’t belong, like they never belonged but it had just taken two months to know that—
There was no grace in the way he shoved Allison away from him and bolted to the edge of the porch, barely avoiding the hole in the wood as he leaned over the banister, and his throat was burning as badly as his chest as he heaved and petals, flowers, stems, roots came up with every cough and rasping breath. He gripped the rotting wood until his knuckles turned white, and it still burned, it still hurt (it had hurt for so long, he had been in pain for so long, he could handle this), but he could breathe. He had missed breathing.
“Jackal…”
Jackal took in a ragged breath and spat out another mouthful of blood, then doubled over, crashing to his knees as another coughing fit took him over. One of his ribs gave an incredibly nonreassuring crack, but the flowers were coming out, he could breathe, he just had to hold on a bit longer before this died down.
Another rib broke. He tore off his jacket, too heavy on his skin, and planted his hands firmly on the ground as if it could stabilize him. He kept coughing until he didn’t have the strength to keep going.
There were blood soaked flax flowers strewn around him. Faintly, he realized that it wasn’t just blood, it was lung tissue that had come up, and that was probably why his chest was full of broken glass. He collapsed spinelessly to his side and stopped trying to breathe. He’d just… wait for his lungs to mend, using blood that he didn’t have.
He had a distinct feeling that there was some damage that he couldn’t heal from. But he had handled worse, he had been in pain before, so he could deal. (It was a relief, almost, that the unmendable damage was physical this time.)
“Jackal!” Allison was kneeling beside him, shaking his shoulder. “Jackal? Please don’t be dead.”
Jackal opened his mouth to respond and choked on the broken glass in his chest. Slowly, painstakingly, he got off the floor, batted Allison’s helping hands away before grabbing onto her shoulder to keep him upright.
He finally managed to look at her. She was staring at him, eyes wide as she steadied him. There were still tear tracks down her face, but she wasn’t looking at him like he was a dead man. He didn’t feel like a dead man, either, nor did he feel like a ghost, or a monster, or a crazy child’s last ditch effort to keep going.
She…
She loved him.
This meant that she loved him.
He was loved.
“You terrified me,” Allie whispered. “Oh god, you— you nearly died, you nearly died! You would’ve died and never told me, you would’ve just—”
“Thank you,” Jackal’s voice was cracked and raspy, his lungs tearing with the effort to breathe, but didn’t try to stop the words out of his mouth. It felt good to talk, and it felt good to be honest, and it felt good to know that his sister loved him. He took in another aching breath, and gave a laugh on the exhale. It didn’t sound insane to his ears, even though he was still crying as he laughed. “Thank you.”
Allison didn’t respond. Jackal’s laugh tapered off even as his crying didn’t, until he was silently staring at the flowers around him, tears dripping off his chin. He hadn’t cried in so long, and now he couldn’t stop.
“So… you’re cured, now?” Allison asked. “You’re okay?”
“I think so. I—” Jackal winced as one of his ribs slid back into place. “I think my lungs might be fucked, though.” His voice rattled and bubbled and sounded nothing like his own. But this body wasn’t his, so that made sense. He could learn to live with that . “Ah, well… I didn’t need them, anyway.”
“This is… so many flowers,” she said softly. Jackal nodded. It was a lot of flowers, a lot of blood, a lot of pain. (It was worth it. Love couldn’t fix insanity that was fifteen years deep but it made it less lonely to live with.)
(In this moment, with no one looking over their shoulders, Jackal wanted to tell her about it. About how James was more imagination than memory, how he still couldn’t see himself in his reflection, how Jackal had nearly flown to pieces in New Covington and Old Chicago.)
(He didn’t, not because he wanted to hide that side of him, but because he wanted to wait until the glass in his chest was manageable.)
(It would be nice for someone to know.)
“Being a vampire is so gross,” he rasped.
Allie looked at him. They stayed like that, frozen, for one, two, three, four seconds.
Then she started laughing, and it sounded desperate and terrified and relieved and real, and when she put her head on his chest and kept laughing, that was real, too, and he was shaking with laughter that was completely silent, because of course, of course that was what he managed to focus on in this situation. Of course this is what tipped them both over the edge and left them laughing on a half-rotten porch.
Of course he loved his sister.
Of course he did.